The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

Sham Scholarship 465
be seen in some modern translations, e.g. in the NIV, where Jeremiah’s poetic
parts are printed like that; this is however ignored in many Bible translations,
such as in the NW-Bible.
How are these verses to be translated?
Let us, for the sake of completeness, just take a closer look at the two verses we
are dealing with, to see how they are composed; this example is taken from
NIV (emphasis added),
20 He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant who escaped from the
sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until (‘ad) the kingdom
of Persia came to power. 21 The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time
of its desolation it rested, until (‘ad) the seventy years were completed in
fulfilment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah.
Please note that the particle ‘ad (‘until’) is used not only where RF incorrectly
wants to render it while (v. 21), but also in the phrase ‘until the kingdom of
Persia came to power’ (v. 20), in which it would be impossible to render it
‘while’, and it is only logical to regard it as having been used in the same sense
in both verses. As shown by his context, RF’s reason for rendering it ‘while’ is
apparently that he dislikes the usual term ‘until’ being used here, ostensibly
because it does not fit his prejudiced ideas. This particle ‘ad has as its basic
meaning ‘(continuation, duration), as far as, unto’, (Gesenius-Kautzsch-Cowley,
Hebrew Grammar, § 103 o) as it ‘indicates the distance from, the approach
towards’, i.e. ‘until’. According to the Hebrew-German Handwörterbuch by
Gesenius-Buhl (pages 563-565), the sense is ‘bis, bis zu, haüfig mit Einschluss
des Zielpunktes ... so daß der Zielpunkt als erreicht vorgestellt w(ird)’; that is,
the distance or time indicated by ‘ad is viewed as ‘reaching from the starting
point to and including the point aimed at.’ See also the Hebrew and English
Lexicon by Brown, Driver and Briggs, pages 723-725, where we find similar
definitions by Dr. Samuel Rolles Driver (who handled the treatment of all
particles expertly in that work) in full accord with its basic semantic content.
This accords fully with its use in 2 Chronicles 36:20, 21, where it is normally
rendered ‘until’ by modern translators, also where RF wants to make it mean
‘while’, which will not do, because here there is no element necessitating a
departure from the usual sense of the word. True, the lexicon lists ‘while’ as a
possible meaning of it, but in BDB page 725 Dr. Driver tells us that it occurs
only rarely in that sense and he gives us no reason to accept RF’s aberrant
views. As it is, in 2 Chronicles 36:21 we find that all English versions render it
‘until’, and the German ones ‘bis, bis zu’, while in other languages we find
words of exactly the same meaning, such as ‘indtil’ in Danish, ‘til’ in Norwegian
and ‘till’ in Swedish. As for the meaning ‘while’, I haven’t been able to find a
single translation using that in 2 Chronicles 36:21.
Finally, we may as well discard RF’s German ‘example’ (which seems to be
taken from a bad joke) and rewrite the framed text printed in bold-face type on
page 80 to bring it into accord with the truth of God’s Word, the Bible: