Responses from Scholars to Watch Tower Quotations

R H Sack

Quoted in: The Watchtower 'When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed? — Part Two' (2011) [1, p. 23]

Response by Sack [2, p. 2]:

From: Ronald Sack ronaldsa@bellsouth.net
To: Adelmo Medeiros fadelmo@gmail.com
Date: Thu, October 13, 2011 04:46

I have already responded to many who have asked this question. The Watchtower misrepresents me entirely. The date for the destruction of Jerusalem is 587 BC The article in the Watchtower is unsigned and a complete misrepresentation of my work. Marjorie alley of the Atchaeologoical mInstitute of America has correctly represented me on her webpage where she correctly quotes my book Neriglissar---King of Babylon pp 25-26.

J M Steele

Quoted in: The Watchtower 'When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed? — Part Two' (2011) [1, pp. 24, 28]

Response by Steele [2, p. 3]:

From: Steele, John [email address deleted]
To: marjoriealley [email address deleted]
Date: Fri, Sep 2, 2011 9:32 am

Dear Ms Alley,

Thank you for your email concerning the citation of my work in the recent Watchtower article. As you suggest the author of this piece is completely misrepresenting what I wrote, both in what they say about the lunar three measurement, and in what I say about the possibility of retrocalculation of eclipses (my comments on the latter were restricted to a distinct and small group of texts which are different to the Diary they are discussing). Just glancing through the Watchtower article I can see that they have also misrepresented the views of other scholars by selective quotation out of context.

I've looked at the date of VAT 4956 on several occasions and see no possibility that it can be dated to anything other than the conventional date.

Regards,
John Steele

R J van der Spek

Quoted in: The Watchtower 'When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed? — Part Two' (2011) [1, p. 25]

Response by Spek [2, p. 5]:

From: Spek, R.J. van der r.j.vander.spek@vu.nl
To: Adelmo Medeiros fadelmo@gmail.com
Date: Mon, October 24, 2011 05:20

Dear mr. Medeiros,
Thanks for your e-mail. Someone from the Netherlands also contacted me about this question.

The quotes from my article are correct, but quoted out of context. What I have argued is actually exactly the opposite. The Babylonian scholars were good scientists and made accurate records of the celestial phenomena, which can be checked by modern astronomers. The historical information of the astronomical diaries can very often also be checked with the help of other sources and they are usually correct. This I showed in the rest of my article, which you can find here:
http://vu-nl.academia.edu/RJBertvanderSpek/Papers/854442/The_Astronomical_Diaries_as_a_source_for_Achaemenid_and_Seleucid_History
The same is true for the historical information of the chroniclers, who were the same people, as I have argued in the Festschrift Stol Reference to the book (though not to the article) you can find here:
http://vu-nl.academia.edu/RJBertvanderSpek/Books/826505/Studies_in_Ancient_Near_Eastern_World...
So I dare to say that the information of Chronicle ABC 5 rev. 12, that Jerusalem was taken for the first time on 2 Adar 7th year of Nebuchadnezzar = 16 March 597 BC (in the Julian Calendar). The second deportation is dated to 587 and 586 BC. From this we do not have Babylonian evidence, but the biblical information is ambiguous.

Of course the historical information of the diaries should be used with caution, as should be done with all historical information. The interest of the scholars was in collecting information from the sky with information on earth, and they had special interest in the fate of the king and events in Babylon. And they did this with a surprising accuracy. Events from far away they heard from “hearsay”, and these events cannot be dated with the same accuracy as the events in Babylon. But it is flatly impossible to backdate events twenty years. As happens so often in this kind of argumentation: the authors find a few texts with some minor problems, try to solve it be a substantial change in the accepted chronology, and so creating thousands of new problems, which they do not (and cannot) solve. The documentary basis for the traditional chronology is so overwhelming that it in fact a waste of time to discuss it in great detail.

All my best,

Prof. dr. R.J. (Bert) van der Spek
Professor of Ancient History
Vrije Universiteit / VU University Amsterdam
Faculteit der Letteren / Faculty of Arts
Afdeling Oudheid / Dept. of Archaeology, Classics and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
De Boelelaan 1105
1081 HV Amsterdam

References