Hello, everyone. We're going to be looking at a series of videos, starting with this one, exploring the foundation or lack thereof of the 1914 doctrine that Jehovah's Witnesses use to establish that the governing body has authority to rule over the congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses.
This doctrine is so fundamental that if it can be proven wrong, everything collapses because 1914 is the date from which they measure the generation that is supposedly going to be around to see the end. It's now been morphed into an overlapping generation or two generations which overlap one another.
It's the foundation for the 1918 resurrection. They believe the first resurrection occurred in 1918. It's the date that establishes for them the appointment of the governing body as the faithful and discreet slave. They believe that happened in 1919. Jesus took a few years to kind of get his feet wet and then he decided who was going to be his faithful and discreet slave.
These are all part of the doctrines that stem from 1914. So you can see why taking that away pretty much abolishes the entire foundation for trusting the governing body with the Holy Spirit. They claim to be the channel God is using through his Holy Spirit to share truth. If they can't get the foundation of their whole doctrine right, what else can they possibly expect to get right?
And 1914 is based on a type/antitype prophecy—they believe to be a type/anti-type prophecy that is—written or recorded in Daniel chapter 4. And from that prophecy, they work out a calculation of a number of years from a certain start date to arrive at 1914 as the end date—what they call the appointed times of the Gentiles or the appointed times of the nations which they believe ended in 1914, because Jesus was then established as the king of God's kingdom in heaven invisibly.
All right. So what's that start date? 607 BCE. That's what they claim. And why is that a start date? They claim that is when Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews were taken into captivity into Babylon. Fair enough, except that they're the only ones who believe that.
Yes, the Jews were taken into captivity in Babylon, but all the archeological, historical, and even astronoical evidence points to 587, 20 years later, because they count years backwards from before Christ. Twenty years later! So that means 1914—if we accept that the other parts of the prophecy are true—is really wrong and that the year should be 1934. But that doesn't work for them.
Okay. So we're going to look at 607 to begin with because they use a lot of reasoning to try to prove that their interpretation is right against everything that the scientific and archeological and historical communities use to establish the date. There are some 17 different lines of evidence that all point to 587.
They say, "Well, yes, but the Bible points to 607 and we have to take the Bible as truth because it's God's word." I agree. We have to take the Bible as truth, but that's not really what they're doing, is it? You see, it's not a contest between the Bible and science. It's a contest between their interpretation of the Bible and science, and it's their interpretation that is flawed.
If we look at what the Bible actually says about these things, we'll see that it doesn't conflict at all with what science has found and instead it's actually in complete harmony and agreement with science. But in this video, we're just going to look at the science because I think it's overwhelming.
Let's look at... By the way, this is my book. Here's the cover, "Shutting the Door to the Kingdom of God: How Watch Tower Stole Salvation from Jehovah's Witnesses." I have analyzed virtually all the doctrines that are unique to Jehovah's Witnesses and shown them to be false using the Bible, not speculation.
So we're gonna look at one of those chapters today and that is chapter five, What You Need to Know About 607 BCE. Now, others have done very extensive work on this and if you have a chance, I would recommend, I've got it here, this book, "The Gentile Times Reconsidered". Thsi is the fourth edition, by Carl Wolf Johnson, who's now passed away.
He wrote this, did a wonderful job and, it's very extensive. I just covered some highlights in my book. But what I find very, very compelling is what I'm about to show you.
As we scroll down through the pages of this chapter, we get to astronomical proof. By the way, this subtitle, A Humble Sister Uncovers the Lie of 607 BCE... This was a sister, not a scientist, but she was able to go into the British Museum, because she lived in London at the time, and looked at the documents there and uncovered the truth for herself.
So if basically an ordinary person could find this out, surely the organization with all its resources should have known this years ago. And in fact, as we look at the evidence, it did know this years ago, it's simply chosen to cover it up.
We'll carry on. One of the facts she discovered is what I find most compelling. It has to do with the astronomical record. The truth really is in the stars.
VAT 4956 is the number assigned to a particular clay tablet which describes astronomical data relating to the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign.
Okay. The Babylonians were experts in astronomy. Over many centuries, they recorded precise planetary, solar, and lunar movements, as well as eclipses. The combination of these planetary positions locks them into an absolute timeline that we can trace with precision. Each combination is as unique as a human fingerprint or a lottery ticket.
Exactly how accurate is the timing of planetary orbits? They are so accurate and so predictable that the scientists have been able to create computer algorithms which will allow us to know exactly where each planet in the solar system was at any time in recorded history.
In fact, there is an excellent app that you can download and run on your smartphone or tablet called SkySafari 6 Plus, which is available on the web or from the Apple and Android stores. I've already downloaded this and used it.
With it, you can see precisely where a particular planet described on VAT 4956 was in the sky on any given date to see if the positions match. If they match, then the data on VAT 4956 are proven to be accurate. I would recommend you download it yourself so you can do your own research. Make sure you get the plus version of the app, as the cheaper version does not allow calculations for years before Christ.
What we are about to see is so devastating to the doctrine of the Watch Tower Society concerning 607 BCE, that it would seem they would have no choice but to readjust their doctrinal interpretation. The astronomical data proves conclusively that the 587 BCE date for the destruction of Jerusalem, the one all the archaeologists agree on, is in fact the true date, and 607 BCE is not.
Again, if 587 is the true date, and if we accept the interpretation of the organization as to the calculation based on that date, then at the very least, assuming everything else they say is true—which it's not, but assuming it is—then Christ's invisible presence began in 1934, which means everything they said about the generation, about their appointment in 1919 is bogus.
As we've just seen, the men of the governing body are not willing to let hard evidence disrupt their neat little doctrinal framework. Well, you would have seen that if you'd read the previous chapter: "Debunking the False Good News of 1914", and the preceding paragraphs of this chapter. You haven't because of time constraints, but you will if you follow this series when we look at how the AI that we have already exposed, Sara, uses the very same reasoning that the governing body uses to defend its doctrine. It's quite obvious that is what's happening.
To continue: Nevertheless, it is hard to argue with facts that the average witness is able to corroborate for themselves using just a smartphone.
This is precisely what our humble sister did. Still, the November 2011 Watch Tower, part two of the article tries its best to get its readers to discount the evidence. Observe.
In addition to the aforementioned eclipse, there are 13 sets of lunar observations on the tablets and 15 planetary observations. These describe the position of the moon or planets in relation to certain stars or constellations. As we'll see, the planetary observations provide conclusive proof that 587 BCE was the date of the destruction of Jerusalem.
Therefore, the governing body must discredit this proof somehow. They attempt to do so using footnote 18, which reads in part, "Though the cuneiform sign for the moon is clear and unambiguous, some of the signs for the names of the planets and their positions are unclear."
This vague statement is intended to sow doubt as to the reliability of the available data. Is it really relevant? The fact is that on the VAT 4956 tablet, the Babylonian sign for the planet Saturn is known and is clear. There is nothing ambiguous or doubtful about what that symbol represents. It represents the planet Saturn.
What does the position of the planet Saturn as described by Babylonian astronomers tell us about the timing of events on Earth?
According to the translation of the VAT 4956 tablet during year 57, month one of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, Saturn was in front of the Swallow. The swallow is the region of the night sky we now call Pisces.
The night sky's divided into 12 regions. Saturn passes through all of them on its 29.4 year-long orbit. It takes almost 30 years for Saturn to complete one orbit around the sun because it's so far away from the sun. That means that Saturn takes 2.42 years to move through each of the 12 constellations. Once Saturn moves out of Pisces, it will not return there for another 27 years.
According to Babylonian astronomers, Saturn was in Pisces in Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year, which archeologists set at 568 BCE.
Running our Safari Plus program and setting the time and date to Friday, April 22nd, 586 BC at 1:00 A.M., location Baghdad. (You see, you can get all this data that precisely.) You get an image showing the planet Saturn within the Pisces (Fish) constellation.
Here we have astronomical data confirming that the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign was 586 BCE. There's Saturn. Here's the Pisces, and this is the image that you can take from that program. Again, you can download that for yourself on your smartphone and run it.
Why does this matter? Because of what Jeremiah tells us about the destruction of Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 52:12 tells us that in the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, Jerusalem was destroyed. In Jeremiah Chapter 5, we learn that the siege lasted over a year. Jeremiah got a vision in the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign while the city was under siege.
So, if we can fix with precision the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar, it is easy subtraction to arrive at the year of the siege and of Jerusalem's destruction, which turns out to be 587 BCE.
If you were to type in 588 BCE into the Safari app as the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar in line with what The Watchtower teaches, you would find Saturn in Cancer—Latin for crab. To be where the Babylonian astronomers observed it to be, Saturn would have had to leave Cancer, through Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpius, Sagittarius, Capricornus, and Aquarius before reaching Pisces or The Swallow to Babylonians. That's a 19-year journey.
The missing years aren't missing at all. The Watchtower got the year wrong. It got the year wrong because Russell got it wrong, and Russell got it wrong because he accepted the chronology of Adventist Pastor Nelson Barbour. And Nelson got it wrong because he rejected the research of others and made up his own.
What we have here is a mistake made about 200 years ago that continues to confound Jehovah's Witnesses who trust in the teachings of men.
And there you have it. So, there's hard evidence that you can find for yourself using a simple app on your phone to prove that Jerusalem was not destroyed, nor were the Israelites taken into captivity in 607 BCE, but rather 587 BCE, a date which the organization refuses to accept.
Now, what do we do with that? Well, we'll start with our next video to show how the organization tries to get around it, and the way it does so is very revealing.