Posted by Bibleman [Bibleman] on November 13, 1999 at 04:04:47 {OA5YBxH8IAMSSTtTA17sslyACFuF8c}:
In Reply to: ***Jesus' Resurrection posted by Lobo on November 12, 1999 at 23:16:09:
Hi Lobo,
The following is a perfect example of you not doing your homework before you decide to come to a conclusion that the Bible contradicts itself and it underscores my point.
It was my understanding the NT hours referred always to the period between 6 AM and 6PM.
Oh yeah? Well did you bother to simply check your "Comprehensive Concordance" under "night" to make sure of what you're saying? It wouldn't have taken long to just check and see if any particular hours were referred to during the night.
If you had you would have found Acts 23:23 which says refers to the "third hour of the night."
Now please just take stock that you are someone who PRESUMED something you did not check out and based upon that superficial presumption decided to actually contradict somebody who does know (in this case) what they are talking about.
It's worse. Now here's the second problem. You are absolutely wrong about what hours of the day is which as well, again, underscroing your lack of expertise in this area. Note:
Therefore, 6 AM was the first hour, 7 AM was the second hour, and so forth.
Totally wrong! We all know that the "ninth hour" is around 3:00 p.m. right? Well if the ninth hour is 3:00, then the 10th is 4:00, 11th is 5:00 and 12th is 6:00. Then when it starts over again, 7:00 would be the 1st hour. Thus 6:00 p.m. is the 12th hour not the 1st.
Please note, again, your concept of what is going on, therefore, is not competent and therefore the error here is based upon your lack of observation.
You want to go around the clock? Sixth hour is Noon right?
Well that can only happen if you start the 1st hour with 7:00. Watch 1st/7, 2nd/8, 3rd/9, 4th/10, 5th/11, 6th/12.
Hello? So do you see how you've made a decision based upon two false facts already? And yet you're challenging somebody else? You haven't done your homework!
Furthermore, the NT night was divided in four periods called watches. 6PM-9PM was the first watch, 9PM-12 midnight was the second watch and so forth. (Matt 14:25, Mark 6:48, Luke 12:38).
Oh! You've redeemed yourself. This is certainly correct. But a "watch" does not mean they still didn't have hours of the night. And furthermore, there were the same "watches" during the day! So while you are correct, it doesn't contradict anything about assigning the hours of the night or day. They had hours of the day and night in addition to WATCHES. Just like we have certain periods of the day such as "in the morning" (sunrise until Noon), or "in the afternoon", etc.
So this is just some interesting but irrelevant information.
I guess your post illustrated my point very well. Lobo, who is fond of Jesus’ contradictions
What your post illustrates simply is that many times we have ideas in our minds that we think are accurate but are not. But don't feel bad because even in the Watchtower you can find in one place where the 6th hour is 11 to 12 and in others 12 to 1. So people do get confused about this.
But please realize what you're doing here. You're maintaining errors, incompetent and inaccurate ideas and then actually getting into a debate with someone else to promote those errors.
This is what I've been talking about. You're not alone. You think you're smart and you know what you're talking about and thus have found errors in the scriptures, when in fact there are no errors, only your being misinformed. And part of that has to be your responsibility to at least do a little more homework, especially if you're going to contradict somebody else.
Now this also shows a bit of arrogance on your part since you must at some point consider yourself to be smarter than the person you are dismissing. And you well may be, but in fact, it is you who have their facts incorrect.
And this happens all the time, especially with the Bible and especially with scholars, who do the same thing. Make vague and superficial presumptions without checking out the customs or language idiosyncrasies before rendering a judgment.
But it still boils down to the fact that the person is in error and the Bible isn't. So you have accused the Bible inappropriately.
So I guess you did prove my point. People who don't know what they are talking about tend to have the most critical opinions.
So now, PLEASE CORRECT:
If you will study Jewish tradition, you'll learn that the only the sabbath days begin at sunset, but they still end at nightfall. The normal Jewish day ends at nightfall when they light a candle to establish the new day.
Haven't you ever wondered why they go through so much trouble to determine when the light becomes silhouette or when they can't tell the difference between two colors on a cloth? That's because they are trying to determine when the indirect sunlight reaches a point to where they consider that day over and the next day begins. So the Jews go by the natural day and that day ends when the light of that day finally wanes until you can't tell any color or all you can see are silhouettes and that is when they officially END their day.
But the SABBATH DAY is a unique day. It is longer than the other days! It begins at sunset, but still doesn't end until the normal day at nightfall. This is current Jewish tradition. Sabbath ends at nightfall and is a longer day than the other days of the week, which go from nightfall to nightfall. And what's more, this has been the tradition for centuries. This was precisely the tradition in the 1st century.
So when the Bible says to celebrate SABBATH from "evening to evening" it specifically means the SABBATH and not other days of the week. And it specifically is inclusive of the two evenings. That is, it sort of steals the "evening" from Friday, which is considered "preparation. Thus while Sabbath days are an evening longer than the other days, of course, preparation is an evening shorter than the other days.
Now you can either accept this, or you can check this out yourself. It's always good to check this out yourself therefore you'll know from direct source.
And please learn something I've had to learn over and over again. And that is that we all have these preconceived ideas that we presume are facts but sometimes are not. And sometimes we don't find out until something points it out to us. So don't feel too bad about that. Plus others contributed to your wrong ideas.
One example of this is how the WTS drummed into my head that the 70-year exile began in the 19th year because all the Jews ran down to Egypt the same year that Jerusalem was destroyed. I had no reason to doubt that fact. So when I discovered the 70 weeks prophecy really had to be fulfilled by Cyrus, I automatically thought the fall of Jerusalem must have fallen in 525BCE. And I started distributing fliers about that fact and publishing that the true end of the gentile times ended in 1996! I had no clue that that was wrong.
But after this, just as a matter of tying up all the loose ends, since the "Insight" mentioned an astronomical text that allegedly proved the 539BCE fall of Babylon chronology, I thought I'd just check it out to see what was up. My initial interest was the fact that the actual king's name was not mentioned on the text and I thought that probably the eclipses could be matched up to the actual dating of "year 7" in harmoney with the 525BCE fall of Jerusalem dating.
Well I found out right away the eclipses didn't belong to 523BCE but I couldn't match them up with any other year either. I tried matching them up, for instance, to what I thought was "Year 7" of Nebuchadnezzar in 537BCE. But it didn't work. So I thought the text was just a fluke since I knew absolutely that 525BCE had to be the correct Biblical date and I wasn't accepting any other date.
So I gave up trying to make the text fit my chronology, but decided to then try to find a match to any dating to see if it really belong to the 7th year of some other king not Nebuchadnezzar or Kambyses. So I checked all years from 500 to 600 B.C. Of course, there was an absolute match to 541BCE. But I was still in trouble. Because this date when applied to Nebuchadnezzar was four years off from 537BCE which I though was his actual 7th year based upon 525BCE.
So excitedly, I had to start doing more research, I thought to find some error in the Babylonian chronology or hopefully to find some co-rulership or something that would explain the discrepancy and then I'd have an astronomical text that proved that 525BCE was actually the year for the fall of Jerusalem!
But instead, I didn't find any co-rulership that explained this away. And for a while I was stuck.
Then, as the research continued and the reading continued, I chanced upon Jeremiah 52:30 which said that the last deportation was in the 23rd year of Nebuchadnezzar. This surprised me because I hadn't seen that before and didn't realize there was a final deportation beyond the 19th year. I just hadn't paid attention. But then I was floored and couldn't believe what I was looking at because the 23rd year is exactly 4 years off rom the 19th year!!!
And then it hit me like a lightening bolt! I couldn't believe at first what I discovered. That is, the text was right! If the 70-year desolation began in the 23rd year then the 7th of Neb-2 must have fallen in 541BCE!! Just as the text said. Amazing! So this ancient text actually corrected my own erroneous Biblical understanding of a FACT that I thought I had known. But really it wasn't a fact.
And so that was really my lesson. And that is, you have to check things out, especially when arguing with other people. At least just make sure of your facts. Because what we think are FACTS sometimes just aren't. We have to explore every possibility to try to harmonize errors before waving them off as mistakes in the text.
And then, at that stage, I first felt very hurt that the WTS was wrong on this since I was quite admiring of them at the time. Then I got angry at them because they were teaching a false teaching that the 70-year exile began in the 19th year when it didn't. And then after that I found Josephus' direct reference confirming the astronomical text and the Bible that, indeed, the last deportation was of those persons who had run down to Egypt.
So don't feel so bad. We all have these false "facts" in our heads and we don't know it and sometimes we think others are in error when, in fact, it is us.
So the thing to do is just to accept that we all make mistakes and then, most importantly, MAKE THE CORRECTION!
So in this case, what have you learned?
1. You learned that the hours begin at 7 o'clock, both day and night and not 6 o'clock.
2. You've learned that there are the same 3-hour watches for day as well as night.
3. You've learned that there are 12 hours of night as well as 12 hours of day in the NT.
4. You've learned that the Bible is totally inerrant.....
(well, 3 out of 4?) :>
Thanks Lobo, since many others share your common misconceptions. So I hope others have learned your lesson with you. It's all about learning, not about knowing.
Cheers,
Bibleman