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Chronology and 607 BCE · Claim record

The 1 November 2011 Watchtower states in a footnote that none of the secular experts it quotes holds that Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BCE.

Claim ID claim-chronology-no-expert-holds-607Concerns 1 November 2011Explicit statement
Explicit statement · 1 November 2011 Verified

The 1 November 2011 Watchtower states in a footnote that none of the secular experts it quotes holds that Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BCE. The Watchtower, 1 November 2011The Watchtower, 1 November 2011

The organisation’s position or later explanation: The article nevertheless concludes that its reading ‘has some secular support’, meaning the astronomical data it discusses rather than the scholars it cites.

Show the evidence (2 sources)
Primary JW publication Verified

The Watchtower, “When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part Two”

1 November 2011 · p.23 · footnote c · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania

“Note: None of the secular experts quoted in this article hold that Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 B.C.E.”

A footnote attached to the paragraph quoting R. H. Sack on the Babylonian chronicles. It applies to every scholar cited in the article, including Sack, Steele, Brown, van der Spek, Sachs and Hunger.

Official source

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Full document fetched from the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and read in full; the quotation was confirmed word for word against the article text.The Watchtower Online Library prints the footnote block at the end of the document, after the last page marker, so the page recorded here is the page carrying the footnote's reference marker in the body text, read from the page marker immediately before it.

Corroborated by. src-chr-o-w-2011-1101-why-trust-bible

Notes. Printed by the organisation itself. Any statement that the organisation conceals the absence of scholarly support for 607 BCE is wrong; the concession is in the article.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chr-o-w-2011-1101-ftn-c

Primary JW publication Verified

The Watchtower, “When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part Two”

1 November 2011 · p.27 · pars. 35-36 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania

“At present, the majority of secular historians believe that Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 B.C.E. However, the Bible writers Jeremiah and Daniel clearly state that the Jews were in exile for 70 years, not 50 years. (Jeremiah 25:1, 2, 11; 29:10; Daniel 9:2) Those statements strongly indicate that Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 B.C.E. As the above evidence shows, that conclusion has some secular support.”

The closing section, headed “Why Trust the Bible?”, continues: “Secular experts have repeatedly questioned the Bible’s accuracy. Yet, when more evidence is uncovered, the Bible record has time and again been vindicated.”

Official source

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Full document fetched from the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and read in full; the quotation, the paragraph and the page were confirmed against the article text and its embedded page markers (span class=“pageNum”).

Notes. The organisation’s own summary of its case, and its best counter-argument, in its own words.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chr-o-w-2011-1101-why-trust-bible

Claim page

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