The religious doctrine of predestination.

Originally posted by MrGordon ↑

The date of Jerusalem's destruction can be and has been verified by archeological evidence from multiple sources covering different empires
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Trouble with that is they don't speak in agreement.
One of the historians who lived closest to the Neo-Babylonian period was Berossus, a Babylonian “priest of Bel.” His original work, the Babyloniaca, written about 281 B.C.E., has been lost, and only fragments are preserved in the works of other historians. Berossus claimed that he used “books which had been preserved with great care at Babylon.” Was Berossus really an accurate historian? Consider one example.
Berossus wrote that Assyrian King Sennacherib followed “the reign of [his] brother”; and “after him his son [Esarhaddon ruled for] 8 years; and thereafter Sammuges [Shamashshuma-ukin] 21 years.” (III, 2.1, 4) However, Babylonian historical documents written long before Berossus’ time say that Sennacherib followed his father, Sargon II, not his brother, to the throne; Esarhaddon ruled for 12 years, not 8; and Shamash-shuma-ukin ruled for 20 years, not 21. Scholar R. J. van der Spek, while acknowledging that Berossus consulted the Babylonian chronicles, wrote: “This did not prevent him from making his own additions and interpretations.”2 How do other scholars view Berossus? “In the past Berossus has usually been viewed as a historian,” states S. M. Burstein, who made a thorough study of Berossus’ works. Yet, he concluded: “Considered as such his performance must be pronounced inadequate. Even in its present fragmentary state the Babyloniaca contains a number of surprising errors of simple fact . . . In a historian such flaws would be damning, but then Berossus’ purpose was not historical.”
And what about the other classical historians who, for the most part, based their chronology on the writings of Berossus? Can their historical conclusions really be called reliable?
The Bible is the only reliable yardstick by which these things can be measured.

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"Trouble with that is they don't speak in agreement."
Mr Gordon I have no skin in the game one way or the other and have spent far more time researching this than is warranted, including the Watchtower 2011 article.

Your comments about the historians including the Babyloniaca are irrelevant in this case since we are talking primarily of astronomical cuniform tablets that also are supported by historical records.

The main support by JW for claiming that VAT4956 indicates the 37th yr of Nebuchadnezzar II as 588 BC rather than the otherwise widely accepted date of 568 BC is to discount all the planetary observations under some lame excuse that they may not be reliable which incidently is not supported by any scholar or expert I could find.

To cut a long story short .. if this 1914 date is important to you as a measure of the truth of what JW teach on this subject, there are many articles, papers, studies and websites which discuss the date for the fall of Jerusalem. If you take the time I'm sure you will agree that it was much, much, much, more likely to have been 587 BC rather than 20yrs earlier in 607 BC.
There are also claims that counting back 70 yrs from the liberation of the Jews by Cyrus as the start of "desolation" is not necessarily Biblically accurate. Something to do with the start of the "resting period", but don't quote me on that !