Additional material

The questions about the chronology of the reign of Artaxerxes I and its supposed relation to the 70 weeks of Daniel 9:24‒27 answer, and such a book is, in fact, what I have been planning to write for some years. I have been collecting material on the subject for many years, and in 1989 I even wrote a brief draft in Swedish. Other projects, however, have occupied my spare time since then, and I don’t expect to be able to resume the work on the 70 weeks within the next few years. The following discussion is an examination of the arguments brought forth by the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society in support of the idea that Artaxerxes I acceeded to the throne in 475 BC, not in 465 BC as is held by modern historians.

What follows is a brief summary of the Swedish paper on the chronology of Artaxerxes’ reign.

1. Was Xerxes a coregent with his father Darius?

It is true that the Watch Tower Society attempts to solve the problems created by their prolongation of Artaxerxes’ length reign from 41 to 51 years (his accession being dated to 475 instead of 465 BC) by abbreviating the reign of his predecessor Xerxes (485‒465 BC) from 21 to 11 years, arguing that the first 10 years of Xerxes’ rule was a co‒rule with his father Darius.

There is not the slightest evidence in support of such a coregency. The Watch Tower Society’s discussion on pages 614‒616 of its Bible dictionary Insight on the Scriptures, volume 2 (1988), is a miserable distortion of the historical evidence. Thus, on page 615 they claim:

There is solid evidence for a coregency of Xerxes with his father Darius. The Greek historian Herodotus (VII, 3) says: «Darius judged his [Xerxes’] plea [for kingship] to be just and declared him king. But to my thinking Xerxes would have been made king even without this advice.» This indicates that Xerxes was made king during the reign of his father Darius.

If we look up Herodotus’ statement, however, we will discover that he, in the very next few sentences, directly contradicts the Watch Tower Society's claim that there was a ten-year long coregency of Xerxes with Darius by stating that Dams died one year after this appointment of Xerxes as his successor. Herodotus says:

Xerxes, then, was publicly proclaimed as next in succession to the crown, and Darius was free to turn his attention to the war. Death, however, cut him off before his preparations were complete; he died in the year following this incident and the Egyptian rebellion, after a reign of thirtysix years, and so was robbed of his chance to punish either Egypt or the Athenians. After his death the crown passed to his son Xerxes.

What we find, then, is that Darius appointed Xerxes his successor one year (not ten!) before his own death. Further, Herodotus does not say that Darius appointed Xerxes his coregent, but his successor. (Note, for instance, the wording of the passage quoted by the Watch Tower Society in Aubrey de Sélincourt's translation in the Penguin Books). In the preceding paragraphs, Herodotus explains that a common rule among Persian kings before they went out to war was to appoint their successors to the throne, in case they themselves would be killed in the battles. This custom, he says, was also followed by Darius.

The Watch Tower Society, then, quotes Herodotus completely out of context, leaving out the subsequent sentences that refute their claim. Incredibly, they introduce this forgery by terming it «solid evidence»!

Other «solid evidence» presented in their Bible dictionary in support of the coregency is of the same quality, for example the bas‒reliefs found in Persepolis, which Herzfeld in 1932 felt indicated a coregency of Xerxes with Darius. (Insight 1, p. 615) This idea, however, is dismissed by modern scholars. The very fact that the crown prince is pictured as standing behind the throne shows that he is not a king and a coregent, but an appointed successor. Second, no names are found on the relief, and the conclusion that the man on the throne is Darius and the crown prince is Xerxes is nothing but a guess. J. M. Cook, in his work on the history of Persia, argues that the crown prince is Artobazanes, the oldest son of Darius. (Cook, The Persian Empire, New York 1983, p. 75) Other modern scholars, such as A. B. Tilia and von Gall, have argued that the king cannot be Darius but must be Xerxes, and that the crown prince, therefore, is the son of Xerxes! (Cook, p. 242, ftn. 24)

E As «evidence from Babylonian sources» for the claimed coregency the Watch Tower Society first refers to «a palace for Xerxes» that was built in Babylon in 498‒496 BC. But there is no evidence to show that this palace was built «for Xerxes». J. M. Cook refers to Herodotus’ statement that Xerxes was appointed successor to the throne as late as one year before Darius’ death in 486 BC and adds:

If Herodotus is correct in this, the residence constructed for the king’s son in Babylon in the early 490s must have been intended for Artobazanes. (Cook, pp. 74, 75)

The palace, then, proves nothing about a coregency of Xerxes with Darius.

The final «evidence» for the claimed coregency consists of two clay tablets held to be dated in the accession year of Xerxes. According to the Watch Tower Society both tablets are dated several months before the last tablets dated in Darius’ final regnal year. (Insight 2, p. 615) This «overlapping» of the two reigns, it is argued, indicates a coregency.

But either the Watch Tower Society conceals the real facts about these two tablets, or they have done very poor research on the matter. The first tablet, designated «A. 124» by Thompson in his Catalogue from 1927, is not dated in the accession‒year of Xerxes (486/485), as Thompson indicated. This was a copying error by Thompson. The tablet is actually dated in the first year of Xerxes (485/484 BC). This was pointed out as far back as in 1941 by George G. Cameron in The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature, Vol. LVIII, p. 320, ftn. 33. Thus there was no «overlapping» of the two reigns.

The second tablet, «VAT 4397», published as No. 634 by M. San Nicolo and A. Ungnad in their work from 1934, was dated by them to the fifth month («Ab»). It should be noted, however, that the authors put a question mark after the month name. The sign of the month on the tablet is damaged and may be reconstructed in several ways. In the more recent work by Parker and Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology, published in 1956, where the same tablet is designated «VAS VI 177», the authors point out that the tablet «has the month sign damaged. It might be IX [9] but more probably is XII [12].» (Page 17) The original guess by Nicolo and Ungnad is dropped altogether. As Darius died in the 7th month, a tablet dated to the 9th or 12th month in the accession‒year of his successor is quite all right. There was no overlapping between the two reigns.

2. The flight of Themistocles

Much has been made in the Watch Tower publications of Themistocles’ flight to Persia. This argument is an old one, originating with the Jesuit theologian Denis Petau (Petavius) and archbishop James Ussher in the seventeenth century. It was presented in great detail by E. W. Hengstenberg in his work Christologie des Alten Testaments, published in Berlin in 1832. According to the Greek historians Thycudides and Charon of Eampsacus.

Artaxerxes was the king that Themistocles spoke with after his arrival in Persia. The Watch Tower Society argues that Themistocles died about 471/70 BC. Artaxerxes, therefore, must have began his rule before that date and not as late as in 465 BC. (Insight 2, p. 614) These arguments have a superficial strength, only because the Watch Tower Society leaves out some very important information. In proof of their claim that Themistocles met Artaxerxes after his arrival in Persia, they quote Plutarch’s information that «Thucydides and Charon of Eampsacus relate that Xerxes was dead, and that it was his son Artaxerxes with whom Themistocles had his interview». But they left out the second part of Plutarch's statement, which says:

. . . but Ephorus and Dinon and Clitarchus and Heracleides and yet more besides have it that it was Xerxes to whom he came. With the chronological data Thucydides seems to me more in accord, although these are by no means securely established.

The Watch Tower Society, then, conceals that Plutarch goes on to say that a number of ancient historians had written about this event, and that most of them stated that Xerxes, not Artaxerxes, was on the throne when Themistocles came to Persia. Although Plutarch (c 46‒120 A.D.) felt that Thucydides was more reliable, he stresses that the chronological data were by no means securely established. One fact that usually seems to be ignored is that Thucydides wrote his story about Themistocles’ flight some time after 406 BC, or about two generations after the event. He contradicts himself several times in this narrative, which shows that his information on the subject cannot be trusted. (On this, see the Cambridge Ancient History, V, 1992, p. 14.)

But even if Themistocles really may have met Artaxerxes, there is nothing to show that this occurred in the 470’s. There is no evidence whatsoever in support of the claim that Themistocles died in 471/70 BC. None of the sources referred to by the Society says so, and some of them, including Plutarch, clearly show that he died much later, in about 459 BC. (Plutarch's Lives, XXXI:2‒5) A considerable time passed after the attempt to defame Themistocles in Athens in the archonship of Praxiergus (471/70 BC) until his interview with Artaxerxes (or Xerxes). It took several attempts before the enemies of Themistocles succeeded and forced him to flee, first from Athens and finally from Greece. Cambridge Ancient History (Vol. 5, pp. 62ff.) dates this flight to 569 BC. He first fled to some friends in Asia Minor, where he stayed for some time. The Society quotes Diodorus Siculus in support of the 471/70 date for the beginning of the defamation of Themistocles, but avoids to mention Diodorus’ statement drat, on Themistocles’ arrival in Asia Minor, Xerxes was still on the throne in Persia! (Diodorus Siculus, XI:54‒59) This, of course, conflicts with Thucydides’ statement that Themistocles’ letter from Asia Minor was sent to Artaxerxes.

After some time, evidendy after some years, in Asia Minor, Themistocles finally went to Persia. There he first spent one year studying the language before his meeting with the king. This meeting may have occured toward the end of 465 BC or early in 464 BC. As historian A. T. Olmstead argues, Xerxes may very well have been on the throne when Themistocles arrived in Persia, but may have died shordy afterwards, so that Themistocles, after his year of learning the language, met Artaxerxes. In this way the conflicting statements by the ancient historians may at least partially be harmonized.

After his meeting with the Persian king, Themistocles settled in the city of Magnesia, where he lived on for some years before he died. (Plutarch's Lives, XXXI:2‒5) It is completely impossible, therefore, to date his death to 471/70 BC, as done by the Watch Tower Society.

3. The two tablets dated to years ”50” and ”51” of Artaxerxes

In support of the claim that Artaxerxes ruled for 51 years instead of 41, the Watch Tower Society refers to two tablets dated to his ”50^th” year and ”51^st” year, respectively. The first tablet, listed as BM 65494 in E. Leichty and A.K. Grayson, Catalogue of the Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, Vol. VII (London, 1987), is still unpublished. The second tablet, CBM 12803 (= BE 8/1, 127), on the otiier hand, was published in 1908 by Albert T. Clay in The Babylonian Expedition of the Vniversity of Pennsylvania, Series A: Cuneiform Texts, Vol. VIII, text 127. All authorities on Achaemenid history agree that both of these cuneiform tablets contain scribal errors.

As the Watch Tower Society points out, the tablet published by Albert Clay is double‒dated. The date on the tablet is given as, ”51st year, accession year, 12th month, day 20, Darius, king of lands.” (Insight, p. 616) This text, then, seems to equate the 51st year (evidendy of Artaxerxes I; the name is not given in the text) with the accession‒year of his successor Darius II.

But once again, the Watch Tower Society does not tell the whole truth. The reason is, that the whole truth changes the picture completely. Many dated tablets are extant from the end of Artaxerxes’ reign, thanks to the discover of a cuneiform archive from the Murashu firm. In Istanbul Murashu Texts (Istanbul, 1997), V. Donbaz and M. W. Stolper explain that the Murashu archive is the largest available documentary source for Achaemenid Babylonia in the years between Xerxes and Alexander.” (Page 4) Nearly all of the tablets are dated to the reigns of Artaxerxes I and his successor Darius II. The number culminates in the last two years of the reign of Artaxerxes and the first seven years of the reign of Darius II, as shown by the graph below, published by Donbaz and Stolper on page 6 of the work quoted above. The archive includes over 60 texts from the 41st year of Artaxerxes and the accession year of Darius II, and culminates with about 120 texts dated to the 1st year of Darius II!

As shown by the ancient Greek historians, tire months following upon the death of Artaxerxes was a chaotic period. His son and successor Xerxes II was murdered by his brother Sogdianus after only a few weeks of reign. The usurper Sogdianus then held the throne for about seven months, after which he was killed by Darius II in February, 423 BC. But as Sogdianus was never acknowledged as the legitimate king, the scribes continued to date their texts to the reign of Artaxerxes for some months after his death. It is even possible that Artaxerxes died toward the end of his 40^th year, as some scholars argue, so that tire scribes had to extend his reign artificially to include a 41^st year. This is still a question debated among scholars.

Not until Darius II ascended to the throne in the 11th Babylonian month (corresponding to parts of February and March, 423 BCE) did the scribes begin to date the texts to his reign also. But to avoid any confusion, the scribes usually double‒dated the texts, mentioning both the 41^st year [of Artaxerxes] and the accession­year of Darius II. They did this, because it was important for them to keep an exact chronological count of the reigns, as this was their calendar and the”era” by which they dated various events, such as political events, astronomical observations, and economic transactions.

A number of such double‒dated tablets have been discovered. F. X. Kugler, on page 396 of his Sternkunde und Stemdienst in Babel, II. Buch, II. Teil, Heft 2 (Munster 1924), presented the chronological information on four of these tablets. Other tablets of this kind have been found since. Ten such double‒dated tablets are now known, of which all except one equate”year 41”, evidendy of Artaxerxes I, with the”accession‒year of Darius.” The exception is CBM 12803, the text that has year ”51” instead of ”41”. And all except one (BM 33342) of these ten texts belong to the Murashu archive. The nine texts double‒dated to”year 41, accession‒year of Darius” are:

BM 54557: (= Zawadzki JEOL 34:45f.) Text from Sippar [?].

Although dated only to the accession‒year of Darius II (month IXp], day 29), the body of the text refers to a span of time “from month V year 41 of Ar (takshatsu ...) to the end of month XII, year 41, accession of Darius.” (Information on this text was received from Prof. Matthew W. Stolper, the leading expert on the Murashu archive, in a letter dated January 29, 1999).

Bertin 2889: Text from Babylon dated to”day 26, month XI, year 41, accession‒year of Darius.” The text is not published, but information on the date was received by Jean‒Frédéric Brunet from Dr. Francis Joannès on July 3^rd, 2003. (Mail Brunet‒Jonsson, December 22, 2003)

BM 33342: Text from Babylon dated to “month Shabatu [month XI]; day 29; year 41, accession‒year, Darius, King of hands.” (Matthew W. Stolper in AMI, Vol. 16, 1983, pp. 231‒236) This text does not belong to the Murashu archive.

BE 10 no. 4: (= TuM 2/3, 216) Text from Nippur dated to day 14, month XII, year 41, accession‒year of Darius II, king of the lands.

BE 10 no. 5: Text from Nippur dated to day 17, month XII, accession‒year of Darius, king of the lands. The first line says “until the end of Adar (month XII) of year 41, accession‒year of Darius, king of the lands.”

BE 10 no. 6: Text from Nippur dated to the accession‒year of Darius. Month and day are illegible, but lines 2f. mention the whole year “from the first month of year 41 to the end of month XII of the accession‒year of Darius.”

PBS 2/1 no. 1: Text from Nippur dated to day 22, month XII, year 41, accession‒year of Darius II.

BE 10 no. 7: (= TuM 2/3, 181) Text from Nippur dated to month I, day 2, year 1, of Darius II. Tine 6 mentions receipt for produce for, “year 41, accession‒year of Darius.”

PBS 2/1 no. 3: Text from Nippur dated to month I, day 5, year 1, of Darius II. Lines 2–3 refers to taxes for the period “up to the end of month XII, year (4)1, (ac)cession year of Darius.” Line 13 says: “until the end of Adar [month XII], year 41.”

Explanation of abbreviations used in the list:

All these nine texts agree in showing that Darius II acceded to the throne in the 41st year of his predecessor. The tablets clearly show that Artaxerxes I cannot have ruled for more than 41 years. As stated above, the text published by Albert Clay in 1908, the only one quoted by the Watch Tower Society, belongs to the same category of doubled‒dated texts as those quoted above, the only difference being that it gives the predecessor of Darius a reign of 51 years instead of 41. It is quite clear that the number ”51” on that tablet contains a scribal error. This is the only reasonable conclusion to draw, as the only alternative is to claim that the figure ”41” on all the other nine tablets listed above are errors.

It is difficult to believe that the Watch Tower Society’s writers were completely ignorant of the existence of several double‒dated tablets from the accession‒year of Darius. To quote only the two tablets with scribal errors (years ”50” and ”51”) and keep silent about all the double‒dated texts that equate Darius’ accession‒year with year ”41” of his predecessor is far from honest.

Albert f. Clay, who published the tablet with the erroneous figure ”51” on it, was well aware that it was a scribal error. To the right of the erroneous figure in his published copy of the text he pointed out that ”51” was a”mistake for 41”:

Tablet ”CBM 12803”, published by Albert T. Clay as No. 127 in The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, Series A: Cuneiform Texts, Vol. VIII (Philadelphia, 1908), Pl. 57.

Such an error was easy to make, as the difference between ”41” and ”51” in cuneiform is just a small wedge‒one touch with the stylus. Such errors are not unusual. The text with the figure ”50” instead of ”40” is just another example of the same kind of error. Professor Matthew W. Stolper explains:

Yes, it is quite an easy error. As you may know, the sign that indicates”year” before the numeral ends with four closely spaced angle‒wedges. The digit ”40” in ”41” is represented by four more closely spaced angle‒wedges, in slighdy different configuration. It would take a simple slip of the stylus to add the extra wedge. ‒ Letter Stolper‒Jonsson, January 29, 1999.

Artaxerxes’ reign astronomically fixed

The decisive evidence for the length of Artaxerxes’ rule is the astronomical information found on a number of tablets dated to his reign. One such text is the astronomical «diary» «VAT 5047», clearly dated to the 11th year of Artaxerxes. Although the text is damaged, it preserves information about two lunar positions relative to planets and the positions of Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. This information suffices to identify the date of the text as 454 B.C. As this was the 11th year of Artaxerxes, the preceding year, 455 BC, cannot have been his 20th year as the Watch Tower Society claims, but Ins 10th year. His 20th year, then, must have been 445/44 BC. (See Sachs/Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Telated Texts from Babylonia, Vol. 1, Wien 1988, pp. 56‒59.)

There are also some tablets dated to the 21st and last year of Xerxes. One of them, BM 32234, which is dated to day 14 or 18 of the 5th month of Xerxes’ 21st year, belongs to the group of astronomical texts called «18‒year texts» or «Saros texts». The astronomical information preserved on this tablet fixes it to the year 465 BC. The text includes the following interesting information: «Month V 14 (+x) Xerxes was murdered by his son.» This text alone not only shows that Xerxes ruled for 21 year, but also that his last year was 465 BC, not 475 as the Society holds!

There are several «Saros texts» of this type covering the reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes. The many detailed and dated descriptions of lunar eclipses from different years of their reigns establish the chronology of this period as an absolute chronology.

Two other astronomical tablets from the reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes, BM 45674 and BM 32299, contain dated observations of the planet Venus. Again, these observations establish the chronology of this period as an absolute chronology.

Thus we have numerous astronomical observations dated to different parts of the reigns of Xerxes and Axtaxerxes preserved on cuneiform tablets. In many cases, only one or two of these observations would suffice to establish the beginning and end of their reigns. The total number of astronomical observations dated to their reigns, however, are about 40 or more. It is impossible, therefore, to change their reigns even one year! The Society’s dating of Artaxerxes’ 20th year to 455 BC is demonstrably wrong. This, of course, also proves that their interpretation of the 70 weeks of Daniel is wrong.

The seventy weeks of Daniel

A number of applications of the 70 weeks of Daniel have appeared throughout the centuries. Some of them, including that of the Watch Tower Society, have to be discarded at once, as they can be shown to be in direct conflict with historically established dates. They have nothing to do with reality.

If Artaxerxes’ 20th year was 445/44 instead of 455, it is still possible to start from that year, provided that we use a «prophetical year» of 360 days instead of the solar year of 365,2422 days. This was demonstrated by Sir Robert Anderson in his book The Coming Prince (first published in 1895). His application has recently been improved upon by H. W. Hoehner in his book Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ (1977), pages 135ff. These authors show that the 476 years from Artaxerxes’ 20th year, 445/44 BC, to the death of Christ (if set at 33 A.D.) correspond to 483 years of 360 days. (476x365,2422 is 173.855 days, and if this number is divided by 360 we get 483 years.) This is just one example of an application that at least has the advantage of a historically established date at its start.

There is, of course, much more that can and should be said about this subject. On the preceding pages I have just tried to summarize a few of the more important observations. Now and then members of Jehovah’s Witnesses and others have written to me about this problem, and maybe this summary can be of some benefit to others, too, who are asking about the matter. In the future I hope to find time for writing a more detailed discussion on the subject.

The following material is adapted from the discussion on pages 44‒48 of the first and second editions of my book, The Gentile Times Reconsidered (published in 1983 and 1986), with some updates and additions.

PROFESSOR ROBERT R. NEWTON (who died in 1991) was a noted physicist who has published a series of outstanding works on the secular accelerations of the moon and the earth. He examined in detail hundreds of astronomical observations dating all the way from the present back to about 700 BC, in order to determine the rate of the slowly changing of the length of the day during this period. The best information on his research in this area is found in his book, The Moon’s Acceleration and Its Physical Origins, vol. 1, published in 1979. His results have more recently been further refined by other scholars, in particular by F. Richard Stephenson. (Historical Eclipses and Earth’s Rotation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)

Accusations against Claudius Ptolemy not new

The claim that Claudius Ptolemy”deliberately fabricated” many of his observations is not new. Astronomers have questioned Ptolemy’s observations for centuries. As early as 1008 AD ibn Yunis concluded that they contained serious errors, and by about 1800 astronomers had recognized that almost all of Ptolemy’s observations were m error. In 1817, Delambre asked:”Did Ptolemy do any observing? Are not the observations that he claims to have made merely computations from his tables, and examples to help in explaining his theories?” – J.B.J. Delambre, Histoire de l’Astronomic Ancienne, Paris 1817, Vol. II, p. XXV; as quoted by Robert R. Newton in The Moon’s Acceleration and Its Physical Origins [MAPO], Vol. I, (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), p. 43.

Two years later (in 1819) Delambre also concluded that Ptolemy fabricated some of his solar observations and demonstrated how the fabrication was made. (Newton, MAPO I, p. 44) More recently, other astronomers have re‒examined Ptolemy’s observations and arrived at similar results. One of them is Professor Robert R. Newton. In his book, The Crime of Claudias Ptolemy (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), Newton claims that Ptolemy fudged, not only a large body of the observations he says he had made himself, but also a number of the observations Ptolemy attributes to other astronomers, including some he quotes from Babylonian sources. These include the three oldest observations recorded in Ptolemy’s Almagest dating from the first and second years of the Babylonian king Merodach‒baladan (called Mardokempados in Almagest), corresponding to 721 and 720 BC.

Scholars disagreeing with R.R. Newton

In the ensuing debate a number of scholars have repudiated Newton’s conclusions. They have argued that Newton’s arguments ”are marred by all manner of distortions” (Bernard R. Goldstein of the University of Pittsburgh in Science, February 24, 1978, p. 872), and that his case collapses because ”it is based on faulty statistical analysis and a disregard for the methods of early astronomy” (scholars Noel M. Swerdlow of the University of Chicago, Victor E. Thoren of Indiana University, and Owen J. Gingerich of Harvard University, in Scientific American, March 1979, p. 93, American edition). Similar comments are made by Noel M. Swerdlow,”Ptolemy on Trial,” in The American Scholar, Autumn 1979, pp. 523‒531, and by Julia Neuffer,”"Ptolemy’s Canon» Debunked?” in Andrews University Seminary Studies, Vol. XVII, No. 1, 1979, pp. 39‒46. An article by Owen J. Gingerich with a rebuttal by R.R. Newton is found in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 21, 1980, pp. 253‒266, 388‒399, with a final response by Gingerich in Vol. 22, 1981, pp. 40‒44.

Scholarly support for R.R. Newton

Most of these critics, though, are historians without particular expertise in the field of Greek astronomy. Some reviews written by well‒informed astronomers have been favorable to Newton’s conclusions. One historian who is also well acquainted with Greek astronomy, K.P. Moesgaard, agrees that Ptolemy fabricated his astronomical data, though he feels it was done for some honest reason. (K.P. Moesgaard,”Ptolemy’s Failings,” Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. XI, 1980, pp. 133‒135) Rolf Brahde, too, wrote a favorable review of Newton’s book in Astronomisk Tidskrift, 1979, No. 1, pp. 42,43.

B.L. van der Waerden, Professor of Mathematics and an expert on Greek astronomy, discusses Newton’s claims in his book, The Astronomie der Griechen (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1988). Although he would not go as far as Newton in his attack on Ptolemy, he agrees that Ptolemy falsified his observations, stating: ”That Ptolemy systematically and intentionally has falsified his observations in order to bring his observational results in agreement with his theory have been convincingly demonstrated by Delambre and Newton.” (p. 253)

Recent criticism of R.R. Newton

G.J. Toomer, the well‒known translator of Ptolemy's Almagest (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 1984), discusses Newton’s claim in an article published in 1988 (”Hipparchus and Babylonian Astronomy,” in A Scientific Humanist. Studies in Memory ofi Abraham Sachs, eds. E. Eeichty, M. DeJ. Ellis, & P. Gerardi, Philadelphia, 1988, pp. 353‒362), in which he convincingly argues that all the observations from earlier periods recorded by Ptolemy were taken over from the Greek mathematician Hipparchus (2^nd century BC).

In 1990, Dr. Gerd Grasshoff included a lengthy section on the accusations against Claudius Ptolemy in his work, The History of Ptolemy's Star Catalogue (London, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong: Springer‒Verlag, 1990, pp. 79‒91). He concludes that Newton’s arguments against Ptolemy are”superficial” and”unjustified”.

More recendy, Oscar Sheynin has discussed Newton’s accusations at some length, arguing that the reason why Ptolemy’s observations so well agree with his theory is, not that he fabricated them, but that he selected the observations that best fitted his theory. Although such selectivity is not allowed in science today, it was quite common in ancient times. For this reason Sheynin states that Ptolemy cannot be regarded a fraud. – O. Sheynin,”The Treatment of Observations in Early Astronomy,” in C. Truesdell Archive for History of Exact Sciences, Vol. 46:2, 1993, pp. 153‒192.

In summary, there seems to be at least some evidence in support of the claims that Claudius Ptolemy was”fraudulent” in the way he handled his observations, either by”trimming” the values or by selecting those who best fitted his theory. However, few scholars would go as far as R. R. Newton, who dismisses Ptolemy altogether as a fraud. As Dr. James Evans notes,”very few historians of astronomy have accepted Newton’s conclusions in their entirety.” – Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. 24, Parts ^1/2, February/May, 1993, pp. 145‒146.

R.R. Newton and”Ptolemy’s Canon”

In a review of Newton’s book, The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, published in Scientific American of October 1977, pp. 79‒81, it was stated that”Ptolemy’s forgery may have extended to inventing the length of reigns of Babylonian kings.” This was a reference to the so‒called”Ptolemy’s Canon”, which Newton at that time erroneously believed had been composed by Claudius Ptolemy himself and thus may have been affected by his”forgery”. The statement was quickly picked up and published in The Watchtower magazine (December 15, 1977, p. 747). On page 375 of his The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, Newton also wrote:” It follows that Ptolemy’s king list is useless in the study of chronology, and that it must be ignored. What is worse, much Babylonian chronology is based upon Ptolemy’s king list. All relevant chronology must now be reviewed and all dependence upon Ptolemy’s list must be removed.”

Newton was unaware of the fact that”Ptolemy’s Canon” was not composed by Claudius Ptolemy. He was not an historian and he was not an expert on Babylonian chronology. He also admits in his work that he has not studied sources other than Ptolemy for the years prior to Nebuchadnezzar. (The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, p. 375) He explains that his thoughts on the relations between chronology and the work of Claudius Ptolemy were influenced by a Mr. Philip G. Couture of Santee, California. In the Preface of his book he states: ”I thank Mr. Philip G. Couture of Santee, California for correspondence which led me to understand some of the relations between chronology and the work of Ptolemy.” (The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, p. XIV) The same Mr. Couture also induced Dr. Newton to reject the Assyrian eponym canon in his work, The Moon’s Acceleration and Its Physical Origins. (See Vol. 1, 1979, p. 189)

What Newton probably did not know was that Mr. Couture was and still is one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and that some of the chronological arguments he passed on to Newton were taken from the Watch Tower Society’s Bible dictionary, Aid to Bible Understanding These arguments were not only aimed at supporting the chronology of the Watch Tower Society, but they are also demonstrably untenable!

Correspondence with R. R. Newton

In 1978, the year after The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy had been published, I had some correspondence with Professor Newton. In a letter dated June 27, 1978, I sent him a shorter study I had prepared in which the so‒called”Ptolemy’s Canon” was compared with earlier cuneiform sources. This study briefly demostrated that all the reigns of the Babylonian kings given in the Canon, from Nabonassar (747‒734 BC) to Nabonidus (555‒539 BC), were in complete agreement with these older sources. (This study was later expanded and published in a British journal for interdisciplinarty studies, the British forum for the discussion of the catastrophe theories of Immanuel Velikovsky and others: Chronology & Catastrophism Review, Vol. IX, 1987, pp. 14‒23.) I asked Professor Newton:” How is it possible that Ptolemy’s astronomical data are wrong, and yet the king list, to which they are attached, is correct?”

In his answer, dated August 11, 1978, Newton said:” I am not ready to be convinced that Ptolemy’s king list is accurate before Nabopolassar [= before 625 BC], although I have high confidence that it is rather accurate for Nabopolassar and later kings.” He also pointed out:”The basic point is that Ptolemy calculated the circumstances of the eclipses in the Syntaxis from his theories, and he then pretended that his calculated values were values that had been observed in Babylon. His theories are accurate enough to give the correct day of an eclipse, but he missed the hour and the magnitude?’

Thus Ptolemy’s”adjustments” of the eclipse observations were too small to affect the year, the month, and the day of an eclipse. Only the hour and the magnitude were affected. Ptolemy’s supposed”adjustments” of the records of the ancient Babylonian eclipses, then, didn’t change the BCE dates that had been established for these observations. They did not change the chronology! Further, Professor Newton was convinced that the king list was accurate from Nabopolassar and onwards. In other words, he was convinced that the whole Neo‒Babylonian chronology from Nabopolassar through Nabonidus (625‒539 BC) was accurate! Why?

The reason was that Newton had made a very thorough study of some of the ancient Babylonian astronomical records that were independent of”Ptolemy’s Canon”, including the two astronomical cuneiform texts designated VAT 4956 and Strm. Kambys. 400. From his examination of these two records, he had established that the first text referred to the year 568/67 BC and the second one to 523 BC. He concluded:”Thus we have quite strong confirmation that Ptolemy’s list is correct for Nebuchadrezzar, and reasonable confirmation for Kambyses.” (The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, 1977, p. 375) These findings were further emphasized in his next work, The Moon’s Acceleration and Its Physical Origins, vol. 1, published in 1979, where he concludes on page 49:”Nebuchadrezzar’s first year therefore began in ‒603 ^{=604 BC}, and this agrees with Ptolemy’s list.”

Therefore, to quote some statements by R. R. Newton in an attempt to undermine the chronology established for the Neo‒Babylonian era would be to quote him out of context. It would be to misrepresent his views and conceal his conclusions. It would be fraudulent. Yet, this has been repeatedly done by the Watch Tower Society and some defenders of its chronology. But Newton’s findings refute their chronology and prove it to be false.

Summary

Whether Ptolemy falsified his observations, perhaps also some of those of earlier astronomers, is irrelevant for the study of the Neo‒Babylonian chronology. Today, this chronology is not based upon the observations recorded by Ptolemy in his Almagest.

Further, the claim that Ptolemy may have”invented” the lengths of reign in”Ptolemy’s Canon” is based upon the erroneous view that this king list was composed by Claudius Ptolemy. As is demonstrated on pages 94‒96 of the third edition of The Gentile Times Reconsidered (and also briefly in the second edition), the designation ”Ptolemy’s Canon” is ”a misnomer” (Otto Neugebauer), as this king list according to Eduard Meyer, Franz X. Kugler and others had been in use among Alexandrian astronomers for centuries before the time of Claudius Ptolemy, and had been inherited and brought up‒to‒date from one generation of scholars to next.

Finally, the claim that diis king list today is the basis of or principal source for the Neo‒Babylonian chronology, is false. Those who make such a claim are either ignorant or dishonest. The plain truth is that the king list is not needed today for fixing the chronology of this era, although its figures for the reigns of the Neo‒Babylonian kings are upheld by at least 14 lines of independent evidence based on cuneiform documents, as is demonstrated in The Gentile Times Reconsided.

Addition in 2003:

Modern scholars who have examined the so‒called Ptolemy’s Canon (more correctly called the”Royal Canon”) in detail agree that the kinglist has proved to be reliable from beginning to end. This is emphasized, for example, by Dr Leo Depuydt in his article,”More Valuable than all Gold: Ptolemy’s Royal Canon and Babylonian Chronology,” published in Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 47, 1995, pp. 97‒117. Quite recently, Leo Depuydt has written another article in which he discusses the reliability of Ptolemy’s Canon, «The Shifting Foundation of Ancient Chronology,» soon to be published in Acts of European Association of Archaeologists, Meeting VIII.

Rolf Furuli: Persian Chronology and the length of the Babylonian Exile of the Jews (oslo: Rolf Furuli a/s, 2003)

Persian Chronology and the Length of the Babylonian Exile of the Jews is the first of two volumes in which Rolf Furuli attempts to revise the traditional chronology for the Neo‒Babylonian and Persian periods. Furuli states that the reason for this venture is that this chronology is in conflict with the Bible. He insists that the Bible “unambiguously,” “explicitly,” and “definitely” shows that Jerusalem and the land of Judah were desolate for 70 years, until the Jewish exiles in Babylon returned to Judah as a result of the decree Cyrus issued in his first regnal year, 538/37 BCE (pp. 17, 89, 91). This implies that the desolation of Jerusalem in Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th regnal year took place 70 years earlier, in 607 BCE, contrary to modern historical research, which has fixed the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar in 587/86 BCE, a date that also agrees with the chronology of the ancient kinglist known as “Ptolemy’s Canon.” Furuli does not explicitly mention the 607 BCE date in this volume, perhaps because a more detailed discussion of the Neo‒Babylonian chronology is reserved for his not‒yet‒ published second volume.

Most chapters in this first volume, therefore, contain a critical examination of the reigns of the Persian kings from Cyrus to Darius II. The principal claim of this discussion is that the first year of Artaxerxes I should be moved 10 years backward, from 464 to 474 BCE. Furuli does not mention that this is an old idea that can be traced back to the noted Jesuit theologian Denis Petau, better known as Dionysius Petavius, who first presented it in a work published in 1627. Petavius’ revision had a theological basis, because, if the “seventy weeks [of years],” or 490 years, of Daniel 9:24‒27 (Neh. 2:1 ff.) to 36 CE (his date for the end of the period), Artaxerxes’ 20th year must be moved from 445 back to 455 BCE. Furuli says nothing about this underlying motive for his proposed revision.

Introduction: hidden agenda

Furuli published this book at his own expense. Who is he? On the back cover of the book he presents himself this way:

Rolf Furuli is a lecturer in Semitic languages at the University of Oslo. He is working on a doctoral thesis which suggests a new understanding of the verbal system of Classical Hebrew. He has for many years worked with translation theory, and has published two books on Bible translation; he also has experience as a translator. The present volume is a result of his study of the chronology of the Ancient world for more than two decades.

What Furuli does not mention is that he is a Jehovah’s Witness, and that for a long time he has produced apologetic texts defending Watchtower exegesis against criticism. His two books on Bible translation are nothing more than defenses of the Witnesses’ New World Translation of the Bible. He fraudulently fails to mention that for decades he has tried to defend Watchtower chronology and that his revised chronology is essentially a defense of the Watchtower Society’s traditional chronology. He describes his chronology as “a new chronology,” which he calls “the Oslo Chronology,” (p. 14) when in fact the 607 BCE date for the destruction of Jerusalem is the chronological foundation for the claims and apocalyptic messages of the Watchtower organization, and the 455 BCE date for the 20th year of Artaxerxes I is its traditional starting point for its calculation of the “seventy weeks” of Daniel 9:24‒27

Despite these facts, Furuli nowhere mentions the Watchtower Society or its chronology. Nor does he mention my detailed refutation of this chronology in various editions of my book The Gentile Times Reconsidered (GTR; 3rd edition, Atlanta: Commentary Press, 1998; 1st ed. published in 1983), despite the fact that in circulated “organized collections of notes” he has tried to refute the conclusions presented in its earlier editions. (A fourth revised and updated edition of GTR has been prepared and will be published in 2004.) Furuli’s silence on GTR is noteworthy because he discusses R. E. Winkle’s 1987 study which presents mostly the same arguments and conclusions as are found in the first edition of GTR (1983). As a Jehovah’s Witness, Furuli is forbidden to interact with former members of his organization. If this is the reason for his feigned ignorance of my study, he is acting as a loyal Witness–not as a scholar.

Clearly, Furuli has an agenda, and he is hiding it.

The contents of the first four chapters

Chapter 1: Pages 17‒37:

In Chapter 1, Furuli claims that the Bible and the astronomical tablets VAT 4956 and Strm Kambys 400 “contradict each other” (pp. 17‒28), and he therefore questions the reliability of astronomical tablets by describing nine “potential sources of error.” (pp. 28‒37)

Chapter 2: Pages 38‒46:

In Chapter 2, Furuli claims that the “most acute problem for making an absolute chronology based on astronomical tablets” is that many, “perhaps most positions of the heavenly bodies on such tablets, are calculated rather than observed.” (p. 15)

Chapter 3: Pages 47‒65:

In Chapter 3, Furuli makes some general comments on the Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hebrew languages and describes some “pitfalls” in reading and translating the ancient documents.

Chapter 4: Pages 66‒92:

In Chapter 4, Furuli presents his views on “tire chronological accounts of Claudius Ptolemy” and of those of some other ancient authors (pp. 66‒74), then discusses the 70‒year prophecy of Jeremiah, (pp. 75‒92)

In the material that follows (Part One of this review; Parts Two and Three will be published at a later date), I critically examine tire argumentation of these four chapters.

Acknowledgements are made to a number of scholars and knowledgeable colleagues for their assistance in preparing this review. I choose not to mention any names, as some of them, for various reasons, need to remain anonymous. I am indebted to all of them for their observations, suggestions, criticism, and, in particular, for the professional help given by two of them with proof‒reading and polishing my English and grammar.

For some works often referred to in the discussion below the following abbreviations are used:

ADT Abraham J. Sachs and Hermann Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Delated Texts from Babylonia (Wien: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Vol. I ‒ 1988, II ‒ 1989, III ‒ 1996, V ‒ 2001).

CBT Erle Eeichty et al, Catalogue of the Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, Vols. 6, 7, and 8 (1986, 1987, and 1988). These volumes list tire tablets from Sippar held at BM.

GTR⁴ Carl Olof Jonsson, The Gentile Times Deconsidered, 4^th ed. (Atlanta: Commentary Press, 2004).

LBAT Abraham J. Sachs (ed.), Date Babylonian Astronomical and Delated Texts. Copied by T G. Pinches and J. N. Strassmaier (Providence, Rhode Island: Brown University Press, 1955).

PD Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.–A.D. 75 (Providence, Rhode Island: Brown University Press, 1956).

Chapter I ‒ “Fundamental Chronological Considerations”

Only “three principal sources” for the Neo‒Babylonian and Persian chronology?

One of Furuli’s main goals appears to be to convince his readers that there are only three principal sources on which the chronology of the Neo‒Babylonian and Persian periods can be based. These three, he claims, “contradict each other”:

“There are three principal sources with information regarding the chronology of the New Babylonian and Persian kings, namely, Strm Kambys 400, VAT 4956 and the Bible. The information in these three sources cannot be harmonized.”(p. 21; cf. also pp. 15, 45)

And further:

“It will be shown in the course of the book that there exist just two such independent sources which can give absolute dates for the New Babylonian chronology, namely, VAT 4956 and Strm Kambys 400 which already have been mentioned. ... the chronology that is based on these two diaries cannot be harmonized with the Bible, and this means that at least one of the three sources must give erroneous information.”(p. 24)

These statements reveal a remarkable ignorance of a subject that Furuli claims to have studied “for more than two decades.” The absolute chronology of the Neo‒Babylonian and Persian eras is fixed by about 50 astronomical observational tablets (diaries, eclipse texts, and planetary texts). Almost all these tablets have been published in ADT volumes I and V. And the least reliable of them is probably Strm Kambys 400. (GTR⁴, ch. 2, last section). For example, there are about 25 diaries from the reign of Artaxerxes II (404‒358 BCE), 11 of which have the royal name and regnal dates preserved. Most, if not all, of these appear to be, not later copies, but original compilations from Artaxerxes’ reign. (Letter H. Hunger to C. O. Jonsson, dated January 26, 2001) Therefore, to fix the absolute chronology of the reign of Artaxerxes II or any other Persian king, Strm Kambys 400 is needless and irrelevant. Nor is it needed to fix the reign of Cambyses, which can be more securely fixed by other texts.

Additional comments about Strm Kambys 400 and the claim that some astronomical tablets contradict the Bible are discussed in Part Two of this review.

Are scholars reluctant to publish oddly dated texts?

Furuli argues against the validity of the so‒called Canon of Ptolemy and traditional chronology by using certain oddly dated cuneiform texts that seemingly conflict with them. However, he admits that a few errors in the ancient texts cannot be used to overthrow a chronology that is substantiated by many other texts:

“One or two contradictory finds do not necessarily destroy a chronology that has been substantiated by hundreds of independent finds.”(p. 22)

On the same page he gives three examples:

(1) A tablet that, in 1878, T. G. Pinches said “would overthrow the perfect agreement of Mr. Boscawen’s list with the Canon of Ptolemy,” adding that “I did not intend to publish it at all.” But Furuli fails to mention that this is a tablet that at first seemed to be dated to “year 11” of Cambyses–which contradicts not only the Canon of Ptolemy but also Furuli’s Oslo Chronology. That is why Furuli, too, finds it necessary to reject it.

As it happened, the odd date soon found an explanation. On the tablet, the figure for 1 had been written over the figure for 10. It was pointed out by A. Wiedemann (Geschichte Aegyptens, Leipzig, 1880, pp. 225f.) that this seemed to be a scribal correction of a mistaken “year 10.” winch the scribe had tried to change to “year 1.” thus creating a date sign that easily could be misread as “year 11.” This simple and natural explanation was subsequently accepted by all scholars. (See my Supplement to The Gentile Times Reconsidered, Danville: Odeon Books, 1989, page 8.) The date, then, was not odd after all.

(2) A tablet that “did not fit” PD’s “chronological scheme” and was rejected because “the month sign is shaded, and in view of known facts this date cannot be accepted.” But Furuli does not inform the reader that this tablet is Nabon. No. 1054 (BM 74972), which is dated in PD to Nbn VIII/10/17 (month VIII, day 10, year 17)–nearly one month after the fall of Babylon on VII/16/17.

In 1990, I asked Christopher Walker at the British Museum to take another look at the date on this tablet. His collation, confirmed by other scholars, revealed that the year number had been misread. It was actually 16, not 17. The date of the tablet, then, was not in conflict with the chronology established for the reign of Nabonidus. Walker says:

“On the Nabonidus text no. 1054 mentioned by Parker and Dubberstein p. 13 and Kugler, SSB II 388, I have collated that tablet (BM 74972) and am satisfied that the year is 16, not 17. It has also been checked by Dr. G. Van Driel and Mr. Bongenaar, and they both agree with me.” (Letter Walker to Jonsson, Nov. 13,1990)

Thus, Furuli’s first two tablets cannot be used as examples of “contradictory finds” that conflict with the established chronology. This cannot be said of his third tablet, however, which clearly contains a scribal error.

(3) BM 65494 dates itself to “Artaxerxes VI.4.50” (month VI, day 4, year 50), a date that all scholars, for strong reasons, have concluded is an error for VI.4.40. Walker, too, points this out (which Furuli acknowledges but gives no source reference) in an unpublished list titled “Corrections and Additions to CBT 6‒8.” This list has been worked out and kept up‒to‒date by Walker at the British Museum. It has been sent to correspondents in answer to questions asked about the dates on the tablets listed in the CBT 6‒8 catalogues. (My two versions of the list are dated in 1990 and 1996.)

On page 27, Furuli mentions another example of an oddly dated tablet–a double‒dated text from the accession year of Artaxerxesʼ successor, Darius II. The tablet dates itself to “year 51, month XII, day 20, accession year of Darius, king of lands.” Furuli refers to this and the earlier text dated to Artaxerxesʼ year 50 as examples of how scholars “have been reluctant to publish tablets that seemed to contradict the traditional chronology”

But the very opposite is true. The above‒mentioned reluctance of T. G. Pinches to publish the text dated to Cambysesʼ 11th year was an exception. The typical scholarly reaction to dates that conflict with the traditional chronology is interest and attention, not suppression and reluctance to publish. W hen then‒ unpublished lunar eclipse tablets dated to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II were brought up in an interview in 1968, Professor Abraham J. Sachs indicated how scholars would react to such oddly dated texts (they are now published in ADT V). Pointing out that these eclipse tablets all confirm the traditional chronology, he said:

“I mean if they didn’t fit it would be worth publishing immediately. I mean dropping everything and saying this whole thing is a mess and there’s something wrong here. But they do fit.”(Transcript, p. 12, of an interview held with Professor A. J. Sachs at the Brown University, Providence, R. I., on June 24, 1968, by R. V. Franz and C. Ploeger, at that time members of the Watchtower headquarters’ Writing Department in Brooklyn, New York; emphasis added.)

The tablet dated to year 50 of Artaxerxes I is listed by E. Leichty and A. K. Grayson in CBT VII, p. 153, and the tablet dated to his year 51 was published back in 1908 by A. T. Clay, in both cases evidently without any reluctance. As noted above, the latter text is doubled‒dated. There are, in fact, 10 such texts with double dates, nine of which show that the accession year of Darius II corresponded to Artaxerxesʼ year 41. That year 51 on the above‒mentioned text is an error for year 41, therefore, cannot be seriously questioned.

On pages 27 and 28, Furuli argues that, because there were three (actually four!) Persian kings named Artaxerxes, it is often difficult to know whether a tablet refers to king number I, II, or III. He claims that scholars, in trying to get the dates to tally with the traditional chronology, tend to give themselves up to circular reasoning.

This situation, though, is not as bad as Furuli paints it. This is shown in Part Three of this review, in which I discuss in detail the reign of Artaxerxes I.

Potential “sources of errors” in the Babylonian astronomical tablets:

Furuli is well aware that the most damaging evidence against his Oslo Chronology is provided by the astronomical cuneiform tablets. For this reason, it is important that he tries to weaken the reliability of these texts. Thus, on pages 29‒37, he describes nine “potential sources of error” that might undermine the trustworthiness of the astronomical tablets. Unfortunately, Furuli fails to draw a clear conclusion about these sources of error. Although it is true that errors exist with respect to various aspects of ancient tablets, Furuli fails to explain how these errors affect the accuracy of traditional Neo‒Babylonian and Persian chronology as a whole. He simply leaves the reader vaguely to conclude that, in some unspecified way, the possibility of errors invalidates the whole of the chronology. This is akin to someone stating, “Scientists make errors,” then implying but not actually stating that “all science is invalid because there are sources of error.” Thus, even diough a particular astronomical tablet might contain enough errors to be useless for chronological purposes, it does not follow that all astronomical tablets are useless.

But this is how Furuli generally argues. He uses errors in some tablets to cast aspersions on the reliability of tablets he does not like, such as VAT 4956. Inconsistendy, he uses the tablet Strm Kamlys 400 as a basis for his Oslo Chronology–obviously because the Watchtower Society uses it.

A good example of Furuliʼs false implication is his using the demonstrated errors in the ancient astronomical tablet known as the “Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa” to imply that the tablet VAT 4956 is riddled with errors. Parts of the discussion on pages 29‒37 of his book are based on an article by John D. Weir, “The Venus Tablets: A Fresh Approach,” in Journal for the Histoy of Astronomy, Vol. 13:1,1982, pp. 23‒49. What are these Venus Tablets?

The Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa

Weirʼs article discusses the well‒known and much‒discussed Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa. This tablet belongs to a particular series of some 70 tablets about celestial omens called Enuma Anu Enlil (EAE). The Venus Tablet is no. 63 in this series. It contains records of observations of the first and last visibilities of Venus made in the reign of Ammisaduqa, the penultimate king of the first dynasty of Babylon. This king probably reigned at least 1000 years before the Neo‒Babylonian era. The fragmentary copies of the Venus tablet, found in Ashurbanipal’s library in Nineveh (Kouyunjik), are very late. The earliest pieces date from the reign of Sargon II (721‒705 BCE). (H. Hunger & D. Pingree, Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia, Leiden, etc.: Brill, 1999, p. 32)

During the past hundred years, many attempts have been made to date the first dynasty of Babylon with the aid of the Venus Tablet, but no consensus has been formed. The reign of Ammisaduqa has been variously placed all the way from the late 3rd millennium down to the 7th century BCE. In 1929 and 1941, Professor Otto Neugebauer “demonstrated the impossibility of using the Venus Tablet to date the First Dynasty of Babylon.” (Hunger & Pingree, op. cit., pp. 37, 38) One reason this is impossible is that the extant copies bristle with copying errors. “The data set is the worst I ever have encountered as a statistician,” said Professor Peter Huber, explaining that “at least 20% to 40% of the dates must be grossly wrong.” (Peter Huber et al, Astronomical Dating of Pahylon I and Ur III [= Monographic Journals of the Near East, Occ. Papers 1/4], Malibu, 1982, p. 14)

Weir points to several sources of error connected with the attempts to date the fragmentary pieces of the Venus Tablet. But it would not be fair to presuppose that the same sources of error also apply to VAT 4956 and other important tablets on which the absolute chronology of the Neo‒Babylonian and

Persian eras is based. These later tablets belong to the archive of about 1300 astronomical observational texts found in the city of Babylon, texts that contain thousands of observations recorded from the period ca. 750 BCE–75 CE.

In the discussion below, the subtitles are taken from Furuli’s summary of the nine supposed “sources for potential errors” listed in his Table 1 on page 37.

12,000‒foot mountain range might preclude observations

According to Furuli, one problem for the ancient Babylonian astronomers was the mountain range to the east of Babylon:

“To the east of Babylon there is a mountain range rising to about 12,000 feet above sea level, while the area to the west of the city is a flat desert. ... it is obvious that the high mountains to the east of Babylon would prevent some observations.”(p. 29)

Furuli then quotes Weirʼs discussion of the change of the arcus visionis caused by “hills, mountains, trees and so on.” But the Zagros Mountains to the east of Babylon create no serious problems. The higher parts of the range begin about 230 kilometers east of Babylon with Kuh‒e Varvarin at about 9500 feet above sea level. Mountains “about 12,000 feet above sea level” lie considerably farther away. Due to the distance and the curvature of the earth, they are not visible from Babylon, at least not from the ground, as can be testified by anyone who has been there. Professor Flermann Plunger, for example, says:

“I have been there [in Iraq], three years, of which two months were spent in Babylon. There are no mountains visible from Babylon.”(Communication Hunger to Jonsson dated December 4, 2003)

It is possible, of course, that an observer atop the 90‒meter‒high Etemenanki ziggurat in Babylon (if the observations could have been made from there) could have seen a very thin, irregular line of mountains far to the east, although this, too, is doubtful. This might have affected the arcus risionis to some degree (the smallest angular distance of the sun below the horizon at the first or last visibility of a heavenly body above the horizon), which in turn could have changed the date of tire first and last visibility of a heavenly body by a day or two. Parker and Dubberstein were well aware of this uncertainty, stating that “it is possible that a certain number of dates in our tables may be wrong by one day, but as they are purely for historicalpurposes, this uncertainty is unimportant” (PD, p. 25; emphasis added) PDʼs tables were based on Schochʼs calculated values for the arcus risionis which, by an examination of 100 Venus observations dating from 462 to 74 BCE, Professor Peter Huber found to be “surprisingly accurate.” (Weir, op. cit., pp. 25, 29)

Furthermore, this is a problem with astronomical texts that report only phenomena close to the horizon, as does the Venus Tablet. (Weir, pp. 25‒47) Observations of lunar and planetary positions related to specific stars and constellations would not be affected. And it is these observations, which are usually higher in the sky and not in the horizon, that are the most useful for chronological purposes. As noted in GTR⁴, ch. 4, A‒1, the astronomical tablet VAT 4956 records about 30 such lunar and planetary positions, dated to various days and months in the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar, thus fixing that year as 568/67 BCE with absolute certainty.

Another problem Furuli mentions is related to the place of observation. He states that it “is assumed that the observations ... were made in Babylon; if they were made in another locality this may influence the interpretation of the observations.” (p. 32) He then quotes from Weirʼs discussion of the observations on the Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa, which according to his calculations might have been made at “a latitude of 1 ½ degree north of Babylon.” This would be about 170 kilometers north of Babylon.

Again, this problem applies to the Venus Tablet, the fragmentary copies of which were found in the rums of Nineveh, but it does not apply to the archive of ca.1300 astronomical observational texts found in the city of Babylon. As shown by modern calculations, these observations must have been made in, or in the near vicinity of, Babylon. (Cf. Professor A. Aaboe, “Babylonian Mathematics, Astrology, and Astronomy,” The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. III:2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 276‒292)

The crudeness of observations: Each zodiacal sign covers 30 degrees

On page 32 Furuli mentions another potential source of error:

“One problem is the crudeness of the observations. Because the tablets probably were made for astrological reasons, it was enough to know the zodiacal sign in which the moon or a certain planet was found at a particular point of time. This does not give particularly accurate observations.”

By this statement Furuli creates a false impression that the lunar and planetary positions recorded on the Babylonian astronomical tablets are given only in relation to zodiacal signs of 30 degrees each. He supports this by quoting a scholar, Curtis Wilson, who in a review of a book by R. R. Newton made such a claim, stating that, “The position of the planet is specified only within an interval of 30°.” (C. Wilson in Journal of the History of Astronomy 15:1, 1984, p. 40)

Wilson further claims that this was the reason why Ptolemy, “when in need of earlier observations of these planets turns not to Babylonian observations but to those of the Alexandrians of the third century B.C., which give the planets’ positions in relation to stars.” (C. Wilson, “The Sources of Ptolemy’s Parameters,” Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. 15:1, 1984, pp. 40, 41)

But anyone with even a cursory acquaintance with the Babylonian astronomical tablets knows that Wilsonʼ claim–repeated by Furuli–is false. Although it is true that many positions recorded on the tablets are given with reference to constellations along the zodiacal belt, the great majority of the positions, even in the earliest diaries, are given with reference to stars or planets. The division of the zodiacal belt into signs of 30 degrees each took place later, during the Persian era, and it is not until “toward the end of the 3rd century B.C.” that “diaries begin to record the dates when a planet moved from one zodiacal sign to another.” (H. Hunger in N. M. Swerdlow [ed.], Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination, Eondon: The MIT Press, 1999, p. 77. Cf. B. L.

Van der Waerden, “History of the Zodiak,” Archiv fur Orientforschung 16, 1952/1953, pp. 216‒230) During the entire 800‒year period from ca. 750 BCE to ca. 75 CE, the Babylonian astronomers used a number of stars close to the ecliptic as reference points. As Professor Hermann Hunger explains in a work also used by Furuli:

“In order to give the position of the moon and the planets a number of stars close to the ecliptic are used for reference. These have been called ‘Normalsterneʼ[Normal Stars] by Epping, and the term has remained in use ever since.”(H. Hunger in ADT, Vol. I, p. 17; emphasis added)

On pages 17‒19, Plunger lists 32 such normal stars known from the tablets. Noel Swerdlow states: “By far the most numerous observations of planets in the Diaries are of their distances ‘aboveʼ or ‘belowʼ and ‘in front ofʼ or ‘behindʼ normal stars and each other, measured in cubits and fingers.” (N. M. Swerdlow, The Babylonian Theory of the Planets, Princeton, New Jersey, 1998, p. 39)

Such detailed observations are shown by VAT 4956, in which about two‒thirds of the lunar and planetary positions recorded are given in relation to normal stars and planets. And, in contrast to positions related to constellations, where the moon or a planet usually is just said to be “in front of,” “behind,” “above,” “below,” or “in” a certain constellation, the records of positions related to normal stars also give the distances to these stars in “cubits” (ca. 2–2.5 degrees) and “fingers” (1/24 of the cubit), as Swerdlow points out. Although the measurements are demonstrably not mathematically exact, they are considerably more precise than positions related only to constellations. As Swerdlow suggests, the measurements “may have been made with something as simple as a graduated rod held at arm’s length.” (Swerdlow, op. cit. p. 40)

By parsing all the astronomical diaries in the first two volumes of Sachs/Hungerʼs ADT, Professor Gerd Grasshoff “obtained descriptions of 3285 events, of which 2781 are complete without unreadable words or broken plates. Out of those are 1882 topographical events [i.e., positions related to stars and planets], 604 are lunar observations called Tunar Six ... and 295 are locations of a celestial object in a constellation.” (Gerd Grasshoff, “Normal Stars in Late Astronomical Babylonian Diaries,” in Noel M. Swerdlow [ed.], Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination, London: The MIT Press, 1999, p. 107) Thus, two‒diirds of the positions are related to stars or planets, whereas only about 10 percent are related to constellations.

In further support of his claim about the “crudeness of the observations” recorded on the Babylonian tablets, Furuli gives a lengthy quotation from B. L. van der Waerden. Unfortunately, Furuli has grossly misinterpreted van der Waerden’s statements.

Van der Warden is discussing, not the crudeness of the observations, as Furuli claims, but the crudeness of the calculations that the Babylonian astrologers performed for the position of the moon at a point of time when the zodiacal sign in which the moon stood could not be determined by observation, either because of bad weather or because it was in daytime, when the stars are not seen. These calculated positions had to be deduced from observed lunar positions near such a point of time. The observation that van der Waerden quotes from VAT 4956 to show what was required for such calculations is exactly a lunar position related to a normal star, not just to a zodiacal sign:

“At the beginning of the night of the 5^th the moon overtook by 1 cubit eastwards the northern star at the foot of the Lion [= Beta Virginis].”(B. L. van der Waerden, Science Awakening II, 1974, p. 185)

Furuli, then, has totally misunderstood van der Waerden’s discussion, because (1) he is speaking about the crudeness of (astrological) calculations, not about observations, and (2) the kind of observations needed for such calculations (which he shows by reference to VAT 4956) is detailed because the lunar position is given in relation to a star, with both distance and direction specified. Although van der Waerden’s example happens to contain a scribal error (see below under I‒B‒4), the information given is definitely not crude. It is specific and precise.

The writing of the original tablet on the basis of observational notes

A further source of error, according to Furuli, is “the process of writing down the data.” His discussion of this focuses on the astronomical tablet VAT 4956, the “diary” dated to the 37th year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Furuli explains:

“The tablet itself is a copy made a long time after the original was made, but even the original was not made at the time the observations were made. The tablet covers a whole year, and because clay hardly can be kept moist for 12 months, the observations must have been written down on quite a lot of smaller tablets, which were copied when the original was made.”(pp. 30, 31)

Furuli describes the procedure correctly, and it is well known to Assyriologists. But Furuli adds in parentheses, “(provided that the data were not later calculated and there never was an ‘original tabletʼ.)” This theory–that Babylonian scholars at a later time calculated the information recorded on the astronomical diary VAT 4956 and dated it to the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar–is false because many of the phenomena reported on the tablet were impossible to retrocalculate.

Because Furuli repeats and elaborates this theory in Chapter 2, I will refute his claims in connection with my comments on that chapter. It is sufficient to point out that scholars agree that VAT 4956 is a faithful copy of the original, which is proven by modern computations of the positions recorded on the tablet. The copying errors are few and trivial, as pointed out in GTR⁴, ch. 4, A‒1. (See further below under I‒B‒4.)

I am aware of only one scholar who has tried to overcome the evidence provided by VAT 4956, namely, E. W. Faulstich, founder and director of the Chronology‒History Research Institute in Spencer, Iowa, USA. Faulstich believes it is possible to establish an absolute Bible chronology without the aid of extra‒Biblical sources, based solely on the cyclical phenomena of the Mosaic law (sabbath days, sabbath and jubilee years) and the cycle of the 24 sections of the levitical priesthood. One consequence of his theory is that the whole Neo‒Babylonian period has to be moved backward one year. Because this conflicts with the absolute dating of the period based on the astronomical tablets, Faulstich argues that VAT 4956 contains information from two separate years mixed into one. This idea, however, is based on serious mistakes. I have thoroughly refuted Faulstich’s thesis in the unpublished article, “A critique of E.W. Faulstich’s Neo‒Babylonian chronology” (1999), available from me upon request.

The copying and redaction of the original tablet

This “source of error” is related to the previous one. As Furuli points out, VAT 4956 is a later copy in which the copyist tried to modernize the archaic terminology of the original tablet. This procedure, Furuli states, “may very well cause errors.”

Copying errors do exist, but they usually create few problems in tablets that are fairly well preserved and detailed enough to be useful for chronological purposes. As discussed in GTR⁴, ch. 4, A‒1, the dated lunar and planetary positions recorded in VAT 4956 evidently contain a couple of scribal errors. These errors, however, are minor and easily detected by modern computations based on the recorded observations.

Thus, on the obverse (front) side, line 3 has day 9, which P.V. Neugebauer and E. F. Weidner pointed out in 1915 is a scribal error for day 8. Similarly, obverse, line 14 (the line quoted by van der Waerden above), has day 5, which is obviously an error for day 4. The remaining legible records of observed lunar and planetary positions, about 30, are correct, as is demonstrated by modern calculations. In their recent examination of VAT 4956, Professor F. R. Stephenson and Dr. D. M. Willis conclude:

“The observations analyzed here are sufficiently diverse and accurate to enable the accepted date of the tablet–i.e. 568‒567 B.C.– to be confidently confirmed” (F. R. Stephenson & D. M. Willis in J. M. Steele & A. Imhausen (eds.), Under One Sky. Astronomy and Mathematics in the Ancient Near East, Munster: Ugarit‒Verlag, 2002, pp. 423‒428; emphasis added)

Unknown length of the month–29 or 30 days

The next source of error in Furuli’s list is “the unknown length of the month” in the Babylonian calendar:

“In some instances we do know which months of a particular year in the reign of a particular king had 30 and which had 29 days, in most cases we do not know this. ... our Babylonian calculation can be up to one day wrong according to the Julian calendar.” (p. 33)

As I pointed out earlier under I‒B‒1, this is unimportant for chronological purposes. Parker and Dubberstein were there quoted as stating that “it is possible that a certain number of dates in our tables may be wrong by one day, but as they are purely for historical purposes, this uncertainly is unimportant.” (PD, p. 25)

Often, when there is an uncertainty of one day, the corresponding Julian day for a dated Babylonian position of the moon or an inner planet can be determined exactly by modern computations. This is particularly true of the moon because it moves 13 degrees a day along the ecliptic, which means that its position in the sky changes considerably in one day.

Further, as Professor Peter Huber points out, “the Late Babylonian astronomical texts consistently indicate the month‒length by stating whether the moon became visible on ‘day 30ʼ or on ‘day 1ʼ.” This practice of indicating whether the previous month had 30 or 29 days is also consistently used in VAT 4956. (P. J. Huber et al, Astronomical Dating of Babylon I and Ur III. Monographic Journals of the Near East. Occasional Papers 1/4, June 1982, p. 7)

Contradicting Furuli’s claim, Gerd Grasshoff, after his careful analysis of the 2781 well‒preserved observation reports in the diaries published in ADT, Vols. I and II (see above under I‒B‒2), concluded:

“After having completed the successful interpretation of the observation reports, the analysis shows that 90° o of the beginnings of the months are correctly predicted with an arcus risionis model, the rest differs only by one day.”(G. Grasshoff, op. cit., p. 109)

A shift in the speed of the earth’s rotation

Another source of error, according to Furuli, is the gradual change in the speed of the earth’s rotation. On page 33, he again quotes from Weirʼs article about the Old Babylonian Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa. Weir, in turn, quotes Huber, who explains that extrapolating the known rotation rates from the Neo‒Babylonian period to the present, back to the preceding 1000‒year period, is “beyond safe ground.”

But Furuli’s quotation is irrelevant because Weir and Huber are discussing the 1000‒year period that preceded Neo‒Babylonian times. Weir and Huber both know that the change in the speed of the earth’s rotation has been established back to, and even somewhat beyond, the Neo‒Babylonian period. This deviation (called Delta‒T) has been known for a long time, although the value has been gradually refined. The best and most up‒to‒date examination of the deviation, based on hundreds of dated observations of lunar eclipses all the way back to the 8th century BCE, is that of Professor F. Richard Stephenson in Mistorical Eclipses and Earth’s Potation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). (See also GTR⁴, appendix for chapter 4, section 2.)

The rate of increase of the length of a day due to slowing down of the earth’s rotation, back to the 8th century BCE, has been fixed at an average of 1.7 milliseconds per century (1.7 ms/c; Stephenson, op cit. pp. 513, 514; cf. New Scientist, 30 January 1999, pp. 30‒33). For this period, therefore, we are on “safe ground.” Furuli can hardly be unaware of this. Today, the gradual change in the rate of the earth’s rotation is definitely not a significant source of error when using astronomical tablets from the Neo‒Babylonian and Persian eras to calculate the chronology of these periods.

The interpolation of intercalary months to compensate for the difference between the solar and the lunar year

Arguing that the interpolation of intercalary months in the Babylonian luni‒solar calendar might be another potential source of error, Furuli (p. 34) quotes Drs. Ben Zion Wacholder and David B. Weisberg, who say:

“As Professor Abraham Sachs pointed out in a communication to us, some of the readings of the intercalary months recorded in Parker and Dubberstein’s tables may not be quite reliable, while a handful are admittedly hypothetical. But even assuming the essential correctness of Parker and Dubberstein’s tables, Professor Sachs maintains, the supposition of a 19‒year cycle prior to 386 B.C.E. may be reading into the evidence something which possibly is not there.” (Ben Zion Wacholder, Essay on Jewish Chronology and Chronography, New York, 1976, p. 67)

Nothing in this statement is not also admitted by Parker and Dubberstein, as can be seen in Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.–A.D. 75 (1956), pp. 1‒9. As Wacholder and Weisberg further demonstrate in their work, the development of the 19‒year standard scheme of intercalary months was a gradual process begun in the 7th century. The final stage took place in the 5th and early 4th centuries, when the seven intercalary months of the 19‒year cycle were fixed in years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14,17, and 19. This process is also clear in PD.

Furuli concludes: “This means that calculations based on the Julian calendar can be wrong as much as 44 days or even more if the intercalary months were not added regularly.” (p. 35) This conclusion is based on the unlikely supposition that sometimes four years could pass before an intercalary montli was added. But the weight of evidence, based on the economic and the astronomical texts, shows that this never happened after 564 BCE. (See the updated tables of documented intercalary months presented by Professor John P. Britton in J. M. Steele & A. Imhausen (eds.), Under One Sky, Munster: Ugarit‒Verlag, 2002, pp. 34‒35.)

On page 35, Furuli again uses Weir’s discussion of the Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa, this time as a basis for his claim that “a ‘best fit’ scheme is accepted.” This is undoubtedly true of scholars who have used the Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa in their attempts to date the Hammurapi dynasty, but to imply that such a best fit scheme is also used to fix the absolute chronology‒ of the Neo‒Babylonian and Persian periods by means of VAT 4956 and other‒ astronomical tablets–as if this were a last resort–is dishonest because it is simply not true.

Different calendars used at different times

Furuli notes that different calendars were used in antiquity by different peoples at different times. This, of course, is true. But because the use of the Babylonian luni‒solar calendar in the Neo‒Babylonian and Persian eras is well known, it is difficult to see how these other calendars can be “sources of potential error” in the examination of the Babylonian astronomical tablets. Furuli’s argument is a straw man.

Furuli mentions that the Egyptians “may have used two calendars” and states that this might be a problem in “connection with the Aramaic Elephantine Papyri.” (p. 36) These papyri are not astronomical texts. But, interestingly, some of them are double‒dated in the sense that dates are given both in the Babylonian calendar and the Egyptian civil calendar. Because these texts are dated to the reigns of Persian kings in the 5th century BCE, they are useful to determine the chronology of the period and are discussed in a later part of this review.

The human factor–and modern researchers

Furuli mentions “the human factor” that might cause “the misreading of a tablet due to lack of capacity.” (p. 37) This is clearly a potential source of error. Many odd dates found in works about the tablets published during the past 120 years are due to this factor. It is important, therefore, when such odd dates are encountered in modern works, to have the original tablet collated afresh. Strangely, Furuli uses many such dates uncritically and without collation. Some examples of this have already been given above under I‒A‒2 and others are presented in later parts of this review.

Chapter II ‒”The Litmus Test of the Absolute Chronology”

Using astronomical tablets for establishing absolute dates

In this chapter, Furuli discusses using astronomical tablets to establish an absolute chronology. In view of the varied quality⁷ and state of preservation of the Babylonian astronomical tablets, not all are usable for chronological purposes. Accordingly, Furuli states that each tablet must meet “two fundamental requirements.” What are they?

Furuli’s criteria for the chronological use of astronomical tablets

The first requirement is the following:

“A. The positions of the heavenly bodies must be observed by the eye of a scribe and written down at the same time; and they must not only represent backward calculations made at a much later time.”

This criterion is quite in order. The value of the next requirement, however, is dubious:

“B. The name of the ruling king must have been written on the tablet at the time when the observations were made.”

One problem with this criterion is that it is unrealistic. Furuli admits that:

“because clay hardly can be kept moist for 12 months, the observations must have been written down on quite a lot of smaller tablets, which were copied when the original was made.” (p. 30)

Modern scholars who take notes on paper face a similar task of collating their notes. Suppose a scholar is reviewing a book, and on page one of his notes he records the name of the book. Then he scribbles various comments on items of interest. The notes run to many pages, but he does not record the title of the book on every page. When he is finished reading, perhaps months later, he collates and condenses the scribbled notes and writes a neat summary. Does the fact that he failed to write the book’s title on every single page of the notes invalidate the summary? Of course not. In like manner, if the name of a ruling king is not written down on “smaller tablets, which were copied when the original was made,” it certainly does not invalidate the observations transferred to the final tablet, which is subsequently viewed as the original. Furuli’s criterion B, then, is absurd.

It is transparently obvious that Furuli invented criterion B to disqualify tablets that could otherwise be used to invalidate his Oslo Chronology. Usually, the royal name is given only at the beginning of each tablet. But if a tablet is damaged and the beginning part is missing, the date connected with each observation recorded is given as the regnal year, the month, the day, and perhaps the part of the night, with no royal name. However, the observations might well be so detailed that the observed events can still be identified and dated to particular Julian years. This is often enough to identify the ruler, even if his name is missing. A couple of examples serve to illustrate this.

The planetary tablets No. 54 and No. 56

Two tablets that do not meet Furuli’s second requirement (B) are LBAT 1393 and LBAT 1387+1486+1388, published as Nos. 54 and 56 in Hunger’s ADT, Vol. V. Both are planetary texts that unequivocally overthrow Furuli’s alternative reigns for Darius I and Artaxerxes I. Furuli gratuitously dismisses both tablets (pp. 37, 118, 211, and 227) for erroneous, specious, and illusory reasons. I examine his statements in detail later in this review.

Text No. 54 records observations of Jupiter dated to several regnal years of a king whose name is not preserved. The preserved regnal year numbers are 23 on the obverse side and 8, 19, 20, 31, and 32 on the reverse side. The ruler whose reign is treated on the reverse side must have had a long reign because the last preserved regnal year is 32. The observations recorded for these five years can be safely dated to years 514, 503, 502, 491, and 490 BCE. The observations on the obverse side dated to year 23, however, are too badly damaged to be usable.

The second text, No. 56, records about 80 preserved positions of Venus, half of which are related to Normal Stars. The data are arranged in 8‒year‒ groups and 8 columns. The positions are dated to about 20 different regnal years (most of them fully legible or identifiable as part of the overall arrangement) that can be fixed to specific Julian years within the 70‒year period from 463/2 to 393/2 BCE. The first king in this period must have had a very long reign because the highest preserved regnal year for him is 39. The observations recorded for this year can be dated to 426/5 BCE. The reason the royal names are missing in both texts is that these parts of the tablets are broken.

How tablets 54 and 56 make mincemeat of Furuli’s Persian chronology

All Julian dates pointed to by tablets 54 and 56 fall within the reigns of Darius I, Artaxerxes I, Darius II, and Artaxerxes II, not only according to the traditional chronology but also according to Furuli’s Oslo Chronology. These tablets, therefore, can be used to challenge his alternative chronology for these reigns. It turns out that Furuli’s attempts to push the reign of Darius I one year forward and the reign of Artaxerxes I 10 years backward are effectively blocked by these two tablets. The Jupiter observations dated in year 32, for example, clearly belong to year 490 BCE, not year 489 as required by Furuli’s revised chronology. In fact, none of the observations dated to specific months and days in the Babylonian luni‒solar calendar can be moved forward or backward in the way Furuli’s revisions require.

Jupiter’s period of revolution is close to 12 years, which means that on average its position among the stars changes about 30 degrees a year. However, the apparent movement among the stars displays stationary points and even reversals of motion. Tablet 54 illustrates this by saying that in year 31, month VI, on day 28, Jupiter “became stationary in [the constellation of] Gemini.” This was exactly the position it held on October 4, 491 BCE, so this date corresponds to day 28 of month VI in the Babylonian calendar. A year later, Jupiter had moved about 30 degrees to a new position between the constellations Teo and Cancer. The recorded position, then, does not allow the 31st year of Darius I to be moved one year forward. The Jupiter phenomena do not repeat themselves at the same date within the lunar month for another 71 years, the fact of which the Babylonian astronomers were fully aware. Therefore, tablet 54 cannot be assigned to any reign other than that of Darius I. The Jupiter positions in tablet 54 dated to the other four regnal years just as inexorably block any attempt to change the absolute chronology established for Darius’ 36‒year reign.

Venus, with a period of revolution of only 224.7 days, returns to its position in relation to various stars and constellations in less than a year. However, it does not return to the same position at the same time of the year–not after one year or after 10 years. Such returns occur at 8‒year intervals, after 13 revolutions (8x365.2422 = 13x224.7). The observations on tablet 56, then, which are dated to specific regnal years, months and days, cannot be fitted into a chronology for the reign of Artaxerxes I that is moved 10 years backward.

It might be argued that the observations on the two tablets could belong to kings whose reigns fell in entirely different centuries. But such alternatives are limited to kings whose reigns lasted at least 32 years (the highest preserved regnal year in the Jupiter text No. 54) and 39 years (the highest preserved regnal year in the Venus text No. 56).

Within the period to which all extant Babylonian observational astronomical cuneiform texts belong (except for the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa)–i.e., from the middle of the 8th century BCE to the 1st century CE–only five kings are known to have ruled that long or longer: the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (42 years), the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (43 years), and the Persian kings Darius I (36 years), Artaxerxes I (41 years), and Artaxerxes II (46 years). Another possibility is that the regnal years could refer to years in the Seleucid era (counted from 312/11 BCE).

By using a modern astro‒program (Chris Marriott’s SkyMap Pro 10), I have checked all the alternatives to the reigns of Darius I and Artaxerxes I–and also the alternative chronologies for these reigns suggested by Furuli’s Oslo Chronology–and found them all to be impossible. The planetary observations combined with the regnal years and the dates in the Babylonian luni‒solar calendar fit only the traditional chronologies established for the reigns of Darius I and Artaxerxes I.

Attempts to invalidate tablets 54 and 56

Tablets 54 and 56 do not meet Furuli’s second requirement (B), but he attempts to undermine the strength of their evidence in other ways.

On page 37, Furuli refers to tablet No. 54 (LBAT 1393) and states that there “may be different factors, which contribute to the misreading of a tablet due to lack of capacity.” He quotes a statement about tablet 54 by Plunger:

“The following reconstruction of the tablet was proposed by C.B.F. Walker, who notes that any discrepancies between the years attested on this tablet and the dates reported by A. Sachs in LBAT, p. xxix are to be explained by the fact that the tablet was not baked and cleaned until 1978.” (ADT, Vol. V, p. 158)

Isolated from context, this seems to indicate that the translation of the tablet was a mere proposed reconstruction and that it might have been misread “due to lack of capacity.” This seeming indication is wrong.

Walker’s reconstruction is not an attempted translation of the preserved part of the tablet. It is a suggested reconstruction of the chronological scheme of the original, undamaged tablet, which might have covered all the 48 regnal years from 536/5 to 489/8 BCE arranged as a series of 12‒year cycles. The reconstruction is shown in a table on page 159 of ADT V. The actual transliteration and translation of the tablet, with its preserved dates, observations, etc., follows on pages 160‒165, after the table.

The regnal years that Sachs had read on the tablet (LBAT, 1955, p. xxix) before it was baked and cleaned in 1978 were not misreadings that conflict with the dates read after the cleaning. The “discrepancies” referred to are additional dates that became legible after the cleaning, dates that increase the chronological value of the tablet. The way Furuli refers to this tablet is thoroughly misleading.

Furuli mentions tablet No. 56 in three places in his book, on pages 118, 211, and 227. One reason for this spread seems to be that the tablet consists of three pieces, LBAT 1387, 1388, and 1486 (also listed by Hunger as A, B, and C), which Furuli tends to deal with separately and in different places in his book. The first two pieces (A + B) contain much information, so much in fact, that Hunger’s translation of them covers 10 large pages in ADT, Vol. V. Almost all the observations preserved on the two pieces are dated to various regnal years of Artaxerxes I, the only exception being one dated to year 6 of his successor, Darius II. Piece C, on the other hand, is a very small fragment, and Hunger’s translation of it covers only half a page. No regnal year numbers are preserved on it. Hunger writes (ADT, p. 172) that the observations recorded on it probably refer to years 5 and 12 of Artaxerxes II (400 and 393 BCE).

Furuli focuses exclusively on piece C in his description of tablet 56 on page 211, implying that Hunger’s description of this little fragment applies to the whole text:

“The planetary text consisting of the three pieces LBAT 1387, 1486 and *1388 is supposed to list Venus data between ‒462/61 and ‒392/91. This text is quite fragmentary. One scholar made this comment: ‘of C, the obverse probably refers to Artaxerxes II year 5, the reverse to year 12. The astronomical information preserved fits this date, especially a close encounter of Venus and a Leonis in month III of Art II year 5.ʼ

These words are rather cautious, indicated by the adverb ‘probably.’ As a matter of fact, neither Venus nor any other planet is mentioned on C, Obv. and Rev. An interpreter may feel there are clues for identifying Venus, but none are mentioned. So there are problems with this text in connection with the making of an absolute chronology.”

Furuli does not talk about the extensive information in pieces A and B, leaving the reader with the impression that the entire Venus tablet is as fragmentary and problematic as piece C. In a discussion on page 118, he makes some comments about piece A (1387) but these, too, are aimed at undermining the strength of the text. He erroneously claims that on this tablet “years 15, 27, 35 are clearly visible, but no other years,” whereas in fact eight regnal years are visible on the text, namely, years 7, 15, 23, 27, 31, 35, 39 (of Artaxerxes I), and year 6 (of his successor Darius II). For example, Furuli points out that in T. G. Pinches’ copy of the tablet published by Sachs in 1955, “the number ‘7’ is shaded and not clearly seen.” But as Sachs explains (LBAT, p. vii), Pinches copied from tablets that usually had not been oven‒fired, and that “it is to be expected that improved readings will result from oven firing.” Hunger’s translation indicates that number 7 is now clearly seen on the tablet, which may be a result of this. The observations recorded for year 7 in months I, II, III, IV, V, and AT all fit the 7th year of Artaxerxes I, 458 BCE. Further, Furuli fails to mention that number 7 is required by the arrangement of the data in 8‒year‒groups. It is followed horizontally in the next columns by year numbers 15, 23, 31, 39, and year 6. The 8‒year intervals, of course, refer to the periodicity of Venus positions.

About the same number of years (in the reign of Artaxerxes I) paired at 8‒year intervals are visible in piece B (1388)–years 4, 5, 12, 13, 20, 21, 28 and 2 [9]. On page 227, Furuli says that piece B is in conflict with the Oslo Chronology, but his only explanation is that “the regnal years written by the scribe need not be correct.” This desperate theory is discussed in section II‒C below.

Tablets 54 and 56 are disastrous for Furuli’s revised Persian chronology, and he knows it. That is why he wants to get rid of them by every possible expedient. And that is also why he wants to undermine the trustworthiness of the astronomical tablets in general by indicating that they probably mainly contain calculations, not actual observations.

Are most astronomical positions calculated rather than observed?

The “most acute problem for making an absolute chronology based on astronomical tablets,” Furuli claims, is that many, “perhaps most positions of the heavenly bodies on such tablets, are calculated rather than observed.” (p 15)

Is it possible that the Babylonian astronomers could retrocalculate all or most of the phenomena recorded on astronomical tablets? Are there indications in the recorded data that they did just that?

As discussed in GTR⁴, Ch. 4, Babylonian astronomers recognized the various cycles of the sun, the moon, and the five planets visible to the naked eye. It is clear that at an early stage they were able to predict or retrocalculate certain phenomena, such as the occurrences of lunar eclipses and certain planetary positions. Does this mean, then, that all or most of the phenomena recorded on the astronomical tablets might have been computed rather than observed, as Furuli claims?

Phenomena that Babylonian astronomers were able to calculate

In support of the idea that most of the recorded positions of the heavenly bodies on the astronomical tablets might have been calculated rather than observed, Furuli presents on page 39 three isolated quotations. All but the first of the references and footnotes are confused, incomplete, or wrong.

The first quotation, taken from Bertel L. van der Waerden’s work, Science Awakening (Vol. II, 1974, pp. 281, 282), deals with the ability of the Babylonian astronomers to calculate the time that a planet entered a certain zodiacal sign or the position it held when it could not be observed because of clouds or because it was too near to the sun. These calculations presuppose that Babylonian astronomers had worked out theories for dating and locating certain recurring planetary phenomena and had tables at hand that listed planetary positions at regular intervals. Such lists, which were termed “ephemerides” by Professor Otto Neugebauer, are called “cardinal tables” by van der Waerden. All extant tables of this kind are late, almost all dating from the 3rd to the 1st centuries BCE.

The next quotation, erroneously ascribed to van der Waerden, is actually from Otto Neugebauer’s three‒volume work, Astronomical Cuneiform Texts (1955, Vol. II, p. 281). Neugebauer’s work does not deal with the observational tablets but is exclusively devoted to the arithmetical astronomical texts (mainly the tables of ephemerides mentioned above) from the last few centuries BCE. It is in his discussion of such texts that Neugebauer points to “the minute role played by direct observation in the computation of the ephemerides,” a statement that Furuli greatly stresses by repeating it in extra bold type in a box on the page. What does Neugebauer really mean?

To be able to work out theories about the regular occurrence of planetary phenomena, the Babylonians needed numerous observations of the planets over long periods. Such observations were provided by the astronomical archives available since the middle of the 8th century BCE. When planetary theories were finally worked out, planetary tables could be used for calculating planetary positions when direct observations were not possible. Astronomical observational tablets, therefore, such as diaries and planetary texts, contain observations as well as occasional calculations. This is pointed out by van der Waerden in Furuli’s 3rd quotation.

In this quotation, van der Waerden speaks of the difficulty of deciding “whether text data were observed or calculated.” Furuli does not explain that van der Waerden is discussing a text that Furuli, on page 128, claims to be “the tablet which is most important for Persian chronology, Strm Kambys 400T Van der Waerden’s statement is particularly applicable to this text, which seems to contain mainly calculations. Some scholars even question whether it records any observations.

It is clear that Babylonian astronomers could calculate a number of astronomical phenomena. At an early stage, they were using the Saros cycle for‒calculating and predicting the occurrences of lunar eclipses. As shown by the later ephemeride tables, they also learned how to calculate and predict the occurrences of certain periodic planetary phenomena such as first and last visibilities, stationary points, and retrogradations. But does this mean drat they were able to calculate or predict all the different astronomical phenomena reported on the observational tablets?

Phenomena the Babylonian astronomers were unable to calculate

Although the Babylonian astronomers were able to calculate and predict certain astronomical events, the observational texts–diaries, planetary texts, and eclipse texts–contain reports of several phenomena and circumstances connected with the observations that could not have been calculated.

That the diaries usually record real observations is shown by their reports of climatological phenomena. For example, the scribes repeatedly report when bad weather prevented astronomical observations. We often find reports about “clouds and rain of various sorts, described in detail by numerous technical terms, as well as fog, mist, hail, thunder, lightning, winds from all directions, often cold, and frequent ‘pisan dib’, of unknown meaning but always associated with rain.” (Professor N. M. Swerdlow, The Babylonian Theory of the Planets, Princeton University Press, 1998, p. 18) Other recorded phenomena were rainbows, solar halos and river levels. None of these could have been retrocalculated much later. What, then, about the astronomical phenomena?

Discussing the various planetary phenomena recorded in the texts, Swerdlow observes:

“Conjunctions of planets with the moon and other planets, with their distances, could neither be calculated by the ephemerides nor predicted by periodicities.” (Swerdlow, op. cit., p. 23)

Swerdlow further explains:

“The distances of planets from normal stars could be predicted,” but “there was no way of predicting distances of the moon from planets or of planets from each other.” (ibid., p. 173)

Note that VAT 4956 records a number of such–for the Babylonian astronomers– unpredictable and incalculable phenomena.

What about the lunar eclipse reports? Could they have been computed at a later date? In referring to the 18‒year texts (the “Saros cycle texts”), Furuli uses the term “Saros tablets,” but he does not make it clear whether he is referring to all extant 18‒year tablets (about a dozen) or to a particular group of such texts. On page 40, he mentions two sets of tablets that use the 18‒year Saros scheme. The first, he says, covers the period from 747 to 315 BCE. His footnote 51 shows that the set consists of lunar eclipse tablets LBAT 1413–1417 and 1419 (= Nos. 1‒4 in Hunger, ADT, Vol. V). The other “set” he mentions is actually just one tablet that scholars generally refer to as the “Saros Tablet,” BM 34576 (= No. 34 in ADT, Vol. V). It covers the 468‒year period from 567 to 99 BCE.

But Furuli does not explain that the first of his Evo “sets” is a series of observational texts that record both observed and predicted lunar eclipses at 18‒ year intervals, whereas the Saros Tablet belongs to a small group of five theoretical texts that do not record any lunar eclipse observations at 18‒year intervals but contain only tables of royal names and dates at 18‒year intervals. (See John M. Steele in ADT, Vol. V, pp. 390‒393.) The Saros Tablet does show some traces of a possible eclipse report, but this appears at the bottom of the reverse side after the 18‒year table. It is written at right angles to the main text and is clearly separated from it.

Despite this basic difference between the observational and theoretical 18‒year tablets, Furuli seems to regard all of them as “hypothetical tablets,” which is incorrect. In addition, his use of the plural term “Saros tablets” is confusing, as he does not clearly explain which 18‒year texts he is referring to apart from the Saros Tablet, BM 34576.

With respect to the eclipse observations reported on the lunar eclipse tablets, including the Saros cycle tablets (discussed in GTR⁴, Ch. 4, C), the Babylonian astronomers were certainly able to predict and retrocalculate the occurrences of lunar eclipses, but they were unable to predict or calculate a number of important details about them. This is discussed by Dr. John M. Steele in his work, Observations and Predictions of Eclipse Times by Early Astronomers (Dordrecht, Boston, and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000) and in the article, “Eclipse Prediction in Mesopotamia.” (Archive for History of Exact Sciences, Vol. 54, 2000, pp. 421‒454)

Commenting on the claim that the eclipse records on the lunar eclipse tablets might be retrocalculations by Babylonian astronomers in the Seleucid era, Steele explains:

”You were absolutely right when you argued that the Babylonians could not have retrocalculated the early eclipse records. The Saros cycle could have been used to determine the date of eclipses, even centuries earlier, but none of the Babylonian methods could have allowed them to calculate circumstances such as the direction of the eclipse shadow, the visibility of planets during the eclipse, and certainly not the direction of the wind during the eclipse, which we find in early reports (e.g. Text No 3 in Hunger’s latest book states that the eclipse shadow crossed the moon’s surface in a southerly direction during the eclipse in Bel‒ibni’s 1^st year [Obv, I, 2‒5], and Obv II, 1‒7 says that the west wind blew during the eclipse of BC 686 Oct 15). Although the Babylonians could calculate the time of the eclipses, they could not do so to the same level of accuracy as they could observe–there is a clear difference of accuracy between eclipses they said were observed and those they say were predicted (this is discussed in my book), which proves that the ‘observed’ eclipses really were observed.

It is true that the Saros Canon texts published most recently by Aaboe et al in 1991 are retrocalculated–but they are theoretical texts and should be considered separately from the observational material of the Diaries and the eclipse texts in Hunger’s book. The observational material alone is enough to confirm Parker & Dubberstein’s chronology, with only very minor, and non‒cumulative, corrections.” (Communication Steele to Jonsson, March 27, 2003)

Although the observational texts, due to particular circumstances such as bad weather, occasionally contain calculated events, most of the entries are demonstrably based on actual observations. That this is the case with the Diaries is directly indicated by the Akkadian name engraved at the end and on the edges of these tablets: natsaru sha ginê, which means “regular watching.” (Sachs/Hunger, ADT, Vol. I, p. 11)

Scholars who have examined these tablets in detail agree that they contain mostly genuine observations. Professor Hermann Hunger gives the following description of the various kinds of astronomical data recorded in the Diaries:

“Lunar Six [i.e., the time differences between the settings and risings of the sun and the moon just before and after opposition]; planetary phases, like first and last visibility ... conjunctions between planets and the so‒called Normal Stars ... eclipses; solstices and equinoxes; phenomena of Sirius. Toward the end of the 3rd century B.C., Diaries begin to record the dates when a planet moved from one zodiacal sign into another. The rest of the Diaries’ contents is non‒astronomical.”

Hunger adds:

“Almost all of these items are observations.Exceptions are the solstices, equinoxes, and Sirius data, which were computed according to a scheme ... furthermore, in many instances when Lunar Sixes, lunar or solar eclipses, or planetary phases could not be observed, a date or time is nevertheless given, marked as not observed. Expected passings of Normal Stars by the moon are sometimes recorded as missed because of bad weather, but never is a distance between moon and Normal Star given as computed.” (Hermann Hunger in N. M. Swerdlow (ed.), Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination, London: The MIT Press, 1999, pp. 77, 78; emphasis added)

Steele similarly concludes:

“Most of the contents of the Diaries represent observations;however, where observations were unavailable, for example because of bad weather or because an event was expected to occur at a moment when the heavenly body was below the horizon, then predictions were entered in their place. In addition, some data recorded in the Diaries, such as solstices and equinoxes, were always predicted.” (John M. Steele, “Eclipse Prediction in Mesopotamia,” Archive for History of Exact Sciences, Vol. 54, 2000, p. 429; emphasis added)

Whether an entry is based on observation or calculation is often directly stated in the text itself. In the eclipse reports, this is usually indicated by the terminology. Steele explains:

“As a general rule, eclipse predictions can be distinguished from observations by the terminology used: sin AN‒KU₁₀ denotes an observed eclipse of the moon, whereas the opposite order, AN‒KU₁₀ sin, refers to a predicted lunar eclipse (for solar eclipses sin is replaced by šamaš). Furthermore, predicted eclipses are usually described as being šá DIB meaning that drey would be omitted when the luminary was below the horizon, or ki PAP NU IGI meaning ‘watched for, but not seen’ when the anticipated eclipse failed to appear.” (ibid., p. 429)

In summary, Furuli’s claim that “perhaps most positions of the heavenly bodies on such tablets, are calculated rather than observed” is groundless. It is refuted by statements in the tablets themselves and by the fact that they contain data that the Babylonians were unable to calculate. These circumstances are diametrically opposed to the suggestion that the data in the astronomical diary VAT 4956 might have been calculated later so that possibly “there never was an ‘original tablet’.” (Furuli, p. 30)

Furuli elaborates on this mistaken idea on page 40. Pointing out that VAT 4956 and Strm Kambys 400 “have the characteristics of being copies,” he then goes on to consider “possible ways that such copies could be made by a scribe in the 2nd century B.C.E.” He imagines that a scribe could make up such tablets by using “three different schemes that were at his disposition:” 1) a scheme of 18‒year Saros cycles; 2) a scheme of regnal years of consecutive kings going backward in time, and 3) a scheme of intercalary months. Then he states: “By a combination of these three schemes, no observation was necessary, but a sophisticated chronology could be made for hundreds of years backward in time.”

As was demonstrated above, the theory that VAT 4956 and other observational texts could have been made up at a much later time is nothing but a wild imagining. The idea is just wishful thinking based on insufficient knowledge of the astronomical tablets.

A theory of desperation

If the entries on the observational tablets–diaries, and lunar and planetary tablets–record mostly demonstrably genuine observations, and if the Babylonian astronomers were unable to compute and retrocalculate many of the astronomical and other data reported, how, then, is it possible for anyone to wriggle out of the evidence provided by these tablets?

Because the tablets often contain so many detailed observations dated to specific regnal years that they can be safely fixed to particular Julian years, the only escape is to question the authenticity of the regnalyear numbers found on the tablets.

This is what Furuli does. He imagines that “a scribe could sit down in the 2nd century and make a tablet partly of some phenomena covering many years, partly on the basis of theory (the three schemes) and partly on the basis of tablets from a library” that might show real observations. Then, upon discovery that the dates on the library tablets conflicted with the theoretical data, “these erroneous data could be used to ‘correct’ the correct data of his library? tablet, to the effect that the tablet he was making would contain wrong data of regnal years.” (Furuli, p. 41)

Furuli indicates drat not only the dates on the lunar and planetary tablets but also the dates on the diaries might have been tampered with by the Seleucid scholars in the same way. Referring again to the fact that the earliest extant diaries are copies, he says:

“But what about the regnal year(s) of a king that are written on such tablets? Have they been calibrated to fit an incorrect theoretical chronological scheme, or have they been copied correctly?” (Furuli, p. 42)

Furuli realizes, of course, that his Oslo Chronology is thoroughly contradicted by the Babylonian astronomical tablets. That is the reason he proposes, as a last resort, the theory that these tablets might have been redated by Seleucid scholars to bring diem into agreement with their own supposed theoretical chronology for earlier times. Is this scenario likely? What does it imply?

The scale of the supposed Seleucid chronological revisions

To what extent does Furuli’s Oslo Chronology differ from the traditional chronology?? In a chronological table on pages 219‒225 covering the 208 years of the Persian era (539‒331 BCE), Furuli shows, reign by reign, the difference between his chronology and the traditional one. It turns out that the only agreement between the two are the dating of the reigns of Cyrus and Cambyses–the period from the fall of Babylon (539 BCE) to 523/2 BCE, a period of 17 years. By giving Bardtya one full year of reign after Cambyses, Furuli moves the whole 36‒year reign of Darius I one year forward, as mentioned earlier. Then he moves the reigns of Darius’ successors Xerxes and Artaxerxes I 10 years backward by adding 10 years to the reign of the latter, creating a coregency of 11 years between Darius I and Xerxes.

But Furuli also assigns a one‒year reign to the usurper Sogdianus between Artaxerxes I and Darius II. The effect of this is that the remaining reigns up to 331 BCE are all moved one year forward. The end result is that Furuli’s Oslo Chronology is at variance with the traditional chronology for the Persian era for 191 of its 208 years, or for 92 percent of the period.

But this is not all. As mentioned in the introduction, Furuli wants to add 20 extra years to the Neo‒Babylonian period somewhere after the reign of Nebuchadnezzar–between 562 and 539 BCE. The effect of this–what Furuli calls the “domino effect”–is that not only the reign of Nebuchadnezzar but all the reigns of his predecessors are moved backward 20 years.

Because the Babylonian astronomical archive starts with the reign of Nabonassar, 747‒734 BCE, Furuli’s Oslo Chronology is at variance with the traditional chronology for most, if not the whole, of the Babylonian era from 747 to 539 BCE. This means that the disagreement between the two runs to more than 90 percent of the 416‒year period from 747 to 331 BCE. This also means that the Oslo Chronology is contradicted by more than 90 percent of the astronomical observational texts–diaries, eclipse texts, and planetary texts– dated to this period. Because these tablets record thousands of observations dated to particular regnal years, months, and days within this period, we begin to get some idea of the scale of the chronological revisions the Seleucid scholars must have engaged in–according to Furuli’s theory. Yet, this is only a fraction of the full scope of the necessary revisions.

The scope of the original astronomical archive

It should be kept in mind that the archive of ca. 1300 nonmathematical and principally observational astronomical cuneiform tablets is only a fraction of the scope of the original archive available to the Seleucid scholars. In a lecture held at a conference in 1994, Professor Hunger explained:

“To give you an idea of how much was originally contained in that archive, and how much is still preserved, I made a few rough estimates. From well preserved Diaries, I found that in each month about 15 lunar and 5 planetary positions, both in relation to Normal Stars, are reported. Also, every month the so‒called lunar Six are recorded. Each year will in addition contain 3 Sirius phases, 2 solstices and 2 equinoxes, at least 4 eclipse possibilities or eclipses, and about 25 planetary phases. Together, this results in about 350 astronomical observations per year. In 600 years, 210,000 observations are accumulated. Now I do not know whether the archive was ever complete to this extent. Sometimes copies of older Diaries indicate that things were missing in the original. But on the whole, this is the order of magnitude. By counting the number of reasonably (i.e., not completely, but more than half) preserved months, I arrived at ca. 400 months preserved in dated Diaries (undated fragments do not help for the purposes of this lecture). If we compare this to a duration of 600 years for the archive, we see that we have preserved ca. 5°/o of the months in Diaries.” (H. Hunger, “Non‒Mathematical Astronomical Texts and Their Relationships,” in N. M. Swerdlow (edf Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination, London: The MIT Press, 1999, p. 82; emphasis added)

If only five percent of the original Babylonian astronomical archive is preserved today, the scale of the chronological revisions Furuli thinks Seleucid copyists engaged in becomes apparent. To bring their whole archive into harmony with their supposed theoretical chronology, they would have had to redate thousands of tablets and tens of thousands of observations. Is it likely that they believed so strongly in a supposed theoretical chronology that they bothered to redate four centuries’ worth of archives containing thousands of tablets? The idea is absurd.

We can also ask why the Seleucid scholars would work out a theoretical chronology for earlier centuries when a reliable chronology for the whole period back to the middle of the 8th century could easily be extracted from the extensive astronomical archive at their disposal. Is it not much more realistic to conclude that their chronology was exactly the one found in the inherited archive of tablets, an archive that had been studied and expanded by successive generations of scholars up to and including their own?

It should be noted that, to make any claims at all about dates in his Oslo chronology, Furuli must rely on the dating of the tablets that the Seleucids supposedly revised. But if one assumes that his chronology is valid, then so must be the dates recorded on the tablets–which destroys his claim that the Seleucids revised the tablets. Thus, Furuli’s argument is internally inconsistent and cannot be correct.

Another problem is what became of the original pre‒Seleucid tablets. A necessary consequence of Furuli’s theory is that almost all extant tablets should reflect only the erroneous theoretical chronology of the Seleucid scholars, not what Furuli regards as the original and true chronology–the Oslo Chronology’. In his view, therefore, all or almost all extant tablets can only be the late revised copies of the Seleucid scholars. Thus, on page 64, he claims: “As in the case of the astronomical diaries on clay tablets, we do not have the autographs of the Biblical books, but only copies.” This is certainly true of the Biblical books, but is it true of the astronomical diaries? Is there any evidence to show that all the astronomical tablets preserved today are only copies from the Seleucid era?

Are all extant tablets late copies from the Seleucid era?

It is certainly true that some of the earliest diaries, including VAT 4956, are later copies. They frequently reflect the struggle of the copyist to understand the ancient documents they were copying, some of which were broken or otherwise damaged. Twice in the text of VAT 4956, for example, the copyist added the comment “broken off,” indicating he was unable to decipher some word in the original. Often the documents used archaic terminology that the copyists tried to modernize. What about diaries from later times?

As an example, there are about 25 diaries from the reign of Artaxerxes II (404‒358 BCE), 11 of which not only preserve the dates (year, month, day) but also the name of the king. (Sachs/Hunger, ADT, Vol. I, pp. 66‒141) Some of them are extensive and contain numerous observations (e.g., nos. –372 and –366). None of these tablets show any of the above‒mentioned signs of being later copies. Is it likely, then, that they, or at least some of them, are originals?

This question was sent to Professor Hunger a few years ago. He answered:

“In my opinion, the diaries from the time of Artaxerxes II can all be from his reign. You know that the larger diaries are all copies in the sense that they are collections of smaller tablets which covered shorter periods. But that does not mean that they were copied much later. To me it would make most sense if after every half a year the notes were copied into one nice exemplar. I had a quick look through the edition and did not find any remarks like ‘broken’ which are an indication that the scribe copied an older original. So I would answer your question ‘is it likely’ by ‘Yes’.” (Hunger to Jonsson, January 26, 2001)

These tablets, therefore, do not reflect any “theoretical chronology” supposedly invented by the later Seleucid scholars. The tablets might very well be original documents. We cannot take it for granted that they are late copies from the Seleucid era. And the same holds true, not only for the diaries from the reign of Artaxerxes II but for most of the observational tablets dating from before the Seleucid era.

Even if some of the diaries and other tablets dated to the earliest centuries are later copies, it is not known how late these copies are, or whether they were copied in the Seleucid period or earlier. One interesting example is the lunar eclipse tablet LBAT 1420 (No. 6 in Hunger’s ADT, Vol. V). This tablet contains annual records of lunar eclipses dated to the first 29 years of Nebuchadnezzar. (See GTR⁴, Ch. 4, C‒3) Steele says of it that “this text was probably compiled not long after its final entry in ‒575 [= 576 BCE].” (Archive for History of Exact Sciences, Vol. 54, 2000, p. 432) But even if the compilation was made in the mid‒6th century BCE, the question still is whether the tablet is a copy or not. If it is a copy, how late is it? Steele explains:

“In answer to your question, there is nothing conclusive in the text that points to a date of composition as the mid‒sixth century. However, some of the terminology points to an early date, for example, the inclusion of US ‘(time‒) degrees’ after the timings is rare in late texts (the unit is usually just implied by the context), and the facts that the predicted eclipses have no times and the general lack of many details of the observed eclipses are also suggestive of an early date. There is no evidence for the modernizing of terminology, but because the observations are quite brief there are not many occasions where modernizing could have taken place (it is easier to spot in things like star names and the ways in which the moon and planets are said to be near certain stars, neither of which appear in this text). For these and other reasons, the text feels to me like it is contemporary with the material it contains.

Now that all refers to the date on which the text was composed, not the date of the tablet. We have no idea whether this is an original text or one copied in the Seleucid period. (The appearance of a ‘variant’ time in Obv. I, 4’, which I failed to mention in my book, does not necessarily imply the text has been copied‒it could just be that the scribe who compiled the text had reports of this eclipse from 2 different observers.) If it is a copy, then I think it is a straight copy, with no attempt to change or modify the text.

Because almost none of the diaries and other observational texts have colophons, we can never be sure whether texts are copies or originals.”

In conclusion, the theory that Seleucid scholars worked out an erroneous hypothetical chronology for earlier times that they systematically embodied into the astronomical tablets they were copying cannot be supported by the available facts. It is not based on historical reality and is a desperate attempt to save cherished but false dates.

Chapter III ‒”The languages and script of the original documents”

Linguistic pitfalls

In this chapter, Furuli says little about chronology. He starts by describing some of the basic features of the Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Sumerian languages, with a view to discussing “to which extent the signs and peculiarities of a language may be the cause of some of the contradictory chronological evidence that we find.” (p. 47) He gives Akkadian the most space and gives the other three languages just a few paragraphs.

On pages 49‒56, Furuli provides general information about Akkadian signs for words, syllables, and numbers. In the middle of this discussion, on pages 52‒54, he attempts to identify Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, as a deification of Nimrod. This is an old theory suggested by Julius Wellhausen in the late 19th century and subsequently picked up by many others, including Alexander Hislop in The Two Babylons (1916, 2nd ed. 1959, footnote on p. 44). It was adopted for some time by the Watchtower Society, which presented it in the book “Babylon the Great Has Fallen!” God’s Kingdom Bules! (1963, pp. 33, 34) with arguments similar to those Furuli quotes from The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Jewish Enyclopedia, and The Two Babylons. The theory was included in the Watchtower Society’s Bible dictionary Aid to Bible Understanding (1971, p. 668) but was dropped in the revised 1988 edition, Insight on the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 974). It was still briefly mentioned in The Watchtower magazine of April 1, 1999, on page 11.

On the modern reading and understanding of Akkadian, Furuli feels that, although, generally speaking, “we can have confidence in the translations of cuneiform tablets that have been published in English, German, French and other languages ... it is important to be aware of the pitfalls” (p. 56). The pitfalls Furuli lists are: (1) the difficulty of piecing together broken tablets, (2) the reconstruction of only partially legible signs, (3) the changed meaning of some signs through time, (4) the confusion of similar signs, and (5) the difficulty of correctly reading very small single signs, (p. 58)

Modern Akkadian scholars who have spent decades examining cuneiform tablets are aware of these and other pitfalls, but Furuli’s experience in this area seems to be limited. Although he says that he is “able to read and work with original documents in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Akkadian” (p. 14), he seems to have examined the majority of the tablets he discusses or refers to only second or third hand, by consulting published copies, transcriptions, transliterations, and translations in works written by other scholars–some of which date from the late 19th century. That is evidently why, in the Introduction, Furuli says he is “interested to be informed about tablets where collation indicate [sic] errors in the published transliterations or transcriptions.” (p. 14, ftn. 5; cf. also p. 58, ftn. 67) If such tablets are used in a scholarly work in support of a revised chronology, the collations should precede, not follow, publication. This stipulation is particularly important for a work that the author claims is aimed at replacing Parker and Dubberstein’s classical study from 1956 on Babylonian Chronology.

For many years, I have asked modern Akkadian scholars to collate original tablets with odd dates in published translations, including a number of those used by Furuli and his coreligionists in support of their alternative chronology, often with disastrous results for the suggested revisions. Therefore, when Furuli claims that “scores of tablets have been published with anomalous dates, particularly in the New Babylonian Empire” (p. 58), it would be interesting to know which tablets he is referring to and to what extent he has had their dates collated afresh.

The mysterious Marduk‒shar‒usur

As one example of “possible reading errors,” Furuli refers on page 60 to a Neo‒Babylonian tablet that Chad W. St. Boscawen found in 1877 among the Egibi tablets that had just arrived at the British Museum from Iraq. The tablet was dated to day 23, month 9 (Kislev), year 3 of a Neo‒Babylonian king, whose name Boscawen first read as Marduk‒sar‒uzur.

Boscawen placed the name in a separate Addenda of a paper that was read before The Society of Biblical Archaeology in London on June 5, 1877. At a discussion held the following month (not the next year, as Furuli writes), on July 3, 1877, Boscawen stated that, on further examination, he had arrived at the conclusion that Marduk‒sar‒uzur “is a variant name for Nergal‒sar‒uzur” (i.e., Neriglissar). He explained:

“When we have some 2,000 tablets to go through, and to read names, which, as everyone who has studied Assyrian knows, is the most difficult part, because it is not easy always to recognize the same name, as it may be written four or five different ways, you may judge it is an arduous task. I have copied two apparently different names; but afterwards found them to be variants of the same name.” (Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology (TSBA) Vol. VI, 1878, p. 78 and pp. 108‒111)

Attempting to extend the Neo‒Babylonian period (as required by the Watchtower Society’s chronology), Furuli had argued in an earlier paper that Marduk‒shar‒usur must have been an extra, unknown king who ruled for at least three years during the Neo‒Babylonian period. I discussed this idea at length in Supplement to The Gentile Times Reconsidered (1989), pp. 20‒24. (See also the comments on Marduk‒shar‒usur in GTR⁴, App. for Ch. 3, ftn. 24.) Because Boscawen did not give the BM number of the tablet, it could not be identified and collated at that time. But in his new book, Furuli identifies the tablet as BM 30599, a transliteration and translation of which is published as No. 83 in Ronald H. Sack’s Meriglissar–King of Babylon (Neukirchen‒Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1994, pp. 224, 225). Furuli’s identification seems convincing: The date on BM 30599 is the same as that given by Boscawen, “month Kislev, 23rd day, in the third year.” Boscawen further adds that “the contracting parties are Idina‒Marduk son of Basa, son of Nursin; and among the witnesses, Dayan‒Marduk son of Musezib.” (TSBA VI, p. 78) The same individuals also appear on BM 30599 (the latter not as a witness but as an ancestor of the scribe). Sack, however, reads the royal name on the tablet not as Marduk‒shar‒usur but as Nergal‒ šarra‒usur (transliterated ^dU+GUR‒FUGAT‒SHESH).

But Furuli seems unwilling to give up the idea that an unknown Neo‒Babylonian king named Marduk‒shar‒usur might have existed. Not only does he argue that the cuneiform signs for Nergal and Marduk can be confused but also that this “can work both ways,” so that “it is possible that Boscawen’s reading was correct after all” and also that it cannot be excluded that some of the tablets ascribed to Nergal‒shar‒usur should have been read as Marduk‒shar‒ usur. (p. 62)

To determine whether such confusion is possible, I sent an email message to C. B. F. Walker at the British Museum and asked him to collate the original tablet (BM 30599). In his answer, he states:

“I have just taken BM 30599 out to check it, and I do not see how anyone could read the name as anything other than ^dU+GUR‒LUGAL‒SHESH. A reading Marduk‒shar‒usur would seem to be completely excluded. Our records show that the tablet was baked (and cleaned?) in 1961, but it had been published by T G Pinches in the 5^th volume of Rawlinson’s Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, plate 67 no. 4 in a copy which clearly shows ^dU+GUR. It was also published by Strassmaier in 1885 (The babylonischen Inschriften im Museum zu Liverpool. Brill, Leiden, 1885) no. 123, again clearly with ^dU+GUR. So the reading cannot be put down to our cleansing the tablet in 1961, if we did.” (Walker to Jonsson, October 15, 2003)

An anonymous Jehovah’s Witness scholar from South America, who has been investigating this subject, has since written to a number of Assyriologists around the world about the matter. None of the 11 scholars who responded agree with Furuli’s suppositions. One of them, Dr. Cornelia Wunsch in London, who also personally collated the original tablet, pointed out that “the tablet is in good condition” and that there is “no doubt about Nergal, as published in 5R 64,4 by Pinches. More than 100 years ago he already corrected the misreading by Boscawen.” She also explains that “Boscawen was not a great scholar. He relied heavily on the notes that G. Smith had taken when he first saw the tablets in Baghdad.” (Cf. GTR⁴, Ch. 3, B‒3a, ftn. 67)

Clearly, Furuli has been trying to make too much of Boscawen’s misreading of this tablet, partly because he had not collated, or asked anyone to collate, the original tablet before he published his book and evidently also, as shown by his comments, because his knowledge of Akkadian is insufficient.

A second witness to a Neo‒Babylonian king Marduk‒shar‒usur?

In further support of the possible existence of a king named Marduk‒shar‒ usur, Furuli refers to “another tablet from New Babylonian times (BM 56709) dated on the 12th day, month x, in the 1st year of a king whose name starts with Marduk, but where the rest is broken. This king is unknown.” (p. 61) This text is listed in the Catalogue of the Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum (CBT), Vol. 6 (London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1986, p. 215). In an unpublished list of “Corrections and additions to CBT 6‒8” (Mon, Mar 18, 1996), which Walker keeps at the British Museum, Walker gives the following comments on the text:

“56709 Marduk‒[...] 12/‒/1 Dated at Borsippa. CT 55, 92 (not CT 56, 356).

The tablet is probably early Neo‒Babylonian.”

Note the word “probably” and the words “early Neo‒Babylonian.” This is a suggestion. Furthermore, scholars often use the term “Neo‒Babylonian” to describe a more extended period than 625‒539 BCE. The Assyrian Dictionary, for example, starts the period at about 1150 BCE and ends it in the 4th century BCE. (see GTR⁴, Ch. 3, ftn. 1) Maybe this is how Walker uses the term here. The names of about a dozen Babylonian kings between ca. 1150 and 625 BCE begin with Marduk‒, including Marduk‒apla‒iddina II (the Biblical Merodach‒ Baladan, Isa. 39:1, who ruled in Babylon twice, 721‒710 and 703 BCE), and Marduk‒zakir‒shumi II (703). Thus, as the royal name is only partially legible and we don’t know exactly to which period the tablet belongs, it is useless for chronological purposes.

The examples above show how important it is to have the original tablets collated before using seemingly odd dates or royal names found in published translations to support chronological revisions. They also show that such readings should be done by experienced scholars who are linguistically competent.

Chapter IV ‒ “Old chronological accounts of the New Babylonian kings”

Chapter 4 consists of two parts. In the first part, pp. 66‒75, which I will call part A, Furuli reviews some of the ancient secondary and tertiary sources that contain information about Neo‒Babylonian kings and their reigns. In the second part, pp. 75‒92, which I will call part B, he discusses six of the Biblical passages that mention a period of 70 years, claiming that they all refer to the same period–namely, a period of complete desolation of Judah and Jerusalem during the Jewish exile in Babylonia. This accords with the view of the Watchtower Society.

Secondary and tertiary sources

Furuli’s presentation of the secondary and tertiary sources for the Neo‒Babylonian chronology seems to be based mainly on the surveys of R. P. Dougherty in Nabonidus and Belshagyar (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929, pp. 7‒10) and Ronald. H. Sack in Neriglissar–King of Babylon (Neukirchen– Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1994, pp. 1‒22). Most of the ancient authors that Furuli mentions lived hundreds of years after the Neo‒Babylonian era, and their writings, which are preserved only in very late copies, often give distorted royal names and regnal years. Most of these sources, therefore, are useless for chronological purposes. (See GTR⁴, Ch. 3, A). This can be seen in Furuli’s table on page 74, in which he lists the concordant chronology for the Neo‒Babylonian era given by Berossus (3rd century BCE) and Ptolemy’s Royal Canon, together with the conflicting figures of Polyhistor (1st century BCE), Josephus (1st century CE), the Talmud (5th century CE), Syncellus (c. 800 CE), and, strangely, a totally corrupt kinglist from 1498 CE. Putting such distorted sources in the same table with Berossus and the Ptolemaic Canon–the two most reliable chronological sources for the Neo‒Babylonian era next to the cuneiform documents themselves–suggests that the sources are equally unreliable and should not be trusted. That this is the purpose of the table is obvious from Furuli’s comments on its conflicting figures:

“The spread of numbers in the table shows that different chronologies regarding the New Babylonian kings existed from old times” and “that there were many different traditions describing the New Babylonian chronology.” (pp. 74, 75; emphasis added)

But this is not really what Furuli’s table shows. Rather, it demonstrates to what extent figures can change through time and can be distorted by being quoted and copied time and again by various authors and copyists over a period of nearly 2000 years.

Furuli starts by stating that “the modern model of the New Babylonian and Persian chronology was not constructed on the basis of Babylonian sources, but rather on the basis of secondary or tertiary sources from other places.” (p. 66) But this statement is a distortion because it suggests that the new foundation of chronology is the same as the old one. Furuli should have added that, in the latter half of the 19th century, the thousands of Babylonian cuneiform documents found in Mesopotamia that became available to scholars enabled them to construct a new foundation for Neo‒Babylonian chronology directly on primary sources. Furuli has committed the fallacy known as “suppressed evidence” because his argument fails to consider relevant facts.

Berossus on the Neo‒Babylonian reigns

Berossus’ Neo‒Babylonian chronology, says Sack, “most closely corresponds to that of the cuneiform documents.” (Sack, op. cit., p. 7) Furuli quotes tins statement on page 67, but on the next page he mentions some of the mythological material and errors in Berossus’ discussion of earlier Babylonian periods. The obvious purpose of this is to call into question Berossus’ statements about Neo‒Babylonian chronology. This is a form of ad hominem argument called “poisoning the well,” in which someone presents unfavorable information (true or false) about an opponent to suggest that any claim he makes is probably false. In other words, it is an attempt to bias the audience.

The only difference between Berossus’ writings and contemporary Neo‒Babylonian cuneiform sources is that Berossus assigns Labashi‒Marduk a reign of nine months instead of two or three. Referring to this difference, Furuli quotes Sack’s statement that “it is hardly likely (in view of his overall accuracy) that Berossus could have been incorrect in his figures for the reign of this latter monarch.” Sack does not mean that Berossus’ figure of nine months is correct but that, in view of Berossus’ overall accuracy, his original figure for Labashi‒Marduk must have been correct. He holds that the figure nine is most likely a scribal error arising during manuscript transmission. He concurs with the explanation of Parker and Dubberstein that the Greek letter theta (used for number 9) is most likely a mistake for an original letter beta (used for number 2). These two letters are rather similar and could easily be confused in ancient handwritten manuscripts. Sack states:

“This position seems all the more sensible since the earliest text from the reign of Nabonidus (May 25, 556 BC) is clearly dated nearly a full month prior to the latest document bearing the name of Labashi‒Marduk (June 20, 556 BC).” (R. H. Sack, op. cit., 1994, p. 7)

Furuli fails to inform the reader of Sack’s clarifications.

In a further attempt to undermine confidence in Berossus’ information about the Neo‒Babylonian reigns, Furuli quotes Berossus’ English translator Stanley Mayer Burstein, who points out that “the Babyloniaca contains a number of errors of simple fact of which, certainly, the most flagrant is the statement that Nabopolassar ruled Egypt.” (p. 67) But is this error really that flagrant? Berossus does not say that Nabopolassar conquered Egypt after Necho’s defeat at Harran; instead he describes the Pharaoh as a rebellious satrap “who had been posted to Egypt, Coele‒Syria, and Phoenicia.” Posted [or placed, tetagménos how?

Assyria controlled Egypt in the 7th century BCE, and Ashurbanipal installed Psammetichus I (664‒610 BCE) as a vassal ruler in Memphis. Under Psammetichus’ long rule, Fgypt gradually gained independence and finally became an ally of Assyria against Babylon. After the Babylonians finally crushed tire Assyrian empire in 609 BCE (despite Egypt’s assistance), the Babylonians regarded former Assyrian territories as their inheritance, even though some territories immediately started to fight for independence. From the Babylonian point of view, then, the defeated Pharaoh Necho would be regarded as a rebellious satrap because, on retreating from Harran in 609 BCE, Necho appropriated the Hattu area (Syria‒Palestine) in the west. The Jewish historian Dr. Menahem Stern gives the following comments about Berossus’ statement:

“From the point of view of those who regarded the Neo‒Babylonian empire as a continuation of the Assyrian, the conquest of Coele‒Syria and Phoenicia by the Egyptian ruler might be interpreted as the rape of Babylonian territory.” (M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, Vol. I, Jerusalem: Jerusalem Academic Press, 1974, p. 59)

Flavius Josephus’ conflicting statements

Furuli’s discussion of Flavius Josephus’ information about the Neo‒Babylonian chronology is not reliable because it is partially based on an obsolete text of Josephus’ works. He starts by quoting Josephus’ distorted figures for the Neo‒Babylonian reigns at Antiquities X, xi, l‒2:

“Nabopolassar 29 years, Nebuchadnezzar 43 years, Amel‒Marduk 18 years, Neriglissar 40 years.” (p. 69)

Furuli got these figures from William Winston’s antiquated translation of 1737, which was based on a text that is no longer accepted as the best textual witness. Had he consulted a modern translation of Josephus’ Antiquities, he would have discovered that Nabopolassar, at least, is correctly given 21–nor 29–years. (See, for example, Ralph Marcus’ translation in the Loeb Classical Library.)

Furuli believes that Josephus mentions the wrong figure elsewhere. Still following Whiston’s obsolete translation, he states in footnote 90 on page 69:

“In Against Apion, sect. 17 [error for I,19], Nabopolassar is ascribed 29 years, but this is a quote from Berossus. Josephus does not mention Nabopolassar and the length of his reign elsewhere.”

This statement, too, is wrong. Against Apion 1,19, like Antiquities X, xi, l, assigns Nabopolassar 21 years, according to all modern textual editions of Against Apion.⁶⁰⁴

At the end of page 69, Furuli quotes two widely separated sections from Against Apion. The first is taken from Against Apion I,19 (§§ 131,132), in which Josephus is referred to as saying that, according to Berossus,

“[Nabopolassar] sent his son Nabuchodonosor with a large army to Egypt and to our country, on hearing that these people had revolted, and how he defeated them all, burnt the temple at Jerusalem, dislodged and transported our entire population to Babylon, with the result that the city lay desolate for seventy years until the time of Cyrus, king of Persia.”

The remarkable thing about this statement is that it places the burning of the temple in the reign of Nabopolassar. But it actually took place 18 years later during the 18th year of his son and successor Nebuchadnezzar. The result is that Josephus, who here regards the 70 years as a period of desolation, starts the period in the last year of Nabopolassar (i.e., in 605 BCE). Furuli is quoting from Thackeray’s translation in the Loeb Classical library and, in a footnote at the bottom of the page, quotes Thackeray: “The burning of the temple, not mentioned in the extract which follows, is presumably interpolated by Josephus, and erroneously placed in the reign of Nabopolassar.” Clearly, Josephus’ application of the 70 years in this passage is based on a serious distortion of his sources. He seems to have confused events concerning Jerusalem in the last year of Nabopolassar’s reign with events in the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign.

Furuli’s next quotation, which he places directly after the first, is taken from Against Apion 1,21 (§ 154), and begins:

“This statement is both correct and in accordance with our books.”

This might give a reader the impression that Josephus is still speaking of the 70‒year‒long desolate state of Jerusalem in Furuli’s preceding quotation. But, as stated above, the two quotations are from widely separated sections. Josephus is referring to his lengthy quotation from Berossus in the immediately preceding section (I,20, §§ 146‒153), in which Berossus gives the length of all the Neo‒Babylonian kings from Nebuchadnezzar to Nabonidus: Nebuchadnezzar 43 years, Awel‒Marduk 2 years, Neriglissar 4 years, Labashi‒Marduk 9 months, and Nabonidus 17 years. It is this chronology Josephus refers to when he immediately goes on to say that it “is both correct and in accordance with our books.” (Against Apion I,21, § 154) He then explains why it is correct:

“For in the latter [the Scriptures] it is recorded that Nabuchodonosor in the eighteenth year of his reign devastated our temple, that for fifty years it ceased to exist, that in the second year of the reign of Cyrus the foundations were laid, and lastly that in the second year of the reign of Darius it was completed.”

According to Berossus’ figures, there were ca. 49 years from Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year until the end of Nabonidus’ reign. Because the foundation of the temple was laid in the 2nd year of Cyrus (Ezra 3:8 had been desolate for “fifty years” is in agreement with Berossus’ chronology. (For the textual evidence supporting the figure 50 in Against Apion, see GTR⁴, Ch. 7, A‒3, ftn. 30.)

It is obvious that Josephus, in his works, repeatedly presents confusing and erroneous statements about the Neo‒Babylonian reigns and conflicting explanations of the period of Jerusalem’s desolation. It is only in his latest discussion, in which he quotes Berossus’ figures, that his statements can be shown to roughly agree with reliable historical sources.

The chronology of Ptolemy’s Canon–centuries older than Ptolemy

How important are the writings of Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century CE) for the chronology established for the Neo‒Babylonian era? Furuli assigns them a decisive role:

“One of the most important sources for the present New Babylonian chronology is Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century C.E.). As one author expressed it: ‘The data from the Almagest provide the backbone for all modern chronology of antiquity’.” (p. 70)

The author quoted is Professor Otto Neugebauer, who until his death in 1990 was a leading authority on the astronomical cuneiform tablets. What did he mean? Did he mean that the ancient astronomical observations that Claudius Ptolemy? presented in Almagest still are the principal or perhaps even the sole basis for the absolute chronology scholars have established for the Neo‒ Babylonian and Persian periods? As will be demonstrated below, definitely not.

Recurring themes in Furuli’s book are (1) that the Neo‒Babylonian and Persian chronology builds on the writings of Claudius Ptolemy, (2) that Claudius Ptolemy was a fraud who falsified the ancient observations he used, and (3) that, therefore, the chronology established for those ancient periods is false. As early as page 13, Furuli claims:

“The modern view of the chronology of the old world builds on the writings of Claudius Ptolemy. Twenty‒five years ago the geophysicist R. R. Newton argued that Ptolemy was a fraud because he claimed he made observations when instead he made calculations backwards in time.”

But Furuli’s thesis is a straw man, an argument without substance. No informed scholar today holds that the writings of Claudius Ptolemy are now the basis of the chronology established for the Ancient Near East. True, Parker and Dubberstein stated half a century ago that they had used the Ptolemaic Canon and some other classical sources as a general basis for their Babylonian chronology. But they went on to explain that they checked, confirmed, and improved this chronology by using Babylonian cuneiform texts such as chronicles, kinglists, economic texts, and astronomical tablets. (PD, 1956, p. 10)

Furthermore, Claudius Ptolemy did not originally create the Ptolemaic Canon–he merely reproduced an existing list of kings. As Professor Neugebauer (the author quoted by Furuli) once pointed out, the common name of the kinglist, “Ptolemy’s Canon,” is a misnomer. This has been known for a long time. F. X. Kugler and Eduard Meyer, for example, pointed out long ago that the list had been in use for centuries before Ptolemy. (For additional details and documentation about this, see GTR⁴, Ch. 3, A‒2.)

Strangely, but apparently unknowingly, Furuli accepts this, in contradiction to his strawman arguments. In the Introduction, he notes that the Ptolemaic scheme “fits perfectly with the theoretical eclipse scheme of Saros cycles and intercalary months” (pp. 13, 14), that is, the chronology of the cuneiform tablets from the Seleucid era (312‒64 BCE) that list dates at 18‒year intervals for earlier periods. In a later discussion of a group of such Saros texts, Furuli points out (p. 97) that the group of tablets he refers to gives an unbroken series of dates at 18‒year intervals from year 31 of Darius I (491 BCE) down into the Seleucid era. He notes that the chronology of these tablets, if correct, would rule out his Oslo Chronology (with its Darius/Xerxes co‒regency and its 51‒year reign of Artaxerxes I). The chronology of the 18‒year texts, Furuli admits, is the same as that of Ptolemy’s Canon:

“It is quite clear that Ptolemy did not invent his chronology’ of kings, but that he built on an already accepted chronology. This chronology’ was evidently the one the scribe(s) of the Saros tablets used.” (p. 98)

The question, then, is: Because the chronology of Ptolemy’s Canon for the Neo‒Babylonian and Persian eras existed hundreds of years before Claudius Ptolemy, how can Furuli claim that “the modern view of the chronology of the old world builds on the writings of Claudius Ptolemy”? This claim is not true today, and Furuli knows it. Obviously, Ptolemy inherited his chronology from earlier generations of scholars, although he might have added to it by updating it to his own time, as scholars had done before him and as others continued to do after him. (GTR⁴, p. 94, note 12 with reference) Of course, this fact makes Furuli’s attempt to bias his readers against Ptolemy’s Canon irrelevant to the the question of chronology’.

When Furuli speaks of “the writings of Claudius Ptolemy” as the basis of the chronology’ of the old world, he reveals a remarkable ignorance of the contents of these writings. Of Ptolemy’s greatest and best-known work, for example, Furuli says,

“his work Almagest (Ptolemy’s canon} has tables showing Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian and Greek kings together with the years of their reigns.” (p. 70)

Almagest contains no such things. Strangely, Furuli seems to believe that Almagest is identical to Ptolemy’s Canon. In Almagest, a work originally published in 13 volumes, Ptolemy summed up all the astronomical and mathematical knowledge of his time. How Furuli can confuse Almagest with Ptolemy’s Canon, a chronological table covering about a page (GTR⁴, Ch. 3, A‒2), is puzzling.

True, the dates of events and ancient observations found in Almagest agree with the chronology of the Canon and, like the Canon, it dates events from the beginning of the so‒called “Nabonassar Era” (747 BCE). But Almagest never contained the Ptolemaic Canon with its chronological tables. This kinglist was included in another work by Claudius Ptolemy known as the Handy Tables.

Furuli discusses at length (pp. 70‒73) Professor Robert R. Newton’s claim that Claudius Ptolemy was a fraud, concluding that this is a problem because “researchers since the Middle ages ... have viewed Ptolemy’s historical and chronological statements as truth and nothing but the truth. This is the reason why Ptolemy’s statements are the very backbone of the modern New Babylonian chronology.” (p. 73) But Furuli admits that the chronology of Ptolemy’s Canon existed hundreds of years before Ptolemy, so how can accusations against Ptolemy be a problem? Whether he was a fraud or not is irrelevant to the evaluation of the reliability of the Ptolemaic Canon, which also, and more correctly, is called the Royal Canon. (See GTR⁴, Ch. 3, A‒2, ftn. 21.)

Ptolemy’s Canon–the foundation of ancient chronology?

So what about Neugebauer’s statement that “the data from the Almagest provide the backbone for all modern chronology of antiquity?” The answer is that Furuli quotes it out of context. It appears in Neugebauer’s work, A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy, Part Three (Berlin/Heidelberg, /New York: Springer‒Verlag, 1975, p. 1071), in a section in which Neugebauer describes “The Foundations of Historical Chronology.” In this section, he uses the word “modern” in the broader sense (i.e., the period since the breakthrough of modern astronomy in the 16th century). In the very next sentence, Neugebauer mentions the “modern scholars” who he says used Ptolemy’s dates as a basis for their chronology: Copernicus (1473‒1543), Scaliger (1540‒1609), Kepler (1571‒1630), and Newton (1643‒1727).

Neugebauer’s statement, then, refers to the situation that has prevailed during the past 400 years. But he further explains that, more recently, securely established chronological data of ancient observations have been obtained from the “great wealth of observational records assembled in Babylonia during the last three or four centuries B.C.” These data have enabled scholars to check the Canon and confirm its reliability. (Neugebauer, pp. 1072,1073)

Some years earlier, in a review of A. J. Sachs (ed.), Cate Babylonian Astronomical and Related Texts (LBAT) (1955), Neugebauer emphasized the importance of the Babylonian astronomical texts for the Mesopotamian chronology. Of their value for establishing the chronology of the Seleucid era, for example, he explained:

“Since planetary and lunar data of such variety and abundance define the date of a text with absolute accuracy–lunar positions with respect to fixed stars do not even allow 24 hours of uncertainty which is otherwise involved in lunar dates–we have here records of Seleucid history which are far more reliable than any other historical source material at our disposal.” (Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, Vol. 52, Berlin, 1957, p. 133)

A similar confirmation of the Ptolemaic chronology has been established for earlier periods. The editor of the above‒mentioned work, Professor Abraham J. Sachs, who was a leading authority on the astronomical texts and also a close friend and colleague of Neugebauer, explains how the cuneiform sources have provided an independent confirmation of Ptolemy’s kinglist back to its very beginning, thus establishing the absolute chronology of the Babylonian, Persian, and Seleucid eras. In the statement quoted below, Sachs speaks of Ptolemy’s kinglist as “Theon’s royal list” because it has traditionally been held that the mathematician Theon (4th century GE) included the kinglist in his revision of Ptolemy’s Handy Tablets. This view has recently been questioned, so “Theon’s royal list” could be as much a misnomer as is “Ptolemy’s Canon.” (Cf. Dr. Leo Depuydt in the journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 47, 1995, p. 104) Apart from this detail, Sachs makes the following comparison between the kinglist and the cuneiform sources:

“The absolute chronology of the Babylonian first group of kings is easy to establish because, as has been mentioned, Ptolemy quotes the report of an eclipse in the time of king Mardokempados. Even more important, this absolute chronology has been independently confirmed by cuneiform texts from Babylon which contain astronomical observations. These number more than 1000 pieces of day‒to‒day astronomical observations of positions and phases of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, beginning around 650 B.C. and continuing, in increasingly dense numbers, into the first century before the beginning of our era. Thanks to these astronomical diaries, numerous overlaps with the royal list in Theon’s Handy Tables have been established, always in agreement. In other cases, the lengths of the reigns of individual kings in Theon’s royal list can be confirmed by the careful study of the dates given in contemporaneous economic and administrative texts found in Babylonia; this is possible because for parts of the period covered by the royal list, we have so many of these texts that they average out to one every few days. In this way ‒namely, by using Theon’s royal list, Babylonian astronomical diaries, and Babylonian dated tablets–one is able to establish with confidence the absolute chronology back to the middle of the eighth century B.C., i.e. the reign of king Nabonassar of Babylon.” (A. J. Sachs, “Absolute dating from Mesopotamian records,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Ser. A, Vol. 26,1971, p. 20; emphasis added)

As Professor Sachs points out in this statement, the Royal Canon has been gradually replaced in recent times as the foundation of ancient chronology by the many native sources from Babylonia, in particular by the great number of astronomical cuneiform documents, which provide “numerous overlaps” with the Royal Canon, “always in agreement,” thereby replacing it at these many points. The earlier role of the Royal Canon as the foundation of ancient chronology has dwindled to a fraction of the period it covers. At some points, it is still needed as a trusted complement because of its proven reliability. Depuydt, a renowned Egyptologist and specialist on ancient chronology who has been examining the history and reliability of the Royal Canon for a long time, aptly describes the shifting foundation of the chronology of antiquity:

“To the extant that the Canon’s veracity is proven as the foundation of first millennium B.C.E. chronology, to that extent the Canon will also become superfluous as a foundation. And even more remarkably, to the extent that its veracity is not proven, for those parts it remains fundamental to first millennium B.C.E. chronology.” (Leo Depuydt, “The Shifting Foundation of Ancient Chronology,” forthcoming in Acts of European Association of Archaeologists, Meeting VIII)

It is a remarkable fact that Ptolemy’s kinglist has never been shown to be wrong. Depuydt emphasizes this in the article quoted above:

“Is there any chance that the Canon is false? For four centuries now, the Canon has been put through countless contacts with countless individual sources. To my knowledge, no one has ever found any serious reason to suspect that the Canon is not true. A kind of common sense about the Canon’s veracity has therefore grown over the centuries. This common sense guarantees, in my opinion, that the Canon will remain fundamental to ancient chronology.”

Furuli’s “summary” of the secondary and tertiary sources

On page 92, Furuli gives a summary of the secondary and tertiary sources he has presented:

“In opposition to the Bible, Berossus, Polyhistor, Ptolemy and Syncellus II make room for only about 50 years of exile with the country laying desolate, while Josephus, the Talmud, Syncellus I, and Antiquitatum all agree on 70 years.”

This is a strange summary. True, the chronologies of Berossus and Ptolemy both indicate that Jerusalem lay desolate for 48 years, whereas the figures of Syncellus II indicate 50 years. But the figures of Polyhistor indicate a desolation period of 58 years. And the claim that “Josephus, the Talmud, Syncellus I, and Antiquitatum all agree on 70 years” is almost totally wrong:

(1) Josephus’ figures A Antiquities. X.xi.1‒2 imply that Jerusalem lay desolate for 100 years. True, at some other places Josephus assigns 70 years to the period, but in one of them, as we saw, he dates the desolation of Jerusalem to the 21st year of Nabopolassar. And, in his final statement about the period, he says that the desolation lasted for 50 years.

(2) The Talmud does not support Furuli. The figures he quotes from it–45 regnal years for Nebuchadnezzar, 23 for Amel‒Marduk, and no figures for the remaining kings–do not indicate any 70‒year period. The chronological treatise in the Talmud known as Seder Olam, in fact, states that Judah lay desolate for only 52 years. This treatise is one of the oldest parts of the Talmud, supposedly written by Rabbi Yose in the 3rd century CE. (C. Milikowsky, Seder Olam, Vol. 2, University Microfilm International, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1981, pp. 535, 543)

(3) The figures that Furuli quotes from the late kinglist Antiquitatum assign 30 years of reign to Nebuchadnezzar, 3 to Amel‒Marduk, 6 to Nergal‒shar‒ussur, and none to Labashi‒Marduk and Nabonidus. These figures do not point to any 70‒year period, either.

(4) The figures of Syncellus I indicate a 67‒year period of desolation.

Furuli’s statement that these four sources “all agree on 70 years,” then, is demonstrably false.

The Biblical 70 years

Furuli begins this section by stating that “the one who connects a particular number with the exile, is the prophet Jeremiah.” (p. 75) Earlier, on page 15, Furuli claimed that “some of the texts unambiguously say that Jerusalem was a desolate waste during these 70 years.” And on page 17 he stated that “the Bible ... says unambiguously that Jerusalem and the land of Judah were a desolate waste without inhabitants for a full 70 years.”

But this is not what Jeremiah says. The prophet directly applies the 70 years to the length of Babylon’s dominion over the nations, not to the length of the desolation of Jerusalem and the Jewish exile. This is in remarkable agreement with the established facts of history. Babylon’s supremacy in the Near East began with the final shattering of Assyrian power in 610/609 BCE and ended with the fall of Babylon 70 years later in 539 BCE, exactly as Jeremiah had stated:

“these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”– Jeremiah 25:11

“When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come back to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.”– Jeremiah 29:10

These texts clearly apply the 70‒year period to Babylon, not to Jerusalem. Furuli even admits this, stating that “the text does not say explicitly that it refers to an exile for the Jewish nation. If we make a grammatical analysis in 25:11 subject, and in 29:10 should experience the period of 70 years.” (p. 75)

Attempting to evade this undesirable conclusion, Furuli turns to the 70‒year passages at Daniel 9:2 understood the words of Jeremiah to imply a 70‒year exile for the Jewish nation.” After quoting the New International Version (NIV) for these two texts, he claims:

“As the analysis below shows, the words of Daniel and the Chronicler are unambiguous. They show definitely that Daniel and the Chronicler understood Jeremiah to prophesy about a 70‒year period for the Jewish people when the land was desolate.” (p. 76)

Because Daniel and the Chronicler lived after the end of the exile, they knew its real length and “could interpret Jeremiah’s words correctly,” Furuli argues. Then he states:

“A fundamental principle of interpretation which is universally accepted, is to interpret an ambiguous passage in the light of an unambiguous passage. In our case we have two unambiguous passages, namely, Daniel 9:2 the 70 years of the desolate condition to Jerusalem. To start with the seemingly ambiguous words of Jeremiah 25:10 the matter upside down, because the mentioned principle is abandoned.” (p. 76)

The principle of interpretation Furuli refers to is correct. But does Furuli correctly use it? Is it really true that the passages at Daniel 9:2 statements of Jeremiah are ambiguous? A critical examination of Furuli’s linguistic analyses of the passages reveals that the opposite is true. To start with the brief references to Jeremiah in Daniel and 2Chronicles, as Furuli does, is really to “turn tire matter upside down” and abandon “the mentioned principle.” This will be shown in the following discussion.

The 70 years at

In his discussion of Daniel 9:2 transliteration of the text, accompanied by a word‒for‒word translation. It is followed by a fluent translation, which turns out to be the Watchtower Society’s New World Translation (NWT, Vol. V, 1960; the rendering is the same in the revised 1984 edition). According to this version, Daniel “discerned by the books the number of years concerning which the word of Jehovah had occurred to Jeremiah the prophet, for fulfilling the devastations of Jerusalem, [namely,] 70 years.”

This rendering might have been changed in a new, not‒yet‒published, revised edition of the NWT. In the revised Swedish edition of the NWT published in 2003, the text has been changed to say that Daniel “discerned in the books tire number of years which according to the word of Jehovah, that had come to Jeremiah the prophet, would be completed concerning the desolate state of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.”

Note in particular that the phrase “for fulfilling the devastations of Jerusalem” has been changed to read “be completed concerning the desolate state of Jerusalem.” This brings the rendering of the text in close agreement with that of the Danish linguist quoted below.

Although Furuli repeatedly claims that Daniel unambiguously states that Jerusalem would be desolate for 70 years, he feels the statement needs to be explained. He says:

“A paraphrase of the central part of Daniel 9:2 Jerusalem as a devastated city 70 years to fill.’ There is no ambiguity in the Hebrew words.” (p. 77)

But if Daniel’s statement is as clear and unambiguous as Furuli claims, why does he feel it needs an exposition in the form of a paraphrase? Furuli’s paraphrase, in fact, gives the text a meaning that neither follows from his grammatical analysis nor is obvious in the translation he quoted.

The fact is that neither Jeremiah nor Daniel say that God “gave Jerusalem ... 70 years to fill,” nor does Daniel say that “the desolation of Jerusalem would last 70 years,” as NIV renders the clause. Both examples are paraphrases (cf. GTR⁴, Ch. 5, C‒3) aimed at giving the text a specific interpretation. Another paraphrase, based on a careful grammatical analysis of the text, points to a different understanding. The well‒known Hebrew scholar and Bible commentator Dr. Edward J. Young translates the last part of the passage as “to complete with respect to the desolations of Jerusalem seventy years,” adding:

“The thought may be paraphrased: ‘With respect to the desolation of Jerusalem, 70 years must be completed’.” (E. J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1949, pp. 183,184)

In view of Daniel’s reference to and dependence on the statements of Jeremiah (25:12 respect to the desolate state of Jerusalem, the predicted 70 years of Babylonian dominion must be completed before the exiles could return to Jerusalem to bring its desolation to an end. The grammar clearly allows this meaning. There is no reason to believe that Daniel reinterpreted the clear‒ statements of Jeremiah, as is required by Furuli’s interpretation of the text.

It is obvious that Daniel links the 70 years to the desolate state of Jerusalem. The whole discussion in GTR⁴, Ch. 5, C is based on this. But the fact that Daniel links or ties the one period to the other is not the same as equating or identifying the one with the other. To link and to equate are two different things.

In GTR⁴, Ch. 5, C‒3, ftn. 33, the following literal translation of Daniel 9:2 grammatical analysis of the text by a Danish colleague of mine, who is a professional linguistic scholar with an intimate knowledge of Biblical Hebrew:

“In his [Darius’] first regnal year, I, Daniel, ascertained, in the writings, that the number of years, which according to the word of JHWH to Jeremiah the prophet would be completely fulfilled, with respect to the desolate state of Jerusalem, were seventy years.”

The linguist ended his analysis of Daniel’s statement by making the following precise distinction:

“This statement in no way proves that Jerusalem itself would lay desolate for 70 years, only that this time period would be fulfilled before the city could be freed and rebuilt.”

Other knowledgeable and careful Hebraists have made the same distinction. In a lengthy comment about Daniel 9:2 the dependence of the wording of Daniel 9:2

“With l^emal’ot (to fulfil) the contents of the words of Jehovah, as given by Jeremiah, are introduced. l^echorbot does, not stand for the accusative: to cause to be complete the desolation of Jerusalem (Hitzig), but l^e signifies in respect of, with regard to. This expression does not lean on Jer. xxix. 10 (Kran.), but on Jer. xxv. 12 (‘when seventy years are accomplished’). charabôt, properly, desolated places, rums, here a desolated condition. Jerusalem did not certainly lie in ruins for seventy years; the word is not thus to be intepreted, but is chosen partly with reference to the words of Jer. xxv. 9, 11. Yet the desolation began with the first taking of Jerusalem, and the deportation of Daniel and his companions and a part of the sacred vessels of the temple, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (606 [error for 605] B.C.).

Consequently, in the first year of the reign of Darius the Mede over the kingdom of the Chaldeans the seventy years prophesied of by Jeremiah were now full, the period of the desolation of Jerusalem determined by God was almost expired”(C. F. Keil, Commentary on the Old Testament, Vol. IX, pp. 321‒322; emphasis added)

Keil, one of the greatest Hebrew scholars of the 19th century, regarded this as a fully possible understanding of the text and quite in harmony with the grammar of Daniel 9:2 is, in fact, almost identical to Keil’s.

Thus, Furuli’s repeated claim that Daniel unambiguously states that Jerusalem was desolate for 70 years does not follow from his own grammatical analysis. Nor does it agree with the observations of careful Hebraists and linguistic scholars.

Furuli begins by presenting a transliteration of 2Chronicles 36:21 followed by the NWT rendering of the text:

“21 to fulfill Jehovah’s words by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had paid off its sabbaths. All the days of lying desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.”

Note that this verse starts with a subordinate clause and, more specifically, with a purpose clause: “to fulfill ...”. What event would fulfill “Jehovah’s words by the mouth of Jeremiah?” To know this it is necessary to examine the mam or principal clause. But Furuli ignores the main clause, which is found in verse 20. This verse says:

“20 Furthermore, he [Nebuchadnezzar] carried off those remaining from the sword captive to Babylon, and they came to be servants to him and his sons until the royalty of Persia began to reign"”

The verse reflects the prophecies of Jeremiah about the servitude. The writer of Chronicles clearly has the prediction at Jeremiah 27:7

“And all the nations shall serve him, and his son, and his grandson, until the time of his own land comes.”

After the fall of Assyria in 610/609 BCE, all the nations in the Near East were destined to serve the Babylonian king, his son, and his grandson as vassals. As Jeremiah explains in the next verse (27:8 to be destroyed. The Bible as well as secular history show that after the batde at Carchemish in 605 BCE Nebuchadnezzar subjugated the nations of the Hattu area (Syria‒Palestine) and forced them to become tribute‒paying vassals.

But the kings of Judah revolted and threw off the Babylonian yoke, which finally, two decades after the initial conquest, brought about the predicted destruction of their land and capital. The Jewish servitude, therefore, came to mean less than 20 years of vassal service interrupted by repeated rebellions. The rest of their servitude, about 49 years, had to be spent in exile in Babylonia.

In his allusion to Jeremiah 27:7 the nations” but focuses only on the Jewish remnant that had been brought captive to Babylon after the desolation of Jerusalem. Until when would they have to serve the king of Babylon? As Jeremiah had said, “until the time of his own land comes,” which the Chronicler, who wrote after the fulfillment, could make specific–”until the royalty of Persia began to reign”–that is, until 539 BCE. The Persian conquest of Babylon brought the 70 years of servitude to an end, in fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy, as the Chronicler goes on to point out in the next verse–the verse quoted and discussed by Furuli out of context:

“21 to fulfill Jehovah’s words by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had paid off its sabbaths. All the days of lying desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.”

Which of “Jehovah’s words by the mouth of Jeremiah” were fulfilled by the termination of the servitude through the Persian takeover in 539 BCE? It cannot have been the words in the middle of the verse–”until the land had paid off its sabbaths. All the days of lying desolate it kept sabbath”–because these statements are found nowhere in the book of Jeremiah. They are actually references to Leviticus 26:34 the Chronicler’s explanation of Jeremiah’s 70‒year prophecy becomes clear:

“they came to be servants to him and his sons until the royalty of Persia began to reign; to fulfill (l^e mallôt) Jehovah’s words by the mouth of Jeremiah, ... to fulfill (l^emallôt) seventy years.”

The obvious meaning is that the cessation of the servitude under Babylon by the Persian takeover in 539 BCE fulfilled the 70‒year prophecy of Jeremiah. The Chronicler does not reinterpret Jeremiah’s statements to mean 70 years of desolation for Jerusalem, as Furuli claims. On the contrary, he sticks very closely to Jeremiah’s description of the 70 years as a period of servitude under Babylon, and he ends this period with the fall of Babylon, exactly as Jeremiah had predicted at Jeremiah 25:12

Why, then, did the Chronicler insert the statements from Leviticus 26:34 explained why the land of the Jews finally had been depopulated and left completely desolated. According to Leviticus 26 punishment for their impenitent transgressions of the law, including the statute about the sabbath rest of the land. Jehovah said he would “lay the land desolate” and let the Jews be scattered “among the nations.” (Leviticus 26:32 sabbaths:

“Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, while you are in your enemies’ land», then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths.”–Leviticus 26:34

The Chronicler’s statement that the Jewish remnant in Babylon (in their “enemies’ land”) came to be servants to the kings of Babylon “until (ad) the royalty of Persia began to reign,” then, also implied that they served these Babylonian kings “until (ad) the land had paid off its sabbaths. All the days of lying desolate it kept sabbath.” (2Chronicles 36:21 Judah and Jerusalem and the final deportation of “those remaining from the sword captive to Babylon” (v. 20) occurred about two decades after the servitude of “all the nations” had begun. The desolated state of the land, therefore, did not last 70 years but somewhat less than 50 years.

Strictly speaking, the desolation of the land did not cease until the exiles had returned to Judah in the late summer or early autumn (Ezra 3:1 3, note 2). So we must conclude that either the exiles in some way continued to serve the king of Babylon until 538 or that the sabbath rest of the land ended in 539 BCE.

The first option seems impossible to defend. How could the exiles have continued to serve the king of Babylon for another year after the fall of the empire and the dethronement of the king in 539 BCE? Is it possible, then, that the sabbath rest of the land ended in 539 BCE?

It is quite possible that the Chronicler did not regard the year of the return (538 BCE) as the last year of the sabbath rest of the land. It is important to observe that, according to the directions at Leviticus 25:4 sabbatical year:

“You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines.”

The sabbatical years were reckoned on a Tishri‒to‒Tishri basis. (Leviticus 25:9 538 BCE arrived late in the summer or early in the autumn, well before the month of Tishri (as is clearly indicated at Ezra 3:1 29). Because they needed food for the winter, it seems likely that they immediately started making preparations to obtain food. They could harvest olives and fruits such as grapes from untrimmed vines. Grapes were valuable food because they were dried as raisins and used as winter food. Thus, if it is correct that they harvested food upon their return (which seems likely), the last year of sabbath (complete) rest for the land cannot have been 538 but must have been the year that had ended immediately before Tishri 1 of 539 BCE. This could explain why the Chronicler ends the sabbath rest of the land and the servitude of the exiles at the same time (i.e., when the Persian kingdom came to power in the autumn of 539 BCE).

Furuli, of course, disagrees with the discussion above. His thesis is that the period of the desolation and sabbath rest of the land were identical to the 70‒year period of Jeremiah. In his analysis, he is trying to force the Chronicler’s statements to conform to tins theory.

This seems to be the reason why he argues that the Hebrew preposition ad in the clause, “until (ad) the land had paid off its sabbaths” ... “is better rendered while than as until” (p. 79) This allows him to reconstruct the verse as two parallels that say:

“in order to fill the words spoken by Jeremiah, while the land kept sabbath.

in order to fill seventy years, it kept sabbath while it was desolate.”

Furuli adds:

“As a linguist I know by experience that language is ambiguous. But the words of Daniel 9:2 remarkably clear and unambiguous.”

It is difficult to see how this is true even of Furuli’s retranslation and reconstruction of the verse. As stated earlier, his analysis of verse 21 ignores the contextual connection with verse 20, in which we find the same preposition ad used in the clause “until (ad) the royalty of Persia began to reign.” Because both clauses with ad are aimed at explaining when the servitude ended, the translation of ad as “until” is the most natural in both verses. To render ad as “while” in verse 20, for example, would make it say that the Jewish remnant became servants of the king of Babylon “while the royalty of Persia began to reign,” a statement that is not only historically false but nonsensical.

Most translations, therefore, render the preposition ad as “until” in both clauses. There are none, as far as I know, that render it “while” in the passage. The reason is not only that this is excluded by the context but also by the fact that ad seldom takes the meaning “while.” (The New Brown‒Driver‒Briggs‒Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon, 1978, p. 725)

Furuli’s attempt to assign the meaning “while” to ad is a case of the fallacies of argumentation known as “special pleading” and “assuming the conclusion.” For his argument to work, he needs ad to mean “while;” otherwise his entire Oslo chronology falls apart.

whom?

In his discussion of Jeremiah 25:9‒12 says:

“And all this land must become a devastated place, an object of astonishment, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years”– Jer. 25:11

As was pointed out earlier, Furuli starts his discussion of the 70‒year prophecy by admitting that Jeremiah applies the 70 years to Babylon, not to Jerusalem. As he states on page 75:

“If we make a grammatical analysis in 25:11 nations’ is the grammatical subject, and in 29:10 patient, that is, the nation that should experience the period of 70 years.”

Having concluded (falsely, as has been shown above) that Daniel 9:2 Jerusalem lay desolate for 70 years, Furuli realizes that the meaning of Jeremiah 25:11 brought into agreement with his conclusion.

The clause “these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years” is very clear in Hebrew:

Weâbdû haggôyîm hâêlleh et‒melech bâbel šivîm šânah

and‒will‒serve‒they the‒nations these king [of] Babel seventy year

As Furuli points out (p. 82), the particle et before melech bâbel (”king of Babel”) is a marker indicating that melech bâbel is the object. The word order is typical in Hebrew: verb‒subject‒object. There are no grammatical problems with the clause. It simply and unambiguously says that “these nations will serve the king of Babel seventy years.” Furuli, too, admits that “this is the most natural translation.” (p. 84) How, then, can Furuli force it to say something else?

Furuli first claims that “the subject (‘these nations’) is vague and unspecified.” Actually, it is not. It simply refers back to “all these nations round about” referred to in verse 9. Furuli goes on to state that the subject in the clause might not be “these nations” in verse 11 but “this land” (Judah) and “its inhabitants” in verse 9. Verse 11, therefore, really says that it is only the inhabitants of Judah, not “these nations,” that will serve the king of Babylon 70 years. How, then, is the occurrence of “these nations” in the clause to be explained? Furuli suggests that they might be part of the object, the king of Babel, who “would be a specification of’ these nations. The clause could then be translated:

“and they will serve these nations, the king of Babel, seventy years” (p. 84)

Furuli also suggests that the particle et might not here be used as an object marker but as a preposition with the meaning “with.” Based on this explanation, the clause could even be translated:

“and they will serve these nations together with the king of Babel seventy years” (p. 84)

These reconstructions are not supported by any Bible translations. Not only are they far‒fetched, they are refuted by the wider context. The prediction that the nations surrounding Judah would serve the king of Babylon is repeated in Jeremiah 27:7 misunderstand:

“And all the nations must serve him and his son and his grandson until the time even of his own land comes.”

The immediate context of the verse proves conclusively that “the nations” referred to include all the non‒Jewish nations in the Near East. Furuli’s linguistic acrobatics, therefore, are unnecessary, mistaken, and another case of special pleading.

version to be preferred?

Furuli attempts to marshal support from the Septuagint version (LXX), stating that “we know that the Septuagint translators who worked with the book of Jeremiah in the third or second century B.C.E. used a different Vorlage than that of the Masoretic text [MT], perhaps a shortened form of the book.” (Furuli, p. 84)

But this is not something “we know.” It is a theory suggested by some scholars, but there is no consensus about it. It has become popular because it is supposedly supported by a very fragmentary piece of a Hebrew scroll found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), 4QJer^b. The fragment contains parts of Jeremiah 9:22 the middle of verse 5. It also contains several MT readings and also some unique readings. For these reasons, it cannot be said that this fragment reflects the Vorlage of LXX– if there ever was such a thing. As argued by M. Margaliot (’Jeremiah X 1‒16: a re‒examination,” Vetus Testamentum, Vol. XXX, Fasc. 3, 1980, pp. 295‒308), there are strong reasons to believe that the LXX variations at chapter 10 are secondary and that MT here has the superior and authentic text.

Interestingly, the five fragments of Jeremiah found among the Dead Sea Scrolls together contain parts of 29 of the 52 chapters of the book. These mainly follow MT (with some deviations), and this is also true of the preserved parts of chapter 25 (verses 7‒8, 15‒17, and 24‒26). (See David L. Washbum, M Catalog of Biblical Passages in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002, pp. 128‒133)

The LXX rendering of Jeremiah 25:11 among the nations for 70 years:

“And all the land shall be a desolation; and they shall serve among the nations seventy years.”

Strangely, the LXX leaves out all references to Babylon and King Nebuchadnezzar in Jeremiah 25:1‒12 Jehoiakim had read and burned the scroll containing the prophecy a few months after it had been given, he asked Jeremiah, also according to Jer‒LXX:

“Why is it that you have written on it, saying: ‘The king of Babylon will come without fail and will certainly bring this land to ruin and cause man and beast to cease from it?” Jeremiah 36:29

Evidently the original scroll contained references to the king of Babylon, which strongly indicates that Jer‒MT rather than Jer‒LXX represents the original text of Jeremiah 25:1‒12

For additional comments about the LXX version of Jeremiah, see GTR⁴, Ch. 5, A, ftn. 8.

years for Babylon

Jeremiah 29:10 70 years refer to Babylon, not Jerusalem:

“This is what the LORD says: ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon [l^ebâbel] I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place [i.e., to Jerusalem].” (NIV)

Furuli notes that most Bible translations render the preposition le as “to” or “for” and that only a very few (usually older) translations render it as “at” or “in.” (Furuli, p. 85) Of the latter, he mentions six: NWT, KJV, Harkavy, Spurrell, Lamsa, and the Swedish Church Bible of 1917.

Alexander Harkavy’s edition from 1939 contains the Hebrew text together with an English translation. Furuli does not seem to have noticed that Harkavy states in the preface that the English translation is the Authorised Version, that is, the KJV. George Lamsa’s translation has been strongly criticized because of its heavy dependence on the KJV. Also in Jeremiah, chapter 29 “at Babylon,” therefore, means nothing. I have not been able to check Helen Spurrell’s translation. It was published in London in 1885, not 1985, as Furuli’ Bibliography erroneously shows, so it is not a modern translation.

The Swedish Church Bible of 1917 has recently been “replaced” by two new translations, Bibel‒2000 and Folkbibeln (1998). Both have “for Babylon” at Jeremiah 29:10 translators of both translations emphasized that l^ebâbel at Jeremiah 29:10 “at” or “in” Babylon. Remarkably, even the new revised Swedish edition of the NWT has changed the earlier “in Babylon” in the 1992 edition to “for Babylon” in the 2003 edition.

Because the rendering “for Babylon” contradicts the theory that the 70 years refer to the period of Jerusalem’s desolation, Furuli needs to defend the notably infrequent rendering “at” or “in” Babylon. He even claims that the preposition “for” gives the 70 years “a fuzzy meaning:”

” If ‘for’ is chosen, the result is fuzziness, because the number 70 then looses all specific meaning. There is no particular event marking their beginning nor their end, and the focus is wrong as well, because it is on Babylon rather than on the Jews.” (p. 86)

This is an incredible statement and another example of Furuli’s special pleading. It is difficult to believe that Furuli is totally ignorant of the fact that both the beginning and the end of Babylon’s supremacy in the Near East were marked by revolutionary events–the beginning by the final crushing of tire Assyrian empire and the end by the fall of Babylon itself in 539 BCE. Surely, he must know that, according to secular chronology, exactly 70 years passed between these two events. Modern authorities on the history of this period agree that the definite end of Assyria occurred in 610/609 BCE. In GTR⁴, Ch. 5, G‒2, for example, four leading scholars were quoted to this effect: viz. Professor John Bright and three leading Assyriologists, Donald J. Wiseman, M. A. Dandamaev, and Stefan Zawadski. It would be easy to multiply the number.

Another example is Professor Kias R. Veenhof, who comments about the end of Assyria on pages 275 and 276 of his book Geschichte des Alten Orients bis zur Zeil Alexanders des Grossen (Gottingen, 2001). He describes how the last king of Assyria, Assuruballit II, after the destruction of the capital Nineveh in 612 BCE, retreated to the provincial capital Harran, the last Assyrian stronghold, where he succeeded in holding out for another three years, supported by Egypt.

Veenhof writes:

“It was to no advantage that Egypt supported Assyria; the Babylonian and Median armies took the city in 610 B.C., and in the following year [609] they warded off their last defensive attempt. Therewith a great empire was dissolved.” (Translated from German)

Realizing that the year 609 marks the natural starting point of the “seventy years for Babylon,” Professor Jack Finegan writes on pages 177 and 178 in the revised edition of his well‒known Handbook of Biblical Chronology (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998):

“In Jeremiah 29:10 of the Lord is to bring the people back ‘when seventy years are completed for Babylon.’ In the history of the ancient Orient the defeat in 609 B.C. of Ashur‒uballit II, ruler in the western city of Haran of the last remnant of the Assyrian empire, by Nabopolassar of Babylon, marked the end of that empire and the rise to power of the Babylonian empire (§430). Then in 539 Cyrus the Persian marched in victory into Babylon (§329) and the seventy years of Babylon and the seventy years of Jewish captivity were ‘completed’ (709 [printing error for 609] ‒539 = 70).”

Certainly, no one acquainted with Neo‒Babylonian history can honestly claim that the 70 years “for Babylon” have a “fuzzy meaning” because no particular events mark the beginning and end of the period.

Vulgate versions

Furuli next points out that “the Septuagint has the dative form babylôni” but with “the most natural meaning being ‘at Babylon’.” The statement reveals a surprising ignorance of ancient Greek. As every Greek scholar will point out, the natural meaning of the dative form babylôni is “for Babylon.” It is an exact, literal translation of the original Hebrew l^ebâbel, which definitely means “for Babel” in this text, as will be discussed below. True, at Jeremiah 29:22 form babylôni is used in the local sense, “in Babel,” but we may notice that it is preceded by the Greek preposition en, “in,” to make this clear:

“And from them a malediction will certainly be taken on the part of the entire body of exiles of Judah that is in Babylon (en babylôni)”

Furuli further refers to the rendering of the Latin Vulgate, in Balylone, which means, as he correctly explains, “in Babylon.” This translation most probably influenced the KJV of 1611, which in turn has influenced several other earlier translations. The point is that all translations derived from or influenced by the Vulgate, such as the KJV, are not independent sources.

le (lamed)

The preposition l^e is the most common preposition in the Hebrew Old Testament. According to a recent count, it occurs 20,725 times, 1352 of which are found in the book of Jeremiah. (Ernst Jenni, The hebraischen Prepositionen. Band 3: The Proposition Darned, Stuttgart, etc.: Verlag Kohlhammer, 2000, p. 17) What does it mean at Jeremiah 29:10 on the Gentile times (GTR) was published in 1983, this question has been asked of dozens of qualified Hebraists around the world. I contacted some and so did some of my correspondents. Although some of the Hebraists explained that l^e in a few expressions has a local sense (”in, at”), in most cases it does not, and they unanimously reject this meaning at Jeremiah 29:10 (Ch. 5, B‒2).

Furuli disagrees with their view. He believes that because l^e is used in a local sense in some expressions at a few places it is likely used in this sense also in Jeremiah 29:10

”Can it really be used in the local sense ‘at’? It certainly can, and The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew lists about 30 examples of this meaning, one of which is Numbers 11:10 (le) the entrance of his tent’. So, in each case when le is used, it is the context that must decide its meaning. For example, in Jeremiah 51:2 means ‘to Babylon’, because the preceding verb is ‘to send’. But lirûshâlâm [the letters li at the beginning of the word is a contraction of le+yod] in Jeremiah 3:17 clause, ‘all the nations will gather in Jerusalemʼhas the local meaning ‘in Jerusalem», and the same is true with the phrase lîhûdâ in Jeremiah 40:11 clause, ‘the king of Babylon had left a remnant A Judah».” (p. 86)

Well and good, but do these examples allow l^ebâbel at Jeremiah 29:10 “at Babylon”? Is this really a likely translation? Is it even a possible one? This question was sent to Professor Ernst Jenni in Basel, Switzerland, who is undoubtedly the leading authority’ today on Hebrew prepositions. So far, he has written three volumes on three of the Hebrew prepositions, b^e (beth), k^e (kaph), and l^e (lamed). In The hebraischen Prepositionen. Band 3: The Präposition Lamed (Stuttgart, etc.: Verlag Kohlhammer, 2000), he devotes 350 pages to the examination of l^e. His answer of October 1, 2003 was:

“As I recently have received an inquiry from Germany concerning Jer. 29:10 connection with a theory of Jehovah’s Witnesses), I can answer you relatively quickly.

My treatment of this passage is found in the Lamed‒book p. 109 (heading 4363). The rendering in all modern commentaries and translations is ‘for Babel’ (Babel as world power, not city or land); this is clear from the language as well as also from the context.

By the ‘local meaning’ a distinction is to be made between where? (‘in, at’) and where to? (local directional ‘to, towards’). The basic meaning of l is ‘with reference to’, and with a following local specification it can be understood as local or local‒directional only in certain adverbial expressions (e.g., Num. 11:10 ‘at the entrance’, cf. Lamed pp. 256, 260, heading 8151). At Jer. 51:2 Babel [as personified world power] winnowers, who will winnow it and empty its land’ (Lamed pp. 84f, 94)). On Jer. 3:17 terminative), everything necessary is in Lamed pp. 256, 270 and ZAH 1, 1988, 107‒111.

On the translations: LXX has with babylôni unambiguously a dative (‘for Babylon’). Only Vulgata has, to be sure, in liabylone, ‘in Babylon’, thus King James Version ‘at Babylon’, and so probably also the New World Translation. I hope to have served you with these informations and remain with kind regards,

E. Jenni.”

[Translated from the German. Emphasis added.]

In view of this specific and authoritative information, Furuli’s arguments for a local meaning of l^e at Jeremiah 29:10

What about the 70 years at

That the 70‒year texts at Zechariah 1:12 Daniel, and 2Chronicles is demonstrated in detail in GTR⁴, Ch. 5, E‒F. There is no need to repeat the argumentation here; most readers have access to this work. Furuli’s attempt to equate the 70 years in Zechariah with the 70 years of Jeremiah, Daniel, and the Chronicler evades the real problem.

According to Zechariah 1:12 had been denounced for “these seventy years.” If this denunciation ended when the Jews returned from the exile after the fall of Babylon, as Furuli holds, why does our text show that the cities still were being denounced in the second year of Darius, 520/519 BCE? Furuli has no explanation for this, and he prefers not to comment on the problem.

The same holds true of Zechariah 7:4 Furuli claims, when our text clearly shows that these fasts were still being held in the fourth year of Darius, 518/517 BCE? Furuli again ignores the problem. He just refers to the fact that the Hebrew verbs for “denounce,” “fast,” and “mourn” are all in the Hebrew perfect, stating that, “There is nothing in the verbs themselves which demands that the 70 years were still continuing at speech time.” (p. 88) True, but they do not demand the opposite, either. The verb forms in the passage prove nothing.

But the context does. It clearly shows that the cities were still being denounced “at speech time,” in 519 BCE, and that the fasts were still being held “at speech time,” in 517 BCE, about 70 years after the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 589‒587 BCE. That is why this question was raised in 519 BCE: Why is Jehovah still angry at Jerusalem and the cities? (Zechariah 1:7‒12 Shall we continue to hold these fasts? (Zechariah 7:1‒12 Society’s) implies that the denunciation of the cities and the keeping of the fasts had been going on for about 90–not 70–years, directly contradicting the statements in the book of Zechariah.

Is Furuli’s 70‒year desolation of Jerusalem supported by archaeology?

In note 126 on page 91, Furuli indicates that his theory of a 70‒year‒long desolation period for Jerusalem is supported by archaeological findings. He quotes from an article written by Ephraim Stem, “The Babylonian Gap,” in Biblical Archaeology Review (Vol. 26:6, 2000, pp. 45‒51, 76). Stem points out:

“For roughly half a century–from 604 B.C.E. to 538 B.C.E.–there is a complete gap in evidence suggesting occupation.” (pp. 46‒47)

This would indicate a gap of about 68 years. But Furuli fails to explain that the destruction that Stem dates to 604 BCE is the one caused by the Babylonian armies at their first capture of Judah and the surrounding nations in Nebuchadnezzar’s accession and first regnal years. This is evidently the destruction that Jeremiah, too, refers to at 25:18 Nebuchadnezzar in 25:1 Babylonian army on its first swing through Judah. (See the comments on this in GTR⁴, Ch. 5, A‒1, ftn. 10.) Of the destruction of Jerusalem 18 years later–which Stem dates to 586 BCE–Stem writes: “The evidence of this destruction is widely confirmed in Jerusalem excavations.” (p. 46) A careful examination of Stem’s article shows that there is nothing in it that supports Furuli’s views of the 70 years. This is also true of Stem’s more recent article on the same subject, “The Babylonian Gap: The Archaeological Reality,” published in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament (JSOT), Vol. 28:3 (2004), pp. 273‒277.

The Biblical 70 years–Furuli’s “different approach”

In the last few pages of chapter 4, Furuli describes his approach to the Biblical prophecies on the 70 years as “different.” Different how? It is different, he says, because he allows the Bible to take precedence over secular historical sources. He attempts to show this by comparing his approach with the discussion of the 70 years written by the Seventh Day Adventist scholar Ross E. Winkle. Furuli brings up Winkle’s discussion, he says, because he is the only scholar known to him who uses a linguistic approach to the 70‒year passages:

“The only person I am aware of who has discussed the prophecies of the exile from a linguistic point of view and in a scholarly way is a scholar writing in an Adventist periodical.” (p. 89)

This is a gross overstatement. I have many commentaries and articles that discuss these passages from a linguistic point of view. Nevertheless, Winkle’s discussion is excellent. It was published in 1987 in the scholarly SDA publication Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS, Vols. 25:2 and 25:3). As a subscriber to that journal, I read Winkle’s articles in 1987 and was surprised to find out how remarkably similar most of his observations and conclusions were to my own, published four years earlier in GTR¹. (See the comments on this in GTR⁴, Ch. 5, G‒2, ftn. 57.)

Furuli explains that the difference between Winkle’s approach and his own is that Winkle “interprets the words of Daniel and the Chronicler in the light of his understanding of the traditional chronology. I, on the other hand, start with the words of Daniel and the Chronicler, which I argue are unambiguous, and choose the understanding of Jeremiah 25 Chronicler: the traditional chronology is not taken into account at all.” (p. 90) Furuli then makes some comments about Winkle’s analysis of 2Chronicles 36:20‒22 “unnatural” because his basis “is a faith in the traditional chronology.” (p. 91)

This is not a fair description of either Winkle’s approach or of Furuli’s own. In this review of the first four chapters of Furuli’s book, we have seen a number of insurmountable difficulties that his Oslo Chronology creates not only with respect to the extra‒Biblical historical sources but also with the Bible itself.

The amount of evidence against Furuli’s revised chronology provided by the cuneiform documents–in particular the astronomical tablets–is enormous. Furuli’s attempts to explain away this evidence are of no avail. His idea that most, if not all, of the astronomical data recorded on the tablets might have been retrocalculated in a later period is demonstrably false. Furuli’s final, desperate theory that the Seleucid astronomers–and there were many– systematically redated almost the whole astronomical archive inherited from earlier generations of scholars is divorced from reality.

With respect to the Biblical passages on the 70 years, we have seen to what extremes Furuli has been forced to go in his attempts to bring them in agreement with his theory. He has been unable to prove his repeated claim that the 70‒year passages in Daniel and 2Chronicles unambiguously state that Jerusalem was desolate for 70 years. His linguistic interpretation of 2Chronicles 36:21 the main clause in verse 20, which plainly makes the servitude end at the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE. Furuli’s linguistic rerenderings of the passages in Jeremiah are no better. To reconcile Jeremiah 25:11 must discard “the most natural translation” of the verse. And to bring Jeremiah 29:10 theory, he must reject the near‒universal rendering “for Babylon” in favor of the unsupportable “in Babylon” or “at Babylon”– translations rejected by all competent modern Hebraists.

Furuli’s approach, then, is not Biblical but sectarian. As a conservative Jehovah’s Witness “scholar”, he is prepared to go to any length to force the Biblical passages and the historical sources into agreement with the Watchtower Society’s Gentile times chronology–a chronology that is the foundation cornerstone of the movement’s claim to God‒given authority. As I have amply documented in this review, this sectarian agenda forces Furuli to invent incredible explanations of the relevant sources, Biblical as well as extra‒Biblical.

A Discussion of the Biblical Material in the Book Persian. Chronology and the Length of the Babylonian Exile of the Jews, by Rolf Furuli (RF), Oslo 2003. By Kristen Jorgensen (2004)

[Editor’s note: Kristen Jorgensen is a professional Danish linguist with a sound knowledge of the Biblical languages.]

This recent book purports to be a scientific treatment of the subject given in the title, by a Norwegian scholar introducing himself as a lecturer of Semitic languages at Oslo University. The greater part of it consists of a discussion of ancient Middle East chronology based on astronomical observations found on clay tablets and in other old written sources. However, the only part to be discussed here is the material found in chapter four, on pages 75‒92, and in the abstract on page 15. A close reading of this chapter creates serious doubts about the intentions of the author, however, as his aim seems merely to prove his sectarian views about the title theme. Right from the outset it points in that direction, as evidenced both by the subtitles and the skewed argumentation, so as not to speak of the various errors and mistakes. Before going into the main text we may take a look at the abstract:

The ‘Abstract’

This short paragraph is nothing less than presumptuous: to present categorical statements from the outset along with an unproven conclusion must be regarded as very poor method as seen from a scholarly viewpoint. Indeed, an abstract at the beginning of a thesis is supposed merely to present the theme and the problems to be treated, maybe even outlining the methods to be used in solving them. Any discussion of the final results should be left to a summary at the end, as exemplified in so many learned works. RF’s claim that there are six Bible passages mentioning ‘a Babylonian exile of 70 years’ is erroneous: there is no such passage anywhere in the entire Bible! Consequently, the rest is to all practical purposes quite false, simply because God’s inspired Word, the Bible, nowhere states explicitly how long that period was to last but leaves it to the reader to figure it out from the historical facts ‒ and they fully support the view that the exile lasted for no more than half a century. Indeed, it is not mere tradition but diligent Bible scholarship in conjunction with the findings of archaeology, history and chronology which leads one straight to this sound conclusion, a fact which has been substantiated by much competent Bible research over the years.

The Bible ... The subtitle on page 75 repeats the erroneous claims already made and so needs no further comment. However, RF’s continued presentation of false information without the giving of proper evidence reveals his purpose: he evidently wants his readers to believe these claims before any proof is presented! This is the method of propagandists, not of honest scholars who are weighing all possibilities carefully before making a decision. Now, as to Leviticus 26 evident that punishment for idolatry in Israel was not just a possibility, it was a sure thing, but it is not so sure that Exodus 20:5 says nothing about an exile and the mention of later generations may as well refer back to Genesis 15:13‒16 the sins of the Amorites had not yet reached their full measure, and so no action would be taken against them just then.

In the latter part of the first paragraph RF tells us that ‘the captivity of the Jews in Babylon is spoken of as an exile’, which is hardly news, but of the three scriptures referred to containing the term gâlût (which may be translated ‘captivity’, or ‘exile’, even ‘exiles’ or ‘captives’ collectively) one is slightly off: Jeremiah 52:32

The final clause of this paragraph is also deceptively formed: Jeremiah 25:11 the exile but with the servitude of ‘these nations’ under Babylon, and 29:10 Babylon and to no one else! Actually, RF admits as much in the very first clause after the quotations, saying, ‘... but the text does not say explicitly that it refers to an exile for the Jewish nation’! Of course it doesn’t, for that simply would not have been true. Aside from the poor syntax of parts of these paragraphs this statement is a gem by which the author actually casts aspersions on his own argumentation right from the outset! His grammatical analysis ‘of (not ‘in’) Jeremiah 25:11 clause in which the subject is ‘this whole country’, ‘will become’ is the verbal, and ‘a desolate wasteland’ is the subjective complement. Then, of course, ‘these nations’ is the subject of the latter clause, and ‘will serve’ is the verbal, while ‘Babylon’ is what is usually called the direct object (the term ‘patient’ used by the author belongs to the so‒ called ‘Case Grammar’ and is not commonly used in connection with Hebrew which lost its case endings in antiquity. However, his use of it makes no difference whatsoever for the analysis of this Hebrew text). Moreover, he states quite correctly that according to the grammatical analysis ‘“Babylon»... is the nation that should experience the period of 70 years’, after which he blows it by falsely claiming that, ‘Nevertheless, the writers of Daniel and 2Chronicles understood the words of Jeremiah to imply a 70‒year exile for the: Jewish nation’! Now, it may be said with absolute certainty that they could not have understood Jeremiah’s words to imply anything like that, simply because the prophet never stated that with even a single word anywhere and so, if anyone ‘understood’ them in that way it would be either a gross error or, even worse, a deliberate misrepresentation of the inspired message. Barring extreme sloppiness on the part of the writer, the latter may well be the case!

Really, it boggles the mind to try to fathom this claim, that two inspired spokesmen of Almighty God should have misrepresented the inspired words of another faithful servant of God, an inspired prophet who served in Jerusalem during one of the most turbulent periods of her history and who was faithful in performing the task which Jehovah had entrusted to him, despite all the difficulties and hardships he had to suffer for 40 years in Jerusalem and some time later in Egypt! This is a harsh treatment of Jeremiah, as well as of Daniel and the Chronicler who evidently had no difficulty in understanding Jeremiah’s words, as is obvious from a close reading of the scriptures in question. By the way, the quotation from 2Chronicles at the bottom of page 75 is not merely from 36:20 such.

Actually, RF’s entire argumentation in this part of the chapter rests on a falsehood, a sly deception: His statement on page 76 that it ‘turns the matter upside down’ to begin with what he calls the ‘ambiguous words’ of Jeremiah 25:10 other way around: the one turning matters topsy‒turvy is RF by his claiming that Jeremiah’s inspired words are ‘ambiguous’, which they are not ‒ indeed, there is absolutely nothing ‘ambiguous’ or erroneous in the prophecies of Jeremiah about the fate of Judah and Jerusalem at the hand of the Babylonians. Apparently, RF has invented this postulate as an excuse for seeking a different explanation of these matters. Moreover, here he also shows that he is aware of the problems he is creating for himself, because after claiming falsely that the land was desolate for 70 years he says, ‘Whereas we at first glance do not understand Jeremiah 25:11 be any problem here.’ No, in this he is right, for all problems disappear if we ignore his attempts to twist the truth of God’s Word. This will be further elucidated in the analysis to be set forth here.

No ambiguity in God’s Word

Nonetheless, he persists in his false claims: after his quotations from 2Chronicles and Daniel he claims that the words of these two writers are ‘unambiguous’ and since they ‘lived after the exile was terminated, ... they knew the real length of it.’ This is correct, of course, only it does not prove his contention for, as stated, Jeremiah’s words are as unambiguous as theirs, and since he received his prophetic message from Jehovah God by inspiration, it was utterly correct in all details. The entire argumentation found in this paragraph and the next two is false to the core: while it is true that in certain uninspired writings it may be possible to explain ambiguous passages by means of unambiguous ones dealing with the same subject matter, this principle is not applicable here, since none of the inspired scriptures dealt with are ambiguous! The only reason why the author claims that (thus far with no evidence at all) is that he clearly has an axe to grind, namely to gain support for the age‒old claims of certain sectarian expositions made long ago by people who knew altogether far too little about the ancient history of Israel and her neighbouring countries and of the chronology of that period to deal correctly and scholarly with such matters. Even today their successors haven’t learned to do it properly but stick stubbornly to their ancient falsehoods!

At this stage a few words may be said about these early sectarian matters, about which even RF may know too little: When young Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the movement of the Watchtower people (to whom RF belongs), known since the 1870’s as the Bible Students, but since 1931 as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, published his dogma about the ‘Gentile Times’ of Luke 21:24 counting from 606 BCE (much later tacitly ‘corrected’ to 607!) to 1914 CE, he based this dating on an incorrect chronology’ used by certain small Adventist groups with which he had been associated for some time and from whom he had learned most of his views about ‘the last days’ and the beginning of ‘the millennium’, and evidently he did not try to find out what real scholars had to say about these subjects. Indeed, if he had done so, he might have learned that even before he was born historians had figured out a better chronology for Judah and the Neo‒Babylonian empire, as may be seen in Dr. Alfred Edersheim’s History of the Jewish Nation from the late 19th century, in which he cites dates for the destruction of Jerusalem from several learned works, the earliest one of which is Dr.G.B.Winer’s Biblisches Realwörterbuch from 1847‒48 (published four years before Russell was born!), which gives the year as 588 BC, while a scholar named Clinton has 587, exactly like modern scholars nowadays! So why did not Mr Russell look to the competent scholars of his day for the correct date? That would have saved him from many a mistake and his followers from the long series of disappointments which they have suffered over the years down till this very day!

Well, back to pages 76, 77 of RF’s book where we find another slanted subtitle, after which he goes on to Daniel 9:2 text, giving a literal rendering of it and quoting the New World Translation for good measure (in this he cuts a corner by writing ‘70’ instead of ‘seventy’). The Hebrew is transliterated, but his system does not seem to conform to any of the well‒known standard systems: it employs the letter [æ], which is only used in Danish and Norwegian, never in English texts; also, he does not transliterate the divine name as Jehovah or Yahweh as is usual in English‒language publications, but uses the Jewish substitute ‘adônay (“my lord’), which is not really a transliteration. There are other irregularities in his system, but let this suffice for the moment.

Strangely enough, in his grammatical analysis he does not deal with the Hebrew text but with the secondary English rendering, except for the tiny preposition le, which he somehow maltreats together with the verb with which it is connected. Also, it is incomplete, as he omits the initial time adverbial (bishenat ‘achat lemâlekho, ‘in year one of his reign’) and the rest is defective ‒ e.g., the subject in the first part of the sentence is not just ‘Daniel’, but in Hebrew ‘ani Dâniêl, rendered in NW ‘I myself Daniel’, the inclusion of the personal pronoun ‘ani (‘Iʼ) showing that the subject is emphatic ‒ Daniel had checked matters for himself in ‘the Scriptures’. He also omits the quite important adverbial bassepârim (‘in the Scripturesʼ) which shows that the aging Daniel did not waste his time but checked the inspired Scriptures at once when the time was up. The definition of the direct object (DO) is somewhat incorrect, too: first come the core words mishpar bâshanim (‘number of years’), followed by an embedded relative clause, ‘asher hâyâh debhar‒YHWH ‘el‒Yirmiyâh‒hanâbhî (‘which gave word of Yahweh to Jeremiah the prophet’). Finally, the last part of the DO is the clause lemall’ôt lechorebhôt Yerûshalâyim shibhim shanâh, in which lemall’ôt is the infinitive, le being the infinitive marker and the verb mal’e (‘to fill, fulfill, complete’) is in the timeless and intensive piel conjugation (‘in order to fully complete’), while lechorebhôt Yerûshalâyim is a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial (‘in regard to/for Jerusalem’s desolations’), and lastly, shibhim shanâh, (‘seventy years’) is the direct object. RF’s analysis of the word lemall’ôt, i.e., that ‘the preposition plus infinitive serves as a temporal accusative whose adjunct is 70 years’, for which he refers to Ronald J. Williams’ Hebrew Syntax An Outline (2nd ed. Toronto U.P. 1976, p. 48, § 268) for proof, is in error; indeed, if he had studied the paragraph referred to and the references from it in detail he would have noted that le does not function in that way except when directly connected with a term expressing some time element, as in Williams’ examples, e.g. 2Chronicles 11:17 years’).

Thus, the prepositional phrase lechorebhôt Yerûshalâyim, ‘for desolations of Jerusalem’ functions as an adverbial indicating the purpose intended, namely to fix the absolute end of the desolations of Jerusalem, i.e., when the 70 years ‘for Babylon’ were to end. As for RF’s little comparison with a ‘simpler clause’, it is really of no value at all, and that goes for his paraphrase, too. The framed statement in bold‒faced type is rather irrelevant: true, there is no need to take the word chorebhôt (fem. plur., construct) to signify several desolations of Jerusalem, but neither is it logical to apply it to ‘the many ruins of the city’, because in Hebrew the so‒called plural form may also signify fulness, intensity’, magnitude, extension and similar concepts, according to the context, and here it is most likely used to show that the full and complete desolation of Jerusalem would end exactly at the time designated by Jehovah himself, as made known through his prophet Jeremiah. (Cf. Johs. Pedersen, Hebкæisk Grammatik, Copenhagen 1926, pages 197, 198, § 115) However, we ought to note that RF correctly connects the complete desolation of Jerusalem with the final conquest by the Chaldeans (in 587 BC, not 607), but he errs again when he stubbornly sticks to a ‘period of 70 years’ for the Jewish exile, even though he is not able to present any real evidence, simply because there is none, het us just see how NASB renders Daniel 9:2

in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the peophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. – Cf. also RV, ASV, RSV, AAT, Moffatt, Amplified, Rotherham.

Please note the fine wording ‘for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely seventy years’: here the emphasis is placed where it belongs, namely on the latter part of the period of desolations, when it is to be completed. Here many others have failed in exactly the same way as RF, taking the period of seventy years to signify the total number of years of the exile; a clear example of this grammatical error in a modern translation may be seen in The Good News Bible:

In the first year of his reign, I was studying the sacred books and thinking about the seventy years that Jerusalem would be in ruins, according to what the LORD had told the prophet Jeremiah. ‒Cf. also NEB, NAB, and NASB.

Interestingly, the GN‒Bible renders some of the parts excellently, such as ‘I was studying the sacred books’, because no doubt that was what Daniel was doing; naturally, this high official of the Babylonian government had copies of the sacred books for his own private use, including the prophecy of Jeremiah, thus being able to make sure of these diings, for which he had waited a lifetime! But modern scholars who do not really believe in the inspiration and the complete integriity of the Bible unfortunately distort parts of it, as may be seen in the translations here referred to.

Going on to this scripture (pp.78‒80), RF transliterates‒cum‒translates the Hebrew in the same imperfect way as before, quoting the quite imprecise NWT to boot; indeed, if he had used the more recent NIV he might have imparted a better understanding to his readers. For the sake of completeness we may begin with verse 20 which gives us the necessary background knowledge (NIV):

He [Nebuchadnezzar] carried into exile to Babylon the remnant who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until the Kingdom of Persia came to power.

Now, in this there is no mention of the number of years that this exile was to last, neither is its beginning dated; however, as to the latter point it is clearly shown that it would only begin after tire putting of the enemies in the city to the sword, which happened in 587 BCE; and as to the former point we learn that it would end when Persia took over from Babylon, that is, in 539 BCE. This is in full agreement with Jeremiah’s statement, and does in no way contradict his inspired prophecy.

Then, in verse 21, the Chronicler introduces a new element of which Jeremiah had said nothing, namely that during the exile of the Jews the land had enjoyed its rest as had been prophesied long ago in Leviticus 26:15‒35 last until it had ‘paid off its sabbaths’. As the law of God stated in Leviticus 25 sabbath year of rest during which the land was to lie fallow, and each fiftieth year was to be a Jubilee year of liberty in which the land should also remain fallow. However, Jeremiah never referred to these parts of the law with a single word, a fact to be kept in mind when dealing with verse 21, especially the latter part of it:

The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolations it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfilment of the word of the LORD spoken to Jeremiah.

Please note that the text does not say, ‘all the seventy years for Babylon it rested’, which would have been erroneous; what it does say is that the land ‘rested’ until the seventy years mentioned by Jeremiah (‘for Babylon’) ‘were completed’ ‒ and since Jeremiah never mentioned the sabbath rest in any of his prophecies, the part of verse 21 dealing with that cannot be included in the reference to ‘the word of the LORD spoken to Jeremiah’! The only part to be included in this reference is the one about the ‘seventy years’ allotted to or ‘for Babylon’, during which ‘these nations’ (defined in 25:9 extensive list in 25:17‒26 Consequently, the ‘exposition’ made by RF is patently false as far as the Chronicler’s understanding of Jeremiah’s prophecy is concerned.

How about the accents?

Then, on page 79 RF directs our attention to the fact that in the Masoretic text certain accents are used to mark the middle of verse 21, dividing it into two sentences (better, ‘clauses’) and then also to mark the middle of each of these two parts. Now, this is quite correct ‒ for a fact, there are no less than fourteen accent marks in this verse, although they do not all have the same significance.

As it is, RF does not identify the accents in question, which are 1) the ‘atnach (Ù), seen under the penultimate syllable in the word shabbetoteyha, and the zaqeph qaton ), to be seen over the penultimate syllables of the words Yirmeyahu and shabhatah. The first one is commonly styled a ‘verse divider’, and is thought to represent as a punctuation mark either a comma or a semicolon, according to the length and structure of the verse, and the latter one is regarded as a less powerful sign, no more than a comma and maybe not even that. However, as far as the semantic contents of the verse and its proper interpretation are concerned, these signs have no authority whatsoever, and RF’s attempt to utilize them for that purpose is quite futile.

As it is, these accents were invented long after the inspired consonantal Hebrew texts were written down: according to the textual critics they were added by the so‒called Masoretes (8th‒10th century CE) who also invented the vowel points to indicate the traditional pronunciation of the sacred texts. These signs were applied, first and foremost, as accent marks, to indicate the stress and rhythm to be applied to the words and phrases in public reading. Even at that, neither they nor the vowel points were ever used in the most sacred of all the scrolls, those used for public reading in the synagogues. They are quite useful, however, as they show textual scholars how the ancient consonantal Hebrew manuscripts were read and understood by the Jewish scholars of the Tiberian school who furnished them with vowel points and accent marks. This is a well‒known fact, of course, but these signs are never used by reputable Hebrew scholars in the way suggested by RF. In this paragraph and note 118 he actually commits another real blunder, when he tries to make out that the lines of this verse form a parallelism! Let’s just take a closer look at this strange contention:

Is there a parallelism?

RF postulates that the four parts into which he divides verse 21 ‘speak about the same thing’, putting b) and c) together, although his idea about viewing the sabbaths from different angles seems rather strange; indeed, they do not, but even if they did, we must remember that in true Hebrew parallelisms different viewpoints on the matters discussed are quite common and simply make for variations of style. What he fails to see, however, is what has just been pointed out, namely that in Jeremiah’s prophecy referred to here there is no mention of a sabbath rest, and so that feature cannot be part of any exposition of his prophecy. For the very same reason his statement that since the accents seem to place a) and b) together they are to be regarded as one unit is in error semantically, and again, RF’s part b) of the verse has nothing to do with the fulfilment of Jeremiah’s prophecy! Actually, the putting together of a) and d) would have been a better idea semantically, since both mention the fulfilling of Jeremiah’s prophecy, but tins will not do stylistically, since parallel elements must stand parallel, in successive lines. And when he then makes his rephrased ‘parallels’, in which the order is a), b), d), and c), he muddles his own exposition well and truly, because this is quite impossible semantically and stylistically.

Actually, the structure of this verse may be regarded quite differently, as a) and d) both refer to the fulfilment of Jehovah’s prophecy about the seventy years as spoken by Jeremiah, and so they may be seen as belonging together in their reference; b) and c) then stand as an embedded addition from the hand of the Chronicler, quite likely because he wants to remind his readers of the catastrophe which had befallen the Judeans because they had neglected to keep Jehovah’s commandments about these matters, and maybe also because in the days after the homecoming and the restoration of the walls of Jerusalem by Nehemiah they had again begun to violate the sabbath in various ways, maybe even the sabbatical years, although this is not mentioned. – Nehemiah 13:15‒ 22

Another failure of his, indeed, the initial one, is however a very common one with amateurs and those with an axe to grind, namely that he has separated this verse from its context, in this case from the preceding verse (20) which I included above. For a fact, the connection is easily seen, because the entire contents of that verse, about Nebuchadnezzar carrying the remnant which had escaped the sword off to Babylon to be servants of him and his sons after him, until the kingdom of Persia came to power, is evidendy what is referred to in the first part of verse 21, as it says literally, ‘to fulfill word of Yahweh by mouth of Jeremiah’ (Kohlenberger’s literal translation). To that part may then be added RF’s part d) about the seventy years which Jeremiah had said were ‘for Babylon’. Thus we have a fine statement by the Chronicler about the prophecy of Jeremiah, into which he puts his own explanatory addition about the fulfilment of the ancient prophetic threat from the Mosaic law about the sabbath rest for the land during the enforced exile of the people in the land of the enemy.

As shown above, RF’s claim that 2Chronicles 36:21 error, which anyone even superficially acquainted with this form of Hebrew style would realize, first of all simply because the entire chapter of which this verse is a part is composed in plain prose, and Hebrew parallelisms only occur in poetry! From the time of Bishop Lowth who first of all Westerners described this feature of Old Testament poetry it has been customary to classify parallelisms according to their contents and style. Actually, the only type in which successive lines ‘say the same thing’, as RF claims for parts of verse 21, is the one called ‘Synonymous Parallelism’, of which we may quote a typical example as rendered in Ps. 149:2 people of Zion be glad in their King.’ In this ‘Israel’ corresponds to ‘the people of Zion’, ‘rejoice’ corresponds to ‘be glad’, and ‘their Maker’ to ‘their King.’ Thus these two lines constitute a perfect ‘synonymous parallelism’, because both parts express exactiy the same thought, howbeit with different words. This type is found time and again in all the poetic writings of the Hebrew Bible, also in quite a few of the prophetic ones, as may be seen in the tripartite example from Jeremiah 10:10 he is the living God, the eternal King.’

The fact that this verse is not a parallelism is also shown by the very accents which RF used in his argumentation: In the Hebrew Bible there are two systems of accents, one for prose and another one tor poetry, that is, some of the marks are used in both systems, but in different ways ‒ and the accents to which he referred and their use as mentioned by him show that he has in mind the ones used in prose texts! Also, one well‒known feature of the ancient Hebrew manuscripts is that prose is always written in lines of even length, but poetry is written as verse in uneven lines, according to the sense, as may even be seen in some modern translations, e.g. in the NIV, where Jeremiah’s poetic parts are printed like that; this is however ignored in many Bible translations, such as in the NW‒Bible.

How are these verses to be translated?

Let us, for the sake of completeness, just take a closer look at the two verses we are dealing with, to see how they are composed; this example is taken from NIV (emphasis added),

²⁰He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until (‘ad) the kingdom of Persia came to power. ²¹ The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until (‘ad) the seventy years were completed in fulfilment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah.

Please note that the particle ‘ad (‘until’) is used not only where RF incorrectly wants to render it while (v. 21), but also in the phrase ‘until the kingdom of Persia came to power’ (v. 20), in which it would be impossible to render it ‘while’, and it is only logical to regard it as having been used in the same sense in both verses. As shown by his context, RF’s reason for rendering it ‘while’ is apparently that he dislikes the usual term ‘until’ being used here, ostensibly because it does not fit his prejudiced ideas. This particle ‘ad has as its basic meaning ‘(continuation, duration), as far as, unto’, (Gesenius‒Kautzsch‒Cowley, Hebrew Grammar, § 103 o) as it ‘indicates the distance from, the approach towards’, i.e. ‘until’. According to the Hebrew‒German Handwörterbuch by Gesenius‒Buhl (pages 563‒565), the sense is ‘bis, bis zu, haüfig mit Einschluss des Zielpunktes ... so dab der Zielpunkt als erreicht vorgestellt w(ird)’; that is, the distance or time indicated by ‘ad is viewed as ‘reaching from the starting point to and including the point aimed at.’ See also the Hebrew and English Lexicon by Brown, Driver and Briggs, pages 723‒725, where we find similar definitions by Dr. Samuel Rolles Driver (who handled the treatment of all particles expertly in that work) in full accord with its basic semantic content. This accords fully with its use in 2Chronicles 36:20 translators, also where RF wants to make it mean ‘while’, which will not do, because here there is no element necessitating a departure from the usual sense of the word. True, the lexicon lists ‘while’ as a possible meaning of it, but in BDB page 725 Dr. Driver tells us that it occurs only rarely in that sense and he gives us no reason to accept RF’s aberrant views. As it is, in 2Chronicles 36:21 versions render it ‘until’, and the German ones ‘bis, bis zu’, while in other languages we find words of exactly the same meaning, such as ‘indtil’ in Danish, ‘til’ in Norwegian and ‘till’ in Swedish. As for the meaning ‘while’, I haven’t been able to find a single translation using that in 2Chronicles 36:21

Finally, we may as well discard RF’s German ‘example’ (which seems to be taken from a bad joke) and rewrite the framed text printed in bold‒face type on page 80 to bring it into accord with the truth of God’s Word, the Bible:

“The words of Jeremiah 25:11 29:10 Daniel 9:2 and 2Chronicles 36:20 are all clear and unambiguous: Judah and Jerusalem were to become desolate and remain in this condition from the final destruction of the city in 587 BCE until the end of the 70 years ‘for Babylon’, which period ended in the year 539 BCE, when Babel fell to Medo‒Persia.”

This is what the Bible and history, supported by chronology and archaeology, agree on in all details.

What was the objective of Jeremiah?

This is RF’s next subtitle, and the rest of page 80 and the better part of page 81 are filled with his speculations along the twisted and contorted trail he has chosen to follow. Really, it is not necessary to speak of the prophet’s objective at all beyond his strong desire to complete the task his heavenly father had given him, about which we read in Jeremiah 1:4‒10 appointing Jeremiah as his prophet in Jerusalem:

“Before I was forming you in the belly I knew you, and before you proceeded to come forth from the womb I sanctified you. Prophet to the nations I made you.’... to all those to whom I shall send you, you should go; and everything that I shall command you, you should speak. ... Here I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have commissioned you this day to be over the nations and over the kingdoms, in order to uproot and to pull down and to destroy and to tear down, to build and to plant.” (emphasis added; cf. vss. 11‒19)

Actually, that is how Jeremiah’s task has been understood by Bible scholars at all times, not only by Christian ones, but also Jewish ones, such as Dr. Joseph Klausner who wrote about Jeremiah that he

‘intervenes in the political life of his nation, contending not only with priests and popular teachers, but also with kings and princes, prophesying not only against Judah and Jerusalem, but also against the Gentiles and foreign powers, and the whole of the then known world, enfolding them all in his all‒embracing grip, and scrutinizing them with the acute vision of the eagle.’ – Jesus of Nagareth, translated by H. Danby, London 1929. (Page 390, emphasis added)

Being a priest himself Jeremiah knew the law well and so he was no doubt familiar with the contents of Leviticus, the volume that more than any other part of the Mosaic law addressed the priests, and quite naturally he would also know the contents of chapter 26 with all its promises of rewards for faithfulness and dire threats about punishment for disobedience. However, even at that he never quotes from this chapter, and even though he in his prophecies mentions the Judean exile reasonably often he never connects it with a sabbath rest for the land. So, RF’s claim about Leviticus 26 and his ‘point of departure’ doesn’t hold water, it is as farfetched as the other parts of his homespun yarn. Actually, the Bible itself furnishes some very clear evidence about the text from which the Chronicler took the parts of his statement about the ‘sabbath rest’ mentioned in connection with Jeremiah’s prophecy: the relevant words in 2Chronicles 36:21 corresponding ones from Leviticus 26:34

‘ad‒ratsetah ha’arets ‘et ‒shabbetoteyha kol-yemey hashammah shabbatah

until‒she‒enjoyed the‒land her‒sabbaths all‒days to‒be‒desolate she‒rested

‘az tirtseh ha’arets ‘et‒shabbetoteyha ...kol-yemey hashammah tishebat

then she‒will‒enjoy the‒land her‒sabbaths ...all‒days to‒be‒desolate she‒will‒rest

These statements are nearly identical, the only differences being found in the words expressing time, namely the two introductory particles and the tenses of the first and the last verb in each of them: in Leviticus the first particle is ‘az an adverb signifying ‘then’, here clearly referring to the future, while the Chronicler has ‘ad, a preposition meaning ‘until’, pointing back in time. Both use the same verbs, in almost the same grammatical form, namely qal, 3rd prs sg fem, the only difference being in the tense; the first verb is ratsah (‘to enjoy’), for which Leviticus has the future tirtseh (‘she will enjoy’), while the Chronicler has the preterite ratsetah (‘she enjoyed’), signifying the past. Then the final verb is shabbat, (‘to rest’), with the Chronicler it is in the preterite, shabbatah, (‘she rested’), while in Leviticus it is tishebat (‘she will rest’), in the future tense. The subjects, the direct objects and the time adverbials, also the verbs following (hashammah, ‘to be desolate’) are identical in both clauses.

There can be little doubt that the Chronicler had both the prophecy of Jeremiah and the book of Leviticus to hand when he penned the last chapter of his book, and it is interesting to see how he took exactly the relevant parts of Leviticus 26:34 information from Jeremiah, who, however, had nothing from Leviticus at all.

RF’s parallels

Alas, on page 80 RF persists in his stubbornness, stating quite untruthfully that Jeremiah was the first to mention an exile of 70 years’ which he was not, for neither he nor anyone else did that! He mentioned the seventy years, also the exile and its end, but neither he nor any other prophet stated in just so many words that that exile would last 70 years! Apparently we have to repeat that statement time and again, because RF stubbornly refuses to admit that simple truth! Then, in the last passage before RF’s ‘parallels’ we note a printing error in the third line from the bottom, where ‘lead’ should read ‘led’. As for the many scriptures he has selected for these ‘parallels’, there is of course nothing wrong with them, only they do not prove his contentions, which of course couldn’t be expected.

However, let us take a look at these parallels in which he compares verses from Jeremiah with verses from Leviticus: first, we note that not one of the verses here taken from Jeremiah contains a literal quotation from Leviticus! They even seem to have been chosen rather haphazardly, as though RF has merely picked them out at random from a concordance, with no proper study of their contents, to wit:

In the first one, Jer. 11:10 been or at least included verse 15 pestilence, but included sword and famine in the punishment to be meted out. Finally, the sixth and last one is a real howler: RF’s ‘text’ says, ‘the holy place would be destroyed.’ Now, at this stage of Judean history this could mean only one thing, the temple of Jerusalem; however, Leviticus 26:31 tabernacle, for that matter), instead we find a prophecy against Israel’s false worship and the punishment for it, which would hit their ‘high places’, their ‘incense altars’ and their ‘lifeless idols’, also their ‘sanctuaries’, no doubt the kind spoken against in Amos 4:4 house’, the royal palace in Jerusalem! – Jer. 22:1‒5

Actually, any really diligent study of these matters could easily have produced many more excellent verses to be used here, but once more RF has been too sloppy in his research. Obviously, he is not interested in getting at the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but only at connecting his erroneous views with the idea of 70 years for the exile and the sabbath rest of the land, a fact becoming even more obvious when his list of twelve quotations from Jeremiah 4:7 nothing strange in these scriptures – after all, Jeremiah had been given the task of prophesying about these events and that he did faithfully, which was his true objective. This becomes even clearer when we realize that all but one of these statements are parts of ‘messages from Jehovah’, and the one exception, the very last one, is from Jeremiah’s speech to the Jewish remnant on the basis of just such a message! Also, we know that he was not the first to speak in this vein: Isaiah had in his time spoken just as candidly, Micah had spoken up in the same manner, and so had others during the years of increasing idolatry. As it was, however, Jeremiah was the man on the spot: he was in Jerusalem where the action was, serving for an entire generation right to the end ‒ and when the Babylonians offered him to go with them in safety to Babylon, he stayed on in the city and he even served with the remnant of the people in Egypt for some time. –Jer. chapters 40‒51.

A faulty list of quotations

Then, on page 81 we find some more peculiarities: first, according to RF himself these quotations are taken from NWT, i.e., the Watchtower Bible, but they are not, they are all straight from the NIV! The first three seem to be defective in semantic content, as the writer does not include any reason for the severe threats uttered, and the same can be said about 25:18, which starts in the middle of a judicial statement, so that the reader will have to find out for himself what the culprits mentioned have done to deserve the punishment with which they are threatened. Also, in the last clause of 9:11, NIV has ‘so that no‒ one’, while RF merely has ‘so no one’. The same error occurs further down, in the rendering of 34:22. Moreover, the fifth one is not from 9:22 but is a partial repetition from 9:11! Then in 33:10 RF breaks off his quote in the midst of a clause, so that we do not get to know ‘what will be heard once more’ – actually, he should have included verse 11 to make this quotation a complete and natural one. The next one, purportedly from 33:12, is not from that verse but is a short repetition from verse 10, and in the quoted part of 34:22 we are not told what the ‘it’ is that is to be destroyed so thoroughly – that item, mentioned no less than three times, is ‘this city’, Jerusalem, as shown in verses 18‒22b. It is extremely difficult to take the work of RF seriously!

At that time Jehovah had wisely placed three trusted and faithful prophets in strategic positions for his purpose: the priest Jeremiah in the midst of Jerusalem, close to the king, the leaders and the priests; Ezekiel, also a priest, was with the exiles in faraway Babylon, and Daniel and his three friends, all of them from the royal tribe of Judah, in the heart of the world empire, in Babylon the capital, where they even had the ear of the king, the one called ‘my servant’ by Jehovah himself. Jer. 25:9 the situation for Judah and Jerusalem in those fateful days, the historical and the prophetic books furnish enough material for that purpose. Apparently he does not have that in mind, however, and so when he turns to Jeremiah 25:11 to find some much needed support for his views by means of a grammatical analysis. Let’s see how he goes about this intricate task (pages 81‒87).

In the paragraphs leading on to RF’s transliteration‒cum‒translation of this verse he is back in his cantankerous mood, questioning the renderings of NIV, NW and other modern translations, raving about the structure of the verse, suggesting as possible ‘solutions’ to his hypothetical ‘problems’ either a different sense of the Hebrew or the acceptance of the rendering of the LXX; none of these options seems feasible, though, because in spite of RF’s imaginings the Hebrew text is clear and unambiguous, while the LXX evidently is deficient in this case. This is clear even from RF’s slightly skewed rendering, both his transliteration and the translation of the words and phrases; a more precise literal translation of the Hebrew would go like this:

¹¹and‒she‒will‒become all‒the‒land the‒this to‒(a)‒waste to‒(a)‒desolation

and‒they‒will‒serve the‒nations the‒these king‒(of) Babylon

seventy year(s)

As this verse is part of a larger passage Jer. 25:8‒14 verb in the usual way. Since Hebrew verbs can express number and person of the action described they actually also express the subject, as seen here; however, when there is also an overt subject they will of course be in agreement grammatically: thus the ‘she’ of the first phrase (ve ‒ plus the Hebrew verbal) is in agreement with the overt subject, ‘all the land the this’ (in Hebrew, ‘erets, ‘land’, is feminine). The last two phrases of the first line constitute the subjective complement, showing what ‘the land will become’, the use of two synonymous phrases expressing emphasis. In the second line the syntax is equally natural: beginning with the conjunction ve‒ (‘and’), followed by the verbal with an implied subject, fully agreeing in its grammatical form with the overt subject, both being masculine plural and the overt subject very emphatic with its postpositive double determination. The direct object is ‘king of Babylon’, the time adverbial expressing the time limit for the service of ‘these nations’ to ‘(the) king of Babylon’, namely ‘seventy years’. It is all very clear and unambiguous, and it is almost impossible to imagine that anyone would try to pervert the sense of this short verse. RF hasn’t given up having his way; though, even though he admits that he understands quite well what ‘the natural analysis would be’ (at least of the latter part), and he even shows what it ought to be. Nevertheless, he doesn’t accept it, but tries to circumvent it in his own devious way. Let us take a close look at things.

Who, indeed, are ‘the nations these’?

Even though RF quite correctly identifies the subject, the verbal and the direct object of the latter clause of Jeremiah 25:11 and ‘all these nations around’ several times (cf. page 82, 83) he tries again to muddy the waters by calling the statement in Jer. 25:11 the king of Babylon ‘vague and unspecified’, and on page 84 he speaks about diem as ‘some undefined nations’. Actually, this is not only incorrect, it is incredibly naive, for ‘these nations’ are certainly neither ‘undefined’ nor ‘unspecified’ ‒ they are even ‘specified’ in the very chapter of Jeremiah under discussion: first, we read in verse 9 that Jehovah would send ‘and take all the families of the north ... even [sending] to Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon and I will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about” (emphasis added). Moreover, we do not need to be in doubt as to their identity, for in the very same chapter, in verses 17 to 26, they are ‘specified’ very detailedly: First, Jeremiah tells how he is to make ‘all the nations to whom he [Jehovah] sent me drink the cup of his wrath’, and after having mentioned Jerusalem and the towns of Judah and their rulers, he begins in the south and then goes on listing all the neighbouring nations, to the west, north and east, ‘all around’ the land of Israel. Please consult a good Bible Atlas for this (NIV; emphasis added):

Pharaoh, king of Egypt, his attendants, his officials and all his people, and all the foreign people there; all the kings of Uz; all the kings of the Philistines (those of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the people left at Ashdod); Edom, Moab and Ammon; all the kings of Tyre and Sidon: the kings of the coastlands across the sea; Dedan, Tema, Buz and all who are in distant places; all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the foreign people who live in the desert; all the kings of Zimri, Elam and Media; and all the kings of the north, near and far, one after the other – all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. And after all of them, the king of Sheshach [Babel] will drink it too.

Really, for anyone to call this lot ‘unspecified’ or ‘undefined’ is truly nonsensical, as is RF’s entire argumentation about these matters. And even if ‘these nations round about’ had not been listed so carefully, there would still have been plenty of evidence for the normal understanding, because the Hebrew word for nations is a much used standard term for the heathen or Gentile nations all around Israel: In Robert B. Girdlestone, Synonyms of the Old Testament, 2nd ed., p. 256 (Grand Rapids 1978) we read about the Hebrew term goy (‘nation’, in plural goyim. spelt goim in the book):

Throughout the historical books, the Psalms, and the prophets, the word goim primarily signifies those nations which lived in the immediate neighbourhood of the Jewish people; they were regarded as enemies, as ignorant of the truth, and sometimes as tyrants.

This is corroborated by Brown‒Driver‒Briggs (page 156), according to which this term (goy) is used ‘usually of non‒Hebr. peoples’. In a way, the seed of this development was sown very early – as we know, when Noah’s offspring had reached 70 generations the Scriptural narrative began focusing on Shem’s line, and from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and his twelve sons onward the focus was narrowed down to just one nation, the chosen one, especially after the law covenant was given to it at Sinai. Of course, that did not mean that the other nations were never mentioned again, but from then on they were on the sidelines, as it were, as ‘the nations’, meaning the non‒Jews, i.e. the heathen or Gentiles, as they are often called in older translations, such as KJV. The word itself occurs more than 830 times in the Hebrew Bible, and of these 86 or more than 10% are found in the book of Jeremiah; actually, in accord with the developments of his time, it is the Bible book with the most occurrences of this word. It is primarily used in the plural (goyim). often determined (haggoyim) and with the word kol (‘all’) in front; thus kol‒haggoyim (‘all the nations’) occurs 16 times in Jeremiah; there are also definite forms like the one in 25:11 háelleh (‘the nations the these’). This is a very emphatic construction, indicating (Like all the determined ones, only stronger than most) that the nations referred to are well known to both the speaker and the listener. To anyone familiar with the contents of the prophecy of Jeremiah this comes as no surprise. ‒ Gen. 10:1‒32

Actually, we have other witnesses to the understanding of Jeremiah defended here, namely the Watchtower writers who produced the book “All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial» (New York 1990), in which we read on page 127, paragraph 20:

Jehovah’s controversy with the nations

(25:1‒38 greater detail in chapters 45‒49. By three parallel prophecies, Jehovah now pronounces calamity for all the nations on earth. First, Nebuchadrezzar is identified as Jehovah’s servant to devastate Judah and the surrounding nations, “and these nations uill hare to serve the king of Babylon seventy years» Then it will be Babylon’s turn, and she will become “desolate wastes to time indefinite.” – 25:1‒14

Thus the Watchtower people are in full agreement with the Bible on this point, although their pupil, RF, has chosen to view things differently. Actually, he again shows that he knows full well what is the natural translation of the latter clause in Jer. 25:11 number 1 on top of page 84, ‘and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.’ Moreover, his claim that the context focuses ‘upon the inhabitants of Judah rather than on some undefined nations’ is palpably false: as has been already demonstrated clearly, the nations in question are very well defined! To be sure, the focus is here a broad one, including both Judah and Jerusalem first, and then all those surrounding nations, because they would all come under the heel of Babylon. And RF’s strange contention, that the designation ‘its inhabitants ... as mentioned in verse 8’ (should be 9) ought to be understood as the antecedent, not of the pronoun ‘they’, which does not occur in the Hebrew, but of the embedded (or implied) subject from the verb ‘abhedu, down in verse 11, is so farfetched from both a syntactical and a semantic viewpoint, that it is utterly impossible to take it seriously. Indeed, this can be said about his entire tortuous effort about this subject.

What does ‘et mean in front of melekh?

On page 83 RF once more turns to a tiny Hebrew particle for help in his quandary; this time it is the particle ‘et. which is seen prefixed to the word melekh in the latter clause of Jer. 25:11 constituted tire direct object of that clause, signifying the one ‘these nations’ would have to serve for seventy years, and the particle ‘et functioned as the objective marker, as it generally does in Hebrew. However, RF does not want that to be so, and so he says, "While the particle ‘et is often used as object marker, it can be used as a preposition with the meaning “with” as well.’ Now, this needs a little modification, for in reality there are two etymologically different Hebrew particles spelled ‘et. not just one, as anyone can see for himself in the Hebrew dictionaries. Unfortunately they are always spelt in the same way when they do not take suffixes, and they are also both connected to the next word by the Hebrew hyphen, the so‒called maqqeph. as the ‘et found in Jer. 25:11 description very well of the so‒called accusative particle, which is ‘prefixed as a rule only to nouns that are definite’, that is, they need no article ‒ proper nouns, titles, names of cities and nations, etc., are definite wihout it.

At any rate, since there is no formal difference in this case, the context must decide which ‘et we are dealing with, and here the syntax is clear: as shown in the above analysis: ‘abhedu (‘they will serve’) is the verbal, haggopim ha’elleh (’the nations the these’) is the overt subject, and so, quite naturally, ‘et‒melekh babhel is the direct object. This is not only the ‘natural analysis’, it is simply the only analysis that makes sense! The renowned Hebraist Dr. Driver, who wrote the articles on all the various types of particles in the Hebrew and English Lexicon by Brown, Driver and Briggs, gave both particles excellent treatment in that dictionary, which see (pp. 84‒87). Of course, he could not include all the occurrences, for ‘et occurs more than 10,000 times in the Hebrew Bible, and of them more than 830 are found in the book of Jeremiah. (A.M. Wilson, ‘The particle ‘et in Hebrew’, Hebraica, Vol. 6, 1890, No. 2, pp. 139‒150; No. 3, pp. 212‒224) Happily, Dr. Driver also made a most excellent translation of The Book of The Prophet Jeremiah (London, 1906), and his rendering of Jeremiah 25:11 be seen in the section prefaced by this subheading:

Judah, therefore, not less than the neighbouring countries, will be laid waste by the Chaldaeans, and be subject to them for seventy years.(See verses 11 and 12 below):

¹¹And this whole land shall be a waste, and an appalment: and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. ¹² And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith Yahweh, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldaeans; and I will make it desolate for ever.

Let us just take a good look at another very authoritative translation, made by a grammarian and lexicographer of very high standing in continental Europe, similar to the one enjoyed by Dr. Driver in the English‒speaking world, namely Professor Frants Buhl of Copenhagen and Leipzig, who edited Wilhelm Gesenius’ large Hebrew‒German Handwörterbuch for a number of years. He also translated the Old Testament into Danish (Det gamle Destamente, Copenhagen 1910) and here follows his rendering of Jeremiah 25:11

¹¹og hele dette land skal blive til en Ørk, og disse Folkeslag skal trælle for Babels Konge i halvfjerdsinstyve Aar. ¹² Men naar der er forløbet halvfjerdsinstyve Aar, straffer jeg Babels Konge og dette Folk, og gør det til evige Ørkener. (Cf. the English rendering below):

¹¹and all this land shall become a desert, and these nations must slave for the king of Babylon for seventy years. ¹² But when seventy years have run their course, I will punish the king of Babel and this people, and make it into everlasting deserts.

Now, these two eminent Hebraists are most certainly not the only ones who have rendered Jeremiah’s words in this way; facts are, I haven’t been able to find a single translation or commentary opting for the solution suggested by RF, i.e., to regard the ‘et prefixed to melekh (babhel ) in verse 11 as the preposition meaning with’, and I take it for granted that RF has failed in this regard too, or else he would no doubt have told us about it. Consequently, we shall disregard RF’s very unorthodox idea as a mere figment of his imagination and stick to the natural and straightforward sense of the Hebrew text of Jeremiah, exactly as the real experts in Biblical Hebrew have rendered it.

What about the LXX and the Old Ethiopic?

As for the LXX, preferred by RF, we agree with the view expressed in the Watchtower publication Insight on the Scriptures, vol. II, page 32 (in the article about the Book of Jeremiah):

The majority of scholars agree that the Greek translation of this book is defective, but that does not lessen the reliability of the Hebrew text.

As it is, the LXX lacks about one seventh of the Hebrew text and the translators have taken many liberties with it, omitting words and phrases here and there, adding others not found in the Hebrew, and it is generally unreliable. After all, it is a second‒hand text, a translation into an Indo‒European language, made by people who may not have been too well acquainted with Classical

Hebrew, and who admittedly made many mistakes. Regarding the Old Ethiopic, which RF also favours, it is an even weaker witness; no one knows when it was made but apparently it took centuries to complete, and the oldest manuscripts are rather late, no earlier than the 13th century CE. Moreover, it is to a great degree influenced by the LXX, and it cannot really be regarded as an independent witness. After all, Jeremiah was an inspired prophet and his original prophecies taken down in Hebrew and preserved in that language to this very day are the best evidence we have about these matters. The Hebrew text is also supported by the ancient Semitic translations, the Aramaic Targum Jonathan and the Syriac Peshitta, which are much closer to the original Hebrew than the Greek LXX.

However, there is one more scripture mentioning the seventy years, the short verse here mentioned, and to this RF now turns (page 85), apparently hoping that he can finally prove his point. However, it is as though the long and hard uphill battle has taken his breath away, for he offers neither transliteration nor translation; instead he again focuses on a tiny particle, the preposition le prefixed to the word babhel, which he feels has been wrongly rendered by the standard translations. Let us just take a look at the verse in question, transliterating and translating it for the benefit of the reader:

¹⁰ki-khoh ‘amar YHWH ki lephi melʼot lebabhel shibhim shanah for-this says Jehovah when by-my-mouth to-be-completed for-Babel seventy year(s)

‘ephqod ‘etkhem vehaqimoti ‘aleikhem ‘et-debhari hattobh lechasir ‘etkhem ‘al-hammaqom hazzeh I-will-visit you and-I-will fulfill to-you my-word the-good-(one) to-return you to-the place this-one

Among the many modern translations the NIV gives a good and adequate rendering, but the NWT fails in one point and that is the one that RF wants, for it renders lebabhel ‘at Babylon’, as against NIV’s ‘for Babylon’. Let’s recall that Dr. Driver, who wrote all the articles on the prepositions in Brown‒Driver‒Briggs, also translated the Book of Jeremiah into reasonably modern English (in 1906); here is his version of Jeremiah 29:10

¹⁰For thus saith Yahweh, As soon as seventy years be accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in bringing you back unto this place.

Moreover, he placed an interesting subtitle over this section in the 29th chapter, showing how he understood this important scripture; it goes like this:

For no restoration will take place till the seventy years of Babylonian domination are ended, when those now in exile with Jehoiachin will turn to Yahweh, and he will bring them back (cf. xxiv, 5‒7).

Since we are investigating the semantic contents of the preposition le, we may as well note that Professor Buhl used the very same word in Danish, ‘for’, and that the noted German grammarian and translator Emil Kautzsch (who edited Gesenius’ Hebrew grammar later translated into English by A. Cowley) used the German form of the same preposition, namely ‘für’, in front of the word ‘Babel’. Actually, already Luther had used the preposition ‘für’ here, as early as in 1534. The same usage (‘for Babel’) is found in the translation by Dr. Chr. H. Kalkar (Copenhagen 1847), who as a converted Jew was an expert in Biblical Hebrew. As it is, all the most serious and reasonably literal translations have ‘for’ here, or words to that effect; NEB has a slightly different wording: ‘When a full seventy years have passed over Babylon,...’ and AAT has: ‘As soon as Babylon has finished seventy years,...’, while Moffatt has: ‘As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are over,...’. The Jewish translation Tanakh agrees with Moffatt, while the older ones by Leeser and JPS use ‘for’. As is well known, the KJV has ‘at Babylon’, which is not so strange when one bethinks that it most likely was influenced by the Vulgate’s ‘in Babylone’; after all, most of the early English translations until and including the KJV were influenced by that old Latin version ‒ also, the knowledge of Biblical Hebrew was rather imperfect then, but fortunately it has improved enormously since 1611. Curiously, the so‒called ‘New King James Version’ (1982) has kept the ‘at’ here; however, the reason may well be that the editors did not want a total revision (cf. the Preface), but rather a mere modernization, such as the replacing of obsolete words like ‘thou, thee, thy’ and ‘thine’ with the modern pronouns ‘you, your’ and ‘yours’.

However, when the Revised Version came out in 1885 the knowledge of Hebrew was much greater ‒ there were no less than ten professors of Hebrew in the so‒called ‘Old Testament Company’ who revised the Hebrew part of the Bible (including Jeremiah), and so things were changed. One of the real experts among them was Dr. Driver, who has been mentioned already, and it would have been unthinkable for him to render such a preposition wrongly. At that time he was already engaged in the work of compiling the great Hebrew lexicon, in which he gave an expert account of the preposition le on pages 510‒ 518, covering a total of 16 columns. Here he classified the meanings of le under seven main headings and a lot of subheadings and even lesser groups, totaling 69 semantic variants, some even overlapping. The very smallest main heading, with no subgroups at all, is No. 2 (page 511), ‘Expressing locality, at, near’, which does not, however, contain anything supporting RF’s views.

Dr. Driver gives as the general sense of this preposition ‘to, for, in regard to, ... denoting direction (not properly motion, as (‘el) towards, or reference tó, and hence used in many varied applications, in some of which the idea of direction predominates, in others that of reference to ... very often, with various classes of verbs, to. towards, for.’ Similar explanations are given in Gesenius‒Buhl and Kohler‒Baumgartner. Interestingly, it was not only in the Revised Version but also in its transatlantic counterpart, the American Standard Version of 1901, KJV’s ‘at Babylon’ had been corrected to ‘for Babylon’, and that wording has been kept in the versions later made in that tradition, such as the RSV of 1952 and the NASB of 1977. By the way, on page 86 RF says that the LXX ‘has the dative form babulôni. the most natural meaning being “at Babylon”.’ Now, the Greek form is correct, but the sense is not, for in Greek the dative used here is the dativus commodi et incommodi. (Also called ‘the dative of advantage and disadvantage’, cf. C.F.D. Moule, An Idiom‒Book of New Testament Greek. 2nd ed., Cambridge U.P., 1971, p. 46) See W.W. Goodwin, A Greek Grammar. London et al, 1970, pp. 247ff, § 1165, which says: ‘This dative is generally introduced in English by ‘for’.” This is of great importance, as may be seen from the statement by F.C. Conybeare and St. G. Stock in A Grammar of Septuagint Greek (Grand Rapids 1980) § 38, in which thev discuss the peculiar syntax of the LXX:

The Construction of the LXX not Greek. ... the LXX is on the whole a literal translation, it is to say, it is only half a translation – the vocabulary has been changed, but seldom the construction. We have therefore to deal with a work of which the vocabulary is Greek and the syntax Hebrew.

Apparently, then, the translators of the LXX understood the phrase lebabhel correctly and so rendered it in the best possible way into a Greek form having exactly the same sense as the original Hebrew, i.e. ‘for Babylon.’ Why Jerome didn’t imitate this fine effort when making the Vulgate is not known, but in connection with his ‘in Babylone’ and KJV’s ‘at Babylon’ we ought to realize that such a rendering does not in any way ‘prove’ RF’s contentions about the length of the exile and Jerusalem’s devastation: We know from Jeremiah 25:11 nations all around’, the ones defined so clearly in Jeremiah 25:17‒26 these seventy years would naturally pass for all and sundry, whether ‘in’ or ‘at’ Babylon or elsewhere. Mark you, neither this scripture nor anyone else says ‘for Judah’ or ‘for ‘Israel’ or for ‘the exiles’! So, even though RF and his fellow believers stubbornly stick to their erroneous interpretation of the inspired words of Jehovah spoken by Jeremiah, they have no solid evidence for their ideas!

In the case of the sense of le in Jeremiah 29:10 outlined in a work which RF does not mention, namely Professor Ernst Jenni’s The hebräischen Präpositionen. Band 3: The Präposition Lamed (Stuttgart et al, 2000). In this monumental work Dr. Jenni lists and categorizes each and every occurrence of le in the entire Hebrew Bible, all 20,725 of them! Here we find le as used in Jeremiah 29:10 ‘Rubrik’ 4363, where it is listed with a few other scriptures in which some forms of the verb ml’ [mal’e], ‘voll werden (Tage/Jahr[e])’, ‘(to become full, complete, (days/year[s])’ occur; it is listed as a subgroup under 436, ‘Dauer’ (‘duration’). Thus the verbal lemall’ot in 2Chronicles 36:21 ‘to complete fully’ and the verbal melo’t ‘to be completed’ (qal infinitive construct) in Jeremiah 29:10 means ‘for Babylon’: this corresponds to Dr. Driver’s definition 5. g. (b), where le is said to be ‘corresponding to the Latin dativus commodi’, with the general meaning ‘for’, and that brings us back to the LXX‒rendering mentioned above with the ‘dativus commodi’ Babulôni, giving exactly the same meaning. In his ‘argumentation’ RF referred to some other scriptures in which le had been rendered with a local meaning, as ‘at’, ‘in’ or ‘to’, and of course Jenni has these verses in his classification, e.g. defining le in Jeremiah 51:2 personified as world power’, and Jeremiah 3:17 these are used correctly in their contexts, agreeing with the general sense of le, ‘to, towards, for’, and the full details about them and their various uses (e.g. the ‘local’ or ‘directional’) can be found in Dr. Jenni’s very precise classification.

As for the last scripture mentioned by RF in this connection, Jeremiah 40:11 verse shows that not everything is as simple as RF appears to think; if, for instance, he had checked the LXX, he would have found a genitive construction in Jer. 47:11 40:11), which Sir Launcelot Lee Brenton rendered ‘the king of Babylon had granted a remnant to Judah’ in the Bagster Septuagint. (Reprint of 1976). The very same construction is found in Rotherham’s The Emphasised Bible, while the NASB uses left a remnant for Judah’; several versions have ‘a remnant tyjjudah’ (e.g. NKJV; RV; ASV) and Leeser’s Jewish translation has ‘left a remnant unto Judah’. Let us also take a look at a very scholarly Norwegian rendering by Mowinckel and Messell in DET GAMLE TESTAMENTE De senere Profeter (Oslo 1944), page 417: ‘Babeikongen hadde unt Judafolket en rest’, (‘the king of Babylon had granted the people of Judah a remnant’) and then, for the sake of good order, we’ll close this lithe check‒up by quoting NW: ‘the king of Babylon had given a remnant to Judah.’ (Emphasis added where pertinent) Even though quite a few versions have ‘in’ as suggested by RF, it appears to be impossible to get a complete consensus on the way to render le in this verse!

In his discussion of the possibility of using le in a local sense as ‘at’ (page 86, § 2) RF points out that ‘The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew lists about 30 examples of this meaning’. Now, this is not so strange and it is actually a very small percentage when we recall that this preposition occurs more than 20,000 times in the Hebrew Bible. To be honest, that learned dictionary does not seem to offer the most comprehensive or the most detailed treatment of le, for it has only a total of 373 examples in its entry on that preposition (pages 479‒485), while Brown‒Driver‒Briggs has more than 1500! What is more, whenever BDB has treated a category of le as found in one of the books of the Bible, it usually adds that the listed examples are followed by many more in that book or chapter. Moreover, it brims widi grammatical and general linguistic information, adding many useful references to Aramaic, Syriac and other Semitic tongues for the sake of comparison.

Regarding the examples of le being used in the sense of ‘at’, RF is somewhat less than accurate, for in section 4. in the dictionary he uses, which treats ‘of place, at, by, on, along, over’, there are only 11 examples of ‘at’, not 30! The section lists 31 verses with a total of 35 examples of ‘local’ le, some of which are even rendered ‘for’, ‘to’, or by other words, and there is no added grammatical explanation of any kind whatsoever. Of course, Gesenius‒Buhl and Kohler‒Baumgartner also have plenty of information on this preposition and its usage, so as not to speak of Professor Jenni’s magnificent volume quoted above.

One more point about lebabhel in Jeremiah 29:10 lines, RF relates that of 70 translations in his library only six had the ‘local’ meaning, that is, ‘at’ m English, which means that the other sixty‒four had something else, presumably ‘for’ or a similar wording. Why this didn’t give him pause is difficult to understand ‒ how can he prefer six renderings to sixty‒four? Unfortunately, he identifies only the six he prefers, and not a single one of the majority, the sixty‒four with which he disagrees, a fact which only adds to the evidence for his marked prejudice. Of course, NWT is really not a good witness, for the false dogmas of the Watchtower translators undoubtedly caused them to use this rendering. As for the KJV, we have already seen why that old and really outdated version is to be disregarded in this context, and the same may be said about the other English ones as well, e.g. Harkavy’s Hebrew‒English edition from 1939, in which the English translation is actually taken directly from the KJV! Lamsa’s slighdy newer version (from 1957) is no better, as it is heavily influenced by the KJV, and one needs only a short survey of Helen Spurrell’s A Translation of the Old Testament from the Original Hebrew (London 1885) to see that her rendering is clearly patterned on the old KJV, even though it is certainly not a mere copy ‒ to the contrary, she has many renderings which are clear improvements on KJV, such as using JEHOVAH instad of ‘the LORD’. Interestingly, in her Preface she made a special claim about the text from which she made her translation:

It seems scarcely necessary to mention that the translation is made from the unpointed Hebrew; that being the Original Hebrew.

Actually, it would have been strange for her not to have copied the pattern of the old KJV, which had held the field as the ‘Authorized Version’ for centuries; indeed, to have abandoned it entirely might well have impaired the acceptance of Miss Spurrell’s version, which she claimed had ‘almost entirely occupied her time for many years past.’ It is an interesting coincidence that her translation was published in London in 1885, in the very same year in which the Old Testament part of The Revised Version was issued, a fact, however, which precludes her having had access to this new edition, in which the ‘at’ in Jeremiah 29:10 ‘for’.

Now, of course the Swedish Church Bible of 1917 does not have the English ‘at’ or some particle directly representing it, as e.g. ‘på, vid, hos’, but it has ‘i’ (‘in’) which doesn’t prove a thing because, as stated above, the ‘seventy years’ which had been decided ‘for’ Babylon’s dominion, would also pass ‘in’ or ‘at’ Babylon, as well as in all the lands mentioned, in Judah as well as among the Gentiles. Also, this old Swedish version has now been replaced by no less than two new ones (in 1998 and 2000) which both correctly read ‘for Babylon’ in Jeremiah 29:10 faulty supports of RF have now fallen by the wayside, he ought to accept defeat and start using the correct renderings of the other sixty‒four! And since he has begun to look at the Scandinavian Bibles, he might check the NW‒Bible in Danish which has had ‘for Babylon’ in Jeremiah 29:10 printed in 1985, and it is unchanged in the large study edition of 1993!

The words of Zechariah

This section will not be treated here, since the verses used by RF have no relation to the subject under discussion, cf. C.O. Jonsson, The Gentile Times Reconsidered, 4th ed., Atlanta 2004, pp. 225‒229.

A theological attempt ...

Thus far it has been a very disappointing experience to go through RF’s twisted and contorted attempts to ‘prove’ his outlandish views about the length of the devastation of Jerusalem and Judah and the exile of the Judeans, but this section testifies to a stubbornness in the matter of doctrine on RF’s part which is hard to comprehend. Here he deals with a two‒part article by an Adventist scholar named Ross E. Winkle who has gone through all the relevant material about this topic and written a well‒researched and well‒formulated piece which by dint of its careful scholarship and its sober style outshines RF’s ‘fuzzy’ and ‘muddled’ product by far.

He quite correctly sees Winkle’s conclusion as the opposite of his own: ‘There is no passage in the Bible which definitely says that Jerusalem and Judah should be desolate for 70 years while the people were exiles in Babylon!’ What RF does not concede, however, in the face of the overwhelming Biblical and linguistic evidence for Winkle’s conclusion, is that it is correct! In fact, Winkle proves his point in a very careful and methodical way, far removed from RF’s prolix and clumsy attempts to pervert the clear and incontrovertible truth of God’s Word. Actually, despite his lengthy and confused efforts, RF does not prove one single point of his Watchtower‒inspired theory, for the very simple reason that it is not true!

Some of his arguments in this part are nothing less than ludicrous: he does not like that Winkle seems to assume that what the Bible says is true’, (indeed, what is wrong with that? Doesn’t the Watchtower people reason in the same way as Winkle?) and neither does he like Winkle’s acceptance of ‘the traditional chronology’ ‒ but here Winkle stands on firm ground: the Bible is God’s own inspired word, truthful and inerrant, and what RF calls ‘traditional chronology’ is certainly not based on ‘circular arguments’ but on many years of diligent research by serious and competent scholars! Of course, mistakes have been made over the years, especially in the infancy of this science, but in time they have ben corrected whenever new evidence came to light, and today the ancient history and chronology of the Middle East for the first millennium B.C.E. is well‒established and trustworthy in practically all aspects, notwithstanding RF’s contrary claims and his unproven pet theories.

RF truly feels unhappy about Winkle’s beginning from Jeremiah’s testimony and his going on from there to Daniel and the Chronicler, while he himself starts with Daniel and the Chronicler and then goes back to Jeremiah; however, in a situation like this the ideal method is actually to begin from the beginning, which naturally means to take Jeremiah’s prophecies first and then, having familiarized oneself with their message, to move on chronologically to the later reactions to these early prophecies and their fulfilment, going first to Daniel and then to the somewhat later Chronicler. In this way the true picture of the events of those times emerges clearly, and that is evidently what Winkle tries to do even though he takes the Chronicler before Daniel, probably because he wants to handle the matter of the ‘sabbath rest’ for the land properly, without getting it mixed up with the message of Jeremiah’s prophecies, and this he does very well indeed.

RF also dislikes Winkle’s reference to the literary style of some of Jeremiah’s verses, and in this connection he refers to pages 210, 211 in Winkle’s article; this is very good, for thus he reveals whence he has his ideas about ‘parallelisms’ (cf. RF, pp. 79, 80). Let us just take a look at this, before we move on: RF claimed that 2Chronicles 36:21 genuine Hebrew parallelism, which I disclaimed, showing that this stylistic feature does not occur in Hebrew prose such as the text in question. Nevertheless, Winkle was first to suggest something like that, even though he did not make quite the same claim that RF did, no doubt because he knew better. Winkle wrote the following about 2Chronicles 36:20b

In this passage there are two sets of parallel clauses, either beginning with ‘ad or lemallot. Displaying the text according to a quasi‒poetic style (in order to highlight the parallels) results in the following (my translation):

Une

1. And they were servants to him and his sons

2. until (‘ad) the reign of the kingdom of Persia

3. in order to fulfill (lemallot) the word

4. of the LORD in the mouth of Jeremiah

5. until (‘ad) the land had enjoyed its sabbaths

6. (all the days of its desolation

7. it kept sabbath)

8. in order to fulfill (lemallot) seventy years

Line 2 completes the thought of line 1, while lines 3‒4 further clarify lines 1 and 2. Line 5, which starts with the same word as line 2, must be parallel to it.

After this Winkle quotes three examples of this kind of ‘parallel structure’ (Exodus 16:35 similarity of structure is concerned. However, none of these examples fulfill the criteria for true poetic parallelism such as found in the poetic writings in the Hebrew Bible. Instead of this we may apply to them the words of Professor E. König of Bonn University as found in Hastings’ Dictionaiy of the Bible (Vol. V, p. 116) where he issued a warning against regarding everything rhythmic in Hebrew prose as though it were parallelisms:

It must be remembered that the higher form of prose, as employed especially by good speakers, was not without a certain kind of rhythm.

Indeed, this higher form of prose by such eminent speakers as the great prophets, e.g. Jeremiah, whose book is written for a large part (more than half) in poetic form (cf. NIV), and who also penned the all‒poetic book of Lamentations, often used a structure resembling parallelism, but we must remember that simple syntactical parallelistic structures do not on that count alone qualify as true parallelisms; for that the sense, the meaning must be parallelistic, and the form follow the rules of this special style of Semitic poetry (for this, see R.K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament, London 1970, Part Twelve, I. Hebrew Poetry; pages 965‒975, and similar works).

Apparently, Ross E. Winkle was well aware of this when he wrote the above, for he did not claim that he was dealing with genuine poetic parallelisms, but designated the form of his ‘parallel clauses’ a ‘quasi‒poetic style’, and in this he was correct because that was all that they were. It seems as though RF overlooked this and so made another one of his typical mistakes; this he also does when he intimates that Winkle’s argument ‘puts the text upside down’, because he himself is the one who does that, misinterpreting the clear messages of Jeremiah, Daniel and the Chronicler. Moreover, it seems that he also borrowed something else from Winkle who says in the last few lines on page 211, that ‘modern translations of vs. 2 [Dan. 9:2 the seventy years is concerned.’ This is, of course, correct, as Winkle’s examples (and several others) prove, but it is one thing to point out that some of the ‘modern’ translations are ‘ambiguous’, disturbing the sense of the text by their poor rendering, and then to claim that the inspired words of Jehovah uttered by the prophet Jeremiah to God’s chosen people are ambiguous and need interpretation by somebody living many years later, who had seen their fulfilment. RF adds to his errors when he says that Winkle takes for granted that both the Bible and the traditional New Babylonian chronology are true’, not on the basis of linguistic knowledge, but ‘by appealing ... to more elusive reasons’, because this is just the other way around ‒ the only elusive reasons presented in this connection are ‘Made by RF’!

Said in all fairness, Ross E. Winkle’s article is one of the best and most sober disquisitions on this subject I’ve yet seen, and it is certainly worth having and reading, which can hardly be said about RF’s bit. Indeed, there is more true scholarship in Winkle’s two short articles than in RF’s entire fourth chapter dealt with here, and probably even though all the chapters in his book were included.

The two poles ...

In this last section of RF’s ‘exposition’ he reverts to his chronological speculations, repeating once again his false claims about the Bible stating that the exile lasted seventy years, but since these utterly untrue speculations have been thoroughly disproved in the foregoing, there seems to be no need to go into this discussion again.

Summary and Conclusion

Having gone through RF’s discussion of the scriptures mentioning the seventy years it is time to assess his effort: First, his treatment of the Hebrew text, including his transliterations, grammatical ‘analyses’ and translations are too imprecise and far below par for someone introducing himself as a lecturer of Semitic languages in a reputable university. Actually, his understanding of Classical Hebrew and his command of its grammar, usage and style appear to be defective. Moreover, his entire argumentation consists of the feeblest possible postulates, to wit:

He begins by presenting some very categorical statements, entirely without evidence, after which he surmises that the parts of the inspired Bible text with which he disagrees are ‘ambiguous’, which they are not; then he tries to make the Hebrew text say something which simply is not in it, and when that appears impossible he opts for the LXX and the Old Ethiopic versions, both of which are defective or faulty in the verses referred to. In his dealings with the main scriptures under discussion, from Jeremiah, Daniel and the Chronicler, he bases much of his argument on three tiny particles, trying to make them say what no Hebrew dictionary, grammar or translator accept, all apparently in the hope that his gullible readers will believe him. The only grammar book he refers to is a rather short syntax, actually little more than a collection of samples whose author does not even stay within the referential framework of Hebrew grammatical nomenclature, but creates his own terms, which, of course, is not very helpful to the students. And the only Hebrew dictionary to which he refers casually is a new and relatively little known work, which, when examined, does not even support his claims! And in his description of a truly scholarly treatment of the subject he has chosen for himself he appears to be entirely out of his depth ‒ it is as though he cannot see the wood for the trees!

In a sense, it is somewhat difficult to find out exactly what RF believes in, because for years he has been known as a member of the congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, defending their positions on the matters discussed in his book. However, apparently he does not share their absolute faith in the Bible as God’s inspired and truthful word, such as when he claims that parts of God’s Word are ‘ambiguous’, which they are not according to the usual Watchtower doctrine; their views of the entire Bible may be summed up in Paul’s statement, ‘All Scripture Is Inspired of God and beneficial’ (2Tim.3:16 Furthermore, he criticizes the Adventist scholar Ross Winkle for ‘assuming that what the Bible says is true’, which for him apparently is a mere starting point for his own private ruminations. As for the chronology of the period in question, he also feels entitled to assess these matters for himself, without any regard for the weighty results of the diligent research by numerous competent scholars worldwide. In this method, however, he seems to emulate his Watchtower mentors, who also handles such matters in their own way, as was revealed by Raymond Franz, the former member of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses who wrote the long chapter on chronology in the book Aid to Bible Understanding (New York 1969, 1971); in his own book Crisis of Conscience (Atlanta, 4^th edition 2002), he explained that in trying to prove historically the date set for Jerusalem’s destruction by the witnesses (607 BCE) he discovered that there was no evidence for this whatsoever. Now, what did this seasoned Watchtower writer do under such circumstances? This he explains in detail (page 26):

Everything pointed to a period twenty years shorter than our published chronology claimed. Though I found this disquieting, I wanted to believe that our chronology was right in spite of all the contrary evidence. Thus, m preparing the material for the Aid-Abook, much of the time and space was spent in trying to weaken the credibility of the archaeological and historical evidence that would make erroneous our 607 B.C.E. date and give a different starting point for our calculations and therefore an ending date different from 1914. ... like an attorney faced with evidence he cannot overcome, my efforts was to discredit or weaken confidence in witnesses from ancient times ... [so as] to uphold a date for which there was no historical support.

This confession of Mr Franz is very revealing, as it shows to what length Jehovah’s Witnesses will go when it comes to defending their ancient dogmas, and it is evident that Rolf Furuli has learned from this method: he is willing to discredit God’s Word and twist it for the sake of the doctrines of the sect to which he belongs; a very deplorable attitude, which, however, is in near perfect tune with that of the leaders of the organization. Indeed, the entire presentation is one long and stubborn manipulation of the facts in a most non‒scientific way, as can be seen in his very selective use of ‘evidence’, omitting, avoiding or denigrating anything and everything which is not in accord with his prejudiced views. And when he has to face the sound interpretations by reputable scholars, he does his very best to circumvent them in a mode reminiscent of the style employed for long by his mentors, the leaders of the sect to which he belongs. This is not really a scholarly work which may be used to edify truth‒seeking people, but a narrow‒minded, sectarian work of little consequence.

A critical review of Rolf Furuli’s 2^nd volume on chronology: Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian Chronology. Volume II of Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Persian Chronology Compared with the Chronology of the Bible (Oslo: Awatu Publishers, 2007).

Part I: The astronomical “diary” VAT 4956

Rolf Furuli’s new book on chronology, Assyrian, Balylonian and Egyptian Chronology (Oslo: Awatu Publishers, 2007), covers 368 pages. Chapter 6 (pages 94‒123) and Appendix C (266‒325), which together cover 90 pages or about 25 percent of the book, are devoted to an attempt to overcome the evidence provided by the astronomical cuneiform tablet VAT 4956, dated to the 37^th year of Nebuchadnezzar II.

VAT 4956 is a so‒called astronomical “diary” that records the positions of the moon and the five planets visible to the naked eye observed during the 37^th year of Nebuchadnezzar. About 30 of these records are so well preserved that they can be checked by modern computations. These computations have confirmed that the 37^th year of Nebuchadnezzar corresponds to year 568/567 BCE (spring‒to‒spring).

HAS VAT 4956 BEEN “TAMPERED WITH” IN MODERN TIMES?

Furuli dedicates a substantial part of his discussion to arguing that the cuneiform signs on the tablet have been “deliberately tampered with” in modern times. In particular he claims that the signs for “year 37” at the beginning of the text in line 1 on the obverse of the tablet and the signs for “year 38” and “year 37” in the concluding lines at the lower edge on the reverse seem to have been “incised” by someone in modern times. He also claims that the signs for the name “Nebuchadnezzar” in line 1 on the obverse have been manipulated. After a lengthy analysis Furuli presents the following hypothesis on pages 285, 286:

“A consideration of the data above together with the unusual publication history of the tablet leads to the following hypothesis: VAT 4956 is an authentic cuneiform tablet that was copied from older tablets in one of the last centuries B.C.E. It came to the Vorderasiatische Museum in Berlin about 1905 as one single entity. Someone discovered that the tablet was extremely important because it was an astronomical tablet with the hitherto oldest astronomical observations. These observations seemed to fit year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar II according to the chronology of Ptolemy, but a clear connection with Nebuchadnezzar II was lacking. In order to make this connection perfectly clear, the one working with the tablet used a modern grinding machine on the edge of the tablet, thus incising the signs for ‘year 37’ and ‘year 38.’ The first line with the name of the king was also manipulated. Because of the vibration, the tablet broke into three pieces, which were then glued together. It was discovered that the fit of the signs on both sides of the break on the reverse side was not perfect, and a grinding machine was used to try to remedy this. If this hypothesis is correct, a direct link to years 37 and 38 of Nebuchadnezzar II was not originally found on the tablet, but the lunar observations are genuine, while the planetary positions are probably backward calculations.”

On pages 295‒324 Furuli discusses the astronomical contents reported on the tablet. He finds that the planetary positions on the whole fit the year 568/567 BCE, but claims that the 13 lunar positions better fit the year 588/587 BCE. At the end of the Appendix on pages 324, 325, therefore, he draws the following conclusions:

“The following principal conclusions can be drawn on the basis of the discussion of VAT 4956: The Diary is most likely a genuine tablet made in Seleucid times, but in modern times someone has tampered with some of the cuneiform signs. Because of the excellent fit of all 13 lunar positions in 588/87, there are good reasons to believe that the lunar positions represent observations from that year, and that the original tablet that was copied in Seleucid times was made in 588/87. Because so many of the planetary positions are approximately correct, but not completely correct, there are good reasons to believe that they represent backward calculations by an astrologer who believed that 568/67 was year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar II. Thus, the lunar positions seem to be original observations from 588/87, and the planetary positions are backward calculations for the positions of the planets in 568/67.”

What about the claim that someone in modern times has “tampered” with the signs on the tablet and, by using “a modern grinding machine on the edge of the tablet,” has incised the signs for ‘year 37’ and ‘year 38’ on the tablet? Furuli proposes this idea as a “hypothesis,” as he knows very well that he has not been able to present any evidence in support of the idea.

According to Furuli’s hypothesis, the supposed modern forger did not only incise the signs for “year 37” and “year 38” at the edge of the tablet. He also incised the signs for “year 37” and “manipulated” the signs for the name of the king, Nebuchadnezzar, in the beginning of line I on the obverse. The first question is how he could have done this, as there would have been no space at all at the beginning of the line for adding anything?

If there was another date and a different royal name on the original tablet, the modern forger had first to remove these signs (with the supposed grinding machine?) before the signs of the new date and the signs of the changes of the royal name could be incised on the tablet. But such a replacement of the first signs of line 1 could never have been done without leaving clear traces (e.g., depressions in the tablet) at the beginning of the line. No such traces exist. The signs look quite genuine. As one specialist on cuneiform points out:

“Anyone acquainted with cuneiform can see that ‘year 37’ and ‘year 38’ are written by an experienced scribe. No modern person could have achieved to scratch (into dried clay!!) true‒looking signs.” (Communication Hermann Hunger–C. O. Jonsson, Jan. 8, 2008)

Another problem with Furuli’s hypothesis is the identity of the supposed modern forger of the dates and the royal name on the tablet. The first translation of the tablet was that of Paul V. Neugebauer and Ernst Weidner, whose translation together with an astronomical examination and a discussion of it was published back in 1915. (“Ein astronomischer Beobachtungstext aus dem 37. Jahre Nebukadnezars II. (– 567/66),” Berichte über the Verhandlungen der königlich sächlicben Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig. Philologisch‒historische Klasse. 67. Band. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1915)

As the article by Neugebauer and Weidner clearly shows, the date and the royal name (“year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar”) were already on the tablet in 1915 when they were examining it. Are we to believe that these two scholars were forgers, who co‒operated in removing some of the original signs on the tablet and replacuig them with signs of their own preference? Even Furuli admits that he “cannot unagine that any scientist working with the tablet at the Vorderasiatische Museum has committed fraud.” (Furuli, p. 285) He has no idea about who the supposed forger may have been, or how he/she managed to change the signs on line 1 without leaving any traces of it on the tablet.

Finally, Furuli’s hypothesis is self‒contradictory. If it were true that the planetary positions “represent backward calculations by an astrologer who believed that 568/67 was year 57 of Nebuchadnezzar II,” and if it were true that “the original tablet that was copied in Seleucid times was made in 588/87,” which Furuli argues was the 37^th year of Nebuchadnezzar, then the astrologer/copyist must have dated the tablet to the 37^th year of Nebuchadnezzar from the very beginning! No modern manipulation of the date would then have been necessary.

Furuli’s hypothesis is simply untenable. The only reason for his suggesting it is the desperate need to get rid of a tablet that inexorably demolishes his “Oslo [= Watchtower] chronology” and firmly establishes the absolute chronology for the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (604‒562 BCE).

As discussed in chapter 4 of my book The Gentile Times Reconsidered (Atlanta: Commentary Press, 2004), there are at least nine other astronomical tablets that perform the same service. Furuli’s futile attempts to undermine the enormous burden of evidence provided by these other astronomical tablets will be discussed in another, separate part of this review.

The question that remains to be discussed here is Furuli’s claim that the lunar positions that were observed in the 37^th year of Nebuchadnezzar and are recorded on VAT 4956 fit the year 588/587 better than 568/567 BCE.

DO THE LUNAR POSITIONS RECORDED ON VAT 4956 FIT 588/587 BETTER THAN 568/567 BCE?

On the back cover of his new book Rolf Furuli states that the conclusion of his study is that “the lunar data on the tablet [VAT 4956] better fit 588 than 568 B.C.E., and that this is the 37^th year of Nebuchadnezzar II.” What about this claim?

A careful examination of all the legible lunar positions recorded on this astronomical “diary” proves that the claim is false. Almost none of the lunar positions recorded on VAT 4956 fit the year 588/587 BCE, while nearly all of them excellently correspond to lunar positions in the year 568/567 BCE.

The astronomy program used for this examination is Chris Marriott’s SkyMap Pro 11.04, which uses the modern complete ELP2000‒82B lunar theory. The “delta‒T” value used for the secular acceleration of the Moon is 1.7 milliseconds per century, which is the result of the extensive research presented by F. Richard Stephenson hi his Historical Eclipses and Earth’s Rotation (Cambridge, 1997). The program used, therefore, maintains high accuracy far into the past, which is not true of many other modern astronomy programs.

About a year before Furuli’s book had been published in the autumn of 2007 I had examined his claim (which he had published officially in advance) and found that none of the lunar positions fit the year 588/587 BCE. I shared the first half of my results with some of my correspondents. I did not know at that time that Furuli not only moves the 37^th year of Nebuchadnezzar 20 years back to 588/587 BCE, but that he also moves the 37^th year about one extra month forward in the Julian calendar, which actually makes it fall too late in that year. The reason for this is the following

On the obverse, line 17, VAT 4956 states that on day 15 of month III (Simanu) there was a “lunar eclipse that was omitted.” The phrase refers to an eclipse that had been calculated in advance to be invisible from the Babylonian horizon.

On page 126 Furuli explains that he has used this eclipse record as the “point of departure” for mapping “the regnal years, the intercalary months, and the beginning of each month in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, both from the point of view that 568/67 and 588/87 B.C.E. represent his year 37.”

In the traditional date for the 37^th year of Nebuchadnezzar, this eclipse can easily be identified with the eclipse of July 4, 568 (Julian calendar). Thus the Babylonian date, the 15 of month III, corresponds to July 4, 568 BCE. From that date we may count backward to the 1st of month III, which must have been June 20/21 (sunset to sunset), 568. As the tablet further shows that the preceding Month II (Ayyaru) had 29 days and Month I (Nisannu) 30 days, it is easy to figure out that the 1^st of Ayyaru fell on May 22/23, 568, and the 1^st of Nisannu (i.e., the 1^st day of year 37) on April 22/23, 568 BCE.

On moving back 20 years to 588/87 BCE – the 37^th year of Nebuchadnezzar in Furuli’s alternative “Oslo Chronology” – we find that in this year, too, there was a lunar eclipse that could not be seen from the Babylonian horizon. It took place on July 15, 588 BCE. According to Furuli this is the eclipse that VAT 4956 dates to the 15^th of month III (Simanu). Reckoning backwards from July 15, Furuli dates the 1^st of month III to June 30, 588; the 1^st of month II (Ayyaru) to June 1, 588, and the 1^st of month I (Nisannu) to May 1. (In his discussions and/or calculations he is inconsistently alternating between May 1, May 2, and May 3).

There are a number of problems with Furuli’s dates. The first one is that the first day of the Babylonian year, Nisannu 1, never began as late as in May! As shown by the tables on pages 27‒47 in R. A. Parker & W. H. Dubberstein’s Babylonian Chronology (Brown University Press, 1956), the 1^st of Nisannu never once in the 700‒year period covered (626 BCE – CE 75) began as late as in May. The same holds true of the subsequent months: the 1^st of Ayyaru never began as late as on June 1, and the 1^st of Simanu never began as late as on June 30. For this reason alone the lunar eclipse that VAT 4956 dates to the 15^th of month III cannot be that of July 15, 588 BCE! This eclipse must have fallen in the middle of month IV the Babylonian calendar. Furuli’s “point of departure” for his “Oslo Chronology,” therefore, is quite clearly wrong.

Very interestingly, the lunar eclipse of July 15, 588 BCE was recorded by the Babylonians on another cuneiform tablet, BM 38462, No. 1420 in A. Sachs’ LBAT catalogue, and No. 6 in H. Plunger’s Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia (ADT), Vol. V (Wien, 2001). I discussed this tablet on pages 180‒182 of my book, The Gentile Times Reconsidered (3^rd ed. 1998, 4^th ed. 2004). The chronological strength of this tablet is just as decisive as that of VAT 4956. It contains annual lunar eclipse reports dating from the 1^st to at least the 29^th regnal year of Nebuchadnezzar (604/603 ‒ 576/575 BCE). The preserved parts of the tablet contain as many as 37 records of eclipses, 22 of which were predicted, 14 observed, and one that is uncertain.

The entry containing the record of the July 15, 588 BCE eclipse (obverse, lines 16‒18) is dated to year 17, not year 57, of Nebuchadnezzar! This entry reports two lunar eclipses in this year, one “omitted” and one observed. The first, “omitted” one, which refers to the eclipse of July 15, 588, is dated to month IVnot to month III (Simanu). So it cannot be the eclipse dated to month III on VAT 4956. That this eclipse really is the one of July 15, 588 is confirmed by the detailed information given about the second, observed lunar eclipse, which is dated to month X (Tebetu) of year 17. The details about the time and the magnitude help to identify this eclipse beyond all reasonable doubts. The whole entry reads according to H. Hunger’s translation in ADT V, page 29:

“[Year] 17, Month IV, [omitted.]

[Month] X, the 13^th, morning watch, 1 beru 5° [before sunrise^?]

All of it was covered. [It set eclips]ed.”

The second eclipse in month X – six months after the first – took place on January 8, 587 BCE. This date, therefore, corresponded to the 13^th of month X in the Babylonian calendar. This agrees with Parker & Dubberstein’s tables, which show that the 1^st of month X (Tebetu) fell on 26/27 December in 588 BCE. The Babylonians divided the 24‒hour day into 12 beru or 360 USH (degrees), so one beru was two hours and 5 USH (= degrees of four minutes each) were 20 minutes. According to the tablet, then, this eclipse began 2 hours and 20 minutes before sunrise. It was total (“All of it was covered”), and it “[set eclips]ed,” i.e., it ended after moonset. What do modern computations of this eclipse show?

My astroprogram shows that the eclipse of January 8, 587 BCE began “in the morning watch” at 04:51, and that sunrise occurred at 07:12. The eclipse, then, began 2 hours and 21 minutes before sunrise – exactly as the tablet says. The difference of one minute is not real, as the USH (time degree of 4 minutes) is the shortest time unit used in this text. [The USH was not the shortest time unit of the Babylonians, of course, as they also divided the USH into 12 “fingers” of 20 seconds each.] The totality began at 05:53 and ended at 07:38. As moonset occurred at 07:17 according to my program, the eclipse was still total at moonset. Thus the moon “set while eclipsed.”

Furuli attempts to dismiss the enormous weight of evidence provided by this tablet in just a few very confusing statements on page 127 of his book. He erroneously claims that the many eclipses recorded “occurred in the month before they were expected, except in one case where the eclipse may have occurred two months before.” There is not the slightest truth in this statement. Both the predicted and the observed eclipses agree with modern computations. The statement seems to be based on the gross mistakes he has made on the previous page, where he has misidentified the months on LBAT 1421 with disastrous results for his calculations.

In the examination below, the lunar positions recorded on VAT 4956 are tested both for 568/567 BCE as the generally accepted 37^th year of Nebuchadnezzar and for Furuli’s alternative dates in 588/587 BCE as presented on pages 295‒325 of his book.

Furuli has also tested the lunar positions for the year 586/585 BCE, one Saros period (223 months, or 18 years + c. 11 days) previous to 568/567. As Furuli himself rejects this year as not being any part of his “Oslo Chronology”, I will ignore it as well as all his computations for that year (which in any case are far from correct in most cases).

The record of the first lunar position on the obverse, line 1, of VAT 4956 reads:

(1) Obv.» line 1: ^“Year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Month I, (the 1^st of which was identical with) the 30^th (of the preceding month), the moon became visible behind the Bull of Heaven”.

Nisannu I = 22/23 April 568 BCE:

The information that the 1^st of Month I (Nisannu) was identical with the 30^th of the preceding month is given to show that the preceding lunar month (Addaru II of year 36, as shown also at Obv. line 5 of our text) had only 29 days. In 568 BCE the 1st day of Nisannu fell on 22/23 April (from evening 22 to evening 23) Ei the Julian calendar. After sunset (at c. 18:30) and before moonset (c. 19:34) on April 22 the new moon became visible c. 5.5° east of (= behind) a Taurus, the most brilliant star in the constellation of Taurus (“the Bull of Heaven”). This is close enough to the position given on the tablet.

Furuli’s date: Nisannu 1 = 1^st. 2^nd and 3^rd May 588 BCE:

In 588 BCE day 1 of Nisannu fell on 3/4 April according to the modern calculations of the first visibility of the new moon after conjunction. Between sunset (at c. 18:18) and moonset (at c. 19:14) on April 3 the new moon became visible at the western end of the constellation of Taurus, about 14° west of (= in front of) α Taurus. Thus the moon was clearly not behind the constellation of Taurus at this time. This position, therefore, does not fit that on the tablet.

But as stated above, Furuli moves Nisannu 1 of 588 about one month forward in the Julian calendar, which is required by his identification of the lunar eclipse dated to month III on the tablet with the eclipse of July 15, 588. (Furuli, p. 296) This should have moved 1 Nisannu to 3/4 May, 588 BCE, a date that is scarcely possible, as all the evidence available shows that 1 Nisannu never fell that late in the Julian calendar in the Neo‒Babylonian or any later period. But Furuli goes on to make an even more serious error in connection with this relocation of Nisannu 1.

On page 311 Furuli explicitly states that, “In order to correlate the Babylonian calendar with the Julian calendar, I take as a point of departure that each month began with the sighting of the new moon.” He goes on to explain that, clue to bad weather conditions, the month could sometimes “begin a day after the new moon.” Despite this pronounced (and quite correct) point of departure, Furuli, in his discussion of the planetary positions on page 296, dates the 1^st of Nisannu in 588, not to 3/4 May but to May 1. He does not seem to have realized that this was not the date of the sighting of the new moon after conjunction. On the contrary, this date not only preceded the first sighting of the new moon by two days, but also the date of conjunction (the time of lunar invisibility) by one day!

Later on, in the beginning of his discussion of the lunar positions on page 312, Furuli seems to have discovered that the May 1 date is problematic, because here he suddenly and without any explanation moves the beginning of 1 Nisannu in 588 forward, at first from May 1 to the evening of May 3, but finally, in the table at the bottom of the page, to the evening of May 2! Such manipulations of the Julian date for 1 Nisannu are, of course, inadmissible. One cannot have three different dates for 1 Nisannu in the same year!

True, the conjunction did occur on 2 May, at c. 03:39 local time. (Herman H. Goldstein, New and Full Moons 1001 B.C to A.D. 1651, Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1973, p. 35) But this does not mean that the new moon became visible on that day in the evening after sunset. For a number of reasons, the time interval between the conjunction and the first sighting of the new moon is considerable. As Dr. Sacha Stem explains, “the time interval between conjunction and first evening of visibility is often as long as one day (24 hours); it ranges however, at Mediterranean latitudes between a minimum of about 15 hours and a maximum of well over two days.” (S. Stem, Calendar and Community, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 100) The results of modern examinations of the first lunar crescents recorded on the Babylonian astronomical tablets from 568 to 74 BCE are presented by Uroš Anderlič, “Comparison with First Lunar Crescent Dates of L. Fatoohi,” available on the web at:

http://www.univie.ac.at/EPH/Geschichte/First Lunar Crescents/Main‒Comp‒Fatoohi‒Anderlic.htm

Thus the new moon could not be seen in the evening of 2 May, either. The earliest time for the visibility of the new moon was in the evening of 3 May, as stated above. Assuming that this incredibly late date for 1 Nisannu were correct, we find that the new moon did appear behind the constellation of Taurus in this evening (of May 3) between sunset (at c. 18:36) and moonset (at c. 20:05). But it was closer to the constellation of Gemini than to Taurus, so the position of the moon still does not fit very well.

In conclusion, the two dates for 1 Nisannu (1^st and 2^nd May) that Furuli actually uses in his computations are impossible. And should he have used May 3 as the date for 1 Nisannu, this would not have been of much help to him, as all the three dates are unacceptably late as the beginning of the Babylonian year.

(2) Obv.» line 3 says: “Night of the 9^th (error for: 8^th), the beginning of the night, the moon stood 1 cubit [= 2˚ | in front of [= west of| β Virginis.”

Nisannu 8 = 29/30 April 568 BCE:

In 568 BCE the 8th of Nisannu fell on 29/30 April. In the beginning of the night on April 29 the moon stood about 3.6° northwest of 3 Virginis, or about 2° to the west (in front of) and 3° to the north of (above) the star. This agrees quite well with the Babylonian measurement of 2°, which, of course, is a rather rough and rounded‒off figure.

Furuli’s date: Nisannu 9=11 May 588 BCE:

As Furuli (incorrectly) dates 1 Nisannu to 2 May in 588, he should have dated the 8^th and 9^th of Nisannu to May 9 and 10, respectively. However, he moves the dates another day forward, to May 10 and 11, respectively, as is shown in his table at the bottom of page 313. Based on this error, he claims that, “On Nisanu 9 [May 11], the moon stood 1 cubit (2°) in front of β Virginis, exactly what the tablet says.” (Furuli, p. 313)

But this is wrong, too. In the “beginning of the night” of 11 May 588 the moon stood, not to the west of (in front of), but far to the east of (behind) β Virginis (about 13° to the east of this star at 20:00). To add to the mess, the altitude/azimuth position of the moon in Furuli’s two columns to the right in his table is wrong, too, as it shows the position near midnight, not at “the beginning of the night” as the tablet says.

(3) Obv. ‘line 8: “Month II, the 1^st (of which followed the 30^th of the preceding month), the moon became visible while the sun stood there, 4 cubits [= 8°] below β Geminorum.”

Ayyaru 1 = 22/23 May 568 BCE:

In 568 BCE the 1^st day of Month II (Ayyaru) fell on 22/23 May. The distance between sunset this evening (at c. 18:49) and moonset (at c. 20:46) was c. 117 minutes. This distance between the moon and the sun was long enough for the new moon to become visible while the sun still “stood there,” i.e., just above the horizon. At its appearance the new moon stood about 7.3° south of (below) β Geminorum, which is very close to the position given on the tablet.

Furuli’s date: Ayyaru 1 = 1 June 588 BCE:

As Furuli has dated Nisannu 1 to 1 May, and later to 2 May, the 1^st of Ayyaru should fall one lunar month later. Furuli (p. 314) dates it to June 1. This, however, conflicts with his earlier dates, because if Nisannu 1 began in the evening of 1 May as he holds at first (p. 296), and if Nisannu had 30 days as the tablet says, he should have dated the 1^st of Ayyaru to May 31. But because he later on redates the beginning of Nisannu 1 to the evening of 2 May (p. 312), he is now able to date the 1^st of Ayyani to 1 June. But as was pointed out earlier, the 2 May date for Nisannu 1 is unacceptable, too, as the moon did not become visible until 3 May.

Furuli’s choice of 1 June seems to be due to the fact that the new moon could not be sighted until drat day. It became visible at sunset (c. 18:56) about 9.7° below β Geminorum. This is not “exactly 4 cubits below” this star, as Furuli states (p. 314), but close to 5 cubits below it. Yet this would have been an acceptable approximation, had the date been right. But it does not only conflict with Furuli’s dating of Nisannu 1 to 1 May; the month of Ayyaru never began as late as in June. In addition, the altitude/azimuth position Furuli gives in his table (+ 54 and 256) is also wrong, as it does not show the position of the moon at sunset, but at c. 15:16, when it was still invisible. Actually, Furuli’s figures for the altitude/azimuth position at the time of observation are so often erroneous that they will henceforth be ignored. The only detail that fairly corresponds to the statement on the tablet, then, is the position of the moon. Everything else is wrong.

(4) Obv.’ line 12: “Month III, (the first of which was identical with) the 30^th (of the preceding month), the moon became visible behind Cancer; it was thick; sunset to moonset: 20° [= 80 minutes]”.

Simanu 1 = 20/21 June 568 BCE:

In 568 BCE the 1^st day of Month III (Simanu) fell on 20/21 June. Day 1 began in the evening after sunset on June 20. At that time the new moon became visible behind (= east of) Cancer, exactly as the tablet says. According to my astro‒program the distance from sunset to moonset was c. 23° (= 92 minutes; from sunset c. 19:06 to moonset c. 20:38). This is not very far from the measurement of the Babylonian astronomers. The discrepancy of 3° is acceptable in view of the primitive instruments they seem to have used. As N. M. Swerdlow has suggested, “the measurements could have been made with something as simple as a graduated rod held at arm’s length.” (N. M. Swerdlow, The Babylonian Theory of the Planets, Princeton University Press, 1998, pp. 40, 187)

Furuli’s date: Simanu 1 = 30 lune 588 BCE:

As Furuli dated the 1^st of Ayyaru to June 1, and as the tablet shows that Ayyaru had 29 days, he should date the 1^st of Simanu to June 30, which he does. And it is true that we do find the moon behind Cancer on this date. Furuli states that “it was 6° to the left (behind) the center of Cancer, so the fit is excellent.” But he has to add immediately that “it was so close to the sun that it was not visible.” (Furuli, p. 315. Emphasis added.)

The reason is that the conjunction had occurred earlier on the very same day, at about 03:30. (H. H. Goldstine, op. cit, p. 35) In the evening the time distance between sunset (at c. 19:09) and moonset (at c. 19:32) was still no more than 23 minutes, i.e., less than 6°, so the moon was too close to the sun to be visible. Furuli does not comment on the fact that the tablet gives the distance between sunset and moonset as much as 20° (80 minutes), showing that the moon on Simanu 1 was far enough from the sun during the observation to be visible, contrary to the situation in the evening of June 30 in 588. For this reason alone Furuli’s date is disqualified.

(5) Obv.’ line 14: “Night of the 5^th, beginning of the night, the moon passed towards the east 1 cubit [2°] the bright star at the end of the Lion’s foot [= β Virginis].”

Simanu 5 = 24/25 June 568 BCE:

In 568 BCE the 5^th of Simanu fell on 24/25 June according to the tables of R. A. Parker & W. H. Dubberstein (Balylonian Chronology, 1956, p. 28). In the evening of the 24th, the moon passed towards the east c. 2° north of y Virginis, not of β Virginis. So here is a problem. Either the Babylonian scholar misnamed the star, or he misdated the observation by one day. In the previous evening (on the 23^rd), the moon passed c. 4° above (north of) β Virginis. Thus Johannes Koch translates the 5^th of Simanu into June 23 of the Julian calendar and calculates that in the evening that day at 22:36 the moon was 4° 17» above and 0° 55» behind β Virginis. (See J. Koch, “Zur Bedeutung von LAL in den ‘Astronomical Diaries’ und in der Plejaden‒Schaltregel,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 49, 1997, p. 88.)

Furuli’s date: Simanu 5 = 4 July 588 BCE:

Furuli dates the 5^th of Simanu to 4 July 588 BCE. He claims (p. 315) that on this date “the fit is excellent: the moon passed 1 cubit (2°) above β Virginis.” Unfortunately, it did not. When the Babylonian day began (at sunset, c. 19:10) the moon was already c. 2 ½ cubits (5°) behind (east of) β Virginis. It had passed above β Virginis about 12 hours earlier, in the morning before moonrise, but that would have been on Simanu 4, not on Simanu 5. So the fit is far from “excellent.”

(6) Obv. ‘ line 15: “Night of the 8^th, first part of the night, the moon stood 2 ½ cubits [= 5°] below β Librae.”

Simanu 8 – 27/28 lune 568 BCE:

In 568 BCE the 8^th of Simanu fell on 27/28 June. My astro‒program shows that in the early night of June 27 the moon stood c. 4.5˚ south of β Librae, which is very close to the position given on the tablet.

Furuli’s date: Simanu 8 = 7 July 588 BCE:

Furuli, who dates the 8^th of Simanu to the 7th of July, 588 BCE, claims (p. 316) that the moon on that day “was 2 ½ cubits below β Librae, so the fit is excellent.” Again, Furuli is wrong. In the “first part of the night” on 7 July 588 BCE the moon stood as much as c. 6 cubits (12°) west of (i.e., far from below) β Librae. It was in fact closer to the constellation of Virgo than to Libra. So Furuli’s date does not fit at all.

(7) Obv. ʼ line 16: “Night of the 10^th, first part of the night, the moon was balanced 3 ½ cubits [= 7°] above α Scorpii.”

Simanu 10 = 29/30 June 568 BCE:

In 568 BCE the 10^th of Simanu fell on 29/30 June. In the first part of the night of the 29^th, the moon stood about 8° above (north of) α Scorpii, which is very close to the position described on the tablet.

Furuli’s date: Simanu 10 = 10 July 588 BCE:

As Furuli had dated Simanu 8 to July 7, he should have dated Simanu 10 to 9 July 588. But strangely, he mistranslates it into 10 July and claims (p. 317): “The moon was 3 ½ cubits (7°) above α Scorpii, so the fit is excellent.” But in the “first part of the night” that day the moon was over 5 cubits (10°) northeast of α Scorpii. And even if we move back to the early night of July 9, the moon at that time was about 5 cubits (10°) northwest of a Scorpii. It would not be correct to state of any of these lunar positions that the “fit is excellent”. None of them fits.

(8) Obv. ʼline 17: “The 15^th, one god was seen with the other; sunnse to moonset: 7° 30» [= 30 minutes]. A lunar eclipse which was omitted [....]”

Simanu 15 = 4/5 July 568 BCE:

In 568 BCE the 15^th of Simanu fell on 4/5 July. The expression “one god was seen with the other” refers to the situation when the sun and the moon are both visible at the same time when standing in opposition to each other. This was the situation in the early morning of 5 July. From sunrise in the east at c. 04:51 to moonset in the west at c. 05:24, i.e., for about 33 minutes, “one god was seen with the other.” This is very close to the time distance recorded on the tablet, 7°30», or 30 minutes.

Line 17 also records “a lunar eclipse which was omitted [....]”, an expression used of an eclipse that had been predicted in advance to be invisible from the Babylonian horizon. The text is somewhat damaged, but the reference is obviously to the lunar eclipse of July 4, 568 BCE, which according to modern calculations began about 12:50 and lasted until 14:52, local time. As it took place in the early afternoon when the moon was below tηe horizon, it could not be observed in Babylonia.

Furuli’s date: Simanu 15 = 15 July 588 BCE:

Furuli dates Simanu 15 to 15 July 588 BCE. True, there was a lunar eclipse on that day that was invisible from the Babylonian horizon. Furuli claims on page 317 that “the eclipses of July 15, 588; of July 4, 568; and of June 24, 586, all occurred on Simanu 15 and fit the description.” However, the time distances between sunrise and moonset at the dates in 588 and 586 do not fit at all with the information on the tablet. On 15 July 588 the moonset (at 04:50) occurred about five minutes before sunrise (04:55), so the two “gods” could not been seen with each other that day. And the same problem is connected with the June 24, 586 BCE date. Of the three alternatives, therefore, only the July 4, 568 BCE date fits the information on the tablet.

In passing, Hunger’s translation of the obv. ʼline 18 should be corrected. It says: “[.... the moon was bellow the bright star at the end of the [Lion’s] foot [....]”

The signs within brackets are illegible and the text had to be restored by Hunger. But as he himself later explained, the word “moon” was just a guess that he had not checked. Modern calculations show that, if the day number (which is lost, too) was the 16^th (July 5/6), the heavenly body that was below “the bright star at the end of the Lion’s foot” (=β Virginis) must have been Venus, not the moon. This was later pointed out also by Johannes Koch (JCS 49, 1997, p. 84, n. 7, and p. 89). However, Koch calculates that Venus in the first part of the night of July 5 was 0°02΄ above and 1°06» behind β Virginis, while the SkyMap Pro 11 program shows that Venus at that time was not 0°02΄ above but about 0°64΄ below and about 0° 89» behind β Virginis. These results are in closer agreement with the tablet.

(9) ´Rev. line 5: “Month XI, (the 1^st of which was identical with) the 30^th (of the preceding month), the moon became visible in the Swallow; sunset to moonset: 14˚30΄ [58 minutes]; the north wind blew. At that time, Jupiter was 1 cubit behind the elbow of Sagittarius [....]”

Shabatu I = 12/13 February 567 BCE:

In 568/567 BCE the first day of month XI (Shabatu) fell on 12/13 February 567 BCE. On day 12 the distance between sunset (at c. 17:44) and moonset (c. 18:53) was 69 minutes (17° 153, or II minutes (2˚ 45») more than those given on the tablet, 58 minutes. According to the tablet, the new moon became visible after sunset “in the Swallow.”

The “Swallow’” covered or included a part of the constellation of Pisces. The exact extension of the “Swallow” is not quite clear. But it included a band of stars called “DUR SIM‒MAH (ribbon of the swallow)” which included at least δ, ε, and ζ Pisces, perhaps also some other stars. The “ribbon of the swallow” is referred to in over a dozen astronomical reports dating from 567 to 78 BCE, and these have been helpful in locating at least some stars in the group. (Alexander Jones, “A Study of Babylonian Observations of Planets Near Normal Stars,” Archive for History of Exact Sciences, Vol. 58, 2004, pp. 483, 490) The “Swallow”, then, comprised at least the “ribbon of the swallow” and then extended westward along the Pisces.

Furuli’s discussion of SIM and SIM‒ΜΑH on page 296 is thoroughly misleading, as he tries to confuse the issue by referring to some older views without telling that they were abandoned long ago. This is true of Kugler’s suggestion back in 1914 that SIM‒MAH applies to the northwest of Aquarius. To be sure, Furuli states that two modern scholars, E. Kasak and R. Veede, in an article published in 2001 applies SIM to “the Bull of Heaven” (Taurus). They do not! In their article (available on the web: http:/folklore.ee/folklore/voll6/planets.pdf) they do not mention SIM at all! Furuli also refers to the conclusion of van der Waerden (1974) that it applies to “the south‒west part of Pisces” – as if this would be yet another view. The fact is that his conclusion does not conflict with that of other modern scholars, including that of Jones, Hunger, and Pingree. The impression Furuli tries to give, that modern experts widely disagree about the identity of SIM and SIM‒MAH, is false. All agree that it covered or included a part of the constellation of Pisces.

My astro‒program shows that in the evening after sunset on February 12, 567 BCE, the new moon became visible in the Pisces, about half‒way between a Pisces in the south and y Pisces in the west and c. 8.5° below the centre of the western bow of the Pisces. Furuli’s statement that the moon at this time was “13° below the central part of Pisces” is not correct. His claim that the position is “a somewhat inaccurate fit” is totally uncalled‒for, in particular in view of his statement that “the fit is excellent” when he finds the lunar position on his own preferred date (February 22, 587) to have been “9° below the central part of Pisces.”

There can be no doubt that the moon on February 12, 567 BCE was “in the Swallow,” just as is stated on the tablet. At that time Jupiter could also be seen in Sagittarius as the tablet says.

Furuli’s date: Shabatu 1=22 February 587 BCE:

Furuli’s date for Shabatu 1 is 22 February 587 BCE. And it is true that the moon on that day was “in the Swallow.” One problem with this date, however, is that the new moon at sunset was so close to the sun (less than 10°) that it most probably was invisible. The conjunction had occurred earlier on the same Julian day, at c. 01:26. Besides, Jupiter was between Aries and Pisces, far away from Sagittarius where it is placed by the tablet.

(10) ´Rev. line 12: “Month XII, the first (of which followed the 30^th of the preceding month), the moon became visible behind Aries while the sun stood there; sunset to moonset: 25° [100 minutes], measured; earthshine; the north wind blew.”

Addaru 1 = 14/15 March 567 BCE:

In 568/567 BCE the first day of month XII (Addaru) fell on 14/15 March 567 BCE. On day 14 the distance between sunset (at c. 18:06) and moonset (at c. 19:50) was 104 minutes (26°), which is very close to the Babylonian measurement, 25° (100 minutes). The distance between the moon and the sun was long enough for the moon to become visible before sunset (“while the sun stood there”). At that time the moon stood about 15° southeast of α Aries, thus partially behind and partially below the most brilliant star in Aries. This roughly agrees with the position given on the tablet.

Furuli’s date: Addaru 1 = 24 March 587 BCE:

Furuli’s date for Addaru 1 is 24 March 587 BCE. Of the position of the moon Furuli says (p. 321): “The moon was 13° to the left of (behind) Aries, so the fit is excellent.” This is not quite correct. About 86 minutes (c. 21.5°) before sunset (“while the sun stood there”), the moon stood about 7° to the south of (below) the nearest star in Aries (δ Aries) and about 20° to the southeast of (i.e., partially below and partially behind) α Aries. This position is not very exact, but acceptable.

(11) ´Rev. line 13: “Night of the 2^nd, the moon was balanced 4 cubits [8°] below η Tauri.”

Addaru 2 = 15/16 March 567 BCE:

In 567 BCE the 2^nd of Addaru fell on 15/16 March. In the night of the 15^th, at c. 19:00, the moon was 4 cubits (8°) directly to the south of (below) η Tauri, also known as Alcyone, the most brilliant star in the star cluster Pleiades. This position agrees exactly with that given on the tablet.

Furuli’s date: Addaru 2 = 25 March 587 BCE:

Furuli dates Addaru 2 to 25 March 587 BCE. In the night of that day, at c. 19:00, the moon was about 10.5° southeast of η Tauri, a position that does not agree very well with that given on the tablet. The fit is definitely not “excellent” as Furuli (p. 321) claims it is.

(12) ´Rev. line 14: “Night of the 7^th, the moon was surrounded by a halo; Praesepe and α Leonis [stood] in [it ....]”

Addaru 7 = 20/21 March 567 BCE:

In 567 BCE the 7^th of Addaru fell on 20/21 March. In the night of the 20^th/21^th the moon stood between α Leonis and Praesepe, the latter being an open star cluster close to the centre of the constellation of Cancer. As they lie about 23° apart, the halo must have covered a large area in the sky. The next line (line 15), in fact, goes on to state that “the halo surrounded Cancer and Leo.” As the moon stood between these two constellations, its position agrees with that given on the tablet.

Furuli’s statement (p. 322) that Cancer “is either the constellation or the zodiacal sign that covers 30° of the heaven” is anachronistic, as the zodiacal belt was not divided into signs of 30° each until much later, in the Persian era.

Furuli’s date: Addaru 7=30 March 587 BCE:

Furuli’s date for Addaru 7 is 30 March 587 BCE. He states that Cancer in that night “was 4° above the moon and a Leonis was 13° below the moon.” However, Cancer was not above but in front of (west of) the moon, and a Leonis was not below but behind (east of) the moon. But as this lunar position was nearly the same as on 20/21 March, 567 BCE, both positions fit.

(13) ´Rev. line 16: “The 12^th, one god was seen with the other; sunrise to moonset: 1° 30» [6 minutes]; ....”

Addaru 12 = 25/26 March 567 BCE:

In 567 BCE the 12^th of Addaru fell on 25/26 March. According to the tablet sunrise occurred 1° 30» – 6 minutes – before moonset, meaning that one “god” could be “seen with the other” in the morning for six minutes. My astro‒program shows that in the morning of March 26 the sun rose at c. 06:08 and the moon set c. 06:11, that is, they could both be seen at the same time above the horizon for about 3 minutes, which is close to the time given on the tablet.

Furuli’s date: Addaru 12 = 4/5 April 587 BCE:

Furuli has misunderstood the kind of phenomenon referred to by the expression “one god was seen with the other”. He explains on page 323: “To say that one god (the sun) was seen with the other god (the moon) was one way to express that the moon was full.”

Although it is true that the moon was nearly full when it was seen with the sun, this is not exactly what the expression refers to. As explained earlier, it refers to the situation when the sun and the moon stand in opposition to each other – the sun in the east and the moon in the west – and both can be seen simultaneously above the horizon for a short period of time. As Furuli has not understood this, his comments on the text are mistaken and irrelevant.

Furuli’s date for the 12^th of Addaru is 4/5 April 587 BCE. In the morning of April 5 the sun rose at c. 05:54. But the moon had already set at c. 05:13, i.e., about 41 minutes before sunrise. Thus one “god” could not be seen “with the other” this morning. Furuli’s date, then, is wrong. Only the 567 BCE date fits the statement on the tablet.

In summary, at least 10 of the 13 lunar positions examined fit the 568/567 BCE date quite well, one (no. 10) is acceptable, while two (nos. 2 and 5) are acceptable only if the dates are moved back one day. Of Furuli’s dates in 588/587 BCE only one (no. 12) fits, while 9 do not fit at all. The fits of the remaining three (9, 10, and 11) are far from good but acceptable.

The conclusion is, that the observations were made in 568/567 BCE. The year 588/587 BCE is definitely out of the question.

Part II: The Saturn Tablet BM 76738 + BM 76813

The Saturn Tablet consists of two broken pieces, BM 76738 + BM 76813. It contains a list of last and first appearances of Saturn for a period of 14 successive years, namely, the first 14 years of the Babylonian king Kandalanu, whose 22 years of reign is generally dated to 647‒626 BCE. As the examination below will demonstrate, the Saturn Tablet alone is sufficient for establishing the absolute chronology of the first 14 years of his reign. Everv attempt by the Watchtower Society’ and its apologists to add 20 years to the Neo‒Babylonian chronology is effectively blocked by this tablet.

The Watchtower apologist Rolf Furuli in Oslo, Norway, strains every nerve to get rid of the evidence provided by this tablet in his new volume on chronology, Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian Chronology (Oslo: Awatu Publishers, 2007). The Watchtower Society’s chronology, renamed by Furuli the “Oslo Chronology”, requires that Nebuchadnezzar’s 18^th year, in which he desolated Jerusalem, is dated to 607 instead of 587 BCE. This would also move his father Nabopolassar’s 21‒year reign 20 years backwards in time, from 625‒605 to 645‒625.

As the Saturn Tablet definitely blocks any change of this kind, it has to be reinterpreted in some way. Furuli has realized that he cannot simply wave it away as unreliable, as he does with so many other uncomfortable astronomical tablets.

To overcome this problem Furuli tries to argue that Nabopolassar and Kandalanu is one and the same person. (Furuli, chapter 12, pp. 193‒209) This idea will be discussed in some detail at the end of this article, but one of the problems with it is that the first year of Kandalanu is fixed to 647 BCE, not to 645 as is required by Furuli’s variant of the Watchtower chronology (the “Oslo Chronology”). To “solve” this problem, Furuli argues that there may have been not one but two years of interregnum before the reign of Nabopolassar. He also speculates that “a scribe could have reckoned his first regnal year one or two years before it actually started”! (Furuli, p. 340) He ends up lowering the first year of Nabopolassar/Kandalanu one year, from 647 to 646, claiming that the observations on the Saturn Tablet may be applied to this lowered reign. He believes his table E.2 on pp. 338‒9 supports this. However, as will be demonstrated in the discussion below, there is no evidence whatsoever in support of these peculiar ideas. His table bristles with serious mistakes from beginning to end.

The Planet Saturn has a revolution of c. 29.46 years, which means that it returns to the same place among the stars at the same time of the year after twice 29.46 or nearly 59 years. Due to the revolution of the earth round the sun, Saturn disappears behind the sun for a few weeks and reappears again at regular intervals of 378.09 days. This means that its last and first visibility occurs only once a year at most, each year close to 13 days later in a solar year of 365.2422 days, and close to 24 days later in a lunar year of 354.3672 days (12 months of 29.5306 days), except, of course, in years with an intercalary month.

EXAMINATION OF THE ENTRIES FOR THE FIRST 7 YEARS (14 LINES)

On the above‒mentioned tablet each year is covered by two lines, one for the last and one for the first visibility of the planet. The tablet, then, contains 2 x 14 = 28 lines. As lines 3 and 4 are clearly dated to the 2^nd year, the damaged and illegible sign for the year number in lines 1 and 2 obviously refers to the 1^st year of king Kandalanu.

The text of lines 1 and 2:

1´ [Year 1 of Kand]alanu, ´month´ [..., day ..., last appearance.]

2´ [Year 1, mont]h 4, day 24, in fro[nt of ... the Crab, first appearance.]

Comments:

As is seen, the last and first visibility of Saturn is dated to year, month, and day in the lunar calendar of the Babylonians. As the Babylonian lunar months began in the evening of the first visibility of the moon after conjunction, there are two mutually independent cycles that can be combined to test the correctness of the chronology: the lunar first visibility cycle of 29.53 days, and the Saturn visibility cycle of 378.09 days. 57 Saturn cycles of 378.09 days make almost exactly 59 solar years. As explained by C. B. F. Walker, the translator of the tablet:

“A complete cycle of Saturn phenomena in relation to the stars takes 59 years. But when that cycle has to be fitted to the lunar calendar of 29 or 30 days then identical cycles recur at intervals of rather more than 17 centuries.Thus there is no difficulty in determining the date of the present text.” – C. B. F. Walker, “Babylonian Observations of Saturn during the Reign of Kandalanu,” in N. M. Swerdlow (ed.), Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination(Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: 1999), p. 63. Emphasis added. (Walker’s article, with picture, is available on the web:

http://www.caeno.org/ EponymZpdf/Walker Saturn%20in%20Kandalanu%20reign.pdf)

The modern program used here for finding the last and first visibility of Saturn and the first visibility of the Moon (the latter is compared with the computations of Peter Huber used by C. B. F. Walker) is Planetary, Lunar, and Stellar Visibility 3, available at the following site:

http://www.alcyone.de/PVis/english/ProgramPVis.htm

As explained in the introduction to the program, exact dating of ancient visibility phenomena is not possible. While the margin of uncertainty in the calculations of the first visibility of the moon is no more than one day, it can be several days for some planets due to uncertainties in the arcus visionis, variations in the planetary magnitude, atmospheric effects, weather and other observational circumstances. For a detailed discussion of the uncertainties involved, see Teije de Jong, “Early Babylonian Observations of Saturn: Astronomical Considerations,” in J.M. Steele and Annette Imhausen (eds.), Under One Sky. Astronomy and Mathematics in the Ancient Near East (Münster: Ugarit‒Verlag, 2002), pp.175‒192.

These factors “may introduce an uncertainty of up to five days in the predicted dates.” (Teije de Jong, op. cit, p. 177) A deviation of up to five days between modern calculations and the ancient observations of the visibility of planets in the period we are dealing with lies within the margin of uncertainty. It does not prove that our chronology for Kandalanu is wrong. Nor does it indicate that the ancient cuneiform records on the Saturn tablet are based on backward calculations instead of observations, as claimed by Rolf Furuli. A greater difference, however, of 6 days or more, would show that something is wrong.

YEAR 1 = 647 BCE IN THE TRADITIONAL CHRONOLOGY:

Lines 1 and 2: For 647 BCE – the date established for the l^3t regnal year of Kandalanu – the program shows that the last visibility of Saturn took place in the evening of June 14 and the first visibility in the morning of July 18. The Babylonian date in line 1 for the last visibility is damaged and illegible. The date in line 2 for the first visibility of Saturn, however, is stated to be month 4, day 24 in the Babylonian lunar calendar which, therefore, should correspond to July 18 in the Julian calendar. Does this Julian date synchronize with the lunar calendar date as stated on the tablet? As the Babylonian lunar months began in the evening of the first lunar visibility, we should expect to find that the 24^th day before July 18 fell on or close to a day of first lunar visibility. The 24^th day before July 18 brings us back to the morning of June 25, 647 BCE as day 1 of the 4^th Babylonian month. As the Babylonian day began in the evening of the previous day, the evening of June 24 should be the time of the first visibility of the moon after conjunction. And our program shows that this day was indeed the day of first lunar visibility: both the Julian date for Saturn’s first visibility and the stated Babylonian lunar calendar date are in harmony.

YEAR 1 IN FURULI’S CHRONOLOGY = 646 BCE:

In his revised chronology, Furuli not only claims that Kandalanu was just another name for Nabopolassar. He also moves the 1^st year from 647 to 646 BCE. How does this redating of the 1^st regnal year tally with the ancient record and modern computations? Could it be that C.B.F. Walker is wrong in stating that the dated Saturn phenomena recorded on the tablet recur on the same date in the Babylonian lunar calendar only after more than 17 centuries?

Line 2: In 646 BCE the first visibility of Saturn occurred in the morning of July 31. If this was the 24^th day of the Babylonian month 4 as the text says, the 1^st day of that month would be the 24^th day before July 31. This brings us to the 8^th of July, and the previus evening of July 7 would be a day of first lunar visibility – if Furuli’s alternative date for regnal year 1 is correct.

But it does not fit. According to the program, the day of first lunar visibility before July 31 in 646 was July 13, not July 7. This is a deviation of 6 days, which is too much. The very first entry on the tablet contradicts Furuli’s revised chronology.

The text of lines 3 and 4:

3´ [Ye]ar 2, month 4, day 10+ [x, …, last appearance.]

4´ [Year 2, mon]th 5, broken, in the head of the Lion, first appearance; not [observed?.]

Comments:

YEAR 2 = 646 BCE:

Line 3: As is seen, both dates are damaged. But if the 2^nd regnal year was 646, as is conventionally held, the last visibility of Saturn that year occurred in the evening of June 28. According to the program, the previous first lunar visibility occurred in the evening of June 13, which thus corresponded to the 1^st day of the Babylonian month 4. The last Saturn visibility on June 28, then, would be month 4, day 16 (= the damaged “day 10+”) in the Babylonian calendar.

Line 4: As stated above, the first visibility of Saturn in 646 occurred in the morning July 31 and the previous first lunar visibility fell in the evening of July 13. If July 13 was the 1^st day of month 5 in the lunar calendar, July 31 should have been day 18 (the “broken” day number) in the lunar calendar.

We cannot know for sure if these restorations of the damaged day numbers are quite correct, but there is nothing in the text that contradicts them.

Saturn is stated to have been “in the head of the Lion [SAG UR‒A]”, which “in the Diaries from ‒380 onward ... designates s Leonis.” (Walker, up. cit., p. 72) My astro‒program shows that Saturn at this time was almost on the same ecliptic longitude (104.5°) as s Leonis (104.0°), but its latitude was about 9° below (south of) the star. If the restoration of the last part of the line is correct (“not [observed?]”), the position was not observed but had to be calculated by the Babylonian scholar. This would explain the inexact latitudinal position.

FURULI: YEAR 2 = 645 BCE:

Line 3: ‘Year 2” in Furuli’s revised chronology is 645 BCE. The last visibility of Saturn in 645 fell according to our program in the evening of July 10 and the previous first lunar visibility occurred in the evening of July 1. As July 1 was day 1 in the lunar calendar, July 10 would have been lunar day 10. The damaged day number of the text (“10+”), however, shows that more than 10 days had passed from day 1 until the last visibility of Saturn. If the restored day number was “16” as argued above, this would be a deviation of 6 days from the true date.

Line 4: The first visibility of Saturn in 645 took place in the morning of August 12. If that was day 18 of month 5 in the lunar calendar (as argued above), the previous first lunar visibility in the evening of lunar day 1 would have occurred in the evening of July 25. But the program shows that the first lunar visibility occurred in the evening of July 31. If the restored day number, 18, is correct, this is a deviation of 7 days. Besides, the position of Saturn does not tally with the text, either. While the difference in latitude between Saturn and s Leonis was the same as in the previous year (about 9°), the ecliptic longitude of Saturn in the morning of August 12 was 117.5°, which was 12.5° behind (east of) the star (104.0°). This alone shows that Furuli’s alternative date for “year 2” is impossible.

The text of lines 5 and 6:

5´ [Ye]ar 3, month 4, day 7, [last appearance.]

6´ [Year 3] month 5, day 16, in the Lion behind the King (= a Leonis), [first appearance];

´high´.

Comments:

YEAR 3 = 645 BCE:

Line 5: As is seen, the Babylonian months and days for both last and first appearances are preserved. The date established for year 3 of Kandalanu is 645 BCE. As stated above, the last visibility of Saturn in that year occurred according to our program in the evening of July 10 and the first lunar visibility occurred in the evening of July 1. As July 1 was day 1 in the lunar calendar, “day 7” in the text would be July 7. However, the program dates the last visibility of Saturn to July 10, so there is a deviation of 3 days, which is not good but acceptable for the reasons explained earlier. The Babylonian astronomer(s) observed Saturn for the last time on day 7, although its actual disappearance did not occur until 3 days later.

Line 6: According to the program, the first visibility of Saturn in 645 occurred in the morning of August 12, while the previous first lunar visibility took place on July 31 after sunset. If day 1 in the lunar calendar began in the evening of July 31, the recorded observation of Saturn on “day 16” must have occurred in the morning of August 16. The program, however, dates the first visibility of Saturn 4 days earlier, in the morning of August 12. This deviation is great but may be explained. In fact, the reason seems to be given by the Babylonian observer himself by his adding of the sign for the word NIM, “high,” at the end of the line. The word indicates that the planet Saturn at the day of observation was already so high above the horizon that the actual reappearance had occurred some days before “day 16” but had not been observed at that time, perhaps due to the weather. C.B.F. Walker explains:

“NIM, high: this term indicates that when first observed the planet was higher above the horizon than normal for first visibility, leading to the conclusion that theoretical first visibility had taken place a day or two earlier, but had not been observed. See Huber (1982), 12‒13.” – Walker, op. cit. (1999), p. 74.

Teije de Jong points out that of the 28 records on the tablet “7 records are unreadable or incomplete because of textual damage, while 6 records are unreliable according to the professional annotations of the [Babylonian] observer (‘not observed’, ‘computed’ or ‘high’, i.e. visibility occurred a few days late, presumably because of cloudy skies on the expected day of first visibility).” – T. de Jong, op. cit., p. 178. Emphasis added.

If the actual but unobserved first reappearance of Saturn had occurred “a few days” earlier than day 16 in the lunar calendar, the difference of 4 days would be reduced by a couple of days or more.

The position of Saturn in the morning of observation (August 16, 645) is stated to be “in the Lion behind the King (= a Leonis)”, which is correct: The planet was 5 behind (east of) α Leonis.

FURULI: YEAR 3 = 644 BCE:

Line 5: “Year 3” in Furuli’s revised chronology is 644 BCE. The last visibility of Saturn in 644 took place in the evening of July 24, while, according to our program, the first lunar visibility prior to that date occurred in the evening of July 20. If lunar day 1 began in the evening of July 20, the last visibility of Saturn on day 7 in the lunar calendar should have occurred in the evening of July 26, 2 days later than shown by the program. This deviation would have been acceptable had it not been for the date of the first visibility of Saturn in the same year.

Line 6: The first visibility of Saturn in 644 occurred in the morning of August 25, while the first lunar visibility before that date occurred in the evening of August 19. If the latter date was lunar day 1, the first visibility of Saturn in the morning of lunar “day 16” would have occurred on September 4. This is 10 days later than shown by the program. As the word “high” at the end of the line indicates that the actual reappearance of Saturn occurred 2 or 3 days prior to lunar day 16, as argued above, this would still create a difference of 7 or 8 days. This once again shows that 644 BCE is an impossible alternative for Kandalanu’s ^“Year 3”.

It is true that Saturn at this time was “in the Lion behind the King (= α Leonis)”, but at a very long distance from the star: nearly 18° east of α Leonis and just in front of o Leonis.

The text of lines 7 and 8:

7´ [Year] ´4´, at the end of month 4, last appearance; (because of) cloud not observed.

8´ [Year 4, month 6?], day [x], in the middle of the Lion, first appearance; high.

Comments:

YEAR 4 = 644 BCE:

Line 7: Year 4 corresponds to year 644 in the traditional chronology. As stated above, the last visibility of Saturn this year occurred in the evening of July 24, and the first lunar visibility prior to that date occurred in tire evening of July 20. Although the latter date was lunar day 1, it was not lunar day 1 of month 4 but of month 5. So we have to move back to the previous first lunar visibility in the evening of June 21. The “end” of this month 29 or 30 days later would take us to July 19 or 20. One of these two dates corresponds to “the end of month 4” according to the text. This would be 4 or 5 days before the actual disappearance of Saturn in the evening of July 24. The reason for this difference is explained in the same line to be bad weather: “(because of) cloud not observed.” As the event could not be observed, it had to be calculated.

Line 8: The first visibility of Saturn in 644 occurred on August 25. Unfortunately, the text on the tablet is so damaged at this place that neither month nor day numbers are readable. The only information in line 8 that can be checked by modern computations, therefore, is the position of Saturn, “in the middle of the Lion” (ina MURUB₄ UR‒A). Its position in the morning of August 25 was c. 1.3° in front of (west of) σ Leo. Although today that is at the rear of the constellation of Leo, the Babylonians also included β Virginis as a part of Leo, calling it GÌR ár šá A, “The rear foot of the Lion.” (A. Sachs/H. Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia [= ADT], Vol. I, 1988, p. 18) Saturn, then, was well within Leo, although not quite in the middle. But as C.B.F. Walker comments, “in all probability ina MLTRUB₄ UR‒A simply means within the constellation Leo.” (Walker, op. cit., 1999, p. 72)

FURULI: YEAR 4 = 643 BCE:

Line 7: “Year 4” in Furuli’s revised chronology is 643 BCE. According to the program the last visibility of Saturn in 643 took place in the evening of August 5 and the previous first lunar visibility ‒ occurred in the evening of July 10. If July 10 was the 1^st day of month 4 in the lunar calendar, the end of that month 29 or 30 days later would fall in the evening of August 7 or 8. That would be 2 or 3 days after the last visibility of Saturn. As the event could not be observed but had to be calculated by the Babylonian astronomers, this would have been acceptable had it not been for the recorded position of Saturn in the next line.

Line 8: The first visibility of Saturn in 643 occurred in the morning of September 6. As stated above, the damaged and unreadable date on the tablet is useless. What about the position of Saturn “in the middle of the Lion” which, as we saw, fitted year 644? Does it also fit year 643? No, it does not. On September 6 in 643 Saturn had moved away from Leo into Virgo, 3.3° behind (east of) β Virginis. Again, Furuli’s revised chronology disagrees with the tablet.

The text of lines 9 and 10:

9´ [Year 5], month 5, day 23, last appearance.

10´ [Year 5], at the end of month 6, first appearance; intercalary Ululu.

Comments:

YEAR 5 = 643 BCE:

Line 9: Year 5 corresponds to year 643 in the conventional chronology. As stated above, the last visibility of Saturn this year occurred in the evening of August 5 and the previous first lunar visibility occurred in the evening of July 10. Thus, if lunar day 1 began in the evening of July’ 10, “day’ 23” in the text would have begun in the evening of August 1. This is 4 days earlier for the last visibility of Saturn than shown by the program, indicating that the actual last appearance of Saturn occurred a few days later than it could be observed for the last time by the Babylonian astronomers (perhaps due to bad weather).

Line 10: As stated above, the first visibility of Saturn in 643 took place in the morning of September 6, which would correspond to “the end of month 6” as stated on the tablet. The beginning of the 6^th month 29 or 30 days earlier, then, would have been in the evening of August 7 or 8. And the program confinns that the first lunar visibility occurred in the evening of August 8 – an excellent fit!

FURULI: YEAR 5 = 642 BCE:

Line 9: Year 5 in Furuli’s revised chronology is 642 BCE. The last visibility of Saturn in 642 took place in the evening of August 18 according to the program (August 17 according to the table of C.B.F. Walker, op. at., p. 66). The previous first lunar visibility took place in the evening of July 28. If the latter was day 1 in lunar month 5, “day 23” would have been August 19. The difference is 1 (or 2) days, which is quite acceptable. But if this shall have any real value as evidence, the first visibility, too, must fit.

Line 10: The first visibility of Saturn in 642 occurred in the morning of September 19 (day 18 in Walker’s table). The previous first lunar visibility occurred, according to the program, on the evening of August 27. As that was lunar day 1, the “end of month 6” 29 or 30 days later would have been September 24 or 25. The first visibility of Saturn would have been in the next morning on September 25 or 26, that is, 6 or 7 (7 or 8) days after the actual event on September 19 (or 18) as shown by the program. As this is beyond the marginal of uncertainty, it is unacceptable. Furuli’s revised chronology is once again disproved.

The text of lines 11 and 12:

11´ Year 6, month 5, day 20, last appearance.

12´ [Year 6], month 6, day 22, behind ´the rear foot of the Lion (= β Virginis), behind

AN.GÚ.ME.MAR, first appearance.

Comments:

YEAR 6 = 642 BCE:

Line 11: The 6^th year of Kandalanu is dated to 642 BCE. The last visibility of Saturn that year occurred in the evening of August 18 (August 17 in Walker’s table). The previous first lunar visibility took place in the evening of July’ 28. If this was lunar day 1, “day 20” of month 5 would have begun in the evening of August 16. This is only 2 days before the date of the program (August 18) and 1 day before the date in Walker’s table (August 17).

Line 12: As stated above, the first visibility of Saturn in 642 occurred in the morning of September 19 (day 18 in Walker’s table), and the first lunar visibility prior to this date took place in the evening of August 27. If lunar day 1 began in the evening of August 27, “day 22” of month 6 began in the evening of September 17, with the first visibility of Saturn occurring in the next morning of September 18. The deviation from the date of the program and from Walker’s table is 1 and 0 days, respectively.

The text say’s that Saturn at this time was “behind the rear foot ofʼ the β Lion (= Virginis)”. It is true that the Saturn was behind (east of) it, but it was jar behind the star, c. 15.6°, and it was even 2.2° behind γ Virginis. It seems that the scribe mixed up the two stars.

The reason may be the fact that Saturn was also very close to and in line with Mercury and Jupiter, so the observer may have had difficulties in identifying the faint star in the immediate vicinity of the three planets. (See also Walker’s comments, op. cit., p. 73.)

FURULI: YEAR 6 = 641 BCE:

Line 11: Year 6 in Furuli’s revised chronology is 641 BCE. The last visibility of Saturn in 641 took place in the evening of August 29, and the previous first lunar visibility on August 15 according to the program. If this was day 1 of lunar month 5, “day 20” of that month would have begun in the evening of September 3, a difference of 5 days from that given by the program for the last visibility of Saturn.

Line 12: The first visibility of Saturn in 641 took place in the morning of September 30 (Walker, September 29). The previous first lunar visibility took place in the evening of September 14 according to the program. If lunar day 1 began in the evening that day, “day 22” must have begun in the evening of October 5, with the first visibility of Saturn taking place in the next morning on October 6. That is 5 (or 6) days later than shown by the program (and Walker’s table).

Still worse, Saturn was neither “behind ´the rear foot of the Lion (= β Virginis)” as stated in the text, nor in the vicinity of γ Virginis. It was on almost exactly the same ecliptic longitude as α Virginis (167.2°) and only 4° above (north of) it, but more than 14° behind γ Virginis and over 28° behind β Virginis! This clearly disagrees with the position recorded on the tablet and refutes the year 641 as being year 6 of Kandalanu.

The text of lines 13 and 14:

13´ Year 7, month 6, day 10+(x), last appearance.

14´ [Year 7], month 7, day 15, ´in front of´ the Furrow (α+ Virginis), first appearance.

Comments:

YEAR 7 = 641 BCE:

Line 13: The 7^th year of Kandalanu is dated to 641 BCE. As stated above, the last visibility of Saturn that year took place in the evening of August 29, with the first lunar visibility prior to that date taking place in the evening of August 15. The day number is damaged, but is evidently higher than 10. If August 15 was day 1 in the lunar calendar, the evening of August 29 would correspond to the beginning of Babylonian day 15 of month 6. We cannot know for sure, of course, that this is the correct restoration of the damaged day number, but there is nothing that speaks against it.

Line 14: As stated above, the first visibility of Saturn in 641 took place in the morning of September 30 (Walker, September 29). The previous first lunar visibility took place in the evening of September 14. With that as the beginning of lunar day 1, “day 15” (of month 7) must have begun in the evening of September 28, with the first visibility of Saturn taking place in the next morning on September 29. The difference from the date given by the program (and Walker’s table) is 1 (or 0) days.

The position of Saturn at its first visibility on September 29 was according to the tablet “«in front of» the Furrow α (+ Virginis)”. As explained above, the astro‒program shows that Saturn at this time was almost exactly on the same ecliptic longitude as a Virginis (167.2°) and only 4° above (north of) it. Thus it was not »in front of» it, as the text seems to say. However, the text is somewhat damaged at this point and to show this Walker has put the words “in front of’ (ina IGI) within half brackets (some tiring like ⌐ in front of ¬). Perhaps the damaged sign could also be restored as “above” (⌐ above ¬)? If this is possible, the problem would be solved.

Another possibility is that Venus and Saturn were confused. Venus, in fact, was 8° “in front of’ (= west of) α Virginis at this time.

FURULI: YEAR 7 = 640 BCE:

Line 13: Year 7 in Furuli’s revised chronology is 640 BCE. The last visibility of Saturn in 640 occurred in the evening of September 10, and the previous first lunar visibility in the evening of September 3 according to the program. This would make the distance from the 1^st of the lunar month 6 (September 3) to the last visibility of Saturn (September 10) only 7 days.

This conflicts with the tablet, which shows that more than 10 days (“10+[x]”) separated the two events.

Line 14: The program shows that in 640 BCE the first visibility of Saturn occurred in the morning of October 12 (Walker, October 10). The previous first lunar visibility took place in the evening of October 3. If that was the beginning of day 1 in the lunar calendar, “day 15” of month 7 would have begun in the evening of October 17, with the first visibility of Saturn occurring in the next morning on October 18. But this was 6 days after the date given by the program (October 12) and 8 days after Walker’s date (October 10). This deviation excludes year 640 as the 7^th year of Kandalanu.

The position of Saturn is given on the tablet as “"in front of» the Furrow (α+ Virginis)”, which also seems to conflict with Furuli’s alternative chronology. Its position on October 12 and 10 (and still on October 18) in 640 was about 12° behind α Virginis, not in front of, above, or below the star. But as the signs are somewhat damaged here, this position is not decisive.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

Above the entries for the first seven years of Kandalanu have been examined. This is half of the entries on the tablet which covers 14 years in all. It is not necessary to tire out the reader with a detailed discussion of the remaining entries. The results for the whole period are presented in the two tables below. The tables show the results only for the entries with fully preserved dates (15 out of the 28 lines). The first table shows how these records tally with the traditional chronology, and the second table shows how they tally with Furuli’s revised dates.

In the “Deviation” column the results of C. B. F. Walker are given within parenthesis (W+/‒).

TABLE 1. THE SATURN TABLET AND THE TRADITIONAL CHRONOLOGY

Comments: The deviations in all cases where the dates are preserved lie all within the margin of uncertainty, at most 5 days according to the web program, and even less according to Peter Huber’s calculations used by C.B.F. Walker. Where the positions of Saturn are given and the text is undamaged, the positions are correct except in one case (year 6 = 642 BCE), where the observer/scribe seems to have mistaken β Virginis for γ Virginis.

TABLE 2. FURULI’S “OSLO CHRONOLOGY”

Comments: 6 of the 15 deviations are outside the margin of uncertainty. The positions of Saturn do not fit, either. Of the 8 years in which the recorded positions are legible, 7 are clearly in conflict with the tablet, and the 8^th may be wrong, too. This is “year 7” in Furuli’s chronology, and the recorded position is slightly damaged and may partly have been misread.

In year 12 Saturn should have been “at the beginning of Pabilsag [= Sagittarius + part of Ophiuchus]”. This fits year 636 BCE, but not 635 (Furuli’s date for year 12). As the study of the astronomical tablets has shown, the western part of Pabilsag included θ Ophiuchus, which was thus “at the beginning of Pabilsag”. (A summary of the examination of the Babylonian constellations and the stars attached to them by the Babylonian astronomers is included in a separate Appendix in Hermann Plunger & David Pingree, Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia [Leiden‒Boston‒Koln: Brill, 1999], pp. 271‒277.)

In 635, however, Saturn had moved away from Ophiuchus altogether to about the middle of Pabilsag. In year 13 Saturn should have been “in the middle of Pabilsag”. This fits year 635 BCE, but in 634 (Furuli’s date for year 13) Saturn had moved away also from the middle of Pabilsag and was close to the eastern end of Pabilsag.

The conclusion is that Furuli’s attempt to move the reign of Kandalanu one year forward cannot be upheld astronomically. His revised chronology is demonstrably wrong.

So what about Furuli’s attempt to identify Kandalanu with Nabopolassar?

WAS KANDALANU ANOTHER NAME FOR NABOPOLASSAR?

Furuli’s “Oslo/Watchtower Chronology” requires that twenty years are added to the Neo‒Babylonian chronology somewhere after the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. This, of course, would not only move the reign of Nebuchadnezzar twenty years backwards. It would also move the 21‒year reign of his father Nabopolassar twenty years backwards, from 625‒605 BCE to 645‒625. As stated earlier, such changes are totally blocked by a number of astronomical tablets, including the Saturn Tablet. To overcome this problem, Furuli argues that Nabopolassar was no other than Kandalanu himself! In note 66 on page 56 he says:

“In the Akitu Chronicle we find a description of the years 16‒20 of Samas‒šuma‒ukin. Then in line 24 we read ^‘arki ^mKan‒da‒la‒nuʼ (traditionally translated ‘after Kandalanu’) followed by ‘in the accession year of Nabopolassar.’ The Akkadian phrase that is translated as ‘after Kandalanu’ can also be translated as ‘thereafter Kandalanu’; thus we get ‘thereafter Kandalanu, in the accession year of Nabopolassar.’ The phrase can also mean ‘this other Kandalanu’ in contrast to some previous Kandalanu. In both cases, Kandalanu can be equated with Nabopolassar.”

Thus Furuli not only claims that Kandalanu was Nabopolassar, but he also tries to argue that the phrase arki Kandalanu refers to his accession year. In arguing this Furuli ignores the fact that two other cuneiform texts use the same phrase, arki Kandalanu, not for his accession year but for a continuing artificial count of his reign after his death! As discussed earlier, the last of these tablets is dated to shattu 22^kam arki Kandalanu, i.e., “year 22 after Kandalanu.” – J.A. Brinkman & J.A. Kennedy, op. cit., p. 49. This alone invalidates Furuli’s argument. On page 16 of the same article Brinkman and Kennedy give some other, earlier examples of this posthumous dating method. See also the comments by Grant Frame in Babylonia 689‒627 B.C. A Political Histoy (Leiden: Nederlands Historisch‒Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1992), pp. 287, 288.

A second problem with Furuli’s identification is that Kandalanu’s posthumous “22^nd” year was a year of unrest, when several pretenders to the throne fought for power. The Uruk King List gives 21 years to Kandalanu and assigns the next year to two Assyrian pretenders, Sin‒shum‒lishir and Sin‒shar‒ishkun. (GTR4, pp. 105‒107) Similarly, the Babylonian King List A, which covers the period from the first dynasty of Babylon to the beginning of the Chaldean Dynasty, shows that Kandalanu was followed by Sin‒shum‒lishir. Unfortunately the list breaks at this point, but it seems likely that it also mentioned Sin‒shar‒ishkun. – D.O. Edzard (ed.), Reallexikon derAssyrialogie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, Vol. VI (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1980), p. 93.

The 21‒year reign of Nabopolassar, however, was not followed by a period of unrest and war in Babylonia. On the contrary the Babylonian Chronicle BM 21946 shows that the transfer of power from Nabopolassar to his son and successor Nebuchadnezzar was peaceful and without problems. That part of the chronicle says:

“For twenty‒one years Nabopolassar ruled Babylon. On the eighth day of the month Ab he died. In the month of Elul Nebuchadnezzar (II) returned to Babylon and on the first day of the month he ascended the royal throne in Babylon.” (Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles,1975, pp. 99, 100; cf. GTR4, p. 102)

At the death of Nabopolassar in 605 BCE the Assyrian empire was gone, so no Assyrian kings existed that could try to take over the power in Babylonia after his death. The political events following the death of Kandalanu and the death of Nabopolassar were wholly different, which once again prove that the two kings cannot have been identicial.

Finally, the intercalary months known from the reigns of the two kings do not agree either, which would have been the case if the two royal names referred to the same king. In the tables below “U” means “Ululu II” (the second 6th month), and “A” means “Addaru II” (the second 12th month). The third column gives the number of tablets with attested intercalary months from each year with such months. The question marks in Kandalanu’s column 2 indicate that it cannot be determined whether the intercalary month in Kandalanu’s year 2 was a second Ululu or a second Addaru. For his year “13/14” W alker’s list adds: “yr 13 12b or yr 14 6b”.

The tables are based on an unpublished list worked out by C. B. F. Walker. My copy is dated March 18, 1996. Walker’s list also shows an intercalary Addaru II for year 1 of Nabopolassar, based on D.A. Kennedy’s list in Journal of Cuneiform Studies., Vol. 38, 1986, p. 179, T.1.14 and p. 222. But after collation in 1990 Walker told me that the royal name is Nabonidus, not Nabopolassar as stated in Kennedy’s list. (Letter Walker‒Jonsson, Nov. 13, 1990) Walker simply forgot to remove this tablet from his own list.

As the tables show, the two kings had only one clearly dated intercalary month in common: the Ululu II in year 5. If the intercalary month in year 2 of Kandalanu was an Addam II, this would raise the number to two. But still, most of the intercalary months in the two reigns disagree. This fact in itself definitely disproves Furuli’s theory that the two kings were identical.

In summary, the discussion above has demonstrated that Furuli’s revised chronology for Kandalanu and Nabopolassar is astronomically and historically untenable and has to be rejected.

ADDENDUM TO MY REVIEW PART II: THE SATURN TABLET BM 76738+76813

As discussed above, Rolf Furuli tries to overcome the evidence presented by the Saturn Tablet from the reign of Kandalanu by arguing that Kandalanu was identical with Nabopolassar. This idea has already been refuted above. But one of the arguments used by Furuli was not dealt with. On pages 329‒331 of his Vol. 2 Furuli questions Chris Walker’s restoration of the royal name in line 1, obverse, as “(Kand) alanu”. (C. B. F. Walker, “Babylonian Observations of Saturn During the Reign of Kandalanu,” in N. M. Swerdlow (ed.), Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination, London: The MIT Press, 1999, pp. 61‒76) Walker restores/transliterates/translates line 1 as follows:

1´ [MU 1‒KAM kan‒d)a ⌐la‒mi ITU¬-[x U₄ x‒KAM ŠÚ]

1´ [Year 1 of Kand]alanu, ⌐month¬ [..., day ..., last appearance.]

Furuli, however, claims that (the sign for) nu in line 1 “looks more like [the sign for] pap” and argues:

“If the sign of line 1 is pap, the name of the king could be ^dAG.IBILA.PAP (Nabopolassar) rather than Kan‒da‒la‒nu. The space of the piece that is broken away in line 1 and the small part of the sign visible before the sign pap or nu corroborate both names.” (Furuli, p. 331)

Is this correct? Can Furuli’s “observations” be trusted? One of my: correspondents forwarded Furuli’s statements to a professional Assyriologist and expert on cuneiform, Dr. Jon Taylor at the British Museum, and asked him to check line 1´ on the original tablet. In an email dated August 28, 2008, Dr. Taylor answered:

“Dear ...,

with broken text it is always a little difficult to make definitive statements. The traces do let me say the following, however:

1) the last sign of the name is a perfectly good NU; one can compare the other examples of NU in this text. It does not fit the traces one would normally expect for PAP.

2) the previous sign does fit the traces of LA. It does not fit the traces of IBILA.

Given the above, Kandalanu is the most reasonable reading. I can’t imagine of a writing that would allow a reading Nabopolassar.

Best wishes,

Jon”

Part III: Are there about 90 “anomalous tablets” from the Neo‒Babylonian period?

There are only two possible ways of extending the Neo‒Babylonian period to include the 20 extra years required by the Watchtower Society’s chronology, and therefore also by Rolf Furuli’s so‒called “Oslo Chronology”: (1) Either the known Neo‒Babylonian kings ruled longer than indicated by Berossus, the Royal Canon (often misnamed “Ptolemy’s Canon”), and the Neo‒Babylonian cuneiform documents, or (2) there were other, unknown kings who belonged to the Neo‒Babylonian period in addition to those established by these ancient sources. Virtually all arguments set forth by Watchtower apologists like Rolf Furuli belong to one or both of these two categories. Upon closer examination, however, the arguments used turn out to be nothing but grasping at straws.

In chapter 3 of his second volume on chronology Furuli discusses the many dated contracts (business, legal, and administrative documents) from the Neo‒Babylonian period (626‒539 BCE). As tens of thousands of such dated tablets have been found from this 87‒year period, there are hundreds of tablets dated to each of these years. Yet no tablets have been found so far that are dated to any of the 20 years that the Watchtower Society has added to the period. This creates an enormous problem for its chronology and therefore also for Furuli’s “Oslo Chronology.” Even if one or two tablets would be found one day with an odd year, this would not solve the problem, because thousands of tablets dated to this 20‒year period should have been found. As Furuli himself admits, “one or two contradictory finds do not necessarily destroy a chronology that has been substantiated by hundreds of independent finds.” (Furuli, Persian Chronology and the Length of the Babylonian Exile of the Jews, Oslo, 2003, p. 22) The only reasonable explanation of a couple of such oddly dated tablets would be that the dates contain scribal errors.

Although no contract tablets have been found that add any extra years to the Neo‒Babylonian period, there are some tablets that seem to add a few days, weeks, or – in two cases – some months to the known Neo‒Babylonian reigns. Such odd dates may create a short overlap between the last year of a king and the accession‒year of his successor. Furuli, who claims he has found “about 90” tablets from the Neo‒Babylonian period with “anomalous dates” (pp. 65, 86), tries to use such short overlaps to argue that extra years should be inserted between the two kings. He says on page 18:

“The natural conclusion to draw when the first tablets of one king’s accession are dated earlier than the last tablets of the predecessor’s last year, is that the successor’s accession year is not the same as the predecessor’s year of death. In the case of Nebuchadnezzar II and Evil‒Merodach such a conclusion would have destroyed Ptolemy’s chronology, and therefore the aforementioned scholars [R.H. Sack, D. J. Wiseman, S. Zawadzki] did not consider this most natural possibility.”

Furuli’s conclusion is far from being the “most natural” explanation of the short overlaps between the reigns of some Neo‒Babylonian rulers. Nor have scholars rejected it because it “would have destroyed Ptolemy’s chronology,” as if the king list popularly but erroneously named “Ptolemy’s Canon” were the only or best evidence we have about the Neo‒Babylonian reigns. The best evidence is provided by much earlier documents, including the cuneiform tablets, many of which are contemporary with the Neo‒Babylonian period itself. The principal reason why modern scholars so highly regard the above‒mentioned king list, more correctly known as the “Royal Canon,” used by Claudius Ptolemy and other ancient astronomers, is the fact that it agrees with the chronology established by earlier sources, including the cuneiform documents contemporary with the Neo‒Babylonian and Persian periods.

These earlier sources include the lengths of Neo‒Babylonian reigns attested by Berossus’ Babyloniaca, the Uruk king list, and Neo‒Babylonian royal inscriptions; by prosopographical evidence provided by contemporary cuneiform documents, chronological interlocking joints provided by a number of contemporary tablets, synchronisms with the chronology of the contemporary 26^th Egyptian dynasty, numerous Neo‒Babylonian absolute dates established by at least ten astronomical cuneiform tablets, and also the Biblical information about the length of the reign of king Nebuchadnezzar. (2 Kings 24:12 aware of this enormous burden of evidence see no reason to accept Furuli’s far‒fetched explanation of the brief overlaps of a few days, weeks, or months between some of the reigns of the Neo‒Babylonian rulers.

In fact, most of the “odd dates” quoted by Furuli are not odd at all. Fresh collations have shown that most of them either contain scribal errors or have been misread by modern scholars, or have turned out to be modern copying, transcription, or printing errors. Furuli cautions against accepting dates uncritically, pointing out on page 54 that “dates that fall outside the traditional schemes must be ver clear in order to be accepted.” That is why it is necessary to have supposedly “oddly dated” tablets collated afresh. Furuli quotes three examples from scholarly works of tablets that were found to have been misread by modern scholars.

Unfortunately, Furuli himself has not applied his “word of caution” to his own research. In I he tables on pages 56‒64 he presents a number of seemingly oddly dated tablets from the Neo‒Babylonian period, most of which on fresh collation turn out to have been misinterpreted or misread. The question is why he has used these tablets in support of Iris “Oslo chronology” without having them collated. Basing a radical revision of the chronology established for one of the chronologically best established periods in antiquity on unchecked misreadings and misinterpretations of the documents used does not speak very well about the quality of the research performed.

Let us first take a look at the traditional chronology for the Neo‒Babylonian dynasty:

In the following discussion we will take a close look at each accession of a new monarch during the Neo‒Babylonian period and the “overlaps” of reigns Furuli believes he has found.

(1) Kandalanu to Nabopolassar

Before Nabopolassar’s conquest of Babylon in 626 BCE the city and the country had been controlled by Assyria for most of the previous 120 years. After the death of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon in 669 BCE the Assyrian empire was ruled by two of his sons, Assurbanipal in Assyria and Samas‒sum‒ukin in Babylonia. After the death of Samas‒sum‒ukin in 648 BCE, Babylonia was ruled by an Assyrian puppet‒king named Kandalanu, who died in his 21^st regnal year, in 627 BCE. Assurbanipal to all appearances died in the same year.

The death of Kandalanu was followed by a period of general disorder and war between several pretenders to the throne in Babylon. One of them was Nabopolassar, the founder of the Neo‒Babylonian dynasty, who succeeded in freeing Babylon from Assyrian control late in 626. The Babylonian chronicle BM 25127 states of the transition from Kandalanu to Nabopolassar:

“For one year there was no king in the country’. In the month of Arahsamnu [= month VIII], the twenty‒sixth day, Nabopolassar ascended to the throne” [= Nov. 23, 626 in the Julian calendar]. (Jean‒Jacques Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles,Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004, p. 217)

The Uruk king list, however, gives the kingless year to two Assyrian combatants, Sin‒šum‒lišir, a high Assyrian official, and Sin‒šar‒iškun, a son of Assurbanipal. Some scribes spanned the same year by artificially extending Kandalanu’s reign for another year after his death, the last of these tablets (BM 40039) being dated to day 2 of month VIII, shattu 22^kam arki Kandalanu, i.e., “year 22 after Kandalanu.” This tablet, which is from Babylon, is dated 24 days before Nabopolassar was enthroned in that city on day 26 of month VIII according to the chronicle. – J. A. Brinkman & D. A. Kennedy, “Documentary Evidence for the Economic Base of Early Neo‒Babylonian Society,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 35 (1983), p. 49.

Despite the different ways of spanning the year of interregnum, the year intended is the same in all these sources and corresponds to 626. Nabopolassar’s 1^st year of reign began on Nisan 1 next year, 625 BCE.

Furuli claims that the date of Nabopolassar’s accession given by the Babylonian chronicle, day 26 of month VIII, is contradicted by two economic tablets that date his accession earlier:

“One tablet is dated to day 10 of month IV of his accession year, and another tablet, NCBT 557, which probably is from the reign of Nabopolassar, is dated to day? in month II of his accession year”. (Furuli, p. 55)

In footnote 62 on the same page Furuli points out that the signs for the royal name on the second tablet are damaged and “could refer to Nabû‒apla‒iddina from the ninth century. However, no other economic texts are that old, so Beaulieu believes that the king is Nabû‒apla‒usur. This is accepted here.” This would create an overlap of about six months between the first tablet dated to Nabopolassar and the last tablet dated to arki (“after”) Kandalanu:

This is the first example where Furuli applies his thesis that an overlap of a few weeks or months between a king and his successor means that one or more extra years should be inserted between the two kings. He says:

“If we take the chronicle text that mentions one year without king at face value, there are not one but two lunisolar years between Nabopolassar and the king who preceded him.” (Furuli, p. 56)

With respect to reading the royal name on NCBT 557 as Nabopolassar rather than Nabû‒apla‒iddina (887‒855 BCE), Furuli has misunderstood Beaulieu. He does not say that “no other economic texts are that old.” The fact is that several economic texts have been found from the reign of Nabû‒apla‒iddina. On Iris web site (presently unavailable) Janos Everling listed 17 texts dated to the reign of Nabu‒apla‒iddina that had been published up to 2000. Of the texts in which the provenance is preserved all except one are from Babylon. The exception, OECT 1, pl.20f:W.‒B. 10, seems to be from Uruk. What Beaulieu says is that no other tablets from Uruk have been found from his reign. (Paul‒Alain Beaulieu, “The fourth year of hostilities in the land,” Bagbdader Mitteilungen, Vol. 28, 1997, p. 369.) The text dated to day 10 of month IV of Nabopolassar’s accession year, PTS 2208, is from Uruk, and so is also NBCT 557 from the 2^nd month.

If both of these tablets really belong to Nabopolassar, there is still no contradiction between their dates and the statement in the Babylonian chronicle BM 25127 that Nabopolassar was officially installed on the throne in Babylon some months later. As Beaulieu points out in the same article, “Uruk may have originally been the power base of Nabopolassar, and perhaps even Iris native city.” This had previously also been argued by Assyriologist W. G. Lambert. (Beaulieu, p. 391 + n. 56) If Nabopolassar’s rebellion started in Uruk, it is reasonable to conclude that he was first recognized as king there before he, after his capture of Babylon, could be installed on the throne in that city. This is a far more natural explanation of the “overlap” than Furuli’s theory that the “most natural” explanation of such overlaps is that “extra years” are to be added, an explanation that conflicts with other sources from the period and therefore must be rejected.

Two kingless years instead of one before Nabopolassar would not, of course, add any extra years to the Neo‒Babylonian period, as this period began with Nabopolassar. Furuli’s “Oslo Chronology” requires that 20 extra years are added after the reign ofNebuchadneyyar, because in this chronology the desolation of Jerusalem in his 18^th year is pushed back from 587 to 607 BCE. The result of this is that the 21‒year reign of his father Nabopolassar is pushed back from 625‒605 to 645‒625 BCE. And this in turn would also push the beginning of Kandalanu’s reign 20 years backward, from 647 to 667 BCE.

Such a lengthening of the chronology, however, is blocked by astronomy. There are several cuneiform tablets containing records of astronomical observations dated to specific regnal years within the Neo‒Babylonian period and earlier. One such tablet that consists of two broken pieces, BM 76738 and BM 76813, records consecutive observations of the positions of the planet Saturn at its first and last appearances dated to the first fourteen years of Kandalanu (647‒634 BCE). Assyriologist C. B. F. Walker, who has examined and translated this tablet, points out that identical cycles of Saturn observations dated to the same dates within the Babylonian lunar calendar “recur at intervals of rather more than 17 centuries.” (C. B. F. Walker, “Babylonian observations of Saturn during the Reign of Kandalanu,” in N. M. Swerdlow [ed.], Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: The MIT Press, 2000, pp. 61‒76.) In other words, the reign of Kandalanu is so firmly fixed by this tablet that it cannot be moved backwards or forwards even one year, far less 20.

To overcome this evidence, Furuli argues that Nabopolassar was no other than Kandalanu himself! According to this theory, the Saturn tablet moves the reign of Nabopolassar about 20 years backwards and identifies it with the reign of Kandalanu! (Furuli, pp. 128, 129, 329‒343) This theory has been discussed and thoroughly refuted in Part II of this review.

(2) Nabopolassar to Nebuchadnezzar

According to the Babylonian Chronicle BM 21946 (= Chronicle 5 in A. K Grayson, Assyrian and Balylonian Chronicles, 1975, pp. 99‒102; henceforth referred to as “Grayson, ABC”) the transition from Nabopolassar to Iris son and successor Nebuchadnezzar was smooth and unproblematic. Furuli starts by referring to this chronicle:

“According to the Babylonian Chronicle 5, 9‒11, Nabopolassar died on day 8 in month IV of his year 21, and Nebuchadnezzar II ascended to the royal throne on day 1 in month VI in the same year.” (Furuli, p. 57)

But Furuli immediately goes on to mention one tablet that seemingly creates a problem:

“However, there may be some problems with this succession as well. For example, there is one tablet dated after the death of Nabopolassar, on day 20 in month V of his year 21 (PTS 2761).” (Furuli, p. 57)

If Nabopolassar died “on day 8 in month IV”, how could a tablet still be dated to his reign 42 days (one month and 12 days) later, “on day 20 of month V”?

Unfortunately Furuli, undoubtedly accidentally, has misquoted the Babylonian Chronicle. It does not say that Nabopolassar died “in month IV” but in month V:

“For twenty‒one years Nabopolassar ruled Babylon. On the eighth day of the month Ab [= month V] he died. In the month Elul [= month VI] Nebuchadnezzar (II) returned to Babylon and on the first day of the month Elul he ascended the royal throne in Babylon.” (Grayson, ABC, pp. 99, 100)

The tablet PTS 2761, then, is dated, not 42 but only 12 days after the death of Nabopolassar. Is this really an “overlap” with the reign of Nebuchadnezzar?

When his father died, Nebuchadnezzar was occupied with a military campaign in Syria (and, probably, Palestine). When he was informed about the death of his father, Nebuchadnezzar hastened back to Babylon as fast as he could (by crossing the desert with a few companions, according to Berossus). He was enthroned, says the Chronicle, on Elul 1, i.e., 22 days after his father’s death. As tablet PTS 2761 is dated 10 days before Nebuchadnezzar’s coronation, it does not witness to any overlap between the two kings. It was only natural for the scribes to continue to date their documents to Nabopolassar until his successor had arrived and been installed on the throne.

Furuli, finally, refers to four other tablets that give dates both in the reign of Nabopolassar and in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar:

“Some tablets also mention both Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar: BM 92742 mentions month II, year 21, of Nabopolassar, and month VII, accession year of Nebuchadnezzar; BM 51072 mentions year 21 of Nabopolassar, and year 4 of Nebuchadnezzar; RSM 1889.103 mentions year 21 of Nabopolassar, and years 1‒4 of Nebuchadnezzar; BE 7447 mentions day 24, month XII, accession year of Nebuchadnezzar, and year 19 of Nabopolassar.” (Furuli, p. 57)

It is strange that Furuli refers to these tablets, as none of them indicates there was an overlap between the two kings. Furuli admits that, “The data suggest that Nebuchadnezzar started to reign in the same year that his father died,” yet he goes on to claim that “the data above may also suggest that there was some kind of coregency, or that there was one year between them.”

It is clear that Furuli has not checked any of these four tablets, which he also indirectly admits by stating in note 68 on the same page (p. 57) that all tablets are mentioned in the catalogue by D. A. Kennedy published in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 38/2, 1986, pp. 211, 215. Only one of the dates on each tablet refers to the date of the tablet. The other dates refer to events dealt with in the text. The last of the four tablets (BE 7447), for example, deals with the purchase of a house in Babylon. The tablet is dated on day 24 of month XII, accession‒year of Nebuchadnezzar, but it ends with the information that payment for the house had been received about two years earlier, on the 24^th of month VIII in the 19^th year of Nabopolassar. (Eckhard Unger, Balylon, Berlin und Leipzig Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1931, pp. 308, 309) Nothing of this suggests “some kind of coregency” or an extra year between these kings.

As the data presented by Furuli do not suggest anytiling of this, his statement is nothing but unfounded wishful thinking, contradicted by all the evidence we have about the transition of reign from Nabopolassar to Nebuchadnezzar.

(3) Nebuchadnezzar to Evil‒Merodach (Awel‒Marduk)

(A) The “ledger” NBC 4897:

Furuli deals with the transfer of reign from Nebuchadnezzar to his son Evil‒Merodach on pages 57‒59 of his book. He starts by commenting on the cuneiform tablet NBC 4897, a “ledger” covering ten successive years, from the 37^th year of Nebuchadnezzar to the 1^st year of Neriglissar. The “ledger,” which is briefly discussed on pages 131‒133 in my book, The Gentile Times Reconsidered (4^th edition, 2004; hereafter referred to as GTR4), stretches a chronological bridge between the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar, Evil‒Merodach, and Neriglissar. Furuli, of course, cannot accept the clear witness of this “ledger”:

“To the best of my knowledge, there is just one cuneiform tablet, NBC 4897, whose contents can be used to argue that Evil‒Merodach succeeded Nebuchadnezzar II in his year 43, that Evil‒Merodach reigned for 2 years, and that Neriglissar succeeded him in his second year. However, a close scrutiny of that tablet shows that it has little value as a chronological witness.” (Furuli, p. 57)

These statements contain two errors. Firstly, as far as the transition from Nebuchadnezzar to Evil‒Merodach is concerned, I presented not just one but four different cuneiform tablets, all of which show that Evil‒Merodach succeeded Nebuchadnezzar in his 43^rd regnal year. (GTR4, pp. 129‒133) Furuli has chosen to ignore all but one of the four tablets. Secondly, his claim that NBC 4897 “has little value as a chronological witness” is false. His few critical assertions on the next page (58) are followed by a reference to “Appendix A for a detailed analysis of the contents of NBC 4897.” This Appendix with its slanted analysis and baseless conclusions will be critically examined in another part of this review.

(B) Biblical versus Babylonian dating methods:

Furuli next tries to find support in the Bible for his idea that Nebuchadnezzar ruled longer than 43 years. He refers to the first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, which the Babylonian Chronicle BM 21946 dates to his “seventh year.” The Chronicle states that in this year the king of Babylon “encamped against the cih of Judah and on the second day of the month Adar he captured the city? (and) seized (its) king,” that is, king Jehoiachin, the next to the last king of Judah. – Grayson, ABC, p. 102.

As the month Adar was the 12^th and last month of the Babylonian regnal year, Jehoiachin was taken prisoner nearly a whole month before the end of Nebuchadnezzar’s seventh regnal year.

The Bible gives a similar description of the same events at 2 Kings 24:10‒12

” At that time the servants of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came up to Jerusalem and the citv was besieged. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it; King Jehoiachin of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon, himself. Iris mother, his servants. Iris officers, and his palace officials. The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign.”

Both records emphasize that the Judean king was “seized” or “taken” prisoner, but only the Babylonian Chronicle gives the month and day of the event, showing it happened nearly one month before the end of Nebuchadnezzar’s seventh year. The most conspicuous difference, however, is that according to the Biblical book of 2 Kings it happened, not in the seventh but in the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar. The best explanation of this one‒year difference is, as many scholars have argued, that Judah did not apply the accession‒year system but counted the year of accession as the first regnal year. (GTR4, pp. 314‒320; see also the detailed and convincing discussion by Dr. Rodger Young http://home.swbell.net/rcyoung8/jerusalem.pdf

Furuli gives no explanation for this one‒year difference between the Biblical and Babylonian way of counting regnal years but chooses to igiore the date of the Babylonian Chronicle. This enables him to increase the reign of Nebuchadnezzar from 43 to 44 years. He says:

“Jeremiah 52:28‒31 prison in year 37 of his exile, in the year when Evil‒Merodach became king. The word galutmeans ‘exile’, and the most likely starting point of the period of 37 years must be when Jehoiachin came to Babylon and Iris exile started or, less likely, when he was captured. Both events occurred in year 8 of Nebuchadnezzar,and 37 years from that time would end in year 44 of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign and not in year 43 when he is supposed to hive died.” (Furuli, p. 58. Emphasis added. In footnote 70 on the same page Furuli approvingly quotes J. Morgenstern’s calculation of the 37^th year, but he ignores the fact that Morgenstern held that the Judean regial years were counted from Tishri, not Nisan.)

However, the one‒year discrepancy between the Babylonian and Biblical way of counting regnal years cannot be ignored. As has often been pointed out, the same discrepancy is also found elsewhere in the Bible. Another example is the battle at Carchemish, when Pharaoh Necho of Egypt was decisively defeated by Nebuchadnezzar “in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim.” (Jeremiah 46:2 Jehoiakim” is equated with “the first year of King Nebuchadnezzar” at Jeremiah 25:1

The same Babylonian Chronicle quoted above (BM 21946) also records this decisive battle at Carchemish. But there it is dated, not to the first year of Nebuchadnezzar but to the 21^st and last year of his father Nabopolassar. At that time Nebuchadnezzar is still said to be “his eldest son (and) the crown prince.” Later in the same year Nabopolassar died, and Nebuchadnezzar succeeded him in what from then on is called his “accession year,” not his first year as does Jeremiah. – Grayson, ABC, pp. 99, 100.

When, therefore, the Bible dates the battle at Carchemish to the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, this has to be understood as his accession‒year in the Babylonian dating system. And when the Bible states that Jehoiachin was taken prisoner and brought into exile in the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar, this has to be understood as his seventh year in the Babylonian accession year system. As Jehoiachin’s exile began in the 7^th year ot Nebuchadnezzar, the 37^th year of exile covered parts of the 43^rd regnal year of Nebuchadnezzar and the accession‒year of Evil‒Merodach. When the difference between the Biblical and Babylonian methods of reckoning regnal years is taken into consideration, the Bible and the extra‒Biblical documents are seen to be in full agreement. Only by ignoring this difference is Furuli able to increase the reign of Nebuchadnezzar from 43 to 44 years. (For a more detailed discussion of this difference, see GTR4, pp. 314‒320.)

(C) Nine supposedly “anomalous tablets” from the accessionyear of Evil‒Merodach

In a table on page 59 (“Table 3.3”) Furuli lists nine tablets from the accession year of Evil‒Merodach that he claims are dated before the last tablets dated to the reign of his father Nebuchadnezzar. He concludes:

“These nine tablets represent strong evidence in favour of an expansion of the years of the Neo‒Babylonian Empire.” (Furuli, p. 59)

The table starts with five tablets dated to month IV and four tablets dated to month V of Evil‒Merodach’s accession year, followed by three tablets dated to months VI, VIII, and X of Nebuchadnezzar’s 43^rd regnal year. If all these 12 dates were real, they would indicate an overlap between the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and Evil‒Merodach of six months.

Furuli’s table, however, is totally misleading. The main reason for this is that Furuli has not cared to collate the dates on the original tablets, nor has he asked professional experts on cuneiform to do this for him. Had he done this, he would have discovered that most of the dates he has published are wrong.

The first five tablets in his table, dated to month IV of the accession year of Evil‒Merodach, are:

All tablets except the last one is listed in the British Museum’s CBT catalogues Vols. VI‒VIII, 1986‒1988. (CBT = Catalogue of the Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum.) The dates on the BM tablets were collated afresh already back in 1990, with the following results:

BM 66846:

When C. B. F. Walker at the British Museum collated the date on this tablet back in 1990 he found that the day number is “1”, but that the month name is damaged and illegible. The tablet, therefore, does not support the date given in Furuli’s table, IV/?/acc. (C. B. F. Walker, “Corrections and additions to CBT 6‒8,” 1996, p. 6)

BM 65270 (listed twice):

Strangely, Furuli lists dais tablet twice, with three different dates! This confusion is probably due to the fact that the month is damaged and difficult to read. After repeated collations Walker stated that “it is perhaps most likely that the month is 7 rather than 4.” (Letter Walker‒Jonsson, Nov. 13, 1990; cf. GTR4, p. 323, n. 28; see also Walker in “Corrections ...” 1996, p. 5: “the month is damaged; possibly month 7; not month 6 as previously suggested.”) On p. 1 of his “Corrections” list of 1996 Walker gives the following warning:

“Note that in Neo‒Babylonian texts there is always the possibility of confusion (because of inaccuracy in either reading or writing) between months IV, VII and XI, between months V and X, and between months IX and XII. The handbooks which suggest that these month‒names are clearly distinguishable in the cuneiform script do not give warning of the range of possible error that arises from sloppy, defective or cursive writing. Readings which are critical for chronology should be collated again and again, preferably by different Assyriologists experienced in working with Neo‒Babylonian texts.”

Another Assyriologist, Stefan Zawadzki, also collated tablet BM 65270. He rejects month 4 (IV) and translates the date on the tablet as “the fifth [day] of the month Ululu/Tašritu(?) [month 6 or 7] of the accession year of Amel‒Marduk, king of Babylon.” (Stefan Zawadzki, “Two Neo‒Babylonian Documents from 562 B.C.,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, Band 86, 1996, p. 218)

BM 80920:

The date, IV/29/acc., is that read by R. H. Sack in his work on Evil‒Merodach (Amel‒Marduk 562‒560 B.C. [= AOATS 4], 1972, text no. 56). The CBT VIII catalogue, p. 245, however, has month VII, and on collation Walker found that the latter is correct. The month is 7, not 4, thus VII/20/acc. “AOAT 4 no. 56 is to be corrected,” he says. (Walker, “Corrections ...”, 1996, p. 8; see also GTR4, p. 323, n. 28.)

UCBC 378:

The fourth tablet in Furuli’s table, UCBC 378, dated to “IV.29.00” in the copy by Henry Frederick Lutz, was published in 1931. (H. F. Lutz, Selected Cuneiform Texts, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1931, pp. 53 + 94, 95.) The full number of the published text is “UCP 9‒1‒2, 29.” The present museum number is HMA 9‒02507 (HMA = Hearst Museum of Anthropology). The number used by Furuli, “UCBC 378,” was a provisional number used by Lutz, who kept the tablets in his office and used his own number system before the tablets he translated were officially accessioned.

A transliteration with a translation by R H. Sack was published in 1972 as text No. 70 in Sack’s work on Evil‒Merodach (op. cit., pp. 99‒100). R. H. Sack does not seem to have checked the original tablet, but based his translation on H. Lutz’s copy. Sack, too, gives the same date as Lutz, “month of Du’uzu [month 4], twenty‒ninth day, accession year of Amel‒ Marduk, king of Babylon.”

In order to have the original tablet collated afresh, a correspondent of mine sent an email to Niek Veldhuis, Associate Professor of Assyriology at the Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and asked if the date may have been misread by Lutz. In an email dated October 3, 2007, Veldhuis said:

“I looked at the piece yesterday and you may very well be right. The two month names (4 and 7) are rather similar in cuneiform writing, one written SHU, the other DU6. The tablet is eroded and the sign is not very clear. I have little experience in this period – so I’ll have to look at it again, but I can certainly not exclude reading DU6 (that is, month 7).”

Thus the date on this tablet, too, is damaged, and the month may very well be 7, not 4. The claim that the date is anomalous, then, cannot be proven.

In conclusion none of these tablets can be shown to be dated as early as month IV of the accession year of Evil‒Merocach. The earliest tablet from his reign with a clear date is still BM 75322, dated to month V, day 20 of his accession year, as is also shown in GTR4, pp. 323, 324.

What about the three tablets dated to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar after the accession of Evil‒Merodach in month V? According to Furuli’s table, these three tablets are dated to months VI, VIII, and X of the 43d year of Nebuchadnezzar:

Month/day/year: Tablet no.:

VI/26/43 Contenau XII.58

VIII/P/43 Kruckmann 238

X/?/43 BM 55806

I will start with the last of the three tablets.

BM 55806:

Back in 1987 I wrote to Professor D. J. Wiseman in London and asked him to collate about 20 oddly dated tablets I had found listed in the then recently published BM catalogue CBT VI (1987). Wiseman checked all the 20 tablets and sent me his observations in a letter dated October 7, 1987. Most of the dates turned out to be modern printing or reading errors. With respect to the date of 55806, X/?/43, Wiseman said that, “The reading seems to be ab (is this an error for shu?).”

Ab is month V, and Shu (SHU = Du’uzu) is month IV.

The tablet was also collated in 1990 by C. B. F. Walker, who gives the following comments in his list of “Corrections ...,” p. 3:

“Month appears to be written ITU.AD; year number highly uncertain, and partly erased. Pinches, CT 55, 138, copied ITU.AB = month 10. If the year is really 43 then the month must be understood as AD = Abu.”

As shown by Walker’s comments, the date is severely damaged. Not only the day and the month, but also the year is highly uncertain. (This is actually admitted by Furuli himself on page 18!) Walker’s mentioning of CT 55 refers to volume 55 of a series of BM publications, Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum. Vols. 55, 56, and 57 contain economic texts copied by T. G. Pinches during the years 1892‒1894, published 90 years later by the British Museum Publications Ltd in 1982. As shown above, collations of the original tablet by modern specialists show that Pinches evidently misread the month name, which most probably is V rather than X. The tablet cannot be shown to be dated after the accession of Evil‒Merodach.

Krückmann 238:

“Krückmann” refers to Oluf Kruckmann, Neubabylonishe Rechts‒ und Verwaltungstexte, published in Leipzig 1933. It is also referred to as TuM 2/3 as it is Vol. 2/3 in the series Texte und Materialien der Frau Professor Hilpecht Collection of Babylonian Antiquities im Eigentum der Universität Jena. Vol. 2/3 contains copies of 289 cuneiform tablets, many of which are fragmentary. In a chronological table the tablets are briefly described, and when the dates, or at least parts of them, are legible, they are given in three separate columns (giving month, day, and year, respectively). No. 238 is listed on page 16 as one of the tablets dated to Nebuchadnezzar. The date is evidently very fragmentary, as Krückmann has put both the month and the year within parenthesis, while the day number is shown as illegible:

Monat Tag Jahr

(IX) ‒ (42)

As can be seen, the suggested year number is «42», not «43».

So why does Furuli date the tablet to VIII/?/43? The reason obviously is that Furuli has never consulted Krückmann’s work. As I demonstrated in my review of volume I of Furuli’s work on ancient chronology, most of the dates presented in his tables had been simply borrowed from web lists published by the Hungarian Assyriologist Janos Everling. Everling’s lists (presently not available on the web) were based upon works that had been published all the way from the latter part of the 19^th cenlurv and up to about 2000. The lists contain over 7,000 tablets from the Neo‒Babylonian period alone. In the introduction to his lists Everling explicitly warned that the dates in the lists had neither been proof‒read nor been compared with the original tablets. The result is that Everling’s lists contain numerous errors. In my review of Furuli’s volume I it was shown that he had borrowed extensively from Everling’s lists without collations, with the result that the errors in Everling’s lists were repeated in Furuli’s tables.

Titis is also true of Everling’s reference to Kruckmann 238, whom he misquotes as follows:

“TuM 2/3, 238. (Nbk. 43.08.O, )”

Furuli seems to have simply taken the date from Everling’s lists without collation and without checking Krückmann’s work. If he had done anything of this, he would have discovered that Everling had misquoted Krückmann 238.

Contenau XII.58:

The date of this tablet, VI/26/43, is correct and is the latest dated tablet from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. As the earliest known tablet from the accession year of Evil‒Merodach is dated to V/20/acc (BM 75322), the overlap between the two rulers is reduced from six months as shown by Furuli’s tables to one month and 6 days, as is also shown in GTR4, page 324. As I argued on the same page, the reason for this brief overlap probably is that Nebuchadnezzar had died earlier, but that Evil‒Merodach’s accession was not generally accepted immediately due to his wicked character. Some scribes, therefore, continued to date their tablets to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar for a few weeks. This is a much more natural explanation of the “overlap” than the idea that “extra years” have to be added between the two reigns – an idea that conflicts with all other relevant sources from this period.

(4) Evil‒Merodach to Neriglissar

“90 anomalous tablets”?

As mentioned earlier, Rolf Furuli has repeatedly claimed, both in this book (pp. 65, 86) and elsewhere, that there are about 90 “anomalous tablets” that contradict the traditional Neo‒Babylonian chronology and therefore requires an extension of this chronology. On page 86 he states that these 90 tablets are “mentioned in chapter 3.” About a dozen of such claimed anomalous tablets have already been discussed above, nine of which were presented in Furuli’s Table 3.3 on page 59. Fresh collations by competent scholars showed that most of them did not have any “anomalous dates” at all.

The longest table with such claimed “anomalous dates” however, is Table 3.4 on pages 60‒62. It starts in the first two columns with 17 tablets, continuously dated in each of the months II, III, IV and V of the 2^nd and last year of Evil‒Merodach, the last of the tablets being dated to V/17/02 (month 5, day 17, year 2). These dates are then followed in the next two columns by 37 tablets, continuously dated in each of the months V, VI, VII, VIII and IX of the accession year of Neriglissar, the first tablet beuig dated to V/21/acc. or just four days after the last tablet from the reign of Evil‒Merodach. This strongly indicates that the transition from Evil‒Merodach to Neriglissar took place ui the latter part of month V of Evil‒Merodach’s 2^nd year.

However, Furuli also lists nine other tablets that do not seem to fit into this pattern. The first two are dated in the first and early second months of Neriglissar’s accession year, i.e., before the 17 tablets dated to months II‒V of Evil‒Merodach’s 2^nd and last year, seemingly creating an overlap of about four months between the two reigns. Normally, the two early dates would be Hewed as anomalous. But Furuli evidently presupposes that the two dates are correct and counts the 17 following tablets as anomalous!

Further, Furuli Ests three tablets dated to months X, XI, and XII of Evil‒Merodach’s 2^nd year, i. e., after the 37 tablets dated to months V‒IX of Neriglissar. This would increase the overlap between the two reigns to more than ten months, from Neriglissar’s accession in month I to Evil‒Merodach’s last tablet dated early in month XII. Instead of regarding the three tablets as anomalous, Furuli counts the preceding 37 tablets from the accession year of Neriglissar as anomalous!

Finally, Furuli lists in his table four other tablets that also seem to support an overlap between the two reigns. Two of them are placed early in month V of Neriglissar’s reign and two others in month VII of Evil‒Merodach’s reign. According to Furuli’s way of reckoning, the two latter tablets would increase the number of anomalous tablets from the last months of Evil‒Merodach’s last year of reign from 17 to 19. On the number of anomalous tablets from the accession year of Neriglissar Furuli states that there are “at least 41 tablets dated in the accession year of Neriglissar before the last tablet dated to Evil‒Merodach.” (Furuli, p. 60) If these 41 tablets and also the previous 19 tablets are all counted as anomalous, we would get 60 “anomalous tablets” during the Evil‒Merodach/Neriglissar overlap!

Thus, out of nine tablets with seemingly odd dates Furuli succeeds in creating 60 tablets with “anomalous dates”!

Let us take a closer look at the nine tablets that reaUy seem to be oddly dated. They are:

Neriglissar:

Evil‒Merodach:

It does not seem that Furuli has himself collated any of these tablets or has had them collated by experienced specialists on cuneiform. Had he done this, he would have discovered that most of the “odd dates” disappear.

Tablet no. 1 is published as no. 97 in a work by Ronald H. Sack in this work, Neriglissar – King of Babylon (Neukirchen‒Vluyn, 1994). This is Band 236 in the series Alter Orient und Altes Testament, which explains the reference to the tablet as AOAT 236, 97. The museum number is BM 60231. Sack’s transliteration and translation of the tablet on page 235 reveals that the month sign is damaged. Sack, therefore, adds a question mark after the month name and puts it within half brackets: ⌐Nisanu(?)¬. Although Sack in a table on pages 59‒61 gives the year, month, and day of the tablet as Acc/I/26, he leaves out the month altogether in his “Catalogue and Description of Datable Texts” on pages 49‒54, giving the year/month/day as “Acc. ... 25”. (Sack, p. 54)

To get to know just how damaged the month name on the tablet is, I sent an email to Dr. Jon Taylor, Curator at the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum, and asked him to check the date. In an email received on June 24, 2008, he explained:

“Íve had a look at that tablet, and also shown it to several people with more experience in Neo‒Babylonian texts than I have. The sign in question is not just damaged but also right on the corner of the tablet, and thus probably distorted. The more you look at it, the more signs it could be. None of us has been able to decide with certainty what it really is. I can send you a photo if you would like to see for yourself.”

Obviously, it cannot be claimed that the date on this tablet really is anomalous.

Tablet no. 2, BM 75489, is published as no. 91 in Sack’s work on Neriglissar. The tablet is clearly dated to month II, day 4, of Neriglissar’s accession year. This was confirmed by C. B. F. Walker, who collated the tablet several times, once together with two other Assyriologists, Dr. G. van Driel and Mr Bongenaar, on November 9, 1990. (Walker, “Corrections,” 1996, p. 7; cf. GTR4, p. 326, n. 33.) The date of this tablet, then, is clearly anomalous. Whether it is correct or a scribal error is, of course, another question.

Tablet no. 3, BM 60150, is dated to month V, but the day number is damaged and illegible. As the transition between Evil‒Merodach and Neriglissar took place between day 17 and day 21 in the same month (month V), it cannot be shown that this tablet is dated earlier, and it would be wrong to claim that its date is anomalous.

Tablet no. 4, BM 30419, is dated by Furuli to month V, day 6, of Neriglissar’s accession year. This is also the date given by R. H. Sack in his book on Neriglissar (published as text no. 12, pp. 150, 151.) However, “month V (ITI.NE)” seems to be a modern misreading. The tablet was examined in 1990 by C. B. F. Walker together with another Assyriologist, Dr. van Driel. Walker explains that, “Only the beginning of the month name is preserved, but we both agree that ITI.N[E] seems to be out of the question and that ITI.Z[IZ], month XI, may be the best guess at the moment.” (Letter Walker‒Jonsson, November 13, 1990, p. 2) Again, the tablet cannot be shown to be anomalous.

Tablet no. 5 and 9, BM 58580, is listed twice in Furuli’s table, but with two different dates: VII/08/02 and XII/02/03. Both dates are wrong. Professor D. J. Wiseman, who collated the tablet in 1987, wrote: “Not year 3 possibly 2/2/2” (day 2, month 2, Year 2). (Letter Wiseman‒Jonsson, October 7, 1987) C. B. F. Walker, in “Corrections,” 1996, p. 3, confirms Wiseman’s reading “2/2/2”. The tablet, then, is not anomalous.

Tablet no. 6, BM 75106, dated VII/08/02 in Furuli’s table, is actually dated to month IV, according to C. B. F. Walker’s “Corrections,” 1996, p. 7. The date creates no problem.

Tablet no. 7, BM 61325, was collated by C. B. F. Walker, Dr. van Driel and Mr. Bongenaar on November 9, 1990. Walker says that, “The month is slightly damaged, but seems to be clearly ITI.AB (month X) rather than ITI.NE (month V). Not day 17 as previously stated.” The day number is 19. The date on this tablet, then, is X/19/02. This does not necessarily mean that it is correct. It may be a scribal error.

Tablet no. 8, finally, is dated to XI/15/02 in Furuli’s table. Furuli points out in a note (p. 62, n. 79) that the inventory number is missing, so he was unable to identify it. He refers, however, to W. St. Chad Boscawen’s table on page 52 of the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, Vol. VI (London, January, 1878). The date there has day 5, not day 15 as in Furuli’s tablet.

Actually, a copy of this tablet by B. T. A. Evetts was published four years later as no. 66 in his Babylonische Texte (Leipzig, 1892). As shown on page 3 of the same work, Evetts read both the year number and the royal name differently: He dates it to XI/05/03 of Neriglissar. not of Evil‒Merodach! A transliteration and translation of the same tablet by Ronald H. Sack has also been included in his recent work on Neriglissar – King of Balylon (= AOAT, Band 236. Neukirchen‒Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1994), pp. 205‒206. The museum number is BM 30577. Sack, who collated the tablet afresh, confirms the reading of Evetts. Obviously, Boscawen had misread the tablet. Its date creates no problems.

In the discussion above, the 60 supposedly “anomalous tablets” dated to the transition from Evil‒Merodach to Neriglissar presented in Furuli’s “Table 3.4” were first reduced to nine tablets that seemed to conflict with conventional chronology. Of these tablets only two could be demonstrated to have clear anomalous dates, i.e., no. 2 (BM 75489), dated to Neriglissar, 11/04/acc. and no. 7 (BM 61325), dated to Evil‒Merodach, X/19/02. This result is the same as that reached in GTR4 (pp. 325‒327). How are the two tablets to be explained? Do they, as Furuli claims on page 60, “strongly suggest that the accession year of Neriglissar is not the same year as the second year of Evil‒Merodach, but one or more years must have elapsed between their reigns”? This is certainly not the correct conclusion to draw, as this would contradict many other documents from the period, including the astronomical tablets.

It should be noticed that the dates on these two tablets stand isolated from the other dates in the transition between the two reigns. The tablet dated in month II of Neriglissar’s accession year is not followed by any tablets dated to Iris reign in the next two months, III and IV, while we have several tablets dated in even month of his accession year from month V and onward. Similarly, we have several published and unpublished tablets dated in every month of Evil‒Merodach’s reign up to month V of his 2^nd year, while the tablet from month X of his 2^nd year is an isolated date that appears five months later. Normally, we should have several tablets from each of the four months between V and X dated to his reign, but we have none. What does this indicate?

Dr. G. van Driel, in his discussion of the first of the two tablets (AOAT 236, 91 = BM 75489), says:

“The Sippar text R. H. Sack, Neriglissar no. 91, dated to 4 II accession year, would suggest a considerable overlap with the preceding king Awil‒Marduk, to whom later Sippar texts (listed by Sack, p. 26, n. 19) are dated. A mistake in the date of AOAT 236, no. 91 is the easiest solution.It should be noted that the Uruk kinglist (J. J. A. van Dijk, UVB 18 [1962] pp. 53‒60 obv. 9) gives N. 3 years and 8 months, which could exceptionally refer to the actual reign and not to a reign starting with the beginning of the first full year.” – G. van Driel in Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie,Band 9 (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1998‒2001), p. 228. Emphasis added. (Cf. the similar comments in GTR4, pp. 326, 327. In note 35 on p. 327 an alternative solution is also discussed.)

The easiest and most natural explanation, then, is that the two odd dates are scribal errors. As Furuli himself admits in his first volume on chronology, “one or two contradictory finds do not necessarily destroy a chronology that has been substantiated by hundreds of independent finds.” (Rolf Furuli, Persian Chronology and the Length of the Babylonian Exile of the Jews, Oslo, 2003, p. 22) This is certainly true of the two anomalous tablets discussed above.

(5) Neriglissar to Labashi

In Table 3.5 on page 62 of his book Furuli presents ten tablets which he claims overlap the end of the reign of Neriglissar with the reigns of the last two kings of in the Neo‒Babylonian period, his son Labashi‒Marduk and Nabonidus. The dates on the four last tablets from the 4^th regnal year of Neriglissar listed in the table are:

Month/day/year: Tablet no.:

I/02/04 BM 41401

I?/06/04 YBC 3433

II/02/04 BM 30334

II/01/04 ?

The earliest two tablets from the reign of Neriglissar’s successor Labashi‒Marduk are dated I/11+/acc. (Pinches 55, 432 = BM 58432) and I/23/acc. (NBC 4534), which seems to be a few weeks earlier than the two latest tablets from the reign of Neriglissar in the table above, BM 30334 and Furuli says:

“The first tablet from the reign of Labashi‒Merodach is dated to day 11+ of month I of his accession year, but this cannot be harmonized with the tablet dated to month II of year 4 of Neriglissar.”

The date of BM 30334 in Furuli’s table, however, is wrong. A copy of the tablet by B. T. A. Evetts was first published as no. 69 in Babylonische Texts (1892). In a table on page 3 he shows the date to be 1/02/04. The date on the tablet was collated and confirmed by Ronald H. Sack, whose transliteration and translation of the tablet appears on page 208 of his work on Neriglissar – King of Babylon (1994). The date creates no overlap between the two reigns.

Unfortunately, the last tablet in Furuli’s table on Neriglissar, dated 11/01/04, has no number. As Furuli admits on page 63 he has been unable to identify the tablet and verify the date. He has found the date in an old article by F. H. Weissbach published in Zeitschrift der Dentschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Band 62, 1908, page 630. But Weissbach gives no further reference. The date has probably turned out to be wrong. It was not included by R. A. Parker and W. H. Dubberstein in their Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C. – A.D. 75 (1956), nor has it been referred to in later articles on Neriglissar or in R. H. Sack’s work on this regent. The date has to be rejected until Furuli can prove its correctness. The conclusion on page 327 of my book (GTR4), therefore, still stands:

“The last two tablets known from the reign of Neriglissar are dated 1/2/4 (April 12, 556 B.C.E.) and I?/6/4 (April 16). The first tablet known from the reign of his son and successor, Labashi‒Marduk, is dated 1/23/acc. (May 3, 556 B.C.E.), that is, twenty‒one, or possibly only seventeen days later. These dates create no overlap between the two.”

(6) Labashi‒Marduk to Nabonidus

According to Furuli’s Table 3.5, the latest tablet from the reign of Labashi‒Marduk is dated III/12/acc., while the earliest tablet from the reign of his successor Nabonidus is dated in the previous month, on II/15/acc.:

The two latest tablets from the reign of Labashi‒Marduk:

Month/day/year: Tablet no.:

III/11/acc. (= June 19) YBC 3817

III/12/acc. (= June 20 Evetts, Lab. No.1 (PD p.3)

The two earliest tablets from the reign of Nabonidus:

Month/day/year: Tablet no.:

II/15/acc. (= May 25) Clay 1908, 39 (= BE VIII, 39)

111/18/acc. (= June 26) Strassm. 1889, 1 (= Nbn 1)

At first glance these tablets seem to show an overlap of 26 days between the two reigns. But a closer examination of the texts shows that this is not tire case if the provenance of the tablets is taken into consideration.

The Uruk king list credits Labashi‒Marduk with a reign of only three months, which is confirmed by the contemporary contract tablets, which are dated only to (parts of) months I, II, and III. According to Berossus he was plotted against and killed because of his wicked behaviour. The rebellion broke out almost immediately after his accession, evidently before he had gained control over the whole kingdom. This conclusion is supported by the fact that the tablets dated to his reign come from only four places: Babylon, Uruk, Sippar, and (one tablet) Borsippa.

The earliest tablet dated to Nabonidus is from Nippur. No tablets dated to Labashi‒Marduk are from that city. And the latest tablets dated to him from Babylon, Uruk, Sippar, and Borsippa are all earlier than the earliest tablets from these cities dated to Nabonidus. Thus there are no overlaps between the two kings at any of these places. Professor Wolfgang Rbllig concludes:

“Both, then, have ruled, or laid claim to the throne, at the same time, although at different places.” – W. Rollig in Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie, Band 6 (Berlin and New York, 1980), p. 409. Emphasis added.

(Cf. also GTR4, pp. 327, 328)

This is shown in the following table:

PD p. 13 mentions a text, VAS VI 65, dated to III/01/acc. (June 9, 556) of Nabonidus. Although Sippar is not mentioned in the text, the inscription is reported to have been found there. It is a building inscription. Although it bears no date, F. X. Kugler (Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel, II:II:2, 1924, pp. 405‒408) argued that it describes restoration work done in Sippar from day 1, month III of Nabonidus’ accession year onward. This view is rejected by P.‒A‒ Beaulieu, whose careful study shows that restoration works took place in Sippar “in the second, the tenth, and the sixteenth year of Nabonidus”, but not in his accession year. (Beaulieu, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556‒539 B.C., New Haven and London: h ale University Press, 1989, p. 6. Cf. his Table 2 on p. 42.)

Furuli’s claim (p. 63), that “we can hardly avoid the conclusion that there was one or more years between Neriglissar and Nabonaid,” has no factual foundation. The supposed overlap between Neriglissar and Labashi‒Marduk is based on misreading of tablets, and the Labashi‒Marduk/Nabonidus “overlap,” which disappears on local level, is easily explained by the political circumstances that brought Nabonidus to the throne.

(7) Nabonidus to Cyrus

According to the Nabonidus Chronicle (translated by A. K. Grayson as Chronicle 7 in his Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, Locust Valley, New York: J.J. Augustin Publisher, 1975, pp. 104‒111), Babylon was captured by the army of Cyrus on the 16 day of Tishri (= month VII), evidently in the 17^th regnal year of Nabonidus (= October 11/12, 539 BCE; the year is damaged and illegible). This date, then, marked the end of the reign of Nabonidus. Cyrus himself entered Babylon on the 3^rd day of month VIII, Arahsamnu (= October 28/29). The earliest tablet extant from the reign of Cyrus (CT 57:717) is dated to day 19, month VII (Tishri) of his accession‒year, i.e., three days after the fall of Babylon.

Furuli, however, tries to argue that Nabonidus may have ruled longer than 17 years. He claims that, “Some anomalous tablets w[h]ere the reigns overlap do exist, but the dates of two [of] these tablets are explained away ad hoc by P&D, as the footnotes show.” (Furuli, p. 63) As will be demonstrated below this accusation is false.

In Table 3.6 on pages 63 and 64 he presents four tablets that he claims are dated to Nabonidus after the fall of Babylon on VII/16/17:

Month/day/year: Tablet no.:

VII/10/17 Strassm. Nab 1054

IX/xx/17 Strassm. Nab 1055

XII/17/17 CT 57.168

VI/06/18 Contenau 1927, 122

The first date contains a typing error and should be VIII/10/17. Actually, it has been known since 1990 that none of these four tablets have anomalous dates, and it is quite remarkable that Furuli does not know this. All dates are discussed, for example, in my book. All I can do, therefore, is to repeat the information presented in GTR4 on pages 356‒358 and in note 62 on page 120:

“VIII/10/17” (Strassm. Nab 1054 =BM 74972):

As Furuli explains in note 84, PD rejected this date because “the month sign is shaded” in J. N. Strassmaier’s copy of the text published in 1889. (PD = Parker & Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology, 1956, p. 13; the tablet is listed as no. 1054 in J. Strassmaier, Inschriften von Nabonidus, König von Babylon, Leipzig, 1889) They had good reasons for doing this because F.H. Weissbach, who collated the tablet in 1908, explained that the month name was highly uncertain and “in any case not Arahsamnu” (month VIII).

Actually, there is an even more serious error with the date. Back in 1990 I asked C. B. F. Walker at the British Museum to take another look at the date on the original tablet. He did this together with two other Assyriologists. They all agreed that the year is 16, not 17. Walker says:

“On the Nabonidus text no. 1054 mentioned by Parker and Dubberstein p.

13 and Kugler, SSB II 388, I have collated that tablet (BM 74972) and am satisfied that the year is 16, not 17. It has also been checked by Dr. G. Van Driel and Mr. Bongenaar, and they both agree with me.” – Letter Walker to Jonsson, 13 November 1990.

“IX/xx/17” (Strassm. Nab 1055):

This text does not give any day number, the date above just being given as “Kislimu [= month IX], year 17 of Nabonidus”. The text, in fact, contains four different dates of this kind, in the following chronological disorder: Months IX, I, XII, and VI of “year 17 of Nabonidus”. None of these dates refers to the time when the tablet was drawn up. Such a date is actually missing on the tablet. As F. X. Kugler explained, the tablet belongs to a category of texts containing instalment dates or delivery dates (maššartumg (F. X. Kugler, Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel, Vol. II:2, 1912, pp. 388, 389) Such dates were given at least one month, and often several months in advance. That is why Parker & Dubberstein explain that “this tablet is useless for dating purposes.” (Parker & Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology, p. 14) As shown by its contents, No. 1055 is an administrative text giving the dates for deliveries of certain amounts of barley in year 17 of Nabonidus. ‒ P.‒ A. Beaulieu in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 52:4 (1993), pp. 256, 258.

“XII/17 /17” (CT 57.168 = BM 55694):

This tablet was copied by T. G. Pinches in the 1890’s and was finally published in 1982 as CT 57:168. (CT 57:168 – Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, Part. 57, 1982, No. 168) It is also listed in CBT 6 where the date is given as “Nb (‒) I9/12/13+” (= day 19, month 12, year 13+). (Erle Leichty, ed., Catalogue of the Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum [CBT|, Vol. 6, 1986, p. 184 [82‒7‒14, 51]) Both the royal name and the year number are obviously damaged and only partially legible. “Nb (‒)” shows that the royal name begins with “Nabu‒”. This could refer either to Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar, or Nabonidus. If it is Nabonidus, the damaged year number, “13+”, may refer to any year between his 13^th and 17^th year.

“VI/06/18” (Contenau 1927, 122):

This tablet was copied by G. Contenau and was published as number 121 (“122” in Furuli’s table is an error) in his work Textes Cuneiformes, Tome XII, Contrats Néo‒Babyloniens, I (Paris: Librarie Orientaliste, 1927), Pl. LVIII. Line 1 gives the date as ^“VI/06/17,” but when it is repeated in line 19 in the text it is given as “VI/6/18.” PD (Parker & Dubberstein, p. 13) assumed “either a scribal error or an error by Contenau.” The matter was settled by Dr. Beatrice Andre, who at my request collated the original at the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1990: “The last line has, like the first, the year 17, and the error comes from Contenau.” – Letter Andre‒Jonsson, March 20, 1990. (See GTR4, p. 120, n. 62)

One could also mention another, similar error on page 117 in the latest CBT catalogue (M. Sigrist, R. Zadok, and C. B. F. Walker [eds.], Catalogue of the Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, Vol. III, London: The British Museum Press, 2006), where text 486 (= BM 26668) is dated “Nbn 18/III/18” (= day 18, month III, year 18). On my request Dr. Jonathan Taylor, who is Curator at the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum, collated the tablet. In an email dated January 15, 2008, he explained:

“A year 18 for Nabonidus would indeed be very interesting. Unfortunately, the 18 is a typo here and the tablet is datable simply to year 8.”

None of the four tablets listed by Furuli have an anomalous date. None of them, therefore, may “suggest either that there was one or more years between Nabonaid and Cyrus, or that the regnal years of Nabonaid could be calculated in a way different from the expected one.” (Furuli, p. 63)

Summary

If a scholar believes it is possible to present a radical revision of the generally accepted chronology of an ancient, well known historical period, he/she should be able to present strong evidence of this, and he/she has to be very careful to check if his/her evidence is valid before it is published. Furuli has done nothing of this. His claim that there are “about 90 anomalous tablets” from the Neo‒Babylonian period is demonstrably false. And most of the “anomalous dates” that he does quote have been proved not to be anomalous at all. Fresh collations have shown that most of them either contain scribal errors or have been misread by modern scholars, or have turned out to be modern copying, transcription, or printing errors.

The question is why Furuli has used such tablets in support of his “Oslo chronology without having them collated. Basing a radical revision of the chronology established for one of the chronologically best established periods in antiquity on misreadings and misinterpretations of the documents used does not speak very well about the quality of the research performed.

Part IV: The Neo

The cuneiform tablet NBC 4897 is a ledger, tabulating the annual growth of a herd of sheep and goats belonging to the Eanna temple at Uruk for ten consecutive years, from the thirty­-seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar to the first year of Neriglissar. As it is an annual record, it clearly shows that Nebuchadnezzar ruled for 43 years, his son Amel‒Marduk for 2 years, and that lire latter was succeeded by Neriglissar. The tablet makes it impossible to insert any extra years or any extra kings between Nebuchadnezzar and Amel‒Marduk, or between Amel‒Marduk and Neriglissar. This is strong evidence, indeed.

The first presentation and discussion of the tablet was included in an article written by Ronald H. Sack, “Some Notes on Bookkeeping in Eanna,” published in M. A. Powell Jr. and R. H. Sack (eds.), Studies in Honor of Tom B. Jones (1979). It was a brief, preliminary study of just five normal‒sized pages (pp. 114 ‒118), three of which contain a drawing of the tablet.

Another discussion of the tablet appeared 16 years later in an article written by G. van Driel & K. R. Nemet‒Nejat, “Bookkeeping Practices for an Institutional Herd at Eanna,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 46 (1994), pp. 47‒58. It was a somewhat longer study of 12 large‒sized pages, six of which contain a drawing, transliteration and translation of the tablet. Their article corrects a number of errors and misinterpretations by Sack.

The most extensive and detailed discussion of the tablet, however, is Stefan Zawadzki’s article, “Bookkeeping Practices at the Eanna Temple in Uruk in the Light of the Text NBC 4897,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 55 (2003), pp. 99‒123. Zawadzki’s discussion covers 25 large‒sized pages, four of which give a transliteration and translation of the tablet. The article contains the most detailed and careful examination of the tablet so far. He corrects a number of misreadings and misinterpretations in the previous articles by Ronald H. Sack and G. van Driel/K. R. Nemet‒Nejat.

Do the total numbers on the tablet contain serious mistakes and miscalculations?

Although van Driel and Nemet‒Nejat corrected many misinterpretations and misreadings by Sack, they also claimed that the interpretation of the tablet “is hampered by miscalculations and mistakes in the text.” (Van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat, p. 47) Their conclusion at the end of their article (page 57) is quoted approvingly by Rolf Furuli, who claims that it “highlights the lack of quality of this tablet”:

“For the most part, mistakes occur in the totals. The scribes probably had difficulties similar to ours in reading the numbers in their ledgers. We can understand small mistakes of a single digit, but the mistakes occurring in the crucial final section of NBC 4897 again raise the question of how the administrations could work with this kind of accounting.” – Quoted by Rolf Furuli in his Assyrian, Balylonian, and Egyptian Chronolog,pp. 247, 248 (2007 ed.; pp. 251, 252 in the 2^nd ed. of 2008).

As is demonstrated by Zawadzki, however, these claims are much exaggerated. The fact is that they are mainly based on misreadings and misunderstandings by the authors. As Zawadzki explains, van Driel “has solved many problems, yet he has failed to explain several significant points, or has proposed intepretations that require reevaluationS (Zawadzki, p. 100; emphasis added) In fact, when the tablet is correctly read, copied, understood and translated, it can be shown to contain very few errors “in the totals”, and these are small and unessential and do not occur “in the crucial final section of NBC 4897” as van Driel/Nemet‒

Nejat state.

Concerning the claim that the mistakes for the most part “occur in the totals”, the most serious of these according to van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat’s translation are found in lines 31 and 35, where the numbers of sheep (rams + ewes + male lambs + young ewes) are summarized as follows:

Line 31:170 + 390 + 66 + 193 = total: 759.

Line 35: 5 + 198 + 14 + 51 = total: 198.

As van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat observed (pp. 53, 57), the numbers they have read in line 31 add up to 819, not 759, and those in line 35 add up to 268, not 198.

With respect to line 31, however, Zawadzki notes that, “Van Driel reads mistakenly 193 lambs while the copy gives clearly 133. The horizontal total of 759 is correct. Thus his calculations in JCS 46, [page] 57 from point (3) to the end of the article [i.e., the whole last page of the article] are wrong.” (Zawadzki, p. 104, note 23)

Line 35 contains two further misreadings: The number 198 is a misreading for 138 (Zawadzki, p. 104, n. 25) and number 51 is a misreading for 41. Paul‒Alain Beaulieu, who collated the original tablet at Yale, comments, “The tablet has a clear 41, indeed, but the scribe has written 51 and then erased one of the Winkelhaken to make 41.” (Zawadzki, p. 104, n. 26) The horizontal total of 198 in line 35, therefore, is also correct.

Thus there are no errors “in the crucial final section” of the tablets. When the individual figures have been correctly read, copied and translated, and tire procedure used by the accountant to arrive at the “totals” and the “Grand totals” is correctly understood, the calculations of the accountant turn out to be surprisingly free from serious errors. At only two places the “Grand totals” contains errors, and these are very small. For the 37^th year (line 5) the “Grand total” shows 176 animals instead of 174, and for the 40^th year (line 14) it shows 303 animals instead of 306. For all the other eight years the calculations are correct!

In view of this, it is remarkable that Rolf Furuli in his attempt to undermine the chronological impact of NBC 4897 has devoted so little attention to Zawadzki’s careful analysis of the ledger that he has failed to notice that his quotation from van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat about the supposed numerical mistakes on the tablet has been refuted bv Zawadzki!

Table 1 below, which is based on Zawadzki’s study, summarizes the calculations in the ledger, demonstrating that the Neo‒Babylonian accountant usually did an excellent job and that the few mistakes he did in his calculations of the annual increase of the herd were of very small consequence. In the table “BF” means “brought forward” and “CF” means “carried forward.” “Nbk” means Nebuchadnezzar, “AmM” Amēl‒Marduk, and “Ngl” Neriglissar. The regnal year numbers in the first column includes some emendations or reconstructions by van Driel and Zawadzki. (Zawadzki, page 100, note 9) See further Table 2 below.

Table 1: A summary of the calculations in the ledger NBC 4897

Note: The last three lines in the table summarize lines 34‒36 of the tablet. In the 1^st year of Neriglissar the herd had increased to 922 animals according to line 34. Of these, 208 animals “were seen” according to line 35. As Zawadzki explains, this means that this was “the part of the herd, which was actually brought to the inspection in Uruk”. As line 34 goes on to state that “8 lambs were received in Uruk, 3 lambs (were given) for shearing”, the number of animals that “were not seen” was 703 (922 ‒ 208 ‒ 8 ‒ 3) as line 36 of the tablet shows.

Does the tablet indicate another king between Nebuchadnezzar and Amēl‒Marduk?

Lines 26, 27, and 28 of the tablet are dated to year 1, accession year, and year 1, respectively, of Amēl‒Marduk. At first glance this order seems strange. Furuli utilizes it for arguing that, “If the name [in line 27] is Evil‒Merodach, the king in line 26 is probably another king, because the accession year of a king is mentioned in line 27, and the first year of a king is mentioned in line 26. And naturally, the accession year of a king will be mentioned before his first year.” (Furuli, p. 253)

Furuli has a tendency to “muddy the waters” by giving examples of how one and the same cuneiform sign can be interpreted in many different wavs. This is the method he resorts to here. He claims that the signs translated Amēl‒Marduk (Evil‒Merodach) in line 26 can also be read in many other ways. On pages 252‒253 he gives a list of “24 different names, each of which the signs can represent, depending on how each sign is read.” One of these names is Nadin‒Ninurta, which according to Furuli may have been an unknown king who “reigned before Neriglissar.” (Furuli, p. 78)

But is a combination of a few signs really that problematic? Erica Reiner, who was a leading specialist on cuneiform and Akkadian (she died in 2005), explains:

“In spite of the polyvalence of the cuneiform syllabary, there is normally only one correct reading for each group of signs, whether the unit be a word or a phrase; in those cases where there is actual ambiguity, it cannot be solved from internal evidence alone, just as ambiguous constructions in any language, including English. To take an example, if sign A has as possible values the syllables uk, liK, DaŠ,and sign B the syllables kur, laD, naD, naD, ŠaD,(K stands for an element of the set whose elements are {g, k q}, abbr.

K Є {g, k, q}, similarly Š {z, s, ş, š}, D Є {d, t, >}), the combination

AAB, representing one word, will be read, of all possible 16.16.22 = 2⁹.11 = 512.11 = 5632 combinations, uniquely and unequivocally as lik‒taš‒šad, because of these 5632 combinations 5631 will be eliminated on graphemical, phonological, and lexical grounds.” – Erica Reiner, “Akkadian,” in Lingustics in South West Asian and North Africa(ed. T. A. Sebeok; Current Trends in Linguistics 6; The Hague: Mouton, 1970), p. 293.

The signs for the royal name in line 26 are read as LÚ‒^dŠÚ by Sack, van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat, and Zawadzki. Furuli (p. 252) agrees that this is “a reasonable interpretation” of the signs, although he indicates that the signs are only partially legible and that other readings, therefore, are also possible, giving a number of examples of this. The name “Nadin‒Ninurta”, for example, would require that the signs can be read MU‒^dMAŠ instead of LÚ‒^dŠÚ. To get to know it the signs are really so difficult to read I sent a question about the matter to Elizabeth Payne, an experienced Assyriologist at the Yale University which holds the tablet. Payne, who is also a specialist on the Eanna archive (to winch NBC 4897 belongs), answered:

“This section of the text is not at all damaged. As indicated by Nemet‒Nejat’s copy (JCS 46, 48) the signs are well preserved and alternate readings would require altering the text... I think Nadin‒Ninurta can be safely excluded.” (Email received on November 14, 2008)

As the reading LÚ‒^dŠÚ, then, is clear, the only reasonable translation is “Amēl‒Marduk”. None of the other 23 alternative readings listed by Furuli is possible. Interestingly, Furuli’s list does not include “the only really possible alternative reading of LÚ‒^dŠÚ, which is Amil‒ ili‒shú, ‘man of his (personal) god’, a name well attested, but in Old Babylonian times. Since no Neo‒Babylonian king by the name of Amil‒ilishu is known, and there is a king Amil‒Marduk, it is exceedingly unlikely that Amil‒ilishu should be read here.” (Email from Professor Hermann Hunger dated November 11, 2008)

Apart from these linguistic considerations, a simple and natural explanation of the seemingly peculiar order of regnal years is clearly indicated by the context.

What Furuli has not realized is that the addition of 104 animals in line 27 does not refer to another year’s increase of animals due to breeding within the herd. It should be noticed that figures of animals paid for shearing, hides of dead animals, and wages paid, which are given for every year, are missing here. Instead, the reason for the adding of this number is stated to be that it represents “income [irbu] from the month of Addaru [month XII], the accession year of Amēl‒Marduk.” This is the only place in the text where the word irbu (“income”) is used.

As suggested by Stefan Zawadzki, the most likely explanation for this extra augmentation of the flock stated to come from the end of the previous year (accession year of Amēl‒Marduk) is that “the managers of the temple decided, for reasons unknown to us, to increase the herd by animals from other sources.” (Zawadzki, JCS 55, 2003, p. 103) These animals had to be added to the herd at the next annual counting about a month or two later. The “Grand total” in the 1^st year of Amēl‒Marduk, 566 animals, therefore, was increased by this added group of 104 animals and reduced by the 5 animals paid for the shearing of the flock. This increased the “Grand total” at the same occasion of counting to 665 animals as shown in the next line (line 28 on the tablet).

This simple and natural explanation eliminates Furuli’s far‒fetched and untenable explanations about “unknown kings” in this period.

The readings of the regnal year numbers

As is shown by the drawings of Sack and van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat, some of the year numbers on the tablet are not easily identified and have been read differently by these scholars. This is true of the year numbers in lines 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, and 28. Therefore I wrote to the Yale University and asked if someone there could collate the year numbers afresh. This was done by Elizabeth Payne who, in addition to her observations, also attached a photo of the right half of the tablet. The results of her collations of the six lines mentioned above are shown in the fifth column in the table below. She finds that, “In each instance, the copy of van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat is more reliable” than that of Sack. – Email Payne‒Jonsson, dated October 29, 2008.

The most reliable readings of the year numbers on the tablet are shown in column 6 of Table 2. The numbers shown for those read differently by Sack, van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat, Zawadaki, and Furuli (those in lines 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, and 28) are based on Elisabeth Payne’s collations of the original tablet. The reasons for the selected readings of those lines are given below.

Table 2: The readings of the year numbers on NBC 4897

Note 1: Line 2 does not contain the name of Nebuchadnezzar. That regnal years 37‒43 refer to his reign is evident, however, because line 37 gives the following summary of the amount of goat hair acquired from shearing during all the ten years:

“40 5/6 minas of goat hair from the 37^th year of Nabû‒kudurri‒usur, king of Babylon until the 1^st year of Nergal‒šarra‒usur, king of Babylon.”

Note 2: Lines 2 and 5 are both dated to year 37. But as argued by van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat, line 2 shows the balance brought forward from the previous year, i.e., the total number of sheep and goats (137) that had been entrusted the shepherd, “Nabû‒ahhē‒šullim, the descendant of Nabû‒ûum‒iškun,” in year 36. Zawadzki (p. 100) agrees:

‘Van Driel’s discussion of the accountant’s method of reckoning is correct. The starting point of each subsequent account is the number of stock in the herd specified in the account for the previous year, from which the scribe subtracted ... the dead animals (called KUŠ = mašku,‘hides’), the animals given as wages (idí) and for shearing (referred to as ‘x animals ina gi‒gizzi’in ‘Grand total’).”

To the remaining number were then added the lambs and kids born during the previous year, resulting in the new “Grand total” in line 5, “176” (actual total as shown in Table 1:174) at the beginning of year 37. (Zawadzki, pp. 102, 103) The birthing and shearing took place around the turn of the year, “in the months Adaru‒Aiaru”, i.e., from month XII to month II, which “provided the opportunity to count the stock” and pay the herdsmen “for the shearing after its completion.” (Zawadzki, p. 100, including note 7)

The collations of Elisabeth Payne

Line 11: Elisabeth Payne says that “the tablet reads MU.38.KAM [year 38], as copied.” Furuli claims (p. 248) that van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat’s drawing “seems to be MU.28.KAM₂,” but he is wrong. A close look at the drawing shows three Winkelhaken, not just two, so they clearly read “38”, which agrees with the tablet as Payne points out. Sack reads “year 29”, which is adopted by Furuli, but this is wrong according to Payne.

Actually, we would have expected “year 39” in this line. Instead, the tablet seems to name two successive years “year 38”, while year 39 is omitted. The total number of years remains the same, of course. Interestingly, van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat (p. 48) note in the margin of their drawing that year number “38” is “written over erasure”, which might indicate that it is an error for “39”. On the other hand, as the annual shearing and counting took place around the turn of the year, it may have happened in some years that the shearing and counting took place twice, first early in the year as usual, and the next annual shearing and counting in the last month (Addaru) of the same year instead of early next year (39). This may very well have been the case here.

Line 14: Sack’s drawing clearly shows “year 40” at this place, while van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat read “year 41”. In their drawing, however, the sign for “1” is not a normal wedge, as the vertical line below the head is either too short or the wedge is turned diagonally upwards toward the left. This is also seen on the photo of the tablet received from Yale. Elisabeth Payne says: “The scribe clearly wrote MU.41.KAM, but there are traces of a possible erasure. It is unclear to me how this line should be read. Either is possible...” As the next year number in line 17 clearly is 41, the most logical conclusion is that “40” is the correct reading here. This, in fact, is also how Rolf Furuli reads the number. (Furuli, pp. 248, 249)

Line 17: Sack has “year 31”, van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat “year 41”, and Furuli “year 42”. Who is right? The original tablet, according to Payne, has 41: “Year 41 is correct”. Sack’s and Furuli’s numbers, therefore, are both wrong.

Line 20: Sack has “year 32”, but Payne does not hesitate: “Year 42 is correct,” she says. Van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat and Furuli agree.

Line 23: The year number is damaged, but it would logically be “43” as the next year is dated to the “1^st year of Amēl‒Marduk,” the successor of Nebuchadnezzar. Van Driel/Nemet‒Nejat have “43” in their transliteration and translation, but suggest a possible “42” on page 54. Actually, the last part of the number, “3,” is still legible. Payne explains: “This line is, indeed, badly damaged, but there are legible traces. Read: P[AB.M]A.ME {87 MU.43.KAM} (erasure ...) The text continues after the erasure as read by vD/NN. The ‘3 UDU’ they have in this line, however, is NOT there ‒ it is the +3.KAM from the date.” Thus “43” is undoubtedly the correct restoration of the original number.

Line 28: The year number on this line is read as “year 1” by van Driel, but Sack, followed by Furuli, reads “year 2”. Elizabeth Payne, who collated the line on November 14, 2008, explains:

“I would read this section of the text as ‘mu.1!.fkam’, as there are traces of a second ‘tail.’ It is, however, markedly different from line 31, where there are clearly two vertical wedges (mu.2.kam). In my opinion, the interpretation of vD [van Driel] and NN [Nemet‒Nejat] is correct, but the copy omits these traces.”

In conclusion, the tablet obviously gives an annual count of the herd, with no years missing. Furuli’s claim (p. 248) that “we cannot know that the tablet represents accounts of successive years” is nothing but wishful thinking. That the tablet gives annual reports is also confirmed by the calculations, as summarized in the Table 1 above. As the “Grand total” of the previous year is the same as the BF (balance brought forward) of the next year during the whole ten‒year period, it is impossible to add any “unknown kings” or “extra years” to the period. The BF ‒ CF totals tie each year directly to the next year without break. Any insertion of “extra years” or “unknown kings” would immediately destroy these obvious connections and require more annual increases.

This is also confirmed by the annual increase of the herd. Furuli discusses this on page 257, but Iris calculation is invalid because he includes the 104 animals in line 27 in the annual increase of the herd, while in fact it was added from an external source as shown above. Zawadzki, on the other hand, who takes this into consideration, finds that “the average yearly growth of the herd (excluding the addition of new animals in AmM 1) was about 18%.” (Zawadzki, pp. 104, 105)

Thus the tablet NBC 4897 does show, clearly, that Nebuchadnezzar ruled for 43 years, and that his son and successor Amēl‒Marduk ruled for 2 years and was succeeded by Neriglissar.

Part IV: Were there unknown Neo

[Note: The first edition of Rolf Furuli’s volume 2 was published in the autumn of 2007. Later in that year Part I of my critical review was published on this website. It was demonstrated that Furuli’s attempt (in chapter 6 and Appendix C) to redate the lunar observations recorded in the astronomical diary VAT 4956 was untenable. Evidently due to my criticism, Furuli rewrote parts of his discussion of VAT 4956 and quickly had a second revised edition of his book published in May, 2008. He even reclaimed copies of the first edition he had sent out about that time, telling the recipients that he would send them a copy of the new edition.

An examination of Furuli’s revisions, however, shows them to be just another failed attempt to get rid of the historical reality as attested by VAT 4956. Very few changes were made in the rest of the book. Thus chapter 4 that is discussed in this part of my review is the same in both editions, the only difference being that chapter 4 in the first edition is found on pages 65‒87 while it is found two pages later, on pages 67‒89, in the second edition. The page references below are to pages in the first edition.]

As stated in Part III of this review, there are only two ways of extending the Neo‒Babylonian period to include the 20 extra years required by the Watchtower Society’s chronology and thus also by Rolf Furuli’s so‒called “Oslo Chronology”: (1) Either the known Neo‒Babylonian kings ruled longer than indicated by Berossus, the Royal Canon (often misnamed “Ptolemy’s Canon”), and the Neo‒Babylonian cuneiform documents, or (2) there were other, unknown kings who belonged to the Neo‒Babylonian period in addition to those established by these ancient sources. The first option was discussed and refuted in Part III of this review. The second alternative will be examined here.

In chapter 4 of his book (pages 65‒87) Furuli presents “twelve possible Neo‒Babylonian kings,” some of whom he suggests may have ruled somewhere between the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus. This, he feels, would open up for the possibility that their combined lengths of reign could move the reign of Nebuchadnezzar 20 years backwards in time, as required by his Oslo version of the Watchtower’s “Bible chronology”. The names of these “possible [additional] Neo‒Babylonian kings” are:

The kings that Furuli suggests may have ruled as Babylonian kings during the Neo‒Babylonian period will be discussed one by one. In order to move the reign of Nebuchadnezzar backwards it is important for the Watchtower Society and its Oslo apologist to have the supposed extra kings ruling after Nebuchadnezzar. It would not be of any help for them to place them as Babylonian kings before the reign of Nebuchadnezzar or before the reign of his father Nabopolassar.

(1) “Sin‒šarra‒iškun”, (2) “Sin‒šumu‒lišir”, and (3) “Aššur‒etel‒ilāni”

The three Assyrian kings Sin‒šarra‒iškun, Sin‒šumu‒lišir, and Aššur‒etel‒ilāni are well‒known to authorities on Assyro‒Babylonian history. Aššur‒etel‒ilāni and Sin‒šarra‒iškun were both sons and successors of Assurbanipal, and Sin‒šumu‒lišir was a high official at the Assyrian court whom Assurbanipal had appointed as tutor or mentor of Aššur‒etel‒ilāni, Assurbanipal’s heir and immediate successor to the Assyrian throne. This is information given by cuneiform texts from this period. The strange thing is that Furuli does not mention any of these facts! He does state on page 65 that the three kings are “believed to have ruled in Assyria after Sennacherib” (704‒681 BCE). But he does not explain that they actually ruled after the grandson of Sennacherib, i.e., after Assurbanipal (668‒627 BCE).

Arguing that these three kings in reality may have ruled in Babylonia after the Neo‒Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (604‒562 BCE), Furuli first claims that they were not Assyrian but Babylonian kings. On page 66 he states that “the dated tablets show that they were kings in Babylon (not Assyria) for 7 years, 4 years, and 1 year respectively.” On page 65 he says:

“The data regarding these kings show that they reigned at least 7, 1, and 4 years respectively, but the tablets dated in their reigns show that they were Babyloniankings. This is problematic from the point of view of the traditional chronology, because there is no room for these reigns, even if there was some kind of coregency.” (Furuli, p. 65)

By claiming that these kings were Balylonian and not Assyrian kings Furuli creates a problem that does not exist: If they were Babylonian kings, they cannot have ruled in Babylonia at the same time as Nabopolassar, but must have reigned in Babylonia before this king. The problem created by this conclusion is that there is “no room” for their reigns of 7+4+1 years between Kandalanu and Nabopolassar. (Furuli, p. 66) This paves the way for Furuli’s idea that they may have ruled after Nebuchadnezzar:

“On the basis of the problems of finding room for these kings before Nabopolassar, we may ask whether one or more of these kings ruled Babylon during the years where we completely lack historical data, namely, after Nebuchadnezzar and before Nabunaid. In other words, can any of these kings fill a part of the possible gap of twenty years in the Neo‒Babylonian Empire?” (Furuli, p. 67)

The statement that we “completely lack historical data” from the period between the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus is false. Chronology belongs to the “historical data” as it is the very “back‒bone of history,” and the chronology of this period is completely known. There are also other historical data from this period. A Babylonian Chronicle, BM 25124 (= Chronicle 6 in A. K. Grayson’s Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, Eisenbrauns 2000 reprint of the 1975 edition) gives information about a campaign by Neriglissar in his third year. Some of Nabonidus’ inscriptions also give information about his predecessors. (Paul‒Alain Beaulieu, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556‒559 B.C., New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989, pp. 21, 84‒97, 106, 110‒111, 123‒125) Further, Berossus, who is known to have used sources from the Neo‒Babylonian period, gives both chronological and historical information about the four kings who succeeded Nebuchadnezzar: Amel‒Marduk, Neriglissar, Labashi‒Marduk, and Nabonidus. ‒ See Stanley Mayer Burstein, The Babyloniaca of Berossus (Malibu: Undena Publications, 1978), p. 28.

Were Sin‒šarra‒iškun, Sin‒šumu‒lišir, and Aššur‒etel‒ilāni Babylonian kings, really?

The claim that Ašur‒etel‒ilāni, Sin‒šarra‒iškun, and Sin‒šumu‒lišir were Babylonian kings, not Assyrian, is demonstrably false. Contemporary sources prove that all of them were Assyrian kings, who after the death of Kandalanu in 627 BCE attempted to retain the Assyrian control over Babylonia and crush the revolt of the Chaldean general Nabopolassar. Dr. Grant Frame explains:

“To the best of my knowledge, of these four contenders for control of Babylonia only Nabopolassar ever used the title ‘king of Babylon’ or ‘king of the land of Sumer and Akkad,’ or was called ‘king of Babylon’ in the date formulae of Babylonian economic texts. In these economic texts, Aššur‒etil‒ilāni, Sin‒šumu‒lišir, and Sin‒šarra‒iškun were called either ‘king of Assyria,’ ‘king of (all) lands,’ ‘king of the world,’ or simply ‘king.’ The Babylonian scribes obviously wished to avoid stating that any of these three was a true king of Babylonia.” ‒ G. Frame, Babylonia 689‒627 B.C.(Leiden: Nederlands Historisch‒Archaeologisch Instituut, 1992), p. 213.

In a more recent work Grant Frame gives the following information about each of the three Assyrian kings:

Aššur

“Assurbanipal was succeeded as ruler of Assyria by his son Aššur‒etel‒ilāni (or Aššur‒etelli‒ilāni). No inscription ever calls Aššur‒etel‒ilāni ‘king of Babylon,’ ‘viceroy of Babylon,’ or ‘king of the land of Sumer and Akkad,’ nor is he included in the various lists of rulers of Babylonia, which put Sin‒šumu‒lišir or Nabopolassar after Kandalanu. However, a number of royal inscriptions of Aššur‒etel‒ilāni do come from Babylonia and describe actions in that land and thus these must be included here. Over ten economic texts dated by his regnal years as ‘king of Assyria’ or ‘king of the lands’ come from Nippur and these attest to his accession, first, second, third, and fourth years.” ‒Grant Frame, Rulers of Babylonia. From the Second Dynasty of Isin to the End of Assyrian Domination (1157‒612 BC)(Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1995), p. 261.

As an example, tablet VAT 13142 calls Assur‒etel‒ilani “king of the world (and) king of Assyria, son of Ashurbanipal, king of the world (and) king of Assyria.” (Frame, 1995, p. 264)

Sin

“The last Assyrian king to exercise any control over at least part of Babylonia was Sin‒šarra‒iškun, a son of Ashurbanipal. Exactly when he became ruler of Assyria and when he held authority in Babylonia is unclear, but his reign over Assyria ended in 612 BC. Only the Uruk King List includes him among the rulers of Babylonia, assigning the year following the reign of Kandalanu and preceding the reign of Nabopolassar (626 BC) to Sin‒šumu‒lišir and Sin‒šarra‒iškun jointly (Grayson, RLA 6/1‒2 [1980] p. 97 obverse 4′‒5»). No known inscription gives him the title ‘king of Babylon,’ ‘viceroy of Babylon,’ or ‘king of the land of Sumer and Akkad.’ ...

No Babylonian royal inscriptions of Sin‒šarra‒iškun are attested and his Assyrian inscriptions will be edited elsewhere in the RIM series [The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia] (as A.0.116). Approximately 60 economic texts were dated by his regnal years in Babylonia. These indicate that he controlled Babylon, Nippur, Sippar, and Uruk; the earliest texts come from his accession year and the latest from his seventh year. None of these economic texts, however, gives him the title ‘king of Babylon’; he is called instead ‘king of Assyria,’ ‘king of the lands,’ and ‘king of the world.” (Frame, 1995, p. 270)

It should be added that, although Nabopolassar’s revolt was successful, it took some years before he had attained control over all cities of Babylonia. A few Babylonian cities remained under Assyrian control for a few years after the accession of Nabopolassar to the Babylonian throne.

Sin

“No royal inscriptions of Sin‒šumu‒lišir are attested from Babylonia. At least seven Babylonian economic texts (including four from Babylon and one from Nippur) are dated by his accession year. In these he is either given no title, or called ‘king of Assyria’ or simply ‘king.’” (Frame, 1995, p. 269)

The legible dates on the tablets dated to Sin‒šumu‒lišir are only from months III and V of his accession year. The Uruk King List gives the “kingless” year after the death of Kandalanu in 627 BCE (the last tablet before his death is dated in month III, i.e., May/June) to “Sin‒šumu‒lišir and Sin‒šarra‒iškun” jointly, undoubtedly because both were fighting for retaining Assyrian control of Babylonia this year (626 BCE). Whether both also were kings in this year is another question. It is known from contemporary cuneiform inscriptions that Aššur‒etel‒ilāni, not Sin‒šarra‒iškun, was the immediate successor of Assurbanipal. This information is provided by a cuneiform tablet designated KAV 182 IV. ‒ Joan Oates, “Assyrian Chronology, 631‒612 B.C.,” Iraq, Vol. XXVII (1965), p. 135.

Not only the Adad‒guppi’ inscription (Nabon. No. 24; see C. O. Jonsson, The Gentile Times Reconsidered, 4^th edition [henceforth GTR4], Adanta: Commentary Press, 2004, pp. 113‒116) but also Berossus state that Assurbanipal ruled for 42 years. When his brother Shamash‒shum‒ukin (Berossus: Samoges), Assyria’s vassal king in Babylonia, died in Assurbanipal’s 21^st year (648 BCE), Assurbanipal (Berossus: Sardanapallos) “ruled over the Chaldeans for 21 years.” (Burstein, op. cit., p. 25) This would indicate that Assurbanipal during the last 21 years of his reign ruled both Assyria and Babylonia, in Assyria as Assurbanipal and in Babylonia under the throne name Kandalanu. This is a view shared by a number of modern historians. His last regnal year, then, was 627 BCE and the first regnal year of his son and successor Aššur‒etel‒ilāni was 626/625 BCE. As the last tablet from his reign is dated to month VIII, day 1, of his 4^th year, the accession year of his brother Sin‒šarra‒iškun should fall in 623 BCE according to this chronology.

Two tablets from the reign of Sin‒šarra‒iškun and one or perhaps two from the reign of Sin‒šumu‒lišir are from Babylon. It is to be noted, however, that all of them are dated only in their accession years. This, too, would support the conclusion that Sin‒šarra‒iškun’s accession year fell in 623 BCE, because the Babylonian Chronicle BM 25127 (= Chronicle 2 in A. K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles [ABC], New York: J.J. Augustin Publisher, 1975; reprinted by Eisenbrauns in 2000, pp. 87‒90) mentions a “rebel king” in the third year of Nabopolassar (623/622 BCE) who ruled for “one hundred days”. For a brief period in that year, therefore, Nabopolassar seems to have lost control over the capital. The “rebel king” may have been Sin‒šarra‒iškun.

With respect to Sin‒šumu‒lišir, prosopographical evidence strongly indicates that his brief reign of about three months fell in 626 BCE, before Nabopolassar’s enthronement in Babylon. ‒ Rocío Da‒Riva, “Sippar in the Reign of Sîn‒šum‒lîšir (626 BC),” Altorientalische Forscbungen, Band 28, 2001, pp. 53‒57.

The three kings discussed above were demonstrably kings of Assyria, not of Babylonia. This cannot be changed by the fact that Assyria continued to retain control over a few Babylonian cities during the first years of the reign of Nabopolassar. There is absolutely no reason for trying to find room for the reigns of these three kings among the Neo‒Babylonian rulers, neither before Nabopolassar nor after the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, as Furuli claims. They belonged to the Assyrian kingdom. As that kingdom continued to exist for seventeen years after Nabopolassar’s conquest of Babylon in 626 BCE, there was enough room for their rule as Assyrian kings during the final stage of Assyria’s existence. Furuli’s emphatic claim that “we have three kings who reigned over Babylonia for at least 11 years who cannot be fitted into the traditional chronology of Babylonia” is completely groundless. (Furuli, p. 70) The Assyrian rulers during the final stage of Assyria were contemporary with the Babylonian ruler Nabopolassar.

This is also confirmed by the Babylonian Chronicle BM 21901, which covers the period from the 10^th year of Nabopolassar until his 18th year (616/15–608/607 BCE). The chronicle describes the conquest and destruction of Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, in the 14^th year of Nabopolassar and states: “At that time Sin‒sharra‒ishkun, king of Assyria, [died] Grayson’s ABC (1975, 2000), Chronicle 3:44, p. 94.

Thus Sin‒šarra‒iškun was still “king of Assyria” in the 14^th year of Nabopolassar! How, then, can it be claimed that he was a Babylonian king and that his reign, therefore, has to be placed before that of Nabopolassar, and, because there is no room for him there, it has to be placed after the reign of Nebuchadnezzar? The whole idea is preposterous and bears witness to an astounding historical ignorance on the part of Rolf Furuli.

The same chronicle (BM 21901) goes on to tell that after Sin‒šarra‒iškun’s defeat at the fall of Nineveh (in 612 BCE) he was succeeded by Ashur‒uballit, who “ascended the throne in [the Assyrian provincial capital] Harran to rule Assyria.” There he was finally defeated in the 17^th year of Nabopolassar (609 BCE), and with that Assyria ceased to exist. From then on Babylonia was in possession of the hegemony in the Near East. ‒ Grayson, ABC (1975, 2000), Chronicle 3:49‒75, pp. 94‒96.

In my discussion of the attempts by scholars to reconstruct the final stage of Assyrian history and the reigns of its rulers, I briefly described the solution of the problems presented by Joan Oates in Iraq, Vol. XXVII (1965), pointing out that it had been accepted by some other scholars as “most probably the correct one.” (The Gentile Times Reconsidered, 4^th ed. [hereafter GTR4], Atlanta: Commentary Press, 2004, p. 331) In her more recent chapter on “The Fall of Assyria (635‒609 B.C.)” in The Cambridge Ancient History (2^nd ed., Vol. III:2, Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 162‒193) Oates once again develops her solution of the problems and also adds some new information in support of it.

The dwindling extent of Assyrian control of Babylonia after the accession of Nabopolassar

Furuli’s description of the extension of the Assyrian control of Babylonia after the accession of Nabopolassar is false. He claims that “Sin‒šarra‒iškun reigned over a great part of, or the whole of Babylonia during his 7 or more years of reign”, and that “the contract tablets show that he was ruler over all Babylonia during his 7 or more years.” (Furuli, p. 69)

On pages 65 and 66 Furuli states:

“Of the 57 tablets dated to Sin‒šarra‒iškun, 22 are from Nippur (central Babylonia), 2 from Babylon (in the northeast), 9 from Uruk (in the south), 5 from Sippar (central Babylonia), 1 from Kār Aššur, and 18 are without the name of the city.”

This makes five cities, two of which were not even Babylonian cities. Strangely, Furuli reckons the lack of city names on some tablets as a sixth city, stating on page 67 that “tablets from six Babylonian cities are dated in the reign of Sin‒šarra‒iškun.”

Of the five cities controlled by Assyria after Nabopolassar’s accession in Babylon in 626, only three were unquestionably Babylonian cities. Kār Aššur, which was situated north‒east of Babylonia, had been constructed by Assyria in the eighth century BCE. In his first campaign in 745 BCE the Assyrian king Tiglath‒pileser III is stated to have brought captives from cities in eastern Babylonia and resettled them in Kār Aššur. ‒ A. K. Grayson in The Cambridge Ancient History 2^nd ed., Vol. III:2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 81.

Nippur came under Assurbanipal’s control at the end of 651 BCE during the revolt of his brother Šamaš‒šum‒ukin. It remained an Assyrian city during the rest of Assurbanipal’s reign as shown by documents from Nippur dated by his name, while tablets from other Babylonian cities were dated by the name of Kandalanu during the same period. Dr. Stefan Zawadzki explains:

“Consequently, regardless of whether we accept the identity of Ashurbanipal and Kandalanu or not, the dates clearly indicate that Nippur was not under Babylonian control but directly under Assyrian administration. This situation prevailed later also: Aššur‒etel‒ilāni dates on business documents come exclusively from Nippur. Lastly, Nippur remained for the longest (along with Uruk and Kar‒Aššur) in the hands of the [next to] last Assyrian king, Sin‒šar‒iškun. This has led scholars to conjecture that Nippur could have been the site of a powerful Assyrian garnison established there with the aim of wielding control over central Babylonia. Thus, during the period from Ashurbanipal assumption (with an intermission of 660‒651) until the end of Assyrian presence in Babylonia, Nippur was considered to be [an] almost integral part of Assyria. Therefore, the fact that documents there were dated under Ashurbanipal’s name cannot stand in the way of identifying him as Kandalanu.” ‒Stefan Zawadzki, The Fall of Assyria and Median‒Babylonian Relations in the Light of the Nabopolassar Chronicle(Poznan: Adam Mickiewicz University Press, 1988), p.59. (Emphasis by S. Zawadzki; cf. also the discussion by Steven W. Cole, Nippur in Late Assyrian Times, c. 755‒612 BC.Vol. IV in the State Archives of Assyria Studies,University of Helsinki, 1996, pp. 78‒83.)

Furuli’s claim (p. 69) that Sin‒šarra‒iškun was ruler over most or all of Babylonia, then, is false. Only a few of the many cities in Babylonia remained under Assyrian control for a brief period after the accession of Nabopolassar. According to the economic tablets, Sin‒šarra‒ iškun’ s control over the city of Babylon is limited only to a part of his accession year. His control over Sippar is dated only until the beginning of his 3^rd year. His control over Nippur (which, although situated in southern Babylonia, in this period was an Assyrian city as shown above) lasted until this 6^th year, while his control over Uruk is dated in his accession year and in his years 6 and 7. After that Nabopolassar had full control over all Babylonia and could start to attack Assyria proper in the north. ‒ J. A. Brinkman and D. A. Kennedy, “Documentary Evidence for the Economic Base of Early Neo‒Babylonian Society,” in Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 35/1‒2 (1983), pp. 52‒59.

(4) “Nadin‒Ninurta (before Neriglissar)”

On pages 77‒78 Furuli suggests that a king named “Nadin‒Ninurta” may have ruled in the period after Nebuchadnezzar and before Neriglissar. This idea is based upon Furuli’s discussion of the Neo‒Babylonian “ledger” NBC 4897 in his Appendix A (pp. 247‒257 in the 2007 edition; 251‒262 in the 2008 edition). As this ledger has already been discussed in Part IV of my review and the idea that line 26 may refer to some other king than Amēl‒Marduk was thoroughly refuted, there is no need to repeat that discussion here. The claim that the signs for the royal name in line 26 of the ledger, transEterated LÚ^‒dŠÚ, can be read in many different ways and refer to at least 24 different royal names is unfounded and false. See Part IV, section “Does the tablet indicate another king between Nebuchadnezzar and Amēl‒Marduk?”

(5) “Belšumiškun, king of Babylon”

On page 80 Furuli mentions another four “possible unknown Neo‒Babylonian kings,” the last of which is Belšumiškun, the father of Neriglissar. Furuli refers to one of the Neo‒Babylonian royal inscriptions translated by Stephen Langdon, which he quotes as saying:

“I am the son of Bel‒šum‒iškun, king of Babylon.”

The second volume of Langdon’s work on the Neo‒Babylonian royal inscriptions, however, which included the inscriptions from the reign of Neriglissar, was never published in English. The manuscript was translated into German by Rudolf Zehnphund and published under the title Die neubabylonischen Königinschriften (Leipzig 1912). The inscription that is supposed to give Belšumiškun the title “king of Babylon” is Ested as “Neriglissar Nr. 1”. The original Akkadian text as transliterated by Langdon reads in Col. I, line 14 (pp. 210, 211):

“mâr ^{I ilu} bêl‒šum‒iškun šar bâbili^ki a‒na‒ku”

This is verbatim translated into German as,

“der Sohn des Belšumiškun, des Konigs von Babylon, bin Ich,”

A literal translation of this into English would be “the son of Belšumiškun, the king of Babylon, am I,” rather than “I am the son of Bel‒šum‒iškun, king of Babylon.”

This is probably also what was written in Langdon’s English manuscript. In W. H. Lane’s book Babylonian Problems (London, 1923), which has an introduction by Professor S. Langdon, a number of the translations of the Neo‒Babylonian inscriptions is published in Appendix 2 (pp. 177‒195). They are said to be taken from the work, “Building Inscriptions of the Neo‒Babylonian Empire, by STEPHEN LANGDON, translated by E. M. LAMOND.” The last of these royal inscriptions is “Neriglissar I” (pp. 194, 195). Line 14 of the text says (p. 194):

“der Son of Belšumiškun, King of Babylon, am I.”

It is obvious that this statement may be understood in two ways. Either the phrase “King of Babylon” refers back to Belsumiskun as king or it refers to Neriglissar himself. As no contract tablets have been found that are dated to Belšumiškun as king of Babylon, the statement is most likely a reference to Neriglissar. Do we know anything about Belšumiškun, more than that he was the father of Neriglissar?

It is known that Neriglissar, before he became king, was a well‒known businessman, and in several business tablets he is referred to as “Neriglissar, the son of Belšumiškun.” In none of these tablets is Belšumiškun stated to be, or to have been, king of Babylon.

It is important to notice that Neriglissar mentions his father in another building inscription, “Neriglissar Nr. 2,” not as king but as “the wise prince.” The same title is also given him on a damaged clay cylinder kept in St. Louis Library. ‒ S. Langdon, (1912), pp. 214, 215; J. A. Brinkman, Alter Orient und Altes Testament, Vol. 25 (1976), pp. 41‒50.

If Belšumiškun really was, or had been, a king, why would he be degraded to the role of a prince, even by his own son?

Actually, the real position of this Belšumiškun is known. The so‒called “Court List,” a prism found in the western extension of Nebuchadnezzar’s new palace, mentions eleven district officials of Babylonia. One of them is Belsumiskun, who is there described as the “prince” or governor over “Puqudu,” a district in the north‒eastern part of Babylonia. The officials on the “Court List” held their positions during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. ‒ Eckhard Linger, Babylon (1931), p. 291; D. J. Wiseman, Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon (Oxford: Oxford Lhiiversity Press, 1985), pp. 62, 73‒75.

So why should Neriglissar in one of his royal inscriptions call his father “King of Babylon,” when he had never occupied that position, and is denied that title in all other texts that mention him? If Furuli’s quotation, as translated from German, had been correct, a possible explanation could have been that Neriglissar, who had usurped the Babylonian throne in a coup d’état, attempted to justify his course of action by claiming royal descent. In the inscription where Neriglissar seems to be calling his father “the wise prince” (“Neriglissar Nr. 2”), this title is followed by other epithets: “the hero, the perfect, mighty wall that eclipses the outlook of the country.” If this description really refers to Belšumiškun and not to Neriglissar himself (the text is somewhat ambiguous), it would reflect a tendency to glorify the descent of Neriglissar. But to state in a royal inscription that Belsumiskun had been “King of Babylon” would have been foolish, as everyone in Babylonia would know that the claim was false.

It is true that P.‒R. Berger in his work The neubabylonischen Königsinschriften (1973), in which the inscription “Neriglissar I” is designated” Ngl Zyl. II, 3,” says the following on page 77 about the title in Col. I, line 14:

”In Zylinder II, 3 schliesslich steht hinter dem Vatemamen der Königstitel b. Nach dem bisher ublichen Inschriftsbrauch waren es Aussagen über den Vater und nicht den Autor. Dafur würde auch the wenigstens graphisch präteritale Verbalform des Relativsatzes sprechen.”

Translation:

“In Cylinder II, 3, finally, the royal title b. [‘King of Babylon’] stands behind the name of the father. According to the use in inscriptions common so far, this would be statements about the father and not about the author. The graphic preterite verbal form of the relative clause, at least, would also speak in support of this.”

However, it is quite clear that the phrase in Akkadian is ambiguous. This is shown, for example, by J. M. Rodwell, who in an article in the work, Records of the Past, Vol. V (London, 1892), translated the phrase without the second comma sign (cuneiform, of course, did not use comma signs at all), so that the title “king of Babylon” is naturally given to Neriglissar: “son of BEL‒SUM‒ISKUN, King of Babylon am I”. (Page 139)

Modern experts on cuneiform agree that this translation is just as possible as the other one. One of my correspondents sent a question to Dr. Jonathan Taylor at the British Museum about this matter. In an email dated October 25, 2006, Dr. Taylor answered:

“Dear . . ..,

While one might expect the royal title to refer here to the father -- note also that Neriglissar refers to himself as king only a few lines earlier -- it is not impossible that the title refers to Neriglissar. It is not unknown for rulers to conclude a paragraph with an affirmation of their kingship. ...

Jon

(Jon Taylor)”

The same correspondent also wrote to Michael Jursa, another well‒known Assyriologist and specialist on cuneiform and the Akkadian language. In an email dated October 23, 2006 he explained:

“Dear Mr. ---,

the Akkadian is indeed ambiguous. If one wanted one could take Ting of B[abylon]’ as referring to the preceding name, i.e. to Neriglissar’s father, rather than to Neriglissar himself. But the other explanation (i.e. the king is Neriglissar) is just as good, and we know of course that it is correct:

the passage means ‘I am N[eriglissar], son of BSHI [Belšumiškun], the king of Babylon’ ‒or in German where this is clearer because of the case endings ‒‘Ich bin N, der Sohn des BSHI, der König von Babylon’. It is more a problem of English language that a literal translation which preserves the word order of the original Akkadian makes BSHI a king, rather than his son. In Akkadian, this is not so. I am surprised that Langdon should have got it wrong ‒possibly the work of an uninformed translator who misunderstood the English original.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Jursa”

Belšumiškun, then, was never a Neo‒Babylonian king. No documents of any kind have been found that are dated to his reign. In the politically neutral economic tablets he is never called a king, and Neriglissar himself calls him “prince”, which was evidently the correct title of Belšumiškun. The claim that Neriglissar once, in one of his boastful building inscriptions, calls him “king of Babylon,” seems clearly to be based on a mistranslation.

(6) “Nabû‒šalim”

Another “unknown king” that Furuli believes may have ruled during the Neo‒Babylonian period somewhere after Nebuchadnezzar is named “Nabû‒šalim,” or “Nabû‒ušallim” as his name is usually spelled. In note 113 on page 78 Furuli refers to a tablet held at The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery designated “1982.A.1749”. This reference is wrong. The correct designation is “1982.A.1772”. A copy, transliteration and translation of the tablet is published in an article by Dr. Michael Jursa, “Neu‒ und spätbabylonische Texte aus den Sammlungen der Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery,” Iraq, Vol. LIX (1997), pp. 97‒174. The tablet on which the name Nabû‒ušallim appears is No. 47 of the 63 tablets presented by Michael Jursa in the article.

As Furuli explains, the tablet “is dated to ud.8.kam mu.4.kam ^idAG‒GI, which is translated ‘8 Elulu, year 4, Nabūnaid.’ However, regarding tire signs ^ldAG‒GI, Jursa comments: ‘An error for ^idAG‒I.” The signs for ^idAG‒I mean “Nabonidus,” while the signs for “^idAG‒GI” mean “Nabû‒ušallim.” Thus it would seem that the tablet is dated to the 4^th year of an unknown king named Nabû‒ušallim.

What Furuli does not tell his readers, however, is that the name Nabû‒ušallim appears at three places on the tablet, in lines 2, 4, and 16, and that it is only in line 16 it is used of the king. Lines 1‒4, with the other two occurrences of the name, read (in translation from German):

“Three and a half shekels of silver from the ilku‒debt of Nabû‒ušallim have Nabû‒taklak and Palitu, the wife of Bēl‒ušallum, received from Nabû‒ušallim.”

Nabû‒ušallim was, in fact, a well‒known businessman during the Neo‒Babylonian period. (He is not to be confused with an earlier businessman by the same name, see Hermann Hunger, “Das Archiv des Nabû‒Ušallim,” Baghdader Mitteilungen, Band 5, 1970, pp. 193‒ 304). His name appears regularly in business contracts from the 40^th year of Nebuchadnezzar until the 7^th year of Nabonidus. ‒ Cornelia Wunsch, The Urkunden des babylonischen Geschäftsmannes Iddin‒Marduk, Vol. I (Groningen: STYX Publications, 1993), pp. 2E 28.

In view of this, Furuli’s claim that Nabû‒ušallim may have been a king “for at least 4 years” ‒ which, of course, he must place in the period between Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus ‒ is refuted by the business documents, which present him only as a businessman during all these years and even longer.

So what about ^idAG‒GI instead of ^idAG‒I in line 16 on the tablet? As Furuli points out, the close similarity between the two names appears only in the transliterated forms, not in the Akkadian (the cuneiform signs for Nabû‒ušallim and Nabû‒nā’id):

‘We should remember that although giand ihave some resemblance in English, that is not the case in Akkadian. In the name of the king, giand iare not letters or syllables but logograms. Thus they represent two different words.’ (Furuli, p. 80)

This is true of the latter part of the names. But the first part of the names, ‘Nabû‒’, is identical in cuneiform. It is not so strange, therefore, that the scribe, on beginning to write the signs for ‘Nabû‒nā’id’ in line 16, inadvertently happened to repeat the name he had just written twice earlier in the text, ‘Nabû‒ušallim.’ This kind of error, called dittography, is a common one. Obviously, the king intended was Nabonidus, as also Jursa rightly points out in his note on page 128 of his article.

(7) “A king before Nabunaid and his son”

On pages 76, 77 of his book Furuli believes he has found another “unnamed king” who may have ruled between Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus. He feels he has found this new king on a tablet at the British Museum known as “The Dynastic Prophecy.” Its museum number is 40623. The tablet is translated and discussed by A. K. Grayson on pages 24‒37 of his work Babylonian Historical‒Literary Texts (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1975. On page 24 Grayson describes the contents and state of the tablet as follows:

“It is a description, in prophetic terms, of the rise and fall of dynasties or empires, including the fall of Assyria and rise of Babylonia, the fall of Babylonia and rise of Persia, the fall of Persia and the rise of the Hellenistic monarchies. Although as in other prophecies no names of kings are given, there are enough circumstantial details to identify the periods described. ...

“The main tablet appears to have had an introductory section (i 1‒6) of which only a few traces are preserved. After a horizontal line the first ‘prophecy’ appears (i 7‒25). Although only the ends of lines are preserved, it is clear that this section contained a description of the fall of Assyria and the rise of the Chaldaean dynasty.”

This section ends with a horizontal line, which Furuli claims (page 77) marks the end of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. There is no evidence of this. As Grayson points out (page 24), the various details given “suit admirably for the reign of Nabopolassar.”

The first three lines of the next section in column ii are damaged and illegible, but lines 4‒10, quoted by Furuli, give the following information (the words within brackets are suggested restorations by Grayson, but the horizontal line after line 10 is on the tablet):

4. TOC \o «1–5» \h \z will go up from [......... ]

5. will overthrow [.......... ]

6. For three years [he will exercise sovereignty]

7. Borders and ... [.......... ]

8. For Iris people he will [........ ]

9. After his (death) his son will [ascend] the throne ([...])

10. (But) he will not [be master of the land].

Grayson aroues (pp. 24, 25) that, “Since the following section (ii 11‒16) is clearly about Nabonidus, this paragraph must concern some period after the reign of Nabopolassar and before Nabonidus.” As he goes on to note, the preserved information in lines 6‒10 seems to refer to Neriglissar and his son and successor Labashi‒Marduk. That Nebuchadnezzar and his son Amel‒Marduk (Evil‒Merodach) are left out is understandable, as the “prophecies” focus on the rise and fall of dynasties and empires and therefore do not deal with all reigns. With respect to the “three years” in line 6, Grayson adds in footnote 3 on page 25: ‘Terhaps one should restore ‘(and) eight months’ in the break.” In that case line 6 would originally have read: “For three years [and 8 months he will exercise sovereignty].”

Furuli’s comment on this is that, “We see that Grayson adds words and translates in accordance with the traditional chronology.” (Furuli, p. 76) He is wrong. In the traditional chronology (as for example in the “Royal Canon”) Neriglissar is given a reign of 4 years. What Furuli does not tell his readers is that Grayson uses the chronology presented on another cuneiform tablet, the Uruk King List, which gives Neriglissar a reign of “’3’ years 8 months” and Labashi‒Marduk “(...) 3 months”. (Grayson, p. 25, including n. 2; cf. GTR4, pp. 105‒108) The preserved portions of the Uruk King List start with Kandalanu (647‒626 BCE) and end with Seleucus II (246‒225 BCE). The preserved portions of the Dynastic Prophecy start with the gradual overthrow of Assyria by Nabopolassar after the death of Kandalanu and end somewhere in third century BCE. Grayson’s use of the chronology of the Uruk King List, then, is quite natural, as both tablets cover roughly the same period and seem to have been composed during the same century.

The statement in the Uruk King List that Neriglissar ruled for 3 years and 8 months does not conflict with the traditional chronology. The Royal Canon (often misnamed ‘Ptolemy’s Canon”), gives whole years only, while the Uruk King List at this place gives more detailed information. As J. van Dijk observes, “the list is more precise than the Canon and confinns throughout the results of the research.” ‒ J. van Dijk in Archiv für Orienforschung, Vol. 20 (1963), p. 217.

Furuli disagrees with this, stating that “we have tablets dated in the reign of Neriglissar from month I of his accession year until month I, and possibly month II, of his year 4. Thus Neriglissar reigned at least for 48 months and not just for 3 years and 8 months (44 months).” (Furuli, p. 77)

This claim has already been discussed and refuted in Part III of the present review of Furuli’s book. Fresh collations of the “anomalous” dates on the tablets used by Furuli for dating the reign of Neriglissar show that they are either too damaged to be legible, have been misread by modern scholars, or seem to be just scribal errors. The actual reign of Neriglissar seems clearly to have started in month V of his accession year and ended in month I of his 4^th regnal year ‒ a period of 3 years and 8 months, exactly as is stated on the Uruk King List.

Furuli uses the only preserved words ‒ “for three years” ‒ on the otherwise illegible line 6 to argue that they refer to another, “unnamed king” than Neriglissar who ruled for no more than 3 years. He says in his last paragraph on page 77:

“If the scribe gives correct information regarding the three years of reign of the king mentioned in line 6, this must have been a king who is not mentioned by Ptolemy, and who is not found in the traditional list of kings of the Neo‒Babylonian Empire. This king also had a son who may have ruled as king as well. So, the Dynastic prophecy may have given us two extra Neo‒Babylonian kings. ... In any case, a king that ruled for three years is unknown by Ptolemy and those who accept his chronology.”

Furuli should have added that such a king was also unknown by the astronomical compilers of the Royal Canon from whom Ptolemy inherited “his” Canon, by Berossus in the early 3^rd century BC, by the compiler of the Uruk King List in the same century, by the accountant who in the 1^st year of Neriglissar wrote tire “ledger” NBC 4897 (see Part IV of my review), by Adad‒Guppi’, the mother of Nabonidus, and by the scribes who wrote the tens of thousands of contract tablets dated to the Neo‒Babylonian period.

And, of course, the astronomical documents, in particular the five known astronomical tablets that records observations dated to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar ‒ the diary VAT 4956, the lunar eclipse tablets LBAT 1419, LBAT 1420, and LBAT 1421, and the planetary tablet SBTU IV 171 ‒ inexorably block every attempt to move the 43‒year reign of Nebuchadnezzar backwards in time in order to create room for more kings and twenty more years between Nebuchadnezzar and Cynis.

Furuli’s use of just three words (“for three years”) from an otherwise illegible sentence on a damaged line on the obverse of a very damaged tablet reveals how desperate and futile the search for the “unknown kings” is that he needs for giving his “Oslo Chronology” at least a semblance of credibility.

(8) “Mar‒šarri‒uşur” and (9) “Ayadara”

Among his “possible unknown Neo‒Babylonian kings” Furuli mentions two names that were found inscribed on objects discovered during William Frederic Bade’s excavations between 1926 and 1935 at Tell en Nasbeh about 8 miles northwest of Jerusalem in Israel. The site was (and still is) identified as ancient Mizpah, the city where the Babylonians appointed Gedahah as vassal ruler of Judah after their destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE.

The dates of the two inscriptions are difficult to determine. W. F. Albright, George Cameron, and A. Sachs suggested dates that varied between the 11^th and the 5^th centuries BCE. (Chester C. McCown, Tell en‒Nasdbeh I: Archaeological and Historical Results. Berkeley and New Haven: ASOR, 1947, pp. 150‒152, 167‒169) More recently some scholars have suggested that they may have been found in what is now designated “Stratum 2,” which is dated to the period following the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. – Jeffrey Z. Zom, “Mizpah: Newly Discovered Stratum Reveals Judah’s Other Capital,” in Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR), Vol. 23:5, 1997, pp. 28‒38, 66; also, Andre Lemaire, “Nabonidus in Arabia and Judah in the Neo‒Babylonian Period,” in O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Neo‒Balylonian Period (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2003), pp. 292, 293.

Mar‒šarri‒uşur

The name of the first individual was found on a potsherd. What remains of the inscription, which had been engraved before firing and probably is written in Hebrew, has usually been read as “[?B]N MR ŠR ZR [KN]” and is translated “[?s]on of Mār‒šarri‒zēra‒[ukīn].” (C. C. McCown, op. cit., pp. 167‒169) Recently, however, Professor Andre Lamaire has argued that the name could be read “[?]N MRŠRŞR[?, [?]?”, which he translates “Mar‒šarri‒uşur[?”. ‒ Andre Lemaire, op. cit., pp. 292, 293.

If the first two letters were “BN” (ben, “son”), the name of the son (the owner of the pot) is not preserved. If the name of his father is correctly restored as Mar‒šarri‒uşur, his title and position is not known. Furuli’s suggestion, that he was a king who reigned in Babylon, is just an unfounded guess. Quoting a name without a title on a potsherd found in Judah and suggesting that it refers to a king who may have been reigning in Babylon during the Neo‒Babylonian period is, of course, pure guesswork and a game that no scholar who wants to be taken seriously would run the risk of becoming involved in. The name, written in Hebrew characters, is either Assyrian or Babylonian, and if the inscription found at Mizpah dates from the 6^th century BCE, he (or his son) may perhaps have been one of the Babylonian officials known to have been stationed there after the destruction of Jerusalem. (J. Zorn, op. cit., pp. 38, 66)

Ayyadara

The name of the second individual was found on a fragment of a slender bronze circlet with an incised cuneiform inscription that originally consisted of 30‒35 characters, of which only 11 are preserved. The inscription was not discovered until 1942 in Berkeley, when some supposedly unimportant metal fragments were cleaned in a hot bath with caustic soda and zinc. Jeffrey Zom states:

“Since only a small part of the inscription survives, its translation is problematic. It may have read ‘... Ayadara, king of the world, for (the preservation of) his life and ...’ This is clearly a dedicatory inscription of sorts, but the words indicating what is being dedicated, and to whom, have been lost. Even the identification of Ayadara is unknown; no one with his name bearing the title ‘king of the world’ is known from any period. What is remarkable is that such a dedicatory inscription should turn up on a small tell in ancient Judah.” ‒Zom, op. cit.,p. 66.

A photo of the inscription, held at the Badè Museum of Biblical Archaeology in Berkeley, California

Referring to the two inscriptions, Furuli believes he has found two more “unknown kings” here who may have been ruling during the Neo‒Babylonian period. He says:

“Babylonian kings by the names Mar‒šarri‒uşurand Ayadaraare unknown in the period covered by Ptolemy’s canon, but the discovery of these names suggests that two kings with these names reigned in Babylon.” (Furuli, p. 80)

The discovery of the two names suggests nothing of the kind.

To find out if the name “Ayadara” really is totally unknown to scholars, a correspondent of mine wrote to several Assyriologists and asked them if they knew anything about this king. One of them, Dr. Stephanie Dalley at the Oriental Institute in Oxford, England, who turned out to be working on texts from the Sealand dynasties, answered in an email dated 10 October 2007:

“The king is Aya‒dara, abbreviation for Aya‒dara‒galam‒ma, of the First Sealand dynasty [dated to the mid‒second millennium BCE]. I am editing a very large archive of that king plus a few texts of his predecessor. The abbreviated form of the name is known from King‒list A.”

The form of the name in King‒List A as translated by A. K. Grayson is “A‒a‒dàra.” ‒ See p. 91 in D. O. Edzard (ed.), Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie, Band 6 (1980).

In a more recent letter to this author Stephanie Dalley explains:

“Although it was certahily unexpected to find that king’s name and titles at Mizpah, I have no doubts about the identification. An abbreviated form of his name, though with a different spelling, is already known from one of the king‒lists, and the title ‘king of the world’ is substantiated from one of Aya‒dara‒galama’s year‒names. The incorrect re‒interpretation of readings given by Horowitz and Ishida contains a basic grammatical error, among other difficulties. All the sign values on the circlet have parallels in mid‒second millennium texts.” ‒Letter Dalley‒Jonsson, received December 4, 2008.

Dalley states in her letter that more details “are forthcoming from my edition of texts from the First Sealand Dynasty, which is now with the pubEsher, CDL Press.” Clearly, Ayadara cannot be placed in the Neo‒Babyloman period.

(10) “Marduk‒šar‒uşur”

One of the “unknown Neo‒Babyloman kings” Furuli has referred to several times in the past first appeared in 1878 in a lengthy article by an early Assyriologist named W. St. Chad Boscawen. He placed the name, “Marduk‒šar‒uşur,” together with another mysterious name, ^“La‒khab‒ba‒si‒kudur,” in a separate “Addenda” because he was uncertain about their places in his chronological table. But another, contemporary scholar, Dr. Julius Oppert, soon discovered that the second name was simply a misreading for Labashi‒Marduk, the son and successor of Neriglissar. ‒ W. St. Chad Boscawen, “Babylonian Dated Tablets, and the Canon of Ptolemy,” Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology (TSBA), Vol. VI (London, 1878), pp. 262, 263 (including footnote 1).

The “Marduk‒šar‒uşur” tablet is dated to day 23, month 9 (Kislev), year 3. However, it was soon discovered, this time by Boscawen himself, that the name was a misreaduig for Nergal‒shar‒usur (Neriglissar). This information, too, was published in the very same volume. Excusing himself, Boscawen explained:

“When we have some 2,000 tablets to go through, and to read names, which, as everyone who has studied Assyrian knows, is the most difficult part, because it is not easy always to recognize the same name, as it may be written four or five different ways, you may judge it is an arduous task. I have copied two apparently different names; but afterwards found them to be variants of the same name.” – TSBA,Vol. VI (1878), pp. 78, and 108‒111)

That “Marduk‒šar‒uşur” was a misreaduig for Nergal‒shar‒usur was also somewhat later confirmed by two other early Assyriologists, T. G. Pinches and J. N. Strassmaier.

Despite this, Furuli continued to uisist that “Marduk‒šar‒uşur” is a possible reading of the name, and that he may have been an unknown king who reigned during the Neo‒Babylonian period!

As Boscawen did not mention the BM (British Museum) number of the tablet, it has been difficult to locate. Not until Ronald H. Sack published it as No. 83 (BM 30599) Ei his book on Neriglissar could it be identified ‒ by Furuli himself! The date on BM 30599 is the same as that given by Boscawen, “month Kislev, 23rd day, in the third year.” In his “Addenda” Boscawen noted that “the contracting parties are Idina‒Marduk son of Basa, son of Nursin; and among the witnesses, Dayan‒Marduk son of Musezib.” (TSBA VI, p. 78) The same individuals also appear on BM 30599 (the latter not as a witness, actually, but as an ancestor of the scribe). It is clearly the same tablet. Sack, however, reads the royal name on the tablet, not as Marduk‒šar‒uşur but as Nergal‒šarra‒usur (transliterated ^dU+GUR‒LL’GAL‒SHESH). ‒ Ronald H. Sack, Neriglissar‒King of Babylon (Neukirchen‒Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1994), pp. 224, 225.

To check if it really is possible for a modern Assyriologist to misread the name of Nergal‒ shar‒usur (Neriglissar) as “Marduk‒šar‒uşur”, I sent an email message to C. B. F. Walker at the British Museum back in 2003 and asked him to take a look at the original tablet (BM 30599). In his answer, he explains:

“I have just taken BM 30599 out to check it, and I do not see how anyone could read the name as anything other than ^dU+GUR‒LUGAL‒SHESH. A reading Marduk‒shar‒usur would seem to be completely excluded. Our records show that the tablet was baked (and cleaned?) in 1961, but it had been published by T G Pinches in the 5^th volume of Rawlinson’s Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia,plate 67 no. 4 in a copy which clearly shows ^dU+GUR. It was also published by Strassmaier in 1885 (The babylonischen Inschriften im Museum zu LiverpoolBrill, Leiden, 1885) no. 123, again clearly with ^dU+GUR. So the reading cannot be put down to our cleansing the tablet in 1961, if we did.” (Walker to Jonsson, October 15, 2003)

How, then, could Boscawen misread the name? Another Assyriologist, Dr. Cornelia Wunsch, who also collated the original tablet, pointed out in an email to one of my correspondents that “the tablet is in good condition” and that there is “no doubt about Nergal, as published in 5R 64,4 by Pinches. More than 100 years ago he already corrected the misreading by Boscawen.” She goes on to explain that “Boscawen was not a great scholar. He relied heavily on the notes that G. Smith had taken when he first saw the tablets in Baghdad.”

But Furuli still seems unwilling to give up the idea that an unknown Neo‒Babylonian king named Marduk-šar‒uşur might have existed. He argues on page 80:

“Sack read the name as Nergal‒šar‒uşur, and if this is the same tablet as the one read by Boscawen, I can confirm that Sack’s reading is correct, because I have collated this tablet myself at the British Museum. If both scholars read the same tablet, a Neo‒Babylonian king with the name Marduk‒šar‒uşur never existed. However, the broken tablet BM 56709, the signs of winch are Neo‒Babylonian, refers to year 1 of a king whose name begins with Marduk‒.

So we cannot exclude that Boscawen read a tablet different from the one read by Sack, and that a king with Marduk in his name reigned in the Neo‒Babylonian Empire.”

This tablet is listed in the Catalogue of the Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum (CBT), Vol. 6 (London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1986, p. 215). In an unpublished list of “Corrections and additions to CBT 6‒8” (my copy is dated March 18, 1996), which Christopher Walker kept at the British Museum, Walker gives the following comments on the text:

“56709 Marduk‒[...] 12/–/I Dated at Borsippa. CT 55, 92 (not CT 56,

356).

The tablet is probably early Neo‒Babylonian.”

Note the words “probably” and “early Neo‒Babylonian.” This is a suggestion. Furthermore, scholars often use the term “Neo‒Babylonian” to describe a more extended period than 625‒539 BCE. The Assyrian Dictionary, for example, starts the period at about 1150 BCE and ends it in the 4th century BCE. (Cf. GTR⁴, Chapter 3, n. 1) Maybe this is how Walker uses the tenn here. The names of about a dozen Babylonian kings between ca. 1150 and 625 BCE begin with Marduk‒, including Marduk‒apla‒iddina II (the Biblical Merodach‒Baladan, Isa. 39:1, who ruled in Babylon twice, 721‒710 and 703 BCE), and Marduk‒zakir‒shumi II (703). Thus, as the royal name is only partially legible and we do not know exactly to which period the tablet belongs, it is useless for chronological purposes. Placing the king in the Neo‒Babylonian period somewhere after the reign of Nebuchadnezzar is based on nothing else but wishful thinking.

(11) “ Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nebuchadnezzar”

Contemporary sources mention seven of Nebuchadnezzar’s children, but none of these bore the same name as their father. (D. J. Wiseman, Nebitchadnezzar and Babylon, Oxford University Press, 1985, pp. 9‒12) Furuli’s reference to a son of Nebuchadnezzar of the same name is based on a much later source, a rabbinic work known as “The Chronicles of Jerachmeel,” written by Eleazar ben Aser in the twelfth century CE. (English translation by M. Gaster, The Chronicles of Jerahmeel, London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1899) The chronicle relates that Amel‒Marduk had become victim to a slander campaign which caused his father Nebuchadnezzar to sentence him to prison and make a younger son, named Nebuchadnezzar, king:

«... Nebuchadnezzar the Great did not keep his faith with him, for Evil‒Merodach was really his eldest son; but he made Nebuchadnezzar the Younger king, because he had humbled the wicked. They slandered him to his father, who placed him (Evil‒Merodach) in prison together with Jehoiachin, where they remained together until the death of Nebuchadnezzar, his brother, after whom he reigned.” ‒ M. Gaster, pp. 206‒207; quoted by Irving L. Finkel, “The Lament of Nabû‒šuma‒ukîn,” in J.Renger (ed.), Babylon: Focus mesopotamischer Geschichte, Wlege früer Gelehrsamkeit, Mythos in der Modeme(Berlin: SDV, 1999), p. 335.

Furuli uses this very late and seemingly legendary story to argue that this “Nebuchadnezzar the Younger” may have ruled one year as the immediate successor of Nebuchadnezzar the Great before Amel‒Marduk came to power. (Furuli, p. 79) This is indicated, he says, by the conclusion (argued earlier in his chapter 3, p. 58) that Jehoiachin was released from prison 44 years, not 43, after Nebuchadnezzar had begun to reign. This idea has already been refuted in Part III, section (3) of this review, to which the reader is referred.

There may be some truth, however, to the story of Amel‒Marduk’s imprisonment. This has been argued by Irving L. Finkel, who in his article quoted above publishes a Late Babylonian tablet (BM 40475) in which an individual named “Nabû‒šuma‒ukîn, son of Nebuchadnezzar” laments his grievous situation as a prisoner because of the evil trick played on him by his enemy. Based on another tablet, BM 34113, Finkel suggests that Nabû‒šuma‒ukîn was the personal name of Amel‒Marduk before he was appointed Crown Prince and adopted Amel‒Marduk as his throne name.

This is an interesting suggestion, but if it could be shown to be correct there is no room for a rule of a brother of his after the death of Nebuchadnezzar II. Finkel explains why:

“If this suggestion is indeed correct, a terminus ante quern for the date of Amel‒Marduk’s release and the adoption of the throne name is the month of Ellul, year 39 of Nebuchadnezzar, i.e. 566 BC. This information is shown by the contract VAS 3 25:12‒13, where reference is made to Nabû‒nūrē’a‒lūmur, the eunuch ("ša reì)of Amel‒Marduk, the Crown Prince (mar šarri).” – I. L. Finkel, op. cit.,p. 338.

If Amel‒Marduk had been released from prison and been appointed Crown Prince no later than in the 39^th year of Nebuchadnezzar, he must have been the immediate successor at the death of his father in his 43^rd regnal year. This is confirmed by a number of cuneiform sources, including the ledger NBC 4897. (See GTR4, pp. 129‒133; also http: //goto.glocalnet.net/kf3/review4.htm .)

(12) “Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabunaid”

The last of the twelve “unknown kings” that Furuli feels may have ruled during the Neo‒Babylonian period is based on the fact that two of the usurpers that Darius I had to defeat during his rise to power after the death of Cambyses in 522 BCE claimed to be a son of Nabonidus named Nebuchadnezzar. The brief reigns of the two usurpers are described in the Bisitun Inscription of Darius I. A number of contract tablets dated to the accession year and the 1^st year of Nebuchadnezzar have been identified as belonging, not to Nebuchadnezzar II but to the two usurpers (Nebuchadnezzar III and IV), which confirmed that these two usurpers really existed. So far 66 tablets have been identified as belonging to the two usurpers. ‒ See my article in tire British interdisciplinary journal Chronology & Catastrophism Review of 2006, pages 26‒28, including note 8 on page 37.

Furuli mentions these two “Nebuchadnezzars” from the early Persian period and suggests that a second Neo‒Balylonian king by the name of Nebuchadnezzar might also lie hidden among the about 2,400 tablets (published up to the end of the last century) dated to Nebuchadnezzar II. He asks:

“Could there have been two Nebuchadnezzars in the Neo‒Babylonian empire instead of just one? Who can exclude this possibility?” (Furuli, p. 84)

In support of this idea he quotes David B. Weisberg, who in 1980 expressed doubts about some of the criteria used to distinguish between Nebuchadnezzar II and the two usurpers in 522/521 BCE. One of these criteria is the titles used of the kings. Nebuchadnezzar II is usually titled “king of Babylon,” while the title of the Persian kings usually includes the phrase “king of the countries.” When the latter title is used in tablets dated to Nebuchadnezzar, therefore, the king is supposed to be one of the two usurpers. However, as pointed out by Weisberg, there is one tablet in the Yale Babylonian Collection (YBC 3437) dated to year 18 (1/30/18) of Nebuchadnezzar II with the title “king of the countries.” This criterion, he says, “should now be modified.” ‒ David B. Weisberg, Texts from the Time of Nebuchadnezzar. Yale Oriental Series ‒ Babylonian Texts, Vol. XVII [YOS 17] (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980), pp. xxi, xxii.

With respect to the criterion based on prosopography, however, Weisberg admitted that it seems to be valid and cogent. His doubts primarily concerned whether there really were two usurpers who claimed to be “Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonidus,” or just one. ‒ Weisberg, op. cit., pp. xxii‒xxiv.

David B. Weisberg’s work (YOS 17) was reviewed two years later by the French Assyriologist Francis Joannes in the Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientate (RA), vol. LXXVI, no. 1, 1982, on pages 84‒92. Of the texts published by Weisberg, 38 are listed as dated to the accession year and the first year of Nebuchadnezzar. Of these, Weisberg assigns 13 to Nebuchadnezzar II, one to Nebuchadnezzar III, and 17 to Nebuchadnezzar IV. Joannes, however, finds another two texts assigned by Weisberg to Nebuchadnezzar II that he on prosopographic grounds should have assigned to Nebuchadnezzar III and Nebuchadnezzar IV. Joannes writes:

“The third part (pp. XIX‒XXVI) concerns the distinction to make for the first regnal years (years 0 and 1) between Nebuchadnezzar II on the one hand, and the two usurpers Nebuchadnezzar III and Nebuchadnezzar IV on the other hand. The doubt concerns 38 texts from YOS 17, for which the author applies himself to make a choice, presented in a synthetic way on pages XXIV and XXV. I admit that I do not quite understand, in this context, the reasons for the long discussion devoted to Mušêzib‒Bêl, son of Zêr‒Bâbili, descendant of Ilûta‒ibni (pp. XXII‒XXIII). The variant Ilûta‒ibni/Attabâni is evidently interesting, but tire data provided in TCL XII and Turn 2/3 cannot leave any doubt about the dating to make in the case of text 8.

“It would have been more fruitful to look into the case of Šamaš referred to in nos. 126 and 302, whom D. Weisberg attributes to years 0 and 1 of Nebuchadnezzar II. But Šamaš‒mukîn‒apli, the šâpiru of the prebendal brewers in Eanna, is attested from the 2^nd year of Cyrus to the 22^nd of Darius I. Likewise, in no. 126, the carpenter Guzanu (l. 23) is referred to elsewhere in the 5^th year ofCambyses. Thus no. 126 is to be dated to Nebuchadnezzar III, and D. Weisberg’s argument that the defeat of this king would forbid a contemporary attestation (here the 27, 28, 29‒IX) is invalid. ...

“In a corresponding way no. 302 is dated to Nebuchadnezzar IV. It is important to emphasize that in such cases the title ‘king of Babylon’ or ‘king of Babylon and of the countries’ does not constitute a decisive criterion. It is the prosopography that remains the most useful one, when this is possible.

“He does not enter into our intention to go back in detail to this problem, but we would like to emphasize one point: Right up to now the view expressed by A. Poebel permits a reconstruction that is completely coherent, and the elements brought up by YOS 17 certainly do not question them.” ‒F. Joannes, op. cit., pp. 84, 85; (translated from the French). Arno Poebel’s reconstruction is found in his article, ’The Duration of the Reign of Smerdis, the Magian, and the Reigns of Nebuchadnezzar III and Nebuchadnezzar IV,’ published in AJSL, Vol. 56:2 (Apr. 1939), pp. 121‒145.

A detailed discussion of the chronology of the three usurpers Bardiya, Nebuchadnezzar III, and Nebuchadnezzar IV was presented in a lengthy article by Stefan Zawadzki published in 1994. (Zawadzki, ’Bardiya, Darius and Babylonian Usurpers in the Light of the Bisitun Inscription and Babylonian Sources,’ Arvhaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran [AMI]Band 27, 1994, pp. 127‒145, with important details added in NABU 1995‒54, 55, and 56) Zawadzki’s discussion is based on a detailed prosopographic research that conclusively establishes the existence and precise chronology of the three usurpers. For the two Nebuchadnezzars (III and IV) the prosopographic information presented on pages 135 and 136 of the article is particularly enlightening. Strangely, Furuli, who questions even the very existence of these two kings, seems to be totally unaware of Zawadzki’s important study. At least he never refers to it.

Furuli’s theory that there may also have been a second Nebuchadnezzar who ruled during the Neo‒Babylonian period, on the other hand, is completely groundless. He is not able to present any criteria whatsoever by which such a theory could be tested.

Summary

In the discussion above it has been demonstrated that none of Furuli’s twelve “unknown kings” can be inserted anywhere in the Neo‒Babylonian period. Three of them were Assyrian kings, not Babylonian, and one belonged to the First Sealand dynasty. One royal name turned out to be an old misreading, three “kings” were not kings at all, and four others did not even exist!

And, of course, there is no room for I he insertion of any “unknown kings” or any “extra regnal years” into the Neo‒Babylonian period. Tens of thousands of dated tablets that fix the length of each reign throughout the whole period, as well as several dozens of records of astronomical observations dated to these reigns that turn them into an absolute chronology make any attempt to lengthen or shorten this period impossible. All attempts to revise the chronology of the Neo‒Babylonian period have failed and have forced the proponents of such revisions to either give them up or to claim that all the ancient documents that contradict their theories must have been falsified by later writers and copyists. When reality is in conflict with the theory, reality has to be rejected!

The Gentile Times Reconsidered, by Swedish author Carl Olof Jonsson, is a scholarly treatise based on careful and extensive research, including an unusually detailed study of Assyrian and Babylonian records relative to the date of Jersualem’s destruction by Babylonian conqueror Nebuchadnezzar.

This publication traces the history of a long string of interpretation theories connected with time prophecies extracted from the Bible books of Daniel and Revelation, beginning with those from Judaism in the early centuries, through Medieval Catholicism, the Reformers, and into nineteenth century British and American Protestantism. It reveals the actual origin of the interpretation which eventually produced the date of 1914 as a predicted year for the end of “the Gentile Times,” a date adopted and proclaimed worldwide to this day by the religious movement known as Jehovah’s Witnesses. The importance of this date for the exclusive claims of the movement is repeatedly stressed in its publications. The Watchtower of October 15,1990. for example, states on page 19:

“For 38 years prior to 1914, the Bible Students, as Jehovah’s Witnesses were then called, pointed to that date as the year when the Gentile Times would end. What outstanding proof that is that they were the true servants of Jehovah!”

The book contains a helpful discussion of the application of the Biblical prophecy regarding the “seventy years” of Babylonian domination of Judah. Readers will find the information refreshingly different from any other publication on this topic.

A “most valuable [work].... I have already drawn the attention of a number of correspondents to it.”

–Donald J. Wiseman. Emeritus Professor of Assyriology in the University of London, England

“An original and thoroughly serious study. . .. Time and again during my reading I was overcome by feelings of admiration for. and deep satisfaction at, the way in which the author deals with arguments related to the field of Assyriology.... Jonsson demonstrates, with the aid of irrefutable arguments, the invalidity of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ theory that 607 B.C. was the year when Nebuchadnezzar II. in the eighteenth regnal year, desolated Jerusalem.”

–Luigi Cagni, Professor of Assyriology at the University of Naples, Italy (in his Foreword to the Italian edition).