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SECULAR EVIDENCE and NEO-BABYLONIAN CHRONOLOGY (Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, etc.)


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27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

What is of concern to me that there is the danger of circular reasoning.

That need not be a concern here, because this is just a discussion of the secular evidence. If I want to solve a jigsaw puzzle for example I only need to make use of the pieces in the box. If they can be solved into a picture, that's great. If they can't, then I wouldn't trust them to help me with any other puzzle either. And of course, there is no circular reasoning when we take the "testimony" of several independent witnesses. We are basically looking at a puzzle with about 100,000 pieces to see if they form a picture with no unresolved gaps or overlaps.

27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

Herein lies the problem.  A failure to carefully distinguish between these two terms, 'relative' and absolute'

Good point. But it's no problem. That's why we carefully distinguished between these two terms. All one has to do to turn it into an absolute chronology, if they need to, is to attach any one year in the timeline to a date that is absolutely attached to the common era. If you think any of the dates in the timeline can be absolutely tied to the common era, then you have turned the relative chronology into an absolute chronology.

27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

Thus if we admit to the absoluteness of the NB Period and its Chronology then we have the problem of the INTERFACE between the two- NB Period and OT period.

If someone finds it useful to tie the NB period and its chronology to the OT period, then they can do that easily. But, of course, it is not true that the absoluteness of the NB period requires this. It becomes absolute as soon as you add any absolute date to any point in the timeline. At that point all the other dates also become absolute. As you said, one needs to carefully distinguish between these two terms, "relative" and "absolute."

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Let me try to lay this out for you (although this is more for any interested readers' benefit than for yours). The stars, planets, and Moon are components in a giant sky-clock that keeps perfect time.

Since love doesn't keep account of the injury and covers a multitude of sins, I will not go back and show you what you have actually said. Besides, I've never wanted to make this into a contest of who

Most of what CC says is just bluster he finds randomly, evidently by Googling key words. And if it he doesn't quite understand it, he must think others won't understand it either, and therefore he thi

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44 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

Your presentation is mostly of military campaigns.

As you can see, almost none of this was based on any record of military campaigns. The Babylonian Chronicles include a lot of military campaigns but I barely used it at all, and the part that I did mention is not really about the campaign, only the date when the Medes destroyed a temple in Harran. I mentioned the Babylonian Chronicle 3 (B.M. 21901) because it helps to put a date on the battle won by the Medes against Harran, but the point was about the number of years that had elapsed until Nabonidus spoke about his dream to rebuild the temples that had been destroyed back then.

44 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

Since this can fall under a Saros Cycle

Any year can fall under a saros cycle. Even this year, 2020.

44 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

How would your own interpretation of those ongoing events be compared to those specific dates that, Kings weren't necessarily around for some of those military campaigns.

It doesn't matter who was at any military battle. I didn't make use of any information about a battle except for one of the dates. And I don't need to interpret anything to present the data. This is not about interpretation of evidence, it is merely about presenting some of the evidence. And, of course, this is a minimal presentation. There is a lot more, and the details of the additional evidence makes the case for this timeline even stronger. We can show this is true, if necessary, but the above is enough for a start unless someone has some specific problem with the evidence given so far. I'll correct any mistakes that anyone can show. I already corrected a couple of typos.

44 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

An example would be, was Nebuchadnezzar present when his Captain . . . [skipped]. . .  "devestated" by which Jerusalem was a part of.

I agree with what you said, but it has nothing to do with the timeline, which is not based on military campaigns.

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On 12/11/2020 at 8:36 PM, César Chávez said:

Since you are leaning with the absurdity by claiming "almost none" with BM 21901 which is part of the Babylonian Chronicles that you need to defend a COJ ideology

I should have said "none" instead of "almost none" because there is no dependence on military campaign records. The reason, as you might have noticed, is that I included the Babylonian Chronicle but did not need it, since the exact same point was also made in the Adad-Guppi' stele, as I stated. I would have been happy to have used records of military campaigns, I just happened not to rely on them to make this point about the number of years from Nabopolassar to Nabonidus. You'll notice that if you wished to remove the Babylonian Chronicle, the same point is made. You did not actually give any reason that one should not use the Babylonian Chronicles, however, so I will be glad to make use of them wherever they give evidence for the specific order and number of years of each king.

On 12/11/2020 at 8:36 PM, César Chávez said:

Then give a full account for those dates of the King List, since it depends on that old history with that of new understanding of that old history which defers within 1 to 3 years.

You might already be aware that the Babylonian Chronicles also support the exact same timeline of the kings, and they give us no reason to retract anything already said about the relative dates of the King List. So you may consider the above timeline to be the full account. If you think there is a place where the relative chronology differs by 1 to 3 years, please point it out and show your evidence, and I will change the timeline based on your evidence. I have not seen any evidence of this, but that could be very important.

On 12/11/2020 at 8:36 PM, César Chávez said:

Are you referring to modern times or ancient times?

Yes, both modern times and ancient times.

On 12/11/2020 at 8:36 PM, César Chávez said:

why not take full advantage of it to explain how natural history can be defined by several mythologies.

Why not? Because I couldn't care less how "natural history" can be defined by "several mythologies." At this point I am presenting the NB evidence to see how solid the relative chronology is for these kings.

On 12/11/2020 at 8:36 PM, César Chávez said:

Since you oppose the Watchtower chronology, because in part of the Babylonian Chronicles, then "military campaigns" need to be understood in order to see the sequence of events within those timelines.

It doesn't seem like they need to be understood at all. But if you find any NB evidence from military campaigns or from anywhere else that shows a change in the relative chronology is required, I'll make the appropriate change. You can recommend exactly where the new or additional evidence fits in.

 

 

 

 

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JW Insider

5 hours ago, JW Insider said:

That need not be a concern here, because this is just a discussion of the secular evidence. If I want to solve a jigsaw puzzle for example I only need to make use of the pieces in the box. If they can be solved into a picture, that's great. If they can't, then I wouldn't trust them to help me with any other puzzle either. And of course, there is no circular reasoning when we take the "testimony" of several independent witnesses. We are basically looking at a puzzle with about 100,000 pieces to see if they form a picture with no unresolved gaps or overlaps.

But there are pieces that are missing e.g. 1. the missing 7 years of Neb's madness from the throne and 2. No mention of Neb's destruction of Jerusalem in his 18th year for starters. And what are the independent witnesses that you refer?

5 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Good point. But it's no problem. That's why we carefully distinguished between these two terms. All one has to do to turn it into an absolute chronology, if they need to, is to attach any one year in the timeline to a date that is absolutely attached to the common era. If you think any of the dates in the timeline can be absolutely tied to the common era, then you have turned the relative chronology into an absolute chronology

But according to COJ you already have an Absolute Chronology titled as chapter 4 in his latest 4th edn

then of course you have the problem of Rolf Furuli whose research undermines any confidence in the correctness of the present scheme of NB Chronology

scholar JW

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1 hour ago, César Chávez said:

Example, did Nebuchadnezzar need to be present in 609 BC to bring King Jehoiakim into Babylons subjection, just like he wasn't with the final blow, came to Jerusalem in 587 BC if you want to use that methodology.

I'm not using any methodology that requires Nebuchadnezzar to be present in 609 or 587 or any other year. I would agree with you that he need not be personally present to bring anyone or any nation into Babylonian subjection. So I don't need that methodology one way or another. It's not relevant to any years in the timeline either.

1 hour ago, César Chávez said:

Which King was fighting for dominance and for which God. Who was ally to whom?

These are not relevant questions to getting the order and length of kings reigns. They could change allegiances and gods every year and it wouldn't change the timeline.

2 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Are there any Kings in the Kings List that might have been confused by another in the same list?

This is actually a better question. It's one you have brought up before. And with this question there is a need sometimes to note if there had been a change of name based on a change in allegiance. Although apparently with few exceptions (Egypt for example) the multiplicity of gods made it unnecessary to change one's name even if their primary focus changed to another god.

Did you have a particular pair of names in mind? Remember that if two different names could refer to the same person, then an overlap of the two names would imply a shortening of the timeline by at least the length of the shortest reign in that particular pair of names.

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1 hour ago, César Chávez said:

Here’s an example of how a Kings List works with ongoing events. Are you saying these events don’t matter to confirm the reign of Kings?

Yes. I'm saying that these events do not necessarily matter at all in confirming the reign of kings. The king could have done nothing at all throughout his reign, or could have fought many major military campaigns. The king could even have lied about all his supposed accomplishments and even lied about the length of time between one event and the next. It's only when any one of the claims creates a contradiction in the order of the kings and their length of reign that it becomes relevant to the timeline.

All of the claims in that Isaiah commentary that relate to the timeline presented above are perfectly aligned with the relevant portion of the timeline. But this is not the same as offering secular evidence that the timeline is right.

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A crucial date in Neo-Babylonian chronology is the date of Nebuchadnezzar's accession to the throne of Babylon. The date has been completely established by reference to a number of ancient historical documents.

One such document is Ptolemy's Canon, also known as the Royal Canon.

Various scholars have shown or remarked how well 605 BCE for Nebuchadnezzar's accession year has been verified. For example, Edwin Thiele, writing in A Chronology of the Hebrew Kings (Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1977, pp. 68-69) wrote concerning contents of a contemporary cuneiform tablet called the Babylonian Chronicle (now in the British Museum, described in D. J. Wiseman, Chronicles of the Chaldean Kings (626-556 B.C.), London, British Museum, 1956):

<<
The tablet for the year 605 is of particular interest, for according to Daniel 1:1-6, that is the year when Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem and took Daniel and his three companions hostage to Babylon, together with a number of vessels from the temple. According to the Babylonian account, Nebuchadnezzar inflicted a crushing defeat on an Egyptian army at Carchemish in 605, beat it into "nonexistence," and then "conquered the whole of the Hatti-country." Since it was in that area that Judah was located, 605 would be the year when Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem and took Daniel to Babylon. The Babylonian account for that year states further that Nabopolassar, after twenty-one years on the throne, died on the eighth day of the month of Ab, August 16, and that Nebuchadnezzar returned to Babylon "and on the first day of the month of Elul he sat on the royal throne in Babylon," September 17, 605.

Two [lunar] eclipses establish beyond question 605 as the year when Nebuchadnezzar began his reign. The first took place on April 22, 621, in the fifth year of Nabopolassar, which would make 605 the year of his death in his twenty-first year, and the year of Nebuchadnezzar's accession. The second eclipse was on July 4, 568, in the thirty-seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar, which again gives 605 as the year when Nebuchadenzzar began to reign. No date in ancient history is more firmly established than is 605 for the commencement of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. The year 605 B.C. can thus be accepted with all certainty as the year when the first attack of Nebuchadnezzar on Jerusalem was made, and as the year when Daniel was taken to Babylon and when the seventy-year captivity in Babylon began (Jer. 25:9-12).
>>

So Nebuchadnezzar's accession year 605 BCE is firmly established by two lunar eclipse texts dated some 53 years apart. The texts are independent of each other. It is widely recognized that two or more independent sources that indicate the same historical date are extremely strong evidence that the date is correct.

Another extremely important date with respect to the several captures of Jerusalem is 597 BCE, when Nebuchadnezzar's forces captured the city and took King Jehoiachin and most of the non-peasant-class Jews captive to Babylon. Concerning this date, Thiele continues (pp. 69-70):

<<
The Babylonian record for Nebuchadnezzar's seventh year, 598/97, is also of unusual interest. That record reads, "In the seventh year, the month of Kislev, the king of Akkad mustered his troops, marched to the Hatti-land, and encamped agaist [i.e., besieged] the city of Judah and on the second day of the month of Adar he seized the city and captured the king. He appointed there a king of his own choice [lit., heart], received its heavy tribute and sent [them] to Babylon."

This is a striking confirmation from a contemporary Babylonian document of the biblical record of 2 Kings 24:10-17. According to his own account, Nebuchadnezzar started against Jerusalem in the month of Kislev, the ninth month of the Babylonian and Hebrew year. That month began on December 18, 598 B.C., so Jehoiachin must have been on the throne during the last days of 598. Jerusalem was taken on the second of Adar, the last month of the Babylonian year, which was on March 16, 597. So the three-month reign of Jehoiachin can be set with complete certainty as 598-597 B.C. The king who was set on the throne of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar was Zedekiah (2 Kings 24:17, 18), Judah's last king.

That Jehoiachin was a captive in Babylon is confirmed by a Babylonian tablet dated 592, which lists him and five of his sons as receiving rations in oil, barley, etc., at that time.

In 2 Kings 25:27 is a record concerning the end of Jehoiachin's captivity: "And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, that Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign did lift up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison." Since Jehoiachin was taken to Babylon in 597, the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of his captivity would be March or April of 561. That, according to the biblical record in Kings, would be the last month of the accession year of Evil-merodach. According to the Babylonian records, Nebuchadnezzar ended his reign and Amel-Marduk began his reign in early October, 562, which would bring the twelfth month of his accession year at the very time indicated in the biblical account. The release of Jehoiachin on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month, just before the beginning of the new year's festivities, would be a fitting time for the release of political prisoners placed in custody by the previous ruler.
>>

In The Gentile Times Reconsidered (4th edition, pp. 293-294) Carl Olof Jonsson quotes two scholars as follows:

<< the 597 date is one of the very few secure dates in our whole chronological repertoire. [Dr. Edward F. Campbell, Jr., personal letter to Jonsson dated August 9, 1981.]

[The date for] the capture of Jerusalem in 597 . . . is now fixed exactly. [Dr. David N. Freedman, personal letter to Jonsson dated August 16, 1981]

Based on the above data, Nebuchadnezzar's 1st year would be 604 BCE and his 18th 587 BCE. Therefore, the Royal Canon in conjunction with Jeremiah 52:29 show that Jerusalem fell in 587 BCE.

Far more can be said about how perfectly lunar and solar eclipses verify the above. Carl Olof Jonsson, in The Gentile Times Reconsidered, details how several dozen lunar eclipses described in various Babylonian tablets all converge on what has become the standard Neo-Babylonian chronology.

I'll leave off here for now.

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50 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

But there are pieces that are missing e.g. 1. the missing 7 years of Neb's madness from the throne and 2. No mention of Neb's destruction of Jerusalem in his 18th year for starters.

Why do you claim they are missing? There is no problem positing that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem in his 18th year if you wish. There is no problem if you wish to posit that any 7 of these years were years of madness. Or if you have evidence that it changes the timeline, just show the evidence where you think the timeline should be adjusted.

Of course, trying to tie Biblical evidence into this timeline is not necessary. If one thinks the timeline is not solid, then you coudn't make any use of it anyway. We need to confirm the solidity of the relative timeline before trying to make it an absolute timeline. Also, many issues with Biblical evidence are based on interpretations. Even the claim that there must have been 7 years of madness is not found in the Bible except through a specific interpretation. It is known that the Aramaic for "times" (iddan) can refer to periods of time that are not years, perhaps even seasons, fortnights, months, weeks, etc.

50 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

And what are the independent witnesses that you refer?

Independent witnesses in this case are pieces of evidence that are not known to have been dependent on each other, or from the same person. For example, if you found a 16th birthday card addressed to Elizabeth in 2016, you have a piece of evidence that someone named Elizabeth was born in the year 2000 or at least within a matter of months. If you find another birthday card to the same address to Elizabeth for a 20th birthday in 2020, you now have two pieces of independent evidence that someone named Elizabeth at this address was born around the year 2000. But this doesn't mean the person was right. Someone might be mistaken. And if it was the same person sending both cards, the mistake might have been compounded. Or perhaps Elizabeth was actually younger and gave out a wrong birth year because she wanted to be seen as older, or vice versa. Or perhaps there are two Elizabeths at this address and the sender was mixed up about which one was born in 2000 and which one was born some other year.

Independent evidence isn't the same as absolute proof, but the more you have the more likely the conclusion is solid. That's why we are fortunate to have several independent sets of business tablets that are unrelated to each other. Thousands from one temple, thousands from another, and thousands from various business houses, and thousands of others that are unrelated to one another.

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52 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

then of course you have the problem of Rolf Furuli whose research undermines any confidence in the correctness of the present scheme of NB Chronology

Furuli does no such thing. A number of commentators have disproved every piece of his "research": Carl Jonsson, Ann O'Maly, etc. Furuli demonstrated, for example, his incompetence in interpreting the output of a simple astronomical display program.

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Alan F

21 minutes ago, AlanF said:

Furuli does no such thing. A number of commentators have disproved every piece of his "research": Carl Jonsson, Ann O'Maly, etc. Furuli demonstrated, for example, his incompetence in interpreting the output of a simple astronomical display program.

That is a matter of opinion. The fact is that Furuli provides a valuable criticism which is the province of every proper scholar , to question orthodoxy, to ask questions and test the evidence. Are you going to argue that NB Chronology is some sort of Sacred Cow that cannot be challenged , becoming something to further study? You accuse Furuli of incompetence in the use of the astro program but is this more of confirmation of your bias rather than intellectual honesty.

scholar JW

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18 hours ago, scholar JW said:

But according to COJ you already have an Absolute Chronology titled as chapter 4 in his latest 4th edn

I doubt that COJ would call the relative chronology an absolute chronology until various astronomical diaries and records of dated eclipses are added into the mix. I'll check out chapter 4 to see. 

18 hours ago, scholar JW said:

then of course you have the problem of Rolf Furuli whose research undermines any confidence in the correctness of the present scheme of NB Chronology

I have communicated with Rolf Furuli about his first two books on chronology, which he sent me as I've discussed before. His attempts were focused against just one important witness to the chronology: VAT 4956. It's an important witness to the absolute chronology, but you could throw it out and you'd still end up with the same timeline. You would also end up with the same absolute chronology from dozens of other astronomical records from NB. Also, since the timeline reaches just as accurately as a relative timeline, far into the future from NB times, you actually have thousands of astronomical positions to make use of in testing how well the relative chronology can become an absolute chronology. But even that is not necessary. It will be easy to show that you don't even need to go outside the timeline to start pegging separate --and independent-- "absolute" points along the timeline that all coincide and corroborate with the currently proposed timeline.

Besides, Rolf Furuli actually only showed that VAT 4956, if you ignored the planetary positions, then with its current copyist typos, it had only about a 20% chance of pointing to 588/587 while the exact same data showed about an 80% chance of pointing to 568/567. This is not what he claimed of course; he claimed it was pretty much the reverse of that. But this is exactly what his methodology showed. And as you have said before, methodology is important in chronology. Also, he admitted that the planetary readings only pointed away from his theory, and to 568/567.

There is, of course, a chance that certain lunar positions will be repeated every 18 years (Saros) or every 19 years (Metonic) and sometimes every 20 years, or even random years. But for the planetary positions, Furuli admits that they only fit 568, against his own theory. These planetary positions only repeat every several hundred years or more, so they should be weighted as evidence about 100 times greater than the lunar data. But even if we only weighed them "linearly" or "even" with the lunar data, the tablet points to about a 10% chance of meeting Furuli's theeory and a 90% chance that it is a match to all the other astronomical tablets. Also, I'll predict that if you merely correct the most obvious copyist errors, and also allow for a 1.5 degree accuracy instead of a stricter 1 degree accuracy in the readings, you move it to much less than 5% in favor of Furuli's theory, and higher than 95% in favor of all the other astronomical diaries. And all this conjecture is most likely based on some very correctable copyist errors. Also there were some major inconsistencies in the way that Furuli tried to make some readings "possible" by breaking the known rules, making "Furuli-only" exceptions to the Babylonian calendar. But he only invoked these exceptions when they helped, even though these exceptions would have ruined others of his "possible" readings if he had been consistent with these mistakes.

A very similar attempt to Furuli's was referenced above. The link is here: https://www.academia.edu/44227088/Fact_checking_VAT4956_com

 

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Alan F

You claim that 605 BCE is well established for Neb's accession year by means of at least Ptolemy's Canon a comment made by Thiele and two lunar eclipses which you do not give the cataloque number. Next you move onto 

44 minutes ago, AlanF said:

So Nebuchadnezzar's accession year 605 BCE is firmly established by two lunar eclipse texts dated some 53 years apart. The texts are independent of each other. It is widely recognized that two or more independent sources that indicate the same historical date are extremely strong evidence that the date is correct.

These two texts must be properly analysed and examined and compared with Furuli's observations about the content of these tablets and interpretation.

46 minutes ago, AlanF said:

Another extremely important date with respect to the several captures of Jerusalem is 597 BCE, when Nebuchadnezzar's forces captured the city and took King Jehoiachin and most of the non-peasant-class Jews captive to Babylon. Concerning this date, Thiele continues (pp. 69-70)

Next you move onto Neb's seventh year and again this requires careful examination and not just blustering comments which hinder proper discussion. the dates that you give are asserted and not proved even though accepted by the majority of scholars. Before we assign any dates to these events first examine the content of these documents and tablets.

 

51 minutes ago, AlanF said:

In The Gentile Times Reconsidered (4th edition, pp. 293-294) Carl Olof Jonsson quotes two scholars as follows:

<< the 597 date is one of the very few secure dates in our whole chronological repertoire. [Dr. Edward F. Campbell, Jr., personal letter to Jonsson dated August 9, 1981.]

[The date for] the capture of Jerusalem in 597 . . . is now fixed exactly. [Dr. David N. Freedman, personal letter to Jonsson dated August 16, 1981]

Based on the above data, Nebuchadnezzar's 1st year would be 604 BCE and his 18th 587 BCE. Therefore, the Royal Canon in conjunction with Jeremiah 52:29 show that Jerusalem fell in 587 BCE.

Far more can be said about how perfectly lunar and solar eclipses verify the above. Carl Olof Jonsson, in The Gentile Times Reconsidered, details how several dozen lunar eclipses described in various Babylonian tablets all converge on what has become the standard Neo-Babylonian chronology.

Well if it is good enough to bring COJ into the discussion along with Thiele then it is equally proper that we cite WT scholars and Furuli but that will only cloud the issue. First, we must examine the primary evidence from both the secular documents and the biblical record then we proceed to interpretation and consult with others.

scholar JW

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