The Watchtower's 20-year adjustment to the standard Neo-Babylonian chronology

[scholar JW]

JW Insider

16 hours ago, JW Insider said:

And it's also a fact that Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year as 586 BCE also enjoys universal acceptance within scholarship.

No. Both Neb's 18th and 19th year for our modern calendar along with 586 or 587 remain contentious within scholarship.

16 hours ago, JW Insider said:

And although the event of the fall of Babylon by Cyrus was NOT a fully described in the context of the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the Davidic monarchy, Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year absolutely WAS described in pretty much exactly those terms.

Both the Fall of Babylon and the Fall of Jerusalem in Neb's 18/19th year and that of Zedekiah's 11th year are well described in the biblical account.

16 hours ago, JW Insider said:

539 is surely no less open to interpretation than the years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. According to your listed criteria, that would make Nebuchadnezzar's reign much more pivotal. Besides the fact that we can double-check the evidence for MANY MORE years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign than for Cyrus, and each year strengthens the evidence for all the other years. If a three-fold cord cannot easily be broken, then an eight-fold cord ought to be even stronger than that. 

The date 539 BCE for the Fall of Babylon is universally accepted within scholarship whereas Neb's regnal years remain contentious unless synchronized to the regnal years of the Late Judean Monarchy.

16 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Since currently we are asked to reject the evidence for all the years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign which are MUCH better documented, why don't you just use the Bible's date of Nebuchadnezzar 19th year, and reject the secular date of 539 for Cyrus? Just make the claim that since we KNOW Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year is a PIVOTAL year, and that it's even more pivotal than 539 for Cyrus, then just start claiming that Cyrus captured Babylon in 519. You get to keep the 70 year period intact, just as you do now. It's EXACTLY what's being done at the OTHER end. Why does it matter so much which secular date we put faith in and which secular date we dismiss?  

The regnal years of Neb's reign may well be documented in the Babylonian record but not in the Biblical record and the Biblical record proves a gap of some 20 years in the NB Chronology by means of the 70 years of Babylonian rule and Exile. Neb's 19th year or 18th year whether 586 or 587 BCE is problematic in its relation to the Fall of Jerusalem and thus cannot be used as a pivotal year. The only way that the 70 years remains intact is to view it quite properly as the period of Jewish Exile beginning in 607 BCE and ending in 537 BCE.

16 hours ago, JW Insider said:

We'd be doing exactly the same thing we are doing now except that we would then be saying that 539 is just a secular date but that Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year is a Bible date, and that we'll choose the Bible's dates over Secular dates every time.

Your methodology is flawed. The date 539 BCE remains the only pivotal date for the OT for no other date is its equal. Neb's 19th or 18th year is problematic for the Bible uses both as regnal data in relation to the Fall of Jerusalem thus creating a problem of methodology which has been noted by chronologists such as Rodger Young.

16 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I'm surprised you even admitted that one. It's an even better criteria for using Nebuchadnezzar's pivotal Bible dates instead of the secular Cyrus 1 date. Several of Nebuchadnezzar's years actually ARE synchronized to the Judean monarchy, yet ZERO of Cyrus' dates are. 

Why are you surprised? I am simply using common sense and utilizing all of the biblical data. Not all dates have to be synchronized to another system to be validated. Cyrus only reigned for 9 years and the only significance is that he conquered Babylon in 539 BCE and released the Jews from Exile in 527 BCE.

scholar JW

[Pudgy]

So … um … what’s a “pivotal year”, and how many of them have there been in history?

I think of a “pivotal year” being something like 65,203,112 BCE when the dinosaurs were wiped out, with 95% of all other living things on Earth. ….. and with all the dates being bandied about, did anyone take into account “leap years” and other “adjustments”?

I seem to remember something about the Popes screwing around with calendars, cancelling 7 months (?) and people being infuriated because they thought seven (?) months of their lives had been lost.

If priests of Marduk in Babylon did similar things and didn’t leave records …. well ….. BLOOIE!

 

[scholar JW]

JW Insider

17 hours ago, JW Insider said:

No. As we've already established NONE of them are, not as BCE dates. We are ONLY talking about how you might determine that a certain reference to a specific year of Nebuchadnezzar (in this case) has been assigned a valid BCE date. After you assign any ONE of them to a regnal year of Nebuchadnezzar, you have just assigned BCE dates to ALL the known years of his reign, even ones I didn't mention. (I only focused on ones where I had already personally checked astronomical data that was related to major events of interest or referenced on Babylonian tablets.)

The Bible mentions only the following years in Neb's reign: 1st, 7th, 18th/19th, and 23rd each of which can be assigned a valid BCE with the first three of which were synchronized to that of the Late Judean Monarchy. These are the only dates that are of importance in constructing a valid scheme of Bible Chronology in my opinion.

scholar JW

[scholar JW]

Screcko Sostar

17 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Please, who are WT scholars?

Then, since when have they been operating within WTJWorg?

Who chose them and appointed them to do this kind of work?

On the basis of which credentials were they chosen?

The 'celebrated' WT scholars wish to remain anonymous and that is also the stated policy of the NWT Committee by way of comparison. Their origin remains unknown but they no doubt have been chosen by means of the Holy Spirit and were originally of the Anointed. Their qualifications also is unknown at this time suffice to say they both as a class and as individuals champion the Bible as God's Inspired Word. I hope this helps!!

scholar JW

[Pudgy]

“  …. pay no attention to the man (men) behind the curtain …” (Wizard of Oz)

…. and anytime someone says “… no doubt …” it is a red rocket flare arcing high into the night sky!

[scholar JW]

JW Insider

18 hours ago, JW Insider said:

You have that wrong. He absolutely does! Oded Lipschits believes Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year was 587/6 BCE. Just as he believes his 19th year was 586/5 BCE, his 23rd year was 582/1, etc. 

Correct. Oded Lipschits gives the beginning of the siege in Neb's 18th year- 587 BCE and its ending in 586 BCE in his 19th year with the Fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE and not 587 BCE.

18 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Perhaps you thought I was referring to the date for the more complete destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. I also would put this more complete destruction of the city and temple almost as likely in 586, and we should recall not just the two different "new year" dates that are six months apart, and the difference in counting even a partial accession year as a full year with some Bible writers, but also the fact that the siege lasted about a year and a half. (Yes, I have read Rodger Young and Edwin Thiele on the matter of regnal year counting.)

Noted

18 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I was asking, not about the destruction itself, but what was the BCE YEAR that Oded Lipschits identifies as Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year. So the answer is definitely 587 BCE. (Using the usual Spring/Nisan start of the new year, 587 starts in the spring, and therefore will contain about 3 months of 586. This is one of the main reasons we'll often see a BCE date written, for example, as 587/6 instead of just 587.

Again noted!

18 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Also, you seemed to miss the point of the question. Even if you thought that Lipschits used a different year-to-year schema, my question means the same thing as if I had asked:

 

Why do you think that your Professor Oded Lipschits believes Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year was 587 [586] BCE?

I would think that his understanding of this subject is based on current scholarship as noted in his extensive footnotes throughout his seminal work The Fall and Rise of JerusalemI, 2005, Eisenbrauns of which i have a copy.

18 hours ago, JW Insider said:

If the Neo-Babylonian regnal years of the NB kings were open to interpretation, why does he not admit that anywhere? Do you think that all these professors and historians and archaeologists of the period are just going along with what they've heard the way most Witnesses do? Or do you think they do a little research before making such definitive use of the NB chronology?

Because scholars believe and trust the current chronology but what they all have in common is to properly interpret and understand the importance of the Jewish Exile and the biblical 'seventy years of Jeremiah'.

scholar JW

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, scholar JW said:

and the WT explanation for its computation [539] is both immediate and simple.

Haven't you read the WT explanation for it's computation? It is NOT immediate and NOT simple. Yet, the computation of any year within Nebuchadnezzar's reign is much more immediate and simple, however.

1 hour ago, scholar JW said:

Correct because 539 BC has universal acceptance as a date for the fall of Babylon

And just like 539,  587 BCE also has universal acceptance as the date for the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar. As you said in your first sentence "Correct, most if not all past and current reference books on Bible Chronology most support 586 BCE and 587 BCE as a contender for the Fall of Jerusalem." And the Bible is the primary source of the question about which one to choose, because the Bible gives both year 18 and year 19. 

The Bible, by the way, does NOT say it was the first year of Cyrus, or the accession year of Cyrus when Babylon fell in 539. As you are aware, of course, Cyrus had already been ruling for the past 20 years before 539 BCE, as the ruler of the Persian Empire since c. 559 BCE, and the ruler of the Medes since 549 BCE, and the ruler of Lydia since 547 BCE. 

In fact, didn't I recall you conjecturing on this very forum about whether a certain Darius the Mede had either an interregnum rule before Cyrus or a co-rule with Cyrus starting immediately after the 539 capture of Babylon? The Bible does say that the decree went out to release the Jews in the first year of Cyrus, and yet the Watchtower puts that within a few weeks of his SECOND year starting in Nisan 537 instead of his first year 538 as the book of Ezra says. This additional stretch of what Ezra simply calls the "first year of Cyrus" allows the Watchtower to minimize the adjustment from 606 to 536, which were Russell's (Barbour's) original assumptions about the fall of Jerusalem and the first year of Cyrus. At the time, most of the reference books already had the two events correctly dated at 587/6 and 538, respetively, but Russell and Barbour misread the Cyrus date, and used a reference that had already confused the first years of Nebuchadnezzar's domination (and taking of exiles) with the destruction of Jerusalem. If one looks at the fine print footnote about it in Bishop Elliott's Horae Apocalypticae (a huge standard work for Bible chronologist study) it becomes understandable how such a mistake could be made. Instead of admitting a two to three year adjustment to the original dates, they were able to keep 1914 by making a one year adjustment at each end of the incorrect range they started with.

But the main thing that makes the Cyrus' years less simple and less direct is the fact that the Watchtower admits they are not using a dated tablet that mentions Cyrus. Instead, they are using one for Cambyses, and then trusting a King's List (exactly like the one Ptolemy used) to count backwards from Cambyses, and assuming the secular information is correct about the length of Cyrus' rule, and assuming there was no additional ruler between Cyrus and Cambyses. 

We don't have to do any of that nonsense for Nebuchadnezzar's chronology. 

To be clear, here is the Watchtower's "simple and direct" methodology for assuming Cyrus 1st year as 538 BCE. 

*** it-1 p. 453 Chronology ***
A Babylonian clay tablet is helpful for connecting Babylonian chronology with Biblical chronology. This tablet contains the following astronomical information for the seventh year of Cambyses II son of Cyrus II: “Year 7, Tammuz, night of the 14th, 1 2⁄3 double hours [three hours and twenty minutes] after night came, a lunar eclipse; visible in its full course; it reached over the northern half disc [of the moon]. Tebet, night of the 14th, two and a half double hours [five hours] at night before morning [in the latter part of the night], the disc of the moon was eclipsed; the whole course visible; over the southern and northern part the eclipse reached.” (Inschriften von Cambyses, König von Babylon, by J. N. Strassmaier, Leipzig, 1890, No. 400, lines 45-48; Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel, by F. X. Kugler, Münster, 1907, Vol. I, pp. 70, 71) These two lunar eclipses can evidently be identified with the lunar eclipses that were visible at Babylon on July 16, 523 B.C.E., and on January 10, 522 B.C.E. (Oppolzer’s Canon of Eclipses, translated by O. Gingerich, 1962, p. 335) Thus, this tablet points to the spring of 523 B.C.E. as the beginning of the seventh year of Cambyses II.
Since the seventh year of Cambyses II began in spring of 523 B.C.E., his first year of rule was 529 B.C.E. and his accession year, and the last year of Cyrus II as king of Babylon, was 530 B.C.E. The latest tablet dated in the reign of Cyrus II is from the 5th month, 23rd day of his 9th year. (Babylonian Chronology, 626 B.C.–A.D. 75, by R. Parker and W. Dubberstein, 1971, p. 14) As the ninth year of Cyrus II as king of Babylon was 530 B.C.E., his first year according to that reckoning was 538 B.C.E. and his accession year was 539 B.C.E.

Also note these comments in Insight about Cyrus:

*** it-1 p. 566 Cyrus ***
The early history of Cyrus II is somewhat obscure, depending largely upon rather fanciful accounts by Herodotus (Greek historian of the fifth century B.C.E.) and Xenophon (another Greek writer of about a half century later). However, both present Cyrus as the son of the Persian ruler Cambyses by his wife Mandane, the daughter of Astyages, king of the Medes. (Herodotus, I, 107, 108; Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, I, ii, 1) This blood relationship of Cyrus with the Medes is denied by Ctesias, another Greek historian of the same period, who claims instead that Cyrus became Astyages’ son-in-law by marrying his daughter Amytis.

So basically, the Watchtower is dependent, not on a tablet about Cyrus, but a clay tablet about the 7th year of a different king and the measurement and interpretation of a couple of lunar eclipses, to give a BCE date for that other king, which is then tied to Cyrus through a separate traditional "Kings List" that matched the one that Ptolemy used. Problem is, this would be the exact same Kings List as the one that gives us all the information about Nebuchadnezzar and all the other Neo-Babylonian kings. In fact, Cyrus' dates were originally considered accurate by Russell because he praised how good and reliable Ptolemy was -- that is until Russell realized that this was the same evidence that would demolished 606 (and 607). Then he trashed Ptolemy, but didn't have a good replacement for it and kept Cyrus' dates anyway. If we can have faith in this data for 539 then it's the same data that gives us 587 for the 19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar.  

And the Watchtower publications also admit that trying to use the Nabonidus Chronicle is not helpful, not only because it doesn't contain any information that would supply a BCE date, but that the year is cut off anyway:

*** it-2 p. 459 Nabonidus ***
In spite of the brevity of the Nabonidus Chronicle—the tablet measures about 14 cm (5.5 in.) in breadth at the widest point and about the same in length—it remains the most complete cuneiform record of the fall of Babylon available. In the third of its four columns, beginning with line 5, pertinent sections read: “[Seventeenth year:] . . . In the month of Tashritu, when Cyrus attacked the army of Akkad in Opis on the Tigris, the inhabitants of Akkad revolted, but he (Nabonidus) massacred the confused inhabitants. The 14th day, Sippar was seized without battle. Nabonidus fled. The 16th day, Gobryas (Ugbaru), the governor of Gutium and the army of Cyrus entered Babylon without battle. Afterwards Nabonidus was arrested in Babylon when he returned (there). . . . In the month of Arahshamnu, the 3rd day, Cyrus entered Babylon, green twigs were spread in front of him—the state of ‘Peace’ (sulmu) was imposed upon the city.”—Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 306.
It may be noted that the phrase “Seventeenth year” does not appear on the tablet, that portion of the text being damaged. This phrase is inserted by the translators because they believe that Nabonidus’ 17th regnal year was his last. So they assume that the fall of Babylon came in that year of his reign and that, if the tablet were not damaged, those words would appear in the space now damaged.
 

So, although we have some convolutions to go through to get the regnal years of Cyrus, we have no such issues with the regnal years of Nebuchadnezzar because much of the tablet evidence goes directly and simply to his regnal years. No assumptions necessary. 

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, scholar JW said:

No. Both Neb's 18th and 19th year for our modern calendar along with 586 or 587 remain contentious within scholarship.

False. That's like saying that the first year or seventh year is contentious. You are only talking about the attempts to calculate the fall of Jerusalem with the Bible's data, NOT the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar. There is no question at all that the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar fell exactly on Nisanu 1, 586 BCE. There is no question at all that the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar fell exactly on Nisanu 1, 587 BCE.

 

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, scholar JW said:

Both the Fall of Babylon and the Fall of Jerusalem in Neb's 18/19th year and that of Zedekiah's 11th year are well described in the biblical account.

The fall of Babylon is not described with a regnal year associated with it. The fall of of Jerusalem is -- and, not only that, it's synchronized as you just showed with a Babylonian king and a Judean king. 

 

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, scholar JW said:

The date 539 BCE for the Fall of Babylon is universally accepted within scholarship whereas Neb's regnal years remain contentious

You just keep making up the same false statement. Yet you contradict yourself because you have already admitted that "most if not all" reference works give the same years for EVERY year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. Turned out that even your own Professor (Oded Lipschits) used the same years for Nebuchadnezzar, in spite of your original claim that he didn't. .

[scholar JW]

JW Insider

16 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Haven't you read the WT explanation for it's computation? It is NOT immediate and NOT simple. Yet, the computation of any year within Nebuchadnezzar's reign is much more immediate and simple, however

Indeed I have all of the WT explanations right up to the present and I disagree with you. For example, the explanation in Insight, Vol.1, pp. 568-569 is simple and immediate or specific dealing with all of the attendant circumstances. Try finding in any other reference work a discussion of the year of the Jewish Return for there is no adequate treatment.

23 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

And just like 539,  587 BCE also has universal acceptance as the date for the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar. As you said in your first sentence "Correct, most if not all past and current reference books on Bible Chronology most support 586 BCE and 587 BCE as a contender for the Fall of Jerusalem." And the Bible is the primary source of the question about which one to choose, because the Bible gives both year 18 and year 19. 

Most definitely not. For the date, 586 BCE for the Fall remains the view of leading chronologists, historians and archaeologists right up to the present and Lipschit's published research into this era is a good example of this fact. There is no way one can compare 586 or 587 BCE with the established date 539 BCE for the fall of Babylon wisely chosen by WT scholars in 1949 some 75 years ago. What genius! What a masterstroke in biblical scholarship! A fact in which I repeatedly informed the late Alan F on this and other forums. May he rest in peace.

33 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

he Bible, by the way, does NOT say it was the first year of Cyrus, or the accession year of Cyrus when Babylon fell in 539. As you are aware, of course, Cyrus had already been ruling for the past 20 years before 539 BCE, as the ruler of the Persian Empire since c. 559 BCE, and the ruler of the Medes since 549 BCE, and the ruler of Lydia since 547 BCE. 

Noted

37 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

In fact, didn't I recall you conjecturing on this very forum about whether a certain Darius the Mede had either an interregnum rule before Cyrus or a co-rule with Cyrus starting immediately after the 539 capture of Babylon? The Bible does say that the decree went out to release the Jews in the first year of Cyrus, and yet the Watchtower puts that within a few weeks of his SECOND year starting in Nisan 537 instead of his first year 538 as the book of Ezra says. This additional stretch of what Ezra simply calls the "first year of Cyrus" allows the Watchtower to minimize the adjustment from 606 to 536, which were Russell's (Barbour's) original assumptions about the fall of Jerusalem and the first year of Cyrus. At the time, most of the reference books already had the two events correctly dated at 587/6 and 538, respetively, but Russell and Barbour misread the Cyrus date, and used a reference that had already confused the first years of Nebuchadnezzar's domination (and taking of exiles) with the destruction of Jerusalem. If one looks at the fine print footnote about it in Bishop Elliott's Horae Apocalypticae (a huge standard work for Bible chronologist study) it becomes understandable how such a mistake could be made.

No it wasn't me. Whatever the case as with all good scholarship improvements or adjustments are made and that too is part of the history of our wondrous WT Bible Chronology.

39 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

So basically, the Watchtower is dependent, not on a tablet about Cyrus, but a clay tablet about the 7th year of a different king and the measurement and interpretation of a couple of lunar eclipses, to give a BCE date for that other king, which is then tied to Cyrus through a separate traditional "Kings List" that matched the one that Ptolemy used. Problem is, this would be the exact same Kings List as the one that gives us all the information about Nebuchadnezzar and all the other Neo-Babylonian kings. In fact, Cyrus' dates were originally considered accurate by Russell because he praised how good and reliable Ptolemy was -- that is until Russell realized that this was the same evidence that would demolished 606 (and 607). Then he trashed Ptolemy, but didn't have a good replacement for it and kept Cyrus' dates anyway. If we can have faith in this data for 539 then it's the same data that gives us 587 for the 19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar.  

So what. Better than plucking figures out of thin air and ignoring obvious historical and biblical facts about the Jewish Exile and Jeremiah's 70 years as presented in current scholarship. The data is similar being of a secular nature, the two events namely the Fall of Babylon under Cyrus and the Fall of Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzer are of similar biblical-historical and theological significance but it is the latter date that is contentious- 586 BCE? 587BCE? resolved by the establishment of 607 BCE which is incontravertible.

47 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

So, although we have some convolutions to go through to get the regnal years of Cyrus, we have no such issues with the regnal years of Nebuchadnezzar because much of the tablet evidence goes directly and simply to his regnal years. No assumptions necessary. 

Well if NB Chronology with its regnal years of Nebuchadnezzar is without issues, with no assumptions then how come it omits any reference to Neb's missing 7 years of dethronement and how is it that the 70 years is not mentioned in the NB historical record thus proving a Babylonian Gap of 20 years? I say bunkum!

scholar JW

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, scholar JW said:

The regnal years of Neb's reign may well be documented in the Babylonian record but not in the Biblical record

OK. Now we might be getting somewhere. Yes, the regnal years are better documented in the Babylonian record than the Biblical record. But you can still trust the Bible when it says that the 18-20-month+ events surrounding the city of Jerusalem happened in the 18th and 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar. It doesn't matter whether the Bible used Spring-to-Spring counting of new years or Fall-to-Fall counting of each newly counted year. We know we are in the right time period (within just a few months) if we use the well-documented Babylonian record for the way THEY calculated each year, which was consistent based on all their records, and supported by astronomical records, and their exact Nisan-to-Nisan method, and accession year method is supported by literally tens of thousands of always-consistent mundane business records. Furthermore, mundane business records have no religious agendas.  

The regnal years of Cyrus are not so well documented in the Biblical record and not quite as well documented in the secular record as Nebuchadnezzar's. But they are perfectly consistent with the method used by the Babylonians.