Thanks JC.
You have mentioned there was a revised Jewish timeline but have not given any evidence for such.
A better phrase would be revised Neo-Babylonian timeline. The evidence is Josephus, Ant. 11.1.1 and other references. Here is that reference:
IN the first year of the reign of Cyrus which was the seventieth from the day that our people were removed out of their own land into Babylon, God commiserated the captivity and calamity of these poor people, according as he had foretold to them by Jeremiah the prophet, before the destruction of the city, that after they had served Nebuchadnezzar and his posterity, and after they had undergone that servitudeseventy years, he would restore them again to the land of their fathers, and they should build their temple, and enjoy their ancient prosperity
Per the above text, the Jews interpret the 70-year period of servitude mentioned by Jeremiah as occuring the day the people were finally removed off the land, meaning the last deportation, year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar. The Bible at Jer. 52:30 does confirm a year 23 last deportation of a few souls of 700+. If that is the case, you have a RELATIVE interval established from year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar to the 1st of Cyrus. Note this is not related to any ABSOLUTE DATE. The Period from the 18th of Nebuchadnezzar now dated to 587 BCE to the Jewish return in 537 BCE is only 50 years. The interval from year 23 would be 5 years less, a period of only 45 years, where per Josephus this same period is 70 years. So you've got about a 25-year discrepancy here. (70 minu 45=25). Since Josephus' reference can be coordinated Scripturally and is not otherwise contradicted, the presumption would be that the Babylonians must have revised their timeline, or someone later in history who had control over the Babylonian records, which would include the Persians.
The discrepancy is the evidence of revisionism. Again, this is RELATIVE. That means I have not contradicted 587 BCE as the year of Jerusalem's fall. I'm just saying if you are confident about 587 BCE as an ABSOLUTE date, to harmonize with Jewish and Biblical RELATIVE chronology you have to date the 1st of Cyrus and the return of the Jews 70 years later, which would be 517 BCE. So it's not really about 587 BCE or 607 BCE but that interval that the NB timeline does not allow. Basically, the Biblical and Jewish secular timeline is 26 years longer than the secular NB records are reflecting now.
I admit that i not a bible scholar, but have taken 587BCE as the date, based upon Zedekiah's elevenths year reign and also Nebuchadnezzars reign starting in 605BCE. From what i have read most scholars dispute between 586 and 587BCE, but i have never heard of anything different.
587 BCE would be Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year and 586 BCE his 19th year. Jerusalem fell specifically in the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar which matches year 11 of Zedekiah, not the 18th year, just as a technical note. That is, Zedekiah was appointed, per the Bible after Jehoiachin was deported, who was deported on the very last day of year 8 of Nebuchadnezzar. So basically Zedekiah began his rule in year 9 of Nebuchadnezzar, an 8-year difference. Thus year 19 of Nebuchnezzar matches year 11 of Zedekiah. Simple.
I don't want you to focus on this right now because I don't want you to get distracted, but the reason for that 1-year issue is because the revised Babylonian Chronicle combined the events of the accession year of Nebuchadnezzar with his first year, so everything is a year earlier. Thus you'll find the Bible clearly dating the deportation of Jehoiachin in year 8 of Nebuchadnezzar, but the Babylonian Chronicle claiming it was in year 7, a 1-year discrepancy. Scholars have loosely thought two different accounting systems explain the year difference, but that's not the case, it was due to the revised dating. The Bible's specific events for the reign of Nebuchadnezzar are thus one year off from the revised Babylonian Chronicle which was copied in year 22 of Darius per it's own dated reference for that text. So it is not a contemporary original Babylonian record, but a Persian Period revised record that distorts the chronology of Nebuchadnezzar by 1 year. So trying to harmonize the Babylonian Chronicle with the Bible, they presume there is no contradiction, just a variation in dating systems that are presumed to harmonize with each other. But that's not the case. BUT DON'T FOCUS ON THIS. This is just a little bit of precision I'm giving you since you mentioned the 587 vs 586 BCE chronology. The only thing you need to know is that year 11 matches only year 19, and that the Bible specifically dates the fall of Jerusalem in year 19, which is 586 and not 587 BCE. But this would be a minor issue when you have a 25 to 26-year discrepancy in the RELATIVE chronology of the surviving NB records and the Jewish secular records from Josephus which completely agree with the Biblical timeline as well of a longer NB Period.
As i have said i am not a bible scholar but if you say that there are two Jewish timelines i would like to see the evidence for such, rather that just you saying so. I am open minded and if there is evidence i would be interested to see it.
Oh great. Someone who is willing to explore the evidence first before making up their mind. You are a person after my own heart. I have already given you the two timelines. Josephus claims a 70-year interval between the last deportation, year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar and the 1st of Cyrus. This is a 45-year interval in the NB records. This is a RELATIVE reference.
The VAT4956 now becomes the center of the issue because it contains two dates for year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar, which is 568 BCE and 511 BCE. 568 BCE aligns with the 587 BCE chronology, dating year 19 of Nebuchadnezzar to 586 BCE. But the 511 BCE dating dates year 19 of Nebuchadnezzar to 529 BCE. But of more critical note, 511 BCE dates year 23 to 525 BCE, which if you apply the 70 years I mentioned from Josephus, it dates the 1st of Cyrus to 455 BCE. 455 BCE for the 1st of Cyrus is the date Biblicalists who believe Cyrus must fulfill the 70 weeks prophecy have already settled on.
So that's basically the center of the issue, the VAT4956, whether or not year 37 is accurate to 568 BCE or if the 511 BCE was the true dating. Even though, academically, the cryptic date, which is 511 BCE would preempt the the 568 BCE dating automatically. So technically, our best textual evidence for the true date is first 511 BCE, the VAT4956 actually is evidence that the 568 BCE dating is spurious and revised. BUT, we can still do as you say and examine the pros and cons from each chronology if you wish and you can decide which one you prefer, to go with Babylonian records copied during the Seleucid Period like the Babylonian Chronicle that already contradict the Bible's timeline, or go with Josephus and the Bible's RELATIVE chronology, and the VAT4956 ABSOLUTE chronology, which ends up dating Jerusalems fall in year 19 in 529, the last deportation in 525 BCE, and 70 years later the 1st of Cyrus to 455 BCE.
Also if there are two timelines, how do you know which one is the correct one to take?
Exactly! Which one to take? Well, you might not feel at the end of an investigation you can take either. But you can always examine the pros and cons, the evidence on both sides to make your decision.
For instance, Josephus vs the Babylonian records shows a 26-year discrepancy. Who to believe. When we examine which Babylonian records are available we notice the Babylonian Chronicle exists but it is a "copy" from the Persian Period in year 22 of Darius II. So we immediately presume the text is a revised document and thus cannot be used to challenge Josephus. It is not a contemporary true Babylonian text, but a Persian text. At this point, we know the Persians revised the Babylonian records and thus the Babylonian records are less reliable than Josephus or the Bible. It goes from there.
The VAT4956 with two dates, proves the astronomical texts aligned to the 587 BCE chronology are all fabricated from the Seleucid Period. Thus the critical comparison date now from the Babylonian text is the 511 BCE date, presumed to be a cryptic reference to the original chronology. That is compared to the RELATIVE chronology of Josephus and the Bible for that 70-year interval from year 23 to the 1st of Cyrus. When we do that, as I said, we end up with 455 BCE as the 1st of Cyrus, which was already the Biblical date for some for the 1st of Cyrus who consider Cyrus needing to fulfill the "70 weeks" prophecy. Thus you have an ABSOLUTE dating from the VAT4956 dictating the ABSOLUTE date for year 23 in 455 BCE, which gives you the RELATIVE date of 455 BCE based upon the Bible and Josephus' timelines.
70 WEEK PROPHECY CHOICES: The above is on the Secular vs Bible vs Jewish chronology issues. But on the side of determining the chronology of the NB Period based upon the "70 weeks" prophecy, which links the baptism of Christ in 29 CE to when the "word goes forth to rebuild Jerusalem" you basically have two primary choices also to choose from, after it is clear that 455 BCE must date the beginning of the prophecy:
1) You can go with JWs and others and try to adjust the dating of the 20th year of Artaxerxes to 455 BCE. That is the year Nehemiah rebuilt the walls and Jerusalem and so is considered a fulfillment of this prophecy. Except his work only took 52 days and some work in the city had already begun, like the temple being completed many years earlier. Making this adjustment involves a 10-year adjustment in the secular timeline.
2) You can follow Martin Anstey who wrote "The Romance of Bible Chronology" and date 455 BCE to the 1st of Cyrus, when the initial work on the city, the wall and the temple actually began. In that case, you need to make an 82-year adjustment in the current secular timeline during the Persian Period.
So you have a CHOICE and there is plenty of information pro and con supporting both of these choices. However, the VAT4956 preempts ALL levels of historical information, establishing 511 BCE as the original date for the NB Period for year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar. Per the VAT4956 dating year 37 to 511 BCE, again, year 1 of Cyrus would fall in 455 BCE. That matches #2 scenario for "70 weeks" prophecy dating choices, so basically, we're done here. There is no recovery at this point for any other chronology, since you cannot legitimately recover past the VAT4956 511 BCE dating. The critical text was to coordinate that with Biblical dating and since the 1st of Cyrus was always the preferred interpretation, you now have the preferred first-choice interpretation of the "70 weeks" prophecy fulifilled by Cyrus for 455 BCE for RELATIVE Biblical dating, confirmed by the direct evidence of the original NB dating in an astronomical text that involves ABSOLUTE dating. But you can actually LOOK at the evidence before you make up your mind. I have just given you the choices to consider.
Most academics must take the original was as the true one if they point to 586 or 587 as the date for the fall of Jerusalem.
Not correct. The Jews have always claimed the Persian Period was too long and that there were too many kings. That's one issue. They have their own rabbinical timeline disagreeing with the above. Secondly, the Jews identify the Nehemiah who returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel as the same Nehemiah who served as cupbearer to Artaxerxes and lived down into the reign of Darius II. To do that you need Nehemiah to have been over 143+ years of age. Not likely, so the WTS and others pretend that there are two different Nehemiahs and that the chronological order of Ezra Nehemiah has been distorted. Not so when we are considering reducing the Persian Period by 82 years. So the popular chronology based upon the archaeological evidence from Babylon is just that, a preference to the Babylonian and Greek references. They are experts on what that represents, but ignore the other contradictory evidence. So even if secular scholars who want to follow the pagan records all use that revised timeline, it doesn't mean the Bible scholars do, or that these scholars are representing the implied best Biblical timeline. Furthermore, the secular scholars are notoriously anti-Biblical and get caught lying all the time. They are dishonest and deceitful like the WTS. That's just the way it goes.
BUT you, don't have to deal with that. All you really need to do is inform yourself of the various timelines and the theoretical evidence supporting them. Be informed of all the timelines and don't make up your mind on any of them, or make up your mind on the best argument. But know that the 587 BCE chronology is not the only timeline, it's just the secular timeline based on Greek records, which were revised as well. So it's fine these scholars reject the Bible and are expert in that timeline. That has backfired now because of the VAT4956, but in this case academic bias is set aside as confirming anything, and we can examine the actual issues and actual evidence. As I said, the Babylonian Chronicle is a copy from year 22 of Darius II so what can a scholar confirm from a revised text? Nothing. Scholars see something in stone and they become irrational after that point. People lie in stone as much as on paper.
Going back to what i originally said though, was to inform the new poster that the JW's do have it wrong with 607BCE.
Yes, it is wrong. But is it wrong because 587 BCE is right? Or because 529 BCE is right? WHY is 607 BCE wrong? It is potentially wrong on several counts:
1) The 70 years don't begin in year 18 of Nebuchadnezzar, but year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar, confirmed by both Josephus and the Bible. So it's wrong by 5 years based upon RELATIVE Biblical and Jewish historical sources.
2) 607 BCE can be considered wrong based on secular records that date year 18 of Nebuchadnezzar to 587 BCE, if you want to go there. But the VAT4956 confirms that 587 BCE is a spurious date.
3) 607 BCE is wrong per the VAT4956 dating year 37 to 511 BCE and thus the fall of Jerusalem in year 19 to 529 BCE.
You think it is wrong based upon #2. But #2 is wrong based upon #3. Either #1, #2 or #3 are potential bases for dismissing 607 BCE as erroneous. Your choice.
Saying that i haven't learnt anything is a very condescending line to take.
Paul
YOU are doing well! The secret to this is just to look at ALL the theories. Don't listen to me. Don't listen to anybody. Hear all the arguments and then make up your own mind. Generally, though, you will find an avoidance of Josephus' 70-year reference to beginning at the time of the last deportation, which should be a primary reference since it reflects how Jews themselves historically interpret when Jeremiah's prophecy took place. This reference should come before we start parsing words and interpreting various texts to come up with alternative 70-year scenarios. What is the HISTORICAL scenario for the 70 years per the JEWS THEMSELVES? That has to be relevant. It's never brought up. So these arguments start off totally spurious in the first place and land all over the place, which is fine for the anti-Biblicalists, who don't mind given you several wrong choices as long as you never arrive at the right choice, the truth. Thanks for your post!!! JC
