JEFFRO: First, thanks again for your feedback. You first stated "comparison between verse 12 and 28 of Jeremiah 52." This didn't make sense though a point could be made for verse 29, so I presumed this was an error on your part, which you did seem to correct later when you said: " as is indicated in the interpolation at Jeremiah 52:29. This is called his 19th year in Jeremiah 52:12, because Jeremiah counts the accession year."
So if I'm understanding you correctly you are associating the deportation in the 18th year as the same deportation in the 19th year, rather than two separate deportations in both the 18th and 19th years. This I follow, however, I see no mention of any deportation in year 19, that is, the year Jerusalem fell, except for king Zedekiah. Nebuchadnezzar killed a lot of people and then left the poor people in the land. So I'm interpreting this as a deportation in the 18th year while Jerusalem was under siege just as the Bible says. The 18th year deportation is an entirely separate event. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that there was a deportation in year 19. So you are confusing the two.
Of note, you said: Again, Jeremiah isn't the author of Jeremiah 52:28-30. The final verse of chapter 51 indicates the end of that scroll by Jeremiah. Chapter 52 is mostly a copy from 2 Kings, but the 3 interpolated verses in question are from Babylonian sources and do not appear in 2 Kings.
Per the "Insight Book" the scroll was a distinct work by Jeremiah but he himself added the other references. They note on page 32, Vol 2, "It may be that, although the scroll written by Baruch was the basis for a large part of the book, JEREMIAH afterward editged and arranged it when adding later sections."
I'm not in a position to agree or disagree with the above, but my position is that those writings out of Babylon, like Jeremiah and possibly some supplemental unknown author, as well as Ezra, all consistently used the "accession year" system in reference to Nebuchadnezzar II. Again, it is not clear anyone except Zedekiah was deported in year 19 and thus the deportees mentioned deported in year 18 was on a different occasion. So verse 12 and verse 29 are not seen by me to be related at all.
You said: "Again, the Bible is quite clear that Evil-Merodach was king when Jehoiachin was released, and says nothing of Nebuchadnezzar's reign extending that far."
The critical reference here is the specificity of when Jehoiachin was released, as verse 31 says: "At length it came about in the thirty-seventh year of he exile of Jehoiachin the king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, that Evil-merodach the king of Babylon, in the year of his becoming king, aised up the head of Jehoiachin."
Under the accession year system the year Evil-merodach became king would be his accession year, thus the same year of the death of Nebuchadnezzar II. That being the case, the rule of Nebuchadnezzar would have been a period of 45 years rather than 43. Again, this is very simple math. Year 19 of Nebuchadnezzar corresponds to year 11 of Zedekiah, so 11 months of his first year were during the 9th year of Nebuchadnezzar. When the exile of Jehoiachin parallels this, his being deported on the very last day of year 8, then most of his exile, even into the 12th month, maintains an 8-year difference from the rule of Nebuchadnezzar. Thus year 37 of Jehoiachin in the last month of the year would be year 45 of Nebuchadnezzar II (37+8=45), the same year Evil-Merodach became king, which was during this accession year.
LS
