From the End of Judah=s Kingdom
& cp70' Secular Evidence Used. The 11th year of Zedekiah (3413th Year of Man) marked the end of the
kingdom of Judah. From this point to Christ=s time and the Christian Era system of dating we must rely
on secular evidence, especially astronomical cuneiform tablets and retro-calculation of past celestial
movements.
& cp71' Before we can even attempt to find the date of Christ=s birth or find out which year of man we
now live in, we need to connect the Year of Man system of dating to the Christian Era system. The
method of connection is principally through two astronomical cuneiform tablets. One can be dated 568 to
567 BC and the other can be dated from 523 to 522 BC.
& cp72' Both of these tablets note a year of a king and both mention certain dates, month and day, and
various astronomical events that happened on these dates. These tablets mention moon positions, eclipses
of the moon, and both mention position of planets. I have studied these tablets and I have used computer
programs to calculate the various years in which the position of the planets and the eclipses could have
occurred in the past. I have found that the astronomical tablets can only describe the year in which they
have been assigned by the experts. Because of the number of planets mentioned, because of the eclipses
mentioned, because of the dates mentioned, and because there is no proof of a major realignment of the
paths of the planets, sun, and moon since the time of the tablets, I believe these two tablets do identify
ancient absolute dates and do connect our system of dating to the Biblical and Babylonian system of
dating.
& cp73' If I had to trust the few experts alone to calculate and identify these tablets, I would be less
assured that these tablets were identifying absolute dates. It is because the latest methods of calculating
past position of astronomical bodies are available on personal computers, because I spent weeks using my
computer checking every conceivable way of disproving these dates, and because I examined the
translation of these tablets, I have changed my opinion and now believe that the Biblical chronology can
be linked to secular chronology through the use of these absolute dates.
Two Clay Tablets
& cp74' After years of studying chronology since 1969, and after I had come to the conclusion about
1979
that Ptolemy=s chronology was too dubious to rely on, I was at a loss for a method to connect my
Biblical chronology with the Christian Era system (BC-AD system). I had studied eclipses and I had
found that you could not identify a date with only one eclipse, especially the vague historical eclipses
found in various texts. (see, CP3) I had also studied various astronomical cuneiform tablets, but the ones I
was aware of did not seem to hold the answer to finding an absolute date. In my studies I had read
several books by Robert R. Newton and had found them very helpful. But in 1987 I read The Crime of
Claudius Ptolemy, first published in 1977. In it Newton mentions two clay tablets. One is dated 523-522
BC, in the 7th year of Cambyses, and the other dated 568-567 BC, in the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar.
They were identified with these dates because of the astronomical information included within these
tablets.
& cp75' Concerning the tablets dated 568-567 BC, Newton said, AI find that the times of moonrise and
moonset agree with calculated values within 10 minutes. The longitudes of the moon and planets inferred
from the conjunctions agree with calculated values within 1 degree or less for most observations, although
there is a discrepancy of 3 degrees for one lunar conjunction.@ (Crime of ..., p. 375)
& cp76' Although Newton wasn=t as satisfied with the tablet for the 7th year of Kambyses (Cambyses),
he
stated:
AThus we have quite strong confirmation that Ptolemy=s list is correct for Nebuchadrezzar,
and reasonable confirmation for Kambyses.@ (Crime of . . ., p. 375)
& cp77' After reading this I began my search for copies and/or translations of these tablets. I wrote
Newton
for any further information he might have, but he could not supply any except to note that he believed
that the tablets were correctly dated and that they could not describe any other date within decades of the
identified ones. (letter, Dec 23, 1987)
& cp78' I finally obtained copies of these tablets and used several computer programs to check them. In
my studies I have found that they could not have been any other date: the position of the planets
were unique to the years assigned to them.
Clay Tablet # 1: Tablet VAT 4956
37th Year, 568-567 BC
& cp79' The tablet that describes the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar and various planet positions within
that
year is the cuneiform tablet known as VAT 4956. I have a copy of the autograph of this tablet made by
E. Weidner which is found as Plate XVII in Archiv Fur Orientforschung, Band XVI, 1953. It is also
transcribed and discussed by P.V. Neugebauer and E. Weidner in Ber. Sachs. Akad. 67 (Leipzig 1915)
and is
cataloged in A.J. Sachs= Late Babylonian Astronomical And Related Texts, 1955, page xii. The AVAT@
before the number of the tablet (VAT 4956) means this tablet is in Berlin in the Staatliche Museen.
(Sachs, p.
xxxix) I also obtained an English copy of VAT 4956 from the University of California at Berkeley in 1997
from the book, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts From Babylonia, by Abraham J. Sachs, Volume
I. Also on various pages in Robert R. Newton=s 1976 book, Ancient Planetary Observations ..., Newton
has information on the data from this tablet. (Ancient Planetary Observations ..., Newton; pp. 110,
131-141, 145, 336,
345, 348, 352, 503, 511, 513, 519, 524)
& cp80' This document records among other things, A9 measurements of the times of moonrise or
moonset, 5 times of conjunctions of the moon with specified stars, plus 1 conjunction of Mercury, 2 of
Venus, and 3 of Mars, all with specified stars.@ (Newton, 1977, p. 375)
Names of Kings in Clay Tablets
& cp81' This document does mention Nebuchadnezzar by his full name. It begins with Ayear thirty seven
[of] Nebukadnezar@ The tablet uses word-signs or Ideograms for Nebuchadnezzar=s name. These
word-signs are not from the Akkadian language, but from the Sumerian language. Before April 7, 1997,
when I obtained an English copy of VAT 4956, I could not identify Nebuchadnezzar=s name in the tablet
because I was only looking for Akkadian words in my copy of the clay tablet. I thought wrongly that
some abbreviation was used in the tablet, and thus the reason I could not find the king=s name.
Abbreviations were used often in ancient texts:
AThe scribe uses, with the exception of writings A-lik-sa-an-dar and Pi-lip-su, abbreviations to
refer to the kings. Thus Seleucus is consistently written Si and Antiochus An, Demetrius Di
and Arsaces, probably, Ar; in line 5 Alexander is rendered by A-lik. The translation uses the
full names with the ordinals and the identifying Greek by-names for the convenience of the
reader.@ (The Ancient Near East: Supplementary Texts and Pictures Relating to the Old Testament,
Edited by James
B. Pritchard, 1969, page 131 [567] footnote 1)
But Nebuchadnezzar=s name is in the tablet: at least four times. On an edge of the tablet it also mentions
the 37th year and the 38th year of Nebuchadnezzar. In astronomical tablets, one will more than likely not
find the name of the king: you would find the year of the king, but not the name of the king. Many
astronomical tablets are and were identified as to BC-AD year by the astronomical information within the
tablet and through calculation (Sachs, 1955, p. vi), not by any king=s name within it.
Clay Tablet # 2
7th Year, 523-522 BC
& cp82' The tablet that describes the 7th year of Kambyses (Cambyses) and various astronomical
positions
is found in Franz Xaver Kugler=s Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel, published in 1907, pages 70-71.
Some information on this tablet is found in Newton=s 1976 book. (pp. 110, 131, 135, 139, 144, 503,
513, 523,
711-715)
& cp83' I have a copy of Kugler=s work on this tablet. On page 70 is the transliteration, and on page 71 is
the German translation. This tablet lists two eclipses of the moon, conjunctions or near conjunctions of
Mercury and Venus, Saturn and Venus, Mars and Jupiter, Saturn and Jupiter, Venus and Jupiter, Moon
and Mercury, Moon and Jupiter, and positions of Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and Mars in relationship to stars
or star constellations. (Virgo, Leo, etc.)