Posted by Bibleman [Bibleman] on November 02, 1999 at 21:26:22 {.c1iAaocfMMSSTtTA17sslyACFuF8c}:
In Reply to: **ASTROLOGERS MAGIC PRIESTS posted by DaJahVeu on November 02, 1999 at 16:00:44:
Hi DJ,
Thanks, glad you enjoyed the post.
607BCE is a mixture of Biblical and pagan dating. That is, after the WTS discovered that the only date that everybody seemed to agree on and that seemed fairly solid was 539BCE for the fall of Babylon, they adjusted the date for the return of the Jews in 537BCE,two years later. And they assumed that the land was complete desolated from 70 years earlier in the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar, the year Jerusalem was destroyed, and that is where 607BCE came from.
But all that chronology as stated, is entirely revised and entirely based, therefore on revised records. You can tell by the inconsistency of contemporary records this period of history was revised. There are no contemporary records for this period that can be used for dating past the middle of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. But, of course, there are two primary things wrong with 607BCE.
1) 539BCE is part of the revised chronology and is the wrong date. Jerusalem really fell in 529BCE.
2) The 70-year desolation period didn'be begin until the 23rd year, the year of the last deportation from Jerusalem (Jer. 52:30; compare 44:14, 28). And this, interestingly enough is specifically stated by Josephus in his "Antiquities." So 607BCE doesn't work on several counts.
Everything works out perfectly, however, when the correct date for the 1st of Cyrus and the fall of Jerusalem are used. It is a 74-year period just as Josephus states.
As far as my authority for the astronomical texts, there are many, many references. The critical two texts are the "VAT4956" and the "SK400" and the primary reference to the importance of those documents is a book written by an astronomer named Robert R. Newton, called The Crimes of Claudius Ptolemy. He basically dismisses Ptolemy's canon and isolates the "VAT4956" and the "SK400" as the critical references for dating the Neo-Babylonian period. But this was before the double-dating was found in both documents. His final summary about Ptolemy was:
"It is clear that no statement made by Ptolemy can be accepted unless it is confirmed by writers who are totally independent of Ptolemy on the matters in question. All research in either history or astronomy that has been based upon the Syntaxis must ow be done again.I do not know what others may think but to me there is only one final assessment: The Synthaxis has done more damage to astronomy than any other work ever written, and astronomy would be better off it had never existed.
Thus Ptolemy is not the greatest astronomer of antiquity, but he is something still more unusual: He is the most successful fraud in the history of science."
Pretty strong words.
And as I've mentioned before, the only really comprehensive analysis of astronomical texts outside of Carl Jonssson in his Gentiles Times Revisited is that of Professor Otto Neugebaur himself. He analyzes thousands of astronomical texts in several volumes that are standard at every university. So if you really want to get a quick grasp of what "astrochronology" is really all about, you should just go directly to his volumes. But you'll quickly find an apology by him since all the documents basically only come from the Seleucid Era. He only has a couple of pages dealing with texts that would shed light on the dating of the Neo-Babylonian period. One text he reviews is the "SK400" reference to the Tammuz 14 eclipse. No mention is made of the second eclipse in that text occuring on Tebet 14. And he also reviews the Assyrian eponym list solar eclipse currently dated in 763BCE but easily redated to its correct date of 709BCE. And that's it. It's about five pages dealing with ancient dating. The rest are volumes of technical analyses of eclipses and planetary movements all dated from the Seleucid Period which is of little use since chronology was back on track by then.
Chronology is back on track by 359 which is the beginning of the reign of Artaxerxes III.
The other "authority" used are just reference works used to examine the ancient texts. None of them deal with the double dating in these texts, so you have to use your own astronomical program or eclipse canon to look these up yourself. But all the programs are quite competent and sensationally accurate. I prefer the "Skymap" program myself since it's graphics are so great. And I use two standard eclipse canon references. The only one in print is Canon of Lunar Eclipses, 1500 BCE to 3000 AD by Bao-Lin Liu and Alan D. Fiala. I also have an electronic eclipse program put out by Zypher called "Eclipse Complete". It does both lunar and solar eclipses.
Of course, the "Insight" volume discusses the value of astronomical texts and the gaps in the Neo-Babylonian contemporary texts, so that's a very good basic source to begin with. You can read their "Chronology" section, and then read the sections they have on "Assyria", "Babylon, Babylonia" and "Persia" and also each of the kings for these periods, especially that of "Darius, the Mede" and "Artaxerxes". There is also a nice section on "Archaeology" as well.
So there's quite a bit of reference works out there. It's a small field so most sources quote from other sources. For instance, COJ is very much focussed on the "VAT4956" which he calls the "most important astronomical text" but the WTS dismisses this text but does quote from the "SK400" for the 523BCE dating for Year 7 of Kambyses; of course, incompetently dated to that year since the interval is too large, the eclipses belong to Year 7 of Nebuchadnezzar in 541BCE.
So there are not that many sources, but a few very critical ones.
Hope that was a help.
Cheers,
Bibleman