Posted by How and Why? [Bibleman] on November 17, 1999 at 03:18:40 {xx2d.1sWpQMSSTtTA17sslyACFuF8c}:
Did you know that Cyrus was born 15 years before his
own mother? That's right! And the reason for this
historical discrepancy is because of a famous eclipse.
It underscores how critical astronomy and astronomical
dating is to ancient history. You see, only with an
anstronomical event can you absolute-date an
event in ancient history. All other dates can be moved
around depending upon when you date some other event.
So some dates are flexible dates and others are
FIXED dates. The astronomical dates are fixed because
they can't be moved. They belong to a specific year.
And that's basically the background of this situation.
You see, the ancients changed their chronology and
history all the time. It was not the exception but
more like the rule. If a king had a short rule,
for instance, and he wanted to go down in history for
having a longer rule, he'd often simply look at the
historical records and see where he could "steal" some
time from. For instance, a former king might have
ruled for 40 years. So the records would be changed
to reflect he only ruled for 30 years and then the
king changing the records would add those years to
his rule. And all the dates would change accordingly.
That's what happened in the case of Cyrus. He was
born in 516 B.C.E. But there were two historical
revisions to expand the Persian Period which got his
birthdate moved back to 600 BCE which is 15 years
before his mother could have been born.
But you might ask, why didn't his mother's birthdate
change in conjunction with that of Cyrus'? The reason
why is because of all women, her birth is linked with
an eclipse event which makes her date fixed in time.
It is fixed to the famous eclipse event dated in 585BCE
which is the date currently ascribed to the famous
Lydian-Median peace agreement after which the son and
daughter of opposite sides married and they had a
daughter who became the mother of Cyrus. So Cyrus'
mother had to be born after his grandparents got
married. But because this was connected with an
eclipse, the time of her birth can't be changed. It
has to remain sometime as 585BCE. Whereas Cyrus'
birth can be adjusted and adapted to whatever changes
are made. Here are those changes:
Cyrus was originally born in 516 B.C.E. But then
26 years were taken from the Neo-Babylonian Period to
extend the Persian Period by 26 years. This floated
Cyrus' birthdate back to 542 B.C.E. The famous
eclipse of the Lydian-Median agreement originally
occurred in 478 B.C.E. and Cyrus overthrew Astyages,
his father-in-law shortly thereafter in 475 B.C.E.
But now the overthrow of Asytages was moved back
26 years with all the rest of the history from 475
B.C.E. to 501 B.C.E. The problem is, what about the
eclipse? It is a fixed date to 478BCE and you can't
move eclipses around.
So they did the next best thing which was find the
next available eclipse to substitute for that event.
And the next available one was in 585BCE. But that
was some 84 years earlier. So to make up for all
that time, they dated the event not during the time
of Cyrus, but basically three generations earlier,
during the time of his great-grandfather. So what
the historians did was made his wife, his mother,
and that made Astyages, his father-in-law, now his
grandfather. And then they dated the battle during
the reign of the father of Aystages, Cyaxares. Thus
there was now sufficient generations to fill up the
80 years that was between the time Cyrus overthrew
Astyages and when the battle was fought. So at
the time Herodotus wrote his history, which was just
before the Peloponnesian War, the new Lydian-Median
peace agreement got FIXED to the 585BCE eclipse, and
all the generations in between were in harmony.
But then something happened to history later on. When
Thucydides wrote his history of the Peloponnesian
War he included events in Persian history such as
the year that Artaxerxes died in the 8th year of
the war in 396BCE. The original plan for the
historical revisionism was to try and claim that
Xerxes and Artaxerxes were different kings, but they
were not. The first revision was to adjust the age
of Darius, the father of Xerxes, by adding 30 years
to his 6-year rule. They got 26 years of adjusted
chronology from the Neo-Babylonian period. But now
when Artaxerxes died, he claimed a full 41 years so
that based upon the actual chronology of the
Peloponnesian War, it was clear that there was not
enough time in history for Xerxes to rule 21 years
separately from Artaxerxes. So another historical
revision was proposed.
This revision was done by Xenophon who revised the
history of Thucydides. Originally there was just
20 years between the battle of Salamis and the
beginning of the Peloponnesian War (424 vs 403 BCE).
So they decided to add 30 years and make it a
50-year gap. That took care of the chronology for
an extra 21-year rule for Xerxes separate from
Artaxerxes. But then they ran into another eclipse
problem.
There was a well-known eclipse which occurred during
the first year of the Peloponnesian War. It was very
famous because Pericles was said to have been on
a boat in the Athens harbor when it happened and it
was a historical account often recounted of how it
suddenly got dark and his crew freaked out and how
he calmed them down by showing them it is no more
different than just shutting your eyes and it becomes
dark, etc. Thus simply adding 30 years to history
would mean there was no coordinated eclipse event
during the first year of the Peloponnesian War.
So a suitable eclipse was found in 431BCE. It was
perfect! That's because this was during the Olympic
cycle and whatever eclipse event used to substitute
had to fall within the same year of that cycle so
that the history matched. 431BCE was 28 years
(divisible by 4) from 403BCE. Thus when the total
revisions were completed, a total of 58 years were
added to Greco-Persian history. No problem.
All that happened on paper was that everything in
history was simply pushed back in time 58 years.
Thus Cyrus' already adjusted birthdate now in 542
B.C.E. got pushed back 58 years to 600 B.C.E. where
it is now. And the overthrow of Astyages which was
then in 501BCE got pushed back to 58 years to 559BCE
where it is now. But one date they could not change
was that of Cyrus' mother! They didn't have to
change the battle of the Lydian-Median peace agreement
since there was plenty of time for that event to
still occur before the overthrow of Asytages. So
585BCE was still a good pre-559BCE date. But the
birth of Cyrus' mother which was also linked to this
event didn't fare so well. And that's because now
her son, Cyrus, was born 15 years before her parents
were even married!
And nobody bothered adjusting the history of Herodotus
to make any adjustment, thus we now have this bit of
embarrassing history.
But there is more to it now than this. An
astrochronologist would immediately recognize this
situation as an indication for historical revisionism.
That's because it is a historical event that has a
FIXED astronomical date, compared to a flexible date.
Cyrus' mother's birth is FIXED to post-585BCE whereas
Cyrus' birthdate is flexible to move to wherever the
last revision took place.
That's why it can't be emphasized enough that once
you know Cyrus is born 15 years before his own mother,
you automatically know that history has been revised
post Herodotus' history to the tune of at least 45 to
55 years! That's because, figuring loosely, you
figure that perhaps it was 10 years before the mother
was born and then she had to grow up and would have
had Cyrus maybe between 20 and 30 years of age.
So you're looking at 10 plus 20-30 plus the original
15 years from 600 to 585BCE. So that adds up to
45 to 55 years of revised history at least!
But guess what? What do you think archaeologists say
when you bring this up to them that Cyrus was born
15 years before his own mother? They say nothing!
How can they? What can anybody say? Because no matter
what, once you make an adjustment this big, the entire
chronology will fall.
At any rate, that's the story of why Cyrus' birth is
dated 15 years before that of his own mother, and that
is solely because of the power of FIXED astronomical
dating. This also explains where we get the date for
the fall of Babylon in 539BCE.
You see, there is a known 20-year period from the
overthrow of Astyages and when Cyrus would become
king at Babylon. The current dating is from 559BCE to
539BCE. So 539BCE is based upon that 20-year
interval.
But as we have seen, 559 B.C.E. is the direct result
of two specific revisions totalling 84 years. First
a 26-year revision which was compensated for by the
reduction of the Neo-Babylonian period, which is
why there is a conflict in the Bible and secular
history for this period. And then a NON-COMPENSATED
addition of 58 years of fake Greco-Persian Period
added after Herodotus wrote his history and made
his adjustments. The combined 58 and 26 years
totals 84 years and that is why the overthrow of
Astyages now dated in 559BCE is 84 years earlier
than it originally was in 475 B.C.E. (559-84=475).
Of course, once we know this, we can easily calculate
when Cyrus became king at Babylon by just subtracting
20 years from 475BCE which gives us 455 B.C.E.
(475-20=455 B.C.E.). And this date is now confirmed
by astronomical text! Remember, you can't change
astronomical dates. They are the only method of
absolute dating.
These two texts are the VAT4956 which has double-dating
to 511BCE for year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar II, and the
SK400 which has double-dating to 541BCE, Year 7 of
Nebuchadnezzar. These two dates put the 19th year
of Nebuchadnezzar II in 529BCE. And per the Bible
and Josephus, the Jews would return from Bablyonian
exile 74 years later. 74 years after 529BCE gives you
the same year of 455 B.C.E. for the return from
exile and the 1st of Cyrus. (529=74=455 B.C.E.).
Now how do we know this all happened one might ask?
RESEARCH! You can look this up yourself. But the
reason why we really can restore the chronology to
it's original place is because in order to make
these revisions, all the original, CONTEMPORARY
records had to be destroyed. And that is the major
clue that the Neo-Babylonian period was revised, and
that is because of the inconsistency in contemporary
records from that period. All the history is based
upon REVISED/COPIED documents from later periods.
Therefore, there is nothing to prevent readjusting
the chronology back to its original timing since you
can't use non-contemporary documents are reliable
historical sources.
Once again, however, little discrepancies like this
which fell through the cracks of this major historical
revision have come forth to prove the Bible's
chronology is absolutely true since the Bible's own
chronology based upon the 70 weeks prophecy beginning
483 years from 29CE when the Messiah appeared also
requirest the 1st of Cyrus to fall in 455BCE and the
19th year of Nebuchadnezzar II to fall in 529BCE.
And here is one final comparison. Please note that
the original dating for the reign of Nebuchadnezzar
was not affected by the first 26-year revision of
the Neo-Babylonian period. So even though some dates
were moved up, the fall of Jerusalem remained the
same after the first revision. But it was the second
revision that changed things. Thus we know exactly
what the second revision was based upon the original
date for the fall of Jerusalem in 529BCE and it's
current date. Add 58 years to 529BCE and you get
587BCE. And that is really where the 587BCE dating
comes from.
When the revisions were made though, astronomical
texts were revised to reflect that dating, including
the VAT4956 which shows the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar
falling in 568BCE. But this text was really designed
to preserve hidden references to the original
chronology so that the original chronology would not
be lost since all the ancient records were revised.
Therefore, the references to the original dating of
year 37 in 511 B.C.E. are also present in the text.
This proves not only the conspiracy to change the
dating to 568BCE, therefore, but it confirms what
the original dating for Year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar II
was which is 511BCE. And with this reference and
that of the SK400, we have ancient absolute dating
confirmation of the Bible's chronology for these
dates, in addition to no very strange historical
impossibilities such as a son being born 15 years
before his own mother!
Submitted,
Biblical Astrochronology Research Service