Posted by COJ on March 15, 1999 at 02:00:00 {MWU4XIuTGLAZk}:
In Reply to: OK, CARL, YOU WIN....VAT4956 posted by Gary on March 14, 1999 at 12:04:39:
Hi Gary,
You seem to have missed my points
almost completely.
NEW MOONS AND THE 1ST OF THE MONTH:
As to your June 24 date for the 5th of
Simanu, I did discuss this, pointing
out that, according to Parker and
Dubberstein's tables, the new moon
that month appeared in the evening of
June 21st. The 5th of Simanu, therefore,
cannot have fallen as early as the 24th.
Of course, you may argue that there is
an uncertainty of one
day in Parker/
Dubbersten's tables (see page 25), but
then you have to allow this for all
the four dates in 568 and 511 BC. This
would mean that the 9th of Nisan in
568 BC fell on April 29 instead of on
April 30,
and the 5th of Sivan in 568 BC
fell on June 23 instead of June 24. If
these changes, based on the possibility
that the new moon was observed one day
earlier, are allowed for, the observations
in lines 3 and 14 would fit
excellently
for the year 568 BC! You can easily check
this with SkyMap.
Anyway, you cannot just ignore the Julian
dates modern astronomers have calculated
for the new moons in the 6th century BC,
as the first day of
the Babylonian month
was determined by the observation of the
first appearance of each new moon after
sunset (when the day began in the
Babylonian calendar).
Your statement that the two observations
"do not fit
568BCE under any circumstances
unless you change the text," therefore,
is wrong. If you allow yourself to change
Parher/Dubberstein's dates for the first
day of the month for your 511 BC dates,
you have to allow the same
for the 568 BC
dates.
THE METON CYCLE:
It was you, not I, who brought the Meton
cycle into the discussion. So I find it
strange that you no delcare this cycle
irrelevant. If you believe that this
cycle was used
in some way by the
Babylonians in the Neo-Babylonian
period to fix the beginning of the
months, you are totally wrong, and I
explained this to you.
I pointed out the it is not in complete
agreement with the solar
year, and that
the lunar positions, therefore, even if
the are nearly the same after three cycles
(57 years), there is a difference of
several degrees which may show which of
the two years (in 568 or 511) that best
fits the observations recorded in the text.
Carl