Posted by REPOST..SORRY [GLamotta] on March 30, 1999 at 02:42:13 {.Oe37V.qjQMSSTtTA17sboLUiPtahc}:
PART 1 OF 2
Carl Olof Jonsson has been after me
repeatedly to give him some details of
how I adjust the delta-T in line with
the Honolulu relocation. With his recent
post challenging the date of Jesus' baptism,
I thought
I may as well come clean and
explain how the delta-T scenario works
out as far as what choices I have.
Now I'm not pretending I know what I'm
doing, but the following is how the
empirical adjustments work out with
respect to Honolulu and the actual texts.
The challenge, of course, is to COORDINATE
all your references with the same adjustment
across the board.
The critical adjustments are all lunar and
involve lunar eclipses. The
critical lunar
eclipses which need to be coordinated are
1) The 1BCE eclipse dating the death of Herod
on Shebat 2, 1 AD. No specific time given.
2) The 479BCE eclipse in the seventh month
which dates the 2nd year of
Nabonidus. The
moon set while this eclipse took place.
3) The third is not really an eclipse event
that has to be matched but since we have the
absolute timing of this eclipse, it is our
PROOF TEXT ECLIPSE for the
adjustment of the
delta-T. Thus once the delta-T has been
adjusted specifically by this text, we then
make the standard adjustment in eclipse times
for the other two eclipses, adjusting for the
correct location, etc. This
specific timed
event is found in the SK400 and dates an
eclipse on Tammuz 14, 3 hours and 20 minutes
"after night" which has been determined to be
an offset from sunset of 32 minutes based upon
another text. In fact, you
can actually date
the eclipse within one minute by the other text
by Ptolemy which states this eclipse event
occurred "1 hour before Midnight." So that is a
specific time for this eclipse basically within
one minute.
So
what we do is simply compare the timing and then
see how that affects all the other eclipses. Thus
the following is not presented as "fact" but just
theory. That is, WHAT IF.... Let's see what
happens:
I'm going to keep
this very basic and brief so that
I don't lose anybody.
DATING SK400 TO 541BCE:
First of all, we presume that the Tammuz 14 eclipse
in the SK400 belongs not to 523BCE but to 541BCE.
That's because there are two eclipses
mentioned and
the specific times are given for each eclipse. Based
upon the Ptolemy text that dates the timing of the
Tammuz 14 eclipse based upon some records to 1 hour before Midnight, we have determined the "night" and
"morning" offset times is about 32 minutes. That is, sunset was at 7:09 in Tammuz and sunrise was at 7:19 in Tebet.
Over a period of a year the days/nights average out and so the total time for night is 12:10, that is, 12 hours
and
10 minutes. In other words, the late sunset of
summer cancels out in an equal way the late sunrise
in winter. Thus the average time of night would be
around 12 hours. But since the lunar year is about
11 days shorter than
the solar year, it is not exactly
12 hours. Thus we use precise sunrise and sunset times
to determine for these dates the actual period of night which comes close to 12 hours, of course, with an additional ten minutes at 12:10. The
ideal would have been sunrise at 7:09 p.m. and sunset at 7:09 a.m. in other words.
So we will be determining the eclipse interval based upon the actual timing of night at 12:10. The first eclipse was 3:20 before night and the second one was 5 hours "before morning." 3:20 and 5:00 = 8:20. Based upon the reference that the Tammuz 14 eclipse occurred 1 hour before Midnight, we can determine that the offset is 32 minutes. How?
Because sunset was at 7:09 p.m. If we add 3:20 to that time we get 10:29 p.m. 10:29 p.m. is 31 minutes from 11:00 p.m.
Since the Babylonians measured things in degrees, which is every 4 minutes, the closest 4-minute period is 32 minutes.
Thus, if the offset from sunset and sunrise for "night" and "morning" is 32 minutes, we must add two periods of 32 minutes to the 8:20 taken up by the times of the eclipses. That adds 1 hour and 4 minutes (2x32=64 min) to 8:20 which gives us a total of 9:24. It is 9:24, therefore, that we subtract from 12:10 to get are best estimated interval for these two eclipses. 12:10 is the same as 11:70; 11:70 minus 9:24 is 2:46. Thus the best corrected time for the interval for these two eclipses is 2:46.
What we now do is compare the interval times for the
eclipses from 523BCE and 541BCE. The 523BCE eclipse
interval is 4:46, which is a NON-MATCH. But the 541BCE
eclipse interval is 2:45 which is an ABSOLUTE MATCH
compared to 2:46 predicted. Therefore, we consider the
reference for these eclipses to be dated to 541BCE and
thus it is the timing of the Tammuz 14 541BCE eclipse
that we make our delta-T adjustment.
The context for the
541BCE eclipses is "year 7", so
when we date Nebuchadnezzar's reign to "year 7" in
541BCE, it dates his 19th year in 529BCE which is
the confirmed dating for the 19th year of
Nebuchadnezzar based upon the VAT4956 text
which
dates the 37th year of Neb-2 in 511BCE.
Continuing on, now....
MAKING THE FIRST ADJUSTMENT, 541BCE.
This is simple mathematics at this point, comparing the
times of the eclipses in the current eclipse canon
with
what they would be with the corrected dating. So here's the first one.
The timing for the Tammuz 14, 541BCE eclipse, per the canon of Liu and Fiala, dated July 5, -540 (541BC) begins at 12:14, London time. If we adjust that to Babylonian time, we add three hours which gives us a time of 15:14 or 3:14 p.m. Thus, the canon is saying that this eclipse which should have happened at 11:00 p.m. (2300) in Babylon, actually happened at 3:14 p.m. in Babylon. So we have a discrepancy in the timing of the eclipses as well as the implied earth's true rotational position per the canon versus the text.
The simplest way to determine the discrepancy is simply to subtract one number from the other. So if we subtract 15:14 from 23:00 we get a "forward" difference of 7:46; 7 hours 46 minutes. (23:00=22:60-15:14=7:46) However, the evidence shows that it wasn't 11:00 p.m. that night, but 11:00 p.m. EARLIER, the previous night. So the actual timing adjustment we want to make is not 7:46 but 16:14. (24:00=23:60-7:46=16:14).
THAT'S OUR WORKING DELTA-T OFFSET: MINUS 16 HOURS 14 MINUTES
ADJUSTING THE 29 DECEMBER, 1 BCE ECLIPSE:
The eclipse which happened just before
Herod's death we are dating on December 29, 0 (1 BC) per the Liu-Fiala canon. The eclipse occurred after an execution which according to Mark 15:25 might have occurred at the "third hour" of the night if that was the standard time for
executions. If that is the case, then we'd expect an eclipse that would have occurred after 9:00 p.m. Our general target time thus would be sometime
from 11:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. as a general parameter that would fit the historical
context. That's a 4-hour error margin. That might seem rather large, but it is a 4-hour possibility out of 24 hours to match up with the SK400 implied adjustment of 16:14. So let's see how we do.
The eclipse was almost a 60% eclipse (0.576) which began at 13:25 London time and thus at 15:25 Jerusalem time, (2-hr adjustment) which is 3:25 in the afternoon. Thus per the canon, the beginning of this eclipse would not have even been seen in Jerusalem since it was still daylight. But this is another indication that proves the delta-T in the current canons are incorrect.
Now let's apply the 16:14 adjustment. First of all,
we want to take into consideration the difference in
the delta-T for
541BCE versus 1 BCE (0 AD). The delta-T for 541BCE is about 4:42 and for 0 AD it is 2:34 which is a difference of 2:08. So our comparative RANGE, if we use the delta-T reduction would be an adjustment of 16:14 to 14:06. (16:14 minus
2:08=14:06).
Well, if the eclipse happened at 3:25 p.m. in the
afternoon, then 12 hours earlier would time it at
3:25 a.m. This 12-hour reduction leaves us with
4:14 and 2:06. 4 hours earlier than 3:25 a.m.
would be 11:25
p.m. with an additional 14 minutes
earlier giving us our early range time of 11:11 p.m.
and our delta-T adjusted time some 2:08 later which
would be 13:19 or 1:19 a.m. Of course, 11:11 p.m.
to 1:19 a.m. fall within our TARGET
historical contextual projected period of from 11:00 p.m. to
3:00 a.m.
So we have a MATCH! We get to keep this eclipse!
SAVING THE 479BCE, "NABON 18" ECLIPSE --
A CRITICAL REFERENCE!
The 479BCE eclipse is a bit more
complex. This
eclipse has to "set while eclipsed" from Babylon.
I'll try and keep it simple.
Basically, the eclipse occurred on September 7, -478 (479) per Liu-Fiala canon. It began at 15:22 and ended at 19:04, London time. The
total time of the eclipse was thus 3:42, 3 hours 42 minutes. Moonset on this date from Honolulu was at 15:22 and thus the moon set 20 minutes after the eclipse began when we relocate to Honolulu. That means we only have 3:22 minutes of
eclipse left over to make our adjustments within (if any), in order to keep this eclipse. And that adjustment has to reflect the overal 16:14 adjustment
from 541BCE.
Well does it?
Let's see....(I'm starting to sweat here. If I lose the 479BCE eclipse, which is the only eclipse which survives as a CONTEMPORARY record from the Neo-Babylonian Period it will be quite embarrassing for the 529BCE chronology! Wine tasting time...:>).
Honolulu time is 10:13 LATER in
time than Babylon and
by the same token 13:47 hours EARLIER than Babylon.
So we make the Honolulu adjustment by subtracting 13:47
from 16:14 and we get a leftover time of 2:27. But
the delta-T for 479BCE is 17 minutes less
than for 541
so the 541BCE time is 17 minutes too much, so we
now subtract that 17 minutes from 2:27 giving us a final, post-Honolulu adjustment time of 2:10.
As stated before, per previous Honolulu adjustment, the moon set 20
minutes after the eclipse began when we made simple and direct adjustment to Honolulu. But now to make this completely accurate with the SK400 timing, we must made an additional adjustment by advancing the eclipse another 2 hours and 10
minutes which means the moon will be setting
much later during this eclipse.
Our critical parameter is to make sure that the moon
still sets while this eclipse is in progress. So our
timing must be less than the total
time remaining of the eclipse.
As noted the total time of the eclipse was 3:42 and the
first Honolulu moonset adjustment reduced this timing by 20 minutes leaving the remaining eclipse time of 3:22.
Of course, our required 2:10
adjustment is still less than 3:22 and thus the adjusted time for moonset still allows us an error margin of 1:12 minutes for the moon to set while the eclipse is still in progress. (3:22=2:82-2:34=0:48) Of note, however, TOTAL PHASE
ended 1:03 before the eclipse ended. Thus at 1:12, the moon set while the eclipse still had 9 minutes
of TOTAL PHASE!
Now 1:12 (72 min) is a nice margin! Remember, those who try to date a partial eclipse in 554BCE show the eclipse ending either 4 minutes BEFORE moonset, or about only 4 minutes after. So that is extremely marginal to qualify 554BCE at just 4 minutes left, plus it was only a partial eclipse!
Compared to 72 minutes for 479BCE, and that is still with the additional adjustment which completely harmonizes this event with the specific timing of the SK400!
So apparently the Moon really did disappear during TOTAL phase which is what scared the king into making a sacrifice to the Moon god!
HAPPY ENDING:
So according to all empirical calculations, the SK400
specific adjustment in the delta-T of 16:14, allows
two critical historical eclipses to remain on the books, that of the 1BCE eclipse dating Herod's death
shortly after in 1AD and the 479BCE eclipse which
critically dates the 2nd year of Nabonidus in 479BCE,
confirming that he ruled for 19 years. In addition,
this adjustment is consistent with the required
re-locational
adjustment to Honolulu for all astronomical observations including the 2:27 additional delta-T adjustment for 541 which varies and is adjusted for other dates depending upon the delta-T for that date.
Again, the above is not presented to
try to prove the
Honolulu location is correct or that the delta-T should
be adjusted or anything like that. This is only presented to show what would happen to the times and circumstances of two critical eclipse events consistent
with Biblical dating if we used the specific timing of the Tammuz 14 eclipse which is timed at 11:00 p.m. from Babylon. Thus this simply shows that the adjustment supports the redating and retiming of these historical eclipses with no
problem.
These are two important eclipess, as stated, because
they were not part of the revised astronomical data
from the Seleucid Period and therefore carry more weight as to their authenticity, in addition to these two eclipse
events being found in "narrative" texts as
background information rather than specific astronomical observations by astronomers, making them more "natural" observations.
Mow I'm hoping I don't have to change any of this and
I'm not
claiming my math is totally accurate, but
it seems, on general comparison that all three eclipse events come out well-coordinated with the specific adjustment of the specifically timed eclipse of the SK400, Tammuz 14 event. And this
includes the critical location readjustment to Honolulu, which is a non-negotiable absolute location adjustment required by the VAT4956 Lines 3, 8 and 14.
Cheers,
Brent
Continued - RE 605 BCE EVENT!