Introduction

When reading the Bible it is usual to come across passages that mention specific periods of reigns. Such an example is Jeremiah 1:1-3 and 25:3, where we find:

"[Jeremiah] to whom the word of Jehovah occurred in the days of Jo·si'ah the son of A'mon, the king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reigning. And it kept on occurring in the days of Je·hoi'a·kim the son of Jo·si'ah, the king of Judah, until the completion of the eleventh year of Zed·e·ki'ah the son of Jo·si'ah, the king of Judah, until Jerusalem went into exile in the fifth month."

 

"From the thirteenth year of Jo·si'ah the son of A'mon, the king of Judah, and down to this day, these twenty-three years the word of Jehovah has occurred to me, and I kept speaking to YOU people, rising up early and speaking, but YOU did not listen."

Several relative dates are mentioned in the above texts. However, to what dates of our calendar do they correspond? Just reading the Bible does not enable us to know that information. And the same happens with all other narratives of the Bible that mention relative dates. What then can we do to determine ancient dates of Biblical history? And is it possible for laypeople to know how this is done?

Specialists use various methods to arrive at the dates we see in history books. It would take another book to discourse perfectly on them. The objective of this article is to explain, in a summarized and didactical way, one of these methods: astronomy assisted dating.

For our luck some ancient peoples were profound experts on the night sky, besides having knowledge of mathematics and geometry. They were the first astronomers. The ancient Chaldeans (Babylonians) excelled in this area. They were capable even of foreseeing eclipses and knowing with exactitude the course of the planets then known. A certain book of mathematics said about them:

“A people of famous constructors and astronomers, it is no wonder the Babylonians had a mathematical culture that was very developed for their time, and it is inferred that, among others things, they were able of solving multiplication problems without the use of the abacus.”

Thousands of baked clay tablets, unearthed from the region of ancient Mesopotamia, prove the words of the above mentioned book. Most of that written material deal with daily matters: writs and deeds, receipts, trade contracts, diverse business, commemorative texts, etc. Although all these sources are necessary for a precise knowledge of the chronology of that time, the most important type of cuneiform tablets for an absolute dating are the astronomical tablets. They are registers “written” on the stars themselves, whose scenery has remained invariant for thousands of years.

Chaldean astronomers used to record on a daily basis diverse events they watched in the sky, especially at night. They described with precision the relative position of the five planets then known: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. They made these notations during hundreds of years! And, when making such registers, they used to state the name of the king under whose sovereignty they were, as well as the number of elapsed days of his reign.

Since the Bible, in its internal dating, mentions some Babylonian kings of that period, it is not very difficult to synchronize the absolute chronology of Babylon with the relative chronology of the Bible. Mind you, we did say “relative chronology”. As mentioned before, the Bible does not contain dates referred to our calendar. Without secular sources like the cuneiform tablets, it is not possible to know any date of the Bible. An example of the interface between these two chronologies is Jeremiah 32:1. The text says: "The word that occurred to Jeremiah from Jehovah in the tenth year of Zed·e·ki´ah the king of Judah, that is, the eighteenth year of Neb·u·chad·rez´zar."

Note: Jeremiah 32:1 uses the nonaccession method of reigns. For more details, read later this article. (Soon into English)

The tool necessary to confirm absolute chronology

The present evolution of knowledge on planets and stars has no precedents in human history. With the surge of computers and the development of software specialized in Astronomy, it is today possible for anyone to verify whether or not the contents of astronomical diaries of ancient Mesopotamia are correct.

The program we chose to exemplify this is “Starry Night” - Backyard Version (whose “download” can be done here). It was developed by this company, and it has other more resourceful versions.

“Starry Night” simulates visually the sky for any date of the past or the future. This is possible only because the relative movement of the stars is like a high precision clock in full swing. All we have to do to travel in time is to advance or delay the hands of the clock! The program does that by means of mathematical calculations which have been fed with data from celestial movement mechanics.* But notice that “Starry Night” is not a meteorology satellite program. It shows what an observer would see in the sky regardless of clouds. More recent versions show also where communication satellites are, as well as international space stations (ISS), and the new comets recently discovered by astronomers.

* The margin of error is negligible (only a few minutes).

To confirm the precision of the program “Starry Night”, read the topic ahead "Is Starry Night a trustworthy program?"

The demonstrations in the following topic will consist in testing the veracity of the dates presented, in order to know whether or not they are true. To carry through this verification some steps will be necessary:

1) To know which is the date ascribed by historians to a certain moment of the reign of the king who is being considered.

2) To install the program Starry Night in your computer.

3) To adjust the location from which the “observation” will take place. To enter this adjustment you need to go to “Set Home Location”.

4) To make the program go back to the desired moment, that is, to the date shown by historians.

5) To verify whether on the chosen date the sky is exactly as it says on the cuneiform tablet. If so, the date is correct!

Shall we go? Ready to “travel in time”?

Simulating ancient astronomical observations

Initially we shall use as examples for the following simulations two astronomical tablets:  B.M. 76738 (+ B.M. 76813) and VAT 4956, which are in the British Museum and in the Museum of Berlin, respectively. Later on, as a complementary demonstration, we shall simulate an eclipse mentioned in the Cylinder of Nabonidus nr 18, which is in the British Museum. Technically this cylinder is not an astronomical diary, however the astronomical information it contains can also be tested.

a) B.M. 76738 + B.M. 76813

Tablet with Saturn ephemeris

These two fragments are known as “Saturn tablet”. It was published by C. B. F. Walker, in the book Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination, by N. M. Swerdlow, (“Babylonian Saturn observations during the reign of Kandalanu”, in English - Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Publishing company of MIT, 2000), pags.. 61-76. The information contained therein was written during the rule of king Kandalanu. The tablet says (here in blue):

Year 8 [of Kandalanu], month 6, day 5, behind the Plough (α+ Virgin), last appearance [of Saturn].
[Year 8], month 7, day 5, “between” Plough (α+ Virgin) and Scales (Libra), first appearance [of Saturn].

Plough (or “furrow”) is the name they called Spica, the main star of the constellation of Virgin. (see note). Thanks to the knowledge that modern astronomers “transferred” into  Starry Night, it is possible today for any one to simulate the above event and to check whether or not the date shown by historians is right.

As you see, it is said that in the eighth year of Kandalanu, the planet Saturn was on the constellation of Virgin. But when exactly did that happen?

Kandalanu was the king who ruled Babylonia before Nabopolossar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar. According to cuneiform tablets, Kandalanu reigned 22 years. By consulting any good encyclopaedia we can see that Nabopolassar initiated his reign in 625 BCE. Then it is easy to discover when the eighth year of Kandalanu was - the year mentioned in the Saturn tablet. It suffices to write the sequence below, going back in time, from the first year of Nabopolassar (remember that before Christ dates decrease):

1st year of Nabopolassar - 625 BCE

22nd year of Kandalunu - 626 BCE (last year of Kandalanu)

21st year of Kandalunu - 627 BCE

20th year of Kandalunu - 628 BCE

19th year of Kandalunu - 629 BCE

.......... And so on until reaching the:

8th year of Kandalunu - 640 BCE <-- look here the year of the tablet!

7th year of Kandalunu - 641 BCE

........... And so forth

1st year of Kandalunu - 647 BCE.

From the above we discover that the eighth year of Kandalanu is the year 640 BCE.

Now let us adjust the place of our observation. Since Babylonia sat where now Iraq is, we chose the coordinates of Baghdad, which is more or less the place where the scribes of the Saturn tablet were, when they gazed at that starred sky of 640 BCE. Now go to Go \ Set Home Location and load the program with the following coordinates:

Latitude: 33° 20 ' 02,0 '' N
Longitude: 4° 23 ' 52,0 '' E

Remember to modify the age, switching from “AD” (Anno Domini = after Christ) to “BC” (Before Christ).

What? Shall we go and see how the night was in the sky of Baghdad, in the year 640 BCE? Remember the tablet says that the observation took place on the fifth day of the sixth month of the Babylonian year. That is, in the month of ululu, which corresponds to parts of our August and September, as per the table below:

...................................................................................................................... * Or Tammu

From the table we see that the month of ululu starts approximately in mid August. We shall consider here that ululu starts on August 16th. Should we err by one day or two, that will not jeopardise our observation, for each planet stays more than one day on a certain constellation. Therefore, if 1st of ululu was on day 16 of August, day 5 of ululu will be on day 20 of August. According to Starry Night, on 20 of August of 640 BCE, at 7:30 p.m., the sky was like this:

Looking at the computer screen, we see that the sky is exactly as described in the cuneiform tablet! (In the program, Virgin is called “Virgo”). Notice that the tablet supplies still another piece of information. It says that for one month planet Saturn has moved further and is now between constellations Libra and Virgo. Requesting the program to show the sky one month later we shall see exactly that: Saturn is moving between Libra and Virgo.

Just by curiosity, shall we test the date the Watchtower ascribed the eighth year of Kandalanu?

In the encyclopaedia “Insight on the Scriptures”, the legal entity that runs the Jehovah’s Witnesses said:

“…the Chaldean Nabopolassar founded a new dynasty in Babylon about 645 B.C.E. His son Nebuchadnezzar II, who completed the restoration and brought the city to its greatest glory…” Volume 1, p.235, entry “Babylon”

It is perceptible that 20 years are added to the ruling period of Nabopolassar, father of Nebuchadnezzar. Then, if we establish that same sequence of dates as above, we shall discover that the eighth year of Kandalunu, according to the Watchtower, would be 660 BCE. Ask now your computer how was the sky in Baghdad on the night of August 20th of that year… “Did you ask?” What did it “say”?

The screen of the program shows that Saturn was in the constellation Capricorn and not in Virgo! Actually neither Virgo nor Libra were on that sector of the sky on day 5 of the month ululu of 660 BCE. This is clear and undisputable evidence that the date shown by the Watchtower has an error of 20 years!, as had already been proven here through other pieces of evidence. We are perfectly safe in this statement for the simple reason that the skies are a precision clock with no error margin. Any Astronomy student knows that. Then, the possibility of there having been a flaw in that demonstration is zero. Without mentioning that astronomers know that Saturn only passes on the same constellation once every 29.5 years. That is, by that physical parameter created by God, there is no possibility that in the year 660 BCE Saturn might have passed through constellation Virgo, for the cycle had not yet been completed. Not accepting this fact is to want to change times and epochs. It is like wanting to be God!

b) VAT 4956.

Front and verse of cuneiform board VAT 4956

For the above tablet we shall set in motion three resources of Starry Night called: “boundaries”, “labels” and “auto identify ". They divide the sky in different sectors, identify the constellation of each sector, and show an artistic representation of the constellation. This makes for an easier identification of the part of the sky where each planet is.

As reference, we shall use the dates presented by historians, and which can be found in the table below:

Obs.: Amel-Marduk is called Evil-Merodach at 2 Kings 25:27 and Jeremiah 52:31.

Among other things, VAT 4956 says:

"Year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.... Month 2, first day.... Saturn is in front of Swallow." - Sachs and Hunger (1985), p. 47, 49.

We see that the above information was written down in the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar. If his 1st year was 604, then his 37th year was 568 BCE. The dairy states that on the first day of the second month of that year 'Saturn was in front of Swallow', name given to the constellation of Pisces. Ayaru is the second month, which starts in mid April. Thus we can define that this event happened on April 16th of 568 BCE. Let us see whether Starry Night confirms that register (the hour chosen was 03:50 a.m.):

We see that in fact Saturn is opposite the constellation of Pisces, as was said in the tablet. Now let us look at twenty years before, in 588 BCE, which would be the correct date for the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar, according to the Watchtower Society of U.S.A.:

In Pisces we see only the planets Venus and Jupiter. Requesting the program (in the function “find”) to locate Saturn, it informed that Saturn will only appear on the sky at 10:44 a.m. of April 16th 588 BCE, Baghdad time. However, it will not be visible, for this will take place at full day light. In any way, even invisible to human eyes, it will not be in the constellation of Pisces, but in the constellation of Cancer.

Notice: As soon as possible, we will provide an explanatory list of the names Babylonians called stars and constellations. Thus it will be easier for anyone to test the content of astronomical dairies of ancient Mesopotamia. Meanwhile should you care to look right away at such information, enter this site, which includes a relatively complete catalogue, in English. It would also be useful to look at a Power Point presentation on the history of constellations, elaborated by the college of the University of São Paulo, Brazil. To download this presentation click here (available only in Portuguese).

c) Cylinder of Nabonidus nr 18

Cylinder of Nabonidus discovered in Ur

Among the cylinders of the reign of Nabonidus which were exhumed in Iraq, cylinder nr 18 mentions a heliacal eclipse in the 13th month of a non specified year of Nabonidus. The registration says:

“On account of the wish for an entu priestess, in the month Ulûlu, the month (whose Sumerian name means) ‘work of the goddesses,’ on the thirteenth day the moon was eclipsed and set while eclipsed. Sîn requested an entu priestess. Thus (were) his sign and his decision.” - See complete text here.

On this occasion Nabonidus dedicated his daughter En-nigaldi-Nana (or Bel-salti-Nanar) to the god-moon Sin, so that she would be priestess in the temple of Egipar, in Ur. By acting so he was following the list of astrological omens called Enuma Anu Enlil, which said specifically that whenever an eclipse would occur in the “dawn of the morning” of day 13 of ululu, that would be a sign that the god-moon Sin was requesting a priestess. - “The Babylonian Antecedent of the Legend of Kay Kâûs”, Archiv Orientalní, Vol. XVII, H. Lewy (ed. by B. Hrozny, Prague, 1949), pages. 50, 51.

Even this cylinder not being an astronomical document, it is possible, with the astronomical information it contains, to know which was the year of that eclipse, by means of a verification of the eclipses that occurred in that period, that is, the seventeenth year of the reign of Nabonidus (from 555 to 539 BCE). Combining the information of this cylinder with another archaeological finding known as Royal Chronicle, it is possible to determine in which year of the reign of Nabonidus this eclipse took place, since Royal Chronicle says that the dedication of En-nigaldi-Nana happened in the second year of Nabonidus.

As seen above, the text says that the eclipse happened on 13 of ululu (or elil). As shown in the table referent to the simulation of Saturn tablet, this Babylonian month corresponds to parts of August and September in our calendar (And sometimes to parts of September and October). Therefore it is not necessary to locate all eclipses that occurred in the reign of Nabonidus. It is enough to look up those that happened between August and October, of all the 17 years of his reign.

Another important information supplied by the cylinder is that the eclipse was still in progress at the time the moon set and at that exact moment the sun was rising (for it was the “vigil of dawn”). That is, the end of the eclipse was not watched by anybody in Babylon. Because of such peculiarities this rare eclipse is called heliacal, for the moon sets while eclipsed, while the sun rises.

To make a simulation of this eclipse on Starry Night we would need to know the exact coordinates of ancient Babylon, whose ruins are in the surroundings of the city Al Hillah, some 25 kilometres away. To this end enter the following numbers in “Set Home Location”:

1)Latitude:32.30 N
2)Longitude: 44.10 E

The cuneiform inscription says the eclipse took place in the second year of Nabonidus, and historians say this year was 554 BCE. Being so, we shall have to check the month of ululu of the year 554 BCE. Was there a heliacal eclipse in that year? Yes, there was! If we take Starry Night to the day September 26th of 554 BCE, we shall see that the moon was full and shining in the sky. Meanwhile, at 01:40 a.m., a penumbral phase started to occur. That foreshadowed the beginning of an eclipse, which would start at 3 a.m. The climax was around 04:26 a.m., but the moon did not get to be totally covered by the Earth shade, and a border of the penumbral moon remained visible.

See bellow images supplied by the program at each of the moments mentioned:

At 02:00 a.m. the full moon is being covered by a penumbra

At 02:48 the moon is already in total penumbra

At 03:00 a.m. starts the beginning of the eclipse, with the moon already in total penumbra

At 03:16 the eclipse keeps progressing

At 04:13 the eclipse reaches its maximum point and the sky already shows signs of dawn

At 05:14 the moon is about to set, nevertheless the eclipse is not yet finished

At 05:39 the eclipse was not yet finished and the moon started to set in the west. At the same time, in the east, the sun started to rise. Thus there is no doubt about this being the eclipse mentioned in the Cylinder of Nabonidus which, according to Starry Night, occurred exactly as described on that cuneiform text!

At 05:39 the sun starts to rise

At 06:07 the sun is already risen was born and the moon is not visible anymore, for it has already set in the west

In the course of verifying all the reign of Nabonidus, we found that in other years there had happened three more lunar eclipses in the month of ululu. However, in none of them did the moon set heliacally. The date of another lunar eclipse of this type was fifty four years before, on day 24 of August 608 A.E.C.** This proves that the royal inscription Nabon. Nr 18 undoubtedly marks the second year of Nabonidus as 554 BCE. But what is the importance of this event in our view? Speaking about the famous Chronicle of Nabonidus, the Watchtower declared:

“It may be noted that the phrase “Seventeenth year” does not appear on the tablet, that portion of the text being damaged. This phrase is inserted by the translators because they believe that Nabonidus’ 17th regnal year was his last. So they assume that the fall of Babylon came in that year of his reign and that, if the tablet were not damaged, those words would appear in the space now damaged. Even if Nabonidus’ reign was of greater length than is generally supposed, this would not change the accepted date of 539 B.C.E. as the year of Babylon’s fall, for there are other sources pointing to that year. This factor, however, does lessen to some extent the value of the Nabonidus Chronicle.” – Insight on the Scriptures, volume 2, p. 457, entry “Nabonidus”, emphasis added.

** Even if it had been a heliacal eclipse, 608 BCE could not be the second year of Nabonidus, not even for the chronology of the Watchtower (according to whom the king in 608 was Nebuchadnezzar), nor for historically established chronology (which says that in 608 the king was Nabopolassar).

It is noticeable that the Watchtower, in “Insight…” considers the possibility that the reign of Nabonidus has lasted more than 17 years. No doubt this could help to repair the breach of 20 years in its chronology, as shown in the tables bellow:

Neobabylonian period according to historians:

Neobabylonian period according to the Watchtower:

There is no way of fixing this breach of 20 years in the chronology of the Watchtower, for there are no archaeological findings that permit stretching the time of rule of each king, or including new kings, for several prosopographical independent pieces of evidence provide not only the duration of the neobabylonian period, but also the connecting links between reigns that existed during that long dynasty initiated by Nabopolassar. And the Cylinder of Nabonidus confirms unequivocally that Nabonidus in fact only reigned 17 years, and that 554 BCE was his second year of reign. Moreover, Nabon. text. nr 18 confirms the consistency of Beroso’s List of Kings and the Canon of Ptolemy, which are unfavourably looked upon by the Watchtower for being copies and not original documents of neobabylonian times. But we should remember that royal inscriptions such as the Cylinder of Nabonidus, and thousands of business tablets unearthed in Iraq, are original documents of that time, and all of them together confirm the chronology presented by Ptolemy and Beroso, which is correctly reported in every current book of Ancient History.

------------------------------------------ end of simulations ------------------------------------------

Demonstrations like those described above provide a complete survey of the chronological picture of that Babylonian period. Joining all other sources of information to the ones explained here, we can uncover periods of reigns such as the one in the table below:

Note: To calculate the duration of a reign, apply the formula: bigger year - lesser year + 1

From among the thousands of archaeological discoveries that make possible the construction of this table, there is not a single register that authorizes the lessening or addition of years to the periods established above. Moreover there are links binding the end of a reign to the beginning of the following one, rendering thus impossible the inclusion of more rulers or the addition of more time to each reign. In the future we will try to comment on such additional evidence.

Finally, if anyone alleges that Starry Night can have some meaningful margin of error, capable of modifying the true date, such person is completely unaware of the nature of this program, created by specialists who understand deeply the subject. And even if there existed such a grotesque error, why would it support precisely the date defended by historians? The margin of error of Starry Night is only of some minutes, not of 29.5 years! For more details on the precision of Starry Night, read below the topic "Is Starry Night a trustworthy program?".

The true reason why the Watchtower adds 20 years to the neo-Babylonian period

The An important fact to highlight is that, after all, the Saturn tablet, the VAT 4956, and all other sources of that time, prove that it was in 587 BCE that Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians. However, this date can not serve for the predictive speculations of the Watchtower. The date 1914*** only checks right if Jerusalem had been destroyed 20 years earlier, in 607 BCE. Because of this the Watchtower prefers to force astronomical evidence and to cause a 20 years rupture in the established historical period, trying to change History by a mere pen stroke…

*** According to the Watchtower, 1914 was the starting year of the “last days” designated by Biblical prophecy. 1914 would be the final moment of an augured period of 2520 years, which started in the year Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians.

Let us consider the remote possibility that Saturn tablet and VAT 4956 were wrong. But if this were the case why would they err exactly to prove that the date 587 is the correct one?**** And what to say about the remaining astronomical tablets of that time? Would they all be wrong? For a complete exam we would have to analyze the other astronomical tablets and test their content one by one, in the same way we did for the demonstrations in this page. We, the ‘Beroean Minds’, have not yet tested all available astronomical tablets. We only verified a few that have been published and translated by specialists like Dr. Abraham Sachs, one of the greatest assyriologists of the 20th century. So far what has happened is what was already expected: the dates of historians are confirmed and the dates of the Watchtower for that period are rejected.

**** Remember that the same happens with all the other cuneiform registers of that time, written over an interval of hundreds of years. All of them point to 587 BCE.

In truth it is not even necessary to test all Chaldean astronomical diaries, for on the basis of specialized literature we already know that no source supports the date 607 BCE. If there were any tablet to support the date 607 certainly the Watchtower would have mentioned such evidence. In any way, we intend, in time, to publish other astronomical demonstrations of the neo-Babylonian period, using the program Starry Night. We know that more information of this type will not convince the dogmatists, but meanwhile it certainly can make reasonable Jehovah’s Witnesses review their opinions on this subject. 

 
"Astronomical Diaries of Babylonia and Related Texts"
By J. Sachs & H. Hunger, Vol. I
(Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1988)

Now let us ponder about this: Logically it is reasonable to expect that some measure of error could happen in the registers of the Babylonians. And in fact some have already been detected. But what would be the probability that THOUSANDS of cuneiform registers covering an interval of hundreds of years might ALL be wrong and, by an amazing coincidence, ALL OF THEM indicating the date 587 BCE as the correct one?

Any Jehovah Witness who believes this extraordinary coincidence should also believe the theory of evolution of species, for it must be more probable that man has evolved from an “amoeba” created by a primitive spark, than for such absurd possibility to be true! In other words, in order that all tablets might be wrong it would be necessary that all Babylonian scribes throughout hundreds of years had, in some way, agreed in an international plot whose only intention would be to discredit a religion that in the 20th century would claim to be the only legitimate representative of God in Earth, and holder of the best and most precise knowledge there is…

And for those who say that the Watchtower bases its chronology in the Bible rather than in secular sources, let them read this article. In it they shall discover that the Bible does not contradict in any way the neo-Babylonian chronology. On the contrary, confirms it! In any way, even that is irrelevant for, as we already stated here, without secular sources it is not possible to know the dates of the Bible. So there is no way of finding support for our dates in “Biblical chronology", for this chronology is relative and not absolute. This is clear evidence that dates are not necessary for God’s people. - Compare with Acts 1:6,7.

Conclusion

What then, dear reader? What will you do with the knowledge you just received here? That will surely be your decision. Still it is never excessive to remember what James told us:

"But now YOU take pride in YOUR self-assuming brags. All such taking of pride is wicked. Therefore, if one knows how to do what is right and yet does not do it, it is a sin for him." - James 4:16,17.

Although James was speaking of a different matter, the principle he put forth in this text should apply to every aspect of our lives. Also important are the following words of Jesus Christ:

"And he went on to say to them: “A lamp is not brought to be put under a measuring basket or under a bed, is it? It is brought to be put upon a lampstand, is it not? For there is nothing hidden except for the purpose of being exposed; nothing has become carefully concealed but for the purpose of coming into the open. Whoever has ears to listen, let him listen." - Mark 4:21-23.

Therefore, dear reader, be responsible with the knowledge you just received! If you are a “Jehovah’s Witness” do not follow the example of religious bigots of the past. - See also Malachi 3:16 and Hebrews 4:13.

 

 

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