Larsguy47

Likely the two most popular dates for the fall of Jerusalem are either 587BCE or 607BCE.


607 OR 611 BCE:
The 607BCE dating is that promoted by Jehovah's witnesses who arrive at that date by introducing a 70-year period of desolation of the land after the fall of Jerusalem. Jehovah's witnesses generally are in disagreement with much of popular secular dating for certain events, claiming to use the Bible's dating over that of secular history when their is a conflict, but they use 539BCE as a "pivotal date" in history for the fall of Babylon. The return of the Jews is dated by them in 537BCE. The fall of Jerusalem is thus dated 70 years earlier in 607BCE. They use Josephus as a reference to inserting this 70-year period since Josephus also introduces a 70-year period of desolation of the land just before the Jews return in the 1st of Cyrus, but Josephus dates his 70 years from the date of the last deportation in year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar rather than from the fall of Jerusalem in year 19 of Nebuchadnezzar. So Jehovah's witnesses actually misrepresent Josephus in this regard. Having noted that, the corrected date for the fall of Jerusalem based upon this correction would be 4 years earlier in 611 BCE.

587 BCE:
The 587BCE dating, of course, is supported by many records aligned by some astronomical texts, the most famous of which is the VAT4956 which has over 70 references to planetary and lunar events that could only in combination occur in 587-586BCE, which is dated to year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar. Thus 587/586BCE is considered the official secular dating for the fall of Jerusalem by most chronologists and archaeologists.

MARTIN ANSTEY ADAPTATION DATING TO 529 BCE:
Finally, there is Martin Anstey who wrote the "Romance of Biblical Chronology". He is dating is even more strictly Biblical than that of Jehovah's witnesses, since he bases his dating for the 1st of Cyrus on when Jesus was baptized and the 483-year interval between the 1st of Cyrus and Jesus' baptism. That forces his dating of the 1st of Cyrus c. [sic] 455BCE, with the assertion that there were thus 82 years of extra history during this period, considered to be an error in the secular dating: "These dates given above are the received Ptolemaic dates. All except the last (B.C. 330) are probably about 82 years higher than the truth." Martin Anstey's dating is primarily followed by preterists. If we apply Josephus' chronology to the 455BCE dating, the fall of Jerusalem would occur in 529BCE, which is 74 years earlier. That is, 70 years from the last deportation (Jer. 52:30) to the 1st of Cyrus in year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar, which is 4 years after the fall of Jerusalem occurring in year 19 of Nebuchadnezzar.

RELATIVE VS ABSOLUTE DATING:
Just a short summary of comparison of the three types of dating, from a relative chronology point of view, Josephus contradicts both Jehovah's witnesses and the popular secular chronology. Josephus inserts 70 years from the last deportation in year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar to the 1st of Cyrus. This means that the chronology of Josephus is basically 26 years longer for the Neo-Babylonian Period. Josephus varies from the witnesses who quote him by 4 years since JWs insert the 70 years beginning with the fall of Jerusalem rather than the last deportation.

Absolute dating has to do with the specific assignment of an event to a particular year, usually by astronomical event application. Thus the VAT4956 astronomical text, for instance, that links year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar to 568 BCE provides an "absolute date" for that event. But it doesn't mean it is absolutely correct, it just means it is absolutely specific. Thus as Jehovah's witnesses point out, since the VAT4956 is not a contemporary astronomical text but comes from the Seleucid Period over a 100 years after the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar, it can be dismissed as revised or fraudulent, even though the astronomical references are specific to 568BCE.

Relative Dating: There are no "absolute" dates in the Bible. All Biblical chronology depends upon historical dating references and timelines developed from thos historical references and thus the Biblical timeline is considered based on "relative" dating. Thus, by comparison to an astronomical event that won't change, various opinions as to the historical dating for say the 15th of Tiberius, the year Jesus got baptized, would vary the "relative" date for other events in the Bible. Case in point, even Martin Anstey in the 1800s when he wrote "Romance of Bible Chronology" was dating the baptism of Christ in 27 CE rather than the improved dating in 29CE. Thus the 1st of Cyrus is dated in 457BCE rather than 455BCE. Thus the application of Martin Anstey's strict Biblical dating for a period of 483 years from the 1st of Cyrus to the baptism of Christ is updated to the modern date of 29 CE, dating the 1st of Cyrus to 455BCE. As I noted, since no astronomical events are mentioned in the Bible in relation to dating, there are not considered to be any "absolute" dates in the Bible.


So just when did Jerusalem fall? Your choice: 611BCE, 611BCE, 587BCE, 586BCE or 529BCE. The strict Biblical dating most agrees with Martin Anstey and 529BCE

LG47

3DJay

WAS JERUSALEM DESTROYED IN 607 B.C.E.?
Is 607BCE the Correct Date for the Fall of Jerusalem?

The hidden agenda


Peace

Kosh

A LONG, LONG TIME AGO...

Larsguy47

Thanks for the additional links/references 3DJay! But this statement is now outdated from your source:

6. ASTRONOMICAL DIARIES
(A) The astronomical diary, VAT 4956, contains about 30 completely verified astronomical observations from Nebuchadnezzar's 37th regnal year. The combination of these astronomical positions is not duplicated again in thousands of years. Consequently, there is only one year that fits this situation - 586/7 B.C. If this was Nebuchadnezzar's 37th regnal year, as is twice stated on these tablets, then 587/6 B.C. must have been his 18th year, in which he desolated Jerusalem.

That's because it is well known that at least two references from the VAT4956 were "errors" for 568BCE. One was in Line 3 and the other in Line 14. Further the original translators Sachs/Hunger clearly misrepresent the text reference for Line 18. But having said that, if you compare the three you get dating to 511BCE. That is, in Line 3, the text gives the lunar position of 1 cubit in front of sigma-Leonis on the 9th of Nisan. That is a non-match for 568BCE, but a match for 511BCE. Likewise, another "error" noted for Line 14 describes the moon one cubit in front of beta-Virginis on the 5th of Sivan, which amazingly is also a match for 511BCE, but not 568BCE. Since the scribes didn't add anything to these texts when the text was broken or missing, indicating when that happened, it is not likely that these were guesses by the scribes that no one noticed, but rather, intentional inclusions to 511BCE from the original texts from that year. That follows if 568BCE was a revised date and 511BCE was the original dating. Thus the 511 BCE "errors" were intentionally hid in this DIARY to preserve this dating. This is done with another text where now we have five extant copies or fragments of the same text, proving these diaries were duplicated again and again for some reason, one presumption being that they, indeed, contained hidden astronomical information to the original chronology. Therefore, the VAT4956 can be used to date year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar only to 511BCE since the cryptic date preempts the primary dating.

Thus 511BCE for year 37 is now compared with other chronologies in place. This dating would date the 23rd of Nebuchadnezzar to 525BCE, which when we apply the dating from Josephus we arrive at the 1st of Cyrus in 455BCE, which is the preterist dating for the fall of Jerusalem based upon Martin Anstey's stance that the Bible was more reliable for dating the 1st of Cyrus this year than the pagan records, which apparently were distorted by 82 years at this point.

So in particular, the VAT4956 while remaining a key text for this dating has certainly become a lot more controversial and a lot more dismissive for any true dating, particularly to 568BCE.


LG47

3DJay

Your BS is covered in the other 2 links.

EDIT: Rofl! Is this where you got your info Lars? "455 B.C. FOR DUMMIES' or 455 B.C. - SIMPLIFIED!!


Peace

Larsguy47

Laugh all you want. You've disproved nothing. Nor can you.

LG47

David B

we, generally, have disproved, to all reasonable standards, that there was life around in excess of 30,000 years ago.

Doesn't your argument depend on a 27000 year old maximum age of origin of life?

David B

Larsguy47

Does that include plant life? Organic life began in the third creative day, Each creative day is 7,000 years long. So 4 x 7 is 28,000 plus 5,000 down to our day is 33,000 from NOW, 27,000 down to the creation of Eve.

So 30,000 is okay depending. Mankind is less than 6000 years old per my chronology.

LG47

FatherMithras

Than you're wrong, since we not only have fossils of older, we have cultural artifacts that are older.

3DJay

ROFL! Jericho is older than mankind. Good one.


Peace