JW Insider

So here are the standard years of the timeline as evidenced by archaeology and astronomy and later historians who referred to the period.

The green marks at the top refer to the fact that all the astronomical observations for specific, marked years from this period perfectly align with the BCE years shown just below them AND align them correctly with the official regnal year of each king as labeled in the bottom row. There are additional years I could have marked, but I have not checked those observations yet for myself. Obviously, it doesn't matter because even ONE identified year is enough to fill in the rest, and I have mostly focused on Nebuchadnezzar.

Above, I was able to fit the entire timeline from Nabopolassar's accession year through the 9th (last) year of Cyrus. Mansikka, below, knows (and agrees with) the full length of those reigns, but I had to start from Nabopolassar 17 through Cyrus 3, just to (barely) fit the extra 20 years which I have marked in black.

So here is Pekka Mansikka's first suggestion/attempt to add 20 years to the timeline: tacking an extra 20 years onto the reign of Nabonidus:

The green mark over the second year of Cyrus shows that this date perfectly aligns with the archaeological and astronomical and historical evidence for that year. But all the red marks in previous years show that these observations are now misaligned.

Here is Mansikka's most recent suggestion/attempt. I have simplified a bit to show that almost all the additional 20 years are shown as an extension of Amel-Marduk's reign under his new name, Nebuchadnezzar (V). It's actually still a bit incorrect, because there are some other complexities of some start and end dates that shift a year or two in other places, so that this is really only an 18 year extension of Amer-Marduk's reign. I'll fix this post to reflect that.

In this case (because he has added the extra 20 years before Nabonidus, there are now two marked dates that perfectly align with the archaeological and astronomical and historical evidence for those particular years. All previous years are now misaligned. Note that he has tried to "squeeze in" the 20 years for a Nebuchadnezzar V (five), between Ami-Marduk (Evil-Merodach) and Neriglissar. He thinks this Nebuchadnezzar V is actually an extension of the Amil-Marduk.

The reason that Mansikka calls him Nebuchadnezzar V is because III and IV were already taken by real persons who used the name Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar V is, in my opinion, a new imaginary person made up in order to create the additional 20 years!

Just because he shows Nebuchadnezzar II (2), then V (5) and then III (3) and then IV (4) does not make this suggestion completely wrong on that count alone. He is saying that the tablets assigned to Nebuchadnezzar II, or at least a large portion of them were actually for this "imaginary" Nebuchadnezzar V, 46 years later.

Again there are several additional problems with this theory (which we will see in further discussion).

For now the most important point is that the first chart above aligns to all other archaeological, astronomical and historical sources puts Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year in 587 BCE, and both of Mansikka's suggestions/proposals would place Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year in 607 BCE.

17 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Really, didn't read like that to me. But as usual, when it comes to sound research, you reject it.

If you really think it was sound research that brought him to develop his list of Neo-Babylonian kings that you posted, you should be able to let us know how he reached this conclusion. Or you could answer Srecko's question:

11 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

If i may ask, how Mansikka justified or explained this "adding of 20 years"? And how he came to this particular time point where is needed to add this 20 years?    

Well. as it turns out, I sent Mansikka a link to this forum, and he has already visited and noticed that the "sound research" that @César Chávez provided was "valid" only up until shortly after December 2019. This means that his book that I was quoting from in response to Cesar was also only "valid" up until shortly after December 2019.

Mansikka linked me to the updated information which is found in his Nebuchadnezzar V book. Here's the link again: https://www.pm-netti.com/free/nebuchadnezzar-v.pdf

It's a book of 39 small pages, and I had read only up until page 18 before skimming the rest and missing a critical piece of information on page 20 and on page 39.

He now rejects the idea that the extra 20 years should be tacked onto the end of the reign of Nabonidus. He now would put his new king list in this order:

1 minute ago, AlanF said:

I said that TTH did not bother to give a source reference.

And I did not bother to read the previous 14 pages of this topic. I just now started here from the end intending to work backwards.

7 minutes ago, AlanF said:

TTH is not even able to give a source for "Shermer's lecture".

I think he gave enough information if you have followed TTH's interest in the "Teaching Company Great Courses." I have the same lectures on my hard drive.

8 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I think that several significant problems should be immediately apparent to anyone who has given this much thought. I'll point them out in another post.

Referring to what I said above, here are the most significant problems with adding 20 years . Later we can then look at Mansikka's methods of overcoming these issues:

1. If we accept Mansikka's 20 extra years that he tacks on to the end of Nabonidus' 17-year reign to make it 37 years, then he would need to explain every single of one of the years which have astronomical observations that are identified with specific years of the NB kings. (There are at least 50 observations I have tested so far; and a single year may have multiple observations recorded.) Mansikka would have to explain why all 50 (plus) of them do not point to any of the years Mansikka has set them to, and why all 50 of them point, instead, to the same dates of the archaeological timeline.

2. If we accept Mansikka's 20 extra years that he tacks on to the end of Nabonidus, then we would have to wonder why we average hundreds of business tablets for EVERY year of the NB timeline, yet exactly ZERO for every single one of the years of Nabonidus 18 through 37. Since we have THOUSANDS of tablets for the reign of Nabonidus' years 1 to 17, why do we have ZERO for a full 20 years in a row. Did all business stop completely for 20 years and then pick up again during the first year of Cyrus?

3. If we accept Mansikka's 20 extra years, it would be impossible to predict any eclipses because they would all be 20 years off. Even the Saros cycle was known to produce only a predictably SIMILAR eclipse at a time 18 years later, but not 19, and not 20.

4. Why is it that a list of 18-year Saros cycle eclipses (LBAT 1419) found the following:

• an eclipse dated to the 2nd year of Cyrus that only matches 537 BCE - the exact date that the INSIGHT book uses for CYRUS 2nd year.
• an eclipse 18 years before that, dated to the first year of Nabonidus that only matches 555 BCE
• an eclipse 18 years before that, dated to the 32nd year of Nebuchadnezzar that only matches 573 BCE
• an eclipse 18 years before that, dated to the 14th year of Nebuchadnezzar that only matches 591 BCE.
• an eclipse 18 years before that, dated to the 18th year of  Nabopolassar that only matches 608 BCE
• an eclipse 18 years before that, dated to the 0th year (accession) of Nabopolassar that only matches 626 BCE.

If Mansikka's 20 extra years was correct, then there would have to have been TWO 18-year Saros cycles in the reign of Nabonidus:

• One of them would have been just 18 years before the one dated to 537, the second year of Cyrus. That would be 537+18=555, which Mansikka calls the 21st year of Nabonidus. Yet the tablet dates it to the first year of Nabonidus.
• The other would have been just 18 years before 555, which Mansikka calls the 3rd year of Nabonidus 573. Yet the tablet dates that same eclipse to the 32nd year of Nebuchadnezzar. The tablet knows nothing about any eclipse in either the 3rd year of Nabonidus, nor in a fictitious 21st year of Nabonidus.

And of course, adding the extra 20 Watchtower years to the tablet throws every date off completely all the way back to the start under Nabopolassar (Nebuchadnezzar's father). But removing the extra 20 Watchtower years produces a tablet perfectly aligned with ALL the other archaeological evidence.

Why would the Saros tablet be perfectly supportive of the Watchtower chronology (and Mansikka) for any year after 539, and completely wrong for every year before 539? The answer should be obvious. You just can't arbitrarily add 20 years to all the dates before 539 as the Watchtower has done.

The most interesting part of Mansikka's proposal is that he intends to show where the 20-year gap actually would go. Previously we showed that the archaeological evidence --and not even all of it yet-- gives us the following timeline, below, for the Neo-Babylonian period, including the BCE years, through astronomical observations and predictions that only fit specific years. Even one or two of these would be enough to date the entire period, but we already have at least 30 of them "locked in" and this isn't even all of them yet. (Several of the years have multiple astronomical observations behind them.)

To make enough room I am only showing from Nabopolassar's last 5 years and Cyrus' first three years. The first chart is the archaeological evidence:

Here is the proposal of Pekka Mansikka based on his "new" king list, which I am presenting in the same format as above. In the chart, all I am doing is adding 20 years to the BCE year on the top row and, of course, continuing Nabonidus reign for another 20 years so that there are new regnal years 18 to 37. Mansikka gives Nabonidus a 37 year reign instead of a 17 year reign to make up the 20 year gap.

The chart shows actual "official" regnal years starting from year one of any king. The accession would have started in the previous month or months before Nisanu of the year shown. However, this shows up some one-year inconsistencies in the way that Mansikka produces his king list below, because he sometimes starts a king's accession year prior to the end date of the previous king, which is impossible. He sometimes gets it right and sometimes wrong, so it's hard to say whether these are just typos.

I think that several significant problems should be immediately apparent to anyone who has given this much thought. I'll point them out in another post.

10 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

@JW Insider Just two questions.  Does this have any signficance to a true Christian now ?  If so how ? 

Not to me. It has about the same significance to me as learning a language that isn't used any more, like old Hebrew, koine Greek or Latin. or Old English. It's interesting as a secular topic, like learning a facet of history of an ancient culture. There is only a minor overlap between this topic and scripture, but this doesn't mean it's a "spiritual" topic, just as learning ancient languages might have only a minor overlap with scripture, and it doesn't make the study of Greek, Hebrew, etc., a "spiritual" topic.

I know a Witness who has a deep interest in chess, and who goes on forums to discuss it. It would appear self-righteous of another person to go on those forums to tell him that chess isn't spiritual. He already knows that.

I could be a day or two before I start commenting. Although anyone else might wish to begin commenting at any time.

An author from Finland named Pekka Mansikka has written several books and papers which, among other things, look to adjust the secular chronology to fit the Watchtower's chronology. For those who don't know, the Watchtower's chronology requires an extra 20 years of time somewhere between Nebuchadnezzar's reign and the beginning of the reign of Cyrus. This has the effect of pushing back any archaeological date in Nebuchadnezzar's reign by 20 years.

In fact, it affects dates going back much further than that, so that:

• if one reads that the Battle of Carchemish happened on the archaeological date of 605 BCE, the WTS date will be 605+20=625 BCE
• if the Battle of Harran happened in 609 using archaeological dates, then the WTS date will be 609+20=629 BCE
• if one reads that the fall of Nineveh was in 612 using archaeological dates, then the WTS date will be 612+20=632 BCE
• The same thing continues to occur even farther back into the Assyrian empire and the Israelite and Judean kings.

Although several other factors were involved here, I think it's not a complete coincidence that Bishop Ussher famously put Adam's creation in 4004 BCE, and the Watchtower currently has this at 4026 BCE, a 22-year difference.

Fortunately, Pekka Mansikka has give his permission to discuss any and all parts of any of his works here on this forum:

Several of his works can be found online, or for purchase at very modest costs on Kindle. A good portion of the Kindle books are available for free preview, and most of the content of these books is also available on academia.edu.

Here are some links to his material:

https://independentresearcher.academia.edu/PekkaMansikka

See all 18 items at that link. Sometimes it's only the Table of Contents that shows up here.

50 to 70 pages of his primary book are available in free preview here:

New Chronology Using Solar Eclipses

He also offered the following links, two of which are e-books:

https://www.pm-netti.com/lookout-ancient-eclipses

https://www.pm-netti.com/kirjat/PM-Tiedekirjat/nebuchadnezzarv

https://journal.pm-netti.com/

Most sources for his own reference material can also be found online for free, or free with limits. You can find links in his own work to many sites.

The most interesting topics he covers are:

• The reign of Nabonidus. He is brave enough to actually try to show exactly where the 20 missing years should be found.
• VAT 4596.
• A proposition to synchronize Neo-Babylonian chronology with Egyptian chronology.

40 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

By whose standard of interpretation. If I use your misrepresentation of the Watchtower illustration, then I can say, you're extremely wrong.

I see that, again, you didn't dare answer the question: Who is right? Your source or the Watchtower?

As usual, you are using "wordplay" (by your definition) to avoid and evade answering the questions. Let's see if you are able to answer directly:

Did your source say that there was an eclipse reported for July 4, -567 that failed? Did it say that an eclipse was expected but did not occur? It's a YES/NO question so a simple YES or NO should suffice.

But I can pretty much assume that you will not stand by what you wrote when you quoted the author. I think you will either find an excuse to ignore this question or you will use "wordplay" to evade it, or backtrack.

On 1/6/2021 at 3:31 PM, César Chávez said:

Eclipse that failed    The text VAT 4956 from year 37 of NEBUCHADNEZZAR II, which we have already discussed above, reports an 'eclipse that failed' for 4th July, -567. An eclipse was expected, but none occurred.

And the second part of this question is this:

Did the Watchtower claim that an eclipse did in fact occur on that date? A simple YES or NO should suffice.

*** w11 11/1 p. 25 When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part Two ***
It is a fact that a lunar eclipse occurred on July 4 (Julian calendar) of this month during 568 B.C.E.

52 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

The failure rate of 100% comes from you, since your ignorance can't calculate and comprehend what failures there are for VAT 4956. You attempt of misrepresentation of Watchtower literature that you already deploy is just one more example of your desperation to cling on to your false claims. 

I see you didn't dare answer the question: Who is right? Your source or the Watchtower?

Your source, H. van der Waerden, said it was the eclipse that failed, "An eclipse was expected. But none occurred." Yet the Watchtower says it was a fact that this same eclipse did occur.

All you could do instead of answering the question, is to claim that I misrepresented Watchtower literature in desperation. So who is desperate here to misrepresent the Watchower just because they are so desperate to claim that COJ was wrong?

From what I have seen so far, 100% of the things COJ says about the Neo-Babylonian evidence is 100% correct. I am pretty sure you probably already know this yourself, which is why no one has even tried to quote any specifics from COJ. You seem to prefer only vague claims. And now that you have finally claimed that this quote from 1974 is something he missed, you find out that the Watchtower didn't fall for this mistake claimed by your source, and neither did COJ.

So you say I am misrepresenting the WT on this point, but you won't dare to say how.

9 hours ago, César Chávez said:

The text V AT 4956 from year 37 of NEBUCHADNEZZAR II, which we have already discussed above, reports an 'eclipse that failed' for 4th July, -567. An eclipse was expected, but none occurred.

Yet the Watchtower says it is a fact that this eclipse actually occurred: https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/pc/r1/lp-e/1200274030/7/0

*** w11 11/1 p. 25 When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part Two ***
It is a fact that a lunar eclipse occurred on July 4 (Julian calendar) of this month during 568 B.C.E.

So who is right? Your source or the Watchtower?

(By the way, you have had about a 100% failure rate so far in all of your attempts to give evidence for your false assumptions. If I remember correctly, this has also been true of every post you have ever made on this subject in every place on this forum on every occasion when it came up.)

Edited to add that the mistake made by your source [H. van der Waerden] is a common one that John Steele has explained and I see that others have also explained the same mistake.

2 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

There are a lot smarter people than the likes of, you

Billions of people may be smarter than me. But it doesn't require as much smarts as you probably think it does to understand this.

4 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

Do the math.

I did. It was pretty simple.

4 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

You stated you are attending college

No, I never said I was attending college. I haven't attended college for many years. If you were confused about the university account I use for JSTOR, etc., I have stated that it was an "alumni" account. Alumni means I already finished.

8 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

because you missed out on a wonderful life made in HOLLYWOOD.

Is that why you think people go to college? How did that work out for you when you went for those PhD's? I pioneered my way through college. I took 7 semesters of Hebrew, and I thought that my computer science degree would result in more choices of part time jobs, to continue pioneering. Instead I ended up with full time jobs, and retired about 10 years ago. No more college for me.

17 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

Essentially denying you a good future as if life has guarantees. Have it mean, something other than to boost your bruised ego.

If you are continuing to project, I apologize for bruising your ego.

19 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

God knows it, why continue to hide and lie to him, Adam.

Who is this Adam? Is this supposed to be another name you are guessing is me? If so, wrong again.

58 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

"Nebuchadnezzar II reigned 9-I8 years earlier. or perhaps even 10 years later • to which extent his reign period is determined by the current chronology. In addition to them, there are a few later lunar eclipse*, but they are very unlikely due to their late time." Pekka Mansikka

This vague attempt to twist the narrative is beneath a good researcher, when seeking the truth.

What Mansikka says here is not just vague, it's flat out false.

17 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

Is this the point in time when you are losing miserably with your analogies that you start to move things around in order to get ready to kick people like me out that you can't handle with facts?

I would never kick you out. Not just because I don't have that ability, but because I think your posts are some of the most revealing. You probably don't even realize how much they help people realize the  of the depths of dishonesty that even a Witness will stoop to, in order to try to defend the WTS chronology here. Your writing is one of the strongest evidences against the WTS chronology for those who may not have the time to consider the facts and evidence.

Also, if you look, you will see that the post I moved was only because Arauna wrote up a very good defense of creation and against AlanF, who was trying to make a big deal out of a typo again. Just click on the link and go to page 7 or 8, and you'll see why the posts were moved. https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/88407-creation-evolution-creative-days-age-of-the-earth-humanoid-fossils-great-flood/page/7

17 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

Either way, as you have proven, how your influence has made even ignorant french go to the dark side with your posts. 

"Ignorant French"?? Are your prejudices showing?

17 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

What did Satan do with the angels he influenced? Are you any different?

Goodness! I don't know what he did with them. Did you know that Rutherford thought that people were Satanic if they didn't agree with him about 1925? Calling someone Satanic is simply the ultimate ad hominem. It's usually good evidence that there is something wrong with the thing you are trying to defend. Especially if the only other defense is gibberish.

A couple of posts between @AlanF and @Arauna that drifted into another topic were moved here:

https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/88407-creation-evolution-creative-days-age-of-the-earth-humanoid-fossils-great-flood/page/7/?tab=comments#comment-153371

15 hours ago, Arauna said:

The olympiad method is much easier, quicker and more accurate AND less debate and controversy.  You need not use the stars either....

Around the year 400 BCE a historian/writer named Hippias of Elis began a "sports magazine" which came to be called Olympianikai, in which he assembled cumulative victor lists from the Olympic games. (The Pythian Games had been held every 4 years, too, and the Nemean and Isthmian games were held every two years.)  The Olympic were the most popular. Prior to Hippias, there were several lists, but no consistent, portable, useful preserved lists of the victors. At this time no one had yet thought to number the Olympic games from a specific starting point to make a "common era" of Olympiads by which to count calendar years, but that would come within a few decades. Hippias guessed that the Olympic games in their official current format had been started by a famous Spartan Lawgiver, which Hippias thought was nearly 400 years earlier.

Here's a pretty easy to understand bit of research on the topic:

Contrary to what one might expect, Hippias did not arrive at the date of 776 on the basis of written records pertaining to the Olympics or to Olympic victors. Instead, he calculated the date of the first Olympiad by associating that Olympiad with a famous Spartan lawgiver named Lycurgus, who was a member of one of the Spartan royal families and who was believed to have helped organize the Olympic Games. Hippias used a list of Spartan kings to determine the number of generations between his own time and that of Lycurgus. He then assigned a fixed number of years to each generation and ended up with a date for Lycurgus and hence the first Olympiad. The inaccuracies inherent in this approach mean that the date of 776 for the first Olympiad is at best an approximation. The excavators at Olympia have suggested a date closer to 700.

Of course, neither Hippias in 400 BCE nor anyone else would have used the number 776 BCE, because the BCE/CE era wouldn't be invented for another few hundred years. Until then, just like the Babylonians, one needed an eponym list, or king list with lengths of reigns on them, if one wanted to get the full number of years between events far apart. That's why Hippias needed a king list of Spartan kings.

By the year 350 BCE or so, Ephorus began using those Olympic game 4 year "pegs" as markers for writing history. And several decades after that the Librarian at Alexandria around 200 BCE, accepted the notion that the first Olympic games had happened about 600 years earlier, a date we now call 776 BCE, agreeing with Hippias.

Now, one could more easily calculate how long ago Nebuchadnezzar lived, or Cyrus, or Darius the Great, or Xerxes or Artaxerxes, or famous persons who had lived during the time of those kings, like Socrates or Homer. And all they had to do is take the appropriate kings' lists to get the order of the kings, their names, and the lengths of their reign and begin working backwards to see which Olympiad that king's reign must have corresponded to. At about the same time as Ephorus began using the Olympiads for his writing around 350 BCE, The Greeks and Babylonians (and Jews) had already begun using the new Seleucid Era beginning in what we now call 311 BCE. Even one of the later "Babylonian Chronicles" mentions the Seleucid Era, and the Seleucids would continue to use the king's lists and astronomy to date their findings and observations within dates in this new era. It's used in some Jewish and Catholic Bibles in the books of the Maccabees. The Seleucids would still use king lists and astronomy to figure out how many years Before Seleucid Era an event had occurred. 

But, back to the Olympiads, which began as a dating system about 200 years after Cyrus (539).  It should also be mentioned that there was a 1,500 year gap in the games, and the Olympiad method was depopularized as Christianity took over around 393 CE and stopped the ceremonial games:

https://ancientolympics.co.uk/

The longest gap between Olympic Games, in years. [1,500] Whilst 4 years was and is the longest you have to wait between each games, prior to their resumption in 1896 you have to go all the way back to Theodosius I in AD 393, to the last time the olympics were run. Although the precise date is not certain, we do know that the ceremony was abandoned in order to establish Christianity as the de facto religion. Having conquered Greece, the Romans saw the Games as a pagan festival and a threat to the new state religion.

Just a note that most Greco-Romans and Christians were actually already using the Diocletian Era ever since it had started in the year we now call 284 AD/CE. It wasn't until about 525 AD/CE when the term "525" was first used as the Anno Domini dating system was devised by Dionysius Exiguus. So no one really used the term 500 BC, or 600 BC until well after Dionysius Exiguus. What we now call 776 or 539 BCE, was actually still calculated by kings' lists, or eras like the Seleucid era, or for a while, the Olympiad era. But historicans first calculated them backwards with kings' lists (which had been passed down and verified with star and planetary observations for Babylonian, Persian, and Greek kings) to be able to "peg" a king or famous person to the right Olympiad in the past. The Seleucid Era (SE) was still a widespread dating era alongside the Olympiads, and the SE lasted until the 500's CE/AD about the time when AD (BCE/CE) was becoming popular.

The main point is that no historical kings or events were tied to a specific Olympiad until after about 350 BCE, or about 200 years after Cyrus. But the fact that these had been attached to Olympiads by working backwards with the kings' lists, which were validated by stars and planets, meant that most of those Babylonian/Persian era kings would be as accurate as those kings' lists and the stars and planets themselves. Therefore we should expect Cyrus to have been "pegged" to the right date, and any other king mentioned by historians who were transferring those lists over to the Olympiad system.

This is why it is surprising that the WTS accepts Cyrus from 200 years before the Olympiad dating system was started, but rejects the Olympiad dating for Artaxerxes which would have been "pegged" only about 100 years prior to the first use of the Olympiad dating system.

The WTS rejects the archaeological dates from just before 539 BCE so that 1914 will work, and the WTS rejects the Olympiad dates from around 455 BCE so that 33 CE will work. Rejecting them in 455 (actually the change to Artaxerxes accession year is changed in the WT from 465 to 475 BCE, but it is mostly his 20th year that the WTS wants to adjust, which throws off the Olympiads dating by about 2 and one/half Olympiads.

@Jean Luc DESSONS Je vous remercie

Thank you beaucoup.

7 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Check again, and this time use accurate knowledge as your guide.

If you see a place where I made a mistake, be specific about where and how. Otherwise it will look like you are just pretending.

7 hours ago, César Chávez said:

If you haven't figured out a simple mathematical equation, how can you argue absolute proof.

I haven't argued absolute proof. And it's clear to me that you don't need any mathematical equation. You can just find ANY observed and/or predicted date in Nebuchadnezzar's reign, and then find every other year of his reign by counting from one of those predicted and/or observed dates.

The WTS uses a "kinked" mathematical equation: It adds 20 to the archaeological evidence for all events prior to 539 BCE. It adds 0 to the years after 539 BCE until some 10-year exceptions are needed around 455 BCE, and then it goes back to the archaeological evidence again.

7 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Isn't "Comfortmypeople" related to you and a teacher? Ask her how to properly subtract starting with 747 BC, or is it Anna in disguise, maybe both.

As far as I know, "Comfortmypeople" is a Witness from Spain. I don't think he is Anna, just as I don't think I am Arauna.

You don't need to subtract starting with 747 BCE.

As I said, you can simply forget about 747 and go directly to any of the other years that are directly pointed to by the archaeological evidence for Nebuchadnezzar. If you want to know Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year because the Bible says that a certain thing happened in that year, then you can go directly to any one year shown in a piece of archaeological evidence (LBAT 1420) to see that his . . .

• 1st year started in 604 BCE (according to the eclipse reading)
• 2nd year started in 603 . . .
• 3rd ... 602...
• 4th ... 601...
• 5th ... 600...
• 10th ...595...
• 11th ...594...
• 12th ...593...
• 13th ...592...
• 14th ...591...
• 15th ...590...
• 16th ...589...
• 25th ...580...
• 26th ...579...
• 27th ...578...
• 28th ...577...
• 29th ...576...

So if you want to know his 18th year, you can use the "natural history" from the archaeological evidence to determine that his 1st year was 604 BCE and then go forward 17 more years and get 587 BCE. (587+17=604). Just to double-check, you might want to check the reading for his 16th year and you will see that the "natural history" recorded on the archaeological evidence points to 589 for his 16th. So if you want the 18th just move 2 more years forward and you will get 587 BCE again (587+2=589). You can resolve any of Nebuchadnezzar's 43 years, even his accession year (of course), from any one of the readings shown above.

If you wish, you can even double-check if VAT 4956 fits the above for his 37th year. It does. Then you can go see if LBAT 1419 supports the dates of his reign as shown above. It does. Then you can go see if LBAT 1421 supports the dates of his reign as shown above. It does. Then you can check the planetary tablet SBTU VII 171 to see if it supports the dates of his reign as shown above. It does.

In fact you could throw out VAT 4956, SBTU..., LBAT 1420, and LBAT 1421, and still you would have the same years shown above from remaining archaeological evidence. You really only need one item to fill out all the other years. But, as it turns out, you have several with dozens of individual points to check, and they all point to the dates above --and any one date fills in all the missing years, too.

13 hours ago, Arauna said:

True, there are no dates on tablets.

Actually there are likely about 50,000  Neo-Babylonian tablets, and MOST of them have dates on them.

The dates are in the form of the YEAR, the MONTH and the DAY of the month. The YEAR is in the form of the King's name and whether it is his accession year or which year of his reign we are in. The accession year was the equivalent of saying Year ZERO, the year before the official reign began.

It's the same as if the United States dated all years by the President's name and Presidential year. For example, 50-some years since 1933 would be named like this:

FDR0 to FDR12, TRUMAN0 to TRUMAN8, IKE0 to IKE8, JFK0 to JFK2, LBJ0 to LBJ6, NIXON0 to NIXON5, , FORD0 to FORD3, CARTER0 to CARTER4, REAGAN0 to REAGAN8.

So let's say a person was born in "1933" and died in "1982" but they only used dates of the presidencies.

They would say they were born in the year FDR0 (accession of FDRs presidency) and died in the year REAGAN2. If you wanted to know how old that person was you would say they lived for all 12 years of FDR, 8 under TRUMAN, 8 under IKE, 2 under JFK, 6 under LBJ, 5 under NIXON, 3 under FORD, 4 under CARTER, and 2 under REAGAN. That's 12+8+8+2+6+5+3+4+2= 50. They died in their 50th year. We would also say the person was 49 years old, but it is also accurate to say they were in their 50th year. That checks out 1982 - 1933 is 49.

Their own memory or community memory would supply the order of the presidents (or NB kings) and later historians would make sure to make a president's list to keep them in order. (Although in truth, flipping two or more of the presidents into the wrong order could still give you the right answer.)

13 hours ago, Arauna said:

They usually refer to some great local event...most of these, in our time cannot be tracked. 

You are probably referring to royal inscriptions. Most of the nearly 50,000 dated tablets don't refer to some great local event. They may only say things like:

"NEBUCHADNEZZAR YEAR 7, MONTH 1 (Nisannu) DAY 12 - Received 20 bushels of wheat and 10 bushes of barley from Uruk"

You can't necessarily track these to our time. But if you get an average of say 400 of them for every year of the near 90 years of the full Neo-Babylonian timeline, you could easily put together a full timeline for those 90 years, especially if several of them crossed over between the reign of two kings. And if you find that about two dozen of these years are also marked on other tablets with unique astronomical positions of the sun, moon, planets, and stars then you can track the year in our own time.

For example, as you say, you can't tell the year of the mundane tablet above, but if another tablet (like LBAT 1420) says:

NEBUCHADNEZZAR YEAR 4, MONTH 1, DAY 13: [with a lunar position described in such detail that it could only belong to an observation on April 11, 601 BCE]

So now you have evidence --not proof-- but evidence that if NEB4 was 601 BCE then NEB7 above was 598 BCE. You now have a date to put on the mundane tablet.

Although you are only dealing with evidence, not proof, what would you say if you tested 40 of these astronomical settings and every single one of them consistently supported each of the others in putting together the order of the NB timeline? And what if every one of the 50,000 tablets fit perfectly into this timeline without an exception?

You probably would feel that the evidence was like a strong cable.

3 hours ago, scholar JW said:

Historical writing of history is not the same thing as historiography

That's why I didn't say it was. Why would you think it necessary to say something untrue about what I said?

3 hours ago, scholar JW said:

My suggestion, plain and simple is just read Albertz and form your own opinion of his historiography just as i have done!!!

I finished over 100 pages. It is clear enough what he thinks. And it's clear enough that you either misunderstand him, or are being dishonest.

3 hours ago, scholar JW said:

I have done a post graduate course in Historiography and COJ does not present any such historiography in his tratise, GTR.

Then you absolutely do not know what historiography is. COJ's book is a treatise that combines discussions of the proper use of historiography. There are times when it is limited in how much help it provides, and times when it is so misused as to be subverted. This is why several of his sources are specialists in historiography. Of course, you can always give an example of the historiography you learned about and explain why he does not present any "such" but you already started out telling an easily countered untruth about COJ, and you were caught. So I'm not going to be terribly interested since you can't be trusted anyway.

3 hours ago, scholar JW said:

I do not care if you mistrust me for you have deviated from the true faith by your endorsement of NB Chronology, a mere string of beads over that strong cable of WT Bible Chronology.

It's an interesting topic that proves nothing to me one way or the other. I like the fact that the strong cable of archaeological evidence confirms the Bible accounts through this period of history. But I don't need that secular evidence personally to trust the Bible. I also think it is revealing that the WTS arbitrary cherry-picking, of which NB dates are good and which are not, has created a pseudo-chronology that is defended by persons who won't look at the data for themselves. If all persons, so far, who defend it will prefer incompetence or dishonesty, instead of looking at the evidence, then this says something about the quality of the evidence, too.

I trust the Bible, and I trust that in Jehovah's good time, this secular, human tradition about 607 will be dropped from our teachings. If not, it doesn't mean it is right, but it is not so important to concern ourselves about. 607 could be absolutely right, but this doesn't make 1914 right.

We are living in the last days, not because of 1914, but because the Bible says we are. Jesus is present, not because of 1914, but because the Bible says he is. Jesus is king of kings and lord of lords, not because of 1914, but because the Bible says he is. Paul said Jesus was ruling at God's right hand until Jehovah puts all enemies under his feet, even Death. That's the time we are awaiting, praying for God's kingdom to come, and not because of a date, or the length of a generation. The end can come at any time, and it is our duty as Jehovahs' Witnesses to be ready. Most prophecies about judgments in the past were predicted by prophets, so that even the time period would be known. Jesus said this particular parousia would come like a thief in the night, like lightning, as if without warning as in the days of Lot leaving Sodom. Our preparation this time has nothing to do with knowing the day or the hour, or the times and seasons, but in our Christian conduct. It's about our love for Jehovah and for our neighbor. It's our love for the ransom, and our love for Jehovah's government. This is the primary message of the Bible:

(2 Peter 3:11, 12) . . .Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, consider what sort of people you ought to be in holy acts of conduct and deeds of godly devotion, 12 as you await and keep close in mind the presence of the day of Jehovah,. . .

(1 Timothy 1:5-7) 5 Really, the objective of this instruction is love out of a clean heart and out of a good conscience and out of faith without hypocrisy. 6 By deviating from these things, some have been turned aside to meaningless talk. 7 They want to be teachers of law, but they do not understand either the things they are saying or the things they insist on so strongly.

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

The discrepancy lies with secular and astronomical order.

No, it doesn't. I checked.

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Most historians start with Ptolemy's "Almagest", in 747 BC. Some scholars start there to.

True, but there is no reason to. You get the same answers from archaeology even if you threw out the King's List that was still being used in the time of Ptolemy's Almagest. And there is no reason to start in 747. You can develop the entire timeline from archaeology and historiography (without the Almagest) and then start from any year of any king. No reason to concern oneself with 747 BCE.

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

What are the Saros Cycle, and the 19-year cycle. You'll find very little evidence with ongoing secular chronology when ancient scribes used different starting points to achieve their historical stories to sync.

You already proved that you didn't understand what at least one scholar was saying about the ancient scribes (John Steele) If you want to claim something specific, go ahead, but these vague and ill-formed claims have never gone anywhere.

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Now the proof you argue, doesn't even come close to 587/6 BC according to secular evidence.

I don't argue proof. But, if you looked at it, I'm you would see why the evidence is accepted as absolute and definitive, even overwhelming. Even if every scribe lied about what historical stories to sync, that would be irrelevant. The point is that we can know what BCE year it was when Nebuchadnezzar's 18th and 19th year occurred. It is only the Bible scribe that matters if the Bible says a certain event happened at that point. Unless you are trying to argue that the Bible scribe was trying to achieve an historical story to sync.

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

So, I don't know why you keep defending that position when natural history itself is contradicting your observation

Quite the contrary. It is natural history that is defending the observations of the Bible. We could ignore the Babylonian written history altogether. You have never been able to give one instance of natural history contradicting any of the other observations from natural history. And that's all this is about primarily, the fact that the natural history observations coincide with and support all the other natural history observations, creating a strong cable of chronology for the Neo-Babylonian period.

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Secular Evidence.

You put a bunch of disjointed items under the heading "Secular Evidence." If you have a specific point to make, you should say it.

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Since LBAT 1420 tablet dealt with future predictions, then, was 567 BC realized?

567 BCE was realized in 567 BCE. Your premise about LBAT 1420 is false. But even if it were true, it would show that 567 actually was realized in 567.

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

The Babylonian 19-year cycle doesn't even come close to that date of 587/6 BC as contended by secular evidence, but If you add a “score” to that equation, then you get 587 BC.

And that is one of the ways we know for sure that you should not be adding 19 year cycles. And why it's wrong to pretend you can use either 18 year cycles or 19 year cycles to fake a pseudo-chronology. However, their very existence can help you see why it is so very dishonest to try to re-adjust the archeological date by 20 years (a score) to reach a Watchtower "goal year."

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Since VAT 5956 is a copy of earlier events, a mistake of 2-years will make those events off by 19-22- years, or less given which scribe recorded these timetables.

Just like with "scholar JW," you are either showing extreme incompetence here, or plain dishonesty. You've had plenty of chances to learn what the archaeological evidence shows. I'm not engaging just to help you untangle your strings of logical fallacies. If you want to claim something specific instead of all this pretentiousness, make your point. But your statement above is about the equivalent of saying that since the photocopied pages that the teacher made for the class have from the math book have a two year mistake in one of the questions, then all answers for all questions can now be wrong by 19 to 22 years depending on which teacher used the copy machine.

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Once again, people needed to prepare for their journey since they would have to cultivate the land destroyed. Hence, 537 BC.

537 is fine with me. 607 as the beginning of the 70 years is fine with me too. Both of those dates are within a a couple of years of the archaeological evidence.

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Rolf Furuli: Both VAT 4956 and Strm Kambys 400 seem to be late copies of originals written in Babylon

And yet, the WTS relies on one of them for it's astronomical data. The one the WTS relies on is problematic compared to the VT 4956, but at least they both give the right years that the rest of the archaeology shows.

By the way, you could throw out both VAT 4956 and throw out Ptolemy's Almagest, and still you'd get 587 for the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar from dozens of other points of archaeological evidence.

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Pekka Mansikka

This might be useful to discuss at length. It's too easy to just claim that he is a very sloppy sychophant of Furuli's work, but he definitely didn't catch on to the places where Furuli showed the most dishonesty and/or incompetence. This is easily shown, but the example you offered about a two-year error has absolutely no basis in evidence.

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

So, these esteemed cycles have very little to offer as proof with recorded events.

Exactly. You can use them and they provide good evidence that the observations were not referring to observations from 18 or 19 years earlier or later. Or you can ignore them and realize that the archaeological evidence stands very definitive and absolute without any concern about them whatsoever. Persons who try to use them to create 20 year differences (18+2=20, or 19+1=20) are just fooling themselves, or being dishonest. Always watch out for people who try that kind of trickery.

This reminds me of a major point that the Watchtower publications and no Witnesses have yet tried to explain.

There are tens of thousands of "dated" tablets from the Neo-Babylonian period. They are not evenly distributed, but a huge portion come from Nebuchadnezzar's reign, which is the one we are most interested in anyway. Also there are dozens more of these astronomical readings that all point to the exact same chronology I pointed out earlier. I have matched several more of the eclipses, and all of them give excellent, consistent evidence that all the archaeological evidence is accurate.

With the "contract" tablets alone, there are literally tens of thousands of tablets that support the above chronology. There are zero of the tens of thousands that would discredit or falsify the above chronology.

So we can definitively say that the archaeologically supported chronology is the one shown above and the Watchtower chronology is completely unsupported for every year prior to 539. The WTS publications support the 17 years of Nabonidus, and the 43 years of Nebuchadnezzar, and the first year of Evil-Merocach. So this leaves a 20 year gap between the EM2 and NERI4. A 20 year gap to be found somewhere in those 5 years that the archaeological evidence indicates.

Imagine that there are about 30,000 tablets that support the nearly 90 years of Neo-Babylonian timeline. If they were evenly distributed that would mean about 333 tablets per year. If the Watchtower's arbitrarily imagined gap actually existed, that would mean that 6,666 tablets of the 30,000 found are still missing. If these tablets all came from one place that might be a possibility. But many are from major temples, and many others are from personal business contracts from hundreds of different people altogether.

And of course, if this gap were a real thing, it would mean that all those eclipses could never have been predicted correctly, and all the astronomical readings from both before and after the gap would have been impossible to have faked. There really is absolutely no reason to imagine an arbitrary gap of 20 years. The Biblical evidence fits very well with the above, but would be nearly impossible to explain if the imagined gap theorized by the WTS had actually existed.

All the evidence says that the Watchtower-promoted gap is impossible. In fact, it's not even possible to propose where a ONE-year gap might go.

Most of the time the secular chronology in Biblical history is not that good. One might even surmise that if there ever a time period in history where Jehovah wanted us to know the actual definitive, absolute date of Nebuchadnezzar's 18th or 19th year, for example, then this would be the period of time when all those tens of thousands of documents were protected from the elements.

1 hour ago, César Chávez said:

Try syncing with a minus 2 years, when appropriate. You'll find a 19-22 year discrepancy.

I did. You'll notice that to give the Watchtower timeline a chance, that this is exactly what I did with the astronomical readings. They invariably proved that the archaeological evidence was correct (and is supported in the Bible, too).

Yes, it also invariably showed that the arbitrary, non-evidenced chronology in the Watchtower publications shows about a 20-year discrepency for all the arbitrary dates the Watchtower uses prior to 539 BCE. The Watchtower publications even arbitrarily create a 20 year discrepency even back to Assyrian dates and prior.

45 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

The simple fact is that for Albertz there was only ONE Exile proper or exilic era and that it can be dated from the Fall of Jerusalem from 587/586 BCE until the return of the Exiles under Cyrus in his first year-538 BCE according to the primary sources (Refer pp. 2, 121)

You already failed on page 2. Now you say to also refer to page 121. Seems you are trying to convince me that your problem really is deceitfulness instead of just incompetence. You cherry-picked something Albertz said about Ezra. But you failed to note that Albertz doesn't trust Ezra to tell the truth. He says parts of Ezra are fictive (made up, fictional, lies, fantasy, myth). And Albertz goes right back to saying that the actual "decisive turning point that ended the exilic period" is 520/521 BCE:

So, no surprise, you were not being honest, either due to incompetence or deceitfulness.

47 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

I have COJ'S many editions of his GTR and let me assure you it is not historiography and he does not use the term in any definitive way and this a serious failure of his treatise because what undergirds any competent Chronology is Historiography, a sound writing of the History of the period or era.

"Let me assure you?" Believe me, there can be nothing from you that "assures" me of anything. Based on your track record here and everywhere I see that you have been, it's a track record full of either incompetence or dishonesty. Probably a mixture of both. I think this time your obvious M.O. even accidentally let most other Witnesses in on your devious secret.

COJ's book GTR4 is a study of historical writing, therefore it is a book about "historiography," even where that historical writing originally appears in cuneiform inscriptions or the writings of various historians after the Neo-Babylonian period.

I don't know if it's true, but they say that Charles Darwin never used the word "evolution" in the book "Origin of Species." I guess you'd claim it's not a book about "evolution." You are like a person who complains that the world-wide Christian congregation should have nothing like a Governing Body, just because the Bible doesn't use the term "Governing Body." You are not being honest again.

In the case of COJ when you found out you were wrong, you tried to walk back what you meant, and, as usual, you were still just as wrong, again. Here's a google-discovered definition:

Historiography, the writing of history, especially the writing of history based on the critical examination of sources, the selection of particular details from the authentic materials in those sources, and the synthesis of those details into a narrative that stands the test of critical examination.

Even if you don't believe a word that COJ wrote, it is still most definitely a book about historiography. If you don't think so, then you are simply inadvertently admitting that you don't know the meaning of the word. Or else you are being dishonest.

1 hour ago, scholar JW said:

I am simply educating you that scholarship is a 'work in progress' and I have submitted recent scholars who have written about the 70 years in recent years and how this research supports to some degree our interpretation and chronology of the 70 years

It has always been well known that scholarship is a work in progress. The fact that you have consistently used deceit only teaches me not to trust you. You have shared your discovery that interpretations can be all over the place, but can't you see that this was already the whole point of looking into the secular evidence instead of just the interpretations in this topic/thread? It turns out that some of these scholars, especially if they reject the Bible text, might sometimes overlap with Watchtower interpretation here and there. But the fact that they NEVER in the slightest support our chronology to any degree is a testimony to the strength of the strong cable of archaeologically-evidenced chronology for this period. And, it supports the Bible chronology. Yet, it reveals a broken, fragmented, snapped, frayed and kinked string tied up in knots, when it comes to the arbitrary Watchtower timeline.