The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

The Length of Reigns of the Neo-Babylonian Kings 91
since the Watch Tower Society holds this seventy-year period to be
a period of complete desolation of Judah and Jerusalem, we are told
that it was in the year 607 B.C.E. that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed
Jerusalem, in his eighteenth regnal year. (2 Kings 25:8; Jeremiah
52:12, 29) This event, it is assumed, started the 2,520 years, called
the Gentile times, beginning in the year 607 B.C.E.
This starting-point, however, is incompatible with a number of
historical facts.*
A. ANCIENT HISTORIANS
Up to the latter part of the nineteenth century the only way to
determine the length of the Neo-Babylonian period was by
consulting ancient Greek and Roman historians. Those historians
lived hundreds of years after the Neo-Babylonian period, and
unfortunately their statements are often contradictory. 3
Those held to be the most reliable are 1) Berossus and 2) the
compiler(s) of the kinglist commonly known as Ptolemy’s Canon,
sometimes also, and more correctly, referred to as the Royal Canon.
It seems appropriate to begin our discussion with a brief
presentation of these two historical sources since, although neither
of them by themselves provides conclusive evidence for the length of
the Neo-Babylonian period, their ancient testimony certainly merits
consideration.
3 These ancient historians include Megasthenes (3rd century B.C.E.), Berossus (c. 250
B.C.E.), Alexander Polyhistor (1st century B.C.E.), Eusebius Pamphilus (c. 260–340
C.E.), and Georgius Syncellus (last part of the 8th century C.E.). For a convenient
overview of the figures given by these ancient historians, see Raymond Philip
Dougherty, Nabonidus and Belshazzar (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929),
pp. 8–10; cf. also Ronald H. Sack, Images of Nebuchadnezzar (Selinsgrove:
Susquehanna University Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Press,
1991), pp. 31–44.
* What follows in this and the subsequent chapter, in many cases involves information
of a technical nature, accompanied by detailed documentation. While this
contributes to the firm foundation of the dates established, it is also made
necessary by attempts on the part of some sources to counteract the historical
evidence, offering information that has an appearance of validity, even of
scholarliness, but which, on examination, proves invalid and often superficial.
Some readers may find the technica1 data difficult to follow. Those who do not feel
they need all the details may turn directly to the summaries at the end of each of
these two chapters. These summaries give a general idea of the discussion, the
evidence presented, and the conclusions drawn from it.