The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

The Length of Reigns of the Neo-Babylonian Kings 93
from Berossus’ work are those of Flavius Josephus. 8
Where did Berossus get his information on the Neo-Babylonian
kings?
According to his own words he “translated many books which
had been preserved with great care at Babylon and which dealt with
a period of more than 150,000 years.” 9 These “books” included
accounts of legendary kings “before the Flood” with very
exaggerated lengths of reign.
His history of the dynasties after the Flood down to the reign of
the Babylonian king Nabonassar (747–734 B.C.E.) is also far from
reliable and evidently contained much legendary material and
exaggerated lengths of reign.
Berossus himself indicates that it was impossible to give a
trustworthy history of Babylonia before Nabonassar, as that king
“collected and destroyed the records of the kings before him in
order that the list of Chaldaean kings might begin with him.” 10
Despite these problems, however, for later periods, and especially
for the critical Neo-Babylonian period, it has been established that
Berossus used the generally very reliable Babylonian chronicles, or
sources similar to these documents, and that he carefully reported
8 Burstein, for example, says: “The earliest are those made by Josephus in the first
century A.D. from the sections concerning the second and particularly the third
book of the Babyloniaca, the latter indeed providing our best evidence for Berossus’
treatment of the Neo-Babylonian period.” (Op. cit., pp. 10, 11; emphasis added.)
Josephus’ lengthy quotation on the Neo-Babylonian era in Against Apion is best
preserved in Eusebius’ Preparation for the Gospel, Book IX, chapter XL. (See the
discussion by H. St. J. Thackeray in Josephus, Vol. I [Loeb Classical Library, Vol.
38:I], London: William Heinemann, and New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1926, pp.
xviii, xix.) The deficient textual transmission of Eusebius’ Chronicle, therefore, is of
no consequence for our study. The Watch Tower Society, in its Bible dictionary
Insight on the Scriptures (Vol. I, p. 453), devotes only one paragraph to Berossus.
Almost the whole paragraph consists of a quotation from A. T. Olmstead’s Assyrian
Historiography in which he deplores the tortuous survival history of Berossus’
fragments via Eusebius’ Chronicle (cf. note 6 above). Although this is true, it is, as
noted, essentially irrelevant for our discussion.
9 Burstein, op. cit.,p. 13. The Armenian version of Eusebius’ Chronicle gives
“2,150,000 years” instead of “150,000,” the figure preserved by Syncellus. None of
them is believed to be the original figure given by Berossus. (Burstein, p. 13, note
3.)
10 Burstein, op. cit., p. 22.