The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

108 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
So it is important to ask: Are there then no historical records
preserved from the Neo-Babylonian era itself which establish its
chronology? Yes, there are, as is immediately evident.
c) Royal inscriptions
Royal inscriptions of different kinds (building inscriptions, votive
inscriptions, annals, etc.) from the Assyrian and Babylonian eras
themselves have been found in great numbers.
In 1912 a German translation of the then-known Neo-
Babylonian inscriptions was published by Stephen Langdon, but
since then many new ones from the period in question have been
unearthed. 37 A new translation of all the Neo-Babylonian royal
inscriptions is therefore being prepared. 38
This is an enormous task. Paul-Richard Berger estimates that
about 1,300 royal inscriptions, one third of which are undamaged,
have been found from the Neo-Babylonian period, most of them
from the reigns of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar. 39
For the chronology that we are concerned with, three of the
inscriptions are especially valuable. All of them are original
documents from the reign of Nabonidus. 40 How do they aid in
establishing the critical date for Jerusalem’s destruction?
We have seen that in advocating a 607 B.C.E. date, the Watch
Tower Society questions the reliability of the duration of the Neo-
Babylonian period as presented by both Berossus and the Royal
Canon (often called Ptolemy’s Canon), finding the total 20 years
too short. The first of the royal inscriptions to be discussed, called
37 Stephen Langdon, Die neubabylonischen Königsinschriften (=Vorderasiatische
Bibliothek, Vol. IV) (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1912).
38 The first of the three planned volumes was published in 1973 as Paul-Richard
Berger, Die neubabylonischen Königsinschriften (=Alter Orient und Altes Testament,
Vol. 4/1) (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1973).
39 About 75 percent of these documents were found in Babylon during the detailed
excavations of R. Koldewey in 1899–1917. (Berger, ibid., pp. 1–3) As explained by
Dr. Ronald Sack, “a virtual mountain” of royal inscriptions have survived from the
reign of Nebuchadnezzar alone. (Images of Nebuchadnezzar [Selinsgrove:
Susquehanna University Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Press,
1991],p. 26.) Six of the inscriptions are from the reign of Awel-Marduk, eight from
the reign of Neriglissar, and about thirty from the reign of Nabonidus. (Berger, op.
cit., pp. 325388.)
40 In 1989 Paul-Alain Beaulieu, in his doctoral thesis The Reign of Nabonidus,
included a new catalogue with detailed descriptions of the royal inscriptions from
the reign of Nabonidus. —Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of
Babylon 556–539 B.C. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), pp.
1–42.