The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

The Length of Reigns of the Neo-Babylonian Kings 111
thus giving a very strong confirmation to the figures for
Nabonidus’ reign set forth by Berossus and the Royal Canon. 45
(2) Nabon. No. 8, or the Hillah stele, was discovered at the end of
the 19th century in the neighborhood of Hillah, about four miles
southeast of the ruins of Babylon. 46
The inscription “consists of a report on the accession year and
the beginning of the first regnal year of Nabonidus” and may be
shown, on the basis of internal evidence, to have been written
toward the middle of his first regnal year (in the autumn of 555
B.C.E.) 47
The information given on this stele alone helps us to establish the
total length of the period from Nabopolassar to the beginning of the reign of
Nabonidus. How does it do this?
In several of his royal inscriptions (No. 1, 8, 24, and 25 in
Tadmor’s list) Nabonidus says that in a dream in his accession year,
he was commanded by the gods Marduk and Sin to rebuild Éhulhul,
the temple of the moon god Sin in Harran. In connection with this,
the text under discussion (Nabon. No. 8) provides a very
interesting piece of information:
(Concerning) Harran (and) the Éhulhul, which had been lying
in ruins for 54 years because of its devastation by the Medes (who)
destroyed the sanctuaries, with the consent of the gods the time
for reconciliation approached, 54 years, when Sin should return to
his place. When he returned to his place, Sin, the lord of the tiara,
remembered his lofty seat, and (as to) all the gods who left his
chapel with him, it is Marduk, the king of the gods, who ordered
their gathering. 48
45 Someone might claim it is possible to find another lunar eclipse setting heliacally
on UMW 13 a number of years earlier that fits the description given by Nabonidus,
perhaps about twenty years earlier, in order to adapt the observation to the
chronology of the Watch Tower Society. However, modern astronomical
calculations show that no such lunar eclipse, visible in Babylonia, took place at
this time of the year within twenty years, or even within fifty years before the reign
of Nabonidus! The closest lunar eclipse of this kind occurred fifty-four years
earlier, on August 24, 608 B.C.E. The lunar eclipse of Nabon. No. 18, therefore,
can only be that of September 26, 554 B.C.E. For additional information on the
identification of ancient lunar eclipses, see the Appendix for Chapter 4: “Some
comments on ancient lunar eclipses “
46 A translation of the text was published by S. Langdon in 1912, op. cit. (note 37
above), pp.53–57, 270–289. For an English translation, see Ancient Near Eastern
Texts (hereafter referred to as ANET), ed. James B. Pritchard (Princeton, N. J.:
Princeton University Press, 1950), pp. 308–311.
47 Col. IX mentions Nabonidus’ visit to southern Babylonia soon after a New Years’
festival. This visit is also documented in archival texts from Larsa dated to the first
two months of Nabonidus’ first year. — Beaulieu, op. cit., pp. 21, 22, 117–127.
48 Translated by Beaulieu, op. cit., p. 107.