The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

120 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
the Nabonidus Chronicle). The reason for the overlap of one day
beyond Babylon’s fall is easily explained:
Interestingly enough, the last tablet dated to Nabunaid from
Uruk is dated the day after Babylon fell to Cyrus. News of its
capture had not yet reached the southern city some 125 miles
distant. 62
In view of this immense amount of documentary evidence, the
question must be asked: If twenty years have to be added to the
Neo-Babylonian era in order to place the destruction of Jerusalem
in 607 B.C.E., where are the business and administrative texts dated in those
missing years?
Quantities of dated documents exist for each of
Nebuchadnezzar’s forty-three years, for each of Awel-Marduch’s
(Evil-Merodach) two years, for each of Neriglissar’s four years,
and for each of Nabonidus’ seventeen regnal years. In addition,
there are many dated texts from Labashi-Marduk’s reign of only
about two months.
If any of these kings’ reigns had been longer than those just
mentioned, large numbers of dated documents would certainly
exist for each of those extra years. Where are they? Twenty years are
about one fifth of the whole Neo-Babylonian period. Among the
tens of thousands of dated tablets from this period, many thousands
ought to have been found from those missing twenty years.
If one casts one die (of a pair of dice) tens of thousands of times
without ever getting a 7, he must logically conclude: “There is no
number 7 on this die.” The same is true of the Watch Tower’s
twenty missing “ghost years” for which one must look in vain
during the Neo-Babylonian period.
But suppose that a number of missing years really existed, and
that, by some incredible chance, the many thousands of dated
tablets that ought to be there have not been found. Why is it, then,
that the lengths of reign according to the dated tablets which have
been unearthed happen to agree with the figures of Berossus, those of
the Royal Canon, of the Uruk King List, of the contemporary royal
62 Ibid., p. 13. One text from the reign of Nabonidus, published by G. Continua in
Textes Cuneiformes, Tome XII, Contrats Néo-Babyloniens, I (Paris: Librarie
Orientaliste, 1927), Pl. LVIII, No. 121, apparently gives him a reign of eighteen
years. Line 1 gives the date as “VI/6/17,” but when it is repeated in line 19 in the
1ext it is given as “VI/6/ 18” Parker and Dubberstein (p. 13) assumed “either a
scriba1 error or an error by Contenau.” The matter was settled by Dr. Beatrice
André’, who at my request collated the original at the Louvre Museum in Paris in
1990: “The last line has, 1ike the first, the year 17, and the error comes from
Contenau.”—Letter André-Jonsson, March 20, 1990.