The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

130 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
of her own will sold Lit-ka-idi to Nabû-ahhe-iddina for the full
price of nineteen and one-half shekels of silver.” 82
This document gives no room for a longer reign of
Nebuchadnezzar, or for an “extra king” between him and Awel-
Marduk.
(3) In the Neo-Babylonian period the yield of a field or garden was
often estimated before harvest time. After the harvest the workers
of the field were to turn over the estimated amount to the owners
or buyers. Quite a number of documents recording such
procedures have been found.
One of them, designated AO 8561, not only includes estimated
yields of numerous fields for three successive years, the fortysecond
and forty-third years of Nebuchadnezzar and the first year
of Awel-Marduk, but “is also a record of what portions of that
yield were received by and distributed to various persons . . . in the
month of Kislimu [the ninth month], accession year of
Neriglissar.” 83
This document, then, provides another joint or dovetail between
the forty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar and the reign of Awel-
Marduk.
(4) Another, similar text, YBC 4038, dated to the “month of Addaru
[the twelfth month], 15th day, accession year of Amel-Marduk,”
describes the monthly portioning out of “500 bushels of barley” at
the Eanna temple in Uruk from “the 43rd year of Nabû-kudurriusur
[Nebuchadnezzar]” to the “1st year of Amel-Marduk.” 84
Again, this text ties together the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and his
successor Awel-Marduk in a way that gives no room for any
additional years between the two.
The Bible itself confirms that Awel-Marduk’s accession year fell
in the forty-third year of his father Nebuchadnezzar. This may be
inferred from the datings given in 2 Kings 24:12; 2 Chronicles
82 Ronald Herbert Sack, Amel-Marduk 562–560 B.C. (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Verlag
Butzon & Bercker Kevelaer, 1972), pp. 62, 63.
83 Ibid., pp. 41, 116–118. The time interval from a harvest to the distribution of the
yield was normally brief, a few years at the most. In the present case the yields of
the three years’ harvests were distributed in the accession year of Neriglissar, that
is, three years after the harvests of the first year. The insertion of twenty extra
years somewhere between Nebuchadnezzar and Neriglissar would increase this
time interval to twenty-three years—an extremely long wait for the yields, to say
the least.
84 Ronald H. Sack, “The Scribe Nabû-bani-ahi, son of Ibnâ, and the Hierarchy of
Eanna as seen in the Erech Contracts,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, Band 67
(Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1977), pp. 43–45.