The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

The Length of Reigns of the Neo-Babylonian Kings 149
(2) Inscriptions Nabon. No.18 and Nabon. No. 8 (the Hillah
stele)
Aside from the Babylonian Chronicles and kinglists there are
other ancient documents which give evidence of being, not copies,
but originals. The royal inscription Nabon. No. 18, dated by the aid
of another inscription known as the Royal Chronicle to the second
year of Nabonidus, fixes this year astronomically to 554/53 B.C.E.
As Nabonidus’ reign ended with the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C.E.,
the total length of his reign is shown by this inscription to have
been seventeen years (555/54–539/38 B.C.E.).
The whole length of the Neo-Babylonian period prior to Nabonidus is
given by Nabon. No. 8 (the Hillah stele), which gives the time elapsed
from the sixteenth year of initial ruler Nabopolassar up to the
accession-year of final ruler Nabonidus as fifty-four years. The stele
thus fixes the sixteenth year of Nabopolassar to 610/09 B.C.E.
If this was Nabopolassar’s sixteenth year, his twenty-first and
last year was 605/04 B.C.E. Nebuchadnezzar’s first year, then, was
604/03 B.C.E. and his eighteenth year was 587/86, during which
Jerusalem was destroyed.
(3) Nabon. H 1, B (the Adad-guppi’ stele)
Nabon. H 1, B (the Adad-guppi’ stele) gives the reigns of all the
Neo-Babylonian kings (except for that of Labashi-Marduk, as his
brief reign does not affect the chronology presented) from
Nabopolassar up to the ninth year of Nabonidus. Since the Watch
Tower Society indirectly accepts a seventeen-year rule for
Nabonidus (as was shown above in the discussion of the Nabonidus
Chronicle), this stele of itself overthrows their 607 B.C.E. date for
the desolation of Jerusalem and shows this event to have taken
place twenty years later, in 587 B.C.E.
These three lines of evidence may logically be grouped together
because it cannot be clearly established that the various documents
involved are wholly independent of one another. Reasons for
believing that Berossus and the Royal Canon both got their
information from Babylonian chronicles and kinglists have already
been pointed out. It is also possible that the chronological
information given in the royal inscriptions was derived from the
chronicles (although this is something that cannot be proved). 113
Grayson’s suggestion, that the chronicles themselves may have
113 A. K. Grayson, “Assyria and Babylonia,” Orientalia, Vol. 49 (1980), p. 164