The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

168 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
of Kandalanu to the first year of Nabopolassar was a period of
twenty-two years. Thus the chronology of that era, supplied by
these sources, is as follows:
Shamashshumukin 20 years 667 – 648 B.C.E.
Kandalanu 22 years 647 – 626 B.C.E.
Nabopolassar 21 years 625 – 605 B.C.E.
Nebuchadnezzar 43 years 604 – 562 B.C.E.
The diary B.M. 32312, although establishing a date prior to the
Neo-Babylonian period (which began with Nabopolassar), again
coincides with and helps corroborate the chronology of that era.
This diary, then, adds yet another witness to the increasing
amount of evidence against the 607 B.C.E. date. A change of
Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth year from 587 to 607 B .C.E. would
also change Shamashshumukin’s sixteenth year from 652 to 672
B.C.E. But the diary B.M. 32312 rules out such a change.
And, as already pointed out, no one can claim that later copyists
inserted “the 16th year of Shamashshumukin” in this diary, because
the text is damaged at this point and that datum is broken away! It
is the unique historical information in the text, information
repeated in the Akitu Chronicle, that fixes the diary to
Shamashshumukin’s sixteenth year.
This diary, therefore, may be regarded as an independent witness
which upholds the authenticity of the dates given in VAT 4956 and
other diaries. 27
27 A catalogue of business documents compiled by J. A. Brinkman and D. A. Kennedy
that includes the reigns of Shamashshumukin and Kandalanu is published in the
Journal of Cuneiform Studies (JCS), Vol. 35, 1983, pp. 25–52. (Cf. also JCS 36,
1984, pp. 1–6, and the table of G. Frame, op. cit., pp. 263–68.) Cuneiform texts
show that Kandalanu evidently died in his twenty-first regnal year, after which
several pretenders to the throne fought for power, until Nabopolassar succeeded in
ascending to the throne. Some business documents span the period of
interregnum by artificially carrying on Kandalanu’s reign after his death, the last
one (B.M. 40039) being dated to his “22nd year” (”the second day of Arahsamnu
[the 8th month] of the 22nd year after Kandalanu”). This method is also used by
the Royal Canon, which gives Kandalanu a reign of twenty-two years. Other
documents span the period differently. The Uruk King List gives Kandalanu
twenty-one years, and gives the year of interregnum to two of the combatants, Sinshum-lishir
and Sin-shar-ishkun. See chapter three above, section B-1-b.) The
Babylonian chronicle B.M. 25127 states of the same year: “For one year there was
no king in the land” (Grayson, op. cit., p. 88) All documents agree, however, to the
total length of the period from Shamashshumukin to Nabopolassar. (For additional
details on Kandalanu’s reign, see the discussion by G. Frame, op. cit., pp. 191–96,
209–13, 284–88.)