The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

182 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
Details on some two dozens of lunar eclipses, dated to specific years
and months in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, are preserved on
LBAT 1420. Not one of them is found to agree with the Watch
Tower Society’s chronology for the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.
Together these lunar eclipses form an irregular but very distinct
pattern of events scattered over the first twenty-nine years of
Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. Only on the assumption that his reign
began in 604 B.C.E. do we find a far-reaching correspondence
between this pattern and the celestial events that gave rise to it. But
if Nebuchadnezzar’s reign is moved back one, two, five, ten, or
twenty years, this correlation between the records and reality
immediately dissolves. LBAT 1420 alone, therefore, suffices to
disprove completely the idea that the eighteenth year of
Nebuchadnezzar should be dated to 607 B.C.E.
C-4: The lunar eclipse tablet LBAT 1421
The preserved part of LBAT 1421 records two eclipses observed in
Babylonia in the sixth and twelfth month of year “42”, evidently of
the reign of Nebuchadnezzar:
(Year) 42, (month) Ululu, (day) 14. It rose eclipsed [. . .]
and became bright. 6 (USH) to become bright.
At 35° [before sunset] .
(Month) Addaru, (day) 15, 1,30° after sunset [. . .].
25° duration of maximal phase. In 18° it [became bright.]
West(wind) went. 2 cubits below
γ Virginis eclipsed
[. . . . . .]
Provided that these eclipses occurred in the forty-second year of
Nebuchadnezzar—and there was no other Babylonian king ruling
that long in the sixth, seventh, or eighth centuries B.C.E.—they
should be looked for in 563/62 B .C.E. And there is no difficulty
in identifying them: The first, dated in the sixth month, occurred
on September 5, 563 B.C.E., and the second one, dated in the
twelfth month, occurred on March 2–3, 562 B.C.E.
The first eclipse “rose eclipsed”, meaning that it began some
time before sunset, so that when the moon rose (at about 18:30 at
that time of the year), it was already eclipsed. This agrees with
modern calculations, which show that the eclipse began about
17:00 and lasted until about 19:00. 58
58 Liu & Fiala, op. cit., p. 70, no. 2281.