The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

The Absolute Chronology of the Neo-Babylonian Era 183
The lunar eclipse tablet LBAT 1421
The tablet records two lunar eclipses dated to months six and
twelve of year "42," evidently of Nebuchadnezzar. The details
given help to identify them with eclipses that occurred on
September 5, 563 and March 2-3, 562 B.C.E. respectively. —
From A. J. Sachs, Late Babylonian Astronomical and Related Texts
(Providence, Rhode Island: Brown University Press, 1955), p.
223.
The canon of Liu and Fiala confirms that the second eclipse was
total. “1,30° [six hours] after sunset” probably refers to the
beginning of the total phase, which began after midnight, at 0:19,
and lasted until 2:03, i.e. it lasted for 104 minutes. 59 This is in good
agreement with our text, which gives the duration of the maximal
phase as 25 USH, that is, 100 minutes.
In the chronology of the Watch Tower Society,
Nebuchadnezzar’s forty-second year is dated to 583/82 B .C.E. But
no eclipses of the type described in our text occurred in that year.
A possible alternative to the first one might have been that of
October 16, 583 B.C.E., had it not began too late—at 19:45
according to Liu and Fiala—to be observed at moonrise (which
occurred at about 17:30). And as for the second eclipse, there were
no eclipses at all that could be observed in Babylonia in 582
B.C.E. 60
The lunar eclipse texts presented above provide four additional
independent evidences for the length of the Neo-Babylonian
period.
59 Ibid., p. 70, no. 2282. Sunset began ca. 18:00.
60 In 582 B.C.E. there were four lunar eclipses, but all of them were penumbral. —
Liu & Fiala, op. cit., p.69, nos. 2231–34.