The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

316 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
The compiler of Jeremiah 52, then, faithfully reproduced the
dates found in his two sources, even if those sources reflected two
different ways of reckoning regnal years: the accession year system
used by the Babylonians, and the nonaccession year system used by
the Jews.
The last four verses of chapter 52 of Jeremiah (verses 31–34),
although taken verbatim from 2 Kings 25:27–30, also reflects the
accession year system, which may be explained by the fact that the
passage reproduces information that originally must have been
received from Babylonia. As stated in this passage, Evil-merodach
(Awel-Marduk), “in the year of his becoming king,” released the
Judean king Jehoiachin from prison in the 37th year of his exile.
According to Professor Pieters the clause “in the year of his
becoming king” (Jeremiah 52:31) “is the technically correct term
for the year of the monarch’s accession,” 9 the Babylonian
documents using a similar expression when referring to the
accession year.
That the writer of the passage in Jeremiah 52:28–34 used the
accession year system is thus the conclusion of a number of
modern Biblical scholars. 10
3. The accession year system is most probably also employed by
the prophet Daniel at Daniel 1:1, where he dates the first
deportation of Jewish exiles to the “third year” of Jehoiakim. This
deportation, however, must have followed upon the battle of
Carchemish, the victory there paving the way for
Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion and conquest of the countries in the
west, including Judah.
As noted above, this battle is dated at Jeremiah 46:2 to the ‘fourth
year” of Jehoiakim, not to his third. Most commentators, therefore,
choose to regard the “third year” of Daniel 1:1 as a historical
blunder by the author of the book, and as indicating that he was
not contemporary with the event, but was writing hundreds of
years afterwards. Some, including the Watch Tower Society, argue
that the deportation mentioned in the text was identical with the
one that occurred eight years later, after the end of Jehoiakim’s
11th year of reign, when his son and successor Jehoiachin was
exiled to Babylon. 11
9 Pieters, op. cit., p. 184.
10 See, for example, John Bright, The Anchor Bible: Jeremiah (N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965),
p. 369; J. A. Thompson, op. cit., p.782, and J. Philip Hyatt, “New Light on
Nebuchadnezzar and Judean History,” Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 75 (1956),
p. 278.
11 Insight an the Scriptures, Vol. 1 (Brooklyn, New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract
Society of New York, Inc., 1988), p. 1269. A detailed examination of this theory is
presented in the Appendix for Chapter Five: “The ‘third year of Jehoiakim’ (Daniel
1:1, 2).”