The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

Appendix 317
However, if it is accepted that Daniel was living in Babylon in
the Neo-Babylonian period and was occupying a high rank in its
administration, it would have been natural for him to apply the
Babylonian calendar and their system of reckoning regnal years,
and to do this as well when referring to the reigns of non-
Babylonian kings, including Jehoiakim, just as Jeremiah, living in
Judea, conversely applied the Jewish nonaccession year system in
referring to Nebuchadnezzar’s reign.
4. The Babylonian calendar was also used (alongside the
Egyptian civil calendar) by the Jewish colony at Elephantine in s.
Egypt from the 5th century onward, as has been established by Dr.
Bezalel Porten and others. Dr. Sacha Stern concludes that, “Non-
Jewish or ‘official’ calendars were routinely used by Diaspora Jews
throughout the whole of Antiquity.” 12
Several difficult problems in Biblical chronology are easily
solved if the accession and nonaccession year systems are taken
into consideration. A study of the chronological tables in the final
section of this Appendix (“Chronological tables covering the
seventy years”) will make this clear.
Nisan and Tishri years
It is well established that the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian
calendar started on Nisan 1 (the first day of the month Nisan in the
spring), which was also the beginning of the regnal years. The Jews,
in later times, had two beginnings of their calendar years: Nisan 1
in the spring and Tishri 1 six months later in the autumn—Tishri 1
being the older new-year day. 13 Although Nisan was the beginning
of the sacred calendar year, and the months were always numbered
from it, 14 Tishri was retained as the beginning of the secular calendar
year.
The problem is: Did the kings of Judah follow the custom of
Babylon and other countries in reckoning the regnal years from
Nisan 1, or did they reckon them from Tishri, the beginning of
their secular year? Although scholars disagree on this, there is
evidence to show that the kings of Judah reckoned their regnal
years on a Tishri-to-Tishri basis.
12 Sacha Stern, “The Babylonian Calendar at Elephantine,” Zeitschrift far Papyrologie
and Epigraphik, Band 130 (2000), p. 159.
13 J. D. Douglas, ed., New Bible Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Leicester, England : Inter-Varsity
Press, 1982), p. 159; compare Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. 1, p. 391.
14 “In the Hebrew Scriptures the months are numbered from Nisan, regardless of
whether the reckoning of the year was from spring or fall.” — Edwin R. Thiele, The
Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, revised edition (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1983), p. 52. In footnote 11 on the same page he
gives many examples of this.