The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

330 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
that it was rebuilt immediately. As indicated by a number of texts the
restoration of the temple was evidently a drawn-out process that
lasted for several years, perhaps until the thirteenth year of
Nabonidus.
The fifty-four years, on the other hand, clearly ended in the
accession-year of Nabonidus, when, according to the Adad-guppi’
inscription, “the wrath of his [Sin’s] heart calmed. Towards E-hulhul
the temple of Sin which (is) in Harran, the abode of his heart’s
delight, he was reconciled, he had regard. Sin, king of the gods,
looked upon me and Nabu-na’id (my) only son, the issue of my
womb, to the kingship he called. “ 40
The statement on the Hillah stele that Sin at this time “returned
to his place” should not be taken to mean that the temple was
rebuilt at this time. Rather, it may mean that Sin, the moon god,
“returned to his place” in the sky, as suggested by Tadmor. The
Babylonians not only knew that lunar phenomena such as eclipses
often recurred after a period of eighteen years (the so-called “Saros
cycle”), but that they also, and with a much higher degree of
reliability, recurred after a period of fifty-four years (three “Saros
cycles”). The Babylonian astronomers even used these and other
cycles for predicting lunar eclipses. At the time Nabonidus acceded
to the throne a complete cycle of the moon had passed since the
destruction of the moon temple at Harran, and Nabonidus may
have seen this as a remarkable coincidence and a favorable omen.
As Sin had now “returned to his place” in the sky, had not the time
arrived for him to return also to his earthly abode in Harran? So
Nabonidus concluded that the temple had to be rebuilt. 41
The Adad-guppi’ inscription (Nabon. No. 24)
It is well known that the Adad-guppi’ inscription at one point
contains an error of calculation. As defenders of the Watch Tower
Society’s chronology have emphasized this error in an attempt to
undermine the value of the inscription, a few comments on the
problem seem necessary.
40 C. J. Gadd, “The Hamat Inscriptions of Nabonidus,” Anatolian Studies, Vol. VIII,
1958, pp. 47–49.
41 Hayim Tadmor, “The Inscriptions of Nabunaid: Historical Arrangement,” in Studies
in Honor of Benno Landsberger on his Seventy-fifth Birthday [Assyriological Studies,
No. 16], ed. H. Güterbock & T. Jacobsen (Chicago: The Chicago University Press,
1965), p. 355.—For the superiority of the 54-year cycle, see Dr. W. Hartner,
“Eclipse Periods and Thales’ Prediction of a Solar Eclipse. Historical Truth and
Modern Myth,” in Centaurus, Vol. 14, 1969, pp. 60–71.