The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

Appendix 331
Ashurbanipal is generally believed to have begun his reign in
Assyria in 668 B.C.E. His twentieth year, therefore, is dated to
649/48 B.C.E. If Adad-guppi’ was born in that year, and if she
lived on until the beginning of Nabonidus’ ninth year, 547 B.C.E.,
she would have been 101 or 102 years old at her death, not 104
years as stated in the inscription. Scholars who have examined the
inscription, therefore, have concluded that the stele contains a
miscount of about two years. “All agree on this point,” say scholars
P. Garelli and V. Nikiprowetsky. 42
Further, the inscription seems to give the Assyrian king Assuretil-ili
a reign of three years, which has been regarded as a problem
as there is a contract tablet dated to the fourth year of this king. 43
Since C. J. Gadd published his translation of the text, other
scholars have examined these problems. Dr. Joan Oates offers a
solution which has been accepted by other scholars as most
probably the correct one: 44
As is evident from the inscription, Adad-guppi’ first lived in
Assyrian territory (perhaps in Harran) serving under Assyrian kings
until the third year of Assur-etil-ili, when she moved to Babylon,
serving under Babylonian kings from that time on. As Oates
explains, this does not mean that Assur-etil-ili’s third year was his
last. If Assur-etil-ili began his rule in Assyria after his father’s death
in 627 B.C.E., his third year was 624/23 B.C.E. His second and
third regnal years in Assyria, then, overlapped the first and second
years of Nabopolassar in Babylon (625/24 and 624/23 B.C.E.). In
calculating the age of Adad-guppi’, Nabonidus (or the scribe who
made the inscription) simply summed up the regnal years without
taking into account this overlapping of Assur-etil-ili’s reign with
that of Nabopolassar. 45
Oates’ solution was supported in 1983 by Erle Leichty.
Discussing a new inscription from Assur-etil-ili’s reign, he pointed
out its agreement with Oates’ conclusion that “the third year of
Assur-etilli-ilani is the same as the second year of Nabopolassar,”
42 P. Garelli and V. Nikiprowetsky, Le Proche-Orient Asiatique (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1974), p. 241. One exception is M. Gerber in ZA 88:1
(1998), pp. 72–93.
43 C. J. Gadd, op. cit., pp. 70ff.
44 Joan Oates, “Assyrian Chronology, 631–612 B.C.,” Iraq, Vol. 27, 1965, pp. 135–
159.
45 Evidently Dr. Paul-Alain Beaulieu, in his discussion of these problems, was not
aware of Oates’ solution. His comments, therefore, are confusing, and his
questioning of the accuracy of the chronological data of the stele clearly is
unwarranted.—Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556–
539 B.C. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 139, 140.