The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

Appendix 361
useful for chronological purposes. As discussed in chapter 4 of the
present work (p. 162 above), the dated lunar and planetary
positions recorded in VAT 4956 evidently contain a couple of
scribal errors. These errors, however, are minor and easily detected
by modem computations of the observations recorded.
Thus, on the obverse (front) side, line 3 has day “9”, which
already P. V. Neugebauer and E. F. Weidner pointed out is a
scribal error for day “8”. 91 Similarly, obverse, line 14, has day “5”,
which is obviously an error for day “4”. The remaining legible
records of observed lunar and planetary positions, about 30, are
correct, as is demonstrated by modem calculations. In their recent
examination of VAT 4956, Professor F. R. Stephenson and Dr. D.
M. Willis conclude:
The observations analyzed here are sufficiently diverse and accurate
to enable the accepted date of the tablet i.e. 568–567 B.C.— to be
confidently confirmed. 92
(B-2b) Inapplicable and therefore irrelevant “sources of
error”:
An example of (b) is Furuli’s reference to the gradual change in
the speed of the earth’s rotation. (p. 33) As is pointed out in the
present work (p. 334 above), this is no problem for the period
under discussion, as the rate of the decrease in the earth’s rotation
has been established back to, and even over a century beyond the
Neo-Babylonian period. From the middle of the 8th century B.C.E.
and on, therefore, we are on “safe ground” with respect to this
source of error.
(B-2c) Imaginary “source of error”, no. 1:
An example of (c) is Furuli’s reference to the supposed
“crudeness of observations” recorded on the astronomical tablets.
On page 32 he claims:
One problem is the crudeness of the observations. Because the
tablets probably were made for astrological reasons, it was enough to
know the zodiacal sign in which the moon or a certain planet was found
at a particular point of time. This does not give particularly accurate
observations.
By this statement Furuli creates a false impression that the lunar
and planetary positions recorded on the Babylonian astronomical
tablets are given only in relation to zodiacal signs of 30 degrees
each.
91 A translation and discussion of the tablet by Neugebauer & Weidner was published
in 1915. See above, p. 157, note 8.
92 F. R. Stephenson & D. M. Willis in J. M. Steele & A. Imhausen [eds.], Under One
Sky. Astronomy and Mathematics in the Ancient Near East (Munster: Ugarit-Verlag,
2002), pp. 423–428. (Emphasis added)