The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

366 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
eclipses, but they were unable to predict or calculate a number of
important details about them. (See above, p. 185.) This has been
discussed in detail by Dr. John M. Steele. 99 Commenting on the
claim that the eclipse records on the lunar eclipse tablets might be
retrocalculations by Babylonian astronomers in the Seleucid era,
Steele explains:
You were absolutely right when you argued that the Babylonians
could not have retrocalculated the early eclipse records. The Saros cycle
could have been used to determine the date of eclipses, even centuries
earlier, but none of the Babylonian methods could have allowed them to
calculate circumstances such as the direction of the eclipse shadow, the
visibility of planets during the eclipse, . . .
Although the Babylonians could calculate the time of the eclipses,
they could not do so to the same level of accuracy as they could observe
— there is a clear difference of accuracy between eclipses they said were
observed and those they say were predicted (this is discussed in my
book), which proves that the “observed” eclipses really were
observed. 100
(C-2) Most of the contents of the observational texts are
observations
Although the observational texts, due to particular
circumstances such as bad weather, occasionally contain calculated
events , most of the entries are demonstrably based on actual
observations. That this is the case with the Diaries is directly
indicated by the Akkadian name engraved at the end and on the
edges of these tablets: natsaru sha ginê, which means “regular
watching.” (ADT, Vol. I, p. 11)
Scholars who have examined these tablets in detail agree that
they contain mostly genuine observations. Professor Hermann
Hunger gives the following description of the various kinds of
astronomical data recorded in the Diaries:
Lunar Six [i.e., the time differences between the settings and risings
of the sun and the moon just before and after conjunction and
opposition]; planetary phases, like first and last visibility . . . conjunctions
between planets and the so-called Normal Stars . . . eclipses; solstices and
equinoxes; phenomena of Sirius. Toward the end of the 3rd century
99 John M. Steele, Observations and Predictions of Eclipse Times by Early
Astronomers (Dortrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000); also
in his article, “Eclipse Prediction in Mesopotamia,” Archive for History of Exact
Sciences, Vol. 54 (2000), pp. 421–454.
100 Communication Steele to Jonsson, March 27, 2003.