The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

The 20 th Year of Artaxerxes 385
dropped altogether. As Darius died in the 7th month, a tablet
dated to the 9th or 12th month in the accession-year of his
successor is quite all right. There was no overlapping between the
two reigns.
2. The flight of Themistocles
Much has been made in the Watch Tower publications of
Themistocles’ flight to Persia. This argument is an old one,
originating with the Jesuit theologian Denis Petau (Petavius) and
archbishop James Ussher in the seventeenth century. It was
presented in great detail by E. W. Hengstenberg in his work
Christologie des Alten Testaments, published in Berlin in 1832.
According to the Greek historians Thycudides and Charon of
Lampsacus,
Artaxerxes was the king that Themistocles spoke with after his
arrival in Persia. The Watch Tower Society argues that
Themistocles died about 471/70 BC. Artaxerxes, therefore, must
have began his rule before that date and not as late as in 465 BC.
(Insight 2, p. 614) These arguments have a superficial strength, only
because the Watch Tower Society leaves out some very important
information. In proof of their claim that Themistocles met
Artaxerxes after his arrival in Persia, they quote Plutarch’s
information that "Thucydides and Charon of Lampsacus relate that
Xerxes was dead, and that it was his son Artaxerxes with whom
Themistocles had his interview". But they left out the second part
of Plutarch's statement, which says:
. . . but Ephorus and Dinon and Clitarchus and Heracleides and
yet more besides have it that it was Xerxes to whom he came.
With the chronological data Thucydides seems to me more in
accord, although these are by no means securely established.
The Watch Tower Society, then, conceals that Plutarch goes on to
say that a number of ancient historians had written about this
event, and that most of them stated that Xerxes, not Artaxerxes,
was on the throne when Themistocles came to Persia. Although
Plutarch (c 46–120 A.D.) felt that Thucydides was more reliable, he
stresses that the chronological data were by no means securely
established. One fact that usually seems to be ignored is that
Thucydides wrote his story about Themistocles’ flight some time
after 406 BC, or about two generations after the event. He