The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

Furuli’s First Book 409
VAT 4956 records about 30 such lunar and planetary positions, dated to
various days and months in the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar, thus fixing that
year as 568/67 BCE with absolute certainty.
Another problem Furuli mentions is related to the place of observation. He
states that it “is assumed that the observations … were made in Babylon; if they
were made in another locality this may influence the interpretation of the
observations.” (p. 32) He then quotes from Weir’s discussion of the
observations on the Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa, which according to his
calculations might have been made at “a latitude of 1½ degree north of
Babylon.” This would be about 170 kilometers north of Babylon.
Again, this problem applies to the Venus Tablet, the fragmentary copies of
which were found in the ruins of Nineveh, but it does not apply to the archive
of ca.1300 astronomical observational texts found in the city of Babylon. As
shown by modern calculations, these observations must have been made in, or
in the near vicinity of, Babylon. (Cf. Professor A. Aaboe, “Babylonian
Mathematics, Astrology, and Astronomy,” The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol.
III:2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 276-292)
The crudeness of observations: Each zodiacal sign covers 30 degrees
On page 32 Furuli mentions another potential source of error:
“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. He supports this by quoting
a scholar, Curtis Wilson, who in a review of a book by R. R. Newton made
such a claim, stating that, “The position of the planet is specified only within an
interval of 30 o .” (C. Wilson in Journal of the History of Astronomy 15:1, 1984, p. 40)
Wilson further claims that this was the reason why Ptolemy, “when in need
of earlier observations of these planets turns not to Babylonian observations
but to those of the Alexandrians of the third century B.C., which give the
planets’ positions in relation to stars.” (C. Wilson, “The Sources of Ptolemy’s
Parameters,” Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. 15:1, 1984, pp. 40, 41)
But anyone with even a cursory acquaintance with the Babylonian
astronomical tablets knows that Wilson’s claim—repeated by Furuli—is false.
Although it is true that many positions recorded on the tablets are given with
reference to constellations along the zodiacal belt, the great majority of the
positions, even in the earliest diaries, are given with reference to stars or
planets. The division of the zodiacal belt into signs of 30 degrees each took
place later, during the Persian era, and it is not until “toward the end of the 3rd
century B.C.” that “diaries begin to record the dates when a planet moved from
one zodiacal sign to another.” (H. Hunger in N. M. Swerdlow [ed.], Ancient
Astronomy and Celestial Divination, London: The MIT Press, 1999, p. 77. Cf. B. L.