The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

412 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
with the absolute dating of the period based on the astronomical tablets,
Faulstich argues that VAT 4956 contains information from two separate years
mixed into one. This idea, however, is based on serious mistakes. I have
thoroughly refuted Faulstich’s thesis in the unpublished article, “A critique of
E.W. Faulstich’s Neo-Babylonian chronology” (1999), available from me upon
request.
The copying and redaction of the original tablet
This “source of error” is related to the previous one. As Furuli points out,
VAT 4956 is a later copy in which the copyist tried to modernize the archaic
terminology of the original tablet. This procedure, Furuli states, “may very well
cause errors.”
Copying errors do exist, but they usually create few problems in tablets that
are fairly well preserved and detailed enough to be useful for chronological
purposes. As discussed in GTR 4 , ch. 4, A-1, 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 modern computations
based on the recorded observations.
Thus, on the obverse (front) side, line 3 has day 9, which P.V. Neugebauer
and E. F. Weidner pointed out in 1915 is a scribal error for day 8. Similarly,
obverse, line 14 (the line quoted by van der Waerden above), 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 modern
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.” (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)
Unknown length of the month—29 or 30 days
The next source of error in Furuli’s list is “the unknown length of the
month” in the Babylonian calendar:
“In some instances we do know which months of a particular year in
the reign of a particular king had 30 and which had 29 days, in most
cases we do not know this. … our Babylonian calculation can be up to
one day wrong according to the Julian calendar.” (p. 33)
As I pointed out earlier under I-B-1, this is unimportant for chronological
purposes. Parker and Dubberstein were there quoted as stating that “it is
possible that a certain number of dates in our tables may be wrong by one day,
but as they are purely for historical purposes, this uncertainly is unimportant.”
(PD, p. 25)
Often, when there is an uncertainty of one day, the corresponding Julian day
for a dated Babylonian position of the moon or an inner planet can be