The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

Flavius Josephus’ conflicting statements
Furuli’s First Book 435
Furuli’s discussion of Flavius Josephus’ information about the Neo-
Babylonian chronology is not reliable because it is partially based on an
obsolete text of Josephus’ works. He starts by quoting Josephus’ distorted
figures for the Neo-Babylonian reigns at Antiquities X,xi,1-2:
“Nabopolassar 29 years, Nebuchadnezzar 43 years, Amel-Marduk 18
years, Neriglissar 40 years.” (p. 69)
Furuli got these figures from William Whiston’s antiquated translation of
1737, which was based on a text that is no longer accepted as the best textual
witness. Had he consulted a modern translation of Josephus’ Antiquities, he
would have discovered that Nabopolassar, at least, is correctly given 21—not
29—years. (See, for example, Ralph Marcus’ translation in the Loeb Classical
Library.)
Furuli believes that Josephus mentions the wrong figure elsewhere. Still
following Whiston’s obsolete translation, he states in footnote 90 on page 69:
“In Against Apion, sect. 17 [error for I,19], Nabopolassar is ascribed
29 years, but this is a quote from Berossus. Josephus does not mention
Nabopolassar and the length of his reign elsewhere.”
This statement, too, is wrong. Against Apion I,19, like Antiquities X,xi,1,
assigns Nabopolassar 21 years, according to all modern textual editions of
Against Apion.*
* Excursion: The best textual editions of Josephus’ Against Apion are those of
Benedictus Niese in Flavii Iosephi Opera, Vol. V (Berlin: Weidmann, 1889), Samuel
Adrianus Naber in Flavii Iosephi Opera Omnia, Vol. VI (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1896),
H. St. J. Thackeray in Josephus (= Vol. 38:1 in the Loeb Classical Library, London:
William Heinemann, and New York: G. P. Putnamn’s Sons, 1926), and Théodore
Reinach & Léon Blum, Flavius Josèphe Contre Apion (Paris: Société d’Èdition “Les
Belles Lettres,” 1930). William Whiston’s translation was based on manuscripts that
go back to one from the 12th century preserved in Florenz, Codex Laurentianus plut.
lxix 22, usually referred to as L. Although this is the oldest preserved Greek
manuscript of Against Apion, the best textual witness of Josephus’ excerpts from
Berossus in I,19 is Eusebius’ quotations from Josephus’ Against Apion in his
Preparation for the Gospel, Book IX, Chapter XL, and also in the Armenian version of
his Chronicle, 24,29 and 25,5. Both works give Nabopolassar 21 years. This figure is
further supported by the Latin translation (”Lat.”) of Against Apion made in the 6th
century. (C. Boysen, Flavii Iosephi Opera ex Versione Latina Antiqua VI:II [= Vol.
XXXVII in the Vienna Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum], 1898, p. 30. See
also the comments on the textual witnesses by Alfred von Gutschmid in his
“Vorlesungen über Josephus’ Bücher,” published in Kleine Schriften [ed. by Franz
Rühl], Band 4, Leipzig, 1893, pp. 500, 501). Josephus’ Antiquities X,xi,1 clearly gives
Nabopolassar a reign of 21 years. The figure 29 given in Codex Laurentianus (L) from
the 12th century (on which all later manuscripts are based) is, therefore,
demonstrably a late distortion that is corrected in all modern textual editions of
Against Apion and Antiquities. (See also the comments by Thackeray, op. cit., pp. xviii,
xix.)