The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

452 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
Another example is Professor Klas R.Veenhof, who comments about the end
of Assyria on pages 275 and 276 of his book Geschichte des Alten Orients bis zur
Zeit Alexanders des Grossen (Göttingen, 2001). He describes how the last king of
Assyria, Assuruballit II, after the destruction of the capital Nineveh in 612
BCE, retreated to the provincial capital Harran, the last Assyrian stronghold,
where he succeeded in holding out for another three years, supported by Egypt.
Veenhof writes:
“It was to no advantage that Egypt supported Assyria; the Babylonian
and Median armies took the city in 610 B.C., and in the following year
[609] they warded off their last defensive attempt. Therewith a great
empire was dissolved.” (Translated from German)
Realizing that the year 609 marks the natural starting point of the “seventy
years for Babylon,” Professor Jack Finegan writes on pages 177 and 178 in the
revised edition of his well-known Handbook of Biblical Chronology (Peabody,
Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998):
“In Jeremiah 29:10 the promise of the Lord is to bring the people
back ‘when seventy years are completed for Babylon.’ In the history of
the ancient Orient the defeat in 609 B.C. of Ashur-uballit II, ruler in the
western city of Haran of the last remnant of the Assyrian empire, by
Nabopolassar of Babylon, marked the end of that empire and the rise to
power of the Babylonian empire (§430). Then in 539 Cyrus the Persian
marched in victory into Babylon (§329) and the seventy years of Babylon
and the seventy years of Jewish captivity were ‘completed’ (709 [printing
error for 609] - 539 = 70).”
Certainly, no one acquainted with Neo-Babylonian history can honestly
claim that the 70 years “for Babylon” have a “fuzzy meaning” because no
particular events mark the beginning and end of the period.
Jeremiah 29:10: The Septuagint and Vulgate versions
Furuli next points out that “the Septuagint has the dative form babylôni” but
with “the most natural meaning being ‘at Babylon’.” The statement reveals a
surprising ignorance of ancient Greek. As every Greek scholar will point out,
the natural meaning of the dative form babylôni is “for Babylon.” It is an exact,
literal translation of the original Hebrew l e bâbel, which definitely means “for
Babel” in this text, as will be discussed below. True, at Jeremiah 29:22 (LXX
36:22) the dative form babylôni is used in the local sense, “in Babel,” but we may
notice that it is preceded by the Greek preposition en, “in,” to make this clear:
“And from them a malediction will certainly be taken on the part of
the entire body of exiles of Judah that is in Babylon (en babylôni)”
Furuli further refers to the rendering of the Latin Vulgate, in Babylone, which
means, as he correctly explains, “in Babylon.” This translation most probably
influenced the KJV of 1611, which in turn has influenced several other earlier
translations. The point is that all translations derived from or influenced by the
Vulgate, such as the KJV, are not independent sources.