The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

A critical review of Rolf Furuli’s 2 nd volume on chronology:
Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian Chronology. Volume II
of Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Persian
Chronology Compared with the Chronology of the Bible
(Oslo: Awatu Publishers, 2007).
Part I: The astronomical “diary” VAT 4956
Rolf Furuli’s new book on chronology, Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian Chronology (Oslo:
Awatu Publishers, 2007), covers 368 pages. Chapter 6 (pages 94-123) and Appendix C (266-
325), which together cover 90 pages or about 25 percent of the book, are devoted to an
attempt to overcome the evidence provided by the astronomical cuneiform tablet VAT
4956, dated to the 37 th year of Nebuchadnezzar II.
VAT 4956 is a so-called astronomical “diary” that records the positions of the moon and
the five planets visible to the naked eye observed during the 37 th year of Nebuchadnezzar.
About 30 of these records are so well preserved that they can be checked by modern
computations. These computations have confirmed that the 37 th year of Nebuchadnezzar
corresponds to year 568/567 BCE (spring-to-spring).
HAS VAT 4956 BEEN “TAMPERED WITH” IN MODERN TIMES?
Furuli dedicates a substantial part of his discussion to arguing that the cuneiform signs on
the tablet have been “deliberately tampered with” in modern times. In particular he claims
that the signs for “year 37” at the beginning of the text in line 1 on the obverse of the tablet
and the signs for “year 38” and “year 37” in the concluding lines at the lower edge on the
reverse seem to have been “incised” by someone in modern times. He also claims that the
signs for the name “Nebuchadnezzar” in line 1 on the obverse have been manipulated.
After a lengthy analysis Furuli presents the following hypothesis on pages 285, 286:
484