The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

486 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
“Anyone acquainted with cuneiform can see that ‘year 37’ and ‘year 38’ are
written by an experienced scribe. No modern person could have achieved to
scratch (into dried clay!!) true-looking signs.” (Communication Hermann
Hunger–C. O. Jonsson, Jan. 8, 2008)
Another problem with Furuli’s hypothesis is the identity of the supposed modern forger of
the dates and the royal name on the tablet. The first translation of the tablet was that of Paul
V. Neugebauer and Ernst Weidner, whose translation together with an astronomical
examination and a discussion of it was published back in 1915. (“Ein astronomischer
Beobachtungstext aus dem 37. Jahre Nebukadnezars II. (– 567/66),” Berichte über die
Verhandlungen der königlich sächlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig. Philologischhistorische
Klasse. 67. Band. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1915)
As the article by Neugebauer and Weidner clearly shows, the date and the royal name (“year
37 of Nebuchadnezzar”) were already on the tablet in 1915 when they were examining it.
Are we to believe that these two scholars were forgers, who co-operated in removing some
of the original signs on the tablet and replacing them with signs of their own preference?
Even Furuli admits that he “cannot imagine that any scientist working with the tablet at the
Vorderasiatische Museum has committed fraud.” (Furuli, p. 285) He has no idea about who
the supposed forger may have been, or how he/she managed to change the signs on line 1
without leaving any traces of it on the tablet.
Finally, Furuli’s hypothesis is self-contradictory. If it were true that the planetary positions
“represent backward calculations by an astrologer who believed that 568/67 was year 37 of
Nebuchadnezzar II,” and if it were true that “the original tablet that was copied in Seleucid
times was made in 588/87,” which Furuli argues was the 37 th year of Nebuchadnezzar, then
the astrologer/copyist must have dated the tablet to the 37 th year of Nebuchadnezzar from
the very beginning! No modern manipulation of the date would then have been necessary.
Furuli’s hypothesis is simply untenable. The only reason for his suggesting it is the desperate
need to get rid of a tablet that inexorably demolishes his “Oslo [= Watchtower] chronology”
and firmly establishes the absolute chronology for the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562
BCE).
As discussed in chapter 4 of my book The Gentile Times Reconsidered (Atlanta: Commentary
Press, 2004), there are at least nine other astronomical tablets that perform the same service.
Furuli’s futile attempts to undermine the enormous burden of evidence provided by these
other astronomical tablets will be discussed in another, separate part of this review.
The question that remains to be discussed here is Furuli’s claim that the lunar positions that
were observed in the 37 th year of Nebuchadnezzar and are recorded on VAT 4956 fit the
year 588/587 better than 568/567 BCE.
DO THE LUNAR POSITIONS RECORDED ON VAT 4956 FIT 588/587
BETTER THAN 568/567 BCE?
On the back cover of his new book Rolf Furuli states that the conclusion of his study is that
“the lunar data on the tablet [VAT 4956] better fit 588 than 568 B.C.E., and that this is the
37 th year of Nebuchadnezzar II.” What about this claim?
A careful examination of all the legible lunar positions recorded on this astronomical “diary”
proves that the claim is false. Almost none of the lunar positions recorded on VAT 4956 fit
the year 588/587 BCE, while nearly all of them excellently correspond to lunar positions in
the year 568/567 BCE.
The astronomy program used for this examination is Chris Marriott’s SkyMap Pro 11.04,
which uses the modern complete ELP2000-82B lunar theory. The “delta-T” value used for
the secular acceleration of the Moon is 1.7 milliseconds per century, which is the result of
the extensive research presented by F. Richard Stephenson in his Historical Eclipses and