The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

488 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
year, one “omitted” and one observed. The first, “omitted” one, which refers to the eclipse
of July 15, 588, is dated to month IV (Duzu), not to month III (Simanu). So it cannot be the
eclipse dated to month III on VAT 4956. That this eclipse really is the one of July 15, 588 is
confirmed by the detailed information given about the second, observed lunar eclipse, which
is dated to month X (Tebetu) of year 17. The details about the time and the magnitude help
to identify this eclipse beyond all reasonable doubts. The whole entry reads according to H.
Hunger’s translation in ADT V, page 29:
“[Year] 17, Month IV, [omitted.]
[Month] X, the 13 th , morning watch, 1 beru 5 o [before sunrise ? ]
All of it was covered. [It set eclips]ed.”
The second eclipse in month X – six months after the first – took place on January 8, 587
BCE. This date, therefore, corresponded to the 13 th of month X in the Babylonian calendar.
This agrees with Parker & Dubberstein’s tables, which show that the 1 st of month X
(Tebetu) fell on 26/27 December in 588 BCE. The Babylonians divided the 24-hour day
into 12 beru or 360 USH (degrees), so one beru was two hours and 5 USH (= degrees of four
minutes each) were 20 minutes. According to the tablet, then, this eclipse began 2 hours and
20 minutes before sunrise. It was total (“All of it was covered”), and it “[set eclips]ed,” i.e., it
ended after moonset. What do modern computations of this eclipse show?
My astroprogram shows that the eclipse of January 8, 587 BCE began “in the morning
watch” at 04:51, and that sunrise occurred at 07:12. The eclipse, then, began 2 hours and 21
minutes before sunrise – exactly as the tablet says. The difference of one minute is not real,
as the USH (time degree of 4 minutes) is the shortest time unit used in this text. [The USH
was not the shortest time unit of the Babylonians, of course, as they also divided the USH
into 12 “fingers” of 20 seconds each.] The totality began at 05:53 and ended at 07:38. As
moonset occurred at 07:17 according to my program, the eclipse was still total at moonset.
Thus the moon “set while eclipsed.”
Furuli attempts to dismiss the enormous weight of evidence provided by this tablet in just a
few very confusing statements on page 127 of his book. He erroneously claims that the
many eclipses recorded “occurred in the month before they were expected, except in one
case where the eclipse may have occurred two months before.” There is not the slightest
truth in this statement. Both the predicted and the observed eclipses agree with modern
computations. The statement seems to be based on the gross mistakes he has made on the
previous page, where he has misidentified the months on LBAT 1421 with disastrous results
for his calculations.
In the examination below, the lunar positions recorded on VAT 4956 are tested both for
568/567 BCE as the generally accepted 37 th year of Nebuchadnezzar and for Furuli’s
alternative dates in 588/587 BCE as presented on pages 295-325 of his book.
Furuli has also tested the lunar positions for the year 586/585 BCE, one Saros period (223
months, or 18 years + c. 11 days) previous to 568/567. As Furuli himself rejects this year as
not being any part of his “Oslo Chronology”, I will ignore it as well as all his computations
for that year (which in any case are far from correct in most cases).
The record of the first lunar position on the obverse, line 1, of VAT 4956 reads:
(1) Obv.´ line 1: “Year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Month I, (the 1 st of which
was identical with) the 30 th (of the preceding month), the moon became visible behind the
Bull of Heaven”.
Nisannu 1 = 22/23 April 568 BCE:
The information that the 1 st of Month I (Nisannu) was identical with the 30 th of the
preceding month is given to show that the preceding lunar month (Addaru II of year 36, as
shown also at Obv. line 5 of our text) had only 29 days. In 568 BCE the 1st day of Nisannu
fell on 22/23 April (from evening 22 to evening 23) in the Julian calendar. After sunset (at c.