The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

506 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
WAS KANDALANU ANOTHER NAME FOR NABOPOLASSAR?
Furuli’s “Oslo/Watchtower Chronology” requires that twenty years are added to the Neo-
Babylonian chronology somewhere after the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. This, of course,
would not only move the reign of Nebuchadnezzar twenty years backwards. It would also
move the 21-year reign of his father Nabopolassar twenty years backwards, from 625-605
BCE to 645-625. As stated earlier, such changes are totally blocked by a number of
astronomical tablets, including the Saturn Tablet. To overcome this problem, Furuli argues
that Nabopolassar was no other than Kandalanu himself! In note 66 on page 56 he says:
“In the Akitu Chronicle we find a description of the years 16-20 of Samasšuma-ukin.
Then in line 24 we read ‘arki m Kan-da-la-nu’ (traditionally
translated ‘after Kandalanu’) followed by ‘in the accession year of
Nabopolassar.’ The Akkadian phrase that is translated as ‘after Kandalanu’
can also be translated as ‘thereafter Kandalanu’; thus we get ‘thereafter
Kandalanu, in the accession year of Nabopolassar.’ The phrase can also
mean ‘this other Kandalanu’ in contrast to some previous Kandalanu. In
both cases, Kandalanu can be equated with Nabopolassar.”
Thus Furuli not only claims that Kandalanu was Nabopolassar, but he also tries to argue
that the phrase arki Kandalanu refers to his accession year. In arguing this Furuli ignores the
fact that two other cuneiform texts use the same phrase, arki Kandalanu, not for his
accession year but for a continuing artificial count of his reign after his death! As discussed earlier, the
last of these tablets is dated to shattu 22 kam arki Kandalanu, i.e., “year 22 after Kandalanu.” – J.
A. Brinkman & J. A. Kennedy, op. cit., p. 49. This alone invalidates Furuli’s argument. On
page 16 of the same article Brinkman and Kennedy give some other, earlier examples of this
posthumous dating method. See also the comments by Grant Frame in Babylonia 689-627
B.C. A Political History (Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul,
1992), pp. 287, 288.
A second problem with Furuli’s identification is that Kandalanu’s posthumous “22 nd ” year
was a year of unrest, when several pretenders to the throne fought for power. The Uruk
King List gives 21 years to Kandalanu and assigns the next year to two Assyrian pretenders,
Sin-shum-lishir and Sin-shar-ishkun. (GTR4, pp. 105-107) Similarly, the Babylonian King
List A, which covers the period from the first dynasty of Babylon to the beginning of the
Chaldean Dynasty, shows that Kandalanu was followed by Sin-shum-lishir. Unfortunately
the list breaks at this point, but it seems likely that it also mentioned Sin-shar-ishkun. – D.
O. Edzard (ed.), Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, Vol. VI (Berlin, New
York: Walter de Gruyter, 1980), p. 93.
The 21-year reign of Nabopolassar, however, was not followed by a period of unrest and
war in Babylonia. On the contrary the Babylonian Chronicle BM 21946 shows that the
transfer of power from Nabopolassar to his son and successor Nebuchadnezzar was
peaceful and without problems. That part of the chronicle says:
“For twenty-one years Nabopolassar ruled Babylon. On the eighth day of
the month Ab he died. In the month of Elul Nebuchadnezzar (II) returned
to Babylon and on the first day of the month he ascended the royal throne in
Babylon.” (Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, 1975, pp. 99, 100; cf.
GTR4, p. 102)
At the death of Nabopolassar in 605 BCE the Assyrian empire was gone, so no Assyrian
kings existed that could try to take over the power in Babylonia after his death. The political
events following the death of Kandalanu and the death of Nabopolassar were wholly
different, which once again prove that the two kings cannot have been identicial.
Finally, the intercalary months known from the reigns of the two kings do not agree either,
which would have been the case if the two royal names referred to the same king. In the
tables below “U” means “Ululu II” (the second 6th month), and “A” means “Addaru II”
(the second 12th month). The third column gives the number of tablets with attested