The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

508 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
In summary, the discussion above has demonstrated that Furuli’s revised chronology for
Kandalanu and Nabopolassar is astronomically and historically untenable and has to be
rejected.
ADDENDUM TO MY REVIEW PART II: THE SATURN TABLET BM
76738+76813
As discussed above, Rolf Furuli tries to overcome the evidence presented by the Saturn
Tablet from the reign of Kandalanu by arguing that Kandalanu was identical with
Nabopolassar. This idea has already been refuted above. But one of the arguments used by
Furuli was not dealt with. On pages 329-331 of his Vol. 2 Furuli questions Chris Walker’s
restoration of the royal name in line 1, obverse, as “(Kand)alanu”. (C. B. F. Walker,
“Babylonian Observations of Saturn During the Reign of Kandalanu,” in N. M. Swerdlow
(ed.), Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination, London: The MIT Press, 1999, pp. 61-76)
Walker restores/transliterates/translates line 1 as follows:
1´ [MU 1-KAM kan-d)a-⌐la-nu ITU¬-[x U 4 x-KAM ŠÚ]
1´ [Year 1 of Kand]alanu, ⌐month¬ […, day …, last appearance.]
Furuli, however, claims that (the sign for) nu in line 1 “looks more like [the sign for] pap”
and argues:
“If the sign of line 1 is pap, the name of the king could be d AG.IBILA.PAP (Nabopolassar)
rather than Kan-da-la-nu. The space of the piece that is broken away in line 1 and the small
part of the sign visible before the sign pap or nu corroborate both names.” (Furuli, p. 331)
Is this correct? Can Furuli’s “observations” be trusted? One of my correspondents
forwarded Furuli’s statements to a professional Assyriologist and expert on cuneiform, Dr.
Jon Taylor at the British Museum, and asked him to check line 1´ on the original tablet. In
an email dated August 28, 2008, Dr. Taylor answered:
“Dear … ,
with broken text it is always a little difficult to make definitive statements. The traces do let
me say the following, however:
1) the last sign of the name is a perfectly good NU; one can compare the other examples of
NU in this text. It does not fit the traces one would normally expect for PAP.
2) the previous sign does fit the traces of LA. It does not fit the traces of IBILA.
Given the above, Kandalanu is the most reasonable reading. I can’t imagine of a writing that
would allow a reading Nabopolassar.
Best wishes,
Jon”
Part III: Are there about 90 “anomalous tablets”
from the Neo-Babylonian period?
There are only two possible ways of extending the Neo-Babylonian period to include the 20
extra years required by the Watchtower Society’s chronology, and therefore also by Rolf
Furuli’s so-called “Oslo Chronology”: (1) Either the known Neo-Babylonian kings ruled
longer than indicated by Berossus, the Royal Canon (often misnamed “Ptolemy’s Canon”),
and the Neo-Babylonian cuneiform documents, or (2) there were other, unknown kings
who belonged to the Neo-Babylonian period in addition to those established by these
ancient sources. Virtually all arguments set forth by Watchtower apologists like Rolf Furuli
belong to one or both of these two categories. Upon closer examination, however, the
arguments used turn out to be nothing but grasping at straws.