The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

Furuli’s Second Book 521
however, to W. St. Chad Boscawen’s table on page 52 of the Transactions of the Society of
Biblical Archaeology, Vol. VI (London, January, 1878). The date there has day 5, not day 15 as
in Furuli’s tablet.
Actually, a copy of this tablet by B. T. A. Evetts was published four years later as no. 66 in
his Babylonische Texte (Leipzig, 1892). As shown on page 3 of the same work, Evetts read
both the year number and the royal name differently: He dates it to XI/05/03 of
Neriglissar, not of Evil-Merodach! A transliteration and translation of the same tablet by
Ronald H. Sack has also been included in his recent work on Neriglissar – King of Babylon (=
AOAT, Band 236. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1994), pp. 205-206. The
museum number is BM 30577. Sack, who collated the tablet afresh, confirms the reading of
Evetts. Obviously, Boscawen had misread the tablet. Its date creates no problems.
In the discussion above, the 60 supposedly “anomalous tablets” dated to the transition
from Evil-Merodach to Neriglissar presented in Furuli’s “Table 3.4” were first reduced to
nine tablets that seemed to conflict with conventional chronology. Of these tablets only two
could be demonstrated to have clear anomalous dates, i.e., no. 2 (BM 75489), dated to
Neriglissar, II/04/acc. and no. 7 (BM 61325), dated to Evil-Merodach, X/19/02. This result
is the same as that reached in GTR4 (pp. 325-327). How are the two tablets to be explained?
Do they, as Furuli claims on page 60, “strongly suggest that the accession year of Neriglissar
is not the same year as the second year of Evil-Merodach, but one or more years must have
elapsed between their reigns”? This is certainly not the correct conclusion to draw, as this
would contradict many other documents from the period, including the astronomical
tablets.
It should be noticed that the dates on these two tablets stand isolated from the other dates
in the transition between the two reigns. The tablet dated in month II of Neriglissar’s
accession year is not followed by any tablets dated to his reign in the next two months, III
and IV, while we have several tablets dated in every month of his accession year from
month V and onward. Similarly, we have several published and unpublished tablets dated in
every month of Evil-Merodach’s reign up to month V of his 2 nd year, while the tablet from
month X of his 2 nd year is an isolated date that appears five months later. Normally, we
should have several tablets from each of the four months between V and X dated to his
reign, but we have none. What does this indicate?
Dr. G. van Driel, in his discussion of the first of the two tablets (AOAT 236, 91 = BM
75489), says:
“The Sippar text R. H. Sack, Neriglissar no. 91, dated to 4 II accession year,
would suggest a considerable overlap with the preceding king Awil-Marduk,
to whom later Sippar texts (listed by Sack, p. 26, n. 19) are dated. A mistake in
the date of AOAT 236, no. 91 is the easiest solution. It should be noted that the
Uruk kinglist (J. J. A. van Dijk, UVB 18 [1962] pp. 53-60 obv. 9) gives N. 3
years and 8 months, which could exceptionally refer to the actual reign and
not to a reign starting with the beginning of the first full year.” – G. van
Driel in Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie, Band 9
(Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1998-2001), p. 228. Emphasis added.
(Cf. the similar comments in GTR4, pp. 326, 327. In note 35 on p. 327 an
alternative solution is also discussed.)
The easiest and most natural explanation, then, is that the two odd dates are scribal errors.
As Furuli himself admits in his first volume on chronology, “one or two contradictory finds
do not necessarily destroy a chronology that has been substantiated by hundreds of
independent finds.” (Rolf Furuli, Persian Chronology and the Length of the Babylonian Exile of the
Jews, Oslo, 2003, p. 22) This is certainly true of the two anomalous tablets discussed above.