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  • From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] repost of full question
  • Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:14:14 +0200

Dear Dirk,

I think the subject about chronology is beside what we normally discuss on this list, so I would not continue this discussion. But allow me a few comments.

I start with your last comment:

DF:
With much respect, from what I have read, I think yours is in danger if you can't move the date for Jerusalem's fall to 607. If you really, really, really mean this statement: "why should we dogmatically rely on the present consensus?", then we have to imagine that you will not be able to produce the evidence needed to prove your chronology 100% either (after all, this can't be done 100% right?) - so would you be willing to go on the record as stating that should not dogmatically rely on 607 as the fall of Jerusalem either?

RF:

Your last question I answer in the affirmative. No one today can know with certainty when Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II, because ancient history and chronology cannot be proven. In my discussion of VAT 4956 I point out two possibilities, 1) the lunar positions refer to 568/67, which would give 587 as the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, and 2) the lunar positions refer to 588/87, which would give 607 as the destruction date. Both dates are possible as well as other dates, such as 586/85 for the lunar dates. I argue against dogmatism because the data are not decisive.

I have already as a linguist stated my position on the translation of 2 Chronicles 36:21 and Daniel 9:2, so I see no reason to say more about that.



Rolf, thanks for responding! Please see my comments below. I block them in with **DF** and **END DF**

Thanks!

----- Original Message ----
From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2008 5:25:02 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] repost of full question

Dear Dirk,

I see your desire to find agreement between the
chronology of the Bible and ancient chronology.
And your problem is that Dan 9:2 says something
that you find is at odds with the accepted
Neo-Babylonian chronology. The Hebrew words of
Dan 9:2 and 2 Chronicles 36:21 say explicitly
that Jerusalem was a desolate waste for 70 years,
and I cannot see how they could be translated in
a different way if we use the normal Hebrew
lexicon, grammar, and syntax.

** DF **


Your are saying that 2 Chronicles 36:21 and Daniel 9:2 clearly, unambigiously (explicitly) state that Jerusalem would lie in ruins for 70 years. I disagree that they state this "explicitly" or "clearly". Take for example 2 Chronicles 36:21 quoted here from the NIV:

"The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah."

The "desolation" in the scripture above is connected with the sabbath rests of the land. Notice, though, that this scripture too references Jeremiah and claims agreement with Jeremiah. However, Jeremiah didn't mention the sabbath rests of the land. The word "sabbath" occurs seven times in Jeremiah and none of them apply to the sabbath rests of the land. The "sabbath rests" prophecy came from Leviticus. All that is clearly stated above is that the land rested while it was desolate. But the 70 years is not connected to that sabbath resting, nor to the desolation. The desolation and sabbath resting ARE connected together by the scripture above - but not to the 70 years. The scripture just says that the land would "rest" and be desolate UNTIL the 70 years were fulfilled/comleted/accomplished/ended.

Jerusalem would lie desolate, and all the years lying desolate it paid its sabbath rests - until 70 years were "fulfulled" - This is the **SAME** word used in Daniel 9:2 that draws your attention to END of the period, not the period as a whole.

Here is the word defined again, strong number: 4390

A primitive root, to fill or (intransitively) be full of, in a wide application (literally and figuratively): - accomplish, confirm, + consecrate, be at an end, be expired, be fenced, fill, fulfil, (be, become, X draw, give in, go) fully (-ly, -ly set, tale), [over-] flow, fulness, furnish, gather (selves, together), presume, replenish, satisfy, set, space, take a [hand-] full, + have wholly.



Jerusalem finished paying off its sabbaths when the 70 years period completed, but that doesn't mean that Jerusalem started paying off its sabbaths when the 70 years began. That cannot be shown anywhere from scripture - especially not from Jeremiah, since he didn't mention sabbath rests. In fact, the prophecy in Jeremiah applies to different nations. He states that "these nations" would "serve" the king of Babylon 70 years (Jeremiah 25:11) - so it applies to the servitude of many nations. However, the prophecy in Leviticus applies only to Judah and the paying of the sabbath rests of the land.



However, the two prophecies are **related** in the sense that they would both END at the same time. When the 70 years ended, it was then possible for the desolation and sabbath rests of the land to end. This is the same issue I am having with Daniel 9:2. In order to create an equation of 70 years = desolation, you have to ignore the word rendered "fulfill" (strong number H4390) which IS there in the Hebrew. The meaning, defined above, pulls the readers attention to the end of the 70 years relating to the end of the desolation and sabbath rests - but not equating the two periods.


snip

You referenced the business/administrative documents and mentioned that 25% (approx) are damaged so that they can't be dated. This is fine with me... then exclude them from the evidence pool. It is my understand that there are TENS OF THOUSANDS - some figures I have read state HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of documents from the time period in question. Let's take an average - 50,000. If 25% of them are damaged so as they can't be dated, then that leaves 37,500 left that are dateable. That is about 50 documents per month for the entire Neo-Babylonian era. And I know there are, in reality, more than 37,500. The point is that we have enough documents to establish the lengths of reigns of the Neo-Babylonian kings to such a small detail that we can identify kings that reigned for only a few months.

We don't even have to "fit" them in our current chronology. These business documents simply establish who reigned, and for how long. That's it. It is fairly independent of any sort of chronology. The **application** of those lengths of reigns in interesting, though. Here is the accepted lengths of reigns:

Nebuchadnezzar 43 years
Evil-Merodach 2 years
Neriglissar 4 years
Labashi-Marduk 9 months
Nabonidus 17 years (ending when Babylon fell to Persians)

The Bible says that Jerusalem was destroyed in the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar. If you accept 539 BC as the date for Babylon's fall, then the 18th year of Neb. = 587.

The only way that you can get around this is that you postulate a missing king in there. We have all these documents (not counting the damaged ones) that give us the lengths of reigns of these kings. Yet, there isn't even one that mentions a new king? Have you been able to find a document that mentions a new king?


** END DF **


Anomalous tablets should not exist, but such
tablets do exist! I have a list of about 90
business tablets dated in the reigns of the
Neo-Babylonian kings which, taken at face value,
show that the Neo-Babylonian Empire lasted longer
than the traditional chronology says.


** DF **

I disagree. Anomalous tablets SHOULD exist - depending on what you mean by "anomalous". This isn't like a mathematical theorum, in which you can find one example that contradicts the theroum, thereby proving it is not true. We are talking about business documents here, TENS OF THOUSANDS of them, written by people. You don't think there would be a mistake here and there?

Let me put it another way. I create computer programs that run the day-to-day operations of law firms, insurance companies, telephone companies, schools, and various other business types. These companies process thousands of transactions daily. I have seen major insurance companies issue claims checks dated in month 13! I have seen payments posted the 31st of Feb. If I were a historian looking back on this culture some 2000-3000 years in the future, and came across various examples of checks dated in month 13 and some dating the 31st of February, should I conclude that there really wasn't 12 months for this culture, rather there were 13? Or that there really was a 31st of February?

The point: mistakes happen when we are talking about documents written by people. You say you found 90 "anomalous" tablets. My question to you, what is the nature of those anomolies? Because 90 out of 37,500 (to use our example figure) is less than 1/2 of 1% error. I see more errors in modern day business transactions.

Now, if you have some tablets that show a new king, well ... then I would suggest that you publish those quickly before somebody beats you to it.

RF:
Here you misunderstand the situation completely. Have you ever heard about the problem of induction?
Suppose that I form the hypothesis that all the swans in the world are white. In order to show that the hypothesis is true I travel around the world and look at the color of the swans. After some months of travelling I have seen 500,000 white swans. What have I proved? Nothing, because I have not seen all the swans! However, one or two black swans who are not dyed or have gone through the fire would falsify the hypothesis. The 20,000 business tablets from the Neo-Babylonian Empire do not prove anything regarding the length of the reigns of the Neo-Babylonian kings - they are not more than white swans (and BTW, how do you know that the 3000+ tablets with the name "Nebuchadnezzar" refer to Nebuchadnezzar II and not to Nebuchadnezzar III, Nebuchadnezzar IV, Nebuchadnezzar V, or Nebuchadnezzar VI? I can hardly think of a better example of the problem of induction at work than the traditional interpretation of these cuneiform tablets with the names of kings. While the 20,000 tablets are white swans, the 90 may serve as black ones. I say "may," because there is little certainty in the study of ancient artifacts. However, It was very important to date business tablets exactly, because they listed loans and the leasing of artifacts and other transactions which were time-dependent. To say that the 90 tablets probably are errors because they contradict the traditional chronology is special pleading. Perhaps the traditional chronology is correct - I do not know. What I do know is that there are quite a lot of data suggesting it is wrong. So why should we be dogmatic either way?



** DF **

Are you aware of this paper, refuting your book: <http://cfmin.wordpress.com/category/607-bce/>http://cfmin.wordpress.com/category/607-bce/

RF:
Your comment here is too sweeping. My book has 367 pages (15 chapters and a big appendix). What the author of this web page *tries* to refute are 13 pages with lunar positions in my 87-page discussion of VAT 4956. Most of this discussion relates to the reading of Akkadian cuneiform signs and the meaning of these signs. But the author does not know Akkadian, so naturally, he does not discuss this important part of my analysis. Even if he successfully did refute these 13 pages, something that I dispute, this is just 3.5% of the book. And again, I am not trying to prove anything regarding ancient chronology, but I want to show that there are several possible interpretations.

One last point regarding Jeremiah. Please note that while the Masoretic text of this prophet speaks about "70" years in connection with Babel, Jeremiah never explicitly says to what these 70 years refer.
This may be because of the choice of the prophet himself, or it may be because of textual problems (the LXX text of Jeremiah is quite different from the Masoretic text). However, the Chronicler who lived after the exile, and Daniel, who lived at the end of the 70 years explicitly say that the 70 years referred to the period when Jesusalem was desolate. This may be because they had another text of Jeremiah or because they empirically knew the length of the period. In any case, a fine way of understanding ancient texts is to interpret the unclear passages in light of the clear ones, and not to reject the clear ones because of a certain theology or chronology.




Thanks!
Dirk Frulla




Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo





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