Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <Peter_Kirk AT sil.org>]

The 240 years sounds more like the discrepancy between the Hebrew calendar
and the traditional Christian one of Archbishop Ussher etc, according to
which it is now not 5761 but 6004 years since the Creation.

Peter Kirk

-----Original Message-----
From: Ruthy & Baruch [mailto:alster AT bezeqint.net]
Sent: 03 January 2001 20:21
To: Biblical Hebrew
Subject: Re: Hebrew Calendar


Liz Fried wrote:

> Does anyone know the dates of the destructions
> of the first and second temple according
> to the Hebrew Calendar's year dating?
> Is it true that 240 years are missing?

The destruction of the first temple is dated AM 3338 in Rabbinic tradition,
which, as we are now in AM 5761, is the equivalent of 422 BCE.  The
difference results mainly from the Rabbinic view that the Persian rule over
Jerusalem lasted only 52 years (counting 18 before the temple was rebuilt.
See Seder Olam 30).  This is 164 years after the destruction according to
modern historians, not 240.  After the death of Alexander the Great,
however, there are virtually no discrepancies between the two chronologies.
The difference between them about the date of the second temple's
destruction is two years: according to Seder Olam 28, the temple lasted 420
years, putting its destruction at AM 3828 (68 CE).

There have been a few traditionalist attempts to account for these
discrepancies.  See Y. Medan's Hebrew article in _Megadim_ 14 (1991), esp.
pp. 67-77.

Kol Tuv,
Baruch Alster
Kochav Ya`akov, Israel