Hi GSX:
I rate Bible "chronologists" right up there with numeralogists. If you work the numbers long enough you can eventually get them to agree with whatever you want. Of course as a Bible chronologist you're forced to work with the inconsistencies of the book itself so if you can make sense of an imperfect manmade piece of propoganda then more power to ya.
This is the anti-chronologists ultimate cop-out, imaginaging that ANY POSSIBLE numbers can be worked out. Well, maybe that's almost true, I've seen some very involved chronological match-ups, but some things only give you a few options.
For instance, the prophecy of the "70 weeks" which must begin when the "word goes forth to rebuild Jerusalem". There are different versions of when this applies but ultimately it can't be linked up to just any year.
That's why there is such an important focus, though on astronomical texts. They give you just one date to deal with that is scienfically matched up and that's it. If you can't line your chronology up with that dating then you have to dismiss the record as a fraudulent. But if you can you get some credibility.
Thus the VAT4956 just by being a post-dated document is dismissible for 568BCE for year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar but not for the 511BCE dating in the text since it is the cyrptic double-dated year. If you presume this was the best way some astronomers found to retain a reference to the original chronology that was revised during the Seleucid Period then 511BCE usurps 568BCE as the most reliable secular dating for year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar. That's just academics. Thus, 511BCE would challenge the Biblical chronologies more than 568BCE ever could. That's why it's nice that 511BCE just so happens to agree with dating the 23rd year of Neb-2 in 525BCE which matches up with one of the Bible's chronologies for the year Jerusalem began to be rebuilt, the very first application, the 1st of Cyrus in 455BCE!
So it's a big ball of wax with lots of complications but every now and then when you get a good secular source in total agreement with the Bible then it works out great.
Another critical example is the absolute year the Jews officially come out of exile and regain control over their "promised land". That's an absolute date of 1947. You can play with it you can't do anything with it but note it. That's when they officially came out of exile, when they officially had a country again. But the Bible connects chronology to it for the second coming, namely 45 years after this event was when the Messiah was to appear. That is, in 1992. So it's interesting that this LOCKED-IN date that you can't change or manipulate just happens to agree with the fall of Jerusalem in 529BCE when you apply the 2520-year formula that the witnesses have misdated to 607BCE.
So you see, when you're playing the chronology game, there are other levels of confirmation, including how many cross-prophephesies you can match up to your favorite chronology.
Here's another one that is DIRECT and UNCHANGEABLE. The succession of 70 weeks. 70 weeks is 490 years and makes up 10 jubilees each. The 70th week is the week the Messiah arrives. There is no argment that the 70-weeks ending in 36CE began in 455BCE, there is just debate on what actually happened in 455BCE. But ther is no debate it ends in 36CE. But that FIXES the successive 70-weeks based upon 36CE. That is, there is no flexibility in counting up every 490 years to another 70th week from 36CE. It's very fundamental and basic.
So though we're not presuming to place a great deal of emphasis on what the 70th week might have fulfilled in later years, it's interesting to simply calculate and be aware of when the 70th week falls closest to our day. 4x490 is 1960 years, so the closest 70th week from 36CE ends in 1996!!!
Is that significant? It is now since by either coincidence or design the mid-week Passover just happens to occur the same year as the Messiah was to return which was 1992-1993 based upon either the fall of Jerusalem in 529BCE or the return of the Jews in 1947.
So what goes? You have a TRIPLE CROSS-REFERENCE fulfillment for the chronology of the second coming in 1992 that you can't misapply, since 36CE locks in the dating of thousands of years of successive 70-week periods!
So while looking at isolated chronologies might seem hopeless, once you start comparing and mixing and matching, soon you eliminate a lot of other missed chronologies and one or two stand the tests. Simply put as in this case, the 607BCE dating and the 587BCE dating if it were to match-up with the 70th week of 1989 to 1996 are mismatches. But the astro-text confirmed datin for 529BCE which dates the second coming in 1992 is a perfect match for the 70th week of 1989 to 1996 since 1992 is the midweek year.
So sorry, you can sit in a corner and close your eyes and put your hands over your ears if you want, but some of us advanced Biblical chronologists are having a field day!
L.G.
