Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 45:177 (Jan 1888)
Article: A Newly Discovered Key To Biblical Chronology
Author: J. Schwartz

BSac 45:177 (Jan 1887) p. 52

A Newly Discovered Key To Biblical Chronology

J. Schwartz

1. Among the few chronological documents that have been handed down to us from antiquity, Ptolemy’s Canon is unquestionably the most valuable. It gives an unbroken series of kings of Babylon, Persia, Egypt (and the emperors of Rome from Augustus to Antoninus), from the accession of Nabonassar, in b. c. 747, to a. d. 160.1 The absolute historical accuracy of these tables is guaranteed by a series of eclipses, recorded in Ptolemy’s Almagest, which gives the year and day of each reign in which they occurred. Ptolemy’s statements have been verified by modern astronomers. The recently discovered Egibi contract-tables reckon eighty-three years from the accession of Nebuchadnezzar (b. c. 604) to the first of Darius Hystaspes (b. c. 521) in exact agreement with the Canon, and thus effectually dispose of Bosanquet’s theory of chronology, in which Nebuchadnezzar’s first year is depressed to b. c. 578. The scheme of Franke Parker, proposing to advance all the reigns of the Persian and Babylonian kings before Artaxerxes II. by at least twenty-one years, has been considered and confuted by Dr. Hincks.2 With the exception of these two theories, no other attack, of any importance, has ever been made on the accuracy of Ptolemy’s Canon.

BSac 45:177 (Jan 1887) p. 53

2. Scarcely second in value is the famous Assyrian Eponym Canon, which gives an unbroken series of the officers after whom each year was named for about two hundred and sixty-five years, and also notes the accession of each successive Assyrian king during that time. Down to the assassination of Sargon, the capturer of Samaria and destroyer of the kingdom of Israel, the Eponym Canon counts two hundred and seven years. Now we know from the annals of this king that he reigned seventeen years, and that his first year synchronized with the accession of Merodach Baladan, king of Babylon, which is astronomically fixed to b. c. 721 by Ptolemy’s Canon. Hence the Eponym Canon begins b. c. 911.

3. The annals of the Assyrian kings were dated according to the Eponym, or officer, for the year in which the event recorded occurred. We are therefore able to fix, with mathematical certainty, the date of any event in Assyrian history, for which the Eponym is mentioned, from b. c. 911 to 646. Among the most important events thus dated are those which have a bearing on biblical ch...