Editor’s Note: This
is the first contribution to my new series Nephite
History in Context: Artifacts, Inscriptions, and Texts Relevant to the Book of
Mormon. Check out the really cool (and official, citable) PDF version here. To learn more
about this series, read the introduction here. To find other posts in the
series, see here.
Jerusalem Chronicle (ABC 5/BM 21946)
![]() |
ABC 5/BM 21946 (aka, Jerusalem Chronicle). Photo Credit: Jona Lendering, Livius.org |
Background
The so-called “Babylonian
Chronicles” are an important collection of brief historical reports from
Mesopotamia, found in Iraq in the late-19th century.1 They are
written on clay tablets in Akkadian using cuneiform script, and cover much of
the first millennium BC, although several tablets are missing or severely
damaged, leaving gaps in the record. One tablet, colloquially known as the
“Jerusalem Chronicle” (ABC 5/BM 21946),2 provides brief annal-like
reports of the early reign of Nebuchadrezzar II (biblical Nebuchadnezzar),
including mention of his invasion of Jerusalem.
Biblical sources report that King
Jehoiachin’s brief reign was terminated when Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian
king, invaded the city, took the king and others captive, raided the royal residence
of its valuables, and appointed Mattaniah, renamed Zedekiah, as king (see 2
Kings 24:9–17; 2 Chronicles 36:9–10; Jeremiah 37:1). The Jerusalem Chronicle
does not mention the names of the Judahite kings, but nonetheless confirms that
near the end of his seventh year, Nebuchadrezzar II invaded “the city of
Judah,” where he “captured the king,” claimed a “massive tribute,” and placed “a
king of his choice” on the throne. There is no doubt this refers to the kings
Jehoiachin and Zedekiah.3
Translation
The following translation is from
Jean-Jacques Glassner, Mesopotamian
Chronicles (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), 231 (see p.
230 for transliteration),4 with annotations added:
The seventh year,5 in the month
of Kislev,6 the king of Akkad mustered his troops,7
marched on Ḫatti,8 and set up his quarters facing the city of Yeḫud.9
In the month of Adar,10 the second day, he took the city and
captured the king.11 He installed there a king of his choice.12
He colle[cted] its massive tribute and went back to Babylon.
Book of Mormon
Relevance
Since this tablet provides the
very day Jerusalem was captured (Adar 2), it has been touted as the most accurate
date in all of biblical chronology.13 The Babylonian Chronicles are
correlated almost precisely (give or take a day) with the modern calendar,
thanks to the documentation of eclipses in 621 and 568 bc.14 Adar 2 in the seventh year of
Nebuchadrezzar II corresponds with March 10, 597 bc.15 This, in turn, means that Zedekiah was
appointed king in the spring of 597 bc,
although whether he was appointed king this very day (Adar 2/March 10) or a few
weeks later is uncertain.16
Perhaps serendipitously, the Book
of Mormon begins “in the commencement of the first year of the reign
of Zedekiah, king of Judah” (1 Nephi 1:4), and Lehi’s departure from
Jerusalem happened “in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah” (3 Nephi,
headnote). The events of 1 Nephi 1–2, therefore, all happened within the first
year of Zedekiah’s reign, which can be determined pretty accurately thanks to
the Jerusalem Chronicle. However, even with the nearly precise date for
Zedekiah’s accession, the exact timing of his first regnal year still cannot be
determined with absolute certainty, due to some ambiguity regarding how the
regnal years in pre-exilic Judah were counted.
Some argue that a king’s first
regnal year began the moment of accession (non-accession year dating), but most
scholars favor the view that the king’s first official year did not begin until
after the start of the next new year
(accession year dating). These scholars are divided as to whether the new year
was counted from the fall (Tishri) or the spring (Nisan).17 This
results in three different, though overlapping, one-year timespans in which the
events of 1 Nephi 1–2 could take place. Thanks to the Jerusalem Chronicle, the
timing of that one-year span can be dated to within a relatively narrow window,
sometime between spring 597 and spring 595 bc
(see table below).18
Potential
Time Frames for Zedekiah’s First Regnal Year*
|
||
Begins
|
Ends
|
|
Date of Accession
|
March 10–April 16, 597 bc
|
February 26–April 5, 596 bc
|
Fall New Year
|
October 2, 597 bc
|
October 20, 596 bc
|
Spring New Year
|
March 28, 596 bc
|
April 16, 595 bc
|
*All dates should be considered approximations (see n.18)
|
Based on this information, we can
reasonably assume that 1 Nephi 1:4 connects Lehi’s prophetic call to three
possible time-periods, depending on how regnal years were counted: (1) around
the time of Zedekiah’s accession in March/April 597 bc; or if accession year dating was followed, close to Zedekiah’s
formal coronation, during either (2) the fall festivals in early October 597 bc or (3) the Passover season in late
March 596 bc.19
Meanwhile, in order for Lehi’s departure from Jerusalem to be within “the first
year of reign of Zedekiah” (3 Nephi, headnote), he must have left after March
10, 597 bc, likely sometime between
597–596 bc, although if a spring
new year dating was followed, he could have left as late as mid-April 595 bc.20
Notes
1. For background and provenance information, see Clyde E.
Fant and Mitchell G. Reddish, Lost
Treasures of the Bible: Understanding the Bible through Archaeological
Artifacts in World Museums (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008),
208–211. See also Caroline Waerzeggers, “The Babylonian Chronicles:
Classification and Provenance,” Journal
of Near Eastern Studies 71, no. 2 (2012): 285–298.
2. There are multiple different classification systems for
the Babylonian Chronicles, but the two most common are the Assyrian and
Babylonian Chronicles (ABC) and the British Museum (BM) catalogue. See,
respectively, A. K. Greyson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (Locus
Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin, 1975); D. J. Wiseman, Chronicles of the Chaldean
Kings (626–556 bc) (London:
Trustees of the British Museum, 1956).
3. Fant and Reddish, Lost
Treasures of the Bible, 208–211;
Lester L. Grabbe, Ancient Israel:
What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?, rev. ed. (New York, NY: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2017), 252 §5.2.7
and 5.2.8.
4. This was originally published in French as Chroniques
Mésopotamiennes in 1993.
5. 2 Kings 24:12 has Nebuchadnezzar taking Jehoiachin in his
eighth year, not his seventh. This has been explained in a couple of different
ways: (1) The most common explanation reasons that since Adar is the last month
of the Babylonian year, it is possible it wasn’t until “the year was expired”
that the Babylonian troops actually finished gathering all the deportees, the
bounty, and “brought [Jehoiachin] to Babylon” (2 Chronicles 36:10), thus making
it the eighth year by the time he was actually deported. See David Noel
Freedman, “The Chronology of Israel and the Ancient Near East: Old Testament
Chronology,” in The Bible and the Ancient
Near East: Essays in Honor of William Foxwell Albright, ed. G. Ernest
Wright (Garden City, NY: Double Day, 1961), 213; Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, rev. ed.
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), 256–257 §439. (2) Another
possibility is that the biblical writers were reckoning Nebuchadnezzar’s reign
from the fall, rather than the spring, and thus its year count was about 6
months ahead of the Babylonians. See Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers
of the Hebrew Kings, new rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1983), 186. I
personally find the first option more likely (see also n.16).
6. Kislev typically begins between mid-November and
mid-December in the Gregorian calendar. Victor Matthews and Don C. Benjamin, Old Testament Parallels: Laws and Stories
from the Ancient Near East, 3rd ed. (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press,
2006), 197 actually translate Kislev
as November, but this is problematic
since Kislev didn’t start until December that year. See Richard A. Parker and
Waldo H. Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology, 626 bc–ad 45 (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press,
1942), 25; Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology,
256 §437. See also Wiseman, Chronicles of the Chaldean Kings, 32–33.
7. The “king of Akkad” is the Babylonian king, who is
identified as Nebuchrezzar II earlier on the same tablet, as can be confirmed
by consulting any accessible translation, e.g., Wiseman, Chronicles of the
Chaldean Kings, 69; Greyson,
Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, 100; Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, 229;
Matthews and Benjamin, Old
Testament Parallels, 196; A.
Leo Oppenheim, “Assyrian and Babylonian Historical Texts,” in The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts
and Pictures, ed. James B. Pritchard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2011), 273.
8. Ḫatti is a Babylonian term for the broader Syro-Palestine
region. See Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 252–253 §431. Oppenheim, “Assyrian and Babylonian Historical Texts,”
273 translates it as “Syria,” although this is not entirely accurate.
9. Yeḫud = Judah; “city of Judah” = Jerusalem. The
sense of “set up his quarters facing” is that he besieged or attacked the city.
Wiseman, Chronicles of the Chaldean Kings, 73; Greyson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, 102;
Oppenheim, “Assyrian and Babylonian Historical Texts,” 273 all have “encamped
against,” while Matthews and Benjamin, Old
Testament Parallels, 197 most clearly captures the sense with “laid siege.”
10. Adar typically begins between mid-February and mid-March
in the Gregorian calendar. Hence, Matthews and Benjamin, Old Testament Parallels, 197 actually translate “on the second day
of February,” though this is very misleading since the actual date in the
Gregorian calendar is March 10 (see the section on Book of Mormon Relevance).
11. I.e., Jehoiachin.
12. I.e., Zedekiah.
13. Siegfried H. Horn, “The Babylonian Chronicle and the
Ancient Calendar of the Kingdom of Judah,” Andrews
University Seminary Studies 5, no. 1 (1967): 21: “The most exact
information ever obtained from cuneiform records for any event recorded in the
Bible is that of the Babylonian Chronicles pertaining to the capture of
Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar during the reign of Jehoiachin.” See also John H.
Hayes and Paul K. Hooker, A New
Chronology for the Kings of Israel and Judah and its Implications for Biblical
History and Literature (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1988), 15;
Gershon Galil, “The Babylonian Calendar and the Chronology of the Last Kings of
Judah,” Biblica 72, no. 3 (1991):
367.
14. Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 253
§431.
15. I’ve converted the typical date given (March 16, 597 bc) based on the Julian calendar to the
Gregorian calendar using rosettacalendar.com. For March 16, 597 bc (Julian) as the correct date, see
(among others), Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 256 §437,
following the indication in Parker and Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology,
25 that in 597 bc, Adar began on
March 15 (Julian).
16. Although the tablet makes it sound like the city was
captured, king deported, tribute taken, and a new king appointed all on Adar 2,
it’s likely that these events took some time, and Adar 2 is probably just the
day Jerusalem was officially taken, while subsequent events took place over the
next few weeks (see n.5). In fact, some scholars interpret Ezekiel 40:1 as
indicating that Nisan 10 was the 25th anniversary of the deportation of
Jehoiachin, which would mean he was deported on April 16, 597 bc (converted from the Julian date April
22, 597 bc using
rosettacalendar.com). Zedekiah’s accession, therefore, must have happened
sometime between March 10–April 16, 597 bc.
See Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 256–257 §439–440; Thiele, Mysterious
Numbers, 186–187.
17. For a summary of these different factors, see Thiele, Mysterious
Numbers, 43–45; Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 246–247
§421; William H. Shea, “Chronology of the OT,” in Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, ed. David Noel Freedman (Grand
Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000), 244; J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah,
2nd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 2006), 442–444; Antti Laato, Guide to Biblical Chronology (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Phoenix
Press, 2015), 13–19. For the view that Judah used non-accession year dating,
see M. Christine Tetley, The
Reconstructed Chronology of the Divided Kingdom (Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns, 2005), 91; Rodger C. Young, “When Did Jerusalem Fall?,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological
Society 47, no. 1 (March 2004): 21–38. For Tishri-based accession year
dating, see Thiele, Mysterious Numbers,
51–53, 184, chart 31 for Zedekiah specifically; Finegan, Handbook of
Biblical Chronology, 246–247 §421. For Nisan-based accession year dating,
see Hayes and Hooker, A New Chronology,
12–14, 17–18, 93–94 for Zedekiah specifically; Galil, “The Babylonian
Calendar,” 367–378, esp. 377.
18. Since the details of pre-exilic Hebrew calendaring are
uncertain, all dates should be considered approximations, based on the
Babylonian calendar in Parker and Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology,
25, converted from Julian to Gregorian dates using rosettacalendar.com. The
beginning and ending of each year may be off by about a month if Judean
practices of intercalation differed from those of the Babylonians. See Galil,
“The Babylonian Calendar,” 372–376. It should also be noted that the dates for
the spring new year assumes an original appointment after the spring new
year of Nisan 1 (April 7), 597 bc.
If Zedekiah were appointed previous to that date (between March 10–April 6),
and Judah was counting regnal years from the spring, then Zedekiah’s first
regnal year would be April 7, 597 bc
to March 27, 596 bc. I did not
include this fourth possibility in the table because it is essentially
duplicative of the time frame that emerges if one assumes the years are counted
from the date of accession. Another possibility not included is that
non-accession year dating was used, but the regnal years were still counted
from a Tishri-based new year, in which case Zedekiah’s first regnal “year” would
technically be from March 10/April 16, 597 bc
to October 1, 597 bc. This
possibility was likewise omitted because while it narrows the timeframe in
which the events of 1 Nephi 1–2 must fit, it falls within the other timeframes
already offered and thus provides no further possibilities for dating specific
events; i.e., a scenario wherein Lehi receives his prophetic call in
March/April 597 bc and departs
before October of that same year is already viable within the possibilities
provided in the table.
19. Another possibility is that the term “commencement” in 1
Nephi 1:4 indicates the period between formal appointment and the start of the first
official regnal year (after the new year), called an accession year or accession
period by scholars. The Babylonians called this period the resh sharruti,
and some have argued that the Hebrew phrase reshit malkut (מלכות ראשית),
typically translated as “in the beginning of the reign of …” is also equivalent
to the accession period. See Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology,
75 §160; p. 247 §421. The statement “in the commencement … of the reign of
Zedekiah” in 1 Nephi 1:4 may also be a translation of reshit malkut (ראשית מלכות),
and thus indicate that Lehi’s call came sometime during the accession period
(March 10/April 16 to either October 1, 597 bc
or March 27, 596 bc). This
possibility is unlikely, however, since 1 Nephi 1:4 also explicitly says it was
“the first year of the reign of Zedekiah,” thus indicating that the
events are happening within the first official regnal year and not before.
20. This seemingly obvious datum for Book of Mormon
chronology is, unfortunately, often ignored or dismissed by Book of Mormon
chronologists, who have proposed dates for Lehi’s departure that span nearly a
20-year spectrum from 605–587 bc,
using various levels of speculation to justify such wild departures from the
available data. Supporting a departure in 605 bc,
which is far too early, is Jeffrey R. Chadwick, “Has the Seal of Mulek
Been Found?” Journal of Book of Mormon
Studies 12, no. 2 (2003): 117–118 n.24; Jeffrey R. Chadwick, “An
Archaeologist’s View,” Journal of Book of
Mormon Studies 15, no. 2 (2006): 123 n.8; Jeffrey R. Chadwick, “Dating the
Death of Jesus Christ,” BYU Studies
Quarterly 54, no. 4 (2015): 147–148 n.46. Others support 601/600 bc, another date that is too early. See
Joseph L. Allen, Exploring the Lands of
the Book of Mormon (Orem, UT: SA Publishers, 1989), 21–25; Joseph L. Allen and Blake J. Allen, Exploring
the Lands of the Book of Mormon, rev. ed. (American Fork, UT: Covenant
Communications, 2011), 69–72; John P. Pratt, “Lehi’s
600-Year Prophecy of the Birth of Christ,” March 31, 2000 (accessed April 22,
2017). On the other side of the spectrum are those who argue for 588/587 bc, which is too late. See Randell P.
Spackman, “Introduction to Book of Mormon Chronology: The Principle Prophecies,
Calendars, and Dates,” (FARMS Preliminary Report, 1993), 7–14; Randall P.
Spackman, “The Jewish/Nephite Lunar Calendar,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 7, no. 1 (1998): 48–59, 71; Jerry
D. Grover Jr., Translation of the
“Caractors” Document (Provo, UT: Grover Publications, 2015), 70–73,
209–210. Obviously, all of these views are problematic in light of the
Jerusalem Chronicle, which provides our most secure chronological information.
Gratefully, there are others who follow the ca. 597/596 bc dating. See Robert F. Smith, “Book of Mormon Event
Structure: The Ancient Near East,” Journal
of Book of Mormon Studies 5, no. 2 (1996): 98–101, 122–123; S. Kent Brown
and David Rolph Seely, “Jeremiah’s Imprisonment and the Date of Lehi’s
Departure,” Religious Educator 2, no.
1 (2001): 15–32; David Rolph Seely, “Chronology, Book of Mormon,” in Book of Mormon Reference Companion, ed.
Dennis L. Largey (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2003), 197–199. My own
views are most closely aligned with those of Smith (1996).
Excellent insights. I appreciate the work. I love following the sort of research you lay out here, but have neither the background nor the time, at present, to pursue it myself. So, thank you for your time and efforts.
ReplyDelete