The Watchtower 1952

The 1952 May 1st issue of The Watchtower [1] finally acknowledges some past errors we have covered, and settles on the dates that are still held to today.

Errors Acknowledged

Russell miscounting the year zero is admitted [1, p. 271]:

At this point some will inquire why Charles T. Russell in 1877 used the date 606 B.C. for the fall of Jerusalem whereas The Watchtower of late years has been using 607 B.C. This is because, in the light of modern scholarship, two slight errors were discovered to have been made which cancel each other out and make for the same result, namely, 1914. Concerning the first error, Russell and others considered 1 B.C. to A.D. 1 as being two years whereas in fact this is only one year because, as has been said above, there is no “zero” year in the B.C.-A.D. system for counting years. “The Christian era began, not with no year, but with a 1st year.”—The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible, p. 102.

Russell began his count from 536 BC which he claimed was Cyrus' first year, but now Cyrus' first year is accepted to be 538 BC. So instead the Watch Tower has decided to count from Cyrus' second year in 537 B.C [1, p. 271].

The second error had to do with not beginning the count of the 2,520 years at the right point in view of historic facts and circumstances. Almost all early Bible chronology ties in with secular history at the year 539 B.C., in which year the fall of Babylon to Darius and Cyrus of the Medes and the Persians occurred.
...
Cyrus’ first regnal year is mentioned and was determined to have begun March 17-18, 538 B.C., and to have concluded March 4-5, 537 B.C. It was in this first regnal year of Cyrus that he issued his decree to permit the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. (Ezra 1:1) The decree may have been made in late 538 B.C. or before March 4-5, 537 B.C.

Again as we have already noted in section Return of the Exiles no valid justification as to how we can be sure Cyrus' edict was given at the end (rather than the start) of his first year, and that the Jews therefore returned by the 7th month of his second year.

Chronological Sources

This time instead of quoting encyclopedias for the date of Cyrus' reign (or the fall of Babylon) The Watchtower says [1, p. 271]:

The one tablet known as the “Nabunaid Chronicle” gives the date for the fall of Babylon which specialists have ascertained as being October 12-13, 539 B.C., Julian Calendar, or October 6-7, 539 B.C., according to our present Gregorian Calendar.*
...
However, in another cuneiform tablet called “Strassmaier, Cyrus No. 11” Cyrus’ first regnal year is mentioned and was determined to have begun March 17-18, 538 B.C., and to have concluded March 4-5, 537 B.C.†

* History of the Persian Empire, by Olmstead, 1948, p. 50; also Light From The Ancient Past, by Finegan, 1946. p. 190.
† Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.-A.D. 45, by Parker and Dubberstein, 1942, pp. 11, 27.

However, as we saw in section Nabonidus Chronicle the text contains no such dates on the Julian calendar. It only states that Persian forces entered the city on the 16th Tishri (presumably the 17th year of Nabonidus, although the text is damaged), therefore these writers must have obtained the year 539 BC from some other source...

Finegan uses Parker and Dubberstein's tables to match the Nabonidus chronicle's dates to October 539 BC [2, p. 190]:

On October 13, 539 B.C. Babylon fell to Cyrus the Persian. The date is given by the Nabunaid chronicle which also tells that Sippar fell to the Persian forces on October 11 and that Cyrus entered the city of Babylon in person on October 29.¹¹

¹¹ Parker and Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.-A.D. 45 p.11

Olmstead also cites Parker and Dubberstein's chronology and ancient historians such as Berossus [3, p. 50]:

Nabu-naid fled, and on October 13, 539, Gobryas, governor of Gutium, and the troops of Cyrus entered Babylon without battle. Afterward, when Nabu-naid returned to Babylon, he was made prisoner.⁹⁷

⁹⁷ Chron., col. III, II. 12-16; for chronology see Parker and Dubberstein, op. cit., p. 11; Herod. i. 178, 188 ff.; Xen. Cyrop. vii. 5; Berossus, Frags. 52-54(S).

But if we look at Parker and Dubberstein's Babylonian Chronology we see [4, p. 8]:

The general basis for the chronology of the period here treated is furnished by the Ptolemaic Canon, with help from classical sources.

Their tables (and Ptolemy's canon) of course also date the 18th/19th year of Nebuchadnezzar to 587/576 BC and are therefore incompatible with the Watch Tower's chronology [4, p. 26].

Likewise, it is a similar situation for Strassmaier, Cyrus No. 11 which is merely a receipt dated to 1/IV Year 1 of Cyrus [5, p. 9] [6], it is essentially irrelevant to determining the date of Cyrus' reign on the Julian calendar.

References