Re: Fall of Jerusalem

  On 2012-04-09 13:00, Aristeo Fernando wrote regarding my
  post on the value of Josephus' writings in chronology:

>  Could you please list down some of those who have tried using Josephus’ years?

  As I said, _all_ chronologers of biblical events did that.
  See some references in "Studies of Eusebian and post-Eusebian
  Chronography", on line at

[http://books.google.de/books?id=9R_CGC9wL9MC&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=richard+w.+burgess+witold+witakowski+Josephus+Appendix+2&source=bl&ots=DFM9OPQYYS&sig=Hg4KsYx5r1F711V3yLzANJEBAxM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Rth9T-fJLor2sga21OGTCQ&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false]
  (The link may have to be pasted into a single line.)

>  Do you know why they failed?

  I've explained that in my previous post -- these chronologists
  did not "fail" but they found out that Josephus' writings
  are next to useless for chronology. The reference above
  gives some technical details; every modern scholarly treatise
  on the date of the birth or of the crucifixion of Jesus
  also gives such details.

>  Do you know why they say that Josephus cannot
>  contribute much? Because they were using a lunisolar
>  calendar like what the Jews
>  are using these days. Try using a purely lunar calendar
>  and you might get it right.

  Well yes, I do know why they conclude that Josephus
  cannot contribute much to chronology, and I have
  explicated two major reasons for it in my previous post.

  No, Josephus has never used a lunar calendar in those
  dates where he gives a month name. As I have
  stated in my previous post, Josephus used several
  calendars in his works, with a special notation,
  but none of them is a lunar calendar. His method
  of using Macedonian month names for all these calendars
  does not even work for a lunar calendar.

  When Josephus gives only year counts between events,
  these numbers are taken directly from the bible, and thus
  the year length is completely uncertain. When the age of
  a person is given as 969 "years" (as in the bible), then
  such a "year" can be at most 40 d long, and cannot be any
  approximation of the tropical year, nor any approximation
  of 12 synodic months (unless it is taken as chronologically
  meaningless).

>  The following are what I got:
>  2069 BC – Foundation of the city of Jerusalem
>  1522 BC – Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt
>  1100 BC – start of King David’s reign
>  1058 BC – Start of building of house of the Lord
>  637 BC – Fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians
>  33 BC – Birth of Jesus Christ (May 23)
>  1 BC – Death of Jesus Christ (August 17)
>  AD 44 – Fall of Jerusalem to the Romans

  Only the last event can be dated with an
  uncertainty of under a year. The Roman conquest
  of Jerusalem took place around J0070-09; and
  the triumph on J0071-04-24 in Alexandria is
  documented by an Egyptian papyrus ([POxy 2725]).
  So the last date in your list is grossly
  incorrect: Titus could not have taken
  Jersusalem when he was only 5 years old.

  Before you propose yet another time line for
  biblical events, you should first look at
  what other people have proposed, and why.
  No serious chronographer will consider
  your proposals if these proposals do not
  even satisfy the (few and weak) constraints
  established in the literature.

  I find it arrogant to pretend to know better
  than hundreds of painstakingly careful
  investigators, without knowing what these
  investigators are saying, let alone knowing
  why they are saying it.

  Michael Deckers.