Important Dates

(a) Remember the system at the end of Chronicles and the start of Ezra? 490 years had passed without the observance of the shemittah and Jubilee, so there had to be 70 years of exile or 70 years without a temple in Jerusalem. Remember as well the statement in Nehemiah that Succot had never been observed PROPERLY between the death of Joshua and that time. Succot and the shemittahs are connected. The destruction of the temple is to be dated from 610 or 607 BC, the year when the Babylonians made a token amount of destruction to demonstrate that they could. (I have to check the exact year). The seventieth year can be aligned with absolute time from the date in Daniel where Daniel observes the seventy years have passed and gives an absolute date from the years of the current Emperor’s reign. This is then 440 BC. The start of this Jewish equivalent of the Fanuta when they stopped observing Succot and stopped observing the shemittot and Jubilees is thus exactly a thousand years before 1 AD in the erroneous but purposeful dating of the birth of Jesus. Here we see a reason (amongst others) for falsifying the date.

(b) In the Samaritan system, there is a period between the start of the Fiṭnah (Arabic for social anomie) and the start of the Fanuta. The verse marking the start is the last verse of MT Judges, which would have been in the Samaritan version as well, as I will I hope prove. If I don’t, someone else will prove it. The evidence is clear. The Samaritan interpretation of the verse, which is the original interpretation, is that anomie had set in because the last King, Samson, had died. Because of the anomie no successor could be appointed. It is not said why not. But Rabbinic tradition says there was no legitimate High Priest at the time, and this was why Eli was able to function as if he were High Priest. If there was no High Priest, there could not be a valid King, from the Samaritan viewpoint. It is true that the Samaritans have a list of High Priests for this period, but they admit that many Northerners, perhaps most, accepted Shilo and abandoned Mt. Gerizim. This does mean the authority and function of the High Priest was affected. Why was Eli unqualified? Because although a valid Priest, he was descended from Ithamar, not Phineas, according to the Samaritans. Rabbinic tradition agrees. The evidence is there in the genealogies in Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah. Rabbinic tradition goes on to say the first legitimate High Priest after that was Zadok in the time of Solomon. Handel got all this right ---- or the composer of the words of Zadok the Priest got it right. Rabbinic tradition says the line of Phineas lost the right to officiate for a long while because they had not been faithful. The High Priest (whose name is quoted, and it is the same name as in the Samaritan listing, though I forget it just now) neglected Jephthah’s daughter. He should have gone from the carefully unnamed place where he officiated and ordered Jephthah to stop, and should have declared his vow a vow of folly, a vow to go against the Torah, and therefore invalid by definition. He should have threatened Jephthah with charges of both murder and apostasy if he went ahead. And he should have ordered the daughter to stop being piously stupid. Rabbinic tradition says the last Judges, who are the last Kings in the Samaritan system, were unsatisfactory. Jephthah was clearly a menace. Samson was unstable. The Samaritans say the Jews have made up stupid stories about Jephthah and Samson. The Samaritan tradition largely dodges the question of how Eli could so easily make a counterfeit Ark and set it up. Shilo (this one) is at the foot of Mt. Gerizim near Shechem. The Rabbinic tradition carefully avoids saying where Shilo is.

The name Shilo means land without plants, not because of lack of water but because there is rock on the surface and just under. I think this might mean it was on Mt. ‘Eval and that the reading ‘Eval instead of Gerizim goes back to a reminiscence of this. It is a sort of retrospective legitimisation of Eli’s sanctuary, in line with the Rabbinic view that it had been a necessary evil. By half-legitimising Shilo, an embarrassing break in Jewish tradition is papered over, and everyone can accept the first verses of Mishnah Avot about tradition from Moses to the Pharisees and then believe in the Two Torah dogma. The name Shilo was known as a holy place in the Hellenistic period from its mentioning in the book of Joshua, when the versions of the Torah were edited. Note that this is the first ever explanation of the reading ‘Eval that is more than either the claim that ‘Eval must be right because the Samaritans must be wrong and never mind if it makes no sense, or otherwise that the Jews chose the new reading ‘Eval just to nark the Samaritans. I only worked this out tonight.

(c) The chronology in Abu ’l-Fatḥ, which is the modern chronology, adds 300 fictitious years, so that Alexander dies in 1040 of the Fanuta, Jesus is born in 1,300 of the Fanuta. and the Hijrah is in the year 2000 of the Fanuta. Three hundred is the number of fictitious years added to the chronology of the book of Judges in the MT and LXX, as compared to the Samaritan. Yet the chronology of the Samaritan Judges is assumed in I Kings VI:1, where it says 480 years had passed between the Exodus and the founding date of the Jerusalem temple. For reasons I will explain another time, the same chronology is assumed in the verse “if Joshua had given them rest” in the Epistle to the Hebrews. So we see the book of Judges was still being edited in the first c. AD. We also see the chronology in A.F. is somehow secondary. Where are the years inserted? Not in the part corresponding to Joshua-Judges. The date of 185 for the Jerusalem temple seems right according to the Samaritan Joshua-Judges. (Exodus to Entry 40. Entry to end of Ruuta 256. Then 185. Total 481. Near enough if you allow for different starting dates for the year.

(d) However the Arabic Book of Joshua has a different figure for the Ruuta, 360 years. Of this, 260 years was up till the end of the reign of Samson, then there was a hundred years of Fiṭnah). This might be meant to set the start of the Fanuta at the birth of David [a really nice touch], 85 years before the foundation of the Jerusalem temple, which according to I Kings VI:I was 480 years after the Exodus and in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon. So the Fiṭnah was from the death of Samson to the birth of David, in this version. There is no room for a period of Fiṭnah after the death of Samson in the system in A.F. This system IMPLICITLY AGREES WITH THE RABBINIC VIEW IN SEEING THIS FIṬNAH GOING ON FROM THE TIME OF JEPHTHAH.

(e) Now, where are the additional 300 years in A.F.? Well, the Jewish Return is set at 915 of the Fanuta. But if 915 Anno Fanutae is 440 BC, the Fanuta started in 1355 BC, which is impossible. It is impossible in relation to the death of Alexander, in 1040 of the Hijrah. It might be related to the erroneous Rabbinic chronology shortening the Persian period. If 915 comes from 615 with another 300 added on, and if the year intended is 440 BC (a figure from memory to be checked), then the Fanuta started in 1055 BC. Allowing for the fact that the Samaritans would have dated the Jewish Return from the date of the event, not the date of the end of the 70 years and the first decree; and allowing for the error in the length of the Persian period, the date intended is about 1,000 BC. I think the 300 years have been inserted between the death of Solomon and the Assyrian period.

(f) The next question is when the end of the Fanuta might have been expected. Let us suppose the chronology in AF to be secondary, which it must be. (Note how the additional 300 years gives a neat date of 2, 000 for the Hijra). Then 2 x 490 years from 1,000 BC brings you to 20 BC. Another 49 brings you to 29 AD, and adding one brings you into 30 A.D. This is the theoretical date for the start of the ministry of Jesus. Is this approximately when Agrippa was aged eight and in Alexandria?