More Dates

I now think the additional years might have been not 300 but 7 x 49 = 343. This means my previous calculations of Jubilee years based on the chronology in A.F. are unaffected.

If 440 BC is 915 according to AF, and we take away 343 years, so that it is 572 of the Fanuta, then the Fanuta started in 572 + 440 BC = 1012 BC. This is about right for the death of Samson. More refinements later.

Notice that if Jesus is said to have been born in 1300 of the Fanuta, what is meant is that years AD start from 1300 of the Fanuta. In that case, what Vilmar calls the date of the Hijrah in 2000 is actually 700 AD, the year when the official language of administration in Syria-Palestine (perhaps all through the empire) changed from Greek to Arabic. Now we can understand the phrase applied to Muhammad as the one that ended the customs of Edom, which has been wrongly interpreted as meaning he destroyed Christianity, which is just stupid.

(a) The first year of Cyrus is 538 BC, and the starting date of the seventy years is 608 BC. Montgomery naively objects that the first subjection to the Babylonians was a few years after. The starting date of the seventy years of Chronicles and Ezra, quoting Jeremiah, is when the Babylonians demonstrated that they could raid the temple. On its own, this is not the start of the exile. Once the exile actually happened, because of failure to change behaviour, the starting point of the exile became this date. The present can change the past. (An aside. To some extent, what is done in the present can change the past for good).

Montgomery (commentary on Daniel IX) dismisses the allusion to Leviticus XXVI, saying that the plain statement by Jeremiah would have been enough. Where does he think Jeremiah got it from? What Jeremiah was given was a warning that the threats of Lv XXVI were close. He was not given some figures by divine dictation. Do people understand how Judaism works? Or the status of the Torah?

Going back 490 years before 608 BC gives 1098 BC for the start of the neglect. However Rashi counts the years of neglect of the Jubilees as well, which means a period of 435 years. This takes the date back to 1,043 BC. Rashi’s cycle is seven times seven plus one, i.e. the Jubilee Year is Year 50, not 49, and counting starts again in year 51. So up to Year 400 there are eight Jubilee periods, with 8 x 8 days neglected. Then in the 35 years after there are 5 shemittah years, making 59. Then the Jubilee year following the starting date of the exile is counted in. I think this means that in the period from 608 BC till the exile of the rulers there were two more shemittahs and a Jubilee. Adding 15 years gives 587 BC or the start of 588 for the destruction of the temple. Rashi says the Jubilee year counted against them. I think what he means is that they observed two more shemittahs out of fear alone, but this motivation was not enough for the Jubilee, so that the observance of it for the wrong reason was worse than not observing it.

Rash’s starting-point for the neglect is from the entry into Canaan! So he does not think there was a period when things were right, not even under Joshua. This is the position of the Epistle to the Hebrews. “If Joshua had given them rest, there would be no need to speak of another day; but the verse of the Psalm says ‘Today, if you would enter into his rest’ ”. [I paraphrase slightly]. There never was a time of Favour! Looked at another way, the leadership of Joshua and the seventy elders was not enough even while it lasted, in spite of what might seem like statements to the contrary at the end of Joshua and start of Judges. This position raises the status of Moses even more.

(b) The rules for the shemittah and Jubilee are in Lv XXV.

(b) Forget about the apparent addition of 100 years in the Arabic Book of Joshua. It is a straightforward scribal error. The length of the Ruuta in this book and in A.F. is the same, 260 years. The Fiṭnah started before the end, apparently from the death of Samson. That was in the year 252 of the Ruuta.

(d) Calculating the date of the Jerusalem temple in relation to Samaritan chronology: Exodus to Entry 40. Entry to death of Samson 256, and to end of Ruuta 260. About 96 till the birth of David, 40 till the start of his reign, and another forty till his death. From start of reign of Solomon three and a bit. Total 179 and a bit. However, the original reading of the Greek in I Kings is 440 years. This reduces the time from the start of the Fanuta to the birth of David to 56 years. Calculating the dates of the Shilo sanctuary: Eli was 50 when he started his schism, and that was after the end of the Ruuta. According to the Jewish version, he died at the age of 99. If both figures are from the same set of calculations, the Shilo sanctuary lasted till the end of the year 49 of the Fanuta. Then the Ark was moved from place to place till taken to Jerusalem by David after 7 years of reigning in Hebron, 33 years before his death, which must be 33 + 3 and a bit years before the Jerusalem temple. From the end of the Shilo sanctuary till year 7 of David is from 49 of the Fanuta till 144 of the Fanuta (180 – 36 = 144) = 95 years. Or if the chronology in the Greek is right (which it is) it is from 49 till 104 (140 – 36 = 104) = 55 years.