J. A. Moorman - Pastor: Jack Moorman

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CHAPTER 1: SEVEN CHRONOLOGIES COMPARED 444 Cambyses begins to reign; the Samaritans petition him against Jerusalem (Ezra 4:6). 437 Smerdis begins to reign (Ezra 4:7). 436 Darius Hystaspes begins to reign; in 2nd year work on Temple is resumed. 430 Darius, 6th year, Temple completed (Ezra 6:15). 429 Darius (= Ahasuerus), 7th year, Esther is made Queen (Est. 2:16). 429 Darius (= Artaxerxes), 7th year, Ezra goes up to Jerusalem (Ezra 7:7). 417 Darius (= Artaxerxes), 20th year, Nehemiah goes up to Jerusalem (Neh.2:1). 405 Darius (= Artaxerxes) 32nd year, Nehemiah's 12th year as governor (Neh.13:6). The Battle of Marathon (contrast the 490 BC Ptolemaic date). 331 Persia falls to Alexander. As we are rightly or wrongly so conditioned by the Ptolemaic reckonings, i.e. 605, 536, 445 BC etc., the above seems quite foreign to say the least! It is, however, based on the simple premise that from Adam to Christ there are no gaps in the Old Testament chronology. The Sixty-Nine Weeks follow directly on from the 70-year captivity. And just as we have an unbroken list of the generations of this final period in Luke chapter 3, so in these "weeks" the time span is also unbroken and we are not left to fill the gap by attempting to compute the uncertain reigns of heathen kings. The demonstration is plain. If our Lord was crucified in 33 AD, then counting backwards 483 years brings us to 451 BC for the decree of Cyrus, and a further 70 years to 520 BC for Nebuchadnezzar's first invasion, and the beginning of the Times of the Gentiles. But does Scripture really point to such a view? And are not the facts of secular history so overwhelming that anything other than a marginal revision of Ptolemy is completely untenable? And, why do so few today side with Anstey in his assessment of the evidence purporting to support Ptolemy's Canon? The following gives some of the essence of Anstey's argument: We now reach the most difficult period in the whole realm of Bible Chronology, the period of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther. Our sole authority for this period is the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther. There are cuneiform Inscriptions by Cyrus, by Darius Hystaspes, and by each of the succeeding Persian monarchs down to the last King of Persia, who was slain by Alexander the Great, and the Behistun Inscription by Darius Hystaspes contains some very valuable information, but none of these Inscriptions give us any help in fixing the Chronology of the period. 37
BIBLE CHRONOLOGY: THE TWO GREAT DIVIDES Neither do we obtain any help in this direction from Jewish, Persian or Greek literature. The Jewish and the Persian traditions make the period of the Persian Empire a period of about 52 years. There are no contemporary chronological records whatever to fix the dates of any of the Persian Monarchs after Darius Hystaspes. The clay tablets of Babylon fix the Chronology for the reigns of Cyrus, Cambyses, Pseudo-Smerdis and Darius Hystaspes, but they do not determine the date of any subsequent Persian King. The dates that have reached us, and which are now generally received as historical, are a late compilation made in the 2nd century A.D., and found in Ptolemy's Canon. They rest upon the calculations or guesses made by Eratosthenes and certain vague, floating traditions, in accordance with which the period of the Persian Empire was mapped out as a period of 205 years. The count of the years is now lost, but if we may assume the correctness of the Greek Chronology from the period of Alexander the Great (B.C. 331) onward, this would leave a period of 123 years for the duration of the Persian Empire according to the prophecy of Daniel. 67 It has always been held to be unsafe to differ from Ptolemy, and for this reason. His Canon, or List of Reigns, is the only thread by which the last year of Darius Hystaspes, B.C. 485, is connected with the first year of Alexander the Great. 68 Had Ptolemy never written, profane Chronology must have remained to this day in a state of ambiguity and confusion, utterly unintelligible and useless, nor would it have been possible to have ascertained from the writings of the Greeks or from any other source, except from Scripture itself, the true connection between sacred Chronology and profane, in any one single instance, before the dissolution of the Persian Empire in the 1st year of Alexander the Great. Ptolemy had no means of accurately determining the Chronology of this period ... so he had to resort to the calculation of eclipses. In this way then, not by historical evidence or testimony, but by the method of astronomical calculation, and the conjectural identification of recorded with calculated eclipses, the Chronology of this period of the world's history has been fixed by Ptolemy, since when, through Eusebius and Jerome, it has won its way to universal acceptance. It is contradicted (1) by the national traditions of Persia, (2) by the national traditions of the Jews, (3) by the testimony of Josephus, and (4) by the conflicting evidence of such wellauthenticated events as the Conference of Solon with Croesus, and the flight of Themistocles to the court of Artaxerxes Longimanus, which make the accepted Chronology impossible. But the human mind cannot rest in a state of perpetual doubt. There was this one system elaborated by Ptolemy. There was no other except that given in the prophecies of Daniel. Hence, while the Ptolemaic astronomy was overthrown by Copernicus in the 16th Century, the reign of the Ptolemaic Chronology remains to this day. There is one, and only one alternative. The prophecy of Daniel 924-27 ... We have to choose between the Heathen Astrologer and the Hebrew Prophet. 69 It may be objected that in the Battle of Marathon, which was fought B.C. 490, Darius Hystaspes was defeated by the Greeks, and that the Greek Chronology, which was reckoned by Olympiads from B.C. 776 onward, cannot be at fault to the extent of 82 years. But that is just the very point in dispute. The Greeks did not make a single 38
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J. A. Moorman - Pastor: Jack Moorman

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