| “The Nicean Fathers rejected any obligatory dependance of the date of the Christian Pascha on the date of the Jewish Passover,” Ogitsky observes in “Canonical Norms of the Orthodox Easter Computation and the Problem of the Dating of Pascha in our Time,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, Volume 17, Number 4, 1973. Ogitsky goes on to state that “the Emperor Constantine insistently stresses this in his epistle: ‘Above all they admitted as unbecoming that the celebration of the most sacred holiday follow the custom of the Jews…For by throwing off their custom, we have the possibility of following a more correct procedure.’ Trying to persuade all Christians to accept this procedure, the author of the letter persistently calls Christians to have nothing in common with the Jews in determining the time of Pascha. The Council of Nicea prohibited not coincidental concurrences, but the principle of the dependance of the date of the Christian Pascha on the date of the Jewish Passover. Actually, the canons forbid following unwaveringly the Jewish paschalia in determining the date of the Christian Pascha, excluding other considerations.” The canons really are telling us not to concern ourselves at all with the Jewish paschalia. Professor Ogitsky goes on to say that the most correct formula for determining the date of the Christian Pascha would be that it fall on the first Sunday after the 14th of Nisan (the first full moon after the vernal equinox), which would ensure that it fall between the 12th and 18th of April each year (assuming we calculate the astronomical reality of the vernal equinox, instead of an artificial “Julian Calendar” date) with a few occasional variances, the latest being April 26th. As our current tradition stands (concerning ourselves with the Jewish paschalia), the latest day we can celebrate Pascha is May 8th. It would seem, after some reflection, that we may be celebrating Pascha on the incorrect date. Both Orthodox and non-Orthodox Churches use the exact same formula to calculate the date of Easter. However, the Western Christians use the actual vernal equinox when calculating the date. We Orthodox use a calendar that was proven to be astronomically incorrect generations ago. That calendar grows more incorrect with the turn of the century, as the difference between the two calendars grows from 13 days to 14 days (even Christmas will no longer be January 6th it will be January 7th on the “old calendar”). |
| The preceding discussion of the Society’s fruidess attempts to establish a secular basis for its particular “Bible chronology” epitomizes the content of a booklet published in 1981, The Watch Tower Society and Absolute Chronology. 140 Perhaps it was this exposure that – directly or in directlyin cited the Society’s writers to make another attempt to establish the 539 B.C.E. date. At any rate, a new discussion of the date was published in 1988 in the Society’s revised Bible dictionary. Insight on the Scriptures, in which the authors now try to fix the date astronomically. As explained earlier (in footnote 2 chronology is usually best established with the assistance of astronomicallyfixed dates. In the 1870s and 1880s, excavations in Babylonia unearthed a great number of cuneiform texts containing descriptions of astronomical events dating from the Babylonian, Persian and Greek eras. These texts provide numerous absolute dates from these periods. The most important astronomical text from the NeoBabylonian era is a socalled astronomical “diary,” a record of about thirty astronomical observations dated to the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar. This tablet, which is kept in the Berlin Museum (where it is designated VAT 4956), establishes 568/67 B.C.E. as the absolute date for the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar. This date obviously implies that his 18th year, during which he desolated Jerusalem, corresponds to 587/86 B.C.E. That is 20 years later than the 607 B.C.E. date assigned to that event by the Watch Tower Society. A detailed discussion of this and other astronomical texts is given in chapter four. The Watch Tower Society’s concern, then, is somehow to bypass the use of any such unfavorable ancient text and find a way to establish the date of 539 B.C.E. independently of it, thereby avoiding conflict with the corollary evidence the text supplies that undermines a 607 B.C.E. date for Jerusalem’s fall. To what astronomical evidence do they resort? Strm. Kambys. 400: The astronomical text, designated Strm. Kambys. 400, is the text now used by the Watch Tower Society to establish the 539 B.C.E. date. It is a tablet dated to the seventh year of Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. 141 Referring to two lunar eclipses mentioned in the text – eclipses which modern scholars have “identified with the lunar eclipses that were visible at Babylon on July 16, 523 B.C.E., and on January 10, 522 B.C.E.,” – the Society concludes: |
| 443 Brooklyn headquarters, some members on the writing staff had begun to see the weakness of the prophetic interpretations attached to the 1914 date. These included Edward Dunlap, former Registrar of Gilead School, and Governing Body member Raymond Franz. These researchers, therefore, could agree with the conclusion that the 607 B.C.E. date for the destruction of Jerusalem is chronologically insupportable. Some others on the writing staff, too, who read the treatise, came to realize that the 607 B.C.E. date lacked support in history and began to feel serious doubts about the date. (The writing staff at that time included about 18 members.) Even Governing Body member Lyman Swingle expressed himself before the other Body members to the effect that the Watch Tower organization got their 1914 date (which depends on the 607 B.C.E. date) from the Second Adventists “lock, stock and barrel.” However, the attempts by Raymond Franz and Lyman Swingle to bring up the evidence for discussion on the Governing Body met unfavorable response. The other members on the Body did not see fit to discuss the subject, but decided to continue to advocate the 1914 date. – See Raymond Franz, Crisis of Conscience (Atlanta: Commentary Press, 1983 and later editions), pp. 140143, 214216. 444 Bible and Tract Society, 1981), pp. 186189. The book was written by Governing Body member Lloyd Barry. The “Appendix to Chapter 14,” however, was written by someone else, possibly Gene Smalley, a member of the writing staff. The “spadework” was probably done by John Albu, a scholarly Witness in New York. According to Raymond Franz, Albu has specialized in NeoBabylonian chronology on behalf of the Watch Tower Society and did some research in connection with my treatise at the request of the Writing Department. 447 Chapter 4, section A2, of the present volume. In the first (1983) edition, the discussion is found on pp. 8386. 455 to about 1971 the date 539 was termed an “absolute date” in Watch Tower publications. When it was discovered that this date did not have the support that Watch Tower scholars imagined, they dropped this term. In Aid to Bible Understanding, page 333 (=Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. 1, p.459), 539 is called “a pivotal point.” And in “Let Your Kingdom Come” it is stated only that “historians calculate,” “hold,” or “accept” that Babylon fell in October 539 B.C.E. (pp. 136, 186, 189). Yet the Society still anchors its whole “Bible chronology” to this date. |
| Another important inference is to be drawn from these considerations about conscience and the civil order, and St. Paul does, in fact, draw that inference. If civil government truly acts as “God’s servant,” then the political order can hardly be amoral, or morally neutral. On the contrary, the Apostle regards civil authority not only as subject to the restraints of the moral law, but also as charged with a special oversight of the moral foundation of human life. He describes this oversight in both negative and positive terms. First, in a negative way, civil government serves the moral order by discouraging evil, and specifically by punishing people who do evil things. In doing so, it is not inspired solely by political or economic purposes. It functions, rather, as the proper political agent of sanctions supportive of the moral law. For example, the government throws bank robbers in jail, not because bank robbing is harmful to the economy, but because the bank robber violates the moral law in a very serious manner. The government punishes murderers, not because murder adversely affects the census report, but because the murderer violates the moral law in a very grave way. It is precisely to vindicate moral principle that the civil authority possesses the jus gladii, and “it does not bear the sword in vain” (Romans 13:4). This truth seems obvious enough to everybody but anarchists. Our assertion here does not mean, obviously, that the sanctions of civil law should cover every conceivable moral situation, and certainly there is no proper execution of civil justice apart from political prudence, even wisdom. We do mean, however, that the sanctions of civil government are not arbitrary; they are, and in principle must be, buttressed by the moral law and presuppose a moral foundation. That is to say, it is certainly a function of government to “legislate morality,” not in the sense of establishing the moral law by its legislation (for that would put Caesar in the place of God), but by consulting moral principles in the crafting of that legislation. |
| If it really were true that (1) “no historian can deny the possibility that the present picture of Babylonian history might be misleading or in error,” that (2) “priests and kings sometimes altered” the NeoBabylonian historical records, that (3) “even if the discovered evidence is accurate, it might be misinterpreted by modern scholars or be incomplete,” and that (4) “yet undiscovered material could drastically alter the chronology of the period,” what reason do we have for accepting any date from the NeoBabylonian era established by historians – for example 539 B.C.E. as the date for the fall of Babylon? This date, too, has been established solely by the aid of secular documents of the same type as those which have established 587 B.C.E. as the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. And of the two dates, 587 has much better support than 539 B.C.E.! 454 If 587 B.C.E. is to be rejected for the abovementioned reasons, the 539 B.C.E. date should also be rejected for the same, if not stronger, reasons. Yet the Watch Tower Society not only accepts the 539 B.C.E. date as reliable, but even puts so much trust in it that it has made it the very basis of its Bible chronology! 455 If its reasons for rejecting the 587 B.C.E. date are valid, they are equally valid for the 539 B.C.E. date, too. To reject one date and retain the other is not only inconsistent; it is a sad example of scholastic dishonesty. A2: Misrepresentation of scholars In support of their reasons for rejecting the NeoBabylonian chronology established by historians, a wellknown authority on ancient Near Eastern history is referred to. ”Evidently realizing such facts,” – that the present picture of Babylonian history might be in error, that ancient priests and kings might have altered the ancient NeoBabylonian records, and that yet undiscovered material could drastically alter the chronology of the period: Professor Edward F. Campbell, Jr., introduced a chart, which included NeoBabylonian chronology, with the caution: “It goes without saying that these lists are provisional. The more one studies the intricacies of the chronological problems in the ancient Near East, the less he is inclined to think of any presentation as final. For this reason, the term circa [about] could be used even more liberally than it is.” 456 |
| On January 20, 1918, the SNK decree on liberty of conscience, church and religious societies was adopted (published on January 23), which separated the Church from the State, started nationalization of the church property and placed the Russian Orthodox Church within the narrow limits of numerous bans and restrictions. From that time on, it was longer a legal entitiy; it lost its property and the right to acquire property. The draft of this decree, published on January 13, 1918, provoked a storm of indignation among the clergy and believers. On January 25, 1918, the National Council evaluated the Bolshevik decree as follows: " under the image of the law on liberty of conscience, it represents an evil encroachment upon the entire order of the Orthodox Church life and an undisguised act of its persecution " . In the evening of the same day, Russia was shocked by the terrible news: in Kiev, Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev, the oldest hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, was killed. His martyric death was the first among the hierarchs (on April 4, 1992, Metropolitan Vladimir was canonized by the Assembly of Hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church). On January 25, 1918, late at night the news about the Kiev tragedy reached Moscow. The participants of the Council took the most important decisions about the further existence of the Church under the Bolshevik persecution: the Patriarch was suggested to choose several locum tenens in case of his illness, death, or other sad possibilities. The candidates had to be named in the order of precedence. Three locum tenens were named: Metropolitan Kirill (Smirnov), Metropolitan Agafangel (Preobrazhensky) and Metropolitan Peter (Poliansky). It was also decided to introduce during the services a special petition for the persecuted for the Orthodox faith and Church, deceased confessors and martyrs, and to set an annual memorial on January 25 or the evening of Sunday following it: the Memorial day of new martyrs and confessors. The first wave of repressions (1918-20) took about 9,000 lives. The Russian Church entered the path to Calvary. |
| 439 Lucas, «Enfants Terribles,» 9 and Request for Transfer to the OCA by the Ben Lomond Presbytery, February 12,1998, available at (accessed January 24, 2013). 441 Request for Transfer to the OCA by the Ben Lomond Presbytery, February 12, 1998, available at (accessed January 24, 2013). 442 Metropolitan Philip to Petitioning Presbytery, February 14,1998, available at (accessed January 24, 2013). The claim to laicize Anderson is quite peculiar, since Anderson was simply a priest the OCA had loaned to the Antiochian Archdiocese. Technically, Metropolitan Philip could only renege the loan and send Anderson back to the OCA, where it would be up to Metropolitan Theodosius to decide what to do with Anderson (whether to discipline him or assign him to an OCA parish). 443 See The Opinion of the Superior Court of Santa Cruz for Metropolitan Philip v. Steiger (2000) 82 Cal. App. 4th 923 Cal. Rptr. 2d 605] available at (accessed January 22, 2013). 444 Fr. David Anderson, however, returned not to the OCA, but to the Roman Catholic Church, and serves as an Eastern Catholic priest. 446 Archpastoral Directive, August 7, 2008. This was seen as a restatement of the earlier 2003 directive. One of the puzzling aspects to this directive, however, was Philips contention that «it has been clear since the disintegration of Orthodox unity which existed in North America since 1917, that the Arabic-speaking Orthodox people in North America have been exclusively under the pastoral care of the Self-Ruled Antiochian Archdiocese of North America. Similarly, the Greek speaking Orthodox people ... have always been under the pastoral care of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.» There never was jurisdictional unity in America prior to 1917 even though one could argue there should have been. See Matthew Namee, " The Myth of Past Unity,» paper delivered at St. Vladimir " s Seminary, June 20, 2009, available at (accessed January 25, 2013). More puzzling, though, is the reference to languages and ethnicities, since the overwhelming majority of the Ben Lomond parishioners were former members of the EOC and, therefore, not ethnically Arab. Such a phyletistic approach is at odds with the narrative so often portrayed (of a metropolitan who unites and sees no room for ethnic division). See, for example, Bishop Josephs words claiming Metropolitan Philip never forgets that «we are an Orthodox Christian community, rather than a member of this or that ethnicity.» See «Metropolitan PHILIP in View of His Bishops,» available at http://www.antiochian.org/node/18574 (accessed January 24, 2013). Likewise, this was a theme in Gillquist’s book Metropolitan Philip: His Life and His Dreams. See, especially, Philip " s 1984 sermon where he himself decried ethnic jurisdictionalism. |
| The next day, a " Declaration of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church " appeared on the streets, squares and churches of Moscow: " On Sunday, November 12, in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, after the Liturgy the memorial service (panikhida) will be held on behalf of the Holy Synod for all who have fallen during the civil bloodshed on the streets of Moscow. The Moscow residents—the rich and the poor, the noble and the common, the military and the civil—all are invited to come, forgetting dissension among parties and keeping in mind only the commandments of Christ’s great love to unite in the common prayer for the blessed repose of the deceased " . The panikhida for those killed, irrespective of their political color— " red " or " white " —took place. Not only the members of Moscow Council tried to prevent the civil disorders, the parish clergymen also did as much as they could. Ioann Kochurov, the archpriest of the St. Catherine Cathedral in Tsarskoye Selo village near St.-Petersburg, was one of those men. On November 12, 1917, he headed a religious procession with prayers for the cessation of fighting. His sermon during the procession summoned the Orthodox to composure in view of the coming ordeals. On November 13, 1917, the Bolsheviks occupied Tsarskoye Selo. Arrests of the priests followed, including Fr. Ioann. The furious soldiers took him to the airfield where he was shot without any legal proceedings or investigation, in presence of his son, then a grammar-school boy. Only in the evening could the parishioners take the body of the murdered pastor to the chapel of the palace hospital and from there—to the St.Catherine Cathedral, where on Saturday, November 17, 1917, the Memorial was served. At the request of the parishioners Fr.Ioann was buried under the Cathedral. Priest-martyr Ioann was canonized by the Assembly of Hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church on December 2, 1994. On December 31, 1917, the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VCIK) and SNK on civil marriage, children, and keeping the civil registry books, declared church marriage invalid. In January 1918 the SNK decree abolished all army priests, cancelled all state grants and subventions to the Church and the clergy. |
| During the years that have passed since this research started, I have come to know, personally or by letter, a growing number of Jehovah’s Witnesses at different levels of the Watch Tower organization who have examined thoroughly the question of chronology and independently arrived at the same conclusions that are presented in this volume. Some of these men tried very hard to defend the Society’s chronology before they were forced by the biblical and historical evidence to abandon it. Among such were members of the Watch Tower research committee appointed to produce the Society’s Bible dictionary, Aid to Bible Understanding. The section on chronology in this work on pages 322 through 348 is still the most able and thorough discussion of Watch Tower chronology ever published by that organization. 21 wrote the article in question ultimately came to realize that the Society’s 607 B.C.E. date for the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians could not be defended, and later he abandoned it altogether, with all the calculations and teachings founded upon it. In a letter to me, he stated: In developing the subject ‘Chronology’ for Aid to Bible Understanding, the NeoBabylonian period, extending from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar’s father Nabopolassar to the reign of Nabonidus and the fall of Babylon, presented a particular problem. As Jehovah’s Witnesses, we were obviously interested in finding and presenting some evidence, however small, in support of the year 607 B.C.E. as the date of the destruction of Jerusalem in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth year. I was well aware of the fact that historians consistently point to a time some twenty years later and that they place the start of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign in 605 B.C.E. (his accession year) rather than 625 B.C.E., the date used in Watch Tower publications. I knew that the 607 B.C.E. date was crucial to the Society’s interpretation of the ‘seven times’ of Daniel chapter four as pointing to the year 1914 C.E. A large amount of research went into the effort. At that time (1968), Charles Ploeger, a member of the Watch Tower headquarters staff, was assigned as an assistant to me. He spent many weeks searching through the libraries of New York City for any sources of information that might give some validity to the date of 607 B.C.E. as the time of Jerusalem’s destruction. We also went to Brown University to interview Dr. A. J. Sachs, a specialist in astronomical texts relating to the NeoBabylonian and adjoining periods. None of these efforts produced any evidence in support of the 607 B.C.E. date. |
| By contrast, VAT 4956 is one of the best preserved diaries. Although it is also a later copy, experts agree that it is a faithful reproduction of the original. There is some evidence that the lunar eclipses shown on Strm. Kambys. 400, referred to in the book Insight on the Scriptures were calculated rather than observed. 145 The point here made, though, is not the validity or lack of validity of those particular observations, but that, while applying certam criteria as a basis for rejecting the evidence of VAT 4956, the Watch Tower Society does not let the same criteria affect its acceptance of Strm. Kambys. 400 because it views this document as giving apparent support to its claims. This repeated inconsistency results from the same “hidden agenda” of seeking to protect a historically unsupported date. Actually, to fix the date for the fall of Babylon, it is much safer to start with the reign of Nebuchadnezzar and count forward, instead of beginning with tire reign of Cambyses and counting backward. The date 539 B.C.E. for the fall of Babylon was, in fact, first determined this way, as pointed out by Dr. R. Campbell Thompson in The Cambridge Ancient History: The date 539 for the Fall of Babylon has been reckoned from the latest dates on the contracts of each king in this period, counting from the end of Nabopolassar’s reign in 605 B.C., viz., Nebuchadrezzar, 43: AmelMarduk, 2: Nergalsharusur, 4: LabashiMarduk (accession only): Nabonidus, 17=66. 146 The Watch Tower Society, however, accepts only the end product of this reckoning (539 B.C.E.), but rejects the reckoning itself and its starting point, because these contradict the date 607 B.C.E. The Society rejects the astronomical texts in general and VAT 4956 in particular; on the other hand, it is forced to accept the most problematic one – Strm. Kambys. 400. Surely, it would be difficult to find a more striking example of inconsistent, misleading scholarship. As has been demonstrated above, 539 B.C.E. is not a logical startingpoint for establishing the date for the desolation of Jerusalem. The most reliable dates in this period (in the 6th century B.C.E.) that may be established as absolute fall much earlier, within the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, a reign that is directly fixed to our era by VAT 4956 and other astronomical texts. |
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