| “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”). |
| 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. |
| 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: |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| Pascha, Easter, Resurrection Sunday….April 1st or 8th? I was baptized and raised Orthodox just like my father. Conversely my mom was Catholic and therefore, almost every year there were two Resurrection Sunday celebrations in our family. From a kid’s perspective this was great but spiritually, it always left me a bit conflicted. What added to that burden was our Orthodox priest’s Resurrection Sunday sermon which always was an explanation about why ‘we’ were celebrating the correct date and everybody else was wrong. His explanation always used the argument of Passover and Easter needing to be in the right chronological order. Of course, this made sense historically but, I was still conflicted out of empathy for my mom. I would always ask my dad, ‘why does he have to preach about the correct date. Isn’t it most important that we simply acknowledge & accept the resurrection?’. My dad would agree and just chalk it up to tradition. As my faith grew so did my Biblical understanding for neutralizing this conflict. I believed the date for celebrating the resurrection was less important because as believers we were really celebrating Jesus’ Resurrection everyday and I still know that to be true but not long ago, something made the date of the Resurrection more significant in my mind. I was chatting about this very topic with my friend and sister in Christ, Tanya Feygin. Tanya had been studying Christ’s fulfillment of the Old Testament feast days as outlined in Leviticus 23. In the course of her study, she came across the historic reasoning for the difference in Resurrection Sunday celebration dates and shared it with me. (1) It was not only eye opening information but, a bit shocking as well. Apparently all Christians used to celebrate the Resurrection according to the Orthodox calendar tradition. It wasn’t until 325 A.D. at the Council of Nicea that a decision was made to change the date. That decision was made specifically to separate the Resurrection of Jesus from Passover and Christianity from it’s Jewish roots. The ruler Constantine obliged the Council and sent out a letter to all those who were not able to be present informing them of the decisions made, including the decision to reject Passover and to instead celebrate Easter. From historical documents, here’s an excerpt from the emperor Constantine’s letter… |
| One of the best known and most learned millenarians of the 19th century was Edward Bishop Elliott (17931875), incumbent of St. Mark’s Church in Brighton, England. With him, the date of 1914 first receives mention. In his monumental treatise Horae Apocalypticae (”Hours with the Apocalypse”) he first reckoned the 2,520 years from 727 B.C.E. to 1793 C.E., but added: Of course if calculated from Nebuchadnezzar’s own accession and invasion of Judah, B.C. 606, the end is much later, being A.D. 1914; just onehalf century, or jubilean period, from our probable date of the opening of the Millennium [which he had fixed to “about A.D.1862”]. (London: Seeley, Bumside, and Seeley, 1844), Vol. Ill, pp. 14291431. Elliott’s work ran through five editions (1844,1846, 1847,1851, and 1862). In the last two he did not directly mention the 1914 date, although he still suggested that the 2,520 years might be reckoned from the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. One factor that should be noted here is that in Elliott’s chronology 606 B.C.E. was the accessionyear of Nebuchadnezzar, while in the later chronology of Nelson H. Barbour and Charles T. Russell 606 B.C.E. was the date assigned for Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem in his 18th year. The Millerite movement The leading British works on prophecy were extensively reprinted in the United States and strongly influenced many American writers on the subject. These included the wellknown Baptist preacher William Miller and his associates, who pointed forward to 1843 as the date of Christ’s second coming. It is estimated that at least 50,000, and perhaps as many as 200,000 people eventually embraced Miller’s views. 51 Virtually every position they held on the different prophecies had been taught by other past or contemporary expositors. Miller was simply following others in ending the “Gentile times” in 1843. At the First General Conference held in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 14 and 15, 1840, one of Miller’s addresses dealt with Biblical chronology. He placed the “seven times,” or 2,520 years, as extending from 677 B.CE. to 1843 CE. 52 Christ was expected no later than 1844. |
| The Gentile Times Reconsidered, by Swedish author Carl Olof Jonsson, is a scholarly treatise based on careful and extensive research, including an unusually detailed study of Assyrian and Babylonian records relative to the date of Jersualem’s destruction by Babylonian conqueror Nebuchadnezzar. This publication traces the history of a long string of interpretation theories connected with time prophecies extracted from the Bible books of Daniel and Revelation, beginning with those from Judaism in the early centuries, through Medieval Catholicism, the Reformers, and into nineteenth century British and American Protestantism. It reveals the actual origin of the interpretation which eventually produced the date of 1914 as a predicted year for the end of “the Gentile Times,” a date adopted and proclaimed worldwide to this day by the religious movement known as Jehovah’s Witnesses. The importance of this date for the exclusive claims of the movement is repeatedly stressed in its publications. The Watchtower of October 15,1990. for example, states on page 19: “For 38 years prior to 1914, the Bible Students, as Jehovah’s Witnesses were then called, pointed to that date as the year when the Gentile Times would end. What outstanding proof that is that they were the true servants of Jehovah!” The book contains a helpful discussion of the application of the Biblical prophecy regarding the “seventy years” of Babylonian domination of Judah. Readers will find the information refreshingly different from any other publication on this topic. A “most valuable [work].... I have already drawn the attention of a number of correspondents to it.” –Donald J. Wiseman. Emeritus Professor of Assyriology in the University of London, England “An original and thoroughly serious study. . .. Time and again during my reading I was overcome by feelings of admiration for. and deep satisfaction at, the way in which the author deals with arguments related to the field of Assyriology.... Jonsson demonstrates, with the aid of irrefutable arguments, the invalidity of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ theory that 607 B.C. was the year when Nebuchadnezzar II. in the eighteenth regnal year, desolated Jerusalem.” |
| Cetedoc 1440 “Poems” (Liber Apotheosis) Cetedoc 1439 “Scenes from Sacred History” (Tituli historiarum siue Dittochaeon) Cetedoc 1444 Pseudo-Dionysius “Celestial Hierarchies” (De caelestine hierarchia) TLG 2798.001 “Divine Names” (De divinis nominibus) TLG 2798.004 “Letters” (Epistulae) TLG 2798.006 Pseudo-Macarius “Fifty Spiritual Homilies” (Homiliae spirituales 50) TLG 2109.002 Quodvultdeus “Book of Promises and Predictions of God” (Liber promissionum et praedictorum Dei) Cetedoc 0413 Sahdona “Book of Perfections” Salvian the Presbyter “The Gevernance of God” (De gubernationes Dei) Cetedoc 0485 Severian of Gabala “On the Creation of the World” Symeon the New Theologian “Discourses” Tertullian “Against Marcion” (Adversus Marcionem) Cetedoc 0014 “On the Grown” (De corona) Cetedoc 0021 “On the Soul” (De anima) Cetedoc 0017 Theodoret of Cyr “Compendium of the Heretical Myths” (Haeretiarum fabularum compendium) TLG 4089.031 “On the Incarnation of the Lord” (De incarnatione domini) TLG 4089.021 “Questions on Genesis” (Quaestiones in Octateuchum) TLG 4089.022 Chronological List of Persons Writings The following chronology will assist readers in locating patristic writers, writings and recipients of letters referred to in this patristic commentary. Persons are arranged chronologically according to the terminal date of the years during which they flourished (fl.) or, where that cannot be determined, the date of death or approximate date of writing or influence. Writings are arranged according to the approximate date of composition. This list is cummulative with respect to volumes of the ACCS released to date. Josephus, Flavius, 37-c. 101 Clement of Rome (pope), regn. 92–101? Ignatius of Antioch, d. c. 110–112 Letter of Barnabas, c. 130 Didache, c. 140 Shepherd of Hermas, c. 140/155 Marcion of Sinope, fl. 144, d. c. 154 Second Letter of Clement (so-called), c. 150 Polycarp of Smyrna, c. 69–155 Justin Martyr (of Flavia Neapolis in Palestine), c. 100/110–165, fl. c. 148–161 Montanist Oracles, c. latter half-2nd cent. |
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