THE PERSIAN KINGS AND BIBLE CHRONOLOGY
BC dates:
There are two very important prophetic time scales which must have correct BC starting dates. The one is the seven “Times” of punishment Jerusalem had to endure, and the other is the “Seventy Weeks” allotted to Daniel’s people for the Messiah to accomplish His redemption mission. It is these two questions which have motivated this study.
A shadow hangs over BC dating, especially the centuries preceding Alexander the Great. After him records kept pace with events, but before him the only chronologically reliable record is the OT Scripture. Dr. Emmanuel Velikovsky (Ages in Chaos) has already proven beyond question that the Egyptian chronology, as first composed by Manetho, and as accepted by the academic world, is overstretched by more than five centuries. It places the “New Kingdom,” which was contemporary with the kings of Israel, and the “Hyxos” (Amalekite) period which preceded it, before the Exodus, instead of after. Later authors have confirmed the chronological stretch. Velikovsky’s correction makes the two histories fit like a glove, even in some very interesting details.
Sir Isaac Newton who was a great Bible scholar as well as being a most eminent scientist gave much attention to the matter of chronology. In his writing “Chronology of ancient kingdoms amended,” he charges that the Greek chroniclers made the antiquities of Greece more than three centuries older than truth. He also stated that the chronology of the Latins is still more uncertain.
Professor A.H.Sayce, the great Assyriologist, and others have exposed some glaring chronological errors, of up to nearly two centuries, in the writings of some Greek historians. So how reliable are the popularly accepted BC dates?
Our two problems:
The first is the beginning date of Daniel’s “Seventy Weeks” (490 years). Bible students take it as 457BC to fit the mission of Messiah. But 457BC was not “from the going forth of the commandment to build and restore Jerusalem” (Daniel 9:25). That date, according to accepted chronology, was the decree to Ezra. It was purely administrative, and had nothing to do with building. In fact it was after the completion of the building. The restoration of Jerusalem started with Cyrus, historically and prophetically “saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid” (Isaiah 44:28), and that year was believed to be 539BC, i.e. 82 years too early to fit.
Say we push all the BC dates forward to make the match, we would then have to fill the gap behind and eliminate some supposed history ahead of that date. There already is a glaring gap behind. Let us first consider it. Usher’s chronology, which seems to be the conventional one, gives the time of the judges starting with Joshua until the enthronement of Saul, as 356 years. Paul said, in Acts 13:20 that it was “about four hundred and fifty years,” i.e. 94 years longer. Dr. Bullinger, in his Companion Bible notes, gives a very thorough analysis of that period showing all the details, and he makes the time 451 years. That puts a lot of BC dates out of place. Since we must accept Paul’s message as the Holy Spirit inspired Word of God it is the final authority on the matter.
That creates our second problem, namely our cherished 604 BC, the year we believe Nebuchadnezzar invaded the holy Land. That has been taken as the starting point of the “Seven Times” punishment of Jerusalem. Bible students, calculating from that date, correctly predicted the liberation of Jerusalem in 1917. What a year! And what an event that was! There is not a shadow of doubt about the correctness of 1917, just as there is not a shadow of doubt about the advent of the Messiah. That means that the starting date of 604 BC was correct, just like the starting date, 457 BC, was correct for Daniel’s “Seventy Weeks”. It is the events which we ascribed to those starting dates that were not correct. They were not correct because of faulty BC dating. We need to go back 82 years in both cases and find what events took place then. We did so for Cyrus’ decree, and we must do the same for our 604 BC.
Before we can amend anything we must first see what supposed history we can eliminate ahead of those dates. That brings us to the Persian Kings. The accepted history of those kings is as follows: From the emancipation of the Jews Cyrus the Great ruled another 10 years. After him his son Cambysis ruled 8 years and stopped the work on the temple. Then came Darius the Great who ruled 36 years, and the temple was completed in his sixth year. After him his son Xerxes the Great ruled for 21 ears, and Esther, and Mordecai were said to have featured in his reign. Then came Artaxerxes 1, who ruled for 41 years. In his seventh year Ezra, they say, came onto the scene, and in his twentieth year Nehemiah. After him came Darius 11, and Artaxerxes 11, whose reigns covered a confused period, together totalling 66 years. After them you get Artaxerxes 111, who ruled for 20 years, and then lastly Darius 111 who ruled for 6 years and was defeated by Alexander the Great in 330 BC. That covered a total period of 208 years.
Josephus, who was criticized by the Jews for following the Egyptian Manetho, and the Greek historians, there being a scarcity of other evidence, gives the period as 226 years. Velikovsky gives it as 205 years. And here comes the shock: Dr. Bullinger of the Companion Bible gives the period as 96 years, while part of a Jewish document on the chronology of holy Land events, which I have before me, but which does not give the name of the author, records the period as 61 years! The “official” Jewish chronology set out in the “Seder Olam” gives the period as only 53 years. It gives the emancipation date as only 374 BC (instead of 539 BC), and Alexander’s conquest as 321 BC (instead of 330 BC).
Such great discrepancies give me boldness to stick to the Scriptures rather than be sidetracked by ancient writers. Does the Bible not give any hint? Surely it must be the final authority! In Daniel chapter eleven we have the most incredible king after king prophecy right until Rome took over, and then it was dynasty after dynasty until 1917. In the 3rd year of Cyrus, God said to Daniel: “Behold there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than they all, and by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Greece”(Daniel 11:2). The next king mentioned, in the next verse, is Alexander the Great. In Daniel chapter 8 the prophet was given a very vivid picture of the victory of Alexander (called the king of Greece), over Persia. It was shown him as a “he goat” which destroyed the “ram which had two horns.”
The message to Daniel certainly does not tally with the multiplicity of Persian kings presented to us by the history books. There must have been some fundamental errors. Possibly they were name related duplications. In the original Hebrew text we find only the following: “Artachshasta” translated “Artaxerxes,” and said by Strong’s to be a title (not a name); “Achashrosh” translated “Ahaseurus,” also a title (not a name); “Kowresh” translated “Cyrus,” a name (not a title); and “Dareyavesh” translated “Darius” a title (not a name). All the Persian kings could have been called by either of those titles in addition to their names. Josephus wrote about Ahaseurus as “Cyrus whom the Greeks call Artaxerxes”. Investigation will show that in the Bible the term Artaxerxes was also applied to Cyrus, Cambysis, and Darius, and that there is no Xerxes. Only three Darius’ are mentioned, namely “the Mede,” the Great, and the last.
So who were the kings of Daniel 11:2? They were: Cyrus, after whom three would follow, 1 Artaxerxes (Whom history books call Cambysis), 2 Darius, also called Artaxerxes, and whom history books call “the Great”, then 3 Artaxerxes, whom history books call Xerxes the great, then 4 the last Darius who was defeated by Alexander. Let us add up the time span: 10+8+36+21+6=81. We are now obviously nearer the Biblical mark.
The burning question that arises, however, is: Where do Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther now fit the picture? Let us start with Ezra. He was a younger man, a descendant of an original captive, Seraiah. His first 6 chapters, as scribe, are simply recording the events of history. He does not mention his own name there at all. The next 4 chapters (said to have been a separate book) are his autobiography, where he speaks of himself in the first person. It starts “in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king”(Ezra 7:8). He now addresses the king by his title, whereas, while writing the previous history he called him Darius. The fact that jumping from chapter 6 to chapter 7 was from the 6th year of Darius to the 7th year of Artaxerxes suggests that we are dealing with the same king. In that 6th year the temple was completed, and dedicated, and in the next year Ezra was sent to attend to temple administrative matters. To postpone his visit to the history book Artaxerxes 1 would make it 57 years later and help to create two extra kings to accommodate him. Strong’s concordance calls this Artaxerxes “A Persian King known as Darius.” So there you have it, we have lopped off 57 years, and removed the necessity of two of the Persian kings.
What about Nehemiah? He came on the scene in the 20th year of Artaxerxes. Which Artaxerxes? Some say the one history books call Xerxes the great, son of Darius, others say Artaxerxes 1, after Ezra. But there are very solid reasons why he could not fit there. He was an original captive like Daniel and Mordecai (Ezra 2:2), and so had to be over seventy years old at the time of the emancipation, Therefore the first option mentioned would put him well into the second century of his age, and with the second option he would be approaching the end of it.
Nehemiah, we read, had questioned fellow Jews who arrived from Jerusalem “Concerning the Jews who had escaped, who were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem” (Nehemiah 1:2). Their reply was a picture of the state in which it was left following the destruction by Nebuchadnezzar, and that “the remnant” who were “left” were “in great affliction and reproach.” The king’s response to Nehemiah’s request was unbelievably generous. He gave provisions, and security. And Nehemiah’s focus was the rebuilding of the walls, a task which he completed, without the finishing touches, in 52 days.
This clearly was before the main emancipation, and probably in the dying days of Babylon. So I suggest this Artaxerxes was Cyrus the Great. His 20th year would fit the scene, and his commission from God was “saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid” (Isaiah 44:28). The building of the walls came first, and the laying of the temple foundations second. This fits exactly, and Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled to the letter in the days of Cyrus. This setting now removes the need for an extra 95 years of time, and those same two additional kings of Persia.
Our next question is Esther. Mordecai was an original captive, and so he must have been more than seventy years old at the time of the emancipation. Like Nehemiah he could not fit any time after Darius the great. I suggest that this “Ahaseurus,” also called “Artaxerxes,” was none other than the same Cyrus the Great. The story of Esther runs from his 3rd year to his 12th year. Then Nehemiah appears in his 20th year, at a moment with “the queen also sitting by him” (Nehemiah 2:6). Was that not perhaps Queen Esther?
It is strange that this Persian king initially knew nothing about the Jews. He did not even know that Esther and Mordecai were Jews. That would not have been possible with those later Artaxerxes kings. Then came an incredible change in this kings life, so much so that Josephus writes that after the Purim experience “the affairs of the Jews were, by their (Mordecai and Esther) means, better than they could ever have hoped for.” Josephus also says that the king had sight of the prophecy of Isaiah concerning himself and was greatly moved by it.
It is, however, interesting that in the crisis of the near annihilation of all the Jews in all the 127 provinces of the Medo-Persian Empire, neither Jerusalem, nor Judea were mentioned. They would have been the focal point if they were part of the Empire. But, of course in the 12th year of Cyrus’ reign they were still under Babylon. In the 20th year of his reign, however, Babylon was starting to crumble. Then he dared to trespass by sending Nehemiah with soldiers to protect him. Is it not significant that the adversaries accused the builders of rebellion against the king? Which king? Surely not the one who sent them, was it not the king of Babylon?
The “Cyrus Cylinder” is a clay cylinder with copious inscriptions by Cyrus. Prof. A H. Sayce, the great Assyriologist in his “The higher criticism and the monuments” states that this cylinder “is the most Hebraic of all cuneiform texts known to us, and is written more in the language of the Old Testament prophets.” It also bears the words “All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD God of heaven given me” the exact words of his decree which we read in the Bible.
History proclaims that Cyrus the Great was renowned for his clemency, and kindness to the people he conquered. So says “The Bible as History” by Werner Keller. It is interesting that in the Apocryphal book of Esther, Ahaseurus makes exactly those claims. Obviously this is the same king. There are many other points that absolutely clinch the above arrangement. They are covered in my study “Order of events, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and the Persian kings” In that study all the apparent chronological “flies in the ointment” raised by this reconstruction are examined, even the young wall builder called “Eliashib the high priest.” Writing after the event he was so designated to distinguish him from the other Eliashibs even though at the time his grandfather was still in office. This is an attempted answer to one Bible commentary which states that it is not possible to synchronize these Bible books, a statement which Bible critics of course eagerly latch onto.
Let us now return to our two important BC dates, namely 457, and 604. Those dates are obviously correct because the prophetic time spans calculated from them end exactly on target. The first is 483 years (69 “weeks”) to the anointing of the Messiah (27 AD). He was then crucified 31 AD (in the middle of the 70th week). The second is 2520 years (7 “Times”) ending with the liberation of Jerusalem in 1917.
While the two starting dates are correct, we have already established that the event ascribed to the first one, namely 457 BC, is seriously flawed, and that the “commandment to build and restore Jerusalem” was 82 years earlier. We have already seen that we have Bible authority to move the events forward on the chronological scale by nearly a century, and we also have Bible authority to eliminate at least that amount of false history (the extra Persian kings) ahead of that date. The discrepancy we wish to correct is 82 years. So we can date Cyrus’ commandment to Nehemiah as 457 BC, and the whole 70 weeks story fits perfectly.
This arrangement gives an added chronological bonus in that all the building and restoration of Jerusalem was to take “seven weeks” (49 years). We see that late in Darius’ reign a great festive gathering and dedication took place, covering four chapters of Nehemiah. The people made a covenant with God. A long list was given of those who signed the covenant, and Nehemiah was the first. A hint as to its timing is that Nehemiah took leave to go to Jerusalem in the 32nd year of the king (Nehemiah 13:6). At that 32nd year Nehemiah must already have been a very old man (at least 120). So it could not possibly have been a later king, and there were no 32nd years for previous kings. Counting from the 20th year of Cyrus to the 32nd year of Darius we get 50 years. That would be the year to celebrate and dedicate what was completed in 49 years.
The trick now comes with our second starting date, namely 604 BC. That is the acid test. We have to do exactly the same to it. We must add 82 years as well, discover what event of the conventional chronology took place then, and bring that event forward by 82 years to 604 BC. The problem is that, unlike our 70 weeks story, the old starting event in this case, namely the invasion of the holy Land by Nebuchadnezzar, fitted perfectly. What event would we now bring up with this blind lucky dip? Would it fit the story?
Well, going 82 years back takes us to 686 BC. What point in history do we strike there? Usher’s chronology seems to have a discrepancy. It places that date after Hezekiah, about 10 years into Manasseh’s reign, and 5 years before the end of Sennacherib’s reign. Now, from the Bible we know that it was in the days of Hezekiah, 15 years before his death that Sennacherib was besieging Jerusalem, and his army came to grief. He returned to Nineveh in disgrace and was assassinated by one of his sons.
Turning to another source we find that Dr. Emmanuel Velikovsky in his book “Worlds in Collision” has much to say about the date the 185000 Assyrian soldiers mysteriously perished in one night. He collected a lot of information around that event, some even from as far as China. It was the day that the sun dial went back ten degrees with world wide repercussions. It happened on a Passover day, when according to Jewish tradition they were busy singing the Hallel (Psalm 113-118). Velikovsky managed to fix that date (on the Roman calendar, and conventional chronology) as 23 March 687 BC.
How well does that event fit what we are looking for? Perfectly. World focus was on Jerusalem. God, for the last time before her long punishment period demonstrated His power to protect her, and that protection had world- wide repercussions. The very next year, 686 BC, the long countdown started. This was a deadly setback to Assyria. The decline of Assyria meant the rise of Babylon. Following the death of Sennacherib the next Assyrian king, Esarhaddon, set about restoring that city, and, what is more, the next king of Judah, namely Manasseh, was varied away captive to Babylon, not Nineveh (2 Chronicles 33″11-13)! Babylon was rising. Assyria simply continued into the Babylonian Empire, and was absorbed by it. There were ethnic connections between those nations. No wonder Ezra even called Darius “the king of Assyria” (Ezra 6:22).
Even the “image” of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream makes full sense. Our date is where it all started and Nebuchadnezzar represented the peak, not the beginning, of his Empire. That is why he is called “The Head of Gold.”
Now all we need to do is move that event forward to its correct place, namely 604 BC, and our calculations fit perfectly, all the way to 1917 where Jerusalem again becomes the focus of the world, and God now again stands ready to defend her.
By J.J.Jackson January 2011. To be read with “ORDER of EVENTS, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel and Esther”
