God's timeline, when the Bible plays number games

It is not the intention of this study to prove that a new Bible timeline is possible but rather to pointout that the various chronological clues hidden in the Old and New Testaments together complete ajigsaw puzzle which make a reconstruction of a previously hidden aspect of Jesus possible.Following the rules of the game, we will first piece together the New Testament framework andthen we'll put the individual pieces hidden in the Old Testament in their correct places in order toobtain the image that the authors of the Bible wanted us to play with. I think, however, that it is agood idea to give readers a little advice before they sit down and get to work on the jigsaw - don'tbe discouraged by the apparent weakness of the opening hypothesis. Keep going and you'll get tothe surprising evidence confirming my argument. Furthermore, if you have problems rememberingall the most important dates while you're reading, you can always consult the chronological tablesummary at the end. Finally, whilst this study moves a long way away from the conclusions ofCatholic exegesis bear in mind that it uses and translates the quoted texts.Let's start by establishing Jesus's date of birth as gleaned from the Scriptures. The first step requiresus to consider the Gospel verses that indirectly tell us Christ's age: "Youare not even 50 years old,yet you have seen Abraham?" (John 8.57) and "It has taken 46 years to build this Temple, and youcan rebuild it in three days? But when Jesus said "this temple," he meant his own body" (John 2.20-21). These two verses make the parallel between Christ and the temple seem obvious just as it isevident that those questioning Him believed he was around 50 years of age.As proof that Jesus was just under 50 let’s read St. Irenaeus who wrote that:"From the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old age, which our Lordpossessed while He still fulfilled the office of a Teacher, even as the Gospel and all the elderstestify; those who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciple of the Lord, affirming that Johnconveyed to them that information". (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book II, Chap. XXII, 5).We can infer from Irenaeus's words, then, that Jesus was between 40 and 50 years of age when hetaught but we are looking for something more exact. How can we find it? Perhaps there is a wayand it is to give a more precise meaning to the term 'generation', i.e. 35 years as taken from Job whowrites that: "Job lived 140 years after that, living to see four generations of his children andgrandchildren." (Job 42.16) If 140 years is 4 generations, one generation is 35 years. Now as Jesus said: "I tell you the truth,all this will come upon this generation" (Matthew 24.34) when, in the last few days of his life heprophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. Thus, as we can give a precise meaning tothe term 'generation' and we know that Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D., a simple calculationgives us the year in which Jesus was killed - 35 A.D. (70-35=35).Now we need to establish a year of birth in line with the timeframe referred to by St. Irenaeus - 40-50 years - which gives us a date somewhere between 15 and 5 B.C. A little known astronomical factcomes to our aid here, the established date that Halley's comet passed over Bethlehem, 12 B.C., andthe fact that this was probably the star that guided the Magi. However, despite the fact that it isconfirmed by the Gospels, the year the comet passed over Bethlehem cannot be the year Jesus wasborn. And the reason for this is clear from Matthew 2.16 in which we read that: “When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent andkilled all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to thetime that he had learned from the wise men”. The fact that Herod killed all children under two years of age means that Jesus was born before 12B.C., in the period between 14 B.C. and 15 B.C. as we would have, in any case, calculated bysubtracting 50 years from the year of his death which, as we have seen, could have been 35 B.C. 50

has not been chosen arbitrarily but on the basis of the limits imposed by Irenaeus and in the versesfrom John 2.20-21 and 8.57 quoted above. Personally, on the basis of what comes next, I'm certainthat 15 B.C. is the correct date because this dating, together with the more precise meaning I’vegiven to the term 'generation', gives us the additional confirmation of a more coherent and complextimeline, that of the kings of Judah and Israel.Our second step involves a calculation based on Matthew 1.17 which refers to fourteen generationspassing between Christ and Babylon. If one generation is thirty five years, fourteen generationswould be 490 years. We conjectured that Jesus was born in 15 B.C., therefore subtracting 490 yearsfrom 15 B.C. gives us an 'absurd' 505 B.C. for the Babylonian exile. Don't laugh! Suspend yourdisbelief and keep on reading and you'll see that this date places us in a very exact chronologicalframework and the only one which has, to date, been capable of clarifying the age-old problem ofthe lapse of time between the 1st and 2nd temples referred to by Seder Olam Rabbah. So keepreading, I won't disappoint you.Once again from Matthew 1.17 we know that from Babylonia to David another 14 generations pass(490 years) so, once again, we can calculate: 505+490=995 B.C. which should be the first year ofDavid's reign. But to be sure, let's recalculate all the years of the reigns of the kings of Judah (theseries relating to the kings of Israel stops before 505 B.C. in 638 B.C.), add up the totals (483 yearsand 6 months as the table below shows) and subtract them from 505 B.C. for the first effective yearof David's reign, 989 B.C. The table below summarises this long process.

KING YEAR CAME TO THE THRONE

LENGTH OF REIGN EXPRESSED IN DATES

LENGTH OF REIGNACCORDING TO MY CALCULATIONS

LENGTH OF REIGN ACCORDING TO DEUTERONOMISTIC

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MY CALCULATION AND THAT OF DEUTERONOMISTIC

DAVID 989 989-949 40 YEARS 40 YEARS

SOLOMON 949 949-909 40 YEARS 40 YEARS

REHOBOAM J.

909 909-892 17 years 17 YEARS

JEROBOAM IS.

909 909-887 22 YEARS 22 YEARS

ABIJAH J. XVIIIrd of JEROBOAM

892-889 3 YEARS 3 YEARS

ASA J. XXth of JEROBOAM

889-847 42 YEARS 41 YEARS -1

NADAB IS. IInd of ASA 887-886 1 YEAR 2 YEARS +1

BAASHA IS.

III OF ASA 886-863 23 YEARS 24 YEARS +1

ELAH IS. XXVIth OF ASA 863-862 1 YEAR 2 YEARS +1

ZIMRI IS. XXVIIth OF ASA 862-858 4 .YEARS 7 DAYS -4

OMRI IS XXXIst OF ASA 858-851 7 YEARS 12 YEARS +5






AHAB IS. XXXVIIIrd OF ASA 851-830 21 YEARS 22 YEARS +1

JEHOSHAPHAT J.

IVth OF AHAB 847-824 23 YEARS 25 YEARS +2

AHAZIAH IS

XVIInd OF JEHOSHAPHAT

830-829 1 YEAR 2 YEARS +1

JEHORAM IS.

XVIIIth OF JEHOSHAPHAT

829-816 13 YEARS 12 YEARS -1

JEHORAM J.

Vth OF JEHORAM IS.

824-817 7 YEARS 8 YEARS +1

AHAZIAH J. XIInd OF JEHORAM IS.

817-816 1 YEAR 1 YEAR

JEHU IS.

REIGNED FOR 28 YEARS FROM THEDEATH OF AHAZIAH

816-786 30 YEARS 28 YEARS -2

ATHALIAH J.

REIGNED FOR 7 YEARS


JEHOASH J.

VIth OF JEHU 809-770 39 YEARS 40 YEARS +1

JEHOAHAZ IS.

XXIIIrd OF JEHOASH J.

786-772 14 YEARS 17 YEARS +3

JEHOASH IS.

XXXVIIth OF JEHOASH J.

772-755 17 YEARS 16 YEARS -1

AMAZIAH J. IInd OF JEHOASH IS.

770-728 42 YEARS 29 YEARS -13

JEROBOAMIS.

XVth OF AMAZIAH 755-689 66 YEARS 41 YEARS -25

UZZIAH J. XXVIIth OF JEROBOAM

728-674 54 YEARS 52 YEARS -2

ZECHARIAH IS.

XXXVIIIth OF UZZIAH

689-689 6 MONTHS 6 MONTHS

SHALLUM IS.

XXXIXth OF UZZIAH

689-689 1 MONTH 1 MONTH

MENAHEM IS.

XXXIXth OF UZZIAH

689-678 11 YEARS 10 YEARS -1

PEKAHIAH IS.

Lth OF UZZIAH 678-676 2 YEARS 2 YEARS

PEKAH IS. LIInd OF UZZIAH 676-647 29 YEARS 20 YEARS -9

JOTHAM J. IInd of PEKAH 674-659 15 YEARS 16 YEARS +1






AHAZ J. XVIInd of PEKAH 659-644 15 YEARS 16 YEARS +1

HOSHEA IS. XIIth OF AHAZ 647-638 9 YEARS 9 YEARS FALL OF SAMARIA

HEZEKIAH IIIrd OF HOSHEA 644-615 29 YEARS 29 YEARS

MANASSEHJ.


AMON J. 560-558 2 YEARS 2 YEARS

JOSIAH J. 558-527 31 YEARS 31 YEARS

JEHOAHAZ J.


JEHOIAKIM J.


JEHOIAKIN J.


ZEDEKIAH J.

516-505 11 YEARS 11 YEARS DEPORTATION

TOTAL 484 YEARS AND SIX MONTHS

474 YEARS AND SIX MONTHS

Now that we've reconstructed the table we need to evaluate its reliability, to test it in the light of afew specific chronological facts capable of throwing light on its sustainability or otherwise. To dothis we will refer to both a non biblical and a biblical source which have in common certain datingissues which remain unresolved despite the fact that for the former calculations of solar and siderealyears and both together have been resorted to. We're talking about Seder Olam Rabbah or TheGreat Order of the World, a Hebrew language chronology of events from the Creation to Alexanderthe Great's conquest of Persia. Amongst other things it notes that the lapse of time between thebuilding of the temple by Solomon and its post-exile reconstruction was 480 years. So let's take ourchronological table and see whether it effectively corresponds to this important and exactchronological data.To begin with we need, guided by 1 Kings 6.1, to identify the year work started on the temple onSolomon's orders. The verse cited reads: In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year ofSolomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple ofthe Lord.An analysis of our chronological table shows us that this was 945 B.C. Let's identify now the yearreconstruction began after the period of exile. To do this we need to bear in mind the informationreported in Ezra 7.7-10 in which we read of Ezra’s return:“There went up some of the children of Israel, and of the priests, and the Levites, and the singers,and the porters, and the Nethinim, to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king. And hecame to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king. For upon the firstday of the first month he began to go from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month he came

to Jerusalem, according to the good hand of his God upon him. For Ezra had prepared his heart toseek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgements".Ezra's return to his home country is thus not an end in itself but his aim is to rebuild the temple aswe read in Ezra 7.14-20: “Because you are sent of the king and his seven counsellors, to inquire concerning Judah andJerusalem, according to the law of your God which is in your hand, and to carry the silver and gold,which the king and his counsellors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose habitation is inJerusalem,and all the silver and gold that you shall find in all the province of Babylon, with thefreewill offering of the people, and of the priests, offering willingly for the house of their Godwhich is in Jerusalem; therefore you shall with all diligence buy with this money bulls, rams, lambs,with their meal offerings and their drink offerings, and shall offer them on the altar of the house ofyour God which is in Jerusalem. Whatever shall seem good to you and to your brothers to do withthe rest of the silver and the gold, do that after the will of your God. The vessels that are given toyou for the service of the house of your God, deliver before the God of Jerusalem. Whatever moreshall be needful for the house of your God, which you shall have occasion to bestow, bestow it outof the king's treasure house". This excerpt thus dates the year of the reconstruction of the temple, and it needs to be a very precisecalculation, as starting from the first year of Artaxerxes's reign. This king received a request forasylum from Themistocles who had been sent packing from his home country in 471 B.C. It seemsclear to me then that Artaxerxes was already king in 471 B.C. just as it seems obvious thatThemistocles took the opportunity to leave as soon as Artaxerxes, a '’friendly’ king, came to thethrone.Therefore, if 471 B.C was the first year of Artaxerxes's reign, the seventh year that we need tocalculate according to Ezra verse 7.7 as quoted above is 464 B.C. Let's now work out the interval oftime between 945 B.C., which we have identified as the year work began on the building of the firsttemple, and 464 B.C, the year in which those returning from Babylonian exile started reconstructionwork and the result is confirmed by the Seder as 480 years. All we need to do is a simplesubtraction: 945-464=481. The result, allowing for a margin of a single year which I have alwaysdiscounted, tells us we're right and that the chronological table I've reconstructed and Sedercorroborate each other’s version.So far I've referred to the start of work but if we use the conclusion of work as the basis of ourcalculations the result confirms my timeline too. In this case John 2.20-21's reference to therebuilding work on the temple taking 46 years helps us out. As we saw earlier, work started in 464B.C. so all we need to do is subtract 46 years from this date to obtain 418 B.C.“the sixth year of the reign of King Darius” (Ezra 6.15)that is, following the dating of Darius's II's reign, his sixth year as king which is corroborated byhistorians too. I think it is important to highlight that my timeline not only identifies exactly a VIthyear which, given the almost completely ignored Artaxerxes edict, can only be that of Darius II andnot that of Darius I. Thus my reconstructed chronology is not only accurate but it is also closer tothe text of the Bible itself. Whatever starting point is used, therefore, the year the temple wasblessed or the year work began on it, my timeline holds firm.Let's move on now to a test using a biblical source which has also been used as the basis forcalculations which have not born the fruit hoped for. We're talking about Ezechiel 4.4-8. Despitethe simplicity of the issue (essentially it is merely a matter of adding 190 to 40 years starting fromthe beginning of the exile of Israel and Judah), Ezechiel 4.4-8 presents serious difficulties as a resultof two different versions. For the Jews, in fact, the years to subtract for Israel are 390 and forChristians 190. It is difficult to agree on or establish the truth and to speak of right or wrong is, inany case, out of place. I'll try to make my own contribution using the table that I hope you're nowfamiliar with. Let's begin by quoting the version that interests us using the English Revised Versionwhich reads: "Moreover lie thou upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: accordingto the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it, thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I haveappointed the years of their iniquity to be unto thee a number of days, even one hundred and ninetydays: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

And again, when thou hast accomplished these, thou shalt lie on thy right side, and shalt bear theiniquity of the house of Judah: forty days, each day for a year, have I appointed it unto thee. Andthou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with thine arm uncovered; and thou shaltprophesy against it. And, behold, I lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one sideto another, till thou hast accomplished the days of thy siege". (Ezechiel 4.4-8) It is well known that Ezechiel’s intention here was to prophesy the exile of the Kingdoms of Israeland Judah, which were divided even in their wickedness and condemned to 190 years punishmentfor Israel and 40 years for Judah.According to my calculations the last year of the reign of Hoseah, the last king of Israel, was 638B.C. If we subtract the 190 years of punishment we get 448-7 which is the year of Artaxerxes'sedict, generally dated as 445 B.C. We get the same year with another simple calculation, subtracting70 years of exile from 516/7 B.C. which, as the last year of Jehoiachin's reign as shown in ourchronological table, is the beginning of exile following 2 Kings 24.13 "as the lord had said" on thesubject of exile. In fact, according to my calculations, the troops of Nebuchadnezzar set siege toJerusalem in 518/7 B.C. and conquered it in 516 B.C. thereby setting in motion the 70 years of exile(a little aside: Jeremiah 25.1 and St John note that the fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign coincidedwith the first year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign which, using our table, is 524 B.C. Interested readerscan easily follow the chronological notes in the Bible and identify and date all Nebuchadnezzar'smilitary activities).And the same goes for Judah which was condemned to 40 years of full, harsh punishment in anoverall period of 70 years. If we subtract 40 years from 505 B.C. (the last year of Zedekiah's reign according to my calculations) we get 465 B.C. which is very probably the seventh year ofArtaxerxes's reign if we take 471/2 B.C. as the first year of his reign rather than the more exact 471B.C., the year, that is, that Ezra returned as noted in Ezra verse 7.7:There went up some of the children of Israel, and of the priests, and the Levites, and the singers,and the porters, and the Nethinim, to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king.We need to underline here that Ezechiel seems to be using here for his calculations not 2 Kings24.13 which is the usual reference point for calculations on the beginning and duration of the periodof exile together with Daniel's prophecies, and the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks in particular, butrather the definitive fall of the two capital cities Samaria and Jerusalem which occurred in 638 B.C.and 505 B.C. respectively.As I believe I have shown, Ezra 4.4-8 is a precise chronological note which, as our table makesclear, became a prophecy fulfilled. On the other hand, if we use the timeframe generally used todate this prophecy, it could not have been fulfilled or only in very approximate terms. In fact if wetake the 190 years of the Revised English Bible and accept that 538 B.C. marked the end of Israel'sexile the sum of the two indicates that the exile began and Samaria fell in 728 B.C. Studies of thisevent, however, date it to 721/2 B.C., a considerable difference, the same discrepancy we found forthe prophecy on the exile of Judah, to be calculated by subtracting 40 years from 587 B.C. when itbegan (587-40=547 B.C. despite the fact that it is generally dated to 538 B.C. together with theEdict of Cyrus).This discrepancy is well known in scholarly circles and has led to these being considered symbolicnumbers. This is, of course, entirely possible however it is generally accepted that this symbolicmeaning escapes us.Even if it is used to get to the bottom of the chronological problem constituted by Ezra 4.4-8,ourtable enables us, with this further confirmation, to affirm that both its calculations and thechronology of the kings are exact despite the account that has been written on the subject, and that Iwill now refute, by W. F. Albright in his “The Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel” inthe Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research” 100 (1945), 16-22.In this essay Albright argues that he has demonstrated the chronological unreliability of the bookscited in that he has highlighted a serious discrepancy at a specific point of the Chronology of theKings. Specifically, he argues that adding together the years that the two kings of Israel, Jehu andPekah, reigned, we should get a figure which is identical to the sum of the kings of Judah - 114years - because Jehu (Israel) and Ahaziah (Judah) started their reigns the same year and the same istrue of Pekah (Israel) and Jotham (Judah), a perfect match which, however, Albright finds to be

absent calculating 128 years for Judah and 114, as we have seen, for Israel. If this were trueAlbright would be quite right but this is not the case as I will attempt to explain.There's no need to get into complex chronological issues because all this is based on a very simplefact. Albright relied on the calculations made by the editor of the Bible who committed a veryserious error of calculation in the case of the length of Amaziah's reign. The chronological tableshown earlier makes this clear if you look at my column of figures and compare it to the Bibleauthor's calculations.The crucial fact to note here is that Amaziah's reign, according to my calculations, lasted 42 yearsinstead of the 29 referred to explicitly in the Bible, a difference of 13 years. This correspondsalmost exactly to the discrepancy of 14 years indicated by Albright (128-114=14). In short thismeans that Albright unfortunately based his arguments on the calculations of the Bible editorwithout checking their reliability. I'm quite certain that, if he had had the patience to recalculate theyears all the kings reigned he would have realised his mistake and would not have written his essay. He would not, that is, have asserted that he had found the proof of the chronological unreliability ofthe Book of Kings.We need first to consider this: if Albright's analysis was intended to refute the Book of Kings onceand for all and to bury the Chronology of the Kings, now that we have shown that the foundationsof this analysis are undermined by a certain superficiality which invalidates the study, does not thisargument now actually prove its reliability? There are no longer 14 years difference between thekingdoms of Judah and Israel but only a year and a half. For Judah the total is, in fact, 142 while forIsrael it is 140 years and 7 months - exactly that correspondence that Albright was looking for.Secondly, we need to consider the total number of years from Jehu to Pekah which are no longer the114 calculated by Albright but far more.Finally, and following on from this second issue, is my third point. If my chronological calculationsshow, to the contrary of Albright, who first brought awkward issues of precision and reliability intothe argument, the accuracy of the chronology of the Book of Kings then how is it possible tocalculate, at the same time, the 1st year of David's reign at around 1000 B.C. and the end of theBabylon exile in 587? In fact, in its implicit dating (reign from XXth of..., that is), which is the mostexact and, as we have seen, reliable, the Bible indicates a total of 483 years and 6 months. a simplecalculation, then, dating 586 as the last year of Zedekiah's reign, gives us the beginning of David'sreign at 586 + 483/4 = 1070/1. If we demonstrate, therefore, that the fundamental correspondencebetween the reigns of Judah and Israel exists and that Albright is wrong, the Chronology of theKings is automatically correct. David's reign either began in 1070 B.C., as the period of exilestarted in 586 B.C., or we get into a complex mechanism of chronological incongruity.Everything I've set out so far demonstrates that it is possible to keep strictly to the Bible and that itis not as unreliable as we have been led to believe.Now allow me to move from the sedate trot of the previous pages to a headlong gallop. With a fewconcise phrases and a few sums, I'll show that it is possible, using the chronological table that I'veconstructed, to ride from prophecy to prophecy through 708 years of Jewish history. We'll start in638 B.C. which, according to my calculations marks the fall of Samaria, and finish in 70 B.C.without a single chronological stumbling block. Ready? Climb onto our time travelling steed then!As I mentioned earlier, my calculations date the fall of Samaria to 638 B.C. This was the first of190 years of punishment prophesied in Ezechiel 4.4 as follows: "Moreover lie thou upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it. accordingto the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it, thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I haveappointed the years of their iniquity to be unto thee a number of days, even one hundred and ninetydays: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel”. The 190 days/years that the prophet refers to started in 638 B.C. and finished, by means of a simplesum, in 448 B.C., the year which, according to my calculations, marks the end of the period of exileand the year in which Artaxerxes decreed return. It is important to remember that, in all my work, Ihave taken +/- 1 to equal 0 so there's nothing strange about me starting our steed on its way to thenext prophesy with the year 447. It is purely an issue of accuracy.

The prophecy we will consider now is that of Daniel's Seventy Weeks and the first sixty nine weeksin particular, the period, that is, from 447 B.C. to 35 A.D., the year of Jesus's death, again accordingto my calculations (which are not significantly different from those of the exegetists which date it to32/3 A.D.) Once again it is a very simple sum: [(483-447)-1]=35 A.D. For a clearer understandingof the formula, which removes the non-existent year 0, it is worth quoting the prophecy which says: Know there foreand discernthat from the going forth of the commandmentto restore and to build Jerusalemunto the anointed one, the prince,shall be seven weeks:and threescore and two weeksit shall be built again, with street and moat,even in troubled times.26 And after the threescore and two weeksshall the anointed one be cut off, and shall have nothing:and the people of the prince that shall come shalldestroy the city and the sanctuary;and his end shall be with a flood, and even unto the endshall be war; desolations are determined. As the text makes clear, from the commandment (in 447 B.C., as cited earlier) to the killing of theanointed prince (Christ) 69 weeks of years will pass - 69x7=483 years - which are then added to447 B.C. to get 35 A.D. as the year that the anointed one will be killed.Now let's set off on a headlong gallop through the last 35 years. There is a very strong link betweenthe Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks and Mark 13.30. I think we can safely say that Daniel passesthe word to Jesus who prophesies the destruction of Jerusalem with these words: " I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation”. As I mentioned at the beginning, the term generation is not a vague term. It indicates 35 years. Andit is important to bear in mind, to contextualise the verse quoted, that it is part of a chapter devotedto the vaticination of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. My calculation, then, based as it is on 1generation as 35 years, gives an exact year, 70 B.C., which is the year in which the tragic events ofJerusalem are historically considered to have happened. Nothing could be more straightforward: 35A.D. + 35 (1 generation) = 70 A.D.I think it is important to underline that the date of the crucifixion of Jesus is always the same despitethe very different analytical and chronological methods used to calculate it. The first dates itaccording to the words of Irenaeus on the basis of Jesus's 40-50 years of age, the second accordingto Daniel’s Seventy Week prophesy, the third using the information in the previous passage while Iwill describe the fourth now. It refers to Theodoret of Cyrus who dates the Prophecy of the SeventyWeeks somewhere between the XXth year of Artaxerxes and the baptism of Christ on page 231 ofhis Commentary on Daniel. We know, from Theodoret once again, that this period lasted 69 weeks,483 years that is, so all we need to do is to identify this date according to my calculations. As far asthe year of baptism is concerned, if the date of His death was 35 A.D, then He must have beenbaptised in 32 A.D. because His ministry lasted three years. As far as the XXth year of Artaxerxesis concerned, if the first year of his reign was, as mentioned earlier, 471/2, its end would have been451/2. For simplicity's sake, we'll round it off at 451 B.C. and do the following sum: [483-451)-1]=31 which means that, if we remove the non-existent year 0, we've found the year we're looking forwith a very slight approximation which, as we have seen, is unimportant. Youwill have realised byyourselves what I'm about to say: Theodoret must have been aware of the dates in my chronology

otherwise it would be a very strange coincidence. There are traces, moreover, of the timeframe I'vereconstructed in other authors too. Midrash reports, in fact that Queen Vashti,who was overthrownby Esther, called herself 'daughter of the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar'. To make sense of the veryfew years that separate her from King Nebuchadnezzar (which we obviously cannot do if we datethe exile to 586 B.C. and the Book of Esther to the Artaxerxes years) a note explains that this familyrelationship is not to be taken literally but is rather a literary form used to indicate a general femaleline ancestry. No, in my opinion, it is very likely indeed that Vashti was indeed Nebuchadnezzar'sgranddaughter, if the first year of his reign was 524 B.C. while Artaxerxes's was 471 B.C. Myaccount, moreover, makes the invention of a diaspora, and a first one at that, to explain the presenceof Jews in the Artaxerxes years unnecessary. Finally, the advanced age - over 100 - of Mordecai nolonger requires explanation because the events take place over a much shorter period. And thearchaeological evidence also confirms my timeframe which, as you will have gathered, excludesCyrus from the events of the period of exile. Cyrus's stele, in fact, does not list the Jews among thepeoples liberated. It is true that the Bible refers explicitly to Cyrus's role in liberating the Jews but Ibelieve that it would be better for now to leave this subject to one side as it would take us too farfrom the point of this account.So here we are, ladies and gentlemen, moving from prophecy to prophecy we have not only arrivedat our destination but we've completed the jigsaw puzzle too. Before I leave you to observe this asyet hidden face of Jesus which you yourselves have constructed - in following this chronology havewe got to the bottom of his date of birth or not? - I'd like to propose one last simple but highlysymbolic calculation which will attract your curiosity (it would be interesting to hear what therabbis think of it as they are usually highly sensitive to the language of numbers). My chronologydates the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem and the years of exile countdown to 517 B.C. (N.B. itbegan in 516 B.C.) and its end in 447 B.C. As you all know, Titus destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D.so this is the sum to do:[(447+70)-1]=516. In practice it means that, taking away the non-existentyear 0, the total of the years that passed between the commandment on the return from exile (seeDNA 9.25) and the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus is the same as that which indicates the year inwhich: “he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king'shouse, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the templeof the Lord, as the Lord had said.” (2 Kings 24.13) and consequently the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. In other words, from the year of therebuilding of Jerusalem after the return from exile to its destruction by Titus the same number ofyears pass as those which mark the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar. It feels like a piece fromsome other jigsaw puzzle. Could it be the children's fault?

Summary chronological table

989 .C. FIRST YEAR OF DAVID'SREIGN

945B.C WORK BEGINS ON THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.

938B.C WORK ON THE TEMPLE IS COMPLETED.

638B.C IIIrd OF HOSHEA, FALL OF SAMARIA, THE 190 YEARS OF EXPIATIONIN. EZRA 4.5

524B.C IST YEAR OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR.

517B.C THE FIRST OF 70 YEARS OF EXILE.

505B.C XITH OF ZEDEKIAH FALL OF JERUSALEM THE TEMPLE IS BURNT DOWN.

471B.C IST YEAR OF ARTAXERXES.

468 .C. ESTHER BECOMES QUEEN

464B.C VIITH OF ARTAXERXES, EZRA'S RETURN.

451B.C XXth OF ARTAXERXES, NEHEMIAH OBTAINS PERMISSION TO RETURN TO. JERUSALEM WORK BEGINS ON THE REBUILDING OF THE WALLS

447B.C THE END OF THE EXILE OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL.

424B.C WORK BEGINS ON THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE IIND TEMPLE.

418B.C WORK ON THE IIND TEMPLE IS COMPLETED.

399B.C WORK ON THE REBUILDING OF THE WALLSIS COMPLETED.

15 B.C. BIRTH OF JESUS

35 A.D. CRUCIFIXION

70 A.D. FALL OF JERUSALEM

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God's timeline, when the Bible plays number games

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