How we KNOW the dates for the Old Testament!

the Bible's chronology is amazing like

everything else about the Bible it gives

us all these measures of time throughout

a chronology the problem has been to tie

that ancient chronology to the calendar

that we use today the Gregorian calendar

BC stands for before Christ and so BC

dates are tied to the Gregorian calendar

so how do we link the dates from the

ancient calendars with the Gregorian

calendar this is is very important how

did we get BC dates for the Old

Testament so we've flown into Baghdad

and we have driven up and now we are in

the city of mosul we're quite excited

about it because it's taken two months

for us to get in here we were here 2

months ago and they wouldn't let us in

because we were Americans and they were

having um all kinds of conflict up here

but they've lifted that and so we're

back and we're very excited because now

we're in the city of mosul we're going

to make our way over and spend some time

in the ruins of

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Nineveh so we are inside the ancient

walls of Nineveh and we're walking

across Nineveh as Jonah did in ancient

times but we're walking across to the

ancient mound of cunic where Austin

Henry lard started his excavations in

1849 and then after he retired then

harmo rossom took over and made a

discovery and we're going to go look at

where he made this discovery this is my

dear friend

Omar and uh these are our weapons for

the wild dogs that are around here he's

a better shot than I am we'll see all

right we are here on the North corner of

the mound of cunic and we're going to go

up on top

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now this is the north Palace of Asher

bonap

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paal this is the place where one of the

rarest and most impactful archaeological

discover of all time was made the

discovery of an absolute

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date remember that you can support me in

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down the archaeological evidence thanks

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the production of future videos so in

1853 harmo rossom was over here on the

north side of the mound of cunic with a

band of diggers and they were digging

down right in this area and they didn't

know it at the time but lining these

walls that you see here were Stone

reliefs with all kinds of scenes carved

into them and so the men were digging

down digging down and once they got deep

enough what happened was there was a

collapse of dirt that collapsed down and

all of a sudden revealed this stone

relief with a king standing there on a

chariot and they didn't know which king

this was at the time it wasn't until

much later that it was determined that

this was Asher bopal but all the men

started dancing around rossom with their

war cry and rejoicing because they had

discovered another Palace up on the

mound of cunic which ended up being the

Palace of Asher bopal so after they

realized that they were in a palace they

continued digging down deeper and deeper

and on the floors down in these rooms

they started finding literally tens of

thousands of tablets of all different

shapes and sizes and so these were

shipped back to the British Museum and

formed this huge pile of caor tablets

that needed to be studied and read and

translated it's been raining like crazy

around

here look at

that it's a storage

jar look at these look at these huge

Stone Pavements that are just laying

around

here this is

amazing this is the

location of definitely I would put it in

the top three archaeological discoveries

of all time the discovery of the library

of Asher

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banipal this is the Assyrian King Asher

bonana Paul II he is the one who keeps a

library in his Palace in

Neva so all these tablets that you see

here are just a small sample of the

documents that came out of Asher bonap

paal's library at Neva as this pile of

cfor tablets from Neva began to grow in

the British museum one of the employees

there was a scholar named Henry

rollinson who is known today as the

father of aerology because of his role

in deciphering caor so he was going

through these tablets and on multiple

tablets he began to to see this

year-to-year

chronology of Assyrian history rollinson

wrote in a newspaper article on May 31st

1862 I am glad to be able to announce

that amid the many thousand crumbling

tablets from Nineveh and now in the

British museum there were a considerable

number of fragments bearing lists of

names and having the appearance of

official documents these official

documents that rollinson began to

identify became known as epony lists or

lamu lists and this is because each year

was named after a person the government

official that was over that

year so this is an example of what are

called the epony tablets this is an

example of a published eponym list what

appears in the column labeled eponym is

a list of names each is the name of a

single year and each year is the name of

a person who is an official over that

year the second column is the title of

the person the year is named after and

in the third column are the major events

that happened in that year emerged from

these lists was a year-to-year

chronology for a period of Assyrian

history the problem however was that

none of these years were linked to the

more modern Gregorian calendar and

therefore none of the BC dates for these

Assyrian years were known so assigning

BC dates to the biblical chronology also

was a problem and biblical chronology is

a big subject I just want to take a a

bite of it in this video I want to focus

on the chronology of a single verse in

the Bible and that verse being First

Kings 61 if we can understand how

chronology works for First Kings 61 then

we can take that understanding and apply

it out to biblical chronology for the

rest of the Bible First Kings 61 says in

the 480th year after the Israelites came

out of Egypt in the fourth year of

Solomon's Reign Over Israel in the month

of ziv the second month he began to

build the Temple of the Lord so the

whole Bible gives us these different

measures of time across the whole

biblical chronology a great example of

this is First Kings 61 which gives us a

measure of time of 480 years between

these two significant events of the

Exodus and the building of the temple in

Jerusalem we know what year year the

temple began to be built in Jerusalem it

was the fourth year of Solomon we know

what month the problem is is we don't

know what BC date is the fourth year of

King Solomon's Reign the way that they

measured time in ancient times is

different than the way that we measure

it today so how do we get a BC date for

the fourth year of King Solomon's Reign

because if we have one then all we have

to do is add 480 years and then we'll

have a BC date for The Exodus so the one

who came up with a chronology that had a

solution to this dilemma was the

Archbishop and Scholar that lived back

in the 17th century ad named James Usher

and in

1650 he published a book on his

chronology of the world so what he did

is he went way back in later history

when dates were known and correlated

with the ancient calendar and then from

those known dates he counted backwards

through time into the Old Testament

period and in this way he was able to

estimate BC dates for the Old Testament

and so he came up with the year 1012 BC

as being the fourth year of Solomon's

Reign and then since uh Solomon began to

build the temple in the 480th year

meaning 479 full years had passed he

added 479 to 1012 BC and came up with

the date of The Exodus 1491 BC this then

became the generally accepted date for

The Exodus 1491 BC and that was the case

for the next over 200 years with this

big pile and all these inscriptions and

all these tablets uh rollinson was

overwhelmed and so he hired a young man

named George Smith because George Smith

had mastered CA form and so rollinson

had identified seven of these eponym

cannons none of them were complete and

so one of the tasks that George Smith

had was to go and do a translation of

each one of these epony lists and then

draw the information from all of those

incomplete lists to make a master eponym

list that listed out year toye a

chronology for the Assyrian history

Smith would eventually publish his work

in 1875 in his book entitled the

Assyrian eponym Cannon starting on page

57 is the list of Assyrian eponyms with

the dates and events drawn up from the

seven copies of the Canon and other

sources I want to use this list to

illustrate how Smith developed it over

time so he was in the process of doing

this in

1867 he was translating the eponym Canon

number five out of these seven and he

was going through and making his

translation of it this is the Assyrian

eponym Canon 5 today labeled as k51 in

the British museum collection the name

Smith translated as asdu serab which was

later changed to burale was the name of

the Year named after the governor of

Goen and in the next column the events

that took place in that year including

that the sun was eclipsed so it was 1853

three that rossom found that tablet in

this hole and then it wasn't until 1867

that George Smith is sitting reading it

translating it in the British Museum and

he read about the solar eclipse he just

needed to know two things where was that

solar eclipse observed from Nineveh

Assyria and when just generally when

around the 8th Century BC then he could

go look at the solar eclipses that had

happened in and around the 8th Century

BC and easily find the one that would

have engulfed Nineveh in darkness and so

he found something very rare in

archaeology he found a date that was

known with certainty and that date was

June 15th 763 BC so what is a solar

eclipse and how does it give us a

specific date hey everybody this is

Barry here as you may be able to tell I

am not in the Middle East this time but

I am here in the middle of nowhere Texas

watching the April 2024 Eclipse as you

can see or well not see I guess it's

gotten a lot darker and we've almost

reached the point of totality when the

moon is completely covering the Sun so I

don't even know you probably can't even

see me right now because of how dark it

is that would be so freaky if I was just

a ancient Assyrian dude sitting around

not expecting that and then all of a

sudden goes pitch black on you you can't

see anything I can I can understand why

that would be taken as a a bad Omen that

makes sense that was crazy I will see

you guys back in a rock so why does it

matter that George Smith found a a

tablet talking about a solar eclipse

well I was just in Texas and saw the

solar eclipse and the thing is everybody

knew when it was going to be everybody

knew that it was going to be April 8th

they knew down to roughly the minute

that it was going to be depending on

where you were at so why can we predict

eclipses so accurately

well first let's talk about what an

eclipse actually is an eclipse occurs

when the moon comes between the Earth

and the

Sun and basically casts a shadow on the

earth now you can see from the Moon

orbiting the Earth that this actually

happens quite frequently about once a

month so why don't we get an eclipse

every month well from a two-dimensional

view it looks like we should but we get

the answer when we look at the third

dimension you see the moon's orbit

around the Earth is actually at a

tilt that means that the moon not only

has to be between the Sun and the Earth

but it also has to be at the right place

in its orbit

height-wise otherwise it's too

high or too low to cast a shadow on the

earth now there are a couple more

factors if you really want to get into

the details but that's roughly how

eclipses work and because we know pretty

much exactly how the moon orbits the the

Earth and how the Earth orbits the sun

we can predict pretty much down to the

second when eclipses will be not only

can we predict when it'll be but we can

also predict where it'll be on the

surface of the Earth and just like we

can look forward and predict when

eclipses are going to be we can look

backwards and tell when they were in

fact NASA has a page on their website

dedicated to future and past eclipses

and if you go to - 762 then you'll see

the one that went over

Neva the reason it's negative 762

instead of 763 BC is because they're

using astronomical years and we use

Gregorian years but it's the same

Eclipse so because George Smith knew

when roughly the eclipse happened around

the 8th Century BC and he knew where it

was seen from Nineveh he could look back

and using astronomical data pinpoint the

exact Eclipse um that was recorded in

that tablet and that was the eclipse on

June 15th 763

BC and that is incredibly significant

because that gave an absolute date to at

least part of Assyrian chronology and

ultimately biblical chronology so

because my son and I were working on

this project we had the NASA catalog of

solar eclipses and this lists out the

solar eclipses that are still to come uh

in the future all the way out to about

the year 3000 ad and the ones that have

already happened all the way back in

time to about 2000 BC so I have this

catalog and I remember that I saw a

solar eclipse when I was a kid and so to

identify this in the catalog I needed to

know where I saw it from and I I knew

that it was from Saudi Arabia that's

where I grew up my dad worked for the

oil company there and then the general

time period I knew that I had seen it at

some point in the 1970s though I didn't

know the exact year much less the month

or the day and so it was a simple

process of going back in this catalog to

the 1970s start looking at the solar

eclipses that happened in that decade

and then identifying the solar eclipse

that was observable from Saudi Arabia

and I found it easily I saw that solar

eclipse on April 29th

1976 and so it was an amazing thing for

me to find personally in my own life an

exact date that I could attach memories

to and this is exactly I realized how

George Smith did it now Smith knew the

epim year mentioning the eclipse of the

sun was 763 BC because there was a

complete list of years this one known

year meant that all the other years

could be worked out up and down the

chronology in other words the one date

led to to working out all the other

dates in this way over a span of some

244 years of Assyrian history every year

became known from about 892 through 648

BC the result was that now the BC dates

for the Assyrian chronology were now

known and so the question then was that

now that the Assyrian chronology had

been worked out with BC dates was there

any way to sink the assy chronology

together with the biblical chronology

and in order to do this you need a

shared event between those two histories

now that Smith knew that the year that

the Assyrian King sakb had ascended the

throne at Nineveh was 705 BC he

therefore also knew that four years

later when the record says sakb LED an

expedition to Palestine that this was

701 BC now keep in mind that in the

1800s when Smith was compiling and

Publishing his material ancient Judah

was known as Palestine so he translated

sakib's expedition to Judah as an

expedition to Palestine so that the

readers would know where the text was

referring to 2 Kings 1813 says in the

14th year of King hezekiah's Reign sakb

king of Assyria attacked all the

Fortified cities of Judah and captured

them so bam that was it the 14th year of

King hezekiah's reign in the Bible is

the same year as sakib's fourth year in

the Assyrian chronology so this is the

tayor prism and this gives Sak's own

account of his invasion of the kingdom

of Judah 701 BC transferred over to the

biblical chronology and in the same way

it had worked with the Assyrian

chronology by knowing the one date now

the other dates for the biblical

chronology could be worked out from that

one date now I should mention that there

is more than one shared event between

the Assyrian and biblical

chronologies uh but I am only using one

as an example so you can understand how

it works I hope to cover the others in

future videos so all you have to do is

take the 14th year of King Hezekiah his

Reign 701 BC and then the Bible gives us

how many kings ruled over Judah how many

years they reigned and so you just count

uh that number of years back to the

fourth year of Solomon when he began to

build the temple which was 966 BC and

then all you have to do is add 480 to

the 966 and then you have the biblical

date of The Exodus in 1446 BC so up to

this point the generally accepted date

for The Exodus was 1491 BC that was

overturned because of this disc

Discovery and the generally accepted

date for The Exodus became 1446 BC

now you know James Usher deserves a lot

of credit I mean it's pretty amazing

that in 1650 AD that he gave a date of

The Exodus that was within 50 years of

the actual date um hats off to James

Usher and uh but but there's a

difference between James Usher's date

which was an

estimate and this new date which is not

an estimate but it's based off of the

exact date known from a solar eclipse

and then the numbers that are given in

the Bible itself this is why it's called

the biblical date of The Exodus now here

is the question did the 763 BC total

eclipse of the Sun that engulfed Nineveh

in darkness did that eclipse accomp

the preaching of the prophet Jonah when

he was sent here by the Lord to preach

to the ninevites second Kings 14

describes jeroboam II who Reigns in

Israel for 41 years the biblical dates

for the reign of jeroboam I second are

793 through 753 BC this means that the

solar eclipse of 763 BC took place in

the latter part of his Reign this is

very interesting because Jonah is active

as a prophet during jeroboam II's Reign

verse 25 says the god of Israel spoke by

his servant Jonah the son of amiti the

Book of Jonah begins now the word of the

Lord came to Jonah the son of amiti

saying arise go to Nineveh that great

City and call out against it for their

evil has come up before me I don't

believe that it's a coincidence that we

have the total eclipse of the sun

visible from Nineveh and enging it in

darkness at the same time that we have

God call an Israelite Prophet to go to

the city of Nineveh and preach to them a

message of repentance we don't know for

certain we can't know it for sure

because the Bible doesn't say it

specifically but uh it makes a lot of

sense since we know that that eclipse

happened during the ministry of Jonah in

the Bible the darkening of the sun is a

sign of coming judgment Isaiah 13: 9-10

says see the day of the Lord is coming a

cruel day with wrath and fierce anger to

make the land desolate and destroy the

Sinners within it one of the signs of

this judgment day is the rising sun will

be darkened in Matthew 24 we see the

future fulfillment of this Prophecy with

one of the signs of the end times being

that the sun will be darkened Jonah

chapter 3 says Jonah went to Nineveh

proclaiming 40 more days and Nineveh

will be overthrown the ninevites

believed God a fast was proclaimed and

all of them from the greatest to the

least put on sackcloth when God saw what

they did and how they turned from their

evil ways he relented and did not bring

on them the destruction he had

threatened it is not unusual for a

Israelite Prophet to come with a message

of coming destruction and doom and

calling people to repentance what is

very unusual is that those people

respond to that message by repenting and

this is what the ninevites did even the

king repented and so what was it that

caused that repentance what were they

they were terrified about something was

it the actual message of Jonah or was it

something also that accompanied that

message and so when we think of the 763

BC total eclipse of the sun happening at

the same time that me that message is

being brought and it makes a lot of

sense sense Barry you were just in Texas

and you were uh you saw a solar eclipse

I mean what what do you think uh do you

think that the solar eclipse of 763 BC

accompanied the preaching of

Jonah I think that if I were an ancient

Assyrian and a dude came and told me to

repent and then all of a sudden the sun

got dark I would be pretty freaked

out makes sense doesn't it it it does

what Jesus says in Luke 11 is really

incredible because we can contrast the

city of Nineveh the Gentile city of

Nineveh at the time of Jonah with the

city of Jerusalem at the time of

Jesus uh both Jonah and Jesus are

preaching about a coming destruction of

that City and calling the people to

repent uh the nites respond to that

message repent and the city is spared uh

however the jerusalemites for the most

part reject the message of Jesus who is

preaching repent for the Kingdom of

Heaven is near and so the city is

destroyed as Jesus predicts in ad70 uh

we want to be like the ninevites we want

to respond to the message of who Jesus

is and what he has accomplished so that

our sins can be forgiven and so that we

can receive salvation instead of

Destruction so it is extremely helpful

to me and for my team if you will hit

that subscribe button and support us and

the channel also if you want to be part

of the uh production of upcoming videos

then I will leave a link in the

description where you can uh leave a

donation very helpful thank you uh also

I'll leave a link where you can order a

copy of my book where God came down the

archaeological evidence you can watch

another video here and uh thanks so much

for watching and I'll look forward to

seeing you next time