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Chronology and 607 BCE · Claim record

The genuine disagreement among historians about the destruction of Jerusalem is between 587 and 586 BCE, a single year, and turns on whether Judah counted regnal years from Tishri or Nisan. One survey found eleven scholars on each side. No mainstream chronology of the period allows a twenty-year difference.

Claim ID claim-chronology-dispute-is-one-yearConcerns March 2004Context
Context · March 2004 Verified

The genuine disagreement among historians about the destruction of Jerusalem is between 587 and 586 BCE, a single year, and turns on whether Judah counted regnal years from Tishri or Nisan. One survey found eleven scholars on each side. No mainstream chronology of the period allows a twenty-year difference. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 47/1, March 2004Chronicles of Chaldaean Kings (626-556 B.C.) in the British Museum, 1956The Watchtower, 1 October 2011

The organisation’s position or later explanation: The organisation acknowledges this: 'Both years are mentioned in secular sources. For simplicity, we will refer to 587 B.C.E. in this series.'

Show the evidence (3 sources)
Peer-reviewed / scholarly Verified

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 47/1, “When Did Jerusalem Fall?”

March 2004 · pp.21-38 · Rodger C. Young · Evangelical Theological Society

“Although the Scriptures state that the end came in the fourth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, scholars are divided on whether this refers to 586 bc or 587 bc. Jeremy Hughes listed eleven scholars who preferred the first date and eleven who preferred the second.”

A survey of the scholarly disagreement about the year Jerusalem fell. The article's conclusion is that 'Jerusalem fell in the fourth month (Tammuz) of 587 bc'. The whole disagreement in the literature is between two adjacent years.

Official source

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. The PDF was downloaded from the author's own site on 19 September 2026 and read. It carries the running header 'JETS 47/1 (March 2004) 21-38' and 'journal of the evangelical theological society'. The publisher's own copy on etsjets.org redirected and was not opened.

Corroborated by. src-chr-e-wiseman-1956-p30-37th-year

Notes. Young notes that the fixed points are the battle of Carchemish in 605 BCE and the capture of Jehoiachin in spring 597 BCE, both from Babylonian records.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chr-e-young-2004-jets

Peer-reviewed / scholarly Verified

Chronicles of Chaldaean Kings (626-556 B.C.) in the British Museum, “Introduction: Egypt and Babylon”

1956 · p.30 · D. J. Wiseman · The Trustees of the British Museum, London

“a fragmentary text, B.M. 33041, which is a religious rather than a 'Chronicle' version of historical events in the thirty-seventh year of Nebuchadrezzar (568/7 B.C.)”

Discussing the Babylonian invasion of Egypt, Wiseman dates Nebuchadnezzar II's thirty-seventh year to 568/567 BCE on the basis of a tablet entirely independent of the astronomical diary VAT 4956.

Scan of original

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Read in the ETANA PDF on 19 September 2026; running head '30 CHRONICLES OF CHALDAEAN KINGS' immediately above. On the same page Wiseman dates the final siege of Jerusalem to '588-586 B.C.'

Scan provenance. Full scan of the British Museum volume hosted by ETANA (Electronic Tools and Ancient Near Eastern Archives), an academic digital-library consortium. Copyright the Trustees of the British Museum, 1956.

Corroborated by. src-chr-e-ebl-vat4956-line1

Notes. The same volume, on p. 30, refers to 'the siege of Jerusalem for a time in 588-586 B.C.', i.e. the mainstream range, not 607.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chr-e-wiseman-1956-p30-37th-year

Primary JW publication Verified

The Watchtower, “When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?-Part One”

1 October 2011 · pp.26-31 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania

“So why do Jehovah's Witnesses hold to a date that differs from widely accepted chronology by 20 years? In short, because of evidence within the Bible itself.”

The organisation’s fullest modern statement of its case for 607 BCE. It opens by printing a reader’s question — “586 or 587 B.C.E. is generally accepted as the year of Jerusalem’s destruction. Why do Jehovah’s Witnesses say that it was 607 B.C.E.?” — and answers it. In its own words, in the summary box on page 31: “Secular historians usually say that Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 B.C.E.” The article rests its own date on a literal seventy-year exile ending in 537 BCE.

Official source

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. The whole article was fetched from the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and read with the page markers (span class="pageNum") intact; the quotation falls between the markers for pages 26 and 27, that is, on page 26.

Corroborated by. src-chr-e-w11-1101-part-two

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chr-e-w11-1001-part-one

Claim page

A direct link to this claim is https://jwtruth.org/evidence/claim-chronology-dispute-is-one-year/. Every source above opens the original document or the best available copy. If you believe the wording, date or context is wrong, report an error.