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Chronology and 607 BCE · Claim record

The most sustained defence of 607 BCE by a trained Semitist is Rolf Furuli’s Assyrian, Babylonian, and Egyptian Chronology, volume II (Oslo: Awatu Publishers, 2nd ed., 2008), issued by a small non-academic press. Hermann Hunger, co-editor of the standard edition of the astronomical diaries, wrote a detailed review of it in which he rejected Furuli’s readings of a number of cuneiform signs and described the suggestion that VAT 4956 had been tampered with as “utterly groundless”.

Claim ID claim-chronology-furuli-and-hungerConcerns 2008Context
Context · 2008 Supported

The most sustained defence of 607 BCE by a trained Semitist is Rolf Furuli’s Assyrian, Babylonian, and Egyptian Chronology, volume II (Oslo: Awatu Publishers, 2nd ed., 2008), issued by a small non-academic press. Hermann Hunger, co-editor of the standard edition of the astronomical diaries, wrote a detailed review of it in which he rejected Furuli’s readings of a number of cuneiform signs and described the suggestion that VAT 4956 had been tampered with as “utterly groundless”. Online review (no journal of publication stated), 2008Under One Sky: Astronomy and Mathematics in the Ancient Near East (AOAT 297), 2002

The organisation’s position or later explanation: Hunger reports Furuli’s own stated approach in Furuli’s words — that “the Bible, cuneiform tablets, and different kinds of historical data are put on the same level” — and grants him that truth is not decided by “the consensus of the majority of scholars”. He then rejects that approach: “This overlooks the differences between these data … A critical evaluation of the sources is unavoidable for history writing.”

Show the evidence (2 sources)
Peer-reviewed / scholarly Supported

Online review (no journal of publication stated), “Review of Rolf J. Furuli, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Egyptian Chronology, Volume II (Oslo: Awatu Publishers, 2nd ed., 2008)”

2008 · Hermann Hunger

“As for someone adding the numbers 37 and 38, there is no way of successfully adding cuneiform writing to a dried tablet. ... I state that the accusation is utterly groundless”

Hermann Hunger, co-editor of the standard edition of the astronomical diaries, responds in detail to the argument of Rolf Furuli, a Witness and former lecturer in Semitic languages at Oslo, that VAT 4956 supports 588/587 rather than 568/567 BCE and that the tablet may have been altered. Hunger also grants Furuli's general point that truth is not decided by 'the consensus of the majority of scholars'.

Official source

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. The full review was fetched and read on 19 September 2026 and the quoted words read in context. It states the reviewer's name and city but names no journal, volume or pages, and it is hosted on a partisan website; no peer-reviewed publication of this text was located. Treat it as an authoritative specialist's signed opinion, not as a peer-reviewed citation.

Scan provenance. Hosted on kristenfrihet.se, a personal website maintained by Carl Olof Jonsson, a former Jehovah's Witness and author of The Gentile Times Reconsidered.

Corroborated by. src-chr-e-ebl-vat4956-year-numbers

Notes. The review also reports that F. R. Stephenson and D. M. Willis, evaluating the lunar data in Under One Sky (Muenster, 2002), concluded that the date 568/7 BC can be 'confidently affirmed'.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chr-e-hunger-review-furuli

Peer-reviewed / scholarly Supported

Under One Sky: Astronomy and Mathematics in the Ancient Near East (AOAT 297), “The Earliest Datable Observation of the Aurora Borealis”

2002 · pp.421-428 · F. Richard Stephenson and David M. Willis · Ugarit-Verlag, Muenster

“This and other observations in the month imply that the auroral display occurred on the night of March 12/13 in 567 BC”

A peer-reviewed chapter analysing the observations in VAT 4956. Its dating of the phenomena to 568/567 BCE is independent of the lunar-position argument.

Archived or alternative copy

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. The chapter itself was NOT opened in this session. The quoted sentence is the note recorded against this discussion in the eBL bibliography for VAT.4956, read on 19 September 2026 in the eBL API record (archiveUrl above); that record gives the chapter’s pages as 421-428. Hermann Hunger’s review of Furuli separately reports that Stephenson and Willis concluded the date 568/7 BC can be “confidently affirmed” and gives the pages as 423-428; The Watchtower of 1 November 2011, note 18a, gives them as 420-428. The three page ranges disagree and the discrepancy is unresolved.

Corroborated by. src-chr-e-hunger-review-furuli, src-chr-e-ebl-vat4956-eclipse

Notes. The chapter is cited here for the fact of the study and its conclusion; no wording or page range from it is quoted, because a copy could not be opened.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chr-e-stephenson-willis-2002

Claim page

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