Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 1, “Chronology”
“In view of all these factors it is certainly not wise to insist that the traditional figures for the reigns of the Neo-Babylonian kings be received as definite.”
The argument is that the Babylonian Chronicle tablets are later copies — citing D. J. Wiseman that one portion is “a copy made in the twenty-second year of Darius … from an older and damaged text”, and that the Neo-Babylonian Chronicle texts are in a script that “does not of itself allow any precise dating”. The same section notes that “For the final 32 years of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, there are no historical records of the chronicle type except a fragmentary inscription of a campaign against Egypt in Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year.”
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Provenance and verification note for Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 1, Chronology
Confidence note. Full article fetched from the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026; the quotation and the page were confirmed against the text and its embedded page markers. Insight on the Scriptures is undated on the Online Library; the 1988 publication year is the work’s own imprint date.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chr-o-it1-chronology-neo-babylonian