The Watchtower, “When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part One”
“In general, Ptolemy’s canon is regarded as accurate. But in view of its omissions, should it really be used to provide a definite historical chronology?”
The argument is that Ptolemy, writing some 600 years later, omitted rulers known from cuneiform records: the article contrasts Ptolemy’s four kings between Kandalanu and Nabonidus with the seven of the Uruk King List, and cites Sin-sharra-ishkun (seven years, 57 economic tablets), Ashur-etel-ilani (four years) and a kingless period. It quotes Christopher Walker of the British Museum that the canon was “an artificial scheme designed to provide astronomers with a consistent chronology” and Leo Depuydt: “It has long been known that the Canon is astronomically reliable … but this does not automatically mean that it is historically dependable.”
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Provenance and verification note for The Watchtower, When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part One
Confidence note. Full document fetched from the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and read in full; the quotation, the paragraph and the page were confirmed against the article text and its embedded page markers (span class=“pageNum”).
Notes. The kings the article says Ptolemy omits all fall BEFORE Nabopolassar, i.e. before the Neo-Babylonian period whose length is in dispute. The article does not claim Ptolemy omits a king between Nabopolassar and Nabonidus.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chr-o-w-2011-1001-ptolemy