The Watchtower, “When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part Two”
“Scholar R. J. van der Spek explains: “The compilers were astrologers, not historians.” He describes sections of the tablets that contain historical records as “more or less casual,” and he warns that such historical information must “be used with caution.””
Before turning to VAT 4956, the article argues that astronomical tablets may contain retrocalculated rather than observed positions, quoting John Steele (“It is possible … that some of the earliest predictions could have been made by projecting the scheme backwards when the text was compiled”) and David Brown (“retrocalculations undertaken by scribes in the 4th and later centuries BC”), and that even a correctly dated eclipse does not guarantee the regnal year attached to it.
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Provenance and verification note for The Watchtower, When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part Two
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Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chr-o-w-2011-1101-astronomical-caution