THE month Nisan in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes is the epoch of the prophetic era of the seventy weeks. In dealing with this subject, therefore, it is of vital importance to fix that date, and I have dealt with the matter exhaustively in an Excursus (App. II., Note A) added to The Coming Prince, to which I beg leave to refer the reader. I will here give but one extract : - "According to Clinton (F. H., vol. ii. p. 380), the death of Xerxes was in July, B.C. 465, and the accession of Artaxerxes was in February, B.C. 464. Artaxerxes, of course, ignored the usurper's reign, which intervened, and reckoned his own reign from the day of his father's death. Again, of course, Nehemiah, being an officer of the court, followed the same reckoning. Had he computed his master's reign from February 464, Chisleu and Nisan could not have fallen in the same regnal year (Neh. i. i; ii. i). No more could they, had he, according to Jewish practice, computed it from Nisan."
Not content, however, with my own investigations, I appealed to the author of The Five Great Monarchies, and Canon Rawlinson favoured me with the following reply: "You may safely say that chronologers are now agreed that Xerxes died in the year B.C. 465. The Canon of Ptolemy, Thucidides, Diodorus, and Manetho are agreed, the only counter authority being Ctesias, who is quite untrustworthy."
Then as regards the Julian date of the 1st Nisan, B.C. 445 (Neh. ii.), when my book was in the press, I began to fear lest my own lunar calculations to fix the Jewish New Year (see Appendix IV., ante), might prove untrustworthy, and accordingly I wrote to the then Astronomer-Royal, Sir George Airy, who replied as follows: "I have had the moon's place calculated from Largeteau's Tables in additions to the Connaisance des Temps, 1846, by one of my assistants, and have no doubt of its correctness. The place being calculated for - 444, March 12d. 20 h., French reckoning, or March 12d. 8 h. P.M., it appears that the said time was short of New Moon by about 8 h. 47 m., and therefore the New Moon occurred at 4 h. 47 ni. A.M., March 13th, Paris time." The New Moon, therefore, occurred at Jerusalem on the 13th March, B.C. 445 (-144 Astronomical) at 7h. 9m. A.M. And the next day, the 14th, was the 1st Nisan.
Be the first to react on this!
Sir Robert Anderson was born in Dublin, Ireland and was of Scottish descent. His father was an elder in the Irish Presbyterian Church and he was raised in a religious home. Anderson's conversion took place after listening to a sermon delivered by John Hall.
Sir Robert Anderson graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1862 and was called to the Irish Bar in 1863. He later became Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard. When he retired in 1901, he was made Knight Commander of the the Order of the Bath. W. H. Smith, on the floor of the House of Commons, said Sir Robert "had discharged his duties with great ability and perfect faithfulness to the public."
Sir Robert Anderson was the chief inspector for Scotland Yard. He was greatly respected for his skill as an investigator. When Anderson wasn't writing on subjects related to crime, he wrote books on Christian prophecy. He helped establish the fact that 69 of Daniel's 70 weeks have now transpired, and that the tribulation will be the 70th week. Sir Robert Anderson's book, The Coming Prince, has become a foundational resource for all dispensationalists.