Missing Years (Jewish Calendar) - Destruction of The First Temple

Destruction of The First Temple

The Babylonian Chronicles, which were published by Donald Wiseman in 1956, establish that Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem the first time on 2 Adar (16 March) 597 BCE. The Chronicles, with the names of Jewish kings derived from 2 Chronicles 36:9-10, state:

In the seventh year (of Nebuchadnezzar-599 BCE) in the month Chislev (Nov/Dec) the king of Babylon assembled his army, and after he had invaded the land of Hatti (Syria/Palestine) he laid siege to the city of Judah. On the second day of the month of Adar (16 March) he conquered the city and took the king (Jeconiah) prisoner. He installed in his place a king (Zedekiah) of his own choice, and after he had received rich tribute, he sent forth to Babylon.

2 Chronicles 36:6-10 says:

6 Against him (Jehoiakim) came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon. 7 Nebuchadnezzar also carried of the vessels of the house of the LORD to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon. 8 ... and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead. 9 Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem... 10 And at the return of the year king Nebuchadnezzar sent, and brought him to Babylon, with the goodly vessels of the house of the LORD, and made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem.

Before Wiseman's publication, E. R. Thiele had determined from the biblical texts that Nebuchadnezzar's initial capture of Jerusalem occurred in the spring of 597 BCE, while other scholars, including William F. Albright, more frequently dated the event to 598 BCE.

From the date of the first siege of Jerusalem in about 597 BCE to the date of the destruction of the First Temple requires resort to biblical sources.

2 Chronicles 36:11 says:

11 Zedekiah was twenty and one years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem

There has been some debate as to when the second siege of Jerusalem took place. Though there is no dispute that Jerusalem fell the second time in the summer month of Tammuz (Jeremiah 52:6), Albright dates the end of Zedekiah's reign (and the fall of Jerusalem) to 587 BCE, whereas Thiele offers 586 BCE.

Thiele's reckoning is based on the presentation of Zedekiah's reign on an accession basis, which was used for most but not all of the kings of Judah. In that case, the year that Zedekiah came to the throne would be his zeroth year; his first full year would be 597/596 BC, and his eleventh year, the year Jerusalem fell, would be 587/586 BCE. Since Judah's regnal years were counted from Tishri in autumn, this would place the end of his reign and the capture of Jerusalem in the summer of 586 BCE.

However, the Babylonian Chronicles support the enumeration of Zedekiah's reign on a non-accession basis. Zedekiah's first year when he was installed by Nebuchadnezzar was therefore in 598/597 BCE according to Judah's Tishri-based calendar. The fall of Jerusalem in his eleventh year would then have been in the summer of 587 BCE. The Babylonian Chronicles allow the fairly precise dating of the capture of Jehoiachin and the start of Zedekiah's reign, and also provide the accession year of Nebuchadnezzar's successor Amel-Marduk (Evil Merodach) as 562/561 BCE, which was the 37th year of Jehoiachin's captivity according to 2 Kings 25:27. These Babylonian records related to Jehoiachin's reign are consistent with the fall of the city in 587 BCE.

However, in the 2nd century CE, rabbinic work Seder Olam, which formed the basis of the era counting of the Hebrew calendar, interpreted the prophecy of seventy weeks in Daniel 9:24–27 as referring to a period of 490 years, with "a week" being interpreted as meaning a period of seven years, that would pass between the destruction of the First and Second Temple. This is used to date the destruction of Solomon's Temple to 423 BCE (3338 Anno Mundi) - 490 years before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The discrepancy between these two dates is referred to as "missing years".