Albright's Chronology

William Foxwell Albright (1891–1971) was a biblical archaeologist and Middle Eastern scholar [1].

The key assumptions of his chronology include [2, p. 32]:

• A Nisan-to-Nisan calendar was used for regnal years in Judah.
• All Biblical records (except Jeremiah 52:28-30) start Nebuchadnezzar's reign one year earlier — the 'Western calculation'.

Timeline

Discussion

Battle of Megiddo

Albright dates the battle of Megiddo in the few months prior to the Egyptian attack on Harran in month IV [2, p. 31]:

First, I see no escape from dating the Battle of Megiddo in the spring of 609, since there was a massive Egyptian attack on Harran later that summer, whereas not a word is said about Egyptian military movements in 608.

Subjugation of Judah

Albright seems to think that Judah was not occupied until after the capture of Ashkelon (BM 21946, Obv. 18), perhaps in the 2nd year of Nebuchadnezzar [2, p. 31]:

It is most unlikely that the Chaldaeans occupied Judah before the capture and destruction of Ascalon in December, 604, and since the next two years were apparently devoted to continued fighting in Greater Syria, I should consider it unlikely that Judah was actually invaded until some time in 603/2.

He doesn't attempt to reconcile this date (around the 6th year of Jehoiakim) with Daniel 1:1.

Captures of Jehoiachin and Zedekiah

Albright claims that the Bible passages date Nebuchadnezzar's reign one year too high and therefore the captures took actually place in the 7th and 18th years [2, p. 32]:

As a result of the new Chronicle I have slightly changed my own interpretation of the regnal years of Nebuchadnezzar given throughout Jeremiah except in the passage 52:28-30, which does not appear at all in the Western recension and was, therefore, probably inserted later in Babylonia. The Jeremianic regnal years of Nebuchadnezzar are all one year too high, from the Babylonian point of view: the Battle of Carchemish was actually fought while he was still crown prince, and the two falls of Jerusalem were in his seventh and eighteenth years, not in the eighth and nineteenth. This is correctly stated in the interpolated passage which we have mentioned. It is well known that there was a difference of a year in two methods of reckoning the reign of Sennacherib, so I propose that we assume the same to have happened in reckoning the years of Nebuchadnezzar. In the West the latter had been king de facto since he took command of the army in the last months of 606/5, after his father had returned in Shebat (roughly February) to Babylonia. During the whole of the following spring and summer, until his father's death, Nebuchadnezzar was in sole command of the army in the field, as far as we know. Under such circumstances it would scarcely be remarkable if his western subordinates began to reckon his regnal years in 605/4 instead of a year later. The chronology of Jeremiah would then be the normal Western calculation, and not a specifically Jewish way of counting years.

Albright does not appear to explain the difference in the number of captives between Jeremiah 52:28-30 and 2 Kings.

Criticism

Horn argues against this chronology [3, p. 23]:

W. F. Albright, who holds that in the west Nebuchadnezzar's official accession year (605/604) was considered his first regnal year, and that all data pertaining to Nebuchadnezzar given in Biblical records (with the exception of a passage in Jer 52:28-30) were one year higher than the Babylonian numbering, and thus differed by one year from the official Babylonian reckoning. This theory can hardly be correct, because it would seem strange indeed that the Jewish annalists should have used for Nebuchadnezzar the antedating (or non-accession-year) system, while they used the postdating (accession-year) system for their own kings. That the Babylonians used the postdating system is well known and needs no demonstration, and all scholars agree that this system was also used by the Jewish writers with regard to the regnal years of their own kings. Should it therefore not be more plausible to assume that the Jewish historians used the postdating system consistently in their records for the kings of Babylonia as well as for their own kings?

References