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Daniel’s “Seventy Weeks” 31

The conspiracy -- which was designed to fool the Greeks -- was masterminded by
Themistocles (an influential Greek statesman who had defected to Persia) who circulated the
now-famous letter stating that he was defecting to Artaxerxes the “son” of Xerxes, now presumed
by all to have recently died. At the same time, propaganda was circulated by the Persian Court to the
effect that Xerxes was killed by his oldest son and heir, Darius, who in turn was killed by his “youn-
ger brother” Artaxerxes who, after avenging his father’s death, was now on the throne as king legiti-
mately. This was very clever, but very superficial in hindsight. Of course, this Darius was not killed
and still followed his father (Xerxes/Artaxerxes) on the throne as Darius II. Needless to say, the
Greeks never really caught on though there was lots of confusion.

Because of all the reliefs at Persepolis which generally exposed the conspiracy on close ex-
amination, the city was kept a secret from the Greeks until Alexander the Great discovered it when
he conquered Persia. In the meantime, a series of involved schemes to change Greek, Persian, Bab-
ylonian and Biblical history to cover up for the phantom 21-year reign of Xerxes prevailed, and as a
result the chronology of the Persian period has been distorted by 82 years. Ptolemy, being Greek
himself and relying on Eratosthenes (who was also Greek), reflects this distortion in his canon.

The fact is, Ptolemy had no means of determining the chronology of this period, so he made
the best use of the materials at his disposal -- and contrived to make a chronology. However, it is
clearly contradicted by –

1/. The national traditions of Persia

2/. The national traditions of the Jews

3/. The testimony of Josephus

4/. The conflicting evidence of well-authenticated events

5/. The Persian reliefs at Persepolis and

6/. YEHOVAH God’s Word -- the Bible!

Eclipses and Other Astronomical Events as Aids to Chronology

The attempt of some to supply missing links in the chain of chronology, by means of
eclipses and astronomical calculations, is utterly futile! It is easy for astronomers to make a perfect
chart of all solar and lunar eclipses and to fix the time of their occurrences with great accuracy. But
that doesn’t help us in the least because when a historical reference is found which contains mention
of an eclipse, it is impossible to tell which of the charted eclipses -- within say a century -- is the one
referred to! And even if that could be done, it would only fix the date on ONE event.

We must remember that chronology (biblical or otherwise) is not merely or chiefly a matter
of intervals of time -- it is primarily a matter of historical events, their sequence and the number of
years from one known event to another. Astronomers can indeed give us the precise order and
dates of all eclipses which occurred between the days of Cyrus and those of Alexander the Great --

The Berean Voice March-April 2003