Josephus, when bringing down the regnal years of the Babylonian kings who feature highly in Israel's history, cites the third book of Berossus.
[4] Manetho, who was a high priest and scribe of Egypt, copied down from the ancient Egyptian inscriptions a chronological list of eight early Persian kings for Ptolemy Philadelphus (266–228 BCE), beginning with Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, and omitting only the magi's interim rule.
[5][6] Suetonius's De vita Caesarum (Lives of the Caesars), Josephus's The Jewish War, and Epiphanius's On Weights and Measures (Syriac version), all have attempted to accurately portray the regnal years of the Roman emperors, and, despite their good efforts, there are still discrepancies between them.
In Jerome's Chronici Canones (Chronicle) which he completed in 381 CE, the first regnal year of Julius Caesar, the first Roman emperor: Romanorum primus Caius Iulius Caesar, is marked as 48 BCE, but which Jerome in his original document had written in Roman numerals and given only the number of the Olympiad for events, and no more.
Its usage was common throughout the Jewish world until the sixteenth century,[14] and has been used by Yemenite Diaspora Jews as late as the 1940s, until their immigration to the Land of Israel.
By their recollection of the current calendar year, it is shown to have started in the Fall (Tishri) of 312 BCE, which agrees with modern scholarship (312/311).
[21] It is said that the Jews started this system of reckoning the years, in recognition of Alexander the Great who passed through their country and who received warmly the Jewish High Priest who came out to greet him.
[22] Others say that the introduction of this new era was in commemoration of the year in which Seleucus I reconquered Babylon and got the dominion over Syria,[15] which last opinion seems to be that of Josephus as well (cf.
While the Seleucid Era counting has been abandoned in the writing of legal deeds, promissory notes, court attestations, etc., it is still relied upon by all observant Jews when determining the 2nd Temple's destruction.
[39] The two most ancient historical sources used to support this tradition are the Jewish historian Josephus, citing the Book of Maccabees, and the Aramaic Scroll of Antiochus (compiled, according to Saadia Gaon, by the elders of the Schools of Hillel and Shammai).
Although this date of the Temple's rebuilding largely disagrees with modern scholarship who base their chronologies upon the Babylonian Chronicles and its rebuilding in 516 BCE when Darius I was thought to have reigned,[44] it has, nonetheless, long been held by religious Jewish circles as being accurate and reliable, since it is founded upon a tradition passed down generation after generation.
One of the strongest counter-arguments that can be made against Seder Olam and its demarcations in time is that, if the Second Temple was completed in the 6th year of the reign of Darius the Great, as noted by the Hebrew scriptures (Ezra 6:15), and which Temple, according to Seder Olam, stood 420 years and was built in 352 BCE, this would put the Greek historian Herodotus as having written his Histories (compiled c. 430 BCE) long before the event detailing Darius's actions ever having taken place, or some 72 years before Darius the Great ever came to power.
Another difficulty with Seder Olam is in its chronological list of successive Babylonian and Persian kings (chapters 28–29), during the one-hundred years prior to the building of the Second Temple, and which stands in stark contrast to the earlier historical records for the same kings, as penned by Josephus who cites Berossus, as well as by Manetho and by Ptolemy of Alexandria in his Canon.
Seder Olam has contracted the Persian period into 34 years,[47] explained by Rashi to mean the time span between the building of the Second Temple under Darius in 352 BC (according to Jewish calculations) and Alexander the Great's rise to power in 318 BCE.
[48] This time-frame, therefore, does not signify the end of the dynasties in Persia, but rather of their rule and hegemony over Israel before Alexander the Great rose to power.
The difficulty besetting this explanation, however, lies in the fact that from Darius I who laid the foundation of the Second Temple to Alexander the Great, who brought an end to Persian hegemony over Israel, there are collected no less than 190 years.
Moreover, the laws governing the Jubilee (e.g. release of Hebrew bondmen, and the return of leased property to its original owners, etc.)
In all these cases, the dates of these events as brought down by conventional non-Jewish chronology cannot possibly coincide with the Sabbatical year and still be faithful to the Seleucid era counting.
[142][143][144] Since, according to Jewish oral tradition, the destruction of the First Temple occurred in 422 BCE,[145][146] a year which also corresponded to the 1st-year of the seven-year cycle,[147][148] scholars have sought to plot all events described in the Hebrew Scriptures based on these reference points.
All dates provided in the following table showing King David's line of succession are, therefore, made subject to this caveat.
It is of primary importance to note that Josephus, who claims that the Second Temple stood 639 years (approximately from 571 BCE), is consistent with his figures and demarcations in time all throughout his histories.
[207] Indeed, a collection of these years amounts to a starting point for the Second Temple in around 576 BCE, within the margin of error for Josephus's figures.
[211][212] Of these, 28 high priests served the Jewish nation, over a span of 107 years, from Herod the Great until the temple's destruction.
For example, where the Hebrew Bible (I Kings 6:1) assigns 480 years from the exodus to the building of the First Temple, Josephus wrote (Antiquities 8.3.1.)
Whether they are copyist errors or not, such disparities cast a dark shadow on the reliability of Josephus's chronological timetable, since, in his own words, one of his expressed intentions was to convey the history of the Hebrews unto the Greeks, just as they are laid-up in the sacred writings.
[292] Many of Josephus's figures differ from those of Seder Olam, a chronography dating back to the 2nd century CE and where timeframes are more closely aligned to those of the Hebrew Bible, and largely accepted by the vast majority in Israel.
[293] By counting in retrospect the regnal years of Caesars from this fixed point in time (68 CE), being, according to Jewish tradition, the year of the Second Temple's destruction and which came to its demise in the 2nd year of the reign of Vespasian, one is able to chart out and chronograph a rich past that might vary, in some respects, from the conventional views of modern-day chroniclers, as Josephus provides the avid scholar of history with a schematic chronology of the entire Second Temple period, with its successive chain of High Priests serving under the various rulers, with their respective tenures in office, as well as accompanied, occasionally, by dates inscribed in one of two epochs, the Seleucid era and the Olympiad era.