Astronomical Luni-Solar Cycles and the Chronology of the Masoretic Bible

Abstract

An astronomical table found in al-Khwarizmi’s ninth century CE treatise, related to the Jewish calendar, is analysed in detail. The analysis is used to establish the evidence that until the last centuries of the first millennium CE, the most important events in Jewish history described in the Masoretic text of the Bible were believed to have occurred simultaneously with the reappearances of new moons at the same celestial longitudes. The astronomical solar year of 365.25 days, in use from the first Millennium BCE throughout most parts of the first Millennium CE, and a mean lunar month of 29.5 days and 793 parts of an hour, are used to explain how they influenced the erroneous dating of major events described in the Masoretic text of the Bible by adopting the previously unknown astronomical cycles of 483 and 502 years. Such major events include Adam’s new moon, signifying the ‘year of creation’ and the epoch of ‘Aera Adami’, the birth of Abraham, Exodus with the giving of the Torah, and the building of Temples I and II. The results suggest that the chronology of the Masoretic text of the Old Testament was deliberately adapted to conform to what would be presently regarded as astrological concepts.