73, Lombard Street,
London
3d Mar. 1875
Dear Sir
Enclosed I send a receipt for yr Subscriptions for 1875 –
Thank you much for letting me know of the second Edition of Vol 1 of the Records of the Past <1> and your altered translation <2> of the campaign of Sennacherib against Jerusalem –
I understand you now to say that the siege of Lacish took place in Senacheribs 3d Campaign – Mr Smith <3> has some new matters concerning Sennacheribs Annals. But I have not seen what he has discovered. This last published idea was, that there was a second siege campaign about the year B.C. 689 – or 690 –
Enclosed <4> I send you, [illegible deletion] in a condensed form, the result of my investigation of the Hebrew chronology – The third campaign of Sennacherib falls in B.C. 701 according to this view – This siege of Jerusalem in his 14th yr in the yr B.C. 689 – I think that Berosus and Moses may be reconciled to a single year for the period before the Mesopotamian flood, as well as between this flood and the invasion of Babylon by the Medes, on the principle of taking a day to signify a Sun – i.e. in rotation – and a year also to signify a Sun – i.e. in orbit. Then 420,000 years or Suns, is really not more than 1200 cycles of 360 Suns.
Believe me to be yours very truly
J W Bosanquet
Notes:
1. Records of the Past being English Translations of the Assyrian and Egyptian Monuments (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons).
2. WHFT had published ‘Taylor’s Cylinder of Sennacherib’ in Records of the Past being English Translations of the Assyrian and Egyptian Monuments (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons), v.1, 1874, pp. 33–53.
3. George Smith (1840–1876), Assyriologist. [See Doc. No: 02397].
4. Enclosure attached: ‘Chronology of the Bible, by J. W. Bosanquet, Treasurer of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 1874’.