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[154]
These accounts agree with the true histories in our books; for in
them it is written that Nebuchadnezzar, in the eighteenth year of his reign,
laid our temple desolate, and so it lay in that state of obscurity for
fifty years; but that in the second year of the reign of Cyrus its foundations
were laid, and it was finished again in the second year of Darius. I will
now add the records of the Phoenicians; for it will not be superfluous
to give the reader demonstrations more than enough on this occasion. In
them we have this enumeration of the times of their several kings: "Nabuchodonosor
besieged Tyre for thirteen years in the days of Ithobal, their king; after
him reigned Baal, ten years; after him were judges appointed, who judged
the people: Ecnibalus, the son of Baslacus, two months; Chelbes, the son
of Abdeus, ten months; Abbar, the high priest, three months; Mitgonus and
Gerastratus, the sons of Abdelemus, were judges six years; after whom Balatorus
reigned one year; after his death they sent and fetched Merbalus from Babylon,
who reigned four years; after his death they sent for his brother Hirom,
who reigned twenty years. Under his reign Cyrus became king of Persia."
So that the whole interval is fifty-four years besides three months; for
in the seventh year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar he began to besiege
Tyre, and Cyrus the Persian took the kingdom in the fourteenth year of
Hirom. So that the records of the Chaldeans and Tyrians agree with our
writings about this temple; and the testimonies here produced are an indisputable
and undeniable attestation to the antiquity of our nation. And I suppose
that what I have already said may be sufficient to such as are not very
contentious.
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