I would like to first thank my wife for allowing me the time to write this book, as well as checking for typos in some of its earlier chapters. However, I did some rewriting even after she finished proofing, so the fault of any editing mistakes should be assumed mine. And so a sincere thanks to my wife, who has caught such things like I Kings in one place and 1 Kings in another.*
And then there is my long-suffering brother who makes time for me at all inconvenient hours. When I get stuck on a problem Dave is a good sounding board, and at other times he nudges me in another direction where the answer lay. Here and there he provided answers where I had none. His help on astronomical problems and a host of other things has been indispensable, and portions of this book would not have been possible without his help. For example, Dave created a number of spreadsheets for specific problems, such as one aligned to George Dodwell’s equations. Dodwell showed there was a greater tilt to the earth in the past, beginning in the 24th century BC. Using Dave’s spreadsheet made it possible for me to plug in variable years and exact dates to determine the degree of earth’s tilt during the Assyrian and Chinese eclipses, and the latitudes in Israel and Egypt for certain exact dates. Dave also deserves at least half the credit of solving problems relating to the Hezekiah miracle. Over the eight years of research and writing I have literally had hundreds of helpful conversations with my brother.
Finally, if within these pages there is any recovery of lost knowledge, it is because the Lord is active in fulfilling within the Church Daniel’s prophecy that in the last days knowledge would increase. I thank God for His guidance which makes some advance in knowledge possible for any of us. To each of us God gives a gift along with the adequacy to use that gift. And so ultimately the glory for any recovery of knowledge, whether here or elsewhere, belongs to God.
* Elsewhere I often use the Arabic numbers 1-9 instead of customarily spelling them out, as my wife would have preferred. Especially in passages with many numbers, I generally find it less confusing. My preferences in certain other practices have differed as well, such as leaving “ca.” in the main text instead of writing out “circa”, and sometimes leaving pronouns referencing Deity to appear (as in the autographa and the KJV) indistinct from those referencing man (regarding capitalization), and so forth.