A Chronology Of The Hebrew Kings

(New revised edition) Considered the classic and comprehensive work in reckoning the accession of kings, calendars, and coregencies based upon the Old Testament text and other extra-biblical sources.

The common response to any attempt to read the chronological notations associated with the kings of Israel and Judah in the time of the divided monarchy is, perhaps, a shrug of the shoulders, or a statement to the effect that the problem is insoluble. Not only are the apparently contradictory--or confusing--notations of the MT a consideration, but the evidence of the other major versions seriously complicates any such undertaking. In the twentieth century, Edwin R. Thiele attempted to reconcile and wrangle all of the numbers into a semblance of order, with results that were far from convincing to his readers. Now Christine Tetley has attacked this knottiest of problems with fresh vigor and assayed a new solution. There is no doubt that this book will be controversial; nevertheless, it will be required reading for anyone who wishes to pin archaeological and historical data within the framework of an absolute chronology.

This pioneering study wrestles with the perpetual problem of chronology in the Books of Kings. The result is one of the most responsible and yet most critical chronologies proposed to date, and will be the standard chronological reference for the next decade, if not longer.

Almost universally in modern times, the Bible has been rejected by scholars, including many conservative Bible scholars, as a trustworthy source text for the study of ancient chronology. Secular scholarship has all but assigned any chronology based on the biblical text to the academic dust bin. The purpose of this book is to reverse that trendby showing that the Bible is still the single most dependable source text available for doing serious chronological study of ancient times. It does so by using the details about the Hebrew kings provided in the biblical text to construct a precise historical timeline for that period, one that can be used not only for understanding Bible times, but for calibrating ancient contemporaneous chronologies as well. The sacred chronology set forth in this book provides Bible students, religious professionals, and scholars with a trustworthy Bible-based timeline that can be used with confidence to achieve a more accurate interpretation of biblical history. It demonstrates that the chronology of the Hebrew kings is the best documented and most accurate ancient chronology, and that other chronologies, especially those of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, are best understood when synchronized to agree with the Bible timeline rather than the other way around. Note that the basis for this book is simple. All modern Bible chronology is based on an erroneous Assyrian chronology developed by scholars over the past 150 years. Using the Assyrian chronology as an anchor works fine for events in Bible history occurring after 745 BCE, but creates major problems for biblical chronologists since Assyrian chronology is misaligned with actual events as they occurred in history prior to that year. In order to get the biblical timeline to agree with the Assyrian timeline, most Bible scholars assume scribal and other transmission errors in the biblical text rather than question the Assyrian timeline. Our research, which does just the opposite by assuming that the Bible chronology is the most accurate chronology available from ancient times, shows that assuming error in Scripture is not necessary once the problem with the Assyrian chronology is recognized and the Assyrian dates prior to 745 BCE are adjusted. By making that adjustment, our publications show how all Ancient Near East chronologies, those of Israel (and Judah), Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Tyre, and Urartu (Van), can be perfectly harmonized with one another. All chronological interpretations in this book are the result of original Bible research by The Prophecy Society. The interpretations are NOT based on, derivative of, or associated with the work of any of the following groups or persons who have been active in the field of sacred chronology: Bishop James Ussher, The Watchtower Society, The Seventh-day Adventist Church, The LDS Church, The Institute for Creation Research and similar creationist groups, Donovan Courville, Rolf Furuli,David Rohl, Peter James, Immanuel Velikovsky, and similar.