The Kings of Judah and Israel (Part 1)

In order to look at the problems that arose when trying to sort out the dating of all these monarchs it is necessary to create some terms of reference.

i. Continuous dating

Most of the dating technique that has been used to create the timeline was continuous dating. For example from Adam to Jacob, this involves just adding the life spans of individuals before fatherhood in a continuous manner to construct the timeline. The remainder of an individual's life after fatherhood was irrelevant really. This continuous method was used for the kings from Solomon to Zedekiah and Hoshea, but instead of their life spans being added it is the length of the monarchs' reigns that were added, with no exclusions. It is of no consequence that there may be gaps or errors in some of the reigns, the concept here is simply that the spans involves are just added one on top of another.

ii. Comparative dating

In the timeline of the kings of Judah and Israel there is a secondary dating that appears and this will be termed comparative dating. After the reign of Solomon the united kingdom of Israel is split in to two parts: Israel ruled by Jeroboam, the son of Nebat; and Judah under Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. Now not only do we have the continuous dating made up of the lengths of the reigns of the monarchs being added together we also compare the two lineages from one kingdom comparative to the other. For example, 'Nadab the son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of the Asa king of Judah; and he reigned over Israel two years' 1 Kings 15:25. The two years we are told that he reigned over Israel is the continuous dating and is just added on to the total of all the previous reigns and life spans. The comparative date or relative date is where you can see that the reign of Nadab king of Israel starts in the second year of the king of Asa, king of Judah. This is of course the Israeli comparative dating, and there is the complementary Judaean comparative dating as in 'Now in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam [king of Israel] the son of Nebat, Abijam began to reign over Judah. He reigned for three years in Jerusalem' 1 Kings 15:1-2. The reference to the eighteenth year of an Israeli king is the Judaean comparative dating, because it helps date the reign of a Judaean King by a reference to the Israeli king's reign.

With regard to the latter issue of comparative dating, one would hope very much that the comparative dating would always agree with the continuous dating. This is not what happens however and there is an error that starts to creep in to the sets of data. These errors have got to be looked at in a bit more detail.

Errors between continuous and comparative dates

I am only going to highlight a few errors here, as it would be a more involved study to look at each increment in error between the continuous and comparative dates. Another chart would be needed, just of the kings of Judah and Israel, to better illustrate all these differences in more detail.

In the sections showing the kings of Israel and Judah the differences that are found between the comparative dating and the continuous dating is shown by the delta Δ sign. If the difference in the comparative date is greater than the continuous date i.e. the comparative date is one or more years greater than the date given by the continuous date then there will be a plus sign and if less then there will be a minus sign present.

Looking at the kings of Israel in the example of Nadab the second king of the divided Israeli state we can see that he reigned for two years :-

'Nadab the son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah; and he reigned over Israel two years' 1 king 15:25.

Well we know that the continuous date for the start of the reign of Asa king of Judah is 3204 and so the second year is 3206 (3204 + 2) and this Israeli comparative (to the kings of Judah) date puts the start of Nadab's reign as 3206, and we can see that the continuous date for Nadab is also 3206. This means that there is no difference in the comparative date and the continuous date, so delta Δ is equal to zero (Δ 0). This is what one would hope for throughout the dating chronology of all the kings of Judah and Israel.

This calculation is summarised by:-
'The second year of Asa is 3206 (3204 + 2) Δ 0'.
(See the entry for Nadab king of Israel in the Kings of Israel section.)

i. Baasha

Reigned 24 years (3208 - 3232) 'In the third year of Asa king of Judah, Baasha the son of Ahijah began to reign over all Israel at Tirzah, and he reigned twenty-four years.' 1 Kings 15:33.

'The third year of Asa is 3207 (3204 + 3) Δ -1'.

If Nadab the previous king began his reign in the second year of Asa and then Nadab reigned two years, it is hard to reconcile this with the statement that Baasha started his reign in the third year of Asa. So unless there was a coup and there was a period when the two kings Nadab and Baasha reigned at the same time, then we have the first sign of an error.

By comparative dating it can be seen that the start of Baasha's reign begins in the third year of Asa in 3207 but by the continuous dating of the Israeli kings it commences 3208. So the comparative date is 1 year less than the continuous dating and we have a disparity of one year, so delta is equal to minus one.

Now how do we explain this difference, is it possible that there was a coup at the time? This is a possibility although even if we manage to explain this difference away, if we continue further down the line of kings the disparity does not go away but increases. After Baasha, when Elah the next king of Israel becomes king, the difference between comparative and continuous dates is minus 2, and by Zimri it is minus 3. So we have a growing problem regardless if we manage to resolve the first issue raised by Baasha and the previous king of Israel Nadab, who we might consider to be co-ruling. Part of the solution of these discrepancies could be simply due to the fact that the reigns of the kings are always given in whole years so that any monarch who is said to have reigned for two years like Nadab may have simply ruled for one year and two days and still said to have been in second year of his reign. This could cause a residual error that increases and decreases the disparity between continual dates and comparative dates throughout the timeline.

ii. Omri

Reigned 12 years (3234 - 3246) 'In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri began to reign over Israel and reigned twelve years; six he reigned in Tirzah. He bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver; and he fortified the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, Samaria, after the name of Shemer, the owner of the hill.' 1 Kings 16:23-24.

'The thirty-first year of Asa is 3235 (3204 + 31) Δ +1'.

The start of the reign of Omri the sixth king of Israel, the disparity between continuous dates and comparative dates (delta) is now plus 1, that is to say that there has been a change in the disparity of 4, from minus 3 at the start of Zimri's reign to plus one at the start of Omri's reign. On the one hand there doesn't seem to be any reason for this, which might be considered as a bad thing but on the other it puts the two dating systems comparative and continuous dating nearly in synchronisation again, which has to be more desirable.

There is however another problem with the reign of Omri, and that is that his reign is said to be 12 years long, and to start in the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, and yet Ahab the seventh king of Israel, who reigns after Omri, is said to begin his reign in the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Asa which suggests that Omri could not have reigned for 12 years but 7 years. This throws out delta (the disparity between comparative and continuous dating) since it drops from plus one at the start of Omri's reign to minus 4 at the start of Ahab's reign who commences to rule after Omri.

Perhaps there has been some confusion here caused by the statement that Omri reigns for six years in Tirzah (though only six and not seven) and this has produced the error here. One could say that Omri's reign didn't start in the thirty-first year of Asa but at an earlier time but without further evidence one can not say whether there is an error in the length of Omri's reign or if it is the time of commencement that is wrong. I have decided not to play around too much with the statements in the bible and would like to take them all at face value, at least in this work though as I have already said a more precise graphic would have to made and further experimental changes made in order to find more suitable values. This separate work would be found in a chart showing only the reign of kings from Saul to Zedekiah.

So by the reign of Ahab delta is minus 4, and this gradually decreases to minus 7 by the start of the reign of Jehoram the ninth king of Israel. There is no comparative date for Jehu (tenth king of Israel), who we are told, conspires against Jehoram, but by the king following Jehu the delta has increased (from minus 7) to just minus 1, and then drops to minus 2 by the start of the reign of Jeroboam II, the thirteenth king of Israel.

It is necessary to look carefully at the data around King Jeroboam to see other irregularities and this will be done in Part Two......