Integrating Historical Witnesses in Biblical Chronology

Introduction

Biblical chronology is integral in a young-earth framework because it provides the basis for estimating a 6,000 year age for the earth. The creationist community appropriately acknowledges the impressive work of James Ussher, who produced a biblical chronology in the 1650s titled The Annals of the World (Ussher 1658). This was only a starting point, however, because a wealth of archaeological data was published in the 1800s and 1900s that offered much greater precision for dating events during the divided kingdom period when the Jewish people lived in separate nations, Israel in the north and Judah in the south.

In the 1940s, chronologist Edwin Thiele used the recently discovered historical records to make refinements to biblical chronology. His work was first introduced in a 1944 journal article (Thiele 1944), then in a book titled The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, published in three editions (Thiele 1951, 1965, 1983). He did not solve every issue, but others who examined his work made suggestions or added improvements. Leslie McFall was among these contributors, and he offered a modified chronology in a 1991 journal article (McFall 1991).

Between 2003 and 2005, chronologist Rodger Young made a series of discoveries that resolved a few remaining issues in Thiele’s chronology (Young 2003, 2004a, 2004b, 2005). Perhaps most notably, Young’s efforts revealed cross-checks within biblical dating systems that tie to one another through various Bible passages and also agree with dates recorded in secular history from countries neighboring Judah and Israel. Young’s work is treated as foundational to establishing benchmarks in time in Andrew Steinmann’s 2011 book, From Abraham to Paul: A Biblical Chronology (Steinmann 2011).

These advancements are not yet widely known, however, and some Christian circles still promote older material without knowledge of methodological problems that have been exposed in Ussher’s chronology. This article seeks to compare the older and newer biblical chronologies, and to take advantage of the widespread digitization of books and articles that has made the topic readily accessible for analysis. Of the 47 sources listed in this article’s reference section, only two are not freely available online; one is a translation of Ussher’s work by Larry and Marion Pierce in 2003 (Ussher 2003; an alternative digital English translation is available, Ussher 1658) and the other is Steinmann’s recently published book.

Larry Pierce advocated Ussher’s chronology in 2001 in an article called “Evidentialism: The Bible and Assyrian Chronology” (Pierce 2001) and offered the calculation methods he believes support that chronology in an attached “Addendum” link with dates for the divided kingdom period (Pierce 2001, reference 16). These pieces appeared in TJ (Technical Journal), a precursor of Answers Research Journal (of Answers in Genesis) and Journal of Creation (of Creation Ministries International). The article drew a response from McFall, who disagreed with the accusations leveled against him by Pierce (McFall 2002; Dr. McFall recently passed away in 2015). Later, in 2018, Young weighed in on Pierce’s criticisms of Thiele that appeared in Pierce’s 2003 translation of Ussher’s Annals of the World (Ussher 2003; Young 2018, 51).

This paper compares the two chronological approaches and also highlights a wide array of historical texts and archaeological finds relevant to dating events recorded in the Old Testament. For simplicity, the combined Ussher-Pierce Chronology will be abbreviated “UPC” and the Thiele-McFall-Young Chronology “TMYC.” UPC dates for the divided kingdom are taken from two tables in the Pierce 2001 Addendum (Pierce 2001, link embedded in reference 16, Addendum pages 5-6). TMYC dates for this period are pulled from two summary tables found in the Beckman 2021 Supplementary File (Beckman 2021, link embedded on page 75 in blue text ‘supplementary tables 2a and 2b,’ pages 1–6). Tables compiled in the current article are either intended to concisely demonstrate calculation methods or to offer a convenient overview of the numerous sources of historical testimony that harmonize with the biblical account of human events.

Preliminaries—Differences in Measurement and Precision

The divided kingdom, according to the UPC, began in 975 B.C., about 44 years earlier than the TMYC date of 931 B.C. Both the UPC and TMYC systems, however, arrange dates for the reigns of the kings in such a way that each chronology is still able to fit together all of the synchronizations between Israel and Judah.

Synchronizations have a formula like this: “In the n^th year of [name a] king of [either Israel or Judah], [name b] began to rule in [the other kingdom], and he reigned x years.” When UPC dates are plugged into these formulas, the synchronizations line up with “some leeway of about one year” (Pierce 2001, Addendum 6). When TMYC dates are calculated, the synchronizations agree precisely to a six-month period based on the overlap of the measurement units used by the two kingdoms. Rodger Young (2018, 54) explains why such exactness is necessary:

[Ussher] showed that he thought that the Bible’s chronological figures were only approximate. However, this is not the way court records were kept in the ancient Near East, where years of reign were used for legal contracts and other matters and therefore had to be precise. It is difficult to conceive that the Author of the Bible would go to such lengths in giving us the abundant and complex chronological data for the kingdom period while at the same time His figures were not as accurate, according to Ussher, as those of Israel’s contemporaries in the surrounding nations.

Thiele’s precision of measurement was achieved through two observations. First, Judah measured time by Tishri years while Israel used Nisan years. Nisan was the name of the first month by the biblical numbering system, and it began in springtime. At the time of the Israelite exodus out of Egypt, it was called Abib/Aviv (Exodus 13:4, 23:15, 34:18; Deuteronomy 16:1) and God designated it as the first month of the religious year (Exodus 12:2). Tishri, by comparison, was the name of the seventh month, and it began in autumn. During Solomon’s reign, this month was called Ethanim (1 Kings 8:2). After the northern kingdom of Israel was exiled by the Assyrians, and the southern kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians, God’s people adopted the name Nisan for the first month and Tishri for the seventh (Steinmann 2011, 15–21). For simplicity, these later names are used for notation. The letter “n” is used for Nisan years that began in spring, and “t” for Tishri years that began in fall. A year designated 967n, for example, would have begun in the spring of 967 B.C. The first six months of 967n would correspond to the last six months of 968t, which would have begun in the fall of 968 B.C.

Second, Thiele realized that neither kingdom remained consistent in its use of accession or non-accession reckoning. In the accession year system, in the year that the old king died and the new king came to the throne, that transition year was credited only to the old king’s years of reign. For the new king, it was simply called an accession year, and his reign length count would begin with the following year as the first official year of his reign. In the non-accession year system, the transition year was double counted to both the old and the new king, resulting in an inflation of one year for each new king when summing the reign lengths of the kings over a span of time.

The UPC assumes that both Judah and Israel used Nisan years for recording kings’ reigns (Pierce 2001, Addendum 2), while Thiele found that Tishri years were used to measure Solomon’s reign and the reigns of the kings of Judah. He offered these examples:

Example 1: Solomon–1 Kings 6:1, 38

In the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the Lord. . . . And in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its parts, and according to all its specifications. He was seven years in building it.

By measuring the time in both Nisan and Tishri years, Thiele found that only a Tishri year measurement system fit into the seven-year timeframe listed in the Bible (Thiele 1944, 142; table 1).

Example 2: Josiah of Judah—2 Kings 22:3-23:23; 2 Chronicles 34:8-35:19

Both passages list a great deal of activity that took place in the eighteenth year of Josiah, starting with the repair of the temple, finding the Book of the Covenant, consulting Huldah the prophetess, gathering the people of Judah and Jerusalem, and reestablishing the keeping of the covenant with the Lord. It is also possible that some of the cleansing of the temple and the land from idolatry took place during this time. If Josiah of Judah had reckoned his reign in Nisan years, all of the activity described in the passages had to have been accomplished in 14 days, between Nisan 1 when Josiah’s eighteenth year began, and Nisan 14 when Passover began (Thiele 1944, 142–143). If Josiah’s reign was recorded according to Tishri years, however, his eighteenth year would have begun in autumn, on Tishri 1, and he would have had six months before the spring month of Nisan arrived.

In reexamining the work of Ussher, Young found another example of Judah’s practice of measuring kings’ reigns by Tishri years (2018, 53–54).

Example 3: Abijam/Abijah of Judah—1 Kings 15:1–2, 8–9

Now in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam the son of Nebat, Abijam began to reign over Judah. He reigned for three years in Jerusalem. . . . And Abijam slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David. And Asa his son reigned in his place. In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa began to reign over Judah.

In the early part of the divided kingdom, Judah used accession reckoning while Israel used non-accession (table 2). For synchronizations to the start and end of the reign of Abijam/Abijah, his reign in Judah requires one accession year plus three years of reign to fit into an inclusive three years from Jeroboam’s eighteenth to twentieth years in Israel. This only works if Judah was using Tishri years while Israel used Nisan years (table 3).

Comparison of Anchor Dates in the Two Chronologies

Thiele dedicated a chapter of his book to examining the work of Ussher and other modern chronologists (1951, 228–267). He noted that, because Ussher’s system had been added to the margins of some King James Bibles, “this system has come to be looked upon by many as the true system of Biblical chronology, and in many circles it receives almost the same veneration as does the sacred text itself” (Thiele 1951, 228).

Pierce seems to hold Ussher’s chronology in this regard, because he says “Ussher’s results, based on the Bible alone, violate just about every ‘absolute date’ in archaeology. Amen. All this shows is that we may not know as much about history as God does” (Pierce 2001, Addendum 24), and later “Dr. Thiele firmly declares that Samaria fell in 723 B.C. and adjusts the biblical chronology two years to shift the biblically deduced date of 721 B.C. to 723 B.C. (If the integrity of the scriptures was not at stake this is no big deal!)” (Pierce 2001, Addendum 38).

Thiele understood, however, that history accurately recorded, whether by ancient secular or Jewish sources, would together reflect the real events of the past. Thiele explains (1951, 151):

Let us remember that if history is to consist of fact rather than fiction, then the men of the world and the men of the Word must move along together in lands where time advances at an even pace. The years of the world in which the Assyrians lived kept constantly in accord with the years of the world in which the Hebrews lived. . . . If the chronology of the world in which the Assyrians and Babylonians lived moved along in tune with the stars, then the chronology of the world in which the Hebrews lived must likewise move along in tune with the same firmament of heaven—not faster or slower, but exactly right, and each in perfect accord with the other. . . . If the men of the Bible were real men [they were] and if the chronology of the Bible is a correct chronology [it is], then that chronology must be in perfect accord with the correct chronology of every other neighboring state.

Thiele’s words are also an apt reminder that God gave the sun, moon, and stars not just for light, but also “for signs and for seasons, and for days and years” (Genesis 1:14).

Ultimately, with any chronology, one or more of the events in biblical history needs to be tied to a date in secular history expressed in modern calendar terms. Ussher selected the death of Nebuchadnezzar in 562 B.C. as his anchor date, and added 3,442 A.M. years [Latin anno mundi, in the year of the world] to reach 4004 B.C. as the date of Creation (Ussher 1658, 7). Ussher had knowledge of this anchor date from Ptolemy’s Canon, a list of ancient Near East kings and their reign lengths that were tied to calendar dates with astronomical data (Depuydt 1995; Thiele 1951, 293). Pierce, in support of Ussher, also holds to 562 B.C. as the oldest reliable secular date (Pierce 2001, Addendum 2).

Ptolemy’s Canon is a key piece of evidence for both the UPC and TMYC, but the UPC only recognizes dates from the time of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, not the earlier dates from the Neo-Assyrian Empire that preceded it. The TMYC, in comparison, connects to the dates in Ptolemy’s records from both the Assyrian and Babylonian periods. The dates from the first part of Ptolemy’s Canon correspond to two other key historical sources, the Assyrian Eponym List and Babylonian Chronicle I (table 4), and the TMYC uses all three sources together to ascertain dates for biblical events that occurred in this timeframe. Occasionally the kings listed are identified by different names across these records, but the reign lengths and descriptions of events during the reigns are in agreement.

Because the UPC dates do not align with Assyrian data, Pierce sought to cast doubt on the records of Assyrian king Shalmaneser III that Thiele used to locate a double set of anchor dates, in Nisan years 841n and 853n, a timeframe earlier than the records of Ptolemy’s Canon. This set of dates provided multiple clues helpful to Thiele’s chronological system. He had already discovered that early in the divided kingdom period Israel was using non-accession reckoning while Judah was using accession reckoning, simply by comparing biblical synchronisms. This was confirmed by the 12-year gap between Shalmaneser’s sixth and eighteenth years for which two Israelite kings claimed 14 years of reign (table 5, §3). Because of this fit, it also settled the last year of Ahab’s reign, in 853n, as well as Jehu’s accession year, in 841n (table 5, §2, 4). Further, the exactness of Ahab’s final year resolved an issue of a small discrepancy between the manuscripts of the Assyrian Eponym List. Thiele used a combination of biblical and secular data to persuade Assyriologists on the correct solution (Thiele 1944, 145–146, footnote 20; Thiele 1951, 287, bracketed note). For that reason, earlier composite presentations of the Assyrian Eponym List (Luckenbill 1927, §1198) differ slightly from current presentations (University College London 2013). But returning to the issue of whether Shalmaneser III’s records are reliable for the purposes of biblical chronology, this article will follow the same order as Pierce in his analysis (2001).

Also, in 2003, Young located another anchor date for the TMYC that landed during Solomon’s reign, when the Jewish people were still united as a single nation. Thiele had worked backwards from his anchor dates to set the start of the divided kingdom in 931n on the Israelite side (Thiele 1944, 144–147). Young made a small correction to the start of the divided kingdom on the Judean side, placing it in 932t2/931n1 (second half of the Tishri year, first half of the Nisan year, six months running from spring to fall in 931 B.C.; Young 2003, 590–591). In so doing, Young was able to determine that Solomon began to build the temple in Jerusalem in 968t2 (Young 2003, 599–603). That anchor date will also be included in comparing the dates devised by the UPC to those of the TMYC.

Each of the three TMYC anchor dates—968t for Solomon starting the temple, 853n for the last year of the reign of Ahab of Israel, and 841n for the year that Jehu took the throne in Israel—are more than 40 years later in history than the equivalent UPC dates—1012 B.C. for Solomon starting the temple (Ussher 1658, §465), 897 B.C. for the end of Ahab’s reign (Pierce 2001, Addendum 5), and 884 B.C. for the start of Jehu’s (Pierce 2001, Addendum 6). So which chronology best fits Scripture and the combined testimony of other historical records?

Jehu’s Accession Year—841n or 884 B.C.?

Pierce’s opening statement in this section is technically incorrect because he says, “This date is documented on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III” (2001, 63). The Black Obelisk does not offer the date that Jehu brought tribute to Shalmaneser; it simply identifies him as a tributary and, famously, depicts Jehu face down on his hands and knees before the Assyrian king. Two separate Assyrian records provide the year of this event, 841 B.C.; one is an annals fragment and the other is the Marble Slab Inscription (table 5, §4). The latter piece provides yet another cross-check, because it mentions that the Phoenician king Balazeros brought tribute in the same year. Balazeros’ years of reign can be calculated from records preserved by Josephus, and his rule also overlaps 841 B.C. (table 5, §4).

Shalmaneser III predates the kings listed in Ptolemy’s Canon, so how did archaeologists discover when he ruled in Assyria? His reign is listed in a set of manuscripts collectively called the Assyrian Eponym List which, as mentioned before, overlaps Ptolemy’s Canon (table 4), specifically from 747–648 B.C. As an astronomer, Ptolemy correlated his king list with astronomical events like lunar eclipses, and modern astronomers can calculate, according to our current dating system, when these events occurred. Further, they can also confirm that they align with each particular year to which they are assigned in a given king’s reign, along with the time spans between these celestial events.

When comparing the Assyrian Eponym List to Ptolemy’s Canon, Assyrian king Sargon II appears in both with a notation that he assumed the throne in Babylon in 709 B.C. Working backward through each year on the Assyrian list, the year 763 B.C. is assigned as the one in which a solar eclipse occurred, and modern astronomers can confirm it by their calculations (table 5, §5). So Shalmaneser III’s dates of reign, with 859 B.C. as his accession year, 853 B.C. as his sixth year, and 841 B.C. as his eighteenth, appear to be reliable, and this was the process traced by Thiele in setting his anchor dates (1951, 46–48).

Ahab’s Final Year—853n or 897 B.C.?

As just stated, dates from the Assyrian Eponym List appear to be reliable due to multiple copies of the list, the correlation of a specific year on the list to a known solar eclipse in 763 B.C., and the overlap of the list with Ptolemy’s Canon. This means the 853n date for Shalmaneser III’s sixth year, when he records a battle with Ahab, is sound. Additionally, it is possible to perform a cross-check on the dates of Ahab’s reign using the Phoenician records provided by Josephus. The Bible explains that Ahab married Jezebel, daughter of the Phoenician king Ethbaal (1 Kings 16:31). A correct chronology, then, would have an overlap between the reigns of Ethbaal and Ahab (table 5, §2). This works in the TMYC, but not in the UPC, which places Ahab’s death 18 years before Ethbaal came to the throne.

Pierce questioned whether Ahab would have had a force of the size described in Shalmaneser’s records, following the drought described in 1 Kings 17–18. However, in 1 Kings 20, God graciously gave Ahab victory in each of two Syrian invasions, so Israel could have gained chariots and other equipment at that time. Also, 1 Kings 22:1 indicates that there was a period of three years following these victories in which there was no war with Syria, so even more time was available to recover from any losses experienced in the earlier drought.

Ultimately, both of Thiele’s anchor dates, 841n for Jehu and 853n for Ahab, are confirmed by their connection to an even earlier anchor date discovered by Young in 2003. He found three different ways to confirm that the fourth year of Solomon, when he began to build the temple, was 968t2 (second half of the Tishri year, six months running from spring to fall in 967 B.C.). Since Young published after Pierce, this anchor date was not addressed in Pierce’s article, but it will be covered in the next section in order to further support the interconnectivity and soundness of the TMYC dates.

New Discovery: Solomon’s Fourth Year and the Start of the Temple—968t2/967n1 or 1012 B.C.?

One of the temple date confirmation methods examined by Young had already been published as early as 1953 (Liver). It used the Tyrian records preserved by Josephus in Against Apion (Whiston 1737, Bk 1, §17–18) to determine the dates of the reign of Hiram (table 6, left column). This date calculation had been published even earlier by a Belgian professor and priest named Valerius Coucke in 1925 and 1928, but not in English (Young 2010, 225, footnote 1). Thiele acknowledged some of the agreement between his chronology and Coucke’s, but did not describe the manner in which Coucke derived the same date for the start of the temple (Thiele 1944, 143). That was left to Young who—after fellow chronologist Andrew Steinmann obtained a copy of Coucke’s 1928 work—published both an English translation of Coucke’s calculations and an article examining it (Young 2010). Further, Young discovered Coucke had also cross-checked the temple date with older historical data prior to the time of Hiram and Solomon, moving forward in time to reach the same date for the temple from a different direction in history (table 6, right column).

The third method of confirming the temple date was published by Young in 2003. Part of what makes it such a remarkable discovery is that it uses Scripture extensively to show how two calendar systems employed within the Bible—counting years by sabbaticals and jubilees and marking time by kings’ reigns—tie together precisely and corroborate one another (table 7).

In one calendar system, sabbatical and jubilee years, Young located an anchor date from Nebuchadnezzar’s attack on Jerusalem in 598n2/598t1, which took place in March, 597 B.C. This date is set by Babylonian Chronicle V (Wiseman 1956, 67–73) which assigns the event to Nebuchadnezzar’s seventh year, in the twelfth month, on the second day, and can be converted by the Parker and Dubberstein date tables (1956, 1942) into the Nisan, Tishri, and B.C. year dating systems. At this time, both Jehoiachin king of Judah and the prophet Ezekiel were taken captive. Later, in Ezekiel 40:1, the prophet dates a vision to the twenty-fifth year of his exile and the start of a jubilee year. The twenty-fifth year of exile is calculated by the formula 598t - (25-1) = 574t. Rabbis compiling the Talmud realized that Ezekiel was also identifying the start of a jubilee year, stating, “Which is the year when the beginning of the year is on the tenth of the month? You must say that this is referring to the Jubilee, which begins on Yom Kippur, the tenth of Tishrei” (Talmud Arakhin 12a §7). God had commanded the Israelites to start counting years for sabbaticals and jubilees once they entered Canaan. It seems that a record had been kept, because there was also a tradition in the Talmud that this jubilee mentioned by Ezekiel was the seventeenth (Talmud Arakhin 12b §5). The ordinary years were counted by Nisan years, and a sabbatical or jubilee would start at the halfway point, in Tishri, of the seventh and forty-ninth years, respectively. Accordingly, the calculation for when the Hebrews entered Canaan is 574t + [(49 × 17)-1] = 1406t. The first year of the count began in the springtime month of Nisan (then called Abib/Aviv or “the first month”), which was the same month they crossed the Jordan River into Canaan (Joshua 4:19), so the people came into the land in 1406n, or 1406 B.C. in modern calendar terms.

In the other calendar system, kings’ reigns, Young worked backward from Thiele’s anchor dates for Ahab and Jehu to the start of the divided kingdom with Rehoboam’s reign in Judah and Jeroboam I’s reign in Israel. The start of Rehoboam’s reign coincides with the death of Solomon at the end of Solomon’s 40-year reign (1 Kings 11:42–43; 2 Chronicles 9:30–31). Young made a small correction to Thiele’s chronology, setting the start of Rehoboam’s reign in 932t, not 931t. Thiele had worked backward in time from anchor dates for Ahab and Jehu in Israel where Nisan years were used, and established that Jeroboam I began his reign in 931n. But Thiele did not explain what methodology he used to decide which overlapping Tishri year would apply to Rehoboam, 932t2/931n1 or 931t1/931n2. Young determined that it was 932t2/931n1, or 932t. From this point, Young could determine the fourth year of Solomon, when he started the temple according to 1 Kings 6:1, by the formula 932t + 40 - 4 = 968t. However, 1 Kings 6:1 points out that this was in the second month, which fell in 968t2/967n1, or 967 B.C. since the first half of a Nisan year (containing months 1–6) runs from spring to fall. Then 1 Kings 6:1 can be used to determine the date of the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt, because the temple was started in the four hundred and eightieth year counting from that event. The formula is 967n + (480-1) = 1446n. Because the Israelites had left Egypt in Nisan (Exodus 12:2, 13:4; where it is called Abib/Aviv or “the first month”), the date is 1446 B.C. in modern calendar terms.

All that remains to tie the two dates together, 1446 B.C. for the exodus from Egypt calculated from Solomon’s reign and the start of the temple, and 1406 B.C. for the entry to Canaan calculated from Ezekiel’s captivity and the jubilee year count, is the 40 years of wilderness wandering described in many passages of the Bible (table 7).

Sennacherib’s Invasion in Hezekiah’s Fourteenth Year—702t2/701n1 or 713 B.C.?

In his Evidentialism article, Pierce puts off the discussion of this date until the second part of his article, “Biblical considerations,” in the subsection “Third Biblical example.” This paper will follow the same order as Pierce in analyzing the date of the Assyrian king’s invasion of Judah.

Chronological Comparisons from Pierce’s Three Biblical Examples

As already stated, both the TMYC and the UPC are able to fit together the synchronizations between the kings of Israel and Judah. In the Evidentialism article, each of Pierce’s three biblical example sections cover points at which the UPC moves its dates further back in time than the TMYC, with the result that the UPC becomes increasingly disconnected from historical records that allow the relative dates in the Bible to be converted into absolute dates for biblical chronology.

Pierce’s First Biblical Example and the Azariah/Uzziah Coregency

Pierce does not accept a coregency of Azariah/Uzziah with his father Amaziah, with a net effect of adding 24 years to the combined reigns of the kings of Judah. This number of years also has to be added to Israel on the other side for balance, which is accomplished by giving Jeroboam II a sole reign of 41 years—rather than a combined 12 years of coregency plus 29 years of sole rule for a 41-year total in the TMYC—and adding a 12-year interregnum after Jeroboam II’s reign. The additional 12 years of reign for Jeroboam plus the 12-year interregnum increases Israel’s combined reigns by 24 years, keeping it even with Judah (table 8).

Pierce asserts that “By all rules of exegesis, one would conclude that Uzziah was made king after the death of his father when he was 16 years old” (2001, 65), and adds “if you came to the throne when you were 16 but had been a viceroy with your father for 24 years already, you were made viceroy 8 years before you were born” (2001, 65).

The TMYC does not make the same starting assumption. Instead, Azariah/Uzziah would have been 16 years old when he began his coregency, not his sole reign, and his young age actually suggests this. Thiele asked, “Just when was it that Azariah was a mere lad only sixteen years old—at the time when his father had completed his long reign of twenty-nine years, or at some earlier period in his father’s life?” (1951, 72). Further, Thiele pointed out the unique circumstances in Judah at that time, as described in 2 Kings 14:8–14 and 2 Chronicles 25:17–24, when Azariah’s/Uzziah’s father picked a fight with the king of Israel and was defeated and taken captive. Thiele surmises that this event forced the people of Judah to appoint Azariah/Uzziah king in his father’s place while his father was in captivity.

Pierce also espouses another assumption underlying the UPC calculations: “The longer chronology consistently measures time from when a king became viceroy. This procedure is in accord with the oldest Talmudic understanding of how this was done” (Pierce 2001, 67). But it is hardly fair for Pierce to project a UPC rule onto the TMYC, and then claim that Thiele and McFall said two things that in fact they had not: “According to Thiele, McFall and others the text is incorrect [neither chronologist ever said this]. They say that it should read in the 3rd year of Jeroboam not the 27th [neither chronologist said this either]” (Pierce 2001, 65).

The TMYC sets the start of Azariah’s/Uzziah’s coregency in 791t, and the start of Jeroboam II’s coregency in 793n. So, by Pierce’s standard, Azariah/Uzziah began to reign in the third year of Jeroboam (first = 793n, second = 792n, third = 791n). But for this particular synchronization, the TMYC places the start of Azariah’s/Uzziah’s sole reign in the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam counted from the start of Jeroboam’s coregency (table 8), and in so doing the TMYC calculations fit within the parameters of Scripture.

Assyrian records support the TMYC dates for this timeframe (table 5, §6b). Tiglath-pileser III claims Azariah/Uzziah was in revolt against him, and there is an overlap between the kings’ reigns in the TMYC, but not in the UPC.

Pierce’s Second Biblical Example, Pekah’s Rival Reign, and Hezekiah’s Coregency

Pierce goes on to address chronological calculations that stretch from Pekah’s reign in Israel to the fall of Samaria, Israel’s capital. The UPC states that Menahem, Pekahiah, and Pekah reigned sequentially in Israel. In contrast, the TMYC proposes a rival reign in which Pekah’s rule overlapped that of Menahem and Pekahiah, an idea that seems to have biblical support from Hosea 5:5 (Thiele 1983, 61, 63, 124, 130, 134, 136). The implications of Hosea 5:5 were pointed out earlier by H. J. Cook in 1964, although Young gives the clearest and most succinct explanation of the verse (Young 2018, 57):

The CSB translation is: “Israel’s arrogance testifies against them. Both Israel and Ephraim stumble because of their iniquity; even Judah will stumble with them.” In the Hebrew of this verse, “both . . . and” is expressed by the use of the waw conjunction before “Israel” and also before “Ephraim.” Waw by itself means “and,” but the double usage expresses “both . . . and.” . . . In all these instances the two items mentioned are necessarily separate entities, just as with “both . . . and” in English. . . . The grammar throughout the verse is consistent with the separateness of the two kingdoms. The verb “stumble” that applies to Ephraim and Israel is in the plural, and it is “their iniquity,” not “his iniquity.” . . . The situation is similar to the rivalry between Omri and Tibni 130 years earlier. For Pekah as well as for Omri, the synchronizations to Judah for the start of their reigns refer to their sole reign, whereas reign lengths for both are measured from the start of their rival kingdoms.

Within the time frame that concerns the final years of the kingdom of Israel, there is also an important distinction in the treatment of the synchronization found in 2 Kings 17:1, where Ahaz’s reign in Judah is connected to the reign of Hoshea, the last king in Israel before the fall of Samaria to the Assyrians. Hebrew verb tenses are not always as clear as those in English, and they depend on context for translation. Accordingly, this could allow an alternate reading for 2 Kings 17:1, such as Edmund Parker’s (1968, 130; italics are Parker’s): “In the twelfth year of Ahaz, king of Judah, Hoshea, the son of Elah, had reigned in Samaria over Israel nine years” or Leslie McFall’s (1991, 30; [brackets] are McFall’s): “In the 12th [accession] year from the coregency of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah had reigned nine [accession] years in Samaria over Israel.” This would mean that the end of Hoshea’s reign and the fall of Samaria is synchronized to two kings in Judah, to the twelfth year of Ahaz (2 Kings 17:1) and the sixth year of his son, Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:10). This also indicates that Hezekiah was in a coregency with his father at that time.

Because the UPC does not recognize a 12-year rivalry in Pekah’s reign, the time span for reigns in Israel is increased by that amount. On Judah’s side, Jotham and Ahaz are each credited with 16 years of sole reign in the UPC, rather than eight years each under the TMYC. Also, because the UPC takes the traditional interpretation of 2 Kings 17:1, Hezekiah is credited with six sole reign years until the fall of Samaria in the UPC, while the TMYC counts these years as part of a coregency. This means that on Judah’s side, the UPC time span is expanded by 8 + 8 + 6 = 22 years. Then, to bring Israel into balance, the UPC adds a nine-year interregnum and a one-year increase in Hoshea’s reign to the extra 12 years of kings’ reigns in Israel, so that 12 + 9 + 1 = 22 years. In a strange twist, these calculations make Ahaz only 10 or 11 years old when Hezekiah was conceived (table 9).

Once again, Assyrian records support the TMYC but not the UPC. Tiglath-pileser III claimed to receive tribute from Menahem, an event also recorded in 2 Kings 15:19, where the Assyrian king is called Pul. Both names, Tiglath-pileser and Pul, are identified with the king, as shown by 2 Chronicles 5:26 (table 5, §6a), a tie between Babylonian Chronicle I and Ptolemy’s Canon for his Babylonian reign (table 4), and the Incirli Stela (table 5, §6a). Menahem’s reign overlaps Tiglath-pileser’s in the TMYC, but not in the UPC (table 5, §6b).

Further, both Tiglath-pileser’s records and the accounts of 2 Kings 16:5–9, 15:30 set the timing for the Assyrian king’s activities in both Syria and Israel. In 2 Kings 16:5–9, Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Syria attacked Ahaz of Judah. Ahaz appeals to Tiglath-pileser for help, and the Assyrian responds by killing Rezin. The Assyrian Eponym List indicates Tiglath-pileser had military incursions in Syria in 733 and 732 B.C., which would likely place Rezin’s death in 732 B.C. (table 5, §6b). Also, in an undated record, Tiglath-pileser says “Pakaha [Pekah], their king they deposed and I placed Ausi’ (Hoshea) over them as king” (Luckenbill 1926, §816). This is remarkably similar to 1 Kings 15:30, which says “Then Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah and struck him down and put him to death and reigned in his place, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.” Both records indicate that Hoshea killed Pekah and took the throne in Israel all at once, with no interregnum in between (table 5, §6b). Further, the TMYC places Pekah’s death in 732 B.C. (732n2, likely still within 732 B.C.), the same year that Rezin of Syria was killed. The UPC, in contrast, has Pekah’s death in 740 B.C., then a nine-year interregnum followed by Hoshea’s accession in 731 B.C. As stated before, the nine year interregnum in the UPC is required to keep the synchronizations between Israel and Judah in balance (table 9). It is also the result of a disconnect caused in the methods used by the UPC to calculate two different dates for the start of Hoshea’s reign in Israel, one based on the twentieth year of Jotham of Judah, and the other on the traditional interpretation of the synchronization to the twelfth year of Ahaz of Judah (table 9).

As to the objection that Pekah could not be a rival to Pekahiah while also serving as Pekahiah’s captain (2 Kings 15:25), Young provides a reasonable and concise explanation (2018, 56–57):

The same choice faced the tribes of Israel in the north: whether to appease the Assyrians or to join a coalition against them. Menahem chose appeasement (2 Kgs 15:19–20). . . . Pekah, however, elected to resist the Assyrians. This is shown by his alliance with Syria in an anti-Assyrian coalition (2 Kgs 16:5; Is 7:1), and although these verses refer to a time after Pekah became sole ruler, they surely reflect an alliance that had formed earlier. During the period of rivalry, Pekah probably had his headquarters or much of his support in Gilead (2 Kgs 15:25), while Menahem ruled in Samaria. . . . An objection to Pekah’s having a reign rivaling that of Menahem and Pekahiah is based on 2 Kings 15:25, where Pekah is said to have been serving as “chief officer” when he slew Pekahiah. . . . The political situation at the time, however, with the increasing threat from Assyria, explains why erstwhile enemies would put aside their differences when both are threatened by a more powerful foe. In the power-sharing détente, Pekah was given the position of shalish, a term that usually refers to a commander in the army. This was a fatal mistake for the dynasty of Menahem.

Pierce’s Third Biblical Example from the Fall of Samaria to Hezekiah’s Reign

In this subsection, Pierce begins with three synchronizations that Thiele did not fully resolve because he did not recognize a coregency between Ahaz and Hezekiah in Judah, in spite of the suggestion of Siegfried Horn in 1964. This coregency was a key adjustment added to the TMYC by McFall in 1991. Some of the effects on synchronizations were covered in the previous section and table 9, but the implications for dating the fall of Samaria will be examined here. Under the first biblical example, Pierce claimed that Samaria fell in 721 B.C., but in this subsection, he points out that Thiele dated the event to 723 B.C. instead. So how does the TMYC reach that date?

Thiele’s methodology is based on the combined evidence of Babylonian Chronicle I, the Assyrian Eponym List, Ptolemy’s Canon, and Scripture. Babylonian Chronicle I states that in 723 B.C., Shalmaneser V “destroyed Sabara’in” (Pinches 1887, 673) or, according to another translator, “ravaged Samaria” (Grayson 2000, 73). This aligns with the broken and fragmented text of the Assyrian Eponym List entries for 725–723 B.C., which state that Shalmaneser was against a place whose name is too badly damaged to be read, but which Thiele (1944, 173), Olmstead (1905, 181–182), and Luckenbill (1927, §1198, 437) all reconstruct as Samaria, because of its agreement with Babylonian Chronicle I and 2 Kings 17:3–6, 18:9–11:

Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria. . . . the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it. . . . In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it, and at the end of three years he took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.

Additionally, the date of 723 B.C. for the fall of Samaria also has the support of Ptolemy’s Canon, where Shalmaneser V is listed as Ululai, whose reign extended from 726–722 B.C. (Thiele 1951, 77, 293; table 4). He was still king of Assyria at the TMYC date of 723 B.C., but not during the UPC date of 721 B.C.

The TMYC synchronizes the fall of Samaria to the sixth year of Hezekiah’s coregency in Judah and the ninth year of Hoshea’s reign in Israel to narrow the date to the six-month overlap between the Tishri and Nisan years, 724t2/723n1 (six-month period running from spring to fall in 723 B.C.). The UPC, however, synchronizes the city’s demise to the seventh year of Hezekiah’s reign and the tenth year of Hoshea’s, 721 B.C. (Pierce 2001, Addendum 5–6, 16; table 9). Only the TMYC date has the support of Assyrian, Babylonian, and Ptolemaic records.

Pierce then proceeds to discuss events associated with Hezekiah’s reign after the fall of Samaria and misdates the deaths of two foreign kings, Babylonian king Merodach-baladan (also called Marduk-appal-iddin) and Assyrian king Sennacherib. He claims Merodach-baladan died in 710 B.C. and Sennacherib right after abandoning his attack on Judah to return to Assyria (Pierce 2001, 66). Pierce’s Addendum ladder diagram and associated descriptions for Sennacherib’s activities (2001, 16–17) places an initial invasion of Judah in 714 B.C., followed by a three-year war in Egypt after which Sennacherib returned to Judah in 711 B.C., only to return to Assyria and be killed 55 days later within the same year. Because Pierce places Sennacherib’s death in 711 B.C., and Merodach-baladan’s shortly after in 710 B.C., he claims it was not possible for Sennacherib to invade Judah in 701 B.C. or for Merodach-baladan to send envoys to Hezekiah afterward.

Sennacherib’s 701 B.C. attack on Jerusalem is mentioned several times by the Assyrian king in the records that contain an account of his third campaign. The most famous of these is Sennacherib’s Prism, of which three surviving copies currently exist: the Taylor Prism, the Oriental Institute Prism (Luckenbill 1927, §232), and the Jerusalem Prism. In it, the king boasts, “As for Hezekiah, the Jew, who did not submit to my yoke . . . Himself, like a caged bird, I shut up in Jerusalem, his royal city” (Luckenbill 1927, §240). Dating the third campaign to 701 B.C. is accomplished by comparing Sennacherib’s earlier accounts. His Bellino Cylinder (Luckenbill 1927, §268), dated to the eponym year of 702 B.C., lists only the first and second campaigns, while his Rassam Cylinder (Luckenbill 1927, §283), dated to the eponym of 700 B.C., adds the account of the third campaign. Therefore, Sennacherib’s third campaign must have taken place between the writing of the two inscriptions, in 701 B.C.

On the biblical side, this invasion took place in Hezekiah’s fourteenth year (2 Kings 18:13; Isaiah 36:1). In the TMYC, the calculation is 716t sole - 14 = 702t, with the overlap in the second half of the Tishri year, in 702t2/701n1, which runs six months from spring to fall in 701 B.C. This lines up precisely with Sennacherib’s records.

In the UPC, the dates for Sennacherib’s initial invasion in Hezekiah’s fourteenth year, 714 B.C., and for Sennacherib’s death, 711 B.C., both run into trouble with historical evidence. The combined testimony of Ptolemy’s Canon and Babylonian Chronicle I indicate that Sennacherib ascended to the Assyrian throne in 705 B.C. (table 4). Taken together, both historical sources describe the political intrigue and power struggles that took place between Assyria and Babylonia during Sennacherib’s reign, and this matches the dates and descriptions of events that Sennacherib recorded in his own accounts. In fact, he was commissioning inscriptions of his military exploits as late as 689 B.C., the eponym year assigned to the Oriental Institute Prism. The eponym year comes from the Assyrian Eponym List, so now three sources of historical information agree between themselves and align with the TMYC, but not with the UPC. The accession of Sennacherib’s son Esarhaddon in 681 B.C., listed by both Ptolemy’s Canon and Babylonian Chronicle I, marks the end of Sennacherib’s rule. The totality of evidence makes it hard to see how Sennacherib could have invaded Judah in 714 B.C. and died in 711 B.C. if the combined testimony of Assyrian, Babylonian, and Ptolemaic records say he ruled from 705 B.C. to 681 B.C., a time span that comes after the UPC dates (tables 4; 5, §10).

These records also refute Pierce’s claim that Merodach-baladan died in 710 B.C., when his first reign in Babylon came to an end. Apparently he regained the throne in Babylon for about nine months during 703n, in a time frame crossing from 703 B.C. into 702 B.C. (Brinkman 1964, 24). In his first Babylonian reign, Sargon II had chased him out of the city; in his second, Sargon’s son Sennacherib was the Assyrian king to drive him out. This second reign was too brief to be recognized in Ptolemy’s Canon, but Sennacherib’s records of his first campaign (Smith 1921, 56–71) and Babylonian Chronicle I both describe the event. In Sennacherib’s fourth campaign records, he mentions pursuing Merodach-baladan once again in 700 B.C., immediately before he (Sennacherib) set his son on the throne in Babylon (Luckenbill 1927, §242–243; table 4). Confirmation of the 700 B.C. date comes from two texts from Ur, dated to the twenty-second year of Merodach-baladan, where 722 B.C. accession - 22 = 700 B.C. (Brinkman 1964, 16). Clearly the former king of Babylon did not die at the end of his first reign (table 5, §9a).

Since Merodach-baladan sent envoys to Hezekiah of Judah after Hezekiah had recovered from a serious illness (2 Kings 20:12; Isaiah 39:1), the date of this event needs to overlap with the time span during which Merodach-baladan was still living. God promised to add 15 years to Hezekiah’s life after his illness (2 Kings 20:1–7; Isaiah 38:1–6), and the date this promise was given is calculated in the TMYC as 687t (Hezekiah’s death) + 15 = 702t. The 702t date is the same for both Sennacherib’s invasion and Hezekiah’s illness and recovery because Hezekiah had a twenty-nine year sole reign (2 Kings 18:1–2; 2 Chronicles 29:1), and when a king in his fourteenth year is promised 15 more years, that will sum to 29 years. Also, God promised Hezekiah an additional 15 years at the same time he promised that the city of Jerusalem would be delivered (2 Kings 20:6; Isaiah 38:5–6). As stated earlier, the TMYC calculation for the invasion dates it in 702t2/701n1, which runs six months from spring to fall in 701 B.C. This means that Hezekiah’s illness and recovery took place in 701 B.C., and Merodach-baladan was still living at the time when he sent envoys, since Sennacherib was still in pursuit of the exiled king as late as 700 B.C.

Conclusion

While both the UPC and the TMYC have calculated dates for the divided kingdom period such that synchronizations between Israel and Judah work together, only the TMYC can also claim agreement with historical records from surrounding ancient Near East nations like Assyria and Babylonia. Further, the TMYC offers an internal biblical cross-check on its dates, since the date of Ezekiel’s jubilee sets the date of the entry to Canaan in 1406 B.C., while the date of Solomon’s start on the temple places the exodus from Egypt in 1446 B.C., with the two dates linked together by 40 years of wilderness wandering in between. The TMYC temple date is also confirmed by two sets of historical records, those that span the time from the founding of Rome backward to the start of the temple, and those that span the time from the fall of Troy forward to the temple. Accordingly, the TMYC is likely the more accurate of the two biblical chronologies. This makes sense because, as Thiele observed, the biblical account will agree with whatever is sound in the historical records of surrounding nations, since these sources wrote about real events unfolding in history just as Jewish writers did.

God’s Word is marvelous in its accuracy, truthfulness, and relevance. What an encouragement it is to know that people can rely on the Bible, especially because “the sacred writings . . . are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15), knowing that the Author of the Bible is also the Creator who “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God” (Acts 17:26–27).

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