The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings
Encyclopedia
Edwin R. Thiele
's The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (1951) is a reconstruction of the chronology of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah
. The book was originally his doctoral dissertation and is widely regarded as the definitive work on the chronology of Hebrew kings. The book is considered the classic and comprehensive work in reckoning the accession of kings, calendars, and co-regencies, based on biblical and extra-biblical sources.
or the northern Kingdom of Israel, and fitting them into the chronology of other ancient civilizations.
However, some of the biblical cross references did not seem to match, so that a reign which is said to have lasted for 20 years results in a cross reference that would give a result of either 19 or 21 years. Thiele noticed that the cross references given during the long reign of King Asa of Judah
had a cumulative error of 1 year for each succeeding reign of the kings of Israel: the first cross-reference resulted in an error of 1 year, the second gave an error of 2 years, the third of 3 years and so on. He explained this pattern as a result of two different methods of reckoning regnal years: the accession year method in one and the non-accession year method in the other. Under the accession year method, if a king died in the middle of a year, the period to the end of that year would be called the "accession year" and Year 1 of the new king's reign would begin at the new year. Under the non-accession year method the period to the end of the year would be Year 1 of the new king and Year 2 would begin at the start of the new year. Israel appears to have used the non-accession method, while Judah used the accession method until Athaliah
seized power in Judah, when Israel's non-accession method appears to have been adopted in Judah.
In addition, Thiele also concluded that Israel counted years using the ecclesiastical new year starting in the spring month of Nisan
, while Judah counted years using the civil year starting in the autumn month of Tishrei
. The cumulative impact of differing new years and different methods of calculating reigns explained, to Thiele, most of the apparent inconsistencies in the cross references.
Unknown to Thiele when he first published his findings, these same conclusions that the northern kingdom used non-accession years and a spring New Year while the southern kingdom used accession years and a fall New Year had been discovered by Valerius Coucke
of Belgium some years previously, a fact which Thiele acknowledges in his Mysterious Numbers.
and Jehu
were really 12 years. This enabled him to date their reigns precisely, for Ahab
is mentioned in the Kurk Stele
which records the Assyrian advance into Syria/Palestine at the Battle of Qarqar
in 853 BC, and Jehu is mentioned on the Black Obelisk
of Shalmaneser III
paying tribute in 841 BC. As these two events are dated by Assyrian chronology as being 12 years apart, Ahab must have fought the Assyrians in his last year and Jehu paid tribute in his first year.
Thiele was able to reconcile the Biblical chronological data from the books of Kings and Chronicles with the exception of synchronisms between Hoshea
of Israel and Hezekiah
of Judah towards the end of the kingdom of Israel and reluctantly concluded that at that point the ancient authors had made a mistake. Oddly, it is at that precise point that he himself makes a mistake, by failing to realize that Hezekiah had a coregency with his father Ahaz, which explains the Hoshea/Hezekiah synchronisms. This correction has been supplied by subsequent writers who built on Thiele’s work, including Thiele’s colleague Siegfried Horn
, TC Mitchell and Kenneth Kitchen
, and Leslie McFall.
Thiele's method in arriving at his chronology has been contrasted with the analytical method employed by Julius Wellhausen
and other scholars who follow some form of the documentary hypothesis
. Wellhausen taught that the chronological data of the books of Kings and Chronicles were artificially put together at a date much later than the events they were ostensibly describing and were basically not historical. This was a necessary consequence of his a priori assumption that the Scriptures as we have them today were not given by inspiration in any meaningful sense, but are basically the work of late-date editors who could not possibly have known the correct history of the times they were writing about. Theodore Robinson summarized this position as follows: "Wellhausen is surely right in believing that the synchronisms in Kings are worthless, being merely a late compilation from the actual figures given."
Wellhausen's methodology in interpreting the Scriptures and the history of Israel has therefore been classed by RK Harrison as a deductive approach; that is, one that starts with presuppositions and derives a historical reconstruction from those presuppositions. A necessary consequence of this approach has been that no general agreement has been reached on the chronology of the Hebrew kingdom period as calculated by authors who adopted this method. "The disadvantage of the deductive approach is that nothing is settled for certain; the results obtained are as diverse as the presupposition
s of the scholars, since diverse presuppositions produce diverse results." In contrast, Thiele's method of determining the chronology of the Hebrew kings was based on induction, that is, making it a matter of first priority to determine the actual methods used by ancient scribes and court recorders in recording the years of kings, as described above. Thiele's inductive method, then, was based on inscriptional evidence from the ancient Near East, and not on the presuppositions followed by liberal scholarship. It is Thiele's method that has produced the determinative studies for the chronology of the kingdom period, not the presupposition-based method, so that even those interpreters who continue in late-date theories for the authorship of Scripture have recognized the credibility of Thiele's scholarship in determining the date for the division of the kingdom after the death of Solomon, as cited above. The work of Thiele and other textual scholars who have followed an inductive (evidence-based) approach is therefore significant in providing an alternative to the methods of the documentary hypothesis, and the success of that approach has been seen as theologically significant in supporting a high view of the inspiration of Scripture, particularly regarding its integrity in the abundant and complex historical data related to the kingdom period.
wrote “The chronology most widely accepted today is one based on the meticulous study by Thiele,” and, more recently, Leslie McFall: “Thiele’s chronology is fast becoming the consensus view among Old Testament scholars, if it has not already reached that point.” Although criticism has been leveled at numerous specific points in his chronology, his work has won considerable praise even from those who disagree with his final conclusions. Nevertheless, even scholars sharing Thiele's religious convictions have maintained that there are weaknesses in his argument such as unfounded assumptions and assumed circular reasoning.
This citation, from a critic of Thiele's system, demonstrates the difference mentioned above between the deductive or presuppositional approach and an inductive approach based on data, not a priori assumptions. Thiele is criticized here for basing his theories on data or evidence, not on presuppositions.
Despite these criticisms Thiele's methodological treatment remains the typical starting point of scholarly treatments of the subject, and his work is considered to have established the date of the division of the Israelite kingdom. This has found independent support in the work of J. Liver, Frank M. Cross
, and others studying the chronology of the kings of Tyre. Thiele's work has found widespread recognition and use across various related scholarly disciplines. His date of 931 BCE, in conjunction with the synchronism between Rehoboam and Pharaoh Shishak
in 1 Kings 14:25, is used by Egyptologists to give absolute dates to Egypt’s 22nd Dynasty
, and his work has also been used by scholars in other disciplines to establish Assyrian and Babylonian dates. Criticism of Thiele's reconstruction led to further research which has refined or even departed from his synthesis. Notable studies of this type include work by Tadmor and McFall.
Scholarly attitudes towards the Biblical record of the Israelite monarchies from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century were largely disparaging, treating the records as essentially fictional and dismissing the value of the regnal synchronisms. In contrast, modern scholarly attitudes to the monarchical chronology and synchronisms in 1 and 2 Kings has been far more positive subsequent to the work of Thiele and those who have developed his thesis further, a change in attitude to which recent archaeology has contributed.
Edwin R. Thiele
Edwin R. Thiele was an American missionary in China, an editor, archaeologist, writer, and Old Testament professor. He is best known for his chronological studies of the Hebrew kingdom period.- Biography :...
's The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (1951) is a reconstruction of the chronology of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah
History of ancient Israel and Judah
Israel and Judah were related Iron Age kingdoms of ancient Palestine. The earliest known reference to the name Israel in archaeological records is in the Merneptah stele, an Egyptian record of c. 1209 BCE. By the 9th century BCE the Kingdom of Israel had emerged as an important local power before...
. The book was originally his doctoral dissertation and is widely regarded as the definitive work on the chronology of Hebrew kings. The book is considered the classic and comprehensive work in reckoning the accession of kings, calendars, and co-regencies, based on biblical and extra-biblical sources.
Biblical chronology
The chronology of the kings of Israel and Judah rests primarily on a series of reign lengths and cross references within the books of Kings and Chronicles, in which the accession of each king is dated in terms of the reign of his contemporary in either the southern Kingdom of JudahKingdom of Judah
The Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....
or the northern Kingdom of Israel, and fitting them into the chronology of other ancient civilizations.
However, some of the biblical cross references did not seem to match, so that a reign which is said to have lasted for 20 years results in a cross reference that would give a result of either 19 or 21 years. Thiele noticed that the cross references given during the long reign of King Asa of Judah
Asa of Judah
Asa was the third king of the Kingdom of Judah and the fifth king of the House of David. He was the son of Abijam, grandson of Rehoboam, and great-grandson of Solomon. The Hebrew Bible gives the period of his reign as 41 years. His reign is dated between 913-910 BCE to 873-869 BCE. He was...
had a cumulative error of 1 year for each succeeding reign of the kings of Israel: the first cross-reference resulted in an error of 1 year, the second gave an error of 2 years, the third of 3 years and so on. He explained this pattern as a result of two different methods of reckoning regnal years: the accession year method in one and the non-accession year method in the other. Under the accession year method, if a king died in the middle of a year, the period to the end of that year would be called the "accession year" and Year 1 of the new king's reign would begin at the new year. Under the non-accession year method the period to the end of the year would be Year 1 of the new king and Year 2 would begin at the start of the new year. Israel appears to have used the non-accession method, while Judah used the accession method until Athaliah
Athaliah
Athaliah was the queen of Judah during the reign of King Jehoram, and later became sole ruler of Judah for six years. William F. Albright has dated her reign to 842–837 BC, while Edwin R. Thiele's dates, as taken from the third edition of his magnum opus, were 842/841 to 836/835 BC...
seized power in Judah, when Israel's non-accession method appears to have been adopted in Judah.
In addition, Thiele also concluded that Israel counted years using the ecclesiastical new year starting in the spring month of Nisan
Nisan
Nisan is the first month of the ecclesiastical year and the seventh month of the civil year, on the Hebrew calendar. The name of the month is Babylonian; in the Torah it is called the month of the Aviv, referring to the month in which barley was ripe. It is a spring month of 30 days...
, while Judah counted years using the civil year starting in the autumn month of Tishrei
Tishrei
Tishrei or Tishri , Tiberian: ; from Akkadian "Beginning", from "To begin") is the first month of the civil year and the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year in the Hebrew calendar. The name of the month is Babylonian. It is an autumn month of 30 days...
. The cumulative impact of differing new years and different methods of calculating reigns explained, to Thiele, most of the apparent inconsistencies in the cross references.
Unknown to Thiele when he first published his findings, these same conclusions that the northern kingdom used non-accession years and a spring New Year while the southern kingdom used accession years and a fall New Year had been discovered by Valerius Coucke
Valerius Coucke
Valerius Josephus Coucke, 1888–1951, was a Belgian scholar and priest who was professor at the Grootseminarie Brugge in the 1920s. His importance to modern scholarship comes from his writings in the field of Old Testament chronology...
of Belgium some years previously, a fact which Thiele acknowledges in his Mysterious Numbers.
Conclusions
Based on his conclusions, Thiele showed that the 14 years between AhabAhab
Ahab or Ach'av or Achab in Douay-Rheims was king of Israel and the son and successor of Omri according to the Hebrew Bible. His wife was Jezebel....
and Jehu
Jehu
Jehu was a king of Israel. He was the son of Jehoshaphat, and grandson of Nimshi.William F. Albright has dated his reign to 842-815 BC, while E. R. Thiele offers the dates 841-814 BC...
were really 12 years. This enabled him to date their reigns precisely, for Ahab
Ahab
Ahab or Ach'av or Achab in Douay-Rheims was king of Israel and the son and successor of Omri according to the Hebrew Bible. His wife was Jezebel....
is mentioned in the Kurk Stele
Kurkh Monolith
The Kurkh Monolith is an Assyrian document that contains a description of the Battle of Qarqar at the end. Today it stands in the British Museum but it was originally found at the Kurdish village of Kurkh , near the town of Bismil in the province of Diyarbakır, Turkey...
which records the Assyrian advance into Syria/Palestine at the Battle of Qarqar
Battle of Qarqar
The Battle of Qarqar was fought in 853 BC when the army of Assyria led by king Shalmaneser III encountered an allied army of 12 kings at Qarqar led by Hadadezer of Damascus and King Ahab of Israel...
in 853 BC, and Jehu is mentioned on the Black Obelisk
Black Obelisk
The "Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III" is a black limestone Neo-Assyrian bas-relief sculpture from Nimrud , in northern Iraq, commemorating the deeds of King Shalmaneser III . It is the most complete Assyrian obelisk yet discovered, and is historically significant because it displays the earliest...
of Shalmaneser III
Shalmaneser III
Shalmaneser III was king of Assyria , and son of the previous ruler, Ashurnasirpal II....
paying tribute in 841 BC. As these two events are dated by Assyrian chronology as being 12 years apart, Ahab must have fought the Assyrians in his last year and Jehu paid tribute in his first year.
Thiele was able to reconcile the Biblical chronological data from the books of Kings and Chronicles with the exception of synchronisms between Hoshea
Hoshea
See also Hosea, who has the same name in Biblical Hebrew.Hoshea was the last king of the Israelite Kingdom of Israel and son of Elah . William F. Albright dated reign to 732 – 721 BC, while E. R. Thiele offered the dates 732 – 723 BC.Assyrian records basically confirm the Biblical...
of Israel and Hezekiah
Hezekiah
Hezekiah was the son of Ahaz and the 14th king of Judah. Edwin Thiele has concluded that his reign was between c. 715 and 686 BC. He is also one of the most prominent kings of Judah mentioned in the Hebrew Bible....
of Judah towards the end of the kingdom of Israel and reluctantly concluded that at that point the ancient authors had made a mistake. Oddly, it is at that precise point that he himself makes a mistake, by failing to realize that Hezekiah had a coregency with his father Ahaz, which explains the Hoshea/Hezekiah synchronisms. This correction has been supplied by subsequent writers who built on Thiele’s work, including Thiele’s colleague Siegfried Horn
Siegfried Horn
Siegfried Herbert Horn was a Seventh-day Adventist archaeologist and Bible scholar. He is perhaps best known for his numerous books and articles and for his excavations at Tell Hesban in Jordan. He was Professor of History of Antiquity at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary in Berrien...
, TC Mitchell and Kenneth Kitchen
Kenneth Kitchen
Kenneth Anderson Kitchen is Personal and Brunner Professor Emeritus of Egyptology and Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, England...
, and Leslie McFall.
Thiele's method in arriving at his chronology has been contrasted with the analytical method employed by Julius Wellhausen
Julius Wellhausen
Julius Wellhausen , was a German biblical scholar and orientalist, noted particularly for his contribution to scholarly understanding of the origin of the Pentateuch/Torah ....
and other scholars who follow some form of the documentary hypothesis
Documentary hypothesis
The documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
. Wellhausen taught that the chronological data of the books of Kings and Chronicles were artificially put together at a date much later than the events they were ostensibly describing and were basically not historical. This was a necessary consequence of his a priori assumption that the Scriptures as we have them today were not given by inspiration in any meaningful sense, but are basically the work of late-date editors who could not possibly have known the correct history of the times they were writing about. Theodore Robinson summarized this position as follows: "Wellhausen is surely right in believing that the synchronisms in Kings are worthless, being merely a late compilation from the actual figures given."
Wellhausen's methodology in interpreting the Scriptures and the history of Israel has therefore been classed by RK Harrison as a deductive approach; that is, one that starts with presuppositions and derives a historical reconstruction from those presuppositions. A necessary consequence of this approach has been that no general agreement has been reached on the chronology of the Hebrew kingdom period as calculated by authors who adopted this method. "The disadvantage of the deductive approach is that nothing is settled for certain; the results obtained are as diverse as the presupposition
Presupposition (philosophy)
In epistemology, presuppositions relate to a belief system, or Weltanschauung, and are required for it to make sense. A variety of Christian apologetics, called presuppositional apologetics, argues that the existence or non-existence of God is the basic presupposition of all human thought, and...
s of the scholars, since diverse presuppositions produce diverse results." In contrast, Thiele's method of determining the chronology of the Hebrew kings was based on induction, that is, making it a matter of first priority to determine the actual methods used by ancient scribes and court recorders in recording the years of kings, as described above. Thiele's inductive method, then, was based on inscriptional evidence from the ancient Near East, and not on the presuppositions followed by liberal scholarship. It is Thiele's method that has produced the determinative studies for the chronology of the kingdom period, not the presupposition-based method, so that even those interpreters who continue in late-date theories for the authorship of Scripture have recognized the credibility of Thiele's scholarship in determining the date for the division of the kingdom after the death of Solomon, as cited above. The work of Thiele and other textual scholars who have followed an inductive (evidence-based) approach is therefore significant in providing an alternative to the methods of the documentary hypothesis, and the success of that approach has been seen as theologically significant in supporting a high view of the inspiration of Scripture, particularly regarding its integrity in the abundant and complex historical data related to the kingdom period.
If the chronological data of the MT [ Masoretic textMasoretic TextThe Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible and is regarded as Judaism's official version of the Tanakh. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and...
] were not authentic—the actual dates and synchronisms for these various kings—then neither Thiele nor McFall nor anyone else could have constructed a chronology from them that in every case is faithful to the original texts and in every proven instance is consistent with Assyrian and Babylonian chronology. This mathematical demonstration should sit in judgment over the various theories of text formation: If a theory of text formation cannot explain how the chronological data of the MT has produced a chronology that in every respect seems authentic for the four centuries of the monarchic period, then that theory must be rejected as another example of a presupposition-based approach that cannot meet the rational criteria for credibility.
Reception
Thiele's chronological reconstruction has not been accepted by all of the scholarly consensus, but it should be pointed out that neither has any other scholar’s work in this field. Yet the work of Thiele and those who followed in his steps has achieved acceptance across a wider spectrum than that that of any comparable chronology, so that Assyriologist DJ WisemanDonald Wiseman
Donald John Wiseman OBE, FBA was a Biblical scholar, archaeologist and Assyriologist. He was Professor of Assyriology at the University of London from 1961 to 1982.-Early life and beliefs:...
wrote “The chronology most widely accepted today is one based on the meticulous study by Thiele,” and, more recently, Leslie McFall: “Thiele’s chronology is fast becoming the consensus view among Old Testament scholars, if it has not already reached that point.” Although criticism has been leveled at numerous specific points in his chronology, his work has won considerable praise even from those who disagree with his final conclusions. Nevertheless, even scholars sharing Thiele's religious convictions have maintained that there are weaknesses in his argument such as unfounded assumptions and assumed circular reasoning.
This citation, from a critic of Thiele's system, demonstrates the difference mentioned above between the deductive or presuppositional approach and an inductive approach based on data, not a priori assumptions. Thiele is criticized here for basing his theories on data or evidence, not on presuppositions.
Despite these criticisms Thiele's methodological treatment remains the typical starting point of scholarly treatments of the subject, and his work is considered to have established the date of the division of the Israelite kingdom. This has found independent support in the work of J. Liver, Frank M. Cross
Frank Moore Cross
Frank Moore Cross, Jr. is Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages Emeritus at Harvard University, notable for his work in the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, his 1973 magnum opus Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, and his work in Northwest Semitic epigraphy...
, and others studying the chronology of the kings of Tyre. Thiele's work has found widespread recognition and use across various related scholarly disciplines. His date of 931 BCE, in conjunction with the synchronism between Rehoboam and Pharaoh Shishak
Shoshenq I
Hedjkheperre Setepenre Shoshenq I , , also known as Sheshonk or Sheshonq I , was a Meshwesh Berber king of Egypt—of Libyan ancestry—and the founder of the Twenty-second Dynasty...
in 1 Kings 14:25, is used by Egyptologists to give absolute dates to Egypt’s 22nd Dynasty
Twenty-second dynasty of Egypt
The Twenty-First, Twenty-Second, Twenty-Third, Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, Third Intermediate Period.-Rulers:...
, and his work has also been used by scholars in other disciplines to establish Assyrian and Babylonian dates. Criticism of Thiele's reconstruction led to further research which has refined or even departed from his synthesis. Notable studies of this type include work by Tadmor and McFall.
Scholarly attitudes towards the Biblical record of the Israelite monarchies from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century were largely disparaging, treating the records as essentially fictional and dismissing the value of the regnal synchronisms. In contrast, modern scholarly attitudes to the monarchical chronology and synchronisms in 1 and 2 Kings has been far more positive subsequent to the work of Thiele and those who have developed his thesis further, a change in attitude to which recent archaeology has contributed.