Year: 1992
Type: article
Abstract: Chronological schemes for the Divided Monarchy period of Israelite history can be classified into two incompatible approaches.On the one hand are those interpreters who regard the synchronisms and lengths of reign recorded in the books of Kings and Chronicles as conveying genuine historical data.For this group, the MT text ranges from total accuracy (or virtually so) to widespread corruption of the numbers given.On the other hand are those interpreters who display an attitude of irreconcilability of the numerical data, exploring instead the possibility that these data in Kings and Chronicles conceal some numerico-theological meaning.'In 1944 Edwin R. Thiele published a breakthrough study with regard to the chronology of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel?In this he provided a consistent and rational chronology revealing the basic accuracy of the royal lengths of reign and synchronisms given in Kings and Chronicles.In fact, since the publication of an expanded version of Thiele's findings in 1951 in the first edition of 'See K. Stenring, The Enclosed Garden (Stockholm: Almqvist & W i k s e l l , 1966), and G. Larsson, The Secret System: A Study in the Chronology of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1973); idem, "Is Biblical Chronology Systematic or Not?" RQ 24 (1969): 499-517; idem, "The Documentary Hypothesis and the Chronological Structure of the Old Testament," ZAW 97 (1985): 316333.These have been followed by F. H. Cryer, "To the One of Fictive Music: OT Chronology and History," Scandinmian Journal of the Old Testament 2 (1987): 1-27, a particularly disappointing work inasmuch as most of Cryer's "problem texts" have been dealt with in an exemplary manner by many reputable scholars.2Edwin R. Thiele, "The Chronology of the Kings of Judah and Israel," JNES 3 (1944): 137-186.'J.H. Hayes and P. K. Hooker, A New Chronology for the Kings of Israel and Judah (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1988).%ee J. M. Miller, "Another Look at the Chronology of the Early Divided Monarchy," JBL 86 (1967): 276-288, for older works advocating unavoidable textual emendations.Miller, 286, states that he cannot avoid textual emendations to the MT if harmony is to be achieved.'jHayes and Hooker, 11.D. J. A. Clines, 'The Evidence for an Autumnal New Year in Pre-exilic Israel Reconsidered," ]BL 93 (1974): 22-40, for a discussion of the issue.Cf.E. Greswell, Dissertations upon the Principles and Arrangement ofa Harmony of the Gospels, 3 vols.(Oxford, 1837), vol.3, Appendix Dissertation XII, "On the Chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and of Israel," 484, for the evidence concerning the common assumption that Nisan was the regnal month for both Israel and Judah.See also Thiele, Mysterious Numbers, 3d ed., 52, n. 11.
Author: Leslie McFall
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2586850852