Biblical numbers and the chronology of the Bible

[Daphne]

Hi Guys,
I've only just noticed this thread. I certainly did not intend to use a flame thrower on Phil. It is not possible to convey tone in print! I was referring to the kings of the divided kingdom. If you add the three kings of the united monarchy then there are 23. The 20 kings of each house are listed in Thiele, appendix B. The kingdom of Judah lasted 135 years longer than Samaria (Thiele's numbers) so it is surprising that each kingdom had 20 monarchs. More interesting is that Israel's list included Zimri who only held power for a week, Tibni who did not appear to rule over the whole of Samaria and Shallum who only ruled a month. Judah’s list includes the usurper Athaliah while conflating the two kings Jehoahaz and Ahaziah. I thought that the kings and their reigns had been manipulated to serve another purpose but the underlying reign lengths have been preserved. They are not the overt reigns so a straight count will not reveal them. Stenring in The Enclosed Garden, interpreted by Larsson, clarifies what the 3rd century BC redactors were trying to achieve. Unless you recognise how the numbers have been used I don’t think you can calculate historical dates from them. As for Baal Zephon, I try not to speculate. It is hard enough trying to make sense of biblical records.
Daphne

[Peter]

At the 2007 SIS Cambridge conference I showed, as a poster presentation titled Cosmic events from the Exodus to the 6th century AD, a major part of my catastrophe chronology. Much of my analysis came from the study of Biblical numbers and the chronology of the Bible and in this table I show both my planetary cycle chronology and the Biblical king lists. The basic assumption behind my chronology is that the planetary cycle timetable remained the same despite major catastrophes that saw the world inverted and its year length increased. This means that the Venus cycle of a few days less than 52 current years, that I have identified and tracked over many centuries, and the current Mars cycles of 15 and 17 years have had to be adjusted for the shorter pre-catastrophe year lengths.

For the period covered by this table I have assumed that during the 9th World Age, from late in the reign of King David until 674 BC, the year length was 360 days and that the Venus cycle was a little over 523/4 years. I calculate that the 9th World Age saw 5 cycles of 33 Venus synodic periods, that is cycles of 52 years and 10 months, and a single 32 synodic period cycle of 51 years and 2 months.

Year of appointment of Kings of Judah and Israel, with reign length as given in the Bible with the start of co-regency reigns shown in brackets.

For each year BC, kings/events are given, then cosmic events with the time since the last event, and the month in which it occurred:

938, Rehoboam in Judah 17, Jeroboam in Israel 22, M Event, 15y 2m, March
936, V Event, 52y 9 1/2m, April
924, M Event, 15y 2m, May
923, Abijam in Judah 3,
920, Asa in Judah 41,
919, Nadab in Israel 2,
918, Baasha in Israel 24,
909, M Event, 15y 2m, July
895, Elah in Israel 2, August
894, Zimri/Omri in Israel 12, M event, 15y 2m, Sept
883, Ahab in Israel 22, V Event, 52y 9 1/2m, Jan
880, Jehoshaphat in Judah 25,
879, M Event, 15y 2m , Nov
863, M Event, 15y 2m , Jan
861, Ahaziah in Israel 2 (863),
860, Joram in Judah 12,
856, Jehoram in Judah 8,
849, Ahaziah in Judah 1,
848, Athaliah in Judah 7, Jehu in Israel 28, M Event, 15y 2m, March
841, Joash in Israel 40,
833, M Event, 15y 2m, May
831, V Event, 52y 9 1/2m, Nov
819, Jehoahaz in Israel 17,
818, M Event, 15y 2m, July
803, Jehoash in Israel 16, M event, 15y 2m, Sept
802, Amaziah in Judah 29,
788, Jeroboam in Israel 41 (798), M Event, 15y 2m, Nov
779, V Event, 51y 2m, Jan
774, Uzziah in Judah 52 (795),
772, M Event, 15y 2m, Jan
758, Zacharia in Israel 1,
757, Shallum in Israel 0, M Event, 15y 2m, March
757, Menaham in Israel 10,
747, Pekahiah in Israel 2,
745, Pekah in Israel 20,
740, Jotham in Judah 16 (744) , M Event , 17y 4m, Aug
727, Hoshea in Israel 18, V Event, 52y 9 1/2m, Oct
725, Ahaz in Judah 16 (729) , M Event, 15y 2m, Oct
710, Hezekiah in Judah 29 , M Event, 15y 2m, Dec
704, Samaria Falls,
692, M Event, 17y 4m, March
684, Manasseh in Judah 55 (694),
677, M Event, 15y 2m, May
674, V&M Event, 52y 9 1/2m, Aug
659, M Event, 15y,
644, M Event , 15y,
640, Amon in Judah 2,
639, Josiah in Judah 31,
629, M Event, 15y,
623, V Event, 51y 2 1/4m, Halloween
614, M Event, 15y,
609, Jehoiakim in Judah 11,
598, Zedekiah in Judah 11 ,
597, M Event, 17y,
587, Sack of Jerusalem,
582, M Event, 15y,
570, Belshazzah 3, V Event, 52y 9m, July
567, Nabonidus 17, M Event, 15y,
552, Lydia Invasion, M Event, 15y,
537, M Event , 15y,
522, Darius , M Event, 15y,
517, Temple rebuilt, V Event, 52y 9m, April


• Jehoboam seized the throne of Israel late in one calendar year and Nadab succeeded after the New year 20 years later.
• Ahaziah appointed co-regent by his father ahead of the Mars approach in 863 BC and ruled jointly with him for 3 years.
• Joram’s 12 year reign could only have begun in the 2nd year of Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, if Jehoram’s own reign began in the 5th year of Joram. Therefore Jehoram was co-regent with his father for 4 years.
• Joram’s reign must have begun in the 21st year of Jehoshaphat not in the reported 18th year.
• Jehoahaz of Israel could not have ruled for over 16 years if his reign started in the 23rd year of Joash and finished in his 37th year. The length given for his reign suggests that he was made co-regent to his father 2 years before Jehu died.
• The Jehu year count of 28 years would appear to be a calculated total arrived at by not allowing for 2 years of co-regency with his son.
• Jeroboam II of Israel ruled jointly with his father for 11 years.
• Uzziah of Judah was appointed co-regent after his father was captured by Jehoash of Israel quite early in his reign and ruled jointly with his father for 22 years. The Uzziah reign year count stopped when he retired because of his leprosy.
• Although Jotham ruled Judah for the 4 years between the retirement of his father and his death, Jotham’s reign count is from the death of his father in 740 BC.
• Ahaz of Judah ruled as co-regent to his father for 5 years having begun his reign in the 17th year of Pekah of Israel.
• Hoshea deposed Pekah not long after the Venus event in August 725 BC and reigned until captured in 708 BC. He made Samaria his capital after Shalmaneser seized Damascus in 712 BC.
• Manasseh of Judah was co-regent of his father for 13 years.

[ivrydov]

Speaking of numbers it is not realized by people who do not read Hebrew and are not looking for it that that when they built the First Temple the Hebrews or at least the engineers knew "pi" out to 3.1415.

Archimedes only had it out to 2 digits and it wasn't until 400 years later that Liu Hu in China reached four digits followed some time later by the Indians. The West only exceeded two digits 300 years ago.

You'll find it at 1 Kings 7:23-24 where in the text the value for pi is given as 3 at the word "kava," meaning in today's Hebrew "line." Out in the margin it says "kav," that is, read also "kav."

In Hebrew letters have numerical value. So:--

sum of letters of kava = 111
sum of letters of kav = 106
Multiply kava by 3.
pi = 333
106
pi = 3.1415

[ericaitch]

Belatedly I'd like to expand on the term INERRANCY as used by some students of the Bible.

Mostly those who use it decry the theory of Edwin Thiele who like themselves appears to draw on the data in the KING JAMES.

In my searches for Biblical Chronological Ideas I have discovered at least ten reasonable available electronic versions with varying lengths and some variations on alternatives to 586 BC.

One particular inerrant version caused me to draft it onto an EXCEL spread sheet for comparison to Thiele. Both these versions were using the same data but with differing biases.

How then does one interpret INERRANCY? Is it in the mind of the reader?

What do we do with extra curricula resources such as Josephus? Some of his data adds colour to the canvass. It should not be disregarded.

If the use of inerrancy causes there to be gaps in the two Divided King Lists then I argue we have a problem.

As there seems to be no hint of non-kingly periods in either Israel or Judah then I'm prone to favour the Thiele approach but differ from Thiele in having Samaria fall circa 709 BC during the period when each of Hezekiah and Hoshea were ruling.

I believe that it is Assyrian History, Tiglath Pileser III to Sennacherib that has errors of duplication.

ericaitch

[ericaitch]

A Correction to an Exodus comment.

The Israelites did not worship at Baal Zephon before the drowning.

They were instructed to go to, and camp, between Pihahiroth and Baal Zephon.

That camp site was the scene of the drowning. Interested readers should consult SIS C & C Review 2020:1.

ERIC A