The Reconstructed Chronology Of The Divided Kingdom

The Reconstructed Chronology of the Divided Kingdom

The common response to any attempt to read the chronological notations associated with the kings of Israel and Judah in the time of the divided monarchy is, perhaps, a shrug of the shoulders, or a statement to the effect that the problem is insoluble. Not only are the apparently contradictory--or confusing--notations of the MT a consideration, but the evidence of the other major versions seriously complicates any such undertaking. In the twentieth century, Edwin R. Thiele attempted to reconcile and wrangle all of the numbers into a semblance of order, with results that were far from convincing to his readers. Now Christine Tetley has attacked this knottiest of problems with fresh vigor and assayed a new solution. There is no doubt that this book will be controversial; nevertheless, it will be required reading for anyone who wishes to pin archaeological and historical data within the framework of an absolute chronology.

The Reconstructed Chronology of the Divided Kingdom

The Last Days of the Kingdom of Israel

Despite considerable scholarly efforts for many years, the last two decades of the Kingdom of Israel are still beneath the veil of history. What was the status of the Kingdom after its annexation by Assyria in 732 BCE? Who conquered Samaria, the capital of the Kingdom? When did it happen? One of the primary reasons for this situation lies in the discrepancies found in the historical sources, namely the Hebrew Bible and the Assyrian texts. Since biblical studies and Assyriology are two distinct disciplines, the gaps in the sources are not easy to bridge. Moreover, recent great progress in the archaeological research in the Southern Levant provides now crucial new data, independent of these textual sources. This volume, a collection of papers by leading scholars from different fields of research, aims to bring together, for the first time, all the available data and to discuss these conundrums from various perspectives in order to reach a better and deeper understanding of this crucial period, which possibly triggered in the following decades the birth of "new Israel" in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, and eventually led to the formation of the Hebrew Bible and its underlying theology.