The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings.

 The rather enigmatic title above come from a book by Edwin R Theile which sets out to understand the record of years, reign lengths and synchronism's between the kings of Judah and Israel. The data recorded in the books of First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles in the Old Testament of the Bible has long been a source of confusion, frustration and for those so inclined, ridicule because of the extreme difficulty involved in piecing the information into a coherent whole. Worse still the records of these kings do not stand in isolation, but they must also synchronise with the histories of the surrounding nations where points of contact are recorded.
Apparent Confusion
Even a few hundred years after the the biblical books were first written in Hebrew these mysterious numbers were not understood. The Septuagint translation from the Hebrew into Greek, a work carried out by Jews in Egypt in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC shows this lack of understanding of the original calculations. Key dates and synchronism's have been altered by the translators to “correct” the “mistakes” of the Hebrew compilers of Kings and Chronicles. Since that time many others through the centuries have struggled to make sense of the Masoretic text and its unfathomable numbers.
 In the 19th Century a German scholar Schrader wrote:
“The Chronological system of the Books of Kings, as compared to that of the monuments, is shown to be untenable... ...not a few discrepancies yawn within it, and unfortunately we cease to feel confidence in the scriptural computation just at the point where a comparison with another chronological system is rendered possible... ...It is therefore the most recent period of chronology that our verdict must be pronounced against the scriptural system, though we should have expected the most trust worthy and unassailable statements with respect to that period. The system must however be abandoned in the presence of the corresponding statements on the monuments and the eponym canon.”
(Eberhard Schrader, Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament)
Also Professor W F Albright wrote:
“It is incredible that all these numbers can have been handed down through so many editors and copyists without often becoming corrupt...”
(W.F. Albright, “The Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel” - 1945)
Albright’s comments have often been repeated by those who would attempt to discredit the Bible. Even today this accusation in made of the Bible and yet is accuracy has been proven time and time again.
The Bible Record Proved True
The great triumph of Thiele’s painstaking work was to uncover the system of the data recorded in the books of the Kings and Chronicles. What is shows is that the Masoretic Test has been faithfully and accurately transmitted through the ages, with the emphasis on avoiding any change to the original text. In the case of the Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, this meant repeating and copying the information even though the copyist didn’t understand the detail of what was written. No attempt was made to “correct” perceived “mistakes”, rather to copy exactly the text in front of the scribe. What Theile’s chronology proves is that the scribes got it right and the critics got it wrong. The Bible is accurate and true and through the centuries has not changed, we can have great confidence in its accuracy and message, even those parts written over two millennia ago. Archaeology and the “statements on the monuments and the eponym canon” have in the end proved the Bible true.

Click here to view a Chronological Chart of the period
 Click here to view the chart in text form.
 Follow this link to learn more about how the chronology is derived
 Click this link to see how the other nations records and texts help build the chronology