The Scroll of Biblical Chronology, Vol. I

The “accepted” chronology for Evangelical Christians was engineered by Edwin Thiele. Despite the fact that Thiele was a Seventh Day Adventist, the chronology he produced is a complete fraud based on Higher Criticism (rejection) of Scripture. One has only to read the forward to his book Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings written by a William Irwin, who was Thiele’s mentor at the University of Chicago. Irwin, as I show in the preface of my book was a militant liberal Christian who spared no ink in rejecting passages from Scripture as fallacious fabrications of editors. Thiele follows suit, and states in his book that he rejects 2 Kings 17:1; 2 Kings 18:1; 2 Kings 18:9; 2 Kings 18:10.

What is even more astonishing is that certain Torah teachers, like Joseph Dumond, uncritically accept Thiele’s work into the foundations of their chronologies, and then proceed to prophetical speculations based on it with a persuasive sales job.

Thiele decided that he needed to revise biblical chronology so that it agreed with the pronouncements of secular Assyriologists. In order to do this he lowered the reign of Hezekiah so that there was a 10 year coregency between Hezekiah and Manasseh.

No. 1: You can see in the image year 28 and 29 of Hezekiah at the middle top, and Hezekiah’s name clipped off in my snapshot from the book.

No. 2: Hezekiah’s 29th year was only a part year, and Manasseh’s first year was most of the remainder of 696 BC (over in the first column).

No. 3: Assyria invaded Egypt in 672 BC. In the process they exiled Manasseh for a short period. He had been incredibly wicked. In his short exile, he repented and was restored to the throne of Judah, after which he ruled justly.

No. 4: Note that 25 years of Manasseh’s reign are accounted as part of the 40 years of Judah’s iniquity (wickedness). See Ezekiel 4:6. This is tallied in column 6. Observe that these 25 years begin with the first year of Manasseh and end with the 25th right when the king of Assyria exiled him (not shown in snapshot, but shown in the book off to the right).

No. 6: These 25 years can be no less and no more, because the remainder of the 40 years are all accounted for during later kings of Judah.

No. 7: Now if for the first 10 years of his reign, Manasseh was coregent with his father, then how does he rule the kingdom wickedly? A coregent position is merely titular and administrative. A coregency cannot change the character of the senior regent’s rule over the kingdom. Hezekiah was a righteous king. So we see that upon consideration of the 40 years of sin, Thiele and all who follow him are 10 years short.

No. 8: Observe the tan column (#8). These specify 65 years mentioned in Isaiah 7:8. Not only did the king of Assyria exile Manasseh; he also exiled the remnant of Ephraim at the same time. This era began in the 4th year of Ahaz when Pekah was still ruling Israel.

No. 9: Notice the Sabbatic cycle in column 3. Four of these years are counted up in column 7. These are 64, 65, 66, and 67. These are the 70 Sabbatical years that Israel and Judah did not keep.

The Scroll of Biblical Chronology is a truly precise chronology, agreeing with the Scripture in all respects. The book also reveals the solution to the arguments of Assyriologists against the Scriptural chronology.

It is no small matter that they got it wrong during this period. Chronology is completely unforgiving for those who error, because everything else in any way connected to the error is also wrong. It is a foregone conclusion that things built on error are themselves errors.