Chart: BC 920 to 900
Chart: BC 899 to 890
Chart: BC 889 to 850
Chart: BC 849 to 808
Chart: BC 807 to 773
Chart: BC 772 to 753
Chart: BC 752 to 731
Chart: BC 730 to 721

 Assyria III: The Alternate Universe

   Tiglath Pileser III claimed to receive tribute from Menahem of Israel. However, as we have seen Menahem was not contemporary with the Assyrian king. Evidently Tiglath or his scribes laid claim to the exploits of his predecessor, Pul.

   Such expropriation by pagan kings was not uncommon in antiquity. If a king did not like or respect his predecessor, then he might take credit for earlier exploits. It was partly state propaganda for the new party in power, and partly self aggrandizement of the ruler. So this is the explanation of Tiglath's claims to collection of tribute from Menahem, whose reign fell completely before that of the Assyrian king.

   The biblical chronology reveals that Assyria is missing year names for 52 years between Shalmaneser III and Tiglath Pileser III. Forty-six year names are lacking between the reigns of Asshur-Nirari V and Tiglath Pileser III, and six more are missing at the beginning of the reign of Shamshi-Adad V.

   We know the number of missing eponym records because the Assyrian kingdom had contacts with Ahab of Israel and Jehu of Israel in the 6th and 18th years of Shalmaneser III. That is the 6th year of Shalmaneser III corresponds to the 22nd year of Ahab, and the 18th year of the same king corresponds to the 1st year of Jehu.

The biblical chronology has the complete number of years. But the Assyrian eponym canon is deficient 52 years.  These missing year names are revealed by the synchronisms between the kings of Judah and those of Israel.

    We have some additional facts that help us figure out where the missing year names are in the Assyrian kingdom. The year name for the 9th year of Ashur-Dan, "Bur-Sagle" records a solar eclipse.

If the eclipse of 763 BC is supposed, then there are no missing year names, but there must be exactly 52 to preserve the Shalmaneser III synchronisms.  By selecting the solar eclipse of 809 BC, we may place 46 of the missing year names into the period between Ashur-Nirari V and Tiglath Pileser III.

The remaining missing six years fall into the revolt at the beginning of Shamshi-Adad V's reign.  This accounting is confirmed by the Tell al-Rimah Stela.  See charts: "Jehoash pays tribute to Assyria, Tell al-Rimah Stela/ Saba'a Stela. See Adad-Nirari III and Jehoash of Israel, William H. Shea. Andrews University. Journal of Cuneiform Studies. Vol. 30, No. 2 (Apr., 1978, pp. 110-113."

The missing year names are not because the records have been lost, or because archaeologists have failed to recover all the existing year names. They are year names that never existed. The years that should have had year names, however, did exist. What happened?

If a revolt or invasion of Assyria was so severe then no eponymous officials could be named to give the year a name. Conditions were suitable for this at the beginning of the reign of Shamshi-Adad V when 27 cities revolted against the new king. This revolt saw six years without names, and also the intervention of the Babylonian king in Assyria's civil war. The Babylonians exacted a high price for their assistance.

Assyria was again torn apart by civil war at the end of the reign of Ashur-Nirari V. If we combine this fact with Pul, mentioned as the predecessor to Tiglath-Pileser III in 1 Chron. 5:26, then we have the logical place for the remaining 46 missing year names.

The parsimonious explanation is that Assyria faced Babylonian intervention in its internal civil war at the end of the reign of Ashur-Nirari V. This was similar to the intervention of the Babylonian king Marduk-zakir-shumi I in the civil war between Shamshi-Adad V and his brother. Only in the case of the 46 years, the intervention of the Babylonian king turned into an outright invasion of Assyria rather than support of one side or the other and the imposition of virtual vassal status.

The reason Babylonian intervention is parsimonious is that it happened before, and the Babylonians would have wanted to keep Assyria in a position of weakness. As year names were customarily derived from the positions of high court officials with lots of power beside the Assyrian king, the Babylonians would not have permitted these powerful positions.

In fact, is is probably the power of the nobles with the eponymous names that Assyria was plunged into a civil war that was exploited by the Babylonians in the first place.

The final clue is from the name Pul. This name in both Babylonia and Assyria means "heir."  This is a title that would suit both Babylon and Assyria.  It is probable then that Pul was a Babylonian who had seized the throne of Assyria amid the civil chaos. And with superior force he ravaged the country and was able conduct expeditions to even Israel, where he extorted "Dane-geld" so to speak from Menahem of Israel.

This situation would explain why Tiglath-Pileser had the state scribes suppress the disruption of the country while himself expropriating the deeds of Pul.

"From the time of Nabonassar, the Chaldeans accurately recorded the times of the motion of the stars. The polymaths among the Greeks learned from the Chaldeans that - as Alexander (Polyhistor) and Berossus, men versed in Chaldean antiquities, say - Nabonassar gathered together (the accounts of) the deeds of the kings before him and did away with them so that the reckoning of the Chaldean kings would begin with him. (FGrH III C/1 p. 395 no 16 (Pseudo-Berossos of Cos). It is clear from the biblical chronology and the nearly opaque Assyrian Eponym canon that Tiglath Pileser II must have done the same for Assyria shortly afterward" (From the charts).

I should clarify this. While the Babylonian king expunged records, and hence Babylon is in a dark age before Nabonassar, the Assyrian king directed his scribes to eliminate embarrassing episodes of Assyrian history immediately before himself.

     It may be noted that Tiglath-Pileser himself usurped the Babylonian throne, himself taking the name Pulu, again meaning "heir," and by right of conquest his Assyrian god has now favored him as the legitimate heir. This turn of affairs, no doubt, had the ring of poetic justice in the ears of Assyrians, and the taste of revenge in Babylonian ears.  Tiglath Pileser then combined this with directions to his scribes to edit out the lacuna in Assyria caused by the Babylonians, namely by closing the gaps on the eponym canon.  Tiglath's own appointments of eponyms deviate from prior practices by appointing virtual nobodies as eponyms, besides expropriating the last two eponyms of Ashur-Nirari V. Somehow, it worked out so that the eclipse of 809 BC and the collapsed chronology synchronized with the eclipse of 763 BC.  The unusual accession notice of Tiglath-Pileser suggests that he did not come to the throne by an ordinary succession to Ashur-Nirari V, but after a disruption of some sort. So again, there is evidence of something not regular.

Chart: 938 to 921 BC

  Assyria II

     Now Edwin R. Thiele (1895–1986) is the culprit who ruined Biblical Chronology. After him the damage was done. His work, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, overturned the almost perfectly correct chronologies of Willis Judson Beecher (1838–1912), Martin Anstey (1856–1940), and David L. Cooper (1886–1965).  It is a pity that Thiele was a Seventh Day Adventist, because he should have been predisposed to reject critical views of Scripture.  Nevertheless, the "Introduction" to Mysterious Kings was written by Thiele's mentor William A. Irwin (1884-1967). Upon retirement in 1950, he became Emeritus Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature at the University of Chicago.  Irwin's Introduction tries to straddle the divide between those who admit rejecting Scripture when it suits them (Irwin) and those who claim they uphold all of it, but don't (Thiele). Irwin was an avid supporter, and contributor to the Documentary Hypothesis, as can be seen in his work, "The Problem of Ezekiel," (1943).  This is the theory that the Torah was cobbled together by J, E, D, and P sources.  For further info on the Documentary Hypothesis, see here.

     According to Thiele, the reign of Pekah was parallel to that of Menahem and Pekahiah for 12 years. See page 121 of Mysterious Kings. This is the result of trying to make Menahem contemporary with Tiglath Pileser III, so that the Assyrian kings claims to have received his tribute may be believed. Besides the fact that Pekah ruled in Samaria, supposedly at the same time Menahem did, and the fact that he was Pekahiah's army officer, and the fact that he murdered Pekahiah, and that Scripture treats Pul as a separate person from Tiglath Pileser, there is an additional refutatoin of Thiele's presumptive assumption that submits the biblical chronology to Assyriological Orthdoxy.

     The books of Kings organize every account of every king into historical summaries of their reigns. This is what the green headlines in the charts are for.  These stand over the top of the name of each king. These start way back in the charts with King Saul:  

   "No. 29: IIK 15:8-12, Zechariah" 

   "No. 30: IIK 15:13-16, Shallum"

   "No. 31: IIK 15:17-22, Menahem"

   "No. 32: IIK 15:23-26, Pekahiah"

   "No. 33: IIK 15:27-31, Pekah"

   "No. 34: IIK 15:32-38, Jotham"

   "No. 35: IIK 16:1-20, Ahaz"

   "No. 36: IIK 17:1-41, Hoshea"

   "No. 37: IIK 18:1-20:21, Hezekiah"

     These accounts are strictly in chronological order, meshing the kings of Israel and the Kings of Judah together in exact chronological order, based on when they began to reign.

     If Pekah reigned parallel to Menahem, then we would expect the order to be:

   "No. 31: IIK 15:17-22, Menahem"

   "No. 33: IIK 15:27-31, Pekah"

   "No. 32: IIK 15:23-26, Pekahiah"

     The theory goes that Pekah was a rebellious army officier of Menahem, who set up a rival reign, and then when Menahem died, he became a rebellious officer of Pekahiah, and then Pekah murdered Pekahiah.

     But this violates the order of the kings. But even in the confused times of Omri, the books of Kings keep to the order, and explain anything unusual:

   "No. 11: IK 16:8-14, Elah"

   "No. 12: IK 16:15-20, Zimri"

   "No. 13. IK 16:21-22, Tibni"

   "No. 14. IK 16:23-28, Omri"

     See chart 938 to 921 BC, linked at the top of this page.

     As we see, the correct order of kings exposes Thiele's error. I have observed, and you will also, if you study it enough, that Scripture never throws its main chronology into a black hole. That is there is no lacuna of information preventing a complete construction.  Also, I have observed, and you will also in time, that no arbitrary decision is needed to construct it either.  And also, I have observed, that Scripture never introduces an outside source as a chronological datum until the Neo-Babylonian Empire. By doing so, Scripture is vouching for the accuracy of the Neo-Babylonian chronology.  And finally, I have observed, and you will also, when you get up to speed, that Scripture never means an extraordinary interpretation unless Scripture itself provides the data itself to support the extraordinary interpretation.

   These four points form a good checklist for evaluating a chronological argument. But Thiele violates every one of these points in making Pekah contemporary with Menahem and Pekahiah for twelve years. First, the number of his assumptions and coregencies without Scriptural proof effectively say that biblical chronology cannot be figured out on the basis of just Scripture. This is the black hole thesis.  Second, his decision to make Pekah Parallel to Menahem and Pekahiah is an arbitrary interpretation, because Scripture never says where the match up occurs unless it is a matter of the default sequence. Third, Thiele imports the Assyriologist thesis from outside Scripture, even though Scripture does not vouch for it, and in fact, implies by vouching for Neo-Babylonian Chronology, that previous secular chronologies are unreliable.  Fourth, having a king who murdered the son of a father, reign in the same place (Samaria) as the son and father twelve years before the murder, while being called an officer of the son is a completely extraordinary interpretation with no Scripture warrant.  That is no other data to show an extraordinary interpretation occurs in Scripture.

   Scripture intended to give a complete chronology. But it relies on defaults.  The greatest default is sequence.  When there is a sequence in the text, then one thing follows the next.

Chart: 772 to 753 BC

Chart: 752 to 731 BC

Chart: 730 to 721 BC   

  

Assyria: Part I

     Scholarship and discussions or debates about biblical chronology and biblical archaeology are dominated by two groups of people.  One group dismisses the Scripture when it suits them to do so, and it is no secret that they do so. They arrive at the wrong result. The other group maintains that the Scripture is always correct, but they dismiss the Scripture by stealth, and keep it a secret that they do so, while maintaining that they uphold it completely.  They also arrive at the wrong result. 

     It is in the interest of the world system and the minions of Satan to keep the debate centered between these two groups, and to draw everyone's attention to one or the other. This is so that the truth will be ignored. Because Satan is only concerned with getting people to believe the wrong result, however it is arrived at.

     Invariably, anyone who is not a true and committed follower of Messiah Yeshua is vulnerable to falling into one group or the other. Or if one is not a true upholder of Scripture and Messiah's Torah, then one will be sidetracked from the truth. If this is not always true, it is certainly a statistical probability     

     Yeshua is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Without him, people inherit lies.

     We also have to be on guard against the frauds, those who claim faithfulness to Messiah and his Torah, but in fact are not true to one or the other. And to detect them, you have to know the Word.

     If you have a heart true to Messiah and true to his instructions, then you have an opportunity to hear the truth.  The reason those outside cannot hear the truth is that from a chronological point of view, not being true to Messiah Yeshua, or not holding to his Torah, they have been tripped up by traditional arguments that support their predisposition.  I'm not saying they do this willfully. I'm saying tradition has become a reinforcing mechanism of the wrong predisposition. To have the right predisposition, one has to be faithful to Messiah and his commandments.

     There is a lesson to be learned from King Ahaz.  He was so impressed by the Assyrians that he decided to compromise with their designs and customs.  This worldliness is described in 2 Kings 16:10–18

     In like manner there are those today that defer to the king of Assyria, based on what archaeologists have dug up from Assyrian Archives. But Scripture has a different point of view: 

   "Then the Almighty of Israel rouses up the spirit of Pul, king of Asshur, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilnasr, king of Asshur. Then he caused them to become captive, the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh. So, it had been he causes them to come to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and river Gozan onward this day" (1 Chronicles 5:26).     

     Bondage to Assyria and the Assyriologist has to be unraveled. Firstly, let us note that this passage (1 Chronicles 5:1-26) is concerned only with the fate of the Transjordan Tribes.  Of course, Assyria took other tribes captive also.

     In fact, a number of Assyrian Kings were involved somehow in the defeat and exile of Israel.  Pul, Tiglath Pileser III, Shalmaneser V, Sargon, and Esarhaddon.

     If we look in 1 Chronicles 5:6, we will see Tilgath Pilnasr mentioned, and a little further on it is noted that these Transjordan tribes were registered in the days of Jotham, king of Judah (1 Chron. 5:17).

       It will be noted that they were still in the land during the days of Jotham king of Judah. And the days of Jotham continued until until he was removed from the throne in his 16th year, probably by  pro-Assyrian nobles supporting an abdication so Ahaz could rule.

       On the other hand, 2 Kings 15:29 says, "In the days of Pekah, King of Israel, Tiglath Pileser, King of Assyria, had come. Then he takes Ijon, and Abel-beth-Maachah, and Janohah, and Kedesh, and Hatsor, and Gilead, and the Galilee, all the land of Naphtali. Then he captives them to Assyria."

     So the exile of these tribes was while Pekah was still king.  But it was after the days of Jotham.  It was also after Isaiah 7:8, when the 65  year prophecy was made. This narrows it down to the 4th year of Ahaz, and the 20th year of Pekah, just before Hoshea killed Pekah.

Isaiah mentions two kings that will be removed, Pekah and Rezin of Damascus. Damascus fell in 732 BC after the exile of Galilee and Gilead in 737 BC.

The exile of Gilead and Galilee is not mentioned in the Assyrian Eponym canon.  Only some major operations are mentioned in the canon.  What happened was that Assyria traveled the coast, west of Damascus, leaving Damascus isolated. They then swept into Galilee and Gilead.  Then a few years later they laid siege to Damascus and gained victory over Rezin in 732 BC.

     The Transjordan tribes are also missing in King Hezekiah's invitation to attend his Passover reformation, and Hezekiah's messengers did not cross to the east of the Jordan into Gilead. 

     Let us now return to 1 Chronicles 5:26. The Hebrew text represents the kings Pul and Tilgath Pilnasr as two different kings. The clauses are connected by "w'et".  If they were connected by just "et" then there is the possibility that the second clause is just explaining who the king named in the first clause is.  But with "w'et" we have two persons.  "W'et" in Hebrew always separates different persons, places, or things. It is never used in an explanatory or appositional sense. So the interpretation that makes Pul the same as the later Tiglath Pileser is without precedent, and without parallel example. In fact, all the we'et's that can be adduced are not used in the sense of "that is."

     For instance, in Genesis 1:1, It says, "In the beginning of the Almighty's creating the heavens and the earth," (et ha-shamayim we'et ha-arets).  Observe that "the heavens" and "the earth" are separated by we'et.  It does not say "the heavens, that is the earth," because the heavens and the earth are two separate things.  Similarly, "et ruach PUL, king of Assyria, we-et ruach Tilgath Pilnasar, king of Assyria" have we'et between them. We have here two separate persons.  

     The reason the Assyriologist, and the biblical commentators listening to them equivocate here is that no king "Pul" has been found at a time before Tiglath Pileser. So they assume that Pul and Tiglath Pileser are the same king.

     There is, in fact, confirmation from the biblical chronology that Pul is a different king! Pul extorted a huge amount of money from Menahem of Israel to leave them alone. Menahem reigned one year in Tirzah, and ten years in Samaria.  His son reigned 2 years.  His son Pekahiah was murdered by a commander in his army, Pekah, who then reigned "in Samaria twenty years" (2 Kings 15:27).

     Tiglath Pileser III took the Transjordan tribes captive in the final year of the 20 year reign of Pekah, and  Tiglath Pileser did not reign more than 19 years. Therefore, the Pul who took money from Menahem is not the same as Tiglath Pileser. Our Chronicles passage represents Pul and Tilgath Pilnasr as two different kings.

     One may wonder why I keep spelling Tilgath Pilnasr incorrectly.  I do so because the 1 Chronicles 5:26 passage in Hebrew does this. When dealing with titles of idolatry, the Hebrew scribes had every reason to twist them around. The Assyrian name of the king is "Tukulti-apil-Ešarra", meaning "my trust [is] in the heir of Ešarra," but no Israelite wants to utter this phrase, except the rebellious like Ahaz who had the high priest copy the designs of the altar in Damascus.

     Thus by a possibly intentional Metathesis, the Lamed and gimel in Tiglath are switched to Tilgath, making it nonsense. Then we have Pilnasr, with a nun in it that isn't in the Assyrian.  "Apil" means "heir" or "son of."  The last word is supposed to be "Ešarra", meaning the main Temple of the Assyrian god, Asshur.  So essentially, the phrase is like saying the son of the god's temple, a metonymy for the son of the false god.  But Messiah Yeshua is the true son of the Almighty, the one alone being true Almighty, and he who sent him, the Father.

     But the last word is altered.  Since this temple sounds like the Hebrew asar, aleph, samech, resh, a nun would change the meaning to something like "being in bondage." So now the same means "Tilgath [nonsense], the heir of one being a prisoner." Or it could mean "son of bondage" with an evident double entendre, thus referring to the king who carried Israel into bondage.

     If we go but a step further, then Tilgath may become "tell gath" meaning "a heap (or ruin) of a winepress, heir of bondage."  Thus Israel is compared to a ruined vineyard.

This post is still on the previous chart, link here: 1069 BC.  When these articles are ported over to torahtimes, I believe I am going to organize them under the most relevant chart.

David: PART II

Do you remember the passage where David misses the New Moon Feast, and hides? Just before the new moon feast he met with Jonathan, and went to hide, to discern the attitude of Saul.  It was bad. David wasn't at the feast, and Jonathan made an excuse for him.  Saul got angry and spoke his mind about David. He even tossed a spear at Jonathan. On the third day at daybreak David emerged from his hiding place, and Jonathan told him the results. Then David ascended to Nob, where the Tabernacle was being kept.

David was hungry, and so were his companions.  He asked for the old bread that was getting removed on the Sabbath to replace it with fresh bread, because that is when the priests rotated their divisions and when the bread was replaced. So it was the Sabbath.

It was a Sabbath on the 3rd day of the first month.  David's excuse had been he was going to Bethlehem to celebrate the yearly feast, the feast of days, which was the Passover, because this comes just after the spring equinox. In Hebrew it is the feast of days, a feast at the end of the 365 or 366 days of the old year.

The New Moon feast was a Thursday and a Friday. On the third day, daybreak on the Sabbath, Jonathan and David said their farewell.  Then David fled, arriving at Nob the same day [1]. This back calculates to exactly 1069 BC, and fits in with the beginning of David's life as a fugitive, about 7 years in all [2].

He who has an ear let him hear. The Shabbat, the Sabbath, is a day to be set apart, to be kept holy. 

Now David is a type of Messiah Yeshua. David hid himself for three days [3]. Then on the Sabbath at daybreak, he meets again with his close friend, as Miryam of Magdala met with Messiah Yeshua. He flees, as did the two men on the road to Emmaus, and arrives at Nob, were he takes the bread of the presence from the priest on the Sabbath, when it is being exchanged for fresh bread. He broke the bread with his fellow fugitives.

At least one or two men are with David, who have decided to cast their lot with him, but were instructed to meet him at another place, as Yeshua instructed his disciples to meet him in Galilee. David then takes the bread and breaks it with his companions as they flee to Gath. Now Gath represents the nations where Israel was exiled, and so Yeshua presents himself to the nations, as David did at Gath.

________________________

Footnotes

[1] Nob, a city of Priests, was 2 to 5 miles from Gibeah of Saul.  Most likely it was between 2 and 3 miles. At a brisk walk, it would take only a couple of hours to reach. So if David departed sometime after daybreak, he would have arrived a bit before noon, when the bread of the presence was being exchanged for fresh bread. (In a former explanation I had a day elapsing from the farewell meeting till David's arrival at Nob.  However, the distance is too short to justify more than a few hours.)

[2] New Moon Calculations show that the moon could in theory be seen on Tuesday evening, April 11, 1069 BC.  However it is a "B" case, for which conditions have to be ideal.  Evidently the moon was not seen then, and was sighted on April 12, Wednesday evening. As a result of previous months being dislocated due to visibility difficulties on the first day of the month, April 12th had been assumed to be the 29th day of Adar II. Therefore, Thursday and Friday ended up being the two days for the New Moon feast. Nearby years have unworkable solutions, confirming that 1069 BC is correct given the time period of David's life as a fugitive.

[3] David went into hiding on the day before the new moon, as it is stated, "Tomorrow is the new moon." This was Wednesday April 12, 1069 BC. The two new moon feast days were Thu, April 13, and Friday April 14. David says he will meet again with Jonathan on the 3rd day of the month, which took place at daybreak, "ba-boqer." This places David in hiding the remainder of Wednesday, Wednesday Night, on Thursday, the new moon feast, Thursday night, on Friday, the second day of the new moon, and on Friday Night. The third day of the month commenced at dawn on the Sabbath.  Thus from leaving Jonathan till saying his farewell, he was in hiding three days and three nights.

 Chart 1069 to 1031  BC; Link Here: BC 1069 to 1031.PDF

Key Points in the Life of David

PART I: 

King David became king of of the tribe of Judah at Hebron in the 7th year of Simbar-[sipak] (sichpack, six-pack, or sicky), first king of the 2nd Sealand Dynasty. King David built up Hebron into a regional capital, seven years at the face of Zoan in Egypt, which in Hebrew means "before Zoan." Now Zoan is Tanis in Egypt, that lost legendary city buried in layers of silt and sand after its abandonment.

The city is the same as the one with the fictional map room pointing to a fictional burial ground for the Ark of the Covenant in the most unholy of places: the Tanis Necropolis.

The the Pharoah in those days was Psusennes I (or Sue Nut), called the silver king, because he was buried in a silver sarcophagus, which was discovered in 1940 by Pierre Montet, just as World War II came to interrupt his work.

Now Tanis was a city well before Psusennes I, as was Hebron well before king David. What the biblical narrative means is that David built up Hebron as a regional capital. He improved the city as the administrative center of Judah. Numbers 13:22 notes that David did this seven years "at the face of Zoan." Of course David wasn't even born at the time of Numbers, so we have to conclude that Numbers 13:22 is an editorial note, like some other notes in the Torah that postdate its original composition.

Allow me to elucidate this. It had been decided by the 21st dynasty of Egypt that Tanis, aka Zoan, should be the new capital of Egypt. Under Pharoah Psusennes I, Zoan was built up, seven years after Hebron. And this happened in the 33rd year of Psusennes. The Pharaoh even took it upon himself to move the monuments in Pi-Ramesses to Tanis. Now Psusennes name is a Hellenized verions of: Paseb-khen-nuit. If you want to know the last part of his name "nut" refers to the Egyptian god by that name. We can pronounce it "nut" (as in walnuts) so as to efface the pagan as a crazy man that is sue happy. He certainly loved a most expensive grave. It is indeed crazy to be buried in a Pharonic necropolis in a solid silver sarcophagus.  It is more likely to be robbed than to result in eternal life. 

Scripture does not always efface the theophoric element of a pagan name, but it does it often enough to remind us to hold pagan gods in derision. For example Ramesses above has "Ra" as the sun god in the name, but nevertheless, Scripture condescends to use it. Pagan references are so common in pagan nations that if we did not spell it out, then no one would know what we were talking about.

When I mentioned Simbar above, I left the rest of his name in [] brakets, which refers to the moon god. Now the 33rd year of Psusennes, when he began to build up Tanis, was the 8th year of David, or his first year reigning in Jerusalem, which accordingly was now built up as the new captial of Israel.

The synchronism to Simbar is confrimed by BM 35968, called the "Religious Chronicle" that alludes to a solar eclpise that occured on July 31, 1063 BC in Basra, Iraq, the domain of the Sealand Dynasty.

And per the biblical chronology 1063/1062 BC were the accession year and first year of David. To prove this, lets start with a date from a period anchored in Neo-Babylonian archeoastronomy that would be challenged only by malicious revisionists.  In any case, Scripture vouches for Babylonian dates, because it uses them! So let's start with Ezekiel, whose dates are tied into Babylonian Chronology.  But I will convert them to their BC equivalents. Now Ezekiel prophesied in 593 BC, 5 years from the exile of Jehoiachin in 597 BC. The era of the divided kingdom is 390 years (cf. Ezek. 4). Thus 390 + 593 = 983, when the kingdom divided between Jeroboam and Rehoboam. For the reign of Solomon and David, we add 40 years twice over, and arrive at 1063 BC. And this is when David began to reign [1].

Psusennes I is contemporary with David via our Tanis link, and the Numbers passage. The reason we have an exact date in Psusennes reign for the building up of Tanis is that Shishak (Sheshonq I) invaded Israel in the 5th year of Rehoboam, and this was the 16th year of Sheshonq, which is locked in by a lunar date from the 5th year of Sheshonq I. Now Psusennes II ruled 15 years, the last king of Dynasty 21. Syncellus in the Old Chronicle gives the sum of 21st dynasty kings at 121 years, a remarkable confirmation of the actual situation.

Going backwards Pharaoh Siamun reigned 19 years, and his reign is locked in place by two lunar dates. Osorchor reigned 6 years, and his reign is locked in by 1 lunar date. And Amenemope reigned 9 years per Manetho, Psusennes I 46 years per Africanus' Manetho. But really Psusennes I reigned 49 years, and so there was a 3 year coregency between Amenempoe and Psusennes I. So the parsimonious conclusion is that Psusennes I built up Tanis in his 33rd year.  

If something is slightly off in the Egyptian reign of Psusennes, it isn't by much. The Biblical chronology is exact. The capitalization of Hebron is exact, and we know for a fact that Psusennes I was the Pharoah who built Tanis, also known as Zoan, up into the new capital.

Now in Egypt Silver was almost as rare as gold. Well not quite. The ratio was between 2 to 1 and 3 to 1. This is because Egyptian mines were gold rich and silver poor. Now Solomon engaged in trade with Egypt and the Neo Hittite kingdoms. The Hittites were silver rich. Thus Solomon let the Egyptians pay in gold, and the Hittites in silver, and via the exchange rate was able to make silver as common as stones in Jerusalem. This trade had begun during David's reign. Indeed, the reason Tanis was built up in place of Thebes was to facilitate trade with Canaan. Egypt as a result ended up with quite a lot of silver, a very valued commodity.  Psusennes I encased himself in silver for the afterlife.

I think the point we are supposed to get from the reference to Zoan is that Jerusalem simultaneously became the capital of Israel in the same year.

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Footnotes

[1] One may wonder how to get from "years of sin" for Israel to the era of the divided kingdom. The 390 years are in the literal sense intended to be separate from the 40 years for Judah. However, the date of the Ezekiel 4 prophecy coincides with the 390th year of the divided kingdom, confirming that the prophecy and the sum 390 were intended to intersect. There is more to this mystery as can be found out from Asa, Josephus, Jehoidada.

 Hi all. This is the new blog for torahtimes.org. It will be used for the latest and most recent commentary and then will be added to the website. This is so users of Torahtimes can keep abreast  of anything new.  This will also be used for news and announcements and what I'm working on, and sometimes reminders of what is already at torahtimes.org.  In the past, I have put my inspirational commentaries on Facebook.  These will no longer appear on Facebook as the primary location for comment.  I may copy blog posts to FB with a link, and the blog itself will eventually get a link in at Torahtimes. But I wish for those wishing to keep track of things I write or publish, including Youtube to consult the blog.  I am not going to support replies on either Facebook or Youtube.  And in fact, I have not really done so on Youtube.  There are huge negatives to using FB as social media and also Youtube comments.  The biggests of these is all manner of distractions from what is actually profitable for the soul.

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