Assyrian inscriptions have shown that the chronology of the Book of Kings is hopelessly wrong.[1] Writing in 1893, Canon Driver says: "The Biblical chronology of the Kings of Judah and Israel is in perplexing disagreement with that fixed by the contemporary Assyrian inscriptions. It is allowed by modern commentators and historians that in cases of divergence, the latter is to be preferred.'[2] That the Usher system of dates should not be 'regarded as more than the sequence of the events' is therefore now a very general request by Biblical scholars.
38. This attitude toward the chronology of the Hebrews is quite logical when facts come to be faced, for (1) the copious citations of genealogies prove that the rough and unreliable mode of reckoning by generations—the word itself is Biblically very common—was too often the chronological basis; (2) the regnal years were counted by tens of years; but (3) otherwise septennates or weeks of years (being periods of seven years each) were also in use. In some centuries the Jordon acted as a chronological divider in the kingdoms, separate systems being used.
39. Though the sacred years of the Hebrews were held to begin with the new moon in the month Nisan, yet Cruden conjectures[3] that in remote times(?) they reckoned their months by the sun, and then thirty days equalled a month; and this he holds to be proved by the tradition that the Flood lasted 150 days, or five months. It is thought that their lunar basis was adopted from Egypt. In any event, the conjecture by Cruden has not been generally accredited.
