JUDAH. (Accession dates). ISRAEL.
Joash 837 Jehoahaz 8t5 Amaziah 797 Joash 798 Azariah (Uzziah)... 792Jeroboam 11 Jotham 740 Zachariah 749 Ahaz 734 Shallum 748 Hezekiah 728 M enahem 748 Manasseh 697 Pekahiah.... 738 Amon 642 Pekah 736 Josiah 64o Hoshea 734 Jehoahaz (3 mos.).. 609 End of Israel 722 Jehoiakim 609 Jehoiachin (3 mos) 597 Zedekiali 5.97 End of Judah 586 Concerning but few of the later kings is there any dispute; the biblical record offers hardly any difficulties. Perhaps Hezekiah was co-regent with his father Ahaz; that has been suggested to ac count for the inconsistency mentioned above; but that supposition unsettles more dates than it set tles.
By the errors and inconsistencies, as shown above, up to the date of the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar, it is made plain that no precision can be found in the placing of dates and numbers until the time is reached when docu ments other than the biblical can be brought in as aids. The numbers given must often have been conjectural, reminding the investigator of Renan's dictum, that the Orientals give definite numbers, but they never count. There seems to have been an attempt to make the period from the building of Solomon's Temple to. the rebuild ing by Zerubbabel just 48o years, that favorite number, and to make the duration of the Israel itish kingdom just half of 480, or 24o years. How easy to remember if we could make up a table like this: From Abraham's birth to Exode 3x24o=720 From Exode to first Temple 2x24o=.48o From first Temple to fall of Samaria ix24o=240 From first Temple to second 2X The last two lines of this table are approxi mate,—near enough for an oriental ; but the sec ond line is far away, and the first is in the clouds.
(9) Chronology. This is sup plied in the Old Testament by the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and, if we include the Apocrypha, by t and 2 Esdras and t and 2 Maccabees. Daniel belongs to the class of apocalyptic prophecy, and its facts are more precisely set forth elsewhere. The episode of Esther furnishes no datable fact or facts at all; Tobit and Judith are romances.
This period of time is dealt with sufficiently and satisfactorily in the Chronological Table of this volume, to which the reader is referred.
These are principal dates: Persians take Babylon 538 B. C.
Temple rebuilt by Zerubbabel 536-515 Ezra reaches Jerusalem Nehemiah's mission 445 Ptolemy I Lagi takes Jerusalem 320 Septuagint begun about.' 285 Antiochus takes Jerusalem 170 13.C.
Rise of Maccabees 166 Pompey takes Jerusalem Herod, as king, takes Jerusalem 37 Herod's Temple '9-18 3. Chronology of the New Testament.
In the endeavor to place the events of the New Testament upon the long calendar of time, we are not without serious difficulties; hut they arc entirely different front those of the Old Testament. There our documents were few, but they professed to give us lists of names and statements of years, length of lives and duration of reigns and dynasties; here we have documents many, including the non-biblical; but the bibli cal texts are so full of their one great purpose that they are indifferent to times and seasons; and we learn of them by incidental mention and vague hints only. Jesus came—and went ; what matter when? The Problems group around two centers; first, the birth, life, and death of Jesus; second, about Paul of Tarsus and his career, to which the movements of the apostles between Jesus and him form but an unimportant preface or intro duction.
1. The Time of Christ, the Christian Era.
(1) The Birth of Christ. It is a familiar fact that we owe the devising of the Christian era to a monk in Rome, Dionysius Exiguus, or The Little, in the sixth century ; and that the state of historical literature within his narrow circle was such that he fixed the beginning of the era upon Saturday, January 1, A. D. 1, which was the forty-sixth of the years of Julius C:rsar's reformed calendar, and the year of Rome 734 by Varro's computation. But when inquiry began to he made into the real date of the birth of Jesus, the opinion soon prevailed that the birth was four years earlier, an opinion arising from better information as to the time of Herod's death, and from the offhand inference from the second chapter of Matthew.