Tony Malone & Saint Oxen Books

A New Biblical King Chronology 
Part 7: Who Wrote the Biblical King History?
Two Other King Lists for Comparison
Complete Bible References
Complete Josephus References
Tony Malone December 2004

The Biblical historian refers constantly to his sources - The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah - revealing at least one or two authors before him. It is the position of this paper that all three historians were from the Southern kingdom.

Northern Kingdom:

The Northern information is sketchy, lacking many details that the Southern list contains. No ages are given for any of the kings when they took power (except Ishbosheth, son of Saul, who reigned in the north for two years before David's men killed him; he was "forty" years old when he began to reign). And almost no tribal origins are known for any of them - only 6 out of 20 have any tribal connections attached to their names.

Two time pockets are unaccounted for - we don't know what happened or who was in charge after Jeroboam II or after Menahem.

Northern Jehoram and Hoshea are each listed as reigning at two different times. One of Northern Jehoram's references contradicts Southern Jehoram's reference and didn't fit our list. Hoshea's early reference is faulty, referring to a king's year that didn't happen, and having no support elsewhere in the Bible.

Four of the Northern kings have identical names to four Southern kings - Ahaziah, Jehoram, Jehoahaz and Jehoash. Confusion seems desirable to the editors, who allow both of the Jehorams to sometimes be called "Joram"; and both Jehoashes to sometimes be called "Joash"; and Uzziah to sometimes be called Azariah.

Southern Kingdom:

The southern list of kings is presented as a smooth, uninterrupted family line descending from David and Solomon; and the Elijah/Elisha fantasies, woven into the history, aggressively support the religious ideologies of the Southern tribes. David's own tribal origins are suspect. He is referred to as an "Ephrathite" (1Samuel 17:12) as is his grandmother Ruth (Ruth 1:2), but there is no explanation of what that means, although it is sometimes interpreted to mean "Ephraimite" (1Samuel 1:1 / 1Kings 11:26). The Books of Samuel and Kings never once say that David was from the tribe of Judah. However, the Biblical editors and many of its authors (particularly the prophets) still want their readers to assume that David was a Judahite, and that the Southern king line was a steady succession of David's Judahite descendants. In spite of some murder and intrigue, the list gives the impression of overall stability and adherence to the laws of Yahweh (who instructed that David's family should rule Israel forever). Even when there is chaos in the line - Athalia kills the heirs apparent and takes the throne - the murderess is from the evil Northern tribes, and she is eventually ousted by the Southern priests who place another descendant of David (a six year old child) back on the throne. And everything is good again.

The writer also gives the ages of many of the Southern kings (13 out of 20 of them) when they took the throne.

The only real discomfort in the southern list is Uzziah's cross reference (off by eleven years), which we have examined and fixed. A minor discrepancy occurs when southern Ahaziah is given two cross references, separated by only a year. The first given (2Kings 8:25) is quite logical with our dates, and appears at the beginning of Ahaziah's story. The second is awkwardly tossed into the middle of some action (2Kings 9:29), completely out of context and clearly an addition by an editor for whatever reason he had. It conflicts (though only slightly) with the story and our chart.

It appears that even the original sources, The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and Judah, were themselves written by Southerners, or by a Southerner. If the original Chronicles of the Kings of Israel was a comprehensive history of the Northern kingdom by a proper historian from the north, we could expect a little more data on the Northern kings. On the other hand, a Southern editor, with a few swipes of the pen, could have altered any of his work, and it could have happened centuries after he was dead. Maybe the Biblical historian did create a balanced account of the two kingdoms and it was gradually edited by those crazy Levites. Or maybe he had to make the best of incomplete records, and he gave us what he had. Or maybe he just told us what the Levites wanted us to know. Who knows?

The information the Biblical author had at his disposal was either incomplete or it contained things he chose not to share. Either way, the Southern list is smooth and relatively comprehensive, while the Northern list contains difficulties and empty spaces and lacks certain information that was provided for the southern kings. In spite of all this, the mechanics of the list are solid, and it is this author's belief that the mathematical data was provided by a separate, reliable source. The cross references work with the reign lengths and the whole list holds itself together.

Reading the Books of Kings, we can't avoid noticing that almost all the kings, Northern and Southern, get a bad review. 'He was a very bad king. He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh'. The review only reflects whether or not the king was malleable to the Southern Levite priests. If he did not like the Levites or didn't do their bidding, he was a "bad" king. Nearly all the Northern kings were considered very bad by the writer, because they fully rejected the Levites and their religion (1Kings 12:31-33 & 13:33-34). Some of the Southern kings get a good review if they bow to the Levites' desires, but the bad ones are always compared to the Northern kings - a review no one could live down.

Note that Tibni is included in the Northern list but his reign is absorbed as part of Omri's.
** On this list and the next (below), Pekah's reign has been chopped down from twenty years to just two or three.
On top of all this, a year or two have been shaved off every reign to help crunch the whole list down into this time frame.