“And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead” (2 Kings xv, 30).
That these interregnums did not occur, nor indeed any interregnums between the reigns of Israel’s kings, is attested by Josephus, who by Christians is esteemed an authority second only to the writers of the Scriptures. The ninth book of his “Antiquities” bears the following title: “Containing the interval of one hundred and fifty-seven years from the death of Ahab to the captivity of the ten tribes.” This forbids the idea of any interregnum.
But if it could be shown that these or other interregnums really did occur, the fact would increase rather than diminish the difficulties connected with the solution of this question.
We search the writings of Bible commentators in vain for an explanation or attempted reconciliation of many of the conflicting statements to be found in the passages that I have quoted. These exegetes have either been ignorant of their existence, or have purposely ignored them. Some of the more noticeable ones they have attempted to reconcile; but the explanations offered are of such a character as to make it seemingly impossible for an honest scholar to advance them, or an intelligent reader to accept them.
These pretended reconciliations have been abridged, and, in the shape of marginal notes, transferred to the popular editions of the Bible. Where different and conflicting dates are assigned for the commencement of a king’s reign, opposite the first will be found such explanatory notes as “prorex,” “viceroy,” “in consort,” or “in partnership with his father;” and opposite the last, “began to reign alone;” and all this without a word or hint, either in the Bible or elsewhere, to authorize it.
The demonstration of a single error in the Bible destroys the dogmas of its divinity and infallibility. Yet notwithstanding this single error, or even twenty errors, it might still be valuable as a historical record. But when it can be demonstrated that it abounds with glaring contradictions, that its every chapter teems with flagrant errors, it is utterly unworthy of credit, and must be rejected even as a human record of events.
CHAPTER XVII.
INSPIRED NUMBERS.
In the second chapter of Ezra is given a register of the Jews who returned from Babylon to Jerusalem. The register begins with these words: