[42] The lists of the Babylonian and Assyrian kings are not continuous; and before 1907, from the data then available (see the discussion in Rogers, op. cit. i. 312-348), Khammurabi, the sixth king of the first Babylonian dynasty, was commonly referred to such dates as 2376-2333 B.C. (Sayce) or 2285-2242 B.C. (Johns). But inscriptions recently discovered, by showing that the second dynasty was partly contemporaneous with the first and the third, have proved that these dates are too high; see L.W. King, Chronicles Concerning Early Bab. Kings (1907), i. 93-110; and the article [Babylonia], Chronology. The data B.C. 2130-2088 is that adopted by Thureau-Dangin, after a discussion of the subject, in the Journal des Savants, 1908, p. 199; and by Ungnad in the Orient. Litt.-zeitung, 1908, p. 13, and in Gressmann’s Altorientalische Texte und Bilder zum A.T. (1909), p. 103.
[43] King, op. cit. i. 116, ii. 14.
[44] The dates of the kings are, in most cases, those given by Kautzsch in the table in his Outline of the Hist. of the Literature of the O.T. (tr. by Taylor, 1898), pp. 167 ff.; see also A.R.S. Kennedy, “Samuel” in the Century Bible (1906), p. 31. The dates given by other recent authorities seldom differ by more than three or four years.
[45] The figures after a king’s name indicate the number of years assigned to his reign in the O.T. For Saul, see 1 Sam. xiii. 1, R.V.
[46] The date of Sheshonq depends on that fixed for Rehoboam. Petrie places the accession of Rehoboam in 937 B.C.
[47] If these dates are correct, there must be some error in the ages assigned to Ahaz and Hezekiah at their accession, viz. 20 and 25 respectively, for it would otherwise follow from them that Ahaz, dying at the age of [20 + 8 =] 28, left a son aged 25! The date 728 for Hezekiah’s accession rests upon the assumption that of the two inconsistent dates in 2 Kings xviii. 10, 13, the one in ver. 10 (which places the fall of Samaria in Hezekiah’s 6th year) is correct; but some scholars (as Wellhausen, Kamphausen, and Stade) suppose that the date in ver. 10 (which places Sennacherib’s invasion in Hezekiah’s 14th year) is correct, and assign accordingly Hezekiah’s accession to 715. This removes, or at least mitigates, the difficulty referred to, and leaves more room for the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz; but it requires, of course, a corresponding reduction in the reigns of the kings succeeding Ahaz.
[48] Breasted’s dates for these three kings (Hist. of Egypt, 1906, p. 601) are: Shabaka 712-700; Shabataka 700-688; Taharqa 688-663.
[49] See George Smith, The Assyrian Eponym Canon (1875), pp. 29 ff., 57 ff.; Schrader, Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek (transcriptions and translations of Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions), i. (1889), pp. 204 ff.
[50] It may be explained here that the dates of the Assyrian and Babylonian kings can be reduced to years B.C. by means of the so-called “Canon of Ptolemy,” which is a list of the Babylonian and Persian kings, with the lengths of their reigns, extending from Nabonassar, 747 B.C., to Alexander the Great, drawn up in the 2nd century A.D. by the celebrated Egyptian mathematician and geographer Ptolemy; as the dates B.C. of the Persian kings are known independently, from Greek sources, the dates B.C. of the preceding Babylonian kings can, of course, be at once calculated by means of the Canon. The recently-discovered contemporary monuments have fully established the accuracy of the Canon.
[51] Or, in any case, between 734 and 732; see Rost, Die Keilschrifttexte Tiglat-pilesers III., 1893, pp. xii., 39, 81, with the discussion, pp. xxxii.-xxxiv., xxxv.-xxxvi.