My First Try In the course of charting the life, judgeship, and ruler years listed in Scripture, I discovered something interesting about how the Hebrew scribes counted those years: the Hebrew scribes did not count those year spans in the same way the Greco-Roman Western world would have counted them. I realized this when I charted the year spans literally, one following the other, and ended up with more than 480 years. For example:
And the anger of YHWH glowed against Israel. And He gave them over into the hand of Cushan-rishathaimm, king of Mesopotamia. And the children of Israel served Cushan-rishathaim eight years. | And when the children of Israel cried to YHWH, YHWH raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, who saved them. . . . And the land had rest forty years. And Othniel son of Kenaz died. (Judge 3.8-11)
Othniel was the first judge to rule after the elders who ruled after Joshua had all died. But, according to Scripture, Othniel did not actually become a judge until eight years after the elders died. Once he had delivered Israel, the land had rest for 40 years. I initially charted these year spans as eight years of servitude followed by forty years of rest for a total of forty-eight years, which is the Greco-Roman Western counting method. I did the same for the other judgeships and ended up with 450 years for the years of the judges alone. Just adding 450 years to the 40 years of the Wilderness Wanderings gave me 490 years, and I still had not added in the c. 90+ years for the conquest of Canaan and the United Kingdom. Obviously, this counting method did not work for the record in Scripture. My Second Try The idea the Rûãch Qödösh (Holy Spirit) brought to mind was including the years of oppression within the years of the judgeships. Had the Hebrew scribes counted the judgeships as running continuously, one after the other, no matter when the judge actually became a judge within the years of his/her judgeship? Yes, that's exactly what they did. A continuous running count of the judgeships not interrupted by the count of the years spent serving other nations came to around 345 years. That left 135 years for the other events within the 480 years. Although it took some adjusting and re-adjusting of the probable year counts for how long Joshua and the elders led Israel before the judgeships began, how long Samuel was a judge, how long Samuel reigned, and when Solomon's co-regency began within David's reign, the 135 years was enough time to work all the events recorded in Scripture from the Exodus to the fourth year of Solomon into the 480 year count. Antedating versus Postdating In my research,(1) I learned the Ancient Near East civilizations used two different counting methods for their kings' reigns: antedating and postdating. The scribes did not count a king's reign from the day or month the last king died (as the Romans did) but rather from the year the last king died. In antedating, the scribes counted the beginning of the next king's reign as starting in the same year as the last year of the previous king's reign. For example, using the Western calendar: If King A reigned 40 years and died in 1200 B.C., the scribes counted his reign from 1239 B.C. to 1200 B.C. They then counted his successor's reign as starting in 1200 B.C., overlapping the two kings' reign counts. In postdating, the scribes counted the next king's reign as starting in the year after the last year of the previous king's reign. The overlapping year in postdating was called the "accession year" and counted only with the previous king's reign. Taking the same example: If King A died in 1200 B.C., the scribes started the reign count for his successor in 1199 B.C. 1200 B.C. was the successor's "accession year," and not included in the successor's reign count. The Hebrew scribes antedated the judgeships using the religious (Nisan/Spring) year. When the kings began, the scribes continued to use the antedated religious year pattern until they had to deal with the co-regency of Solomon with his father David. Perhaps what the scribes did related to the time of year David made Solomon his co-regent or perhaps they just felt it was too confusing to count Solomon's co-regency using the same religious year count they were using for David, but, for whatever reason, the scribes counted Solomon's reign using the civil year. When the kingdom split, the Judah scribes postdated the Judah kings' reigns using the civil year and the Israel kings' reigns using the religious year. However, the Israel scribes antedated the kings' reigns. This made charting the reigns of the kings of Judah and Israel based on the information in Scripture quite challenging, but that's another story.
Another Time Wrinkle Then I ran across something else. I found the counting got a little weird in Scripture when the scribes dated events to a month during a Solomon reign year because the scribes counted the months according to the religious year but they counted Solomon's reign according to the civil year. What that means is the 7th to 12th months of a Solomon reign year occurred before the 1st to 6th months of a Solomon reign year.
And it happened in the four hundred and eightieth year from the going out of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, in the fourth year, in the month of Ziw (it is the second month) in the reigning of Solomon over Israel, he built the house for YHWH. (1 Kings 6:1)
The second month (Ziw) referenced here is the month Iyaar in the religious Jewish calendar, the month following Abib (Nisan). But the count for the fourth year of Solomon's reign begins in the Tishri before this Ziw. Tishri is the first month in the civil calendar and the seventh month in the religious calendar. Of course, this held true for the Judah scribes counting in any of the Judah kings' reigns. As I said, the counting gets a little weird from the Greco-Roman Western standpoint. Conclusion While, on the surface, the Scripture record of the year spans of various events appears to include too many years, counting the way the Hebrew scribes counted resolves the problem. All the events recorded in Scripture from the Exodus to the fourth year of Solomon do fit within the 480 time frame given in 1 Kings 6.1.
FOOTNOTES (1) I no longer remember where I first read about antedating and postdating and I'm not finding it now. It was probably in an article in the International Standard Bible Encylopedia or in the Jewish Encylopedia Online. Return Return to blog post Return to ICB Menu
Site Creator: Dori This page last modified: October 6, 2018 Send correspondance to: dori@badgerholt.com Legal Stuff: Copyright 2018 by D.M. Doede. All rights reserved. Permission to distribute this material via e-mail, or individual copies for personal use, is granted on the condition that it will be used for non-commercial purposes, will not be sold, and no changes made to the format or content. When quoting, please keep the context and provide the source URL: https://www.badgerholt.com. Scriptures are cited from New American Standard Bible (NASB), English Standard Version (ESV) Young's Literal Translation (YLT), Geneva Bible, 1599 ed., Jay Green's KJ3' Literal Translation, Gary Zella's Analytical Literal Translation of the New Testament, or my own translation (dmd).