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| | # When did the regnal year begin? Jewish history allows two possible answers. The first is the spring month of Nisan, approximately April in our modern calendar. Moses was commanded to start reckoning the year then (Exodus 12:2), and when months are designated by number instead of name, Nisan is always the "first month." The other candidate is the month of Tishri, roughly October. This started the agricultural year, and the Gezer Calendar, 10th Century BC, lists the months with Tishri as the start of the year. ''Rosh HaShanah'' (the Jewish New Year) is celebrated in Tishri down to the present day. | | # When did the regnal year begin? Jewish history allows two possible answers. The first is the spring month of Nisan, approximately April in our modern calendar. Moses was commanded to start reckoning the year then (Exodus 12:2), and when months are designated by number instead of name, Nisan is always the "first month." The other candidate is the month of Tishri, roughly October. This started the agricultural year, and the Gezer Calendar, 10th Century BC, lists the months with Tishri as the start of the year. ''Rosh HaShanah'' (the Jewish New Year) is celebrated in Tishri down to the present day. |
| − | # Usually the new king did not start on a new year's day, whether that day was in Nisan or in Tishri, but at some other time in the year. Was this first partial year to be considered as year one of the monarch (called non-accession reckoning), or as year zero (accession reckoning)? Both ways of reckoning were done in the ancient Near East, and resolving this matter correctly would eliminate many of the apparent one-year discrepancies in the Bible's numbers. | + | # Usually the new king did not start on a New Year's Day, whether that day was in Nisan or in Tishri, but at some other time in the year. Was this first partial year to be considered as year one of the monarch (called non-accession reckoning), or as year zero (accession reckoning)? Both ways of reckoning were done in the ancient Near East, and resolving this matter correctly would eliminate many of the apparent one-year discrepancies in the Bible's numbers. |
| | # Several Scriptural references<ref>1 Kings 1:34, 1 Kings 1:17 compared to 2 Kings 3:1, 2 Kings 15:5, 1 Chronicles 23:1, 2 Chronicles 11:22.</ref> indicate that the reigning king, especially in Judah, established his son as co-regent during his lifetime. This was a custom practiced by various Egyptian pharaohs. It was seen as a wise policy in Judah, especially after the disaster that occurred when Solomon did not follow the wise example of his own father in this regard. The same problem that confronts Egyptologists in examining this practice confronts the Biblical chronologist: were the years of reign given for any monarch in Scripture measured from the start of his coregency, or from the start of his sole reign? | | # Several Scriptural references<ref>1 Kings 1:34, 1 Kings 1:17 compared to 2 Kings 3:1, 2 Kings 15:5, 1 Chronicles 23:1, 2 Chronicles 11:22.</ref> indicate that the reigning king, especially in Judah, established his son as co-regent during his lifetime. This was a custom practiced by various Egyptian pharaohs. It was seen as a wise policy in Judah, especially after the disaster that occurred when Solomon did not follow the wise example of his own father in this regard. The same problem that confronts Egyptologists in examining this practice confronts the Biblical chronologist: were the years of reign given for any monarch in Scripture measured from the start of his coregency, or from the start of his sole reign? |
| | # An additional complication is that anyone studying carefully the Scripture's abundant chronological data will find that the two Hebrew kingdoms were using different means of reckoning the years of their kings. When a Judean chronicler gave a synchronism saying that his Judean king began in year X of an Israelite king, would this year X be measured according to the system used at that time in Israel, or would the Judean recorder have imposed his own calendar and way of measuring years onto the Israelite king? The same question applies when a record from the northern kingdom states that their king began in year Y of a Judean king. | | # An additional complication is that anyone studying carefully the Scripture's abundant chronological data will find that the two Hebrew kingdoms were using different means of reckoning the years of their kings. When a Judean chronicler gave a synchronism saying that his Judean king began in year X of an Israelite king, would this year X be measured according to the system used at that time in Israel, or would the Judean recorder have imposed his own calendar and way of measuring years onto the Israelite king? The same question applies when a record from the northern kingdom states that their king began in year Y of a Judean king. |