The cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament - The Search For ...

164 TEE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS AND THE 0. T.
pelled to decide to which of the two systems he will turD and
which he with declare to be the right one. The course which
first suggests itself is to take the Biblical chronology as our
basis, seeing that it is so well dovetailed together and the
chronological notices of the Books of Kings, relating to the
461 two kingdoms of Israel, are apparently checked the one by
the other. But every Old Testament inquirer is aware that
this Biblical scheme is by no means without its difficulties.
Not a few discrepances yawn within it *. And un-
fortunately we cease to feel confidence in the scriptural
computation just at the point where a comparison with
another chronological system is rendered possible, namely
in the period succeeding 722**. For this period we possess
an extra-Biblical test in the shape of the so-called Canon
of Ptolemaeus. From this we learn that the campaign of
Sennacherib to Aegypt-Palestine cannot have taken place
until after 705, the year when the Assyrian king ascended
* See von Niebuhr, Geschichte Assurs und Babels p. 84. J. Well-
hausen in Jahrbiicher fur deutscbe Tbeologie XX, p. 607 foil, and comp.
above Vol. I, p. 215 foil., and also E. Krey in Zeitschrift fiir wissen-
schaftliche Tbeologie XX, p. 404 foil.
** Tbere is no sufficient reason for the objection, that the guarantee
afforded by the parallel North Israelite chronology extending, as the
reader is aware, to the 6*'^ year of Hezekiah's reign and which breaks
off subsequent to that date, is altogether more worthy of confidence.
For this is notoriously untrue with respect to just the very period
referred-to. Thus, according to the chronological statement 2 Kings
XV. 30, Pekah was slain in the 20t'> year of Jotham's reign i. e. in
738 B.C.; according to the same verse and according to the cuneiform
records, the murder of Pekah was immediately followed by Hoshea's
accession to the throne of Israel, i. e. Pekah was assassinated in the
year 728 B. C. Thus, in the portion of Israelite history which is
controlled by the chronology of the Northern kingdom, we have a dis-
crepancy of full 10 years, just as in the subsequent period we have
a discrepancy of 13 years! Wherein then consists the essential dif-
ference between the two chronologies? Compare also the dissertations
cited below.