Setting the Record Straight for the Chronology of King Hezekiah of Judah

....

The highly-favoured Edwin Thiele’s The Mysterious Number of the Hebrew Kings (Grand Rapids, 1983) has, by ignoring the impressive biblical syncretisms for the reign of king Hezekiah, and re-aligning Hezekiah now with a faulty neo-Assyrian chronology, placed the beginning of king Hezekiah’s reign about a decade later in relation to the fall of Samaria than the Bible has situated the king. Taking the conventional date of 722/21 BC for the fall of Samaria, in Hezekiah’s 6th year, according to the Bible, would mean that the reign of Hezekiah began in 727 BC. But Thiele has the king, instead, in 716 BC. Though Thiele had the best of intentions, and had sought to set biblical chronology on the firmest of foundations, his methodology was disastrous. His erroneous belief that the chronology of neo Assyria was virtually rock solid was a terrible presumption. Consequently, Thiele’s treatment of king Hezekiah is one of the worst features of his book. The Tangi-i Var inscription that I discussed (I, Chapter 6, p. 144, and Chapter 12), for one, has shown that the reign of Sargon II aligns quite differently with Ethiopia than according to the received chronology. And the received chronology also has Sennacherib invading Judah during the reign of king Hezekiah at a point about half-way through the reign of Sargon II.
 

The Bible has provided us with a three-way synchronism for (i) the Fall of Samaria; this having occurred in (ii) the 9th year of king Hoshea of Israel and (iii) the 6th year of king Hezekiah of Judah. Moreover, extra-biblically, Sargon II tells us that it occurred during (iv) his first year of reign, which was apparently also, according to Sargonic information, (v) the first year of Merodach-baladan king of Babylon. Here, then, is a most impressive five-way synchronism in relation to the Fall of Samaria. But it is entirely annihilated in Thiele’s book thanks to his unrealistic idolisation of the accepted neo-Assyrian chronology.

In my thesis, the reign of king Hezekiah was chronologically restored to its original firm place in relation to the Fall of Samaria. Neo-Assyrian history instead now had to undergo scrutiny, for one to find out why the reigns of Sargon II and Sennacherib were constantly running into each other, and why the standard chronology of Sargon II was greatly embarrassed by the Tang-i Var find.
....