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Verse:Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. —Acts 17:11, NASB
One section of the Bible that is most difficult to synchronize is the chronology of Hebrew kings found in 1–2 Kings and 1–2 Chronicles.
After centuries of exhaustive studies, the scholarly community has concluded that some discrepancies were simply mistakes in the Bible record.
For instance, how could 2 Kings 9:29 say that Ahaziah of Judah began to reign in the eleventh year of Joram of Israel when 2 Kings 8:25 states that it was in the twelfth year? As a student at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Edwin R. Thiele attempted to write his master’s thesis on the topic of biblical discrepancies, but his adviser, W. A. Irwin, did not want such an “unsolvable” subject revisited.
Eventually, however, Irwin allowed Thiele to write his doctoral dissertation on the controversial topic. Beginning with the assumption that the Bible does not contradict itself, Thiele attempted to synchronize the troublesome chronologies.
Thiele took into consideration co-regencies and overlapping reigns and, whenever possible, also the month of the year a ruler began his regnal year.
Deeper in his investigation, Thiele discovered that many apparent discrepancies were attributable to “dual dating” —sometimes, the first year of a king’s reign was considered his accession year, and other times it was recorded as the first year of his reign.
On December 17, 1943, Edwin Thiele was awarded a PhD degree from the University of Chicago, and his dissertation became a standard work for biblical chronology.
The findings of this renowned Adventist scholar were first published as an article in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies and then in the book The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings.
Truly, “the difficulties of Scripture have been urged by skeptics as an argument against the Bible; but so far from this, they constitute a strong evidence of its divine inspiration.” Many times the problem is not so much with the Bible itself but with our own lack of understanding.
By digging a little deeper, our problems may be solved, and our doubts may disappear.