testimony.doc
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Nov. 16, 2005
(observations) unless they can be shown to be self-contradictory or contradictory
to established external dates.
From this list of observations, it soon becomes clear that the inductive approach faces a
great difficulty. That difficulty is how to handle the various possibilities that are inherent
in a proper treatment of all the observations just listed and their multiple combinations.
The easy way to handle this complexity is to make simplifying assumptions. Thus the
Seder Olam and the Talmud assume that all reign lengths are measured from the start of
the king's sole reign. Just the opposite assumption was made by Gershon Galil; he
assumed that all regnal years when a coregency is involved were measured from the start
of the coregency.
7
An even greater simplification was invented by Wellhausen, who ruled
out coregencies altogether, even the plainly-stated coregency of David with Solomon.
8
The consequences of this kind of procedure are obvious: the scholars who make such
simplifying assumptions will not agree with scholars who make other, contradictory
assumptions. The simplifications will also produce chronologies that contradict scriptural
texts at some point or another; the scholars will then, unjustifiably, claim that the
Scripture is in error because it does not fit their scheme.
SUCCESSES OF THE INDUCTIVE METHOD
In contrast, scholars who used the inductive approach attempted not to make a priori
assumptions. Instead, they used the scriptural texts to determine the methods used by the
ancient authors, taking into account the different evidences listed above, and not ruling
out any possibility until there were valid reasons for so doing. In the 1920's Professor
Coucke in Belgium determined from a careful analysis of the data in Kings and
Chronicles that Judah began its regnal years in Tishri, whereas Israel began its regnal
8994 for a discussion of the unreliability of the
LXX
in chronological matters. For a counter argument, see
M. Christine Tetley, The Reconstructed Chronology of the Divided Monarchy (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns,
2005) ch. 2.
7
Gershon Galil, The Chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah (Leiden: Brill, 1996) 10.
8
Wellhausen was followed in this presupposition by two of the more recent authors of chronological
studies of the OT: Jeremy Hughes, Secrets of the Times (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990) 99,
103; and Tetley, Reconstructed Chronology 185. After such rejection of well-established practices from the
ancient Near East with the goal of making things simpler, these scholars find it necessary to make a
multitude of secondary assumptions in order to explain the disagreements of their systems with the data.