Adam When?

    The foundation date must be termed 931/930 to be totally accurate. Theile writes:

Attention, however, should first be called to the fact that when the date 931 is given as the accession year of Rehoboam in the Southern Kingdom and the year Jeroboam I seized the throne in the north what is actually meant is that Jeroboam came to the throne some time between the first of Nisan, 931, and the first of Nisan, 930, and that Rehoboam’s accession took place some time between Tishri 1, 931, and Tishri 1, 930. Inasmuch as the accession of Rehoboam preceded that of Jeroboam, the accession of the latter must have taken place at some time after Tishri 1, 931 and before Nisan 1, 930. All that we can say with complete accuracy as to the time when these two kings began their reigns is that this took place some time after Tishri 1, 931, and before Nisan, 930, and this is better expressed by the symbol 931/930 than by the precise date 931. And due to the fact that in neither Judah nor Israel did the beginning of the regnal year synchronize with the beginning of our calendar year of January 1 and that any particular Hebrew year thus overlapped two of our calendar years, the only correct symbol under the circumstances would be such a dual symbol as 931/930.1

    I believe, however, that 931 is the correct date of the two possibilities, 931 and 930. There are other relationships within the Bible that strongly support the date of 931. Hopefully, this supporting data will be offered in another volume. However, in the main text of this book much additional support for this date has been presented, particularly from the reigns of the great pharaohs of Egypt.


    ¹Edwin R. Theile, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., Revised Ed., 1965), pp. 53-54.