Bible Dating--Kings of Judah
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Thank you, Vicki, for your kind words. I've tried very hard in my teaching to rise above denominational issues and to focus on the person and work of Christ: Christianity, with a capital "C". As C.S. Lewis once said (and I'm paraphrasing): "It is my job to get people into the house. What room they live in is up to the Holy Spirit." We are all one family, and we're called to unity in Christ. I like to think of the Church as a symphony orchestra: it is made up of many different instruments--strings, woodwinds, percussion, and so on--all played by men and women with a variety of talents, gifts and abilities, but all playing from one score under the baton of one conductor: the Lord Jesus Christ.
Vicki,
Wow! that's a very astute observation. I've never had anyone catch that before. Sharp eyes!
You're correct in noting that 2 Kings 24: 8 says Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, whereas 2 Chronicles 36: 9 says he was eight years old. I suspect that we have a scribal error here. The Hebrew manuscripts of 2 Kings consistently read that Jehoiachin was eighteen, but only one Hebrew manuscript, along with some Septuagint and Syriac manuscripts, read 2 Chronicles 36: 9 as eighteen.
When scribes copy a manuscript they tend to be very accurate, since they believed fully that they were transcribing "God's Word." But even then people make mistakes, just as one makes mistakes typing. In the field of textual criticism, such mistakes are classified into two categories: substantive and accidental. Substantive variants change the meaning of the text, while accidental variants do not (a simple misspelling, for example). Here we have a substantive variant: eighteen vs eight.
As a scribe is copying a manuscript you can see how easy it would be to read "eighteen" and write "eight," especially if there is a trigger of some sort to initiate the error. We have such a trigger in 2 Kings 24: 12 where we read, "In the eighth year of the reign of the king of Babylon, he took Jehoiachin prisoner." I can see how easily a scribe could confuse eighteen and eight with such a trigger event associating "eight" and "Jehoiachin" in the same verse.
Since all manuscripts of 2 Kings 24: 8 read "eighteen," while 2 Chronicles 36: 9 contains the variants, I would judge "eighteen" as the correct reading. If I were a Bible editor, that's what I would print, with a textual footnote explaining why.
Keep up the good work, Vicki!
