Challenging the Narrative

Challenging the Narrative
In the archives of human history, few subjects elicit as much intrigue, debate, and division as the chronology of ancient cultures, especially of the Israelites. The delicate pattern of time, interlaced with the threads of varied cultures, faiths, and interpretations, presents both scholars and seekers with major challenges.

As Albert Olmstead so poignantly argued:

For the historian the framework is chronology. . . . Without chronology, there can be no history, since history itself is merely a record of human events in time relation. Sad to admit, chronology is the most tricky subject with which the historian must deal, and special attention is always devoted to its intricacies in the historical seminar.¹

With the same insight, Edwin Thiele points out:

Without exact chronology there can be no exact history.²

Israelite Chronology
Among the contested chronologies of the ancient world lie those belonging to the ancient Israelites (both of the house of Judah and the house of Israel), especially while they inhabited the Promised Land. The long journey of these enduring Israelite nations through the ages is recorded not only in the sacred texts of the Scriptures but also among the annals and inscriptions of their contemporaries: the Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and others.

Yet despite the earnest labor of generations of academics, the precise chronologies of these people remain elusive, clouded across millennia of interpretative conventions, scribal errors, fraudulent constructs, and well-established assumptions.

Into this controversial arena enters our series, Ancient World Chronology. This series, which will undoubtedly provoke consternation among the custodians of conventional wisdom, proposes a revised chronology for the Israelites and many other ancient nations, disrupting long-held paradigms formed by the misuse and incorrect misinterpretation of Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and other ancient records.

Standing at Odds
The thesis set forth herein stands at odds with the accepted conclusions of many modern scholars, who, although rigorous in their craft, have inadvertently perpetuated misunderstandings by uncritically conforming to certain chronological frameworks.

Those frameworks, rooted in personal interpretations of Mesopotamian and Egyptian dating, have long held sway, shaping biblical chronology and leading to what some would argue is a serious dissonance between the biblical record and extra-biblical accounts.

The Sabbath and Jubilee Years
At the heart and beginning of this revision, and the subject of our first volume, entitled The Sabbath and Jubilee Cycle, lies a reconsideration of the dating for the Sabbath and Jubilee years. These divine rhythms, engraved into the covenantal consciousness of the early Israelite people, serve as chronological markers that, when properly understood, unlock a coherent timeline, harmonizing the histories of Judah and Israel with that of their ancient neighbors.

The Sabbath and Jubilee Cycle boldly asserts that by recalibrating our grasp of these cycles, we may achieve a more accurate and consistent picture of Israel’s past, one that resolves the perplexing chronological anomalies that have long confounded historians and theologians alike.

Challenging Popular Histories
Inevitably, this thesis will meet resistance. It contests not only the academic institutions that have established their theories over the last two centuries but also the very foundation upon which popular histories of the ancient Near East have been built. It calls into question the established dating of ancient Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and other chronologies, which scholars, both secular and religious, have often treated as sacrosanct.

Reordering Israelite History
To revise these schemes, and thereby reorder the history of the Israelites into their original and true form, is no small task—one fraught with implications which ripple far beyond the discipline of chronology.

Nevertheless, truth is not the province of consensus or the handmaiden of tradition. History itself is replete with instances in which progress demanded the audacity to challenge the entrenched, to question the popular, and to seek clarity among confusion. The Sabbath and Jubilee Cycle, our first step in this process, beckons the reader to engage with its evidence not with preemptive dismissal but with an open mind, prepared to contend with the difficult but necessary task of re-examination.

Only when we release ourselves from the restrictions of convention can we begin to reconcile the differences that have thus far obscured a fuller understanding of the ancient world.

Our series is not for the faint-hearted or those who cling unyieldingly to the familiar. It is for those who, in the spirit of intellectual interest and with a devotion to true history, are willing to entertain the possibility that today’s established chronologies for the ancient world are incorrect.

Replete With Errors
Few realize, for example, that these lists are replete with errors made by the ancient scribes who recopied them. Sometimes copyists deliberately, and other times mistakenly, misaligned ancient dynasties by creating King and Eponym Lists to give their own nations greater antiquity and authority. After recovering these old, elongated lists, many present-day scholars were drawn to their errors because they wanted to believe these scribes were superior to those who recopied Scriptures.

Conclusion
Indeed, many researchers today, to various degrees, are motivated by an underlying anti-scriptural bias. To our readers, The Sabbath and Jubilee Cycle, along with the forthcoming volumes of the series Ancient World Chronology, provides a path forward that, though contested, promises a resolution to the vexing questions that have long surrounded the intersection of Israelite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and numerous other histories. Let this serve as the beginning of a conversation, not its end, as we seek to advance ever closer to factual history.

Note: Adapted from the Prologue of The Sabbath and Jubilee Cycle by R. Clover, published by Qadesh La Yahweh Press (www.yahweh.org).

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Footnotes:
1 – Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 2.1 (1943), p. 6, “History, Ancient World, and the Bible: Problems of Attitude and of Method,” by A. T. Olmstead. ↩
2 – The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, p. 33, by Edwin R. Thiele. Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1983. ↩

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