This is a review of Harold Camping's book The Perfect Harmony of the Numbers of the Hebrew Kings. To begin I will list four substantial discrepancies in Mr Camping's chronology of the kings of Israel and Judah when checked against the statements of scripture:
Discrepancy #1:
Claim: On page 39 of his book Mr Camping claims Israel's king Jeroboam began to reign in the 5th year of Judah's king Amaziah.
Bible: The Bible indicates Jeroboam began to reign in the 15th year of Amaziah's reign, not the 5th year!
2 Kings 14:23 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel began to reign in Samaria, [and reigned] forty and one years.
In this instance Mr Camping's calendar differs by 10 years from the Bible's chronology.
Discrepancy #2:
Claim: Also on page 39 of his book Mr Camping claims Judah's king Azariah (Uzziah) began to reign in the 4th year of Israel's king Jeroboam.
Bible: The Bible indicates Azariah began to reign in the 27th year of Jeroboam's reign, not the 4th year!
2 Kings 15:1 In the twenty and seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel began Azariah son of Amaziah king of Judah to reign.
Here Mr Camping's calendar differs by 23 years from the Bible's chronology.
Discrepancy #3:
Claim: On page 49 of his book Mr Camping claims Judah's king Ahaz began to reign in the 9th year of Israel's king Pekah.
Bible: The Bible indicates Ahaz began to reign in the 17th year of Pekah's reign, not the 9th year!
2 Kings 16:1 In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah Ahaz the son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign.
And here Mr Camping's calendar differs by 8 years from the Bible's chronology.
Discrepancy #4:
Claim: On page 56 of his book Mr Camping claims Judah's king Hezekiah made his son Manasseh co-regent in the 18th year of his reign, resulting in an 11 year co-regency
Bible: The Bible makes no mention whatsoever of a co-regency between Hezekiah and Manasseh, in fact Mr Camping himself admits this in his book on page 55:
"How many years was Manasseh co-regent with his father Hezekiah?
We have no immediate information in the Bible that helps us."
(Harold Camping, Harmony of the Hebrew Kings, page 55)
The only statement we find in the Bible about Manasseh becoming king is:
2 Kings 20:21 And Hezekiah slept with his fathers: and Manasseh his son reigned in his stead.
2 Kings 21:1 Manasseh [was] twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name [was] Hephzi-bah.
The above citation is all we find in regard to Manasseh taking over as ruler of Judah from his father Hezekiah. This citation appears to indicate Manasseh began to reign following the death of his father Hezekiah, as was typical for the overwhelming majority of the kings of Israel and Judah. If one searches the full account of Hezekiah and Manasseh, there is no hint anywhere of a co-regency.
Why a Manasseh Co-Regency?
At this point one must ask the question, if the Bible does not specify a co-regency between Hezekiah and Manasseh, why would Mr Camping introduce one? The answer to this question is extremely important! Remember Mr Camping's mantra "the Bible alone and in it's entirety". Mr Camping always asserted that the Bible was alone sufficient to interpret itself. Mr Camping was always quick to point out that no matter how much secular evidence there might be to the contrary, we must only trust the Bible because the minute we begin to rely on secular evidence to interpret the Bible we have committed a fatal flaw because our authority is no longer the Bible alone and in it's entirely! This is crucially important because the introduction of secular ideas to interpret the Bible means we no longer have an infallible basis for our conclusions. It is impossible to stress this point enough, WE ARE NOT TO USE SECULAR DATA TO INTERPRET THE BIBLE. However as will be presented below this is unfortunately exactly what Mr Camping did, though in my opinion not out of malice or ill intent, but simply because he trusted too much the work of a Seventh Day Adventist chronologist named Edwin Thiele.
Other Co-Regencies
In the 4th discrepancy above it was mentioned that Mr Camping introduced an 11 year co-regency between Hezekiah and his son Manasseh that had no biblical support. However while not being initially obvious the first 3 discrepancies listed above also introduce co-regencies into the biblical timeline that also have no biblical support. In the case of Israel's king Jeroboam (#1 above), Mr Camping introduced a 10 year co-regency between Jeroboam and his father Jehoash. For Judah's king Azariah (#2 above), Mr Camping introduced a 22 year co-regency between Azariah and his father Amaziah. Finally for Judah's king Ahaz (#3 above), Mr Camping introduced a 12 year co-regency between Ahaz and his father Jotham. So why did Mr Camping, following the chronological work of Edwin Thiele, introduce all these co-regencies despite having no biblical support? The answer to this question requires some background history on what are called the Long Kings Chronology and Short Kings Chronology.
The Long Kings Chronology
Prior to ~ 1875 there was only one kings chronology of the Bible, the Long chronology, a chronology that recognized ~390 years from the death of Solomon to the fall of Jerusalem. This chronology is basically what one would arrive at if one were to work through the Bible using only the date synchronisms provided between the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah without the introduction any extra-biblical data or co-regencies. That is, this chronology uses the Bible alone, and completely and totally ignores secular data. The belief held by those advocating this chronology is the Bible is alone sufficient to determine it's own internal chronology, i.e., no secular data points are required to help us figure out how to interpret the Bible's internal chronology, the Bible provides everything we need. This is what I would call a straight forward chronology, anyone with a bit of time and determination can work through the various synchronisms provided in 1st and 2nd Kings and 1st and 2nd Chronicles and arrive at something like 390 years from Solomon's death to the fall of Jerusalem. I did this myself and posted the results here. Now before presenting the Short Kings Chronology it is important to understand how the Bible's internal calendar is tied to our modern day secular calendar.
Synchronizing the Biblical and Secular Calendars
In the Bible there are several references to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, who was the king that overthrew Jerusalem and brought Judah's monarchy to an end. The dates for Nebuchadnezzar's reign are almost universally accepted (including by Mr Camping) to be 605 BC to 562 BC, making it quite easy to tie the biblical and secular calendars together using a verse like Jeremiah 32:1 which synchronizes the 10th year of Zedekiah king of Judah to the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.
Jeremiah 32:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which [was] the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar.
And since the fall of Jerusalem was in the very next year, Zedekiah's 11th year (Jeremiah 39:2), it's easy to determine that the fall of Jerusalem occurred in Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year, which would be the year 587 BC, a date Mr Camping and most other chronologists agree upon. Thus we are able to synchronize the Bible's internal calendar to the modern day secular calendar. From this one is able to work backwards to earlier events in the Bible, like the death of Solomon, which would be 390 years before the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC. Thus Solomon's death would have been around 977 BC. One can also work backwards further in time to the Exodus using the synchronism of 1 Kings 6:1 that ties Solomon's 4th year to the 480th year since the Exodus,
1 Kings 6:1 And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which [is] the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.
Since Solomon reigned for 40 years (1 Kings 11:42), his fourth year would have been around 1013 BC (977 BC + 36 years), and the Exodus around 1493 BC (1013 BC + 480 years). One might notice this date for the Exodus is 46 years earlier than Mr Camping's date of 1447 BC. The reason Mr Camping's Exodus date falls later is due to the addition of the four extra-biblical co-regencies mentioned above.
Why Should We Only Use Nebuchadnezzar to Synchronize Calendars?
One very important point to highlight about synchronizing the Bible's internal calendar to the modern day secular calendar is that the Long Kings Chronology only uses date synchronisms provided by scripture, and the only secular king the Bible synchronizes to Biblical kings is the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. In fact it is rather astonishing that the Bible doesn't synchronize Nebuchadnezzar to just one or two Biblical kings, but to three of them! Recall that when the Bible repeatedly does something we should listen! Here are those three synchronisms:
Jeremiah 32:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which [was] the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar.
Jeremiah 25:1 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that [was] the first year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon;
2 Kings 24:12 And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers: and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign.
Here we have Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year synchronized to Zedekiah's 10th year, Nebuchadnezzar's 1st year synchronized to Jehoiakim's 4th year, and Nebuchadnezzar's 8th year synchronized to Jehoiachin's first year (Jehoiachin only reigned for 3 months). So while the Bible does mention several other secular kings (kings of Assyria, Syria, Egypt and Babylon), only one of those kings, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, is infallibly synchronized to the reign of a Biblical king. This I believe is purposely done by God, God is telling us who we should use from the secular world to date the events in His book. Having said that we need to take one more brief diversion before getting to the Short Kings Chronology, this time for some background information on Assyrian chronology.
Assyrian Chronology
It was indicated above that secular Babylonian records, namely those for the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, were used to tie the Biblical calendar to the secular calendar. But what about Assyrian chronology, how does that fit in, after all we know Assyria featured very prominently in the history of Israel and Judah. Well the fact of the matter is that prior to the mid-1800's Assyrian chronology was dated using the Biblical record even among secular historians. That is because the biblical record of the kings of Israel and Judah, with all its detailed information, was considered sufficiently reliable even among non-Christians for chronological purposes. Unfortunately that situation was dramatically reversed following the discovery of various Assyrian relics in the mid-1800's! There were 3 very notable discoveries that ultimately led to the veracity of the biblical kings account to be called into question by the secular world:
#1 - Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III:
In 1846 archaeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard discovered a large 6 foot tall limestone monument in northern Iraq that recorded various achievements of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III. One of the events depicted on the monument was an image supposedly of Israel's king Jehu paying tribute to Shalmaneser III in the 18th year of Shalmaneser's reign. Thus the important discovery here was of an apparent secular synchronism between Shalmaneser III and Israel's king Jehu. Now the reign of Shalmaneser III is dated (using the Assyrian Eponym Canon, discussed below) to be from 858 BC to 824 BC, making his 18th year, the year he supposedly received tribute from Jehu, 840 BC. However the reign of Israel's king Jehu had been dated (using the Long Kings Chronology above) to be from 885 BC to 858 BC. This of course results in a huge discrepancy because it would be impossible for Jehu to give tribute in 840 BC if his reign ended 18 years earlier in 858 BC! After the discovery of the Black Obelisk it was clear that Assyrian archaeology was on a collision course with Biblical chronology, however matters would appear to get even worse with the discovery of the Kirkh Monoliths:
#2 - Kirkh Monoliths of Shalmaneser III:
In 1861 archaeologist John George Taylor discovered two large 6 foot tall limestone monuments in southern Turkey that also recorded various achievements of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (along with his father Ashurnasirpal II). One of the monuments describes the Battle of Qarqar, where Shalmaneser III supposedly fought against the Syrian king Hadadezer and Israel's king Ahab in the 6th year of Shalmaneser's reign. This discovery provided another apparent secular synchronism, this time between Shalmaneser III and Israel's king Ahab. And once again using the Assyrian Eponym Canon for dating, the 6th year of the reign of Shalmaneser III that would place the Battle of Qarqar in the year 853 BC, however using the Long Kings Chronology of the Bible the dates for the reign of king Ahab are 917 BC to 896 BC. This result presents an even bigger discrepancy because it would be impossible for Ahab to fight in the battle of Qarqar in 853 BC if his reign ended 43 years earlier in 896 BC! So now the 18 year discrepancy caused by the Black Obelisk grew to a 43 year discrepancy by information taken from the Kirkh Monoliths! At this point it's almost needless to say but the chronological record as recorded in the Bible began to take a lot of heat from secular archaeologists and historians. So where did the dates for the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III actually come from? The answer is the Assyrian Eponym Canon:
#3 - The Assyrian Eponym Canon and the Eclipse of Bur-Sagale:
In the year 1875 an archaeologist named George Smith published a book called the Assyrian Eponym Canon. What's an eponym? In ancient Assyria the method they used to keep track of years was to assign a certain individual's name to each new year, this is called Eponym dating (the ancient Assyrians did not use calendar year dating, i.e., numbers, like we do today). The Assyrians dutifully maintained lists of each year's eponym, both on clay tablets and also on monuments, to serve as their historical records. And next to each year's eponym the Assyrians would include any notable events for that year, like a new king, a war or famine, and in the case of an eponym named Bur-Sagale, a solar eclipse. Now as it turns out the recording of the Bur-Sagale solar eclipse was very fortuitous for secular historians because it appears to allow the Assyrian Eponym Canon to be very precisely dated, which in turn would allow all the events recorded in the Assyrian Eponym Canon (and in particular the reigns of various Assyrian kings) to be very precisely dated. And that is exactly what George Smith's book the Assyrian Eponym Canon claimed to do, it allowed all the Assyrian kings from 911 BC to 647 BC to be very precisely and, in the view of secular historians, irrefutably dated.
Needless to say the discovery of the Black Obelisk in 1846, the Kurkh Monolith in 1861 and the publishing of the Assyrian Eponym Canon in 1875, along with the dating provided by the Bur-Sagale eclipse, caused many a secular archaeologist to dismiss the Bible's kings chronology as unreliable and inaccurate. Here again it is probably impossible to overstate the enormous amount of pressure the discovery and dating of these Assyrian relics put on Biblical chronologists to come up with a solution that would harmonize the Bible with all this new found secular archaeological data and salvage the Bible's reputation. Remember too the mid to late 1800's was a time of growing rebellion against the Bible by secularism so these findings were readily embraced and used by secularists to push their agenda and support their idea the Bible was untrustworthy. So how did biblical chronologists respond to these discoveries? As we shall see it led some to develop the Short Kings Chronology!
Dangerous Territory Ahead
One last comment before continuing. The question facing biblical chronologists in the 1800's is the same one that we face today, in the face of what seems to be overwhelming secular proof that the Bible is wrong, what do we do? Do we reinterpret the Bible in order to harmonize it with secular records or do we hold fast to the scriptures in spite of what the secular world produces? Consider the matter of Evolution. The secular world claims there is irrefutable proof that the world is billions of years old and that mankind evolved from monkeys or single cell organisms over extremely long periods of time. Scientists offer up various proofs for evolution including carbon 14 dating which they claim provides irrefutable proof the world is much much older than the several thousands of years the Bible indicates. The proofs for Evolution appear to be so strong and airtight that Christians who hold to the Bible, and in particular that the Creation account of Genesis 1 was six literal 24 hour days rather than figurative days of millions of years, are frequently ridiculed as having a closed mind and ignoring proofs that science says are irrefutably settled. And as it turns out this is the same exact challenge that biblical chronologists faced in the 1800's, do they acquiesce to what also appear to be strong and airtight secular proofs, or do they hold fast to the Bible and endure the ridicule that is sure to follow. What we will find is biblical chronologists did both, some acquiesced to the secular world while others held firm to the scriptures.
The Short Kings Chronology
In a nutshell Assyrian chronology dictated the Bible's kings chronology needed to be roughly 45 years shorter than the 390 years that had been held by biblical chronologists since the time of Eusebius, who in the 3rd century was one of the earliest known Christian chronologists . In order to archive a reduction of 45 years it was decided that large co-regencies would need to be introduced to the Bible's chronology since overlapping the reigns of kings would allow the total number of years in the chronology to be reduced. The trick was figuring out where to add these new co-regencies. In his book "The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings", Edwin Thiele did exactly that. Thiele introduced co-regencies of 10 years between Hezekiah and Manasseh, 10 years between Uzziah and Jotham, 25 years between Amaziah and Uzziah, and 11 years between Jehoash and Jeroboam II. These new co-regencies when added to the Bible resulted in a 45 year compression of the kings chronology from 390 years to 345 years, and in doing so it was claimed the Short Kings Chronology successfully satisfies both the Bible and secular archaeology. Mr Camping, for his chronology of the kings of Israel and Judah, embraced Thiele's work with only slight modification. It is not known whether Mr Camping was aware of the history of the Short Kings Chronology and that it only came about to appease secular archaeology, but at this point it doesn't matter, the fact is Mr Camping's calendar was built using the Short Kings Chronology, a chronology not derived from the Bible but one imposed upon the Bible. As mentioned earlier, if we were to develop a Bible chronology that harmonized with the claims of Evolution by reinterpreting Genesis 1, we'd immediately be rebuked by God fearing believers for caving in to ideas from the secular world, yet when the exact same thing is done for the chronology of the kings of Israel and Judah, for some strange reason these same people are silent! Now I suspect part of the reason for this is ignorance, most people who follow Mr Camping's calendar don't actually know any of the history surrounding Edwin Thiele's work or what occurred in the mid 1800's after the discovery and dating of various Assyrian artifacts and how that was the impetus which led individuals to purposely compress the kings chronology of the Bible. At this point it should be sufficient to say it was a major blunder for biblical chronologists to reinterpret the Bible in order to appease the secular record because the fact is the Bible is alone sufficient to interpret itself and doesn't need help from external sources. And as Mr Camping used to say, what is our authority? Is it the Bible alone and in it's entirely? Or is it the Bible plus secular ideas? The issue here is just that, what is our authority? For anyone who truly believes the Bible is alone sufficient it should be readily apparent that the idea behind the Short Kings Chronology is inherently flawed and should never have been pursued.
Critique of the Short Kings Chronology
Besides the obvious and in my view FATAL flaw that the Short Kings Chronology was developed solely to appease secular Assyrian dating, are there any other issues with it? As we shall see, there certainly are!
Issue #1 -What Year was the Bur-Sagale Eclipse?
The dating of the Assyrian Eponym Canon is based on the assumption that the solar eclipse of Bur-Sagale occurred on June 15 763 BC. However there are historians who believe this eclipse may have actually occurred on either June 24 791 BC or June 13 809 BC. If one of these earlier dates is true it would reduce the apparent 45 year discrepancy between Assyria chronology and the Long Kings Chronology, in fact if the 809 BC eclipse is the true event recorded in the canon, then the supposed 45 year discrepancy would be eliminated altogether! It should be noted that the main reason the eclipse of 763 BC have traditionally been favored over the two earlier dates actually has nothing to do with anything said in the Bur-Sagale eponym listing itself, but instead the choice of 763 BC was made because that eclipse seems, in the eyes of historians, to allow the Assyrian Eponym Canon to harmonize better with secular records from Egypt, Syria and Babylon (whether this be so or not is beyond the scope of this brief discussion except to say that dates on the Egypt side of the Biblical calendar are far from settled, so this rationale is definitely a bone of contention). However the important takeaway here is that it is important to realize the choice of solar eclipse was in many ways an arbitrary one, and that if the earlier 809 BC eclipse were instead chosen then there would never have been any discrepancy between the Assyrian chronology and the Long Kings Chronology of the Bible in the first place!
Issue #2 - Is the Assyrian Eponym Canon Missing Names?
There is also some reason to think there may be some missing names in the Assyrian Eponym Canon, that the Canon we have today may not be 100% complete or accurate. This is because the Canon we have today was recreated mainly from 8 to 10 fragmentary clay tablets with each tablet containing only a portion of the total number of names, making it a difficult and possibly error prone task for the archaeologists who sought to recreate the original Eponym List (it was in a sense like putting together a large jigsaw puzzle but not being sure one had all the right or necessary pieces)! So there has always been the issue of whether all the names have been found or if there might be some gaps in the list due to missing Eponym names. Remember that each name represents a year, so if for example 10 names are missing in the recreated canon (on the Babylon side of the reign of Shalmaneser III) then there would be a 10 year error in the dating of Shalmaneser III, which would reduce the 45 year discrepancy to a smaller one. Now in order to eliminate any discrepancy between the Assyrian Eponym Canon and the Bible's Long Kings Chronology, there would have to be around 45 missing names from the Assyrian Eponym Canon. Is that even possible? The answer is it is very much possible!
Issue #3 - Where is Jonah in the Assyrian Eponym Canon?
We all know the account of Jonah, how his warning of judgment to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria and one of the largest cities in the world of that day, was used to bring about one of the most astonishing accounts of repentance in the Old Testament:
Jonah 3:4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Jonah 3:5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
Jonah 3:6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered [him] with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
Jonah 3:7 And he caused [it] to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
Jonah 3:8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that [is] in their hands.
Jonah 3:9 Who can tell [if] God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
Jonah 3:10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did [it] not.
The king of Nineveh himself laid aside his royal robe and covered himself in sackcloth and ashes, and he and his nobles proclaimed and published a decree throughout Nineveh that both man and beast should fast from food and water, and cover themselves in sackcloth and cry mightily unto God to spare them. And we know from the New Testament that the men of Nineveh did repent and God spared them and destroyed them not (Matthew 12:41). We do not know from the biblical account the name of the Assyrian king that repented, however we do have some idea of the time frame when Jonah lived,
2 Kings 14:23 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel began to reign in Samaria, [and reigned] forty and one years.
2 Kings 14:24 And he did [that which was] evil in the sight of the LORD: he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.
2 Kings 14:25 He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the LORD God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which [was] of Gath-hepher.
2 Kings 14:26 For the LORD saw the affliction of Israel, [that it was] very bitter: for [there was] not any shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel.
2 Kings 14:27 And the LORD said not that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven: but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.
2 Kings 14:28 Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all that he did, and his might, how he warred, and how he recovered Damascus, and Hamath, [which belonged] to Judah, for Israel, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
Based on these verses it is believed Jonah lived during the reign of Jeroboam II, who according to the Long Kings Chronology reigned from 828 BC to 788 BC, or if using Mr Camping's chronology from 792 BC to 751 BC. Now given the astonishing nature of Nineveh's repentance, and the fact that the king of Nineveh himself also repented, it would very much be expected that there should be some mention of this in the Assyrian Eponym Canon, or at a minimum some other Assyrian record. But the fact is there is no mention in any Assyrian record of Jonah, nor of the king who reigned and repented at Jonah's preaching. It has been surmised by various biblical chronologists that a later Assyrian king, one who repudiated the Hebrew God, the God of the Bible, and worshiped the god of Assyria, had the Assyrian records scrubbed of any mention of Jonah and the king of repented at his preaching. There are many well known cases where later kings were suspected of re-writing history, usually to claim accomplishments of former kings for themselves, but there are also cases of later kings disliking earlier kings and desiring to erase them from history. Given the nature of the gospel and the natural hatred of it by the natural man, one can easily envision such a scenario. If a later king did erase the repentant Assyrian king from the history books (monuments, tablets, etc), one would expect an entire king's reign to have been removed, or possibly more than one king if the subsequent king was also God fearing. And since the typical king reigned anywhere from 20-40 years, it quite possible something on the order of 45 eponym names were removed from Assyrian records, which account for the entire 45 year discrepancy noted above.
Issue #4 - The Infamous Eponym Balatu:
The Assyrian Eponym Canon used in Edwin Thiele's chronology (and subsequently that of Mr Camping) does not include an eponym named Balatu in the year 787 BC. Who is Balatu? Of the 4 clay tablet fragments that cover the year 787 BC, one of them includes an extra eponym named Balatu, while the other 3 fragments do not. So the obvious question is whether or not there was a Balatu eponym year. In Thiele's book he contends Balatu is spurious because this name is only found on one record (denoted Ca3) while it is not found on three other records (Ca6, Cb2 and Cc). Thiele is basically playing the percentages, assuming 3 beats 1, and Balatu should be omitted. And if one examines these four records one does find that only Ca3 mentions Balatu. However Thiele fails to mention an important fact about one of the records, that while record Ca6 does not list the name Balatu, it does however contain the same exact number of names in the overlapping extant portions of Ca6 and Ca3! That is, both records indicate the same number of years (nine) between eponyms Mushallim-Urta and Marduk-shar-usur, the years that span the eponym Balatu. So the fact that Balatu is not found on record Ca6 is a red herring because the important find from Ca6 is that it supports the same number of eponym years as does the record Ca3. So Thiele's 3 records beats 1 record is now evened out at 2 records vs 2 records and a stalemate. So there has been and still is a very legitimate question as to whether there is a one year error in Thiele's dating of Shalmaneser III. And while a one year error is of little consequence to the claimed 45 year discrepancy between the Assyrian chronology and the Long Kings Chronology, it is a significant issue nonetheless for Mr Camping's calendar because a one year error in Thiele's chronology would translate into a one year error in Mr Camping's chronology since he relies upon Thiele's dating for Shalmaneser III. It should be further noted a one year error in Mr Camping's chronology would cause major problems for many of the time paths he claims exist in his calendar because any time paths spanning the kings of Israel and Judah would now be one year off and no longer factor into what he claimed were significant numbers. In fact one of Mr Camping's biggest proofs, the claim that the flood occurred 7000 years before 2011, would not be broken because the year 2011 would be 7001 years after the flood (assuming for the moment this were the only error in Mr Camping's calendar).
Issue #5 - Translation Issues When Dealing with Assyrian Artifacts:
There are also questions in regard to the archaeological records themselves. The Black Obelisk, which is thought to depict Israel's king Jehu, may not actually be a reference to Jehu at all. The same is true of the Kurkh Monolith thought to mention Israel's king Ahab. The problem is that these records were written not in Hebrew but in the Assyrian language Akkadian. Akkadian is a very different language than Hebrew, and there is no standard for translating between the two languages. So the way words, and in particular names, are translated is far from a science and in many instances are just someones best guess. For example:
Issue #6 - Is Jehu Really Mentioned on the Black Obelisk?
The name found on the Black Obelisk is "Yaw Bit Khumri", thought to be a reference to "Jehu, son {or house} of Omri". It should be noted however that Jehu was not a son or even a descendant of Omri, so there is some issue right off the bat with this identification (recall that Jehu was the one God used to fulfill the prophecy that Omri's house would be completely cut off). For this reason some historians believe the reference here isn't to Jehu, but to Omri's grandson Jehoram (Ahab's son) who Jehu killed. Still other historians believe the reference may instead be to Jehu's son Jehoahaz, who reigned until 841 BC (by Long Chronology reckoning), which is very close to the 840 BC that is thought to be Shalmaneser's 18th year. BTW, it's worth noting that the Bible never even mentions the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III**, so there is no way to really know whether the "Yaw" written about on the Black Obelisk was a reference to Jehu, Jehoram, Jehoahaz or some other king. Further, given the uncertainty surrounding the identification of the "Yaw" in the Black Obelisk inscription, is it really wise to modify the Bible's internal chronology based on not just a secular record but an uncertain secular record? [**Note: it should be pointed out that the Shalmaneser of 2 Kings 17:3, who came up against Israel's king Hoshea at the fall of Samaria, was a later Assyrian king known as Shalmaneser V, not Shalmaneser III].
Issue #7 - Is Ahab Really Mentioned on the Kirkh Monolith?
The name found on the Kurkh Monolith is "Ahaabbu Sir'ila-a-a", thought to be a reference to "Ahab, king of Israel". The identification of Sir'ila-a-a as Israel is however hotly debated, some historians believing it to actually be a reference to Jezreel rather than Israel. Additionally there are no other archaeological records from either Assyria or Babylon that refer to the name "Israel" by this word (Israel in such records is consistently identified by the name "Bit Khumri", son or house of Omri), so it is more likely than not that Sir'ila-a-a is not a reference to the kingdom of Israel but to something else entirely, which would mean the Ahaabbu reference would not be a king of Israel but some other king entirely! So once again there is legitimate uncertainty in regard to who exactly these secular records refer to, and that the association of Ahab with the Kirkj Monolith may be in error.
Issue #8 - Does the Bible Teach Jehu Paid Tribute to Shalmaneser III?
In a word, no! As mentioned earlier, the Bible doesn't even mention Shalmaneser III, so the event supposedly depicted on the Black Obelisk cannot be verified by scripture. A further point to be made however is that scripture nowhere indicates Israel had any interactions at all with the Assyrians in the days of Jehu. The Bible does say that beginning in the days of Ahab, God began to punish Israel by sending the Syrians (not Assyrians) against them, and this continued into the days of Jehu:
2 Kings 10:30 And the LORD said unto Jehu, Because thou hast done well in executing [that which is] right in mine eyes, [and] hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that [was] in mine heart, thy children of the fourth [generation] shall sit on the throne of Israel.
2 Kings 10:31 But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the LORD God of Israel with all his heart: for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin.
2 Kings 10:32 In those days the LORD began to cut Israel short: and Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel;
In verse 32 above Hazael was the king of Syria (2 Kings 8:28). As far as Assyrian intervention in Israel, it is not until ~120 years later during the reign of Menahem that the Bible records any kind of contact between Israel and Assyria. We read in 2 Kings 15:19,
2 Kings 15:19 [And] Pul the king of Assyria came against the land: and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand.
It's worth noting here that Menahem is actually the one who sought out Assyria, paying them tribute money in return for protection from foreign threats. In summary there is no indication in the Bible that Jehu paid tribute to Assyria, nor is there any indication Assyria and Israel had any contact at all during Jehu's reign. If one were to speculate, one would think an event like Jehu paying tribute money to an Assyrian king would have been mentioned in scripture if such an event actually occurred, especially since scripture does record the payment of tribute by Menahem to Assyria when that did in fact occur. When all the evidence is reviewed, it's very unlikely Jehu paid tribute to Assyria, and very likely the king named on the Black Obelisk as paying tribute to Shalmaneser III is someone else.
Issue #9 - Does the Bible Teach Ahab Fought Against Shalmaneser III at the Battle of Qarqar?
The answer here again is no! There is no record of Ahab going to battle against Shalmaneser III, nor is there any record of any type of interaction between Ahab and Assyria (as mentioned above the first mention of Assyria and Israel came in the days of Menahem, who lived over 130 years after Ahab died). There is also no record in the Bible of the battle of Qarqar, most likely because no one from Israel or Judah was involved in that war. Further, the Kurkh Monolith is said to indicate that Ahab fought together with Hadadezer, king of Syria (Hadadezer is typically reckoned to be the Bible's Ben-hadad). This however is very unlikely because the Bible indicates Ahab and Ben-hadad were enemies, not friends, so the idea they would fight together at the battle of Qarqar against Assyria doesn't align with what we know from scripture.
1 Kings 20:1 And Ben-hadad the king of Syria gathered all his host together: and [there were] thirty and two kings with him, and horses, and chariots: and he went up and besieged Samaria, and warred against it.
1 Kings 20:2 And he sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel into the city, and said unto him, Thus saith Ben-hadad,
1 Kings 20:3 Thy silver and thy gold [is] mine; thy wives also and thy children, [even] the goodliest, [are] mine.
In fact Ahab was eventually killed by the king of Syria at the battle of Ramoth Gilead (1 Kings 22). So not only is the identification of Ahab as the king on the Kurkh Monolith questionable from a secular standpoint, but it is even more questionable based on what we know of the relations between Israel's king Ahab and Syria's king Hadadezer (Ben-hadad).
Summary
In conclusion, there legitimate questions regarding the Assyrian archaeological records and whether they truly prove what secular historians think they prove, it may very well be that these witnesses from Assyria have been false witnesses against the Bible's Chronology of the kings of Israel and Judah that came along to test Christians of the 19th century in the same way that Evolution tests Christians today.