Was Ahaziah 42 or 22 When He Became King?

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steve
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Was Ahaziah 42 or 22 When He Became King?

Post by steve » Thu Jun 04, 2015 1:28 pm

I received this question (and gave this answer) through email today:


Steve,
In 2nd Chronicles, chapter 22), it states that Ahaziah was 42 years old when he began to reign as king but his father was 40 years old when he died. What’s up with that?
Chris


----------------------------------------------------

Chris,

There is a discrepancy concerning the age of Ahaziah between the paralle accounts in Kings and Chronicles. The latter (as you have pointed out) says the man was 42 when he began to reign. However, the parallel account in 2 Kings 8:25-26 says that he was only 22.

The author of Chronicles may have used Kings as a source, or else both books may have drawn from some common source, no longer available to us. In any case, it cannot be imagined that the writer of Chronicles believed that Ahaziah began his reign at age 42, while his sources said that Ahaziah was 22.

This is one of many cases in the Old Testament where the original reading of a passage (in this case, in 2 Chronicles) has been lost due to mistakes in scribal copying. That is, we don't have the original copy of Chronicles (or any other biblical book)—only copies of copies of copies of copies. Fortunately, these copyists were very competent, so that very few mistakes were made—but some were made. This is an example.

We can be quite certain that the writer of Chronicles did write that Ahaziah was 22, just as 2 Kings (his probable source) had written. However, some anonymous scribe, making a copy of the book to preserve it for future generations, seems to have misread the number, mistaking it for "42." This happened early-on in the copying process, so that all later copies, which used this flawed copy as their source, perpetuated the mistake without checking it against 2 Kings.

Of course, even if the mistake had been made by the chronicler himself (rather than a copyist) we would know, by doing the math as you have done, that the reading in 2 Kings is the correct one.
Steve

agnp
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Re: Was Ahaziah 42 or 22 When He Became King?

Post by agnp » Fri Jun 05, 2015 11:17 am

The literal translation of 2 Chronicles 22:2 is " A son of 42 years was Ahaziah when he began to reign.
I am quoting from "The Wonders of Bible Chronology" by Philip Mauro.
"Counting back 42 years brings us to the year that Omri, Azariah's great grandfather, of his mother's side(Athaliah, daughter of Ahab, founded the new dynasty.
In making up the Book of Chronicles, which has a different purpose from that of Kings, being the record of the house of David, Ahaziah is not counted as a son of David's line at all. He is a son of 42 years of the house of Omri.
"This interpretation is confirmed by Matthew...Jehoshaphat begat Jehoram, but not that Jehoram begat Ahaziah, or Joash, or Amaziah--but only the fourth in the line of descent Jehoram begat Uzziah, his great-great grandson. Let the posterity of the wicked be cut off, and in the generation following let their name be blotted out(Psalm 109:13)

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Paidion
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Re: Was Ahaziah 42 or 22 When He Became King?

Post by Paidion » Fri Jun 05, 2015 12:32 pm

To further complicate the matter, the Septuagint translation into Greek about 300 B.C. has rendered it as "twenty" in 2 Chron 22, but yet has "twenty-two" in 2 Kings, as do all other translations.

It seems that a number of modern translations have "corrected" the Chronicles account. The following translations have the number as "twenty-two":

Darby, ESV, HCSB, and YLT
Paidion

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