ACHILLES’ HEEL

Jerry D. McDonald

A number of years ago I was in a written discussion with an atheist by the name of C. Dennis McKinsey over the integrity of the Bible. He had written a tract giving 12 (I think) reasons why he could not believe that the Bible was the inspired word of God. I wrote a rebuttal tract “Still A Perfect Work of Harmony,” and sent him a copy of it. He and I, then began a written discussion which ran in both, his and my, papers over this issue.

One of the things we discussed was what he called “the Achilles’ Heel of the Bible,” which he felt was 2 Kings 8:26: “Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign; and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri king of Israel,” and 2 Chronicles 22:2 “Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Athaliah the daughter of Omri.” Mr. McKinsey stated that if Christians couldn’t prove that these two verses didn’t contradict each other, then the Bible was indeed proven not to be the inspired word of God.

There are a couple of things wrong with Mr. McKinsey’s reasoning here because (1) just because a Christian cannot prove that such-and-such isn’t contradictory, that would not in fact make it contradictory. Atheists are famous for using logical fallacies, and this one is called: “The Argument from Ignorance” or “Argumentum Ad Ingorantiam” (the Latin name). Logician Irving Copi says that this fallacy “is the mistake that is committed when it is argued that a proposition is true simply on the basis that it has not been proved false, or that it is false because it has not been proved true” (Introduction to Logic, Eleventh Edition, p. 139). Just because a Christian has not proven that the two verses under consideration are not contradictory, this does not make them contradictory. However atheists, like McKinsey, Farrell Till, and others have committed this fallacy every time they have brought it up. Their argument is “because their opponent cannot prove that these two verses don’t contradict each other, then they must be contradictory” and their reasoning is all wrong. Farrell Till and I are engaged in a written debate over the internet on this issue at this time, and I can’t tell you how many times he has committed this fallacy (in both this debate and in the one we had in the 1990's over the integrity of the Bible, where this issue was discussed at length).

(2) These two passages don’t fit the qualifications of a “contradiction.” As far as the rules for a contradiction are concerned, one of the propositions (or scriptures) must be true, and the other must be false. Notice what Copi wrote on this issue: “Two propositions are contradictories if one is the denial or negation of the other; that is, if they cannot both be true, and cannot both be false” (Ibid, p. 189). If they cannot both be true, and if they cannot both be false, then one must be true, and the other must be false. However, atheists have never proven that either passage (2 Kings 8:26 & 2 Chronicles 22:2) contradict each other. Now while this does not mean that they don’t it does mean that until some atheist does prove that one of these scriptures is true and the other is false, I will continue to believe that they are both true.

Well, how can they both be true when one says that Ahaziah was 22 years old when he began to reign and the other says that Ahaziah was 42 years old when he began to reign? Some one might come up with the idea that there were two Ahaziahs, and they would be correct, but the fact is that 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles is speaking of the same person; Ahaziah the son of Jehoram, King of Judah. There was an Israelite King named Ahaziah, but he was the son of Ahab. Therefore 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2 is speaking of the same person.

There are several attempts at harmonizing these two passages. The one that is most common is that there was a copyist error in the Masoretic Text which was corrected by the translators of the Septuagint translation. The NIV was based on the Septuagint and it puts 22 in both places. And while I am not against admitting that there were some copyist mistakes in some manuscripts I don’t believe that this is one of them. My reason for taking this position is because if there was a mistake those who hold to this position have made the mistake on the wrong age. They all say that he was 22 years old, but the actual age (if a mistake was made) would be that he was 42 years old. But they say that this would not be right because that would make him 2 years older than his father, Jehoram. Because 2 Kings 8:17 says “thirty and two years old was Jehoram, when he began to reign and he reigned 8 years in Jerusalem” thus making Jehoram 40 years old when he died. However, Ahaziah was the youngest of Jehoram’s sons (we don’t know how many there were) and if he was 22 at the time of Jehoram’s death that meant that Ahaziah was born when Jehoram was 18 while the rest of brethren were born at Jehoram’s earlier age. Now while people did marry young back then, and while kings did ascend to the throne at very young ages there is nothing in the scriptures (or secular history) that even implies that Jehoram was 18 when Ahaziah was born. The fact that he reigned in Jerusalem for 8 years does not mean that he was only 40 when he died.

When I say that the mistake would be on the wrong age I say that because of the two ways that ages were written in Hebrew.

We know that Jehoram reigned longer than eight years because 2 Kings 8:16 says “And in the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah began to reign.” This shows that Jehoshaphat was still king when Jehoram began to reign. This is what was called a “co-reign,” and he co-reigned with his father, Jehoshaphat, for at least 5 years before he took full control of the reign. So there are 13 years!

How do we harmonize all of this, and make sense of it all? One of the main problems that people make when reading the scriptures is that they read it through 21^st century eyes and ideas. The Bible was written long before we ever came on the scene, and it was written at a time when strict chronology was not that important to the Biblical writers. H.I. Hester wrote:

This shows us that exact chronology wasn’t the important thing when the Old Testament writers wrote.

Another explanation for this is found in the idea that Ahaziah was 22 years old biologically, but was 42 years old by taking on the age of the complete reign of the whole family. Will Kinney made an argument for this as follows:

The argument does have some merit to it and it is worthy of consideration. The only problem that I have with this is the lack of Biblical and/or extra-Biblical evidence that this was ever done in the past. I haven’t yet found anything that indicates that this was something that was done. John Gill did write about this as a possible explanation in his Exposition on the Bible, and said that it was accepted by many of his day. I have seen this position defended in discussion with Bible critics and I haven’t yet seen any conclusive evidence brought forth by those critics to indicate that it was not a logical possibility. I am still studying this explanation and will continue to study it. It might prove to be the correct explanation.

I do have to disagree with Mr. Kinney’s statement “the one year of Ahaziah, King of Judah, does not overlap the reign of his father Jehoram.” Bob Sweeten wrote:

Brother Sweeten brought out that 2 Kings 8:25 says that Ahaziah began to reign in the 12^th year of Jehoram, King of Israel’s reign, but 2 Kings 9:29 says he began to reign in the 11^th year.

2 Kings 8:25 says that Ahaziah began to reign in the 12^th year of Jehoram, King of Israel’s reign, but 2 Kings 9:29 says he began to reign in the 11^th year. Now one might ask how his co-reigning for one year adds up to a 20 year co-reign, and in time we shall see the answer to this. However, there are things that must be covered before we can see the answer to this. In order to see the plausibility of a 20 year co-reign we are going to have to lay a foundation for it. Every sturdy building has to have a good foundation. If you don’t have a good foundation, the building will fall. I have argued for a 20 year co-reign in many debates over the last 25 years and to date, no one has been able to defeat it. Many have laughed and jeered at it, some have scorned it and others have called me dishonest for making it, and some have even gone so far as to say that I invented the concept. However, no one has ever been able to defeat it. It will take several more issues (and at least two of which we will be laying a foundation) before we can see how we can, logically and scripturally, come to this conclusion.

In order to sustain the position that I hold to, I will use an argument that I was introduced to by Roy C. Deaver in the early 1990’s, called the “Constituent Element” argument.

THE ARGUMENT

All this argument says is, that if all of the elements of my position, are factual, then the whole position is true. This is axiomatic, it is truth within itself. There can be falsification to it. If all of the parts of a witness’s testimony are factual, then the whole testimony is true.

ELEMENT NUMBER ONE:

The bible teaches implicitly as well as explicitly, and those things taught implicitly are just as true, factual and binding as those things taught explicitly

he did not like the idea of my laying ground work. He wanted me to just come out and give an explicit statement stating that there was a 20 year co-reign in regards to this matter. Well, I have no explicit statement, but we all need to remember that the Bible doesn’t just teach by explicit statements, but implicit statements and accounts of approved action as well. If there was an explicit statement regarding the matter then there would never have been a problem over the matter. Since we have no explicit statements regarding many teachings of the Bible, we have to look at both implicit statements as well as accounts of approved action for much of the Bible’s teachings. As a matter of fact, if all we can use are explicit statements in regards to Biblical teaching, there are going to many teachings from the Bible that we cannot consider because most of the Bible’s teachings are not explicit, but implicit and by examples.

I realize that implicit teachings in the Bible are not popular with false teachers, especially among atheists. In my current exchange with Farrell Till he has entitled his article “Speaking where the Bible does not Speak.” He entitled it this way because I have said that I cannot find explicit statements regarding this 20 year co-reign, and that is exactly what he wants me to produce. However, I cannot find explicit statements regarding Solomon’s co-regency with his father David, but even Mr. Till admits that he did. I cannot find any explicit statement regarding Azariah’s 23 year co-reign with his father Amaziah, but history teaches that it took place. As a matter of fact the only explicit statements about co-reigns that I can find anywhere in scripture is about the Pharaoh’s son co-reigning with his father (Ex. 12:29), and Jehoram (Ahaziah’s father) co-reigning with his father Jehoshaphat (2 Kgs. 8:16) and Till will deny both of those even though there are explicit statements regarding the matter.

Implicit teaching is very prevalent in the Bible and those teachings are just as important as explicit teachings are any day of the week. So we need to understand that whatever evidence we find that implicitly teaches that a 20-year co-reign existed between Ahaziah and his father Jehoram is just as important as any explicit teaching that we are going to be dealing with. Therefore this element of the argument is important and we need to know that it is something that we are going to have to deal with in looking at the evidence of this position.

As we continue to look at this issue we want to look at a second element concerning this. Please keep in mind that these elements are extremely important as we build our case. In a court of law the attorneys (for both the accused and the prosecutor) work to build their cases. They start at the beginning and start building thereon. That is all we are doing here. Some might wonder why we have to go through all this, but it is the same as any other problem, we have to lay a foundation and build thereon. Carpenters can relate to this principle. You don’t just go out and build a house; you have to lay the ground work before you do the rest. When it is put together piece by piece the finished product is a house. This is what we will be doing here.

ELEMENT NUMBER TWO

Co-reigns did exist in those days.

We see this as early as the book of Exodus when God had instructed Moses to have the children of Israel put blood upon the door posts of each other their houses so when the angel of death passed by he wouldn’t take the life of the first born child. The book of Exodus records these words: “And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle” (Ex. 12:29). We can also look at the co-reign of Jehoshaphat and Jehoram where the Bible explicitly states “And in the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah began to reign” (2 Kgs. 8:16). However, neither place calls this a “co-reign,” and this is what atheists are looking for. In the book Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, John Haley wrote concerning the King of Babylon “He was at the time crown prince and commander-in-chief in behalf of his father; or as Berosus intimates, he may have been actually co-regent” (p.402). The fact is that co-reigns or overlapping of reigns between a father and son did indeed exist.

Also in his book Handbook of Biblical Chronology, Jack Finegan wrote:

This is yet another source that we can go to in order to see that scholars who have studied these things tell us that co-reigns were actual events.

Another reference source concerning these co-reigns is found in Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties:

When one examines the texts of these reigns it is seen that not one single time is it specified that a co-reign existed, but the fact is, they did exist. Yet even hardened atheists such as Farrell Till will tell you that Solomon co-reigned with his father David, yet there is no text that specifically says that such an arrangement existed. All one has to go on is what he can read and infer from what the text has to say. This is the very same evidence that I give for my belief that a co-reign existed between Jehoram and Ahaziah. I will, later, give textual evidence that Ahaziah did begin to co-reign before Jehoram died, but this means nothing to atheists. They are looking for a verse which says that it was a co-reign and they want one that tells how long that reign existed.

The truth is, co-reigns did exist and they were quite common in those days. We don’t consider them today because no one would even think that about allowing the President of the United States allow his son (even if the son was old enough) to co-reign with him. That is why we have a Vice President. If the President becomes incapacitated then the Vice President takes over. However, in the old days the king didn’t even have to be sick for his son to become co-regent with him. All the king had to do was to make his son his co-regent.

When you look at the story of Joseph in Egypt, he was basically, a co-regent with the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh told Joseph “Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word all my people will be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou” (Ex. 41:40). You can’t get a clearer picture of a co-reign than that, but it is not called a co-reign. In the book “Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings” Edwin Thiele gives dates for the Jewish kings which agree with the dates of the Assyrian and Biblical records. One of the principles he discovered for interpreting Biblical passages with these dates was the fact that co-reigns or overlapping of reigns between a father and son, did indeed exist. So what conclusion can we draw from this? (1) We can see that those things which are taught implicitly are just as true, factual and binding as those things which are taught explicitly. (2) We see that co-reigns were very common in those days. Now we want to go to the third element of our argument.

ELEMENT NUMBER THREE

The evidence seems to point to a co-reign between Jehoram and Ahaziah

The question might be asked: “Where does the Bible say that this was definitely a co-reign”? The Bible doesn’t specify that this was a co-reign; if it did there would be other alternative interpretation. However, all the Bible specifically says is that Ahaziah was both 22 and 42 years old when he began to reign. It also specifically states that Ahaziah reigned one year in Jerusalem. Atheists argue that because this says that he reigned one year in Jerusalem that this was all that he reigned. I pointed out, several times in debate on this issue that Jehoram was said to have reigned eight years in Jerusalem, but that didn’t mean that Jehoram only reigned for eight years. The atheists I have debated say that this is exactly what it meant.

A large part of the opposition to this is that Ahaziah was said to have reigned in Jerusalem for 1 year and Jehoram was said to have reigned for 8 years. In looking at this we can see that just because the Bible says a certain man reined a certain amount of time, this does not mean that the Bible is in error, but it does mean that the Bible doesn’t give every year that a king reigned unless it was important in some way. We have already seen from Hester that the Old Testament writers weren’t interested in straight chronology, but rather in how the Israelites lived in accordance with God’s will. We saw that the writer of 2 Samuel only spent a few verses on David’s conquest of seven nations, but he uses several chapters to tell of David’s sin with Bathsheba and how it affected the nation of Israel. Let us, now, look and see where some kings reigned longer than what the Bible says that they reigned.

We have already seen where Jehoshaphat made Jehoram co-regent in 2 Kings 8:16 and this was, according to historical records, in 853 B.C., but Jehoshaphat didn’t die until 848 B.C. (you understand, of course, that before Christ time was counted backwards) which meant that Jehoram co-reigned with his father for five years before Jehoshaphat died. Then the scriptures say that he reigned for 8 years IN JERUSALEM. However, we also know that Jehoram made high places in the mountains of Judah (2 Chron. 21:11) and caused Israel to commit fornication. Now we already know that he had reigned for 13 years which is five years longer than he is said to have reigned in Jerusalem. If he reigned in the high places he would not have been reigning in Jerusalem. Usually where the people worshipped was where the king reigned. We see this with Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin by building two calves, one in Dan and the other in Bethel because he said was afraid to let Israel go to Jerusalem to worship for fear that he would lose them to Judah and they would kill him (1 Kgs. 12:25-33).. He had residences in three places: Shechem, Penuel and Bethel. Where he resided was where he reigned. Where he reigned was where the people worshiped. Now getting back to Jehoram, he built high places in the mountains of Judah (2 Chron. 21:11) and as such he lived where the people worshipped. So we don’t have an exact number of years that he reigned. However, during part of his reign he made Ahaziah co-regent and 2 Kgs. 8:25 tells us that in the 12th year of Jehoram ben Ahab, Ahaziah ben Jehoram began to reign. We don’t know how long Ahaziah had been reigning with his father, but he didn’t take full control of the reign until Jehoram died.

ELEMENT NUMBER FOUR:

Evidence from the Bible indicates that there were more years of Ahaziah’s reign than what he spent reigning in Jerusalem.

2 Chronicles tells us that after he took control of the kingdom that he went to war with Jehoram ben Ahab against the Syrians (2 Chron. 22:5). The Bible also tells us that Jehoram ben Ahab was wounded in that war by the Syrians and he retreated to Jezreel to heal from his wounds. Now you have to ask yourself just how long this war took, and the answer is: “we don’t know.” However, wars didn’t just happen overnight and they usually didn’t just last a day. It took time to gather the army and for Ahaziah to go to fight beside Jehoram, he would have had to have gathered his army and gone to where the battles would take place. From Jerusalem to Jezreel (where Jehoram lived) was between 60 and 100 miles. I say that because it was 65 miles from the Dead Sea to the Sea of Galilee, and you have that and more between Jerusalem and Jezreel. They didn’t have cars in those days, and they didn’t have planes to get their armies where they needed to go. After Ahaziah gathered his army he began the voyage to Jezreel to meet up with Jehoram, or at least towards Ramoth Gilead where they fought the Syrians, which would have been about the same distance. Since they couldn’t go in a straight line because of the mountains and since they had to go where the water holes were (because of the muddy state of the Jordan, they couldn’t drink it) it would take some time to get to where they were going, especially with an army. Hester said it best, when writing about Abraham:

Now my reason for bringing this in is to say that for an ordinary man like Abraham to go for a long distance it took all this effort, and time, how long do you think that it took for a king to go even 100 miles from his kingdom with his army, his servants, animals for food and look for water, all the while having to go around or even over mountains to get either to Jezreel or Ramoth Gilead to help Jehoram fight the Syrians? Well, it took longer than just a few days.

Then there was the battle itself. We don’t know how long that took because the Bible writers didn’t tell us. Hester said regarding things of this nature:

Thus we see that the writer didn’t tell us just how long this war took place. We do know that Jehoram was wounded in that battle and retreated to Jezreel to heal. Where Ahaziah went, we don’t know because we aren’t told. However we are told that he went to visit Jehoram because he was sick. He had to go to Jezreel, and again, he didn’t just pick up and go. It took him some time to get there. Again, he had to gather up his army and make the long trip to Jezreel. The Bible doesn’t say that he went back WITH Jehoram to Jezreel, it says that he went “down to” visit Jehoram at Jezreel, which indicates that he was probably at Jerusalem at this time. The phrase “down to” indicates that either he was North of Jezreel or at a higher location than Jezreel was. Baker’s Bible Atlas tells us that

However, the Jezreel valley was much lower. Pfeiffer tells us that “(t)he great Canaanite strongholds of Hazer in Upper Galilee, and Megiddo overlooking the Plain of Jezreel, had extensive facilities for horses to be used in chariot warfare” (Ibid, p. 130). Showing that Jezreel was quite a bit lower than Jerusalem was. Therefore it would have been appropriate for the Bible to say that Ahaziah went “down to” Jehoram who was in Jezreel had he been in Jerusalem in the first place.

As much time as it took to travel, and go from one place to another, I find it difficult that two wars and all of this travel was done in one year. In our next issue we will look at the final article in this series.

ELEMENT NUMBER FIVE

Others that contended that Ahaziah co-reigned with his father for 20 years.

We have already seen that Kimchi and Abarbinel accepted this as a co-reign. Although John Gill didn’t accept it as such he did make the statement that many learned men accept it. As far as Gill was concerned he didn’t see any proof for it, he thought it was a copyist error. Till would rather I take the copyist error approach because he thinks that he could handle that better than the one I do take, but rest assured that he could not handle that one any better than he has this one. I am getting ready to order the Midrashic Commentaries and when I get them maybe I can see the reasons that Kimchi and Abarbinel took the co-reign position. However, Gill did state that learned men of his day accepted the co-reign position as the way to harmonize this alleged discrepancy. The Geneva Bible in 1599 gave this commentary to 2 Kgs. 8:26 “(w)hich is to be understood, that he was made king when his father reigned, but after his father’s death he was confirmed king when he was forty-two years old, as in 2 Ch. 22:2.” One might say that Calvin wrote this, but that doesn’t mean that Calvin was wrong on this issue, even if he did write it. There were many things that Calvin was right about.

ELEMENT NUMBER SIX

Jehoram was probably older than 40 when he died.

Another thing is that the argument goes that Jehoram was 32 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 8 years and died at 40. Ahaziah then took control of the reign at 22 and reigned one year and died. Ahaziah had older brothers! What are the chances that Ahaziah (the youngest) was even 22 years old at Jehoram's death if he died at the age of 40? The Bible doesn't give exact details of these reigns. It gives the fact that they happened, and some times gave the ages of the kings when they began to reign. What I am trying to say is that even if we say that this was a copyist mistake and that the correct age is 22, Jehoram would have been much older than 40 years old. My only child is 21, and I am 53. If his mother and I had given birth to other children they would be older than he was. If Jehoram died at age 40, then there is no way that Ahaziah could have reigned, even at age 22. It wouldn't have been feasible.

The more I study the co-reign idea, the more inclined I am to accept it. When we consider that there are more years of actual reigns in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, than what we find mentioned in the scriptures, there is a lot of time for Jehoram to have been much older when he died and for Ahaziah to have become co-regent with him at the age of 22 and take full control of the reign at age 42.

ELEMENT NUMBER SEVEN

There were more years of reigns, historically, than what the Bible gives us.

One of the most common mistakes that people make in this is not reading all that the scripture has to say about the matter. I pointed this out in the 90's to Till in my second rebuttal on page 15 (of the original manuscript):

We have already seen this, but I wanted to point out that there were 48 years of reigns that history tells us about that the Bible does not give. The reason for this is because as we saw from Hester, the Bible writers were not concerned with chronology in these matters as other nations were. They were more interested in how the Israelites responded to God. So it is very likely that some of these years along with the years that we already have could point to a co-reign.

ELEMENT NUMBER EIGHT

The New Testament Seems to Show that Ahaziah was older than 22 when he died.

Finally, as we look into the New Testament we read “And Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias; And Ozias begat Joatham” (Mt. 1:8,9). Josaphat was another way of saying Jehoshaphat, and Joram was another way of saying Jehoram and Ozias was another way of saying Ahaziah. Did you know that Ahaziah had a son? His name was Jotham, or as we commonly know him JOASH, you remember the seven year old king. Well, what would be so amazing about a 23 year old man having a year old son? Nothing! Nothing at all! The problem doesn’t lie with Joash, the problem lies with Joash’s older brothers. O…now I get it. That’s right; Ahaziah had sons old enough to take his place at the throne. Joash was the youngest of the family, and he was only a year old when all this happened. How do I know all this from Matthew chapter one’s genealogy list? I don’t! I had to go back to 2 Chronicles chapter 22 to get these details. Notice:

The wicked Athaliah (Ahaziah’s mother) saw that Ahaziah was dead and she took all his sons and had them killed so that she could reign in her son’s stead. Now we don’t know how old these sons were, but we do know that they would have been old enough to have ascended to the throne, even if the oldest was seven. If the oldest was seven years old that would mean that Ahaziah would have had to have been 16 at the latest for him to be born, and married before that. Quite unlikely! He didn’t even ascend to the throne until he was 22. It was quite unlikely that he would be married at 15 and then ascend to the throne at 22.

Ahaziah’s sister Jehoshabeth, who was the wife of Jehoida (the Priest) took Joash when he was but a year old and hid him and his nurse for six years after which Josiah was made king over Israel at the age of seven; the youngest person ever to take control of the throne. Smith’s Bible Dictionary said:

The only other person to sit the throne of Judah at that early an age was Josiah. Joash’s and Josiah’s reigns were special reigns. Joash was placed on the throne at an early age because Jehoida put him there to get Athaliah out of the throne. We don’t know how old his brothers were when they died, but at least one of them was old enough to take control of the throne on his own which is why Athaliah had them all killed. Josiah was placed there at his early age because his father died and he was the only heir to the throne. Had there been anyone older that person would been made king. Most of the time when a king took control of the throne he was old enough to make decisions as the king. However, in these two cases there was no one else to fill the throne so they were made king at very early ages.

So, the question now is, how old was Ahaziah when he died? We don’t know. However, one passage says that he was 22 when he began to reign. Another passage says that he was 42 when he began to reign. One writer, as far as I can tell, speaks of the time when Ahaziah began to co-reign with Jehoram and the other writer tells when he took full control of the reign. As we look at this passage we can see that Ahaziah was at least in his forties when he died; having had sons old enough to fill the throne. We don’t know how many sons he had, but they were old enough to ascend to the throne at his death; with the exception of Joash who was only a year old.

While we cannot absolutely say that a 20 year co-reign existed between Ahaziah and his father Jehoram, there is quite a bit of evidence that this could very probably be the case. Of course there is the possibility that this was a copyist error, but we have already given evidence as to why this position is unlikely. And with this last piece of evidence, it is highly unlikely that this was a copyist error. It is highly unlikely that this was a counting of the number of years of the reign of Omri. It is more likely that this was a 20 year co-reign with his father, Jehoram, and that he was much older than 23 when he died.