Pul (804-768 BCE) This king is one of the least known ancient kings. There are two mentions of him in history: the historian Josephus said he ruled for 36 years, and in the Bible he is said to have collected taxes from King Menahem of Israel.
In addition to this, archeological records have found information that a king of this name served as king of Babylon for two years. Based on this information, it can be known that he was the same person as Tiglath-Pileser III. This is where this information ends. Why is there no information about this king in archaeology? History tells us that his grandson's son Esarhaddon destroyed the clay tablets relating to Tiglath-Pileser III. Perhaps this is exactly the reason why clay tablets related to this are not found.
It seems that all scholars ignore this Assyrian king in arranging their chronology. Some few have estimated that he reigned concurrently with Shalmaneser IV, Assur-Dan III and Ashur-nirari V.
However, there are grounds for the estimate that Pul ruled Assyria for 36 years after Ashur-nirari V and before the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III. The arguments related to this probably do not satisfy all researchers. The reason for this is that this blog brings out how the history of the Bible and the chronology of the Bible help to better rationalize the events of history.
It can be used to note that the reign of the earlier Assyrian king Shalmaneser III began as early as 919 BCE. This leads to the conclusion that the reign of Ashur-nirari V (traditionally the king before Tiglath-Pilser III) ended in 805 BCE.
When we calculate the chronology from the other direction by comparing it with the history of the Bible, we notice that the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III began in 768 BCE. It's probably no coincidence that there is a 37-year long "empty era" in between.
There will be more detailed justifications for this timing in older blog posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment