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The Contradiction Desk
Claimed Bible contradictions, stated the way they circulate, each with one diagnosis and the evidence for it: the Hebrew, the Greek, the manuscripts.
Baasha's war after Baasha's death
2 Chronicles 16:1 has Baasha of Israel attack Judah in Asa's thirty-sixth year. By the dates in 1 Kings, Baasha died in Asa's twenty-sixth.
2 Chronicles 16:1, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: did a dead king start a war, or is a date wrong? The plaque says the founder opened the new wing in 1990, and his gravestone says he died in 1980. A typo, or a different way of counting?
2 Chronicles 16:1 says that in the thirty-sixth year of Asa, Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah and built Ramah. 1 Kings 16:8 says Baasha's son Elah began to reign in Asa's twenty-sixth year, so Baasha was by then dead.
The ESV Study Bible says Baasha had been dead ten years by the date given and offers a copying error as one possible explanation. Letters of the Hebrew alphabet were used as numerals, and a scribe might have confused yod, for 10, with lamedh, for 30, letters that looked more alike in early handwriting than in modern type. The original would then be Asa's sixteenth year. It says the same confusion may affect 2 Chronicles 15:19.
In the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah, and built Ramah, to the intent that he might let none go out or come in to Asa king of Judah.
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible sets 1 Kings 16:6-8, Baasha's death in Asa's twenty-sixth year, against 2 Chronicles 16:1, and remarks that if both are true, then "Baasha fought with Judah ten years after his death!"
MacArthur avoids any error. He reads the thirty-sixth year as counted from the division of the kingdom, not from Asa's accession, which puts the war in Asa's sixteenth year, and says that manner of reckoning was used in the royal annals the Chronicler drew on.
Two rival explanations land on the same year, Asa's sixteenth. The ESV Study Bible's copying explanation is offered as one possibility; MacArthur's change of starting point needs no error but assumes a reckoning the verse does not state. Filing this as a copying error follows the ESV Study Bible and is the less certain of the two classifications on this desk's terms.
Not a claim that Kings and Chronicles disagree about who ruled when. Both explanations keep their regnal lists in agreement.
- ESV Study Bible, note on 2 Chronicles 16:1
- The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on 2 Chronicles 16:1
- The Skeptic's Annotated Bible, When did Baasha die?, https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/baasha.html
- King James Version, 2 Chronicles 16:1 and 1 Kings 16:8
