“Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem” (2 Kings 8:26). “Ahaziah was forty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem” (2 Chronicles 22:2). Bible critics love to point to such numerical discrepancies and conclude that the Bible is full of errors.
It is certainly agreed that Ahaziah could not have been both forty-two and twenty-two at the same time! Before we conclude, however, that we have found a “mistake” in the Bible, we should note that there is a difference between a contradiction among Biblical…