ContradictionsReading order 6Bible context 3 min read
When did Solomon's reign begin?
Kings places Solomon's temple construction within 480 years of the exodus, while the periods supplied by Acts and Chronicles already exceed that interval before his reign.
- Textual conflict
- Interpretive tension
- The passages pull in different directions, but the conflict depends on how their wording, scope, or narrative context is read.
- Importance
- Major
- A major event or claim with wider implications.
The chronological totals disagree when the periods are read as successive. The argument depends on the period covered by the 450 years in Acts 13 and whether the stated intervals overlap.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Solomon's fourth year falls in the four hundred eightieth year after the exodus
And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord.
1 Kings 6:1
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:1 Kings 6
The listed periods before Solomon already total about five hundred seventy years
The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an high arm brought he them out of it. And about the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness. And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he divided their land to them by lot. And