ABSTRACT
The history of relations between Judah, Assyria, and Egypt’s 25th Dynasty depends heavily upon the chronology of that dynasty’s Kushite kings. Since the early 19th century, scholarly reconstruction of that dynastic sequence has privileged a single interpretation of Manetho’s Aegyptiaca, ordering the kings as: Shabako (Shabaka/Shabaqo), then Shabatako (Shabataka/Shebitku/Shebitqu/Shebitqo), and then Taharqo (Tirhakah/Tirhaqah/Taharka/Taharqa). In recent years, however, leading specialists, prioritizing instead the monumental evidence from Egypt and Kush (Nubia/“Ethiopia” or “Aithiopia” of the LXX), have found it necessary to revise that dynastic sequence fundamentally, producing new and important repercussions for the history of Egypt’s relations with Judah and Assyria, particularly during the reigns of Hezekiah, Sargon II, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon. This chapter will trace seven major phases of evolution in the modern chronological understanding of the 25th Dynasty in order to demonstrate how chronologies of the period were first generated, which of these need to be revised or retained, and why.
