(D7) What was Told and What was Left Untold about Jehu’s Rebellion

The dramatic events of the year 842 BCE had tremendous consequences for Damascus, Israel and Judah, as they were also the beginning of a new and different era: in Damascus, Hazael had ascended to the throne in a rebellion against Hadadezer, in Israel Jehu ascended to the throne, and destroyed the Omride Dynasty in a violent rebellion, which also included the elimination of many members of the Jerusalemite royal family. The sharp change in Judah was completed by Athaliah, who ascended to the throne in Jerusalem with a massive and nearly complete elimination of the House of David. These events are one of the best examples of an untold story because the information the narrators had was so problematic, limited and inaccurate, that even though the biblical historiographers tried as hard as they could to describe a well-founded and reliable picture, their description is very far from the reality that we can reconstruct based on reliable primary sources such as the Assyrian inscriptions and the Tel Dan stele. Although these sources are not free of problems either, we are able to reconstruct with their help an alternative picture to the one shown in biblical historiography, and return from this image to the examination of the biblical descriptions with questions and doubts that were previously impossible.