Solomon Reigned more then 40 years.

[Update: I'm kind of abandoning this theory for now but may return to it.]

I have argued before that Solomon was the youngest son of Bathsheba. But even if he was conceived right after the child who died like traditionally assumed, it still seems unlikely he was a whole 20 when he became King based on how much stuff in David's reign happened before all of this. 1 Chronicles 22:5 refers to Solomon as still young and tender when David is old and it seems about to die. 

But there are reasons besides his age I doubt Solomon had married or had kids before he became King, certainly not one of his Ammonite wives as his taking wives from those peoples is firmly tied to his errors made after reigning for awhile, the daughter of Pharoah is presented the first of them and she definitely didn't predate him becoming King. 

1 Kings 14:21-31 and 2 Chronicles 12:13 tell us Rehoboam was the son of an Ammonite wife named Naamah.  As well as that he was 41 years old when he began to reign. 

So the popular view that Solomon reigned only 40 years is an issue.

1 Kings 11:42/2 Chronicles 9:30 say Solomon reigned in Jerusalem 40 years. And while you can justifiably interpret that as applying to his entire reign even considering what I'm about to point out, it's not the only interpretation. 

Because 1 Kings 9:10/2 Chronicles 8:1 tell us The Temple and his Royal Palace were under construction for 20 years. And 1 Kings 6:1-37/2 Chronicles 3:2 say it was 3 years into his reign he began building The Temple.

1 Kings 3:1 says when Solomon married the Daughter of Pharoah he first brought her into The City of David. 1 Kings 9:24 and 2 Chronicles 8:11 had him bring her out of the City of David and into Jerusalem at the end of that 20 year period. 

As I have firmly proven in a prior post, The City of David was never Jerusalem Biblically.

So it sounds like Solomon ruled from the City of David till all the construction was complete.

So that's a total of 63 years.

But most important to wider chronology, it adds 20 years BC to when the foundations of The Temple were laid.  

In Antiquities of the Jews Book 20 Chapter 10 Josephus says it was 466 years and 6 months and 10 days from the laying the foundation of The Temple till it's destruction be Nebuchadnezzar at the end of the reign of Zedekiah. When you add up the days for the reigns of the Divided Kingdom Kings of Judah in Kings and 2 Chronicles you get 393 years and 6 Months and 10 days from the death of Solomon till that point. But if Josephus's source included a variation on the reign of Abijah/Abijam seen in some LXX 2 Kings 15:2 manuscripts with 16 years instead of 3 in the Masoretic then that adds 13 years for a total of 406 years and 6 months and 10 days. And in that context 60 years from the  the starting of The Temple till Solomon's death rather then 36/7 years fits perfectly. 

If you accept the mainstream view of the Divided Kingdom period then the starting of The Temple is moved from 966 BC to 986 BC and thus a face value reading of 480 years before that for the Exodus is 1466 BC. 

Adding only this correction to Ussher's numbers moves the Exodus from 1492 BC to 1512 BC. I still think Ussher is right on the Divided Kingdom period, each Assyrian connection used to move the timeline down is flawed. 

But I unlike Ussher hold an Acts 13 view of The Judges period. Before I came to this conclusion about Solomon's reign that had me favoring a 1606 BC Exodus but that's now corrected to a 1626 BC Exodus with the entry into Canaan happening in 1586 BC.

So the (with some margin of error) roughly 1573 BC Carbon date estimate for the Destruction of Jericho is not the a problem for Biblical Chronology, nor does it require any Revised Chronology. 

The reconciliation with the 480 year reference is that that number excluded the time spend under oppression and the 2 year reign of Abimelech.