Jeremy Goldberg, «Two Assyrian Campaigns against Hezehiah and Later Eight Century Biblical Chronology», Vol. 80 (1999) 360-390
The massive Assyrian invasion of Judah in 701 (reflected in 2 Kgs 18,13b; 18,1719,37) has apparently been confused with an earlier, limited invasion in Hezekiahs 14th year (reflected in 2 Kgs 18,13a.14-16; 2 Kgs 20; 2 Chr 32; Isa 22). Historically, this earlier campaign can best be dated to 712, when Sargon II apparently led the Assyrian royal guard on a Palestinian campaign. Chronologically, this dating fits perfectly with e.g. recent dating of the definitive fall of Samaria (2 Kgs 18,9: in Hezekiahs 6th year) to 720. 2 Kgs 18,9s parallel dating to Hosheas 9th year agrees with his apparent accession in 731 or 729. Dating Menahems death to 743 (as required, following biblical data, to avoid a triple overlap among Uzziah, Jotham and Ahaz) agrees with Eponym Chronicle evidence for this dating of 2 Kgs 15,19-20s presumably already desperate fiasco, and is consistent with a plausibly composite 738 tribute-list naming Menahem. Combining these datings produces a workable later 8th century biblical chronology.
indicated by its "central position in Sargons inscriptions composed in his later years"47.
2 Kgs 17,4-6 and 18,9-11 know nothing of a double capture of the Israelite capital. While the possibility that 2 Kgs 17,4-6 has telescoped together two distinct Assyrian captures of Samaria is supported by 2 Kgs 17,3-6s implicit conflation of two distinct Assyrian kings48, a seemingly clearly much less important earlier campaign by Shalmaneser is noted separately (2 Kgs 17,3)49.
It seems especially unlikely that the end of Israelite history in 720 (after which Samaria appears in Assyrian sources as a province and the scene of large-scale deportations) would have been ignored by biblical writers in favor of a temporary capture of the capital a few years earlier.
Two widely accepted but unconvincing arguments against dating the biblical fall of Samaria to 720 depend on identifying the Assyrian king involved as Shalmaneser V (726-722)50: (1) This rulers devastation of s$am/bara)in (Babylonian Chronicle 1.i.28) is very