Calculating backward from the sequence of later monarchs, for whose reigns we have some external chronological confirmation—and accepting at face value the biblical testimony of a forty-year reign for both Solomon (1 Kings 11:42) and David (2 Samuel 5:4)—most biblical historians have traditionally placed the reign of Saul in the late eleventh century, around 1030–1010 BCE. But we have already noted that these dates are not as precise as they seem. Generations of historians and biblical scholars have become accustomed to accepting them quite literally; at best they should be taken as only a
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