Ahab

Appears in a text of Shalmaneser III as king of Israel fighting against the Assyrians in 853 BCE.

In 853 BCE, Ahab, king of Israel, took part in a battle against the Assyrians, reported only by an outside source: a text of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III. Assyrian and Babylonian sources also name later kings of Israel and Judah, down to the early sixth century BCE (Jehu, Hezekiah, Jehoiachin, the last surviving king of Judah), and the order of their reigns agrees with the Bible.1 The timeline shows Israel and Judah as established kingdoms by the ninth century BCE. Across the ninth and eighth centuries Assyria expands from Mesopotamia through Syria and Canaan; Ahab fights it in 853 BCE; Assyria destroys the Northern Kingdom in 722 to 720 BCE and conquers most of Judah in 701 BCE.2