Is it heresy to follow secular dating on the destruction of the first Temple?

Question

There is a discrepancy between rabbinic and secular sources regarding when the first Temple was destroyed -- a difference of some 165 years or so, which are called the "Missing Years."

My question is not about how to account for those years or even which one is correct. Rather, I am wondering: If someone believes in the secular dating to be accurate and the information in Seder Olam to be inaccurate, does this constitute heresy or a failure of emunas chachomim, or is this an opinion with which a person is entitled to disagree?

Answer 1

The discrepancy has been raised repeatedly over the centuries, by scholars Jew and non-Jew, Orthodox or not, alike.

Rabbi Shimon Schwab penned an essay on it whereby he very much raised the possibility that the non-Seder-Olam chronology may be correct, though later referring to it as a "thought experiment."

In his taped lectures on the history of the Universe, Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer at one point says something to the effect of, "while I hate to say this, it may be that we cannot always trust Chazal with regards to timelines."

The alternate chronology does not violate any of Rambam's Thirteen Principles. Here's more on what exactly "emunas chachamim" means, though note that the phrase does not appear in the Babylonian Talmud.

Personally I find an approach that casts Chazal in a negative light to be ... well not prohibited or heretical per se, but just plain distasteful. I'm okay living with "it could be Chazal are right on this and the secular sources are wrong ... it could be both are right and we've misunderstood the discrepancy ... and it could be that Chazal had valid reasons for listing a different chronology."

Answer 2

In the book "Jewish History in Conflict", Mitchel First compiled and categorized many of the Jewish responses to the discrepancy between the Seder Olam and secular dating. It would seem that at least some maintain that disregarding the Jewish dates conflicts with belief in the Torah:

ה' יצילנו מדעת החיצונים כילדי נכרים יספיקו המוסיפים הרבה במנין מלכי פרס ומאריכים שנותיהם מאד ולא ימצאו ידיהם ורגליהם בבית המדרש כי בהכרח יצטרכו להכחיש גם המקראות - May G-d save us from the view of those outsiders, who "please themselves in the children of strangers" (Isaiah 2:6), who add many to the number of Persian kings and increase their years greatly. They do not know their way in Jewish learning because they will necessarily be forced to contradict the biblical verses as well... (Rabbi Yaakov Emden, commentary on Seder Olam pg. 88)

(The author notes that R' Emden does not specify which verses he is referring to which contradict the secular dating, but writes that he probably was referring to Daniel 11:2).