Baal-Eser I (Beleazarus I, Bal-mazzer I) was a king of Tyre. His father, Hiram I, was a contemporary of David and Solomon, kings of Israel. The only information available about Baal-Eser I comes from the following citation of the Phoenician author Menander of Ephesus, in Josephuss Against Apion i.18:
Upon the death of Hirom, Beleazarus his son took the kingdom; he lived forty-three years, and reigned seven years: after him succeeded his son Abdastartus.
The dates for Baal-Eser are established from the dates for Hiram. The dating of Hiram and the following kings is based on the studies of J. Liver,[1] J. M. Peñuela,[2] F. M. Cross,[3] and William H. Barnes,[4] all of whom build on the inscriptional evidence of a synchronism between Baal-Eser II and Shalmaneser III in 841 BC.[5] Earlier studies that did not take this inscriptional evidence into consideration will have differing dates for the kings of Tyre.
A further overview of the chronology of Tyrian kings from Hiram I to Pygmalion, with a discussion of the importance of Didos flight from Tyre and eventual founding of Carthage for dating these kings, is found in the Pygmalion of Tyre article.
Kind(er):