When we read Genesis or Samuel/Kings/Chronicles (or any OT book that attempts any sort of reliable chronology), what are reasonable meanings of the word (translated) "year?"
Suppose I wanted to construct a timeline of the kings of Israel and Judah. Chronology in those books is typically stated as "in the _x_th year of the reign of King Y of Israel, Z was made king of Judah." Should I assume that the ancient Hebrew year meant 365.24 days (one solar year)? I know they used a lunar calendar, and so if all their months had 28(?) days, did they have 13 months? Did their years differ from ours approximately 5 days every 4 years? How should a historian reckon "years" in this kind of account?
I presume it is likely the same problem as the use of "years" in Genesis, since the years mentioned were most likely those used by the Hebrews at the time the text was written down. I realize this may not be so, but if it's not so, then it might be difficult to put any particular value to "a year" since we would have no frame of reference by which to assign a specific amount of time to one "year."