2. The Exodus,— ArgmDentB founded 00 indepoid. ent evidence afford collateral means of dedding which b the most probable computation fh>m Biblical eri- denoe of the date of this event. A comparison of the Hebrew calendar with the Egyptian has led a kte writer (Poole, Horn jEgyptiaca, p. 217) to the follow- ing result : The civil commencement of the Hebrew year was the new-moon nearest to the autunmal equi- nox ; and at the approximative date of the Exodus ob- tained by the reckoning given above, we find that the Egyptian vague year commenced at or about that point of time. Thb approximative date, therefore, falb about the time at which the vague year and the Hebrew year, as dated from the autumnal equinox, nearly or exactiy coincided in their commencements. It may reasonably be suppoeed that the Israelites in
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the time of ibe oppression had made use of the vagne year as the common year of the country, which, in- deed, IS rendered highly probable by the circumstance that they had to a considerable extent and in no very private manner adopted Egyptian religions customs (Joeh. xxiy, 14 ; Ezek. xx, 7, 8), the celebrations pre- scribed by which were kept according to this year. When, therefore, the fsstiyals of the Law rendered a year virtually tropical necetoary, of the kind either re- stored or insUtated at the Exodus, it seems most prob- able that the current vague year was fixed under Mo- see. If this supposition be correct, we should expect to find that the 14th day of Abib, on which fell the full-moon of the Passover of the Exodus, corresponded to the 14th day of a Phamenoth, in a vague year com- mencing about the autumnal equinox. It has been ascertained by computation that a full moon Ml on tlie 14th day of Phamenoth, on Thursday, April 21st, in the year B.C. 1652. A fall moon f ould not fidl on the same day of the vague year at a shorter interval than 25 years before or alter this date, while the triple coincidence of the new moon, vague year, and autum- nal equinox could not recur in less than 1500 vague years {JSkcydopacL Brit,, 8th. ed., s. v. Egypt, p. 458). The date thus obtained is but four years earlier than Hales*s, and the interval trom it to that of the Found- ation of Solomon's Temple, B.C. 1010, would be 642 years, or only six years in excess of that previously obtained firom the numerical statements in the Bible. This coincidence is at least remarkable, although the want of exact correspondence in the dates detracts considerably firom the force of the argument based npon this comparison. See Exodb.
Setting aside Usher's preference for the 480 years of 1 Kings vi, 1, as resting upon evidence far less strong than the longer computation, we must mention the principal reasons urged by Bunsen and Lepsius in sup- port of the Rabbinical date (see Bunsen, Bibelwerky i, p. ccxi,ccxili,ccxxiiisq.; Le^xa, Chronol. der jt^fypteTf i, 814 sq.). The reckoning by the genealogies, upon which this date rests, we have already shown to be un- safe. Several points of historical evidence are, how- ever, brought forward by these writers as leading to or 4»nfirming this date. Of these the most important is the supposed account of the Exodus given by Ma- netho, the Egyptian historian, placing the event at about the same time as the Rabbinical date. This narrative, however, is, on the testimony of Josephus (Apion, i, 14 ; also 26, etc.), who has preserved it to us, wholly devoid of authori^, being, according to Mane- tbo's own showing, a record of uncertain antiquity, and of an unknown writer, and not part of the Egyp- tian annals. An indication of date has also been sup- posed in the mention that the name of one of the treas- nre^ities built for Pharaoh by the Israelites during the oppression was Raamses (Exod. i, 11), probably the same place as the Rameses elsewhere mentioned, the chief town of a tract so called. See Rameses. This name is the same as that of certain well-known kings of Egypt of the period to which by this scheme the Exodus would be referred. If the story give^ by Uanetbo be founded on a true tradition, the great op- pressor would have been Rameses II, second king of the 19th dynasty, whose reign is variously assigned to the 14th and 18th centuries B.C. It is farther urged that the first king Rameses of the Egyptian monu- ments and Bfanetho's lists is the grandfather of this kmg, Rameaes I, who was the last sovereign of the IStfa dynasty, and reigned at the utmost about 60 years before his grandson. It must, however, be observed, that there is great reason fbr taking the lower dates of both kings, which would make the reign of the sec- ond after the Babbhiical date of the Exodus, and that in this case both Manetho's statement must be of course set aside, as placing the Exodus in the reign of this king*s son, and the order of the Biblical narra- tive must be transposed, that the building of Raamses II.— U
should not fall before the accession of Rameses I. The argument that there was no king Rameses before Ra- meses I is obviously weak as a negative one, more es- pecially as the names of very many kings of Effypt, particularly those of the period to which we assign the Exodus, are wanting. It loses almost all its force when we find that a son of Aahmes, Amosis, the head of the 18th dynasty, variously assigned to the 17th and 16th centuries B.C., bore the name of Rameses, which name, fh>m its meaning (son ofBa, or the sun, the god of Heliopolis, one of the eight great gods of Egypt), would almost necessarily be a not very uncom- mon one, and Raamses might therefore have been named firom an earlier king or prince bearing the name long before Rameses I. The history of £,^ypt presents great difficulties to the reception of the the- ory together with the Biblical narrative, difficulties so great that we think they could only be removed by abandoning a belief in the hbtorical character of that narrative ; if so, it is obviously futile to found an ar- gument upon a minute point, the occurrence of a sin- gle name. The historical difficulties on the Hebrew side, in the period after the Exodus, are on this view not less serious, and have induced Bunsen to antedate Moses's war b^ond Jordan, and to compress Joshua's rule into the 40 years in the wilderness {Bibelwert, p. ccxxviii sq.), and so, we venture to tbinlt, to forfeit his right to reason on the details of the narrative relating to the earlier period. This compression arises firom the want of space fbr the Judges. The chronology of events so obtained is also open to the objection brought against the longer schemes, that the Israelites could not have been in Palestine during the campaigns in the East of the Pharaohs of the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties, since it does not seem possible to throw those of Rameses III earlier than Bunsen's date of the beginning of the conquest of western Palestine by the Hebrews (see the Duke of Northumberland's paper in Wilkinson's Ane, Egypt, i, 77-81). There does not, therefore, appear to be any good reason for abandon- ing the definite statements of the Hebrew records in favor of the yet crude and conflicting constructions of synchronal dates from the Egyptian monuments (see Kenrick's Egypt under the Pharaohs, vol. ii). See Egypt.