affairs, or even how it is to be united with the later chronology of the Je"'1Sh nation. If complete reliance could be placed on the genuineness of a particular text (1 Kings vi. 1 ), the difficulties indeed of this latter problem would in a great measure disappear; for, having fixed the date of the commencement of Solomon's temple, which was certainly begun about B.c. 1000, we should only have to add to the exact date on which we decided, the number 480, in order to obtain an equally exact date for the Exodus. It was in this way that Archbishop Ussher produced his date of n.c. 1491, which is still maintained by Kalisch, 1 and with an unimportant variation by Keil.2 But the genuineness of the words in 1 Kings vi. 1- ,, in the 480th year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt "-is open to serious question. 3 They stand alone, unsupported by anything analogous in the whole of the rest of Scripture.' They were apparently unknown to Josephus, to Theophilus of Antioch, and to Clemens of Alexandria, who would necessarily have quoted them, had they existed in their copies. 5 They are also at variance with the tradition glanced at by St. Paul (Acts xiii. 20), that from the partition of Canaan to Samuel was a space of 450 years. But if, on these grounds, we surrender the genuineness of 1 Kings vi. 1, we are launched at once upon an open sea of conjecture. St. Paul's statement is defective both in consequence of his using the -axpression "about," and in consequence of his not marking whether he means to include the judgeship of Samuel in the 450 years or to exclude it. His statement leaves moreover the space between the death of Moses and the partition of Canaan unestimated. The detailed statements in the books of Scripture from Joshua. to Kings are defective, since in the first place they leave many periods unestimated, 6 and further, they are expressed to a large extent in round numbers,7 which are fatal to exact computation. It has been calculated that, on the most probable estimate, the details of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel would produce for the period between the Exodus and the foundation of the Temple, 600, 612, or 628 years. 8 On thA other hand, it has been argued with considerable force that these estimates are greatly in excess of the real time-that different judges bore office
1 ' Historice.1 and Crit.ice.1 Commentary,' Introduction, p. xiv. • By lengthening the dare.tion of the kingdom of Judah by one year, Keil makes the date B.C. 1492 (' Biblical Commentary,' voL i. p. ~14). . . • Hales says-" The period of 480 years Iii a forgery, foisted mto the text"(' Chronology,' vol. ii. p. 287). The date is e.lso rejected by Jackson, Clinton, Stuart Poole, Bunsen, Lepeius, Lenonna.nt, Brugsch, and others, but defended by Canon Cook and Mr. Gres_well. • The words involve the assumption of the Exodus as an era from which to date events. But the idea. of an ere. nowhere else appears in Scripture, and was unknown to the nations of antiquity until the time of Thucydides. • See the writer's note on the pe.ssage in the' Speaker's Commentary,' vol. ii. pp. 51-59. • .AJ; the periods during which Joshua, She.mge.r and Samuel_judged Israel; the time between the death of Joshua and the first servitude ; and the reign of Saul ( estimated at forty years by St Paul, A.ctB xiii. 21 ). , Forty years (Judg. 0· 11; _v. 31; viii. 28; xi~i_._ 1; 1 Sam. iv. 18); tw~nty yeall! (Judg v. 3; xvi. 31; l Sam. vu. 2); eighty years (Judg. Ill, 30); 300 years (it. XI, 26). , Clinton, ' Fasti Hellenici ' vol i p 312 INTRODUCTION. :n'.i
1:1imultaneously in different parts of Palestine,1 and that the actual pe-:-iod which elapsed from the Exodus to Solomon's accession did not much exceed 300 yoars. The result is that the best and most learned of modem critics vary in their dates for the Exodus by as much as 332 years, some placing it as late as B.c. 1300, and others as early as B.c. 1632. It might have been supposed that the difficulties of the Scriptural chronology would have received light from the parallel chronology of Egypt, or even have been set at rest by it ; but Egyptian chronology has difficulties of its own which render it one of the most abstruse of studies, and preclude the possibility of any positive conclusions being formed respecting it, unless by the method of arbitrary selection from among co- equal authorities. Hence it is not yet a settled point among Egyptologists, under which dynasty, much less under which king, the Exodus took place, some placing it as early as Thothmes III., the fifth king of the eighteenth dynasty, and others as late as Seti-Menephthah, the fifth king of the nineteenth. An interval of above two centuries separates these reigns. On the whole, the preponderance of authority is in favour of the Exodus having fallen under the nineteenth, rather than the eighteenth dynasty, and under either Seti-Menephthah or his father Menephthah, 2 who were the fifth and fourth kings. The Egyptian tradition upon the subject, recorded by Manetho, 3 Chreremon,4 and others, points evidently to one or other of these kings, and has generally been taken as decisive in favoUJ" of the father. But a hieratic inscription, 6 deciphered and translated by Dr. Eisenlohr of Heidelberg in 1872, has been thought by some to incline the scale towards the son, Seti-Menephthah, whose reign seems to have been followed by a period of revolution and disturbanoe, described in terms almost identical with those in which Manetho speaks of the time that followed the Exodus. If we accept Manetho's account of the period in Egyptian history to which the Exodus belongs, we shall have as the probable date of the event, calculated from Egyptian sources, 6 about B.c. 1300, or from that to B.c. 1350. Four hundred and thirty years before this will bring us to the eighteenth century n.c., when Egypt was, according to all writers,7 under the dominion of the Shepherd kings. This will agree well with the tradition, which George the Syncellus says was universal, 8 that Joseph governed Egypt in 1 Bunsen, 'Egypt's Place in Universal History,' vol. iii. pp. 282-288; Canon Cook, in the 'Speaker's Co=entary,' vol. i. p. 248. . . . • This is the view of Lepsius, Bunsen, Lenormant, Brugsch, and Birch-a comb1.0at1on ~f authority whieh it is difficult to resist. The last-named writer says of Menephtha.h-" It 1s generally admitted that the Exodus took place in his reign." • • Ap. Joseph. c. Apion.' i. 26, 27. • lbid. i. 32. • See the 'Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archreology,' vol. i. pp. 355--384 • and compare 'Records of the Past,' vol. viii. pp. 45-47. • Brugsch makes the yell.I' of Menephthah's accession B.c. 1300 (' H_istory of Egypt,' ,vol. ii. p. 314); Wilkiuson, B.o. 1245; Lenormant, B.o. 1350 (' Manuel d'HtStoue Anc1ennc, vol. 1 pp. 404, 428). ' So Brugsch, Lenormant, Bunsen, Wilkinson, Bil-ch, etc • Chronogre.phie., p. 62, B , xxii INTRODUC'l'ION.