THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
In this scheme there are two omissions; the minor judges are not taken into account. Then Jephthah has no place among the major judges, the 6 years being placed among the count of the minor judges (cf. Judges xii. 7 with x. 8). This leaves 76 years to account for, which vitiates the entire calculation. The sum of the twelve " reigns " noted, if either Jephthah or Eli receive only 20 years, gives 406 years, 74 short of the 480 called for. But the governance of the number forty appears especially in the first six periods of the last table. And this predominance of the number 40 (cf. the confirmation in I Chron. v. 29-34, = vi. 35-88) illustrates the Masoretic chronology. To the 2,666 years between creation and the exodus (66f generations) 4S0 (12 generations) are now to be added.
For the next step assurance is not in our possession. Yet it seems significant that from the time of Solomons ascent to the throne (c. 1015) to the return from exile (536 B.C.) almost ex- 4. Solomon actly covers 480 years; and it is notetill the worthy that from Zadok's son Ahimaaz Return, to the beginning of the exile are eleven generations (I Chron. vi. 8-15). This scheme may have arisen just before or just after the end of the exile. In that case, the chronologist had before him the 66f generations + 12 + 12, leaving 9J generations, if he was reckoning on the world era of 4,000 years; he must then have expected Messianic times about 157 b.c. The foregoing attempt at solving the scheme of Masoretic chronology, based upon the 2,666 years, is not the only one. Bousset starts from the data given in the Apocalypse of Ezra ix. 38 sqq. and Josephus, Ant., VIII. §§ 61-62, and X. §§ 147-148 (Greek text), and reaches the conclusion that the beginning of the temple cult (twenty years after the beginning of the building of the temple) fell in the year 3000 from creation. Bousset holds that the Septuagint system is secondary to the Masoretic, arranged in the time when the Hebrews began to compare their chronology with that of Egypt and Babylon and so discovered that their own was too short. This system would work out thus:
upon the number 260, giving a total of 3,166, composed of 260x12 + 46, from creation to the consecration of the Temple. The first is a popular reckoning, the second is purely theoretical and under foreign influence.
II. The Historical Data: It has already been noted that the use of an artificial chronological system does not exclude the presence of historical data, which were probably taken from tradition and brought together and arranged or changed. How far this was the case may be seen by comparison of, e.g., the Book of Judges with other parts of Scripture. If such a combination appears 1. Lack of a in the Books of Kings, it would amount Basal Era. to proof that two systems were brought together, one systematically chronological and one based on traditionally transmitted numbers. In attempting to fix the dates of events the one essential thing lacking is a date of reckoning, an "era," in the earlier period; the attempt is not made to connect events with a recognized and fixed date. The reference to Adam or to the flood can not, in the nature of the case, give a definite starting point. More promising appears the reference in I Kings vi. 1 to the exodus; but, apart from the fact that the event itself has been called in question, a fixed date for that is not yet determined. Only in very late Biblical times did an era come into use, that of the Seleucida? (I Mace. xiii. 41-42). The lack of a fixed date within Israelitic chronology forces a complete dependence upon foreign data, so far as contemporaneity can be established; and this comes first in comparatively late times — in the Assyrian period. Above all regrettable is the fact that no connection exists such that a starting point may be derived from Egypt. For there a calendar existed which carries one back to July 19, 4241, the oldest fixed date in history, depending upon the fact that the Egyptian new year's day (in a year of 365 days) theoretically began on the day when Sirius (Sothis) rose with the dawn at Memphis. The year being fixed for 365 days, every four years a day was lost, and 1,460 Julian years = 1,461 Sothic years. The coincidence of the Sothic and the Julian
Year of the flood
Birth of Abraham
Leaving of Canaan
Exodus
Building of Temple
Original chronology; cf. Josephus, Ant
(Greek text)
Variation of 50 years (cf. Josephus, Ant., Basis for reckoning of Book of Jubilees