Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/49

 The lower limit is determined by the Exodus, which is usually assigned (as it must be if Ex. 1$7$ is genuine) to the reign of Merneptah of the Nineteenth Egyptian dynasty (c. 1234-1214 ). Allowing a sufficient period for the sojourn of Israel in Egypt, we come back to about the middle of the millennium as the approximate time when the family left Palestine for that country. The Hebrew chronology assigns nearly the same date as above to Abraham, but a much earlier one for the Exodus (c. 1490), and reduces the residence of the patriarchs in Canaan to 215 years; since, however, the chronological system rests on artificial calculations (see pp. 135 f., 234), we cannot restrict our survey to the narrow limits which it assigns to the patriarchal period in Palestine. Indeed, the chronological uncertainties are so numerous that it is desirable to embrace an even wider field than the five centuries mentioned above.

In the opinion of a growing and influential school of writers, this period of history has been so illumined by