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 (2) From the Flood to the Call of Abraham (Gen. xi.).

The variations are analogous to those under (1), except that here the birth-years of the patriarchs in both Sam. and LXX. differ more consistently in one direction, being, viz., almost uniformly higher by 100 years. It has been much debated, in both cases, which of the three texts preserves the original figures. In (2) it is generally agreed that the Heb. does this, the figures in Sam. and LXX. having been arbitrarily increased for the purpose of lengthening the entire period. The majority of scholars hold the same view in regard also to (1); but Dillmann gives here the preference to the figures of the Sam. The figures, of course, in no case possess historical value: accepting even Ussher’s date of the Exodus, 1491, which is earlier than is probable, we should obtain from them for the creation of man 4157 , or (LXX.) 5328, and for the confusion of tongues, which, according to Gen. xi. 1-9, immediately followed the Flood, 2501, or (LXX.) 3066 But the monuments of Egypt and Babylonia make it certain that man must have appeared upon the earth long before either 4157  or 5328 ; and numerous inscriptions, written in three distinct languages—Egyptian, Sumerian and Babylonian—are preserved dating from an age considerably earlier than either 2501  or 3066  The figures of Gen. v. and xi. thus merely indicate the manner in which the author of the Priestly Narrative—and probably to some extent tradition before him—pictured the course of these early ages of the world’s history. The ages assigned to the several patriarchs (except Enoch) in Gen. v. are much greater than those assigned to the patriarchs mentioned in Gen. xi., and similarly the ages in Gen. xi. 10-18 are higher than those in Gen. xi. 19-26; it is thus a collateral aim of the author to exemplify the supposed gradual diminution in the normal years of human life.

On these figures the following remarks may be made:—(i.) In Genesis the chronology of the Priestly Narrative (“P”) is not consistent with the chronology of the other parts of the book (“JE”). Three or four illustrations will suffice: (a) The author of Gen. xii. 10-20 evidently pictures Sarai as a comparatively young woman, yet according to P (xii. 4, xvii. 17) she was 65 years old. (b) In Gen. xxi. 15 it is clearly implied that Ishmael has been carried by his mother, yet according to xvi. 16, xxi. 5, 8, he must have been at least 15 years old. (c) In Gen. xxvii. Isaac is to all appearance on his death-bed (cf. ver. 2), yet according to P (xxv. 26, xxvi. 34, xxxv. 28) he survived for eighty years, dying at the age of 180. Ussher and others, arguing back from the dates in xlvii. 9, xlv. 6, xli. 46, xxxi. 41, infer that Jacob’s flight to Haran took place in his 77th year. This reduces the 80 years to 43 years, though that is scarcely less incredible. It involves, moreover, the incongruity of supposing that thirty-seven years elapsed between Esau’s marrying his Hittite wives (xxvi. 34) and Rebekah’s expressing her apprehensions (xxvii. 46) lest Jacob, then aged seventy-seven, should follow his brother’s example. (d) In Gen. xliv. 20 Benjamin is described as a “little one”; in P, almost immediately afterwards (xlvi. 21), he appears as the father of ten sons; for a similar anomaly in xlvi. 12, see the Oxford Hexateuch, i. p. 25n. (ii.) The ages to which the various patriarchs lived (Abraham, 175; Isaac, 180; Jacob, 147), though not so extravagant as those of the antediluvian patriarchs, or (with one exception) as those of the patriarchs between Noah and Abraham, are much greater than is at all probable in view of the structure and constitution of the human body. (iii.) The plain intention of Ex. xii 40, 41 is to describe the Israelites as having dwelt in Egypt for 430 years, which is also in substantial agreement with the earlier passage, Gen. xv. 13 (“shall sojourn in a land that is not theirs, and they shall afflict them 400 years”). It does not, however, accord with other passages, which assign only four generations from Jacob’s children to Moses (Ex. vi. 16-20; Num. xxvi. 5-9; cf. Gen. xv. 16), or five to Joshua (Josh. vii. 1); and for this reason, no doubt, the Sam. and LXX. read in Ex. xii. 40, “The sojourning of the children of Israel in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, was 430 years,” reducing the period of the sojourn in Egypt to half of that stated in the Hebrew text, viz. 215 years. This computation attained currency among the later Jews (Josephus and others; cf. the “400 years” of Gal. iii. 17). The forced and unnatural rendering of Ex. xii. 40 in the A.V. (contrast R.V.), which was followed by Ussher, is intended for the purpose of making it possible. From the facts that have been here briefly noted it must be evident how precarious and, in parts, how impossible the Biblical chronology of this period is. (iv.) It has been observed as remarkable that 2666, the number of years (in the Hebrew text) from the Creation of Man to the Exodus, is, in round numbers, just two-thirds of 4000; and the fact has suggested the inference that the figure was reached by artificial computation.

The Date of the Exodus.—Is it possible to determine this, even approximately, upon the basis of external data? (i.) The correspondence between the Egyptian governors established in different parts of Palestine and the Egyptian kings Amen-hôtep (Amenophis) III. and IV. of the 18th dynasty, which was discovered in 1887 at Tel el-Amarna, makes it evident that Palestine could not yet have been in the occupation of the Israelites. It was still an Egyptian province, and the Babylonian language, in which the correspondence is written, shows that the country must have been for a considerable time past, before it came into the possession of Egypt, under Babylonian