Establishing an Accurate Chronology
In order to
judge the historical authenticity of the bible we need to establish a reliable
chronology by which we can fix the dates of biblical events. This chronology can
easily be derived from material given in the bible itself and external sources
if we can show that the biblical description of historic events, which occur in
the bible region, can be corroborated by reliable independent sources. So lets begin by attempting to identify which historical events
the bible could be referring to and see if they can be verified and used as a
basis for a chronology assuming as a primary postulate that the books and
generations given in the bible are intended to follow in chronological order.
The book of
Genesis opens with the creation of the world and of Adam. Since this event
cannot easily be identified with a specific historic event due to its over mythologisation we must read on further until we can find
something that is recognisable as a reference to something such as a battle or
the name of a regional king that appears in recorded history.
Noah’s
flood is the next major event occurring in the bible but with no timeline
established thus far and no references to known historic figures we have no way
of knowing as to when it is supposed to have occurred. There have been many
floods which have occurred in the bible region and once a rudimentary timeline
is established we can return to this event and try to pin point it.
Going down
the list of generations from Noah we come to Abram who the bible states takes
his wife Sari to
Since
Genesis 14 gives us the names of the 9 kings who it alleges were fighting each
other at the time of Abraham, and the places they came from, lets
see if they can be identified from historical records.
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The Bible (Authorised Version) |
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“Genesis 14:1 ¶ And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations; 2 That these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar.” |
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The Bible (Septuagint) |
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1 ¶ And it came to pass in the reign of Amarphal king of Sennaar, and Arioch king of Ellasar, that Chodollogomor king of Elam, and Thargal king of nations, 2
made war with Balla king of |
Five of
these kings as well as Abraham and Mambrh can be
identified with known historical figures dating to the El-Armana
period when the Mittani Hittites ruled
Syria-Palestine as vassals of
Comparison of Biblical and Historic Kings |
|
Biblical King |
Historic King |
|
Thargal of Nations |
Thdkaliya/Tudhalia III king of the Hittites c.1400-1380 BC |
|
Amarfal of Senner |
Amar-Fal = Eriba-Vul = Eriba-Adad king of |
|
Hodollogmor of |
Kudur-laghghamar king of |
|
Arioch of Ellaser |
Eri-Aku = Erichthonius king of Troy c.1413-1375 BC |
|
Sumobor of Zeboim |
Shemeber = Kada-Shman-Vul = Kadashman-Enlil king of |
|
Mambrh the Amorite |
Ammis-tamru king of Ugrait c.1400 |
|
Abram/Abraham |
Artatama/Artashumara king of Mittani c.1390BC |
(Note that
in the names of Assyrian kings the titles Adad and Enlil were interchangeable with the Babylonian titles Vul or Baal)
A
Babylonian Inscription recently deciphered by Professor Pinches bares the names
of Eri-Aku (Arioch or Erichthonius) King of Pontus, Kudur-laghghamar
(Chodorlahomor) King of the Elamites and Tuduchula (Thadal)King of Nations, and tells of a campaign by
these monarchs in Palestine against Khammu-rabi (Shemeber, Khammu-rapaltu or Kadashman-Khrabe) King of Babylon.
Some people
have misidentified Amarfal with Hammurabi
(Khammu-rabi) the Babylonian king of c.1800 BC but
this cannot be possible since the bible sates that Amarfal
was on the same side as Arioch, Chodorlahomor
and Thadal but the tablet says these people were
enemies of Khammu-rabi, therefore he cannot be Amarfal. Josephus also says in Book 1 of his Antiquities
that Amarfal/Amraphel was an Assyrian commander.
The naming
of Tuduchula who is easily identified as one of four
known Hittite kings means that this tablet must date to the time of the Hittite
Empire between 1650 and 1250 BC when these kings were reigning and by a process
of elimination using the dates given the most likely date for the tablet is
1390 BC.
Therefore
we can begin our analysis by assuming that the period in which the bible places
Abram/Abraham was c.1390 BC and test if this can be corroborated.
Going down
7 generations from Abram/Abraham we next come to the era of Moses and the
Exodus.
According
to Manetho who lived in the first century BC the Exodus
was set during the reign of the period of the Egyptian kings Amenophis and Seti II c.1200 BC. Manetho makes Moses to be a renegade Egyptian priest called
Osraseph who was involved in the war that occurred
between Amenophis and rival foreign invaders.
At about
this time Egyptian records refer to two expulsions of invaders from
Egyptologists
have also found records showing that Pharaoh Seti II
who succeeded Amenophis was deposed by his Syrian
butler Bey who then proclaimed Merneptah-Sipta
his successor in 1193 BC and was made chancellor in reward. In this office he
laid insult to all the Gods, and imposed extreme levels of taxation on the
people.
Unfortunately,
even though the bible mentions the Exodus occurred after the construction of
the city of Ramses, probably named after Ramses the Great who ended his reign in 1212BC, with no
names of historic figures to go by such as the name of the Pharaoh who adopted
Moses, it is not certain weather Moses lived in this period or in the following
generation or the one after.
Therefore
when we have constructed our chronology one of its major tests will be to see
if the date it gives for the Exodus is corroborated by the extant Egyptian
records and the account of Manetho.
Searching
further through the bible we come to the account of the sack of
In Joshua 10:12-13
what may possibly be a solar eclipse is alluded to.
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The Bible (Septuagint) |
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Joshua 10: 12
then Joshua spoke to the lord, in the day in which the lord
delivered the Amorite into the power of 13
and the sun and the moon stood still, until god executed
vengeance on their enemies; and the sun stood still in the midst of heaven;
it did not proceed to set till the end of one day. 14
and there was not such a day either before or after, so that
god should hearken to a man, because the lord fought on the side of |
Two
possible solar eclipses both annular occurred close to the time in question,
that of
Since Ramses III is not directly mentioned by name in the Bible
either, we shall continue reading further until we can find the name of another
king who can be identified.
After the
death of Joshua the Book of Judges starts by saying that the Assyrian king Chousarsathaim ruled over Syria-Palestine. This king must
be Assur-Risilim king of
|
The Bible (Septuagint) |
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Judges 3: 8 And the Lord was very
angry with
10 And the Spirit of the
Lord came upon him, and he judged |
|
Inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I |
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[40] Tiglath-Pileser, the illustrious prince, whom Ashur and Hercules have exalted to the utmost wishes of his heart; who has pursued after the enemies of Ashur, and has subjugated all the earth. [41] The son of Ashur-ris-ili, the powerful King, the subduer of foreign countries, he who has reduced all the lands of the Magian world. [42] The grandson of Mutaggil-Nabu,
whom Ashur, the great Lord, aided according to the
wishes of his heart and established in strength in the government of |
Now going though
the Book of Chronicles we are told that Beera the son
of Joel a descendent of Ruben fought against both Tiglath-Pileser
I and Asharid-Pal-Ekur II who were both kings
of Assyria at the same time. In the Septuagint Asharid-Pal-Ekur
II is called FALWH which is equivalent to Vul-Ek(er). Therefore we have a
date of around about 1114BC for this event.
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The Bible (Septuagint) |
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1 Chronicles 5: 3 The sons of Ruben the
first-born of 4 The sons of Joel; Semei, and Banaia his son: and the sons of Gug the son of Semei. 5 His son was Micha, his son Recha, his son Joel, 6 his son Beel, whom Thagla-phallasar
king of 7 And his brethren in his family, in their distribution according to their generations; the chief, Joel, and Zacharia. 8 And Balec the son of Azuz, the son of Sama, the son of Joel: he dwelt in Aroer, and even to Naban, and Beelmasson. 9 And he dwelt eastward {1} to the borders of the wilderness, from the
river 10 And in the days of Saul they made war upon the sojourners in the land; and they fell into their hands, all of them dwelling in their tents eastward of Galaad.
26 And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Phaloch king of |
There are
no more than 11 Generations between Jacob and Saul during which we have the
Exodus, and the joint reign of Tiglath-Pileser I and Asahrid-Pal-Ekur II over
Next we
come to Roboam in whose reign Sheshonq
(Shishak) Pharaoh of Egypt sacks Syria-Palestine. Sheshonq’s own uncompleted inscription mentions this event
which occurs towards the end of his reign, so he would have become Pharaoh
during the latter part of Solomon’s reign when Sadoc
was high priest.
Thus far
all of these events can be referenced by the number of Generations from Abraham
or from Jacob, but counting from Roboam (945 BC)
downwards the reliability of the generations comes into question since the
kingship of the so-called kingdom of “Israel” was not hereditary and the kings
of “Judea “ cannot be trusted to have been true
decedents of Roboam.
Fortunately
we still have other lists of generations that cover this period that appear in
the Book of Chronicles and in the Gospel of Luke so it is still possible to
fill the gap.
In the
generation of the Grandsons of Aelem the last known
of the decedents of
From this
point on it is possible to list and number all the known generations against
the dates of the known kings and perform a statistical linear regression on the
figures to see if the generation corresponding to each event plotted against
the year of the reign of each known king form a straight line. If this is done
it will show how accurate the bibles chronology is by linearity.
In order to
obtain the most accuracy since the dates of the start of a kings
reign do not necessarily have to coincide with a biblical event or the precise
beginning of a biblical generation, we should collect some more data though.
In the
reign of Joahim, Nebuchanesser
605BC, is supposed to have carried away
Next Cyrus
is supposed to have reigned over
After this
we have no other historical events that are related in the Old Testament. The
furthest the Old Testament generations go is to Odolia
so we can assume that was written down when the text of Septuagint was placed
in the Library of Alexandria and frozen in time during the reign of Ptolemy Philopater in about 285BC and no later.
The last
historical event given in the bible by generation is the life of Jesus, who was
supposed to have been in Jerusalem in the 15th year of Tiberius
(Luke 3:1) when Joseph Caiphas and Ananias were both High Priest and he was supposed to have
been crucified at around about the age of 32 or 33 in 28 or 29 AD.
Putting all
of this together we get:
List of Biblical Generations and Events
We thus
find that each biblical generation equates to exactly 25 years. This figure
corresponds to the period used by the Egyptians in a calendar system where 309
Lunar Months were equal to 25 Civil years of 365 days,
and would indicate that the entire chronology was artificially devised for the
sake of convenience by the authors of the bible. Since the statistics give an R2
value of 1.00 for the regression line this not only proves that the generations
were set up to be linear in regard to events, but it also proves that the
Chronology that has been constructed along the line is historically valid and
justified.
Using this
time line we obtain a date of 1197 BC as the date of the Exodus which
corroborates the account of Manetho since the reign
of Seti II dates from 1199 to 1193 BC. We also get a
date of 1172 BC for the start of the reign of Joshua confirming his
identification as being contemporary to Ramses III’s campaign in Syria-Palestine. This corroboration
proves not only that Manetho’s independent dating of
the Exodus is correct but it also justifies the method and assumptions used to
derive the chronology on the basis of looking for corroborative historical
references to biblical events and persons.
Note that
the sequence of generations of Abram, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Israel, Levi, Kohath, Amram seems to have been
devised so as to normalise the period it documents (1397-1297) to a scheme of 4
generations per century like the period from Moses downward. If the sequence is
read as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Levi, Kohath, Amram this would corresponded to a scheme of 3 generations
per century which is the system used by Herodotus to determine the reigns of
the Egyptian Pharaohs (Histories 2.142.1).
Now that it
has been proven that the generations and dates given in the bible are linear
and form an accurate time line we can proceed to reconstruct the entire
chronology by a third independent method using the lengths of reign, ages and
dates of birth of the biblical patriarchs which are given in the bible with the
regression line acting as our guide.
The first
thing that needs to be understood is that the biblical dates after Abraham and
(and even prior to him) including parts of the Book of Kings are based on an
equinoctial calendar rather than on an annual calendar. This having been said
will be our primary postulate for reconstructing the chronology arithmetically.
The
inhabitants of Syria-Palestine are known to have celebrated the new year at both the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes and also
at the Summer and Winter solstices. These reference points for the start of the
year correspond to the start points for the Roman, Babylonian, Greek, and
Gregorian calendars.
The use of
dating based on a Solsticial (winter to summer,
summer to winter) calendar in ancient Greece can be proven by reference to its
use by Pausanius 4.17.10 who states that “twenty two
winters and green herbs” was taken to mean eleven years since time was reckoned
between solstices. A similar method referring to time between Equinoxes (eg. autumn leaves and spring shoots in poetic form) was
used in the bible but due to the ignorance of the copyists the fractional
notation has either been deleted, misunderstood or
lost in translation.
Pliny the
elder also justifies this in his seventh book of The History of Nature.
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Pliny the elder, The History of Nature, book 7, Chap. XLVIII. |
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The term and length of mans life is uncertain, not only by reason of the diversity of claimants, but also because the Historians have delivered such variety of men’s ages, and every man by himself hath a several time limited unto him, at the very day of his nativity. Hesiodus, the first writer (as I take it) who has treated of this argument, and yet like a poet, in his fabulous discourse as touching the age of man, saith forsooth, That a crow lives 9 times as long as we; and the harts or stags 4 times as long as the crow; but the ravens thrice as long as they. As for his other reports as touching the Nymphs and the bird Phœnix, they are more like poetical tales, than historical narrations.
Anacreon the poet maketh report, that Arganthonius king of the Tartessians, lived 150 years: and Cynaras likewise king of the Cyprians, ten years longer. Theopompus affirms, that Epimenides the Gnossian, died when he was 157 years old. Hellanicus hath written, that among the Epians in Ætolia, there be some that continue full two hundred years: and with him accords Damases; adding moreover, that there was one Pictoreus among them, a man of exceeding stature, mighty and strong withal, who lived 300 years.
Ephorus testifies, that ordinarily the Kings of Arcadia were 300 years old ere they died. Alexander Cornelius writes of one Dando a Sclavonian, that lived 500 years. Xenophon in his treatise of old age, makes mention of a king of the Latines, or as some say, over a people upon the sea coasts, who continued alive 600 years: and because he had not lied long enough already, he goes on still and says, That his son came to 800. All those strange reports proceed from the ignorance of the times past, and for want of knowledge how they made their account: for some reckoned the summer for one year, and the winter for another. There were again, that reckoned every quarter for a year, as the Arcadians, whose year was but three months. Ye shall have some, and namely the Ægyptians, that count every change or new moon, for a year: and therefore no marvel if some of them are reported to have lived 1000 years. |
Eusebius
says the same.
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Eusebius, Chronicon, Book 1. |
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For instance, the ancient Egyptians talked about lunar years, that is a month of days or years containing 30 days. Other people consider the seasons to be periods of three months; in other words, they reckon each changing period of three months as a single year, and count the years in that way. |
The so-called
“years” in the bible between Abraham and David can be shown to refer to
periods of 6 months duration since the Jews recorded the year as beginning at
both the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.
Easton’s Revised Bible Dictionary |
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The Jews reckoned the year in two ways, 1. according to a sacred calendar, in which the year began about the time of the vernal equinox, with the month Abib; and 2. according to a civil calendar, in which the year began about the time of the autumnal equinox, with the month Nisan. The month Tisri is now the beginning of the Jewish year. |
This will
now be proven on the basis of numerical consistency. It can be shown to be so
since the Book of Kings gives the date for the so-called Exodus as being either
480 "years" (in the Massoretic Text) or 440
"years" (in the Septuagint) before the 4th year of the
reign of Solomon.
If
Solomon’s reign came to an end in the generally accepted date of 936 BC (as I
shall show later) then with a 40 year reign for Solomon the date of the Exodus
can be calculated thus:
(976-4)+440
= 1412 BC
This figure
as can be seen is not justified by the linear regression which gives a year of
1197 for Moses, nor by Manethos dating of Moses to
the reign of Seti II or the biblical reference to Ramses, a name which was unheard of in Egypt until 1293 BC.
The reign of Assur-Risilim who reigned 2 generations
later than Moses in 1150 does not tally with this dating either.
But if we
take a figure of 220 years for the number of years to the Exodus we get:
(976-4)+220
= 1192 BC
This figure
is perfect and fits in with what we already know. Unfortunately since we are
unsure which numbers were originally written in fractional notation and which
were not we do not know if the 4th year of Solomon should actually
be halved to give the 2nd year, or if Solomon’s reign should be
taken as 20 years which would give the following if we take the Massoretic texts figure of 480 years to the Exodus and half
it*.
(956-2)+240
= 1194 BC
The easiest
thing to do is to take an average of the above two dates. The end year of
Solomon already carries with it a +/-2 years margin of error anyway so an extra
year on the error margin makes little difference. But it is actually possible
to prove mathematically that the date of 1192 BC is the correct date as I shall
show below using additional information that fixes the post Exodus chronology
absolutely. The original research for this proof took me two months from September
to November 2001. After obtaining a copy of the Book of Jasher
in August 2007, I have updated the calculations.
Along with
the reference to the Exodus being 440 equinoxes or 220 years before the 4th
year of Solomon’s Reign, there also exists the chronology of Judges which takes
us from immediately after the death of Joshua to the reign of Saul.
The book of
Judges makes no mention of how long the Judges reigned in total and there is no
mention of the length of Saul’s reign in the Old Testament at all, but the book
of “Acts” in the New Testament though does give us this information.
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The Bible (AV) |
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Acts Acts |
Saul reigns
for 40 years after being anointed by Samuel, and according to Josephus
Antiquities 18 years of Samuels reign as a Judge elapse during Sauls reign and 12 years are alone after the death of Eli.
Josephus |
|
Antiquities 6.(5)292: Now he (Samuel) governed and presided over the people alone, after the death of Eli the high priest, twelve years, and eighteen years together with Saul the king. And thus we have finished the history of Samuel. |
The bible
tells us that David and Solomon both reign 40 years each.
According
to the Book of Samuel Eli reigns 20 “years “ in the LXX
or 40 “years” in the Hebrew version. The question that needs to be
answered is which one of this is right. The difference in the number of years
by a factor of two is an indication that fractional notation was originally
being used and indicates that the number of real years referred to cannot be
greater than the figure given in the Septuagint (LXX)
text. The following demonstration will show that it is the LXX
figure which is correct and that the book of Samuel’s years in the Hebrew
version of the text are given in eighths of a year by splitting up each season
up into 2 halves. If the seasons were spilt into thirds, beginning, middle and
end then you would have 12 equal months, so there is no reason to exclude the
possibility of splitting the season into a beginning and end half to give eight
eighths.
If
Solomon’s reign begins in 976 BC, then David reigns from 1016 BC and Saul
reigns from 1056 BC. This means that Eli the last Judge before Samuel, dies in
1048 BC since after Eli’s death Samuel lives 12 years until he makes Saul king.
The date of
the Exodus derived by adding 220 to 972 (Solomon’s 4th year) is 1192
BC. According to the book of Jasher
90:32, Joshua was 108 equinoxes old in the 66th year after
Israelites left
According
to 1Samuel
A gap of
1158-1038 = 120 Civil years now needs to be bridged and this can be achieved if
the reign of Saul is be taken as solsticial years and
therefore halved. This is justified by the fact that David who took the throne
at the age of 30 would have been only 8 years old when he led the Philistines
in battle after Samuel’s death if Saul reigned 40 years whereas he would have
been 28 years old if Saul reigned 20 years which is more credible. This places
Samuel’s death in 1018 BC and a gap of 1158-1018 = 140 Civil years needs to be
bridged.
This is
equal to the length of the reign of all the Judges up to the death of Sampson +
the length of the reign of Eli + the length of the reign of Samuel assuming
that the judges and the foreign rules reign consecutively and the length of
their reigns up to and including Eli is counted in seasons, using the LXX figure of 20 seasons for the reign of Eli and Samuel’s
years as given by Josephus are counted as full years. Josephus 6.(4)[83]
claims there were 10 years of unrest plus a further 8 years (ie. the reign of Assur-Risilim)
before the first Judges were appointed and this needs to be included in the
calculations to bridge the gap.
Josephus |
|
Antiquities 6.(4)[84] epi gar Môuseos kai tou mathêtou autou [Iêsou], hos ên stratêgos, aristokratoumenoi dieteloun: meta de tên ekeinou teleutên etesi tois pasi deka kai pros toutois oktô to plêthos autôn anarchia katesche. [85] meta tauta d' eis tên proteran epanêlthon politeian tôi kata polemon aristôi doxanti gegenêsthai kai kat' andreian peri tôn holôn dikazein epitrepontes: kai dia touto ton chronon touton tês politeias kritôn ekalesan. |
The
Chronology calculated on this basis is given here:
If the
Hebrew date for the Exodus is used Saul can be given a 40 year reign but the
age of David when he defects to the Philistines in this scenario makes this
unlikely since he would only be 8 years old.
Eusebius
states in Book 1 of his Chronicon that “It is clear that Samuel was leader of the people for many
years; but Scripture states that Saul reigned for just two years. In the first
book of Kings, it says [ 1
Samuel, 13'1 ]: "Saul was the son of a year in his reigning; and he
ruled over
There is
still the possibility of the Exodus being up to 4 years earlier than the given
date with varying degrees of probability but the available figures only justify
a date of 1192 BC. An error margin should therefore be specified (see later) to
indicate how much the reliability of the biblical figures is open to question.
This
reconstruction proves that contrary to Josephus derision of their work, the
Ancient Greek writers were correct in their dating of the so-called Exodus to
the end of the 18th Dynasty and since the Egyptian texts they quoted
make no mention of Moses the only way they could have derived the date was by
the method above. They must have also possessed accurate Egyptian king lists
in-order to be able to say who was Pharaoh at the time.
From this
point we can proceed to work out the reigns of all the biblical figures up to
Abram/Abraham using this table.
To work out
the chronology of the Patriarchs before the Exodus we need to establish how
many years before the so-called Exodus the so-called Israelite captivity began.
The Greek
Septuagint (LXX)** states that the so-called Israelites had been living in
both
The Hebrew
version of the bible says that the captivity was in
If we use
Josephus figure and compare the date for the start of the captivity with the
regression calculation for the dates of the Patriarchs then Jacob would have
entered Egypt in 1407 BC which dates to before the reign of Abraham as given by
the linear regression of generations counting Jacob and Israel, and Abram and
Abraham as 4 different people (because they fathered their sons in the second
generation of their lives, or in middle age as stated in the bible). Therefore
this assumption cannot be right and the number of years in captivity must
really be 430 solsticial “years” which is 107.5 civil
years.
Nearly two years after I made the original draft of this discussion I
discovered that Eusebius had preserved a list of figures for the ages and year
of birth of the Generations of Levi through to Moses which are not included in
the Old Testament.
|
Eusebius of |
|
'But Jacob came from Charran to Laban, when he was eighty[seven] years old, and begat Levi, and Levi was afterwards seventeen years in Egypt from the time of his coming from Canaan into Egypt, so that he was sixty years old when he begat Clath; and in the same year in which Clath was born Jacob died in Egypt, after he had blessed the sons of Joseph, being himself one hundred and forty-seven years old and leaving Joseph fifty-six years old. And Levi was a hundred and thirty-seven years old when he died; and when Clath was forty years old he begat Amram, who was fourteen years old when Joseph died in Egypt being a hundred and ten years old: and Clath was a hundred and thirty-three years old when he died. Amram took to wife his uncle's daughter Jochabet, and when he was seventy-five years old begat Aaron and Moses; but when he begat Moses Amram was seventy-eight years old, and Amram was a hundred and thirty-six years old when he died.' These statements I quote from the work of. Alexander Polyhistor |
Thus
· Jacob
became the father of Levi, when he was 8[7] (=147-60) years old and lives to
the age of 147 years
· Levi
became the father of Kohath, when he was 60 years old
which is the same year in which Jacob died after spending 17 years in
· Kohath became the father of Amram,
when he was 40 years old
· Amram became the father of Moses, when he was 78 years old
· Moses
led the people out of
Based on an
Equinoctial calendar Levi was 30 years old when Jacob died 8.5 years after he
came to
Alexander Polyhistor therefore places Jacobs
arrival in
Amram is
born in 1299.5 - 8.5 years - 20 years = 1271 BC
Joseph dies
in 1299.5 BC - 8.5 years - 20 years - 7 years = 1264 BC.
Moses is
born in 1271 BC - 39 years = 1232 BC and the Exodus occurs in 1232 BC - 40
years = 1192 BC which is 1299.5 BC - (430 years of captivity)/4
Eusebius
also gives an alternative account in Book 1 of his Chronicon.
|
Eusebius of |
|
Some writers calculate the years in detail, as follows: · Abraham became the father of Isaac, when he was 100 years old · Isaac became the father of Jacob, when he was 60 years old · Jacob became the father of Levi, when he was 86 years old · Levi became the father of Kohath, when he was 46 years old · Kohath became the father of Amram, when he was 63 years old · Amram became the father of Moses, when he was 70 years old ·
Moses led the people out of
|
As can be
seen, the ages at which Levi, Kohath, and Amram beget their sons are different from the account of
Alexander Polyhistor, but the total number of years
from the birth of Jacob to the Exodus is the same in both accounts.
Alexander Polyhistor = 80 + 78 + 40 + 60 + 8[7] = 345
Chronicon
= 80 + 70 + 63 + 46 + 86 = 345
Based on
the proofs given above from which the same date for this event can be
calculated by two different methods from two different sets of figures
contained in the bible (and related Jewish and Christian sources recording its
missing contents) the book of Genesis was obviously written using fractional
notation which has subsequently been lost though lack of understanding.
The bible
offers us a way to accurately check the distance between these dates as with
the Judges and Exodus dates since we are told that the sons of Abram, meaning
his family would be afflicted for 400 “years” until the 4th
generation.
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Bible LXX |
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Genesis 14 And the nation whomsoever they shall serve I will judge; and after this, they shall come forth hither with much {1} property. {1) Lit. baggage} 15 But thou shalt depart to thy fathers in peace, nourished in a good old age. 16 And in the fourth generation they shall return hither, for the sins of the Amorites are not yet filled up, even until now. |
If this figure
is taken as 200 on the basis that an Equinoctial calendar was being used by the
Bibles authors then 200 years counted from the birth of Ishmael would take us
to 1401.5-200 = 1201.5 BC which more than the stated 4 generations and too long
before the so-called “Exodus” for that to be the event referred to. If
taken as 400 this would take us to 1001.5 BC or past the beginning of the reign
of David, but this overlooks the 40 “years” of Saul’s reign since Saul was the
first king of Israel not David so that can’t be right.
If the
figure is taken as 100 years which would be reasonable if a Seasonal Calendar
were being used where the periods between the Solstices and the Equinoxes
marked a “year” then we have a date of 1302.5. This date as we shall see is close
to the date when Joseph was made Chancellor of Egypt in his 30th
“year” or 15 real years after his birth i.e. 1304. This must be the date that
the bible means since this is when the Affliction of the sons of Abram came to
an end when one of them was put in charge of the entire region. The date looks
like it is out by 2.5 years but not if you consider that the bible tells us
that the revelation of the Affliction is given to Abram 10 “years”
before the birth of Ishmael. Assuming that this is when the Affliction begins
then using a seasonal this works out a 2.5 years before Ishmaels
birth or in 1405 BC. This now consolidates the dates from Abraham down.
Assuming
that prior to the birth of Ishmael the bible uses a Seasonal calendar we can
now calculate the birth date and lifetime of Abram’s father Tharrah.
Looking at
the table is Tharrah and his father’s years should
all be divided by 4 in order to give him a life span that is under 100 years.
The Hebrew bibles says Tharrah lived a total of 205 “years”
whereas the LXX tells us that Tharrah’s son Arrahn died and
this prompted Tharrah to leave Ur and take Abram and
his wife Sari and Lot his Nephew who was still and infant to Charran where he lived a further 205 years. We are not told
how old Abram was when this occurred. The Hebrew version tells us that Abram
was 75 when he left his father but can this be the same year as the move and is
it reliable. The only way to proceed is to set a limit.
Using the
Book of Jasher the above dating controversy can be
resolved without having to rely on statistics. Jasher
states that Terah begets
For the
dates for the figures before Nahor the Father of Tharah up to Arphaxad it can be
seen from the table that they aught to be divided by 8 to give reasonable ages
of birth and death. This corresponds to what Apollodorus
describes as an “Everlasting Year” in his Library of Greek Mythology in an account
relating to Cadmus to father of
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Apollodorus |
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Library III 4.2: “To atone for the killing Cadmus served Ares as a labourer for an everlasting year (for a year in those times lasted eight of our own).” |
The time in question would have been approximately
1400 BC. To correctly interpret the meaning it must be noted that Apollodorus based his account on Hellanicos
who states the this was “one (normal) year”. Therefore
the explanatory note made by Apollodorus implies that
a year in those times reckoned by the Cadmain/Phoenician
calendar imported from Syria-Palestine and
From Shem
to Adam it can be seen that the dates are obviously given in Lunar months
rather than years so should be multiplied by 19 and divided by 235 to convert
them to years. Arphaxads date of birth is to early. Shem would have been 300 lunar months old when
this occurred 200, not 2 “years” after the Flood. Enoch’s age of 365 is the age
at which he left to enter the house of God. According to Jasher
he dies at the age for 905.
The final
Chronology works out thus:
This
chronology provides the best fit to the linear regression carried out earlier.
The date for the so-called Flood works out as 1614 BC which is close to the Dendrochronological date of 1628 BC for the time of Thera Eruption in the
A second
regression should be calculated for the dates Between Abram and Adam but they
are not enough reliable events to go by. We can only fix the dates of Artatama/Artashuimara, and the date of the Thera Eruption to specific generations. Nimrod/Nefrod of the same Generation as Cainan
the son of Arphaxad could be Amehotep
I 1550 BC known as Nefer-kheferu-re, and Phaleg whose name means division may refer to Egypt being
divided in the reign of Tutmoses III 1503, but
nothing is certain before Noah. Enoch could correspond to Sheshi
the first Hyksos king of the 15th Dynasty,
and Adam could be Agum I the Hurrian
king of
My
suspicion is that each generation in this period corresponds to a 19 year Metonic Cycle of exactly 235
lunation’s. This equivalence was discovered by Meton
of Athens in about 400 BC but the Babylonians probably already knew about it
over a millennium earlier. This is also the cycle used in the modern Hebrew calendar. A linear regression indicates a
figure in that region but the error margin is too wide to confirm it.
The
Chronology of the Kings of Israil and Ioudia is described on the following page.
Chronology of the Kings of Israil
and Ioudia
Index of Linked Pages |
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**Choosing the most actuate text
If one
looks at the figures of the ages of the patriarchs at the birth of their son
(given in Genesis) it can be seen that the figures given in the LXX (Septuagint) are the most coherent. These figures are
all of the order of centuries and agree in the most part with Josephus, whereas
the Hebrew and the Samarian figures jump all over the place.
Comparison of Ages at Birth of Son |
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Generation |
Greek text |
Josephus |
Samaritan text |
Hebrew text |
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Adam |
230 |
230 205 190 170 165 162 165 187 182 500 100 |
130 |
130 |
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Sem |
100/102 |
12 after deluge 135 <not given> 130 134 130 130 132 120 70 |
100/102 |
100/102 |
Between
Adam and Noah 6 of the Hebrew ages at birth are lower than the Greek by 100
years, whereas 3 are the same as the Greek (within a few units). The Samaritan figures
are all 100 less than the Greek except Noe and the
flood date.
The figures
in the Hebrew text are obviously the last figures to have been written down
since in palaces they match the Samaritan figures and in others they match the
Greek.
In the Generations between Sem and Thare the Samaritan
figures match the Greek figures exactly except for Cainan
who is missing in all versions except the Greek. The Hebrew figures are all
down by 100 years, and Canain is again missing.
If you take
the ages at birth from Adam to Noah as lunar months as they clearly are, the
Hebrew and Samaritan versions are unworkable but the Greek figures give
reasonable ages, but even these dates may have been tampered with and should
not be considered 100% reliable.
The figures
that were originally written in the bible obviously included the centuries that
are now missing from the Hebrew and Samaritan texts, therefore the Greek text
which contains them must be the oldest and the most accurate.
This
conclusion is also supported by Eusebius
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Eusebius, Chronicon, Book 1 |
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This [the Hebrew] version differs from the Septuagint by a total of 586 years. This is the difference from the Septuagint in the number of years for which each of them lived before their sons were born; apart from Jared, Methuselah and Lamech, who are given the same number of years in both versions. From the agreement with respect to these three, we can deduce that the version which we use is more reliable, because the longer length of years which is assigned to Jared and his descendants in the Hebrew version makes it clear that the years of their predecessors should also be the same as in the Septuagint version. If the later and more recent generations are found, with the addition of the hundred years, to be assigned the same number of years in both the Hebrew and the Septuagint versions, how much likely is it that the previous generations, their forefathers, lived to be older than their descendants? For in the summary of each man's life, the number of years before his son was born, and the number of year that he lived afterwards, added together gives the same total of years in the Hebrew version and the Septuagint translation. It is only the numbers of years before their sons were born which are shorter in the account preserved in the Jewish copies. Therefore we suspect that this was something which the Jews did: that they ventured to compress and shorten the time before these sons were born, in order to encourage early marriages. For if these most ancient of men, who lived such long lives, came quite soon to marriage and fatherhood, as their account declares, who would not want to imitate them and marry early?
…. It is clear from the oldest version of the Hebrew scriptures, which is preserved by the Samaritans, and which is in agreement with the Septuagint translation, that these men, from the flood down to Abraham, did not have sons until they were over a hundred years old. So who could suppose that their ancestors, who lived for much longer, had fathered children more quickly, rather than after the length of time which is recorded in the Septuagint [translation]? That is what any rational study would suggest; and so we must agree that [the numbers of years in] the Jewish version are incorrect for the whole period from Adam until Abraham, except for the three generations starting with Jared; and the Samaritan version is also incorrect, but only in the period from Adam until the flood, because in the period from the flood until Abraham, it records the same numbers of years as the Septuagint translation. Indeed, it is absolutely clear that [the dates in] the Hebrew version of the Jews are incorrect. It even suggests that Noah and Abraham were alive at the same time - which is something that is not mentioned in any history. For if, according to the Jewish scriptures, there were 292 years from the flood until Abraham, and Noah lived for another 350 years after the flood, it is obvious that Noah was alive until the 58th year of Abraham. And it is possible to show that the Jewish version is untrustworthy in another way: because it says that the generations before Abraham were about 30 years old when their sons were born, but the generations after Abraham are said to have been much older when they fathered their children. [p95] Therefore, because it has been definitely established that the Septuagint version was translated from the original, unadulterated Hebrew scriptures, it is reasonable for us to use that version for this chronicle - especially since it is the only version that is approved by the church of Christ, which has spread throughout the whole world, and it is the version that was handed down to us from the beginning by the apostles and disciples of Christ. |
If the
Hebrew figure of 480 “years”
from the Exodus to the 4th year of Solomon
is used to derive the date of the Exodus a date of 1212 BC can be obtained
which is the date of the death of Ramses II. This
would move the death of Moses to 1192 BC and the fall of Jericho in 1192 BC
which not only is incompatible with Manetho but it
would also create a problem with the dating of the reign of Assur-Risilim
who it is known from Assyrian texts reigned in about 1150 BC and this is
corroborated by the linear regression performed earlier which carries an error
margin of about 10 years either way, by moving his reign to 1178 BC which does
not correlate with the fact that he was the father of Tiglath-Pilaser
I who reigned in 1114 BC.
If Eusebius
is to be believed, and there may be problems with the translation and
interpretation of what he wrote, there may have been a gap of 30 “years”
between the death of Joshua and the start of Assur-Risilim’s
reign which might resolve one of these problems.
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Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel Book 10 |
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“From the Exodus of Moses to Cyrus, who reigned after the Captivity, there were one thousand two hundred and thirty-seven years. For the remaining years of Moses' life were forty: of Joshua, who became the leader after him, twenty-five years: of the elders who were judges after him, thirty years; and of those included in the Book of Judges, four hundred and ninety years. Of the priests Eli and Samuel, ninety years. Of the kings of the Hebrews, who came next, four hundred and ninety years: and seventy of the Captivity, the last year of which was, as we have said before, the first year of the reign of Cyrus.” |
But Eusebius numbers are clearly
wrong since Joshua lived 28 “years” after Moses death. Eusebius source
may in fact have made a mistake and placed the judges who were appointed for 30
“years” after Moses death after Joshua’s death instead and rounded the “years”
Joshua lived after Moses to 30. Eusebius in Book 1 of his Chroncon
also disputes that the “30” “years” should be there at all. “Firstly, it
must be mentioned that Africanus, who compiled a Chronography in five books, seems to me to have been
greatly mistaken in these matters. [p99] By his reckoning, there
were 741 years from the exodus of Moses until Solomon and the building of the
temple at
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The Bible (AV) |
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Exodus 18:21 Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens: 22 And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee. 23 If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace. 24 So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father in law, and did all that he had said. 25
And Moses chose able men out of all 26 And they judged the people at all seasons: the hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves. |
If on the
other hand Africanus is right then it might be
possible to resolve the problem with the reign of Assur-Risilim
by assuming that Eli reigns 20 Equinoxes as a Judge and the Judges appointed
after the death of Joshua reigned 30 Equinoxes. This moves Assur-Risilim’s
reign down to 1148-1146 BC, but leaves Joshua’s death in 1178 BC with a 30 year
gap. Unfortunately this date for Joshua’s death is still incompatible with the
Linear regression as is the 1213 BC date for the exodus, which are both out by
20 years so such a scenario is highly unlikely. There is no indication in the
books of Judges or Joshua or from Josephus of any Judges being appointed for 30
“years” between the death of Joshua and the start of the reign of Assur-Risilim.
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The Bible (AV) |
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Joshua 21 I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died: 22
That through them I may prove 23 Therefore the LORD left those nations, without driving them out hastily; neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua. {left: or, suffered} 1 ¶ Now these are the
nations which the LORD left, to prove 2 Only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at the least such as before knew nothing thereof; 3
Namely, five lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the
Sidonians, and the Hivites
that dwelt in mount Lebanon, from 4
And they were to prove 5 And the children of
6 And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods. 7
And the children of 8 ¶
Therefore the anger of the LORD was hot against 9
And when the children of 10 And
the Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he judged 11 And the land had rest forty years. And Othniel the son of Kenaz died. |
Note that Judges 1:11-15 is a repetition of Joshua 15:15-18 so the
opening events of Judges take place while Joshua is still alive.
Errors
Apart from the dating of the start of the reign of Solomon which is only
accurate to about +/- 4 years, the greatest source of error in reconstructing
the chronology of the bible is due to the discrepancies between the Hebrew and
Greek versions concerning the years of birth of the patriarchs before Abraham
and the number of years from the Exodus to the foundation of the temple of
Solomon. If the Hebrew figures are added up as given and corrected so that
years are years and not lunar months, seasons or solstices/equinoxes etc. then
the date of the Exodus is 1212 BC (counting the fourth year of Solomon as 4
years into his reign, though it could be as little as six months), the date of
the Flood is 1605.29 BC and the date of birth of Adam is 1787.69 BC. If the LXX figures are added up as given then the date of the
Exodus is 1193 BC, the date of the Flood is 1602.165 BC and the date of birth
of Adam is 1783.433 BC. If Josephus figures are used but with the LXX date for the Exodus and Cainan
is counted as the son of Arphaxad and father of Sala as in the LXX then the Flood
dates to 1613.665 BC and the birth of Adam to 1796.065 BC. If the LXX figures are used and Shem is given an age of 300 lunar
months at the birth of Arphaxad instead of 102
semi-seasons (assuming that the “two years” after the flood to the time of his
sons birth in the text is a corruption of “two hundred years”) and Josephus
figures for the years at begetting for Methusala and Lamech are used (a total difference of 1.13 years) so as to
ensure that both are dead at the time of the Flood (whereas if the LXX figures are used Methusala
survives the Flood thereby contradicting the narrative) then the Flood occurs
in 1613.67 BC and the birth of Adam in 1696.07 BC. The discrepancy between
these last two sets of figures is only 0.005 years (less than two days) for
both events, and such a close agreement is too much of a coincidence for its
significance to be ignored.
If the age of Shem at the birth of Arphaxad is
102/4 years then the difference compared to 300 lunar months is +1.24 years. A
possible +/-4 year maximum error could be present in the dating of the start of
Solomon’s reign based on Assyrian chronology. A +4 year error exists in the
dating of the 4th year of Solomon’s reign. A +17.5 year error exits
in the dating of Tharah’s birth if the figures in the
Book of Jasher are taken into account. A -11.505 year
error exists in the dating of the flood. A +20 year error may or may exist in
the dating of the exodus but is highly unlikely with current Assyrian and
Egyptian chronology.
Adding all the error
margins up and based on Chronology B, the date for the Exodus should be given as 1192
BC +5.7(+20.8)*/-4 years, and the date for the Flood should be given as 1612.67
BC +18.4(+27.2)/-12.2 years, and the birth of Adam should be given as 1796.07
+18.4(+27.2)/-12.2 years, this is assuming that the authors of the bible did
not introduce any rounding errors otherwise an error margin of 2 years should
be included for every century from the start of the reign of Solomon. *The figures in brackets are the
error margin assuming that the Hebrew date for the exodus is valid, but
comparison of Assyrian chronology with biblical dates using the Hebrew date
shows that this is unlikely since the dates do not correlate like they do with
the LXX dating.
Supplementary errors may exist on all the years before Abram which could
move his birth up by about 400 years but the fact that the date of the Flood
coincides so closely with the date of the Thera
Eruption in both the reconstructed arithmetic and the linear regression means
that this is very improbable. The identification of Caphtorim with Kawaftaw Amenhotop I more or less settles it. At most Adam could
be 60 years earlier since the Flood coinciding with the Thera
Erruption places Noah firmly in 1628 BC and regressing the patriarchs between Noah and Abram gives about
20 years per generation. Identification of Jehovah/Ieuo
the god of the Phoenicians with Yakubher Meruserenre who ruled
Section Headings |
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Index of Linked Pages |
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Revision 4.11