Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jonathan D. Safren" <yonsaf AT beitberl.beitberl.ac.il>]

Walter Mattfeld wrote:

> Scholars have noted that 1 Kings 6:1 states that 480 years elapsed from the
> Exodus to the  fourth year of Solomon's reign and the building of the
> Temple. Some scholars date Solomon's fourth year to circa 966 BCE, by adding
> 480 years to this date we come up with an Exodus circa 1446 BCE.
>
> Kitchen has sounded a note of warning though about the above equation,
> pointing out that a period in excess of 553 years appears to be warranted
> instead of 480 years:

As you point out, he reaches this figure by counting the years in Judges, 
Samueland
Kings.
Which is just another indication that you can't learn a thing from the 
biblical
chronologies, at least not until the founding of the kingdoms of Israel and 
Judah.

I already pointed out in an earlier posting that the 480 years from the 
Exodus to the
Temple is a compound of the two typological numbers 12 and 40. Similarly, the 
Major
Judges all rule for multiples of 40 years (1/2 x 40; 1 x 40; 2 x 40). (The 
Minor
Judges are a different story)).
You also can't be sure that the Judges ruled one after the other, i.e., 
consecutively.
Behind each Judges narrative stands the story of a local chieftain. Youu can 
see that
by which tribes participate in which wars. So it is more probable that many 
of the
Judges were contomporaneous.
Conclusion: Just as you can't rely on Methusaleh's 969 years or Abraham's 
175, you
can't rely on the numbers given in Judges, Samuel and 1 Kings up to Chapter 8 
at least
(David reigned 40 years, 7 in Hebron and 33 in Jerusaleml Solomon reigned 40 
years). A
similar system operates throughout.
In conclusion, you can't rely on any of the numbers, statistics or years in 
the Bible
until the First Temple Period with the existence of kingdoms with court 
scribes and
chronicle-writers.
Yours,
--
Jonathan D. Safren
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl College
44905 Beit Berl Post Office
Israel