How long were the Children of Israel enslaved in Egypt, according to the Bible? Ask Question. Asked 8 years, 1 month ago. Active 2 years, 10 months ago. Viewed 92k times. But when you add up the genealogical record [which? How can we resolve this seeming contradiction? Improve this question. Schuh 2, 10 10 silver badges 24 24 bronze badges. Randy Randy 89 1 1 gold badge 1 1 silver badge 2 2 bronze badges. I edited your question to clarify it a little. Can you please add in the specific details for which genealogical records add up to years?
The answer is years. Here is a video that explains it perfectly: youtube. The video posted above seems, for some mysterious reason, to think that the years mentioned in Acts refer to the time spent in Egypt. Much of Biblical chronology seems made up of chunks of years: From Abraham's entrance into Canaan to Israel's Exodus out of Egypt, from the Exodus until the building of the Temple LXX , from the Temple's construction to its destruction, and then we have Daniel's 62 weeks-of-years, spanning from its demolition to the Maccabean uprising.
If people would count in dozens, then years would amount to a quarter of a millennium. Is it wrong to think that the 30 years of the years consisted of the entirety of Joseph's childhood up to when he had to stand before Pharaoh? God said that He predestined Joseph to be who we see in the Bible so that God could show the world that a man like Joseph could save an entire nation of course Joseph's role could be taken up by any other son of Israel since there's multiple paths that they could choose to embark, which God all ordained from eternity.
Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Do these calculations only apply if we assume the line from Levi to Moses is complete? Do you have any reason to believe it isn't? Some reasons I've seen given to doubt the line being complete are that 1 generally, many Biblical lines are incomplete, 2 specifically, the equivalent line to Joshua has 10 generations, 3 Levi's numbers of descendants per son in Moses' day are unrealistic if only a couple generations later — joshuahedlund.
He enjoyed favor all the days of his life in Egypt. He lived another 41 years after that, dying at around years old Conclusion: There is nothing in the Biblical chronology that indicates they were only in bondage in Egypt for years. Jas 3. Thanks for your comment! Your answer is simple, neat, and easy to understand. But a couple of questions arise: 1 Why does Paul in Gal say that years passed between Abraham's promise and the giving of the law on Sinai?
Looking forward to your response! Niobius Great questions. Second, even if he did mean to establish an exact chronology, by my reading the time would start with the ratification of the covenant, so we would need to determine what that refers to. See Exodus The problem only arises when we artificially define a generation as "x number of years.
Thanks for the answers! But 1 Though the authorial intent of Gal is certainly not to give an accurate chronology, we cannot simply dismiss the number as irrelevant to the chronology - the number must have come from somewhere. Moreover, it says, "Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made Paul seems to be talking about when the promises were made not ratified. Odd, but admittedly not impossible.
Show 7 more comments. Niobius Niobius 5, 2 2 gold badges 25 25 silver badges 51 51 bronze badges. My hesitation with your approach here is that it seems to me like the NT authors were simply referencing information that was already available in the OT records, not adding new information about ancient chronologies.
With your approach, if we didn't have Galatians we could never know how long they were in Egypt because Paul was essentially operating under Sensus Plenior and adding information that was never before available from the ancient chronologies. I think there is a simpler solution for those with a high view of Scripture. Looking forward to your feedback on my answer. I don't know where Paul got his information, whether from Rabbinic tradition, his interpretation of Ex , or from manuscripts we simply don't have access to.
This is admittedly a weak link in my interpretation. However, it is not without precedent for an NT author to provide new information about OT stories not directly divulged in the Old Testament, e. How does this view reconcile with David's song in 1 Chronicles 16 that God allowed "no one to oppress them" while they were "sojourners," "few in number"? Given that the Hebrew word used for "afflict" in Genesis 15 is the same used in Exodus 1 to describe how the taskmasters "afflicted" the Israelites after they had multiplied, but a different word is used to describe Ishmael's mockery, I find it easier to take all of these passages plainly with Exodus , and to assume non-chronology in Galatians, than to assume literal time from Galatians and explain away all the others.
Indeed, it immediately continues by saying that he reproved kings for their sake , which, as far as I can tell, is primarily a reference to Pharaoh. But why the need for reproval in the first place? Obviously, because he did indeed do them wrong, at which point God, who does not suffer that to happen, intervened.
There are two positions on the time elapsed between Jacob's entry into Egypt and the Exodus: Short sojourn : years. Short sojourn position To note, years is the absolute minimum duration of the Israelites' sojourn in Egypt in the short sojourn position, not the only possible duration. Semites and Nubians are shown fetching and mixing mud and water, striking out bricks from molds, leaving them to dry and measuring their amount, under the watchful eyes of Egyptian overseers, each with a rod.
The images bear out descriptions in Ex. So it seems the biblical descriptions of Egyptian slavery are accurate. Conclusively, Semitic slaves there were.
However, critics argue there's no archaeological evidence of a Semitic tribe worshiping Yahweh in Egypt. Because of the muddy conditions of the East Delta, almost no papyri have survived — but those that did, may provide further clues in the search for the lost Israelites.
The papyrus Anastasi VI from around years ago describes how the Egyptian authorities allowed a group of Semitic nomads from Edom who worshiped Yahweh to pass the border-fortress in the region of Tjeku Wadi Tumilat and proceed with their livestock to the lakes of Pithom. Shortly afterwards, the Israelites enter world history with the Merenptah stele, which bears the first mention of an entity called Israel in Canaan. It is robustly dated at is BCE, i.
These Yahweh worshippers were in ancient Egypt well after the Exodus is supposed to have happened. Members of the Yahweh cult may have existed there earlier, but there is no solid evidence for that. There are, however, indications. According to the scribe Manetho, the founder of monotheism was Osarisph, who later adopted name Moses, and led his followers out of Egypt in Akhenaten's reign.
Akhenaten was the heretic Pharaoh who abolished polytheism and replaced it with monotheism, worshiping only the sun disc, Aten. In , a team of French archaeologists discovered the tomb of a man named Aper-el or Aperia his name is spelled both ways in Egyptian inscriptions , commander of the charioteers and vizier to Ahmenotep II and to his son Akhenaten. The vizier's name ending in -el could well be related to the Hebraic god Elohim; and the ending Aper-Ia could be indicative of Ya, short for Yahweh.
This interpretation supports the argument that Hebrews were present in Egypt during the 18th dynasty starting years ago BCE. The famed British Egyptologist Sir Matthew Flinders Petrie holds the reverse view: that Akhenaten was the catalysis for the monotheistic views of the Hebrews, and that the Exodus happened in the 19th dynasty , around years ago.
That extrapolates to around two million people making the exodus extrapolated from Numbers If around 2 million people left Egypt, when the entire population has been estimated at around 3 to 4. The numbers were undoubtedly exaggerated, as in most ancient records.
But nobody claims the invasion of Greece never happened. That said, as the Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen points out, the Hebrew word for thousand, eleph, can mean different things depending upon context.
For example: 1 Kings mentions a wall falling in Aphek that killed 27, men. If we translate eleph as leader, the text more sensibly says that 27 officers were killed by the falling wall. Bv that logic, some scholars propose that the Exodus actually consisted of about 20, people.
The absence of evidence of a sojourn in the wilderness proves nothing. A Semitic group in flight wouldn't have left direct evidence: They would not have built cities, built monuments or done anything but leave footprints in the desert sand.
Yet more support for the Haggadah may lie in an interesting poem copied onto a papyrus dating to the 13th century BCE although original is believed to be much older , called the " Admonitions of Impuwer or the Lord of All ".
It portrays a devastated Egypt haunted by plagues, droughts, violent uprisings — culminating in the escape of slaves with Egypt's wealth. In short, the Impuwer papyrus seems to be telling the story of Exodus from the Egyptian point of view, from a river of blood to the devastation of the livestock to darkness. Also, the Egyptians were not above altering historical records when the truth proved to be embarrassing or went against their political interests.
It was not the praxis of the pharaohs to advertise their failures on temple walls for all to see. Her inscriptions were erased, her obelisks surrounded by a wall, and her monuments were forgotten. Her name does not appear in later annals. Moreover, records of administration in the east Delta seem entirely gone.
Generally, the biblical writers interpreted actual history, rather than invent it. The ancients knew that propaganda based on real events was more effective than fairy tales. This article was originally published March 26, Well, they've all, at one time or another, perpetuated the myth that the Jews built the pyramids. And it is a myth, make no mistake. Even if we take the earliest possible date for Jewish slavery that the Bible suggests, the Jews were enslaved in Egypt a good three hundred years after the B.
That is, of course, if they were ever slaves in Egypt at all. We are so quick to point out the obvious lies about Jews and Israel that come out in Egypt — the Sinai Governors claims that the Mossad released a shark into the Red Sea to kill Egyptians, or, as I once read in a newspaper whilst on holiday in Cairo, the tale of the magnetic belt buckles that Jews were selling cheap in Egypt that would sterilize men on contact — yet we so rarely examine our own misconceptions about the nature of our history with the Egyptian nation.
We tend, in the midst of our disdain for Egyptian, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, to overlook the fact that one of the biggest events of the Jewish calendar is predicated upon reminding the next generation every year of how the Egyptians were our cruel slave-masters, in a bondage that likely never happened. Is this really so different from Jaws the Mossad agent?
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