Cronologia
Cronologia
Cronologia Biblica
(Periodo dei Giudici)
(450 anni)
Studi di:
D.H. Alford - F.C. Cook - H.F. Clinton - W. Hales.
And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan [Canaan], he divided their land to them by lot. After that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet. And afterward they desired a king: and God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years. (Acts 13:19-21).
And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD. (1 Kings 6:1)
The difficulty to reconcile these two texts has troubled many students of Scripture. Here is the conflict: Apostle Paul says the period of the Judges is 450 years, after which they had Kings beginning with Saul. On the other hand, the record in Kings is that the period from the Exodus to the fourth year of Solomon is only 480 years. If we deduct the years before and after the Judges from the Kings account, we have: 40 (in the wilderness), 6 (in dividing the land), 40 (Saul), 40 (David), 4 (Solomon) = 130 years, leaving only 350 for the Judges; whereas Paul says it was 450. Numerous writers have proposed explanations for the words of Paul to accord with that of Kings. However, Pastor Russell suggested there must be an error in Kings, being short by 100 years, leaving Paul’s statement correct as 450 years for the Judges plus the other 130 years for a total of 580 from the Exodus to the fourth year of Solomon. (See B:49,53 and the chart in Appendix C.)
If the account of Kings is correct as read, our chronology has an extra hundred years that should be shortened. Those who hold this view contend that there were numerous overlaps or concurrent Judges and captivities, and the Judges cannot nearly be considered as consecutive. They propose various explanations for the reading of Acts. These include the suggestion that Paul simply made a counting of the years without allowing for such overlaps. Another is that use of the word "about" intended his figure as only generalization. Another is that the Greek might support a reading that the 450 years preceded the period of the Judges and afterward Israel was given Judges. Some Hebrew scholars accept the reading of 480 in Kings and defer to Greek rationalizations of Paul’s words.
However, there are problems in leaving the matter to those who revise the Acts account. First, Greek linguistics do not support a grammatical construction of 450 years preceding the Judges. Secondly, Paul’s use of "about" does not allow for a 100-year error. Paul is precise in the same context to give us the 40 years in the wilderness and Saul’s space of 40 years. He places the 450 years specifically after dividing the land by lot. How is it that he missed the Judges by 100 years? We know that Paul could have added the Judges and periods of oppression just as Morton Edgar does in his 1948 study transcribed in Appendix A. Each Judge is recorded to rule over "Israel" with no indication that "Israel" is to be understood in a partial or limited sense or concurrent with other Judges for major periods of time. To accommodate 1 Kings 6:1, we would need to accept 100 years of contemporary Judges. Furthermore, Judges 11:13-15,25-26 indicates the period from entering Canaan to the Judge Jephthah was 300 years, all of which can be deduced without overlaps. The remaining seven Judges, occupying 156 years, would have to be reduced to nearly 50 years for the Kings account to be correct. [Appendix C].
Pastor Russell says the period of the Judges is "disconnected, broken, lapped and tangled." So, he rests his case with Paul’s accounting in Acts. However, he was not the only one who accepted Paul’s use of 450 years for the Judges and questioned the credibility of the Kings account.
Dean Alford, one of the foremost Greek scholars of the 19th century, footnotes his Greek New Testament on Acts 13:20 as follows:108
Treating the reading of ABCא (variant Greek texts) as an attempt at correcting the difficult chronology of our verse, and taking the words as they stand, no other sense can be given to them, than that the time of the judges lasted 450 years. The dative §τεσιν [years] implies the duration of the period between ταØτα [these things] and Samuel the prophet, inclusive… That this chronology differs widely from 1 Kings vi.1, is most evident,–where we read that Solomon began his temple in the four hundred and eightieth year after the Exodus. All attempts to reconcile the two are arbitrary and forced… It seems then that Paul followed a chronology current among the Jews, and agreeing with the book of Judges itself (the spaces of time in which, added together = exactly 450), and that adopted by Josephus, but not with that of our present Hebrew text of 1 Kings vi.1 … Gαμου¬λ [Samuel] mentioned as the terminus of the period of the Judges, also as having been so nearly concerned in the setting up over them of Saul and David. It may be not altogether irrelevant to notice that Saul, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, was speaking; and to trace in this minute specification something characteristic and natural. (Alford, volume II:174-175)
The Authorized Version Bible, with an explanatory and critical commentary edited by F.C. Cook and other clergy of the Anglican Church,109 has the following footnote 1 Kings 6:1.
In the four hundred and eightieth year. It is upon this statement that all the earlier portions of what is called the "received chronology" depends. The year of the foundation of the temple can be approximately fixed by adding the remaining years of Solomon’s reign, the years of the kings of Judah, and the seventy years of the captivity, to the received date for the accession of Cyrus to the throne of Babylon… Apart from the present statement, the chronological data of the Old Testament are insufficient to fix the interval between Solomon’s accession and the Exodus, since several of the periods which make it up are unestimated. The duration of Joshua’s judgeship, the interval between his death and the servitude of Chushan-Rishathaim, and the duration of the judgeships of Shamgar and Samuel, are not mentioned in Scripture… Under these circumstances chronologists have found in the present verse their sole means of extrication from the difficulties which beset this portion of the inquiry; and the "received chronology," in its earlier portion, is based entirely upon it. But the text itself is not free from suspicion.
1. It is the sole passage in the Old Testament which contains the idea of dating events from the era–an idea which did not occur to Greeks till the time of Thucydides.
2. It is quoted by Origen without the words, "in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt" (‘Comment in S. Johann.’ ii.20).
3. It seems to have been known only in this shape [without the words] to Josephus, to Theophilus of Antioch, and to Clement of Alexandria, who would all naturally have referred to the date, had it formed a portion of the passage in their day.
4. Though the Books of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel furnish us with no exact chronology, they still supply important chronological data–which seem to indicate for the interval between the Exodus and Solomon, a period considerably exceeding 480 years… Therefore, seems probable that the words "in the four hundred and eightieth year…" are an interpolation into the sacred text, which did not prevail generally before the third century of our era.
McClintock & Strong Cyclopedia, Book of Judges, Vol. IV:1078.
A difficulty is created by 1 Kings 6:1, where the whole period from the exodus to the building of the Temple is stated at 480 years. One solution questions the genuineness of the date in 1 Kings. Kennicott pronounces against it (Diss. Gen. 80, § 3) because it is omitted by Origen when quoting the rest of the verse. It is also urged that Josephus would not have reckoned 592 years for the same period if the present reading had existed in his time.
H.F. Clinton, who was referenced by Pastor Russell (B:37), regarded Paul as precise in volume one of Fasti Helenici: 110
St. Paul givesg the outline of the Period:
Forty years in the wilderness......................................................................40
The division of the lands (in the 6th year)....................................................6
The judges to Samuel, or the whole time between the division of
the lands and Samuel the prophet............................................................450
Administration of Samuel (no years)......................................................------
Saul..............................................................................................................40
___
536
Add David....................................................................................................40
Solomon.........................................................................................................3
___
579
We have the authority, then, of St. Paul for 579 years exclusive of the years of Samuel. The 450 years of the Apostle commence at the division of the lands in the 47th year after the exode.i [Acts 13:19-20] But it is not clear when they terminate; whether at the call of the child Samuel in the last years of Eli, or whether at the administration of Samuel after the death of Eli. Now as we have seen already that there were 430 years from the first servitude inclusive to the death of Elik , if these 450 years terminate at that point, they will leave 20 years for Joshua and the elders, and, 32 years being assumed between Eli and Saul, the whole period will be 611 or 612 years. [He is trying to account for the statements of Josephus as 612 years for the period from the Exodus to the temple.111 But this is not necessary to accommodate, except to note that he uses a larger rather than a smaller figure]… I think the interpretation is most probable, that the 450 years extend to the death of Eli. [We would say it includes Samuel, for "afterward they desired a king and God gave unto them Saul … by the space of forty years."]
The period, then, from the exode to the temple, founded on the testimony of St. Paul and on the Old Testament narrative, fluctuates between the 600 years of Eusebius and the 628 years arising out of the corrected numbers of Josephus. The truth lies somewhere between these points. [We say 580 years.]
This extended term of 612 years is inconsistent with the date in the book of Kingso , which reckons the foundation of the temple in the 4th year of Solomon to be in the 480th year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt. But the computation of St. Paul delivered in a solemn argument before a Jewish audience, and confirmed by the whole tenour of the history in the book of Judges, outweighs the authority of that date; and we may agree with Jackson and Hales in rejecting it. p (Clinton, volume I:312-314)
__________________________________
Acts xiii. 18-21.
David in reality reigned 40 years and 6 months; namely, 7 years and 6 months in Hebron, and 33 years in Jerusalem: 2 Sam. ii.11; v.5. Joseph. Ant. VII. 15, 2. But his reign is called 40 years: 2 Sam. v.4; 1 Kings ii.11, because Solomon began to reign before the death of David: 1 Kings i.32-40.
This passage, and especially the expression μετ ταàτα [after these things], refutes those who have supposed that the 450 years of the Apostle are to be dated from the Exodus.
That is, 390 years of the Judges and 40 years of Eli. See p.303.
1 Kings vi.1.
See Jackson vol. I. p.163. Hales vol. I. p.17. Vol. II. p.287. Considers that the number 480 as spurious. Petavius reckoned the 480 years current from the death of Moses: whence he obtained 480 + 40 = 520 years current. Mr. Greswell vol. I. p.400 endeavours to reconcile that date with the true history by computing its beginning from a still lower point. The opinion of Hales seems the most probable, that "the period of 480 years is a forgery, foisted into the text."
Following this last footnote, item ( p ), we turn to Hales. Pastor Russell also cites the research of Hales in B:67. Hales regards 1 Kings 6:1 as spurious. The following is from A New Analysis of Chronology and Geography, History and Prophecy: 112
An irrational chronology is indeed the parent of Scepticism and Infidelity. The period of 480 years, from the Exode to the foundation of Solomon’s Temple, is also too short, and is plainly repugnant to the tenor of Scripture, as will appear from the detail of particulars, collected from Ganz
Here follows a list of the Judges that is quite divergent from Scripture, construed to be 480 years. To refute such irrational schemes, Hales continues:
The Jewish chronologers were hard set to make out this detail, as Ganz honestly confesses.
For,
1. By a curious invention, they included the first four servitudes in the years of the Judges who put an end to them, contrary to the express declarations of Scripture, representing their administrations not as synchronizing with, but as succeeding the servitudes. Judges ii. 18.
2. They were forced to allow the fifth servitude distinct from the administration of Jephtha, because it was too long to be included therein, but they curtailed a year from the Scripture account, 18 years; and they curtailed a year more from Ibzan’s administration.
3. They sunk entirely the sixth servitude to the Philistines, of 40 years, because it was too long to be contained in Sampson’s administration. And to crown all,
4. They reduced Saul’s reign of 40 years (Acts xiii. 21) to two years only! The dishonesty of the whole fabrication could be equaled only by its absurdity; furnishing internal evidence, that the period of 480 years is itself a forgery, foisted into the Hebrew text of 1 Kings vi. 1. (Hales, volume I:221-222)
1 Kings vi. 1. The number in the Hebrew text, 480 years, is also spurious, as was proved in the review of the Jewish chronology. (Hales, volume I:298)
Furthermore we have this excerpt from Hales’s Chronology volume two:
Josephus has omitted the date of Samuel’s call to be a prophet, 1 Sam. iii. 1-19, which St. Paul reckons 450 years after the first division of the lands, Act. xiii. 19, 20, and which, therefore, commenced with the 10 last years of Eli’s administration of 40 years. This last most important chronological character from the New Testament, verifies the whole of this rectification, while it demonstrates the spuriousness of the period of 480 years in the present Masorete text of 1 Kings vi. 1, from the exode to the foundation of Solomon’s temple, which was also proved in detail, Vol. I. p. 221, 222. (Hales, volume II:258-259)
The spurious phrase regarding 480 years in 1 Kings 6:1 appears in none of the writings of the early Church fathers when quoting the text or accounting for the years between the Exodus and the temple. Theophilus of Antioch113 was a Christian elder who wrote about the year 170. He gives the period as 566 years. Clement of Alexandria,114 writing about the year 190, observed that the majority of chronologers he knew of recorded this period between 576 and 595 years. Origen,115 a Christian writer in the year 240 simply renders the text of 1 Kings 6:1 without the spurious portion as noted by F.C. Cook above. Though each had different estimates, all regarded the duration between the Exodus and the temple considerably more than 500 years. None used the reading of our common version of 480 years, nor the 440 years in the Septuagint. They certainly would have regarded it, had it been in the original Hebrew text.
Conclusion:
We understand the period from the Exodus to the foundation of the temple to be:
Wilderness.............................................................................................................40
Division of the land.................................................................................................6
Period of Judges through Samuel (Acts 13:19-20)............................................450
Saul........................................................................................................................40
David.....................................................................................................................40
Solomon...................................................................................................................4
Total..............................................................................................580
[Appendix C]
So portions of 1 Kings 6:1 appear to be spurious or a corruption of the Hebrew text. This was Pastor Russell’s conclusion as he simply states in B:53. However, there are various opinions as to just how the error crept into the text. The comment that 1 Kings 6:1 may have been the result of a scribal error in the similarity of the Hebrew letters values for (daleth,ד=4) and (he, ה=5), was likely picked up from the footnote in Benjamin Wilson’s Diagolott on Acts 13:20. This premise is questioned in that the Masoretic text (between the seventh and tenth centuries A.D.) spelled out the numbers completely to prevent just such errors.
The objection regarding the Jewish custom of spelling numerals may be valid enough. Nevertheless, there are other corroborations of Paul and vindication of Pastor Russell’s support of Paul’s accuracy. First, let us not be too hasty to generalize the word "about."
1. One hundred years is a very big "about" to be in error.
2. The Greek word "about" has the meaning of "during the space of."
3. Paul used the same word "about" in verse 18 in regard to the 40 years in the wilderness. He did not mean 39 or 41. He meant exactly the space of 40 years.
4. Now for the use of Hebrew numerals in 1 Kings 6:1, there is evidence that numerals were used in the earliest manuscripts. (See McClintock & Strong Cyclopedia: Number) The protective measure of spelling out the numbers was added later. So the possibility of an earlier corrupt confounding numbers may still be correct.
5. Not all the foregoing Bible Scholars used the same accounting of chronology. But all accepted Paul’s correct account of 450 years for the Judges, and saw serious reasons to question the reading of 1 Kings 6:1
6. But the strongest testimony is that the crucial words of 1 Kings 6:1 were a corrupt, spurious insertion into the text sometime in the fourth century A.D. The spurious words are: "in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt." Without those words, the text loses all relevance. Had they been there in Paul’s day, there is not the least possibility that he would have missed it. Biblical scholars from Origen in 240 A.D. either omitted the key words or as Dean Alford in 1871 considered this a corrupted text.
Without the words in 1 Kings 6:1 we have no basis to remove 100 years from the period of the Judges. So let us not build a time line with anything less than 450 years for the Judges.
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