Chronikon Hebraikon - The World's Age Scriptually Demonstrated

APPENDIX.

Chronikon Hebraikon, to the best of our belief, remains the best and most scriptural Chronology extant. Yet in some details more light is to be desired, and the author's conclusions cannot be accepted in their entirety. While sympathising entirely with the desire for unquestionable accuracy and final conclusive demonstration, it cannot be conceded that the qualifications of "about or nearly" are entirely eliminated from this chronology. Neither does the apostle Paul speak thus absolutely in the celebrated passage in Acts 8, for he says "about the space of four hundred and fifty years," God gave Israel judges until Samuel the prophet. The phrase "until Samuel the prophet" is not susceptible of so rigid a construction as this chronology lays down, for Samuel was a judge as well as a prophet, as he himself emphasises. These remarks are made in no hypercritical spirit, but only for the sake of truth, which, it is believed, may still harmonise all the intricacies of this most difficult subject.

A few notes are therefore added, and the final solution of the problems involved, if ever they be finally solved this side the Kingdom of God, is left over.

First, then, with regard to the celebrated difficulty -- the 480 years of I Kings 6:1; it is to be remarked that the Septuagint has "440 years," showing that there was a difficulty over the matter between two and three hundred years before Christ. It is evident that from the Exodus to Solomon's accession is a span of some 600 years (Josephus makes it 592 years-Ant. 8:3, 1), but the final adjustment of the component spans that make up this period does not yet appear.

On page 20 the definition of the "fourth period," to be strictly faithful to the inspired words, needs revision. As indicated above, it should not say: - "embraces 450 years," but "embraces about 450 years." The appearance of absolute accuracy is misleading, for the apostle does not so speak. Neither does he accurately define a point of time in the phrase "until Samuel the prophet;" nor does there seem to be any good reason why the greater part of Samuel's life should be excluded from the time of the judges. The facts are these. Samuel was a judge. "Samuel judged Israel in Mizpeh" (1 Sam. 7:6). "Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. And he went from year to year in circuit to Bethel and Gilgal and Mizpeh, and judged Israel in all those places. And his return was to Ramah, for there was his house; and there he judged Israel; and there he built an altar unto the Lord" (1 Sam 7:l5-17). When "old and grey-headed" (1 Sam. 12:2), after the anointing of Saul, he rallied the people to the memory of God's deliverance by the judges, including himself among them: "The Lord sent Jerubbaal and Bedan (Abdon) and Jephthah and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies" (v.11).

The true explanation of Paul's remark in Acts 13:21 seems to be, that towards the end of Samuel's career God gave them Saul, and that Samuel and Saul's joint administration endured "by the space of forty years" - another "round number," like the four hundred and fifty. Josephus says that Saul reigned 20 years - 18 years contemporary with Samuel, and two years after his death (Ant. 6:  5, and 14:  9). Also that Samuel "governed and presided over the people alone, after the death of Eli the High Priest, 12 years" (ibid.). This makes 32 years from the death of Eli to the death of Saul (Ant. 6:1). Whiston's Josephus, by interpotating in brackets ["and twenty"] in Ant. 6:14, 9, to make Saul's reign up to 40 years, to square with the popular misunderstanding of Acts 13:21, at once upsets the Bible history and Josephus' paraphrase thereof.

It is quite evident, as Dr. Thomas argues, that a reign of 40 years is impossible for Saul; but, on the other hand, to assign to him a reign of less than seven would seem to be an error in the other direction. It may be remarked here that in the difficult passage: 1 Sam. 13:1, the R.V. points in the margin to a certain rescension of the Septuagint which reads: "Saul was thirty years old when he began to reign." He reigned two years and committed a trespass which caused him the loss of the kingdom. But he afterwards reigned long enough to subdue all his enemies round about. "Saul took the kingdom over Israel, and fought against all his enemies on every side, against Moab, and against the children of Ammon, and against Edom, and against the Kings of Zobah, and against the Philistines, and whithersoever he turned himself he vexed them. And he gathered an host and smote the Amalekites, and delivered Israel out of the hands of them that spoiled them" (I Sam. 14:47). A period of less than five years would seem to be inadequate for all this. Further, Islibosheth, Saul's son, was 40 years old at Saul's death (2 Sam. 2:10); and Jonathan's little son was five years old at the same time (2 Sam. 4:4), which better accords with the longer reign of Saul. Josephus is manifestly somewhere near the truth, even if he be not actually correct.

What, then, of the captivity of the Ark, and its long sojourn at Kirjath Jearim, which Dr. Thomas makes such a strong point? The answer is, that it is nowhere said in the Scriptures that the "20 years" of its abode at Kirjath Jedrim measures the interval between its return from the laud of the Philistines and The eighth year of the reign of David (Chron. Heb., p.24; 1 Sam. 7:2; 2 Sam. 5:6). The inference that it does so is very natural, but is mistaken all the same. If David had been born "seventeen years before the Ark's capture" (Chron. Heb. tab. p.23), then he must have been 37 years old at the end of these 20 years, and still older when he slew Goliath, and a man advanced in years, when he began to reign; all of which is, of course, quite out of harmony with the scripture, which depicts him as a stripling in his encounter with the giant, and as 30 years old when he began to reign (2 Sam. 5:4). The termination of the 20 years of I Sam. 7:2 is the solemn repentance of Israel and their return to Yahweh, when they "put away Baalim and Ashtaroth and served Yahweh only"; and He accepted Samuel's offering and miraculously subdued the Philistines, so that "they came no more into the coast of Israel" but "the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel." The 20 years are, in fact, the measure of the period of servitude that followed the judgeship of Eli in retribution for the iniquity of his house. Probably more than 40 years intervened between the death of Eli and the capture of the Ark by the Philistines, and its removal to the city of David from Kirjath Jearim, in the eighth year of David's reign.

The date of Daniel's deportation to Babylon cannot be "the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign" (tab. "Sixth Period") for he prophesied before the King in Babylon "in the second year" of his reign (Dan. 2:1), after "three years" preparatory training (Dan. 1:5). The explanation of this added apparent discrepancy is to be found in the fact that Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judea and took captives from Jerusalem before he actually ascended the throne.

The foregoing modifications do not affect the main question but only the correct relative placing of various periods. The dates of the Christian Era are likewise unaffected by the obscurities in certain Old Testament periods. The fall of the Temporal Power is a great landmark that cannot be mistaken. Expected by Dr. Thomas in 1865, it became a fully accomplished fact in 1870. Fifty years and more have now elapsed, and THE RISE OF THE JEW is the Sign of the Times that most signally marks the end of that interval after the fall of the Pope. We are in the last days of "the sixth vial," when the Turkish Power that has so long desolated the Lord's land has been driven out to make way for "the Kings of the East." At such a crisis the Lord himself has by a striking parenthesis (Rev. 16:15) declared that he will come upon the worid as a thief. "Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.

C.C.W.

APPENDIX, continued

The Doctor was certainly very confident that he had solved all the notorious problems but time has shown up some matters that still remain unsolved. Bro. Walker has drawn attention to some of these in the Appendix and for the most part his comments are fair and reasonable but there are two points in the Appendix upon which we wish to comment.

On pages 46 and 47 it is reasoned that since Ishbosheth was 40 when his father Saul died and Mephibosheth was 5 then Saul must have reigned for longer than the less than 7 years suggested probable by the Doctor (p.24). This reasonable computation is however based on the starting point of Saul being 30 years upon accession to the throne and having reigned for 20 years. However the first point is gained from the Septuagint version and the second from the history of Josephus and whilst these comments are helpful they cannot both be correct or Ishbosheth, would have been only ten years younger than his father! -- assuming him to be the firstborn, which is very unlikely (cp. I Sam. 14:49). So either Saul was older than thirty when he began to reign or he reigned for greater than twenty years.

In the second paragraph of page 47, Bro. Walker writes, "If David had been born '17 years before the ark's capture' (Chron. - Hebraikon Table pg. 23), then he must have been 37 years old at the end of these twenty years, and still older when he slew Goliath, and a man advanced in years when he began to reign, all of which is, of course, quite out of harmony with the Scripture, which depicts him as a stripling in his encounter with the giant, and as 30 years old when he began to reign (2 Sam. 5:4)." What are "these twenty years"? Within the paragraph Bro. Walker has delineated them as those "twenty years" of its abode at Kirjath-jearim (1 Sam. 7:2) which Bro. Thomas saw as the time from 1 Samuel 7:2 to the bringing in of the ark in 2 Samuel 6, a time that obviously takes in the time of his victory over Goliath and later ascent to the throne. Therefore Bro. Walker's reply to Bro. Thomas' point is not really relevant.

Bro. Walker then provides another suggestion for these twenty years, viz., that they measure the period of servitude to the Philistines, til Israel's solemn repentance of 1 Samuel 7:3-4 after which the Philistines came no more into the coast of Israel" (1 Sam. 7:13). This also provides problems for if there were twenty years between these consecutive verses then we add to them the rest of Samuel's judgeship, which obviously from I Samuel 7:15 and 8:1, was many years and also the twenty years of Saul's reign (Josephus) then we have more than those "forty years" allotted by Paul to the times of Samuel and Saul (Acts 15:21).

The conclusion from these considerations is that we are not warranted in dogmatising upon these times as the available evidence is intended to provide guidelines but not exactitude.

On page 13 Bro. Thomas has a thoughtful section on the age of Abraham at Terah's death. The question is often discussed because if Abraham was the eldest then he would have been 135 years when he entered the land at the death of Terah as Acts 7:4-5 implies. Yet Genesis 12:4 says he was 75 years old at this time. Bro. Thomas, on page 13, suggests a solution which involves his return from Philistia to Canaan. As though Philistia was outside the land promised. This explanation may indeed trouble many. Is there a more likely explanation? We think there is for the problem presented assumes that Abram was the eldest of Terah's three children. Certainly, he is put first in Genesis 11:26; but so was Shem in Genesis 9:18 and yet we are told specifically that he was younger than Japheth (Gen. 10:21). Moses' method is to first mention the most important member of the family (cp. also 48:20). So if Abram is not necessarily the eldest then the problem is overcome and the more natural sense of Acts 7:4 can stand. That Nahor was much older than Abram is confirmed by the fact that Abram's son Isaac, married Nahor's grand-daughter Rebekah (24:27; 29:13). Since Nahor married Haran's daughter, Milcali, (11:29; 22:20; 24:15) then it is probable that Haran was the eldest and Abram the youngest.

B.N. Luke,

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