not include the "second" Cainan, found between Arpachshad and Shelah in the LXX of
Genesis 11 but not found in either the MT or in the Samaritan Pentateuch. In addition,
whether some text is missing or not is not clear, but he skips from Peleg to Abraham. He
states that Abraham entered the promised land in the year of the world 3277, which
accords with the total number of years from creation to the seventy-fifth year of Abraham
if the numbers of the LXX are followed, while omitting the second Canaan. Eusebius, in
his Chronicle not in his Ecclesiastical History, largely followed the chronology of Julius,
also relying on the LXX text for his numbers.
These two chronologies raise the issues that James Barr, among others, has noted relative
to the problem of creating a Biblical chronology, at least if that chronology is to be
developed relative to our own dating schemes and not merely in an AM fashion.
four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt,
in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the
second month, he began to build the house of the Lord." The statement in itself seems
clear. There is a definite correlation established between the Exodus of Israel from Egypt
and the reign of Solomon. However, some have taken the 480 years to be a round
number, indicating simply twelve generations or so since the Exodus. The number 480 is
the product of forty and twelve, both of which are admittedly significant numbers in the
Old Testament. This view assumes that the forty refers to the length of a generation,
based on the forty years Israel spent in the wilderness. The twelve indicates some level of
completeness, built on the idea of the twelve sons of Jacob as representing the totality of
the children of Israel. Thus, the data provided might be interpreted to indicate that the
temple was begun when the totality of Israel had completed its dispersion, having been
recently united under the reign of David. In other words, this view takes the numbers as
symbolic. Another portion of Scripture in which the passages are perhaps not clear is the
Book of Judges. The chronology of that book has been a sore spot for the Biblical
chronologist, since the numbers there are usually presumed somehow to relate to the total
found in 1 Kings 6:1.
The chronologies of Julius Africanus and Eusebius, as well as 1 Kings 6:1, also raise the
second issue posed by Barr, which is that "the Bible existed in at least three textual
traditions, which differed in the chronological figures." As already noted, with regard to
the patriarchs prior to Abraham, JA and E followed the numbers from the LXX. In 1
King 6:1, the LXX reads "the four hundred fortieth year." To further complicate matters,
Josephus has either 592 years, or 612 years, depending on which passage in Josephus one
is reading. This diversity of reading with regard to the numbers is most obvious in the
genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11, where the MT, the LXX, and the Samaritan Pentateuch
present three entirely different sets of numbers.
The third problem noted by Barr is that "in a certain sense one cannot make a biblical
chronology without going outside the Bible, not one by which one can reckon back from