He carried much of the antediluvian science and civilization inherited through Noah with him; but the fantasy that he was a great monarch preceded by ages of development is too absurd for any but the greediest credulity.

CHRONOLOGICAL CONTRADICTIONS AMONG EGYPTOLOGISTS.

The late Dean Milman had no hesitation in declaring, in his "History of the Jews," that "the internal evidence in respect to the genuineness of the Mosaic records is to me conclusive. All attempts to assign a later period for the authorship, or even for the compilation, though made by scholars of the highest ability, are so irreconcilable with facts, so self-destructive, and so mutually destructive, that I acquiesce without hesitation in the general antiquity."-Vol. i, p. 46. This conclusion of a distinguished historian respecting the "mutually destructive" nature of rationalistic speculations on the genuineness and authenticity of the books of Moses, appears still more evident when we see the differences which exist among those who ignore Scripture testimony respecting various incidents in the combined histories of Israel and Egypt. We propose to set this plainly before our readers in the following brief tables.

First, as regards the primary colonizer or protomonarch of Egypt after the dispersion at Babel. His name is first seen on the monuments in the reign of Pharaoh Seti I., in the fifteenth century B. C., and therefore nearly 1,000 years after the biblical date of the Noachian deluge. It is read now by Birch and other Egyptian scholars as Mena, by Herodotus and the Greek historians as Menes, and in Genesis as "Mizraim," the son of Ham and grandson of Noah. Of him Manetho, the Egyptian scribe, thus speaks: "After the dead demigods, the first king was Menes the Thenite; and he reigned sixty-two years," while Syncellus, a Byzantine historian, who gives the canon of the kings of Egypt, says that "Mizraim, who is the same as Menes, reigned thirty-five years." This difference between two ancient historians respecting the duration of the reign of him who is regarded as the first king of Egypt, is significant of the amazing variations between modern interpreters of Manetho as to the time when the said Menes lived. Thus the era of Menes is dated by various chronologers as follows:

1. Mariette-Bey computes the era of Menes to have begun.

.B.C. 5004

showing a variation of nearly 2,000 years for the foundation of the Egyptian kingdom.

So as regards the time when that greatest of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Great Pyramid of Ghizeh, was erected,

the differences among scholars of the present day are still more marked. This will be seen in the following table:

1. Le Suer computes the building of the Great Pyramid...

2. Brugsch-Bey...

3. Bunsen

4. Lepsius..

5. Piazzi Smyth, the Astronomer Royal of Scotland... 6. The late Sir George Cornwalle Lewis....

.B.C. 4975

Thus showing a difference of nearly 4,000 years! The only one of the above quoted authorities whose date may be accepted as the most correct, and this only approximately, is that of Professor Piazzi Smyth; and he is far from ignoring Scripture, though we believe he accepts the Septuagint computation in preference to that of the Hebrew.

THE EARLIEST INSCRIBED MONUMENTS.

As many Egyptologers in the present day ignore the evidence of Scripture on this subject, it is satisfactory to know that the elder Champollion, who may be regarded as the founder of Egyptology, in allusion to such skeptics once wrote: "They will find in this work an absolute reply to their calumnies, since I have demonstrated that no Egyptian monument is really older than the year 2200 B. C.* This certainly is very high antiquity, but it presents nothing contradictory to the sacred histories, and I venture to affirm that it establishes them on all points: for it is, in fact, by adopting the chronology and the succession of kings given by the Egyptian monuments, that the Egyptian history accords with the sacred writings." More recent discoveries in Egypt since Champollion's time have proved that a tablet, which has been in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford for upward of two centuries, must be approximately dated about B.C. 2300, and therefore about a century older than any monument known to the learned Frenchman.

Assuming, then, for a moment, that this Oxford monument, as being the oldest proof of man's existence at present known to us, may be dated within a century of the biblical date of the Noachian flood, circa B.C. 2348, we have the authority of the Turin papyrus for saying that only 355 years elapsed between the era of Menes, or the first colonization of Egypt, and the end of the sixth dynasty. This would give the approximate date to the end of the sixth dynasty somewhere in the twenty-first century B.C. It has long been seen by Egyptologers that some of Manetho's dynasties are certainly contemporaneous. It is the failure of not seeing this which has caused certain authors to prolong the dura

*The author of "Grant's Travels Around the World" says that for other antiquities we have only traditions and doubtful records; for Egypt there are the sure monuments. And certainly an inscribed contemporary monument would be a very conclusive voucher. But, lo, the earliest monument is of about the era of Abraham!-Ed.

"Ancient Egypt, its Monuments and History," p. 56.

tion of some of the early dynasties far beyond what the truth of history warrants.

A series of Pharaohs, discovered by Mariette-Bey on a tomb at Saqqarah, near Memphis, implies that in the order of succession the sixth dynasty is immediately followed by the twelfth dynasty. In the sepulchral grottoes of Beni Hassan, on the banks of the Nile, there are still to be seen some inscriptions belonging to the early kings of the last-named dynasty. Special mention is there made of the "Panegyry, or Festival of the First Year," which Poole refers to the commencement of the tropical cycle, that is, a perfectly exact cycle of the sun, moon, and vague year, which happened in the reign of Amenemes, one of the early kings of the twelfth dynasty, and which the science of astronomy has enabled the Astronomer Royal of England to fix at the date of B.C. 2005.*

ERA OF ABRAHAM.

According to the Hebrew chronology, Abraham's visit to Egypt took place not many years before that date, circa B.C. 2010. According to the testimony of Josephus, when Abraham went down into Egypt he found the Egyptians quarreling concerning their sacred rites. By his skill in disputation the patriarch confuted the arguments on all sides, and by his influence succeeded in composing their differences. Moreover he is said to have taught the Egyptians arithmetic and the science of astronomy, for before the time of Abraham, Josephus says, "they were unacquainted with that sort of learning." The Jewish historian does not give his authority for such a statement, but when it is remembered that the temple records of Egypt were still in existence at the time when Josephus wrote, and that his work was specially addressed to the Greek and Egyptian philosophers of Alexandria as an apology for his own nation, we may accept his statement as true history. Moreover, this remarkable incident in the life of Abraham is confirmed, according to Eusebius, by two heathen historians, Berosus and Eupolemus, both of whom lived between three and four centuries prior to the time of Josephus.

Osburn adduces some evidence in proof of Abraham's visit to Egypt having occurred during the reign of Pharaoh Acthoes, the father of Amenemes, the first king of the famous twelfth dynasty, and asserts with confidence that while "of Acthoes and his times, and of those of all his predecessors, there exists no single record of king or subject having a date, yet tablets and papyri inscribed with dates of the years of the reign of Amenemes, the son and The same immediate successor of Acthoes, are not uncommon.

practice continued with all the successors of Amenemes to the end of the monarchy."§

*Poole's Hora Egyptica, part i, § 11.

Josephus, "Antiquities," lib. i, c. viii, §§ 1, 2.

Eusebius, Præparat. Evangel., § 9.

Osburn's "Monumental History of Egypt," vol. i, chap. vi.

We have thus some authentic evidence for concluding that these three coinciding events, namely, the visit of Abraham to Egypt in the reign of Acthoes, the knowledge of arithmetic acquired by the Egyptians as proved by the introduction of dates on the monuments of that period, and the establishment of the earliest cycle, known as "the Tropical Cycle:" all these events must have taken place within a few years of the date B.C. 2000. And since this synchronises with the biblical date for the time of Abraham's visit, it is satisfactory to know that the Egyptian monuments afford still more conclusive proof of the correctness of the Hebrew chronology for the succeeding fifteen centuries.

ERA OF ISRAEL'S SOJOURN.

Before, however, proceeding to show from the monuments the confirmation of the biblical story of the Exodus, it may be well to notice what we gather from Scripture respecting the interval of four hundred and thirty years mentioned in Exod. xii, 40, between the time of Abraham and the exode of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt. We have already found some evidence for computing the date of the exode at B.C. 1580, and the time of Abraham at B.C. 2010. And the date of a very important event in the history of Egypt, namely, the overthrow of the Shepherd dynasty, is fixed by Brugsch, in his interpretation of Manetho, to the year B.C. 1706, the starting-point of what he considers to be reliable chronology, whereas all previous chronology must be regarded as more or less conjectural. The following table, founded on Scripture testimony, will show a very important synchronism in the combined histories of Israel and Egypt. In the first chapter of Exodus it is recorded that Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation;" and it is added in the verse following, "Now there arose up a new king which knew not Joseph," evidently implying a marked change in the treatment of Joseph's people at the hands of the Egyptians from that which they had formerly received. This can only be explained by the great change which must have ensued on the transfer of power from the rule of the foreign Hycsos, or Shepherd kings, to that of the native dynasty of the Pharaohs. In Exod. vi, 16 the death of Levi, the brother of Joseph, and the last surviving member of that generation, as we may fairly assume, is recorded at the age of one hundred and thirty-seven, and the year before the rise of the new king, which took place, according to the testimony of Manetho, B.C. 1706; the death of Levi having taken place in the preceding year, as our table, gathered out of Scripture, clearly shows:

Thus the exodus took place "at the end of four hundred and thirty years"-even to the very day-after God had called Abraham to go from his fathers' country into the land of Canaan. But, inasmuch as much controversy has arisen respecting the duration of the sojourn in Egypt-Bunsen extending it, as we have already seen, to 1,434 years; while his collaborateur Lepsius limits it to 90 years-it may be well to examine carefully the text which treats on this important point. The Authorized Version of Exod. xii, 40, reads as follows: "Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was 430 years." It will be seen by this that Scripture does not necessarily imply that the Israelites were either in Egypt or in servitude during the whole of that period; for it plainly teaches that though their sojourning lasted 430 years, it was only a portion of that time that they dwelt in Egypt, and a still more limited portion in which they were enslaved. Such appears to be the teaching of Hebrews xi, 9, where it is said, "By faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise." This is confirmed by the reading both of the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX., all of which in the various MSS., as Kennicott* observes, are uniform on this matter, and read the text as follows: "Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, and of their fathers, when they sojourned in the land of Canaan, and in the land of Egypt, was 430 years." And so St. Paul, in Gal. iii, 16, 17, declares that "the promises to Abraham and his seed were confirmed by the law (given on Mount Sinai) which was 430 years after" they had been first made.

That the Jews of all ages so understood the text may be thus shown. Demetrius, who flourished in the third century B.C., reckoned 215 years from the call of Abraham to the going down into Egypt; 135 years from that to the birth of Moses; and 80 years more to the exode; which sums up-215+135+80=430. Josephus, four centuries after Demetrius, expressly says, that "the children of Israel left Egypt in the month Xanthicus, on *Kennicott, "Dissert.," ii, pp. 164, 165.

+ Demetrius, apud. Euseb. Præp. Evang., ix, § 21.