Making chronological sense of Abraham’s sins

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Department of Liberal Arts Education

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

Most scholars today have given up on chronology of the Bible. The reason is that they are not Seventh-day Adventists and after all, the dean of chronology, Edwin Thiele, was an Adventist. Now, not everything that Thiele constructed for biblical chronology is totally watertight and this is where the 5 year difference comes in with the date of the Exodus as 1445 BCE for Thiele-Horn-Wood and people like Douglas Waterhouse. The date 1450 BCE is for myself and William Shea more acceptable, because of the outside evidence that supports that date if one has to calculate the 4^th year of Solomon. That is where the differences all started. Calculating the 400 years of slavery or the 430 years from the death of Joseph and one can easily hook-on the years to Abraham’s birth as 2231 BCE.

Reading Genesis 12 we noticed that Abraham left Haran at the age of 75 and that will bring us to 2156 BCE. But, reaching Shechem and because of drought, he left to Egypt and lied to the Pharaoh about his wife. The lie was not minor sin or a white-lie. There are no degrees of sins. All sins need the righteousness of Christ’s perfection to atone for it.

Due to this sin of lying, Amraphel or Hammurabi of Babylon (Shinar) came with his allies and for twelve years the area of Sodom and Gomorrah had to pay taxes. We know it is Hammurabi since a Kassite cuneiform text indicates that there must have been a Hammurabi earlier than the 1792 Law Code one. Modern scholars from the Chicago Institute, John Brinkman thought it is an error, but closer scrutiny indicates the opposite. The phonology of Amraphel and Hammurabi shows great comparisons, and the date of this text for this king, also places him comfortably in the time zone of Abraham. Abraham fits into 2231 BCE if one follows strictly the Hebrew Masoretic Text rendering of the chronology and do not lend one’s ear out to the corrupt survival of the so-called Septuagint, a concept that is elusive, to use the words of the editors of the prestigious Göttingen edition of the Book of Genesis.

God promised Abraham a son but closer to the end of the tax-period by these kings from Babylon and Elam and elsewhere, as described in Genesis 14, in fact, in 2145 BCE, Abraham took Hagar and Ishmael was born at the age of 86.

As a result of not believing God to fulfill the promise of a son, two years later in 2142 BCE Lot was captured by these kings and they ran away with him and his children and wives. Abraham was punished for his deeds and had to struggle to get Lot and only got him at Dan.

At the age of 99 when Ishmael was 13, in 2132 BCE, the circumcision took place. The following year in 2131 BCE, when Abraham was 100, Isaac was born.