The problem of Acts 13:17-20 in the modern english translations

Again, if you will add up the periods in Judges together you will see that there has to be more than 396 years from the Exodus to Saul. I've yet to see one person in this thread do that other than myself. They dispute my calculation of that period, which agrees exactly with the Apostle Paul's, yet have not tried one time to actually look at the period under consideration.

The book of Judges is very clear. First there would be a period of servitude followed by a period of rest. You cannot have these two periods overlap. You don't have rest in the land when you have foreign oppression in the land. These periods are distinct. Next you have the consecutive judges, which are explained by the bible saying "after him...". In other words, the bible is saying these two judges aren't contemporary, they aren't overlapping, they are consecutive. Everything is laid out and it all works out perfectly.

1 Kings 6:1 has caused many bible chronologers to err. They either reject it or erect is as the gold standard and in turn reject everything else. But if we try to reconcile the date given by the bible there with the bible dates given everywhere else, we see a simple and logical solution. The difference is exactly equivalent to the years of illegitimate rule in the Judges era. It all makes sense.

 

1385 B.C. is not a firm historical date. It is a date that has been estimated. That's the problem and you have yet to see it. The B.C. dating prior to Alexander is unsure. It rests on suppositions and estimations by a man who lived in the second century A.D. named Ptolemy. You are trying to force dating found outside the bible and unsure onto dating found inside the bible and absolutely sure. That doesn't work. You are saying this is a firm date and it isn't. You are working from an unsure point and are actually trying to correct firm and sure bible dates by it (although not on purpose).

You need to turn around and start at the beginning using only bible dates.

Again, I see the same thing over and over again. Nobody is looking at the actual Judges era. You are all either imposing some man's idea of when the Exodus took place according to Ptolemy's dating or you are erecting some other bible date as being more correct than the dates given in Judges and consequently by the apostle Paul in Acts 13.

 

Have you ever actually studied the dating of things in history or did you just take them at word of mouth. Do yourself a favor and go read about Ptolemy and how he dated things. I gave two good links in this thread where writers discuss the problems with accepting Ptolemy's dating, not the least of which is the confusing and discord over when to begin Daniel's 70 weeks. The Persian period is at best a period of confusion. Noone knows with certainty how many kings they had or for how long. Everyone just goes with Ptolemy's canon, but they have no way to verify it. Then you have Ptolemy's calculation using eclipses, but he had not way of knowing which eclipse was talked about in whatever period he was looking at. The historical dates you have are not firm, and many an astute man has agreed.

You have absolutely no verse in the bible to prove your dating of the Exodus. None. You have no verse in the bible to prove your date for the beginning of Saul's reign. None. You have no verse in the bible to prove any of your B.C. dates. What you are doing (again I say you don't realize this, so I'm not accusing you are intentional wrongdoing) is trying to force upon the bible a system not supported by the bible, not proven by the bible, and that actually contradicts the bible. The only accurate way of dating is to use only the bible. It gives you everything you need to date things. If it did not, you couldn't surely and accurately date things.

If you go the creation of Adam and start forward, using the geneologies in Genesis chapters 5 and 11 with information supplied by Stephen in Acts 7, you will arrive at the birth of Abram 2008 years after creation, from here on out called AD. HOM. or A.H.. When Abram was 75 he came into the land of Canaan after being called of God and received a great promise from God that He would give Abram's seed that land. Both Galatians 3 and Exodus 12 show that from here to the giving of the law is 430 years. Add Abram's age of 75 and this 430 years to 2008 and you end up at 2513 A.H.. This is checked by information in Genesis 15 and Acts 7 that said the sojourning of the seed in the land and Egypt was 400 years. If you subtract that 400 years you end up with Isaac at 5 years of age, the probable time when Ishmael was cast out and Isaac considered sole heir. Checks out.

So the date of Exodus is 2513 A.H.. There are others who compute this the same as well. That is the dating of Exodus from the creation.

 

I guess the point is people would rather believe scholars than the word of God. I knew better before I started thread but I was just naive enough to believe that people would see the obvious error entered into the bible by modern translations following the so called older and better manuscripts. I was wrong. As always people follow scholars than the bible.

 

Actually, I noted that the Geneva, the Tyndale, and the NKJV all read the same way the KJV does on Acts 13:20.

 

And you are wrong when you call me an onlyist and claim that is what I'm aiming at here. I clearly state again and again that the KJV, Geneva, and NKJV have essentially the same wording on Acts 13:20. If I were driving at an onlyist argument I would not bring up the NKJV at all. I'll give it credit, they properly translated the text.

Now, I find it ironic that you charge me with rewriting history all the while you claim these secular dates as rock solid. It shows you know next to nothing of history. Allow me to enlighten you, if you as a scholar will condescend from your perch long enough to hear me out. Secular dating is based on one man - Ptolemy. He lived in the 2nd century A.D. Let that sink in for one minute. He formed a scheme of astronomy that had the earth at the center of the solar system and everythign revolving around it. We soundly reject this today in favor of a sun-centered approach. Ptolemy dated things by calculated eclipses. He would find where someone in ancient history would refer to a lunar eclipse and he would then calculate the year. Problem is, he had no way of definitively knowing which eclipse the ancient person was observing, so he estimated, or guessed.

When he came to the Persian period, there is no definitive canon of Persian kings. Very few things from this period exist. I can't think of a single contemporary historian whose writings we have from this period. Everything we have is after the fact. So you have Greek historians writing, not contemporary events, but passed events based on traditions and the like. This is why you have such diverging opinions on how big the walls of Babylon were and that sort of thing. Ptolemy somehow got his hands onto a canon of Persian kings, but we know not how. They are in his writings, but we have no way of knowing if they are based on anything definitive or not. He may have conjured them up himself, or gotten them from traditions which were inaccurate. In any case, when calculating eclipses in this period, he had no way of knowing which eclipse fit each event, so he had to guess. He conveniently guessed to make his canon work.

All of secular dating prior to Alexander is based on that.

It is absolutely ridiculous to take a date from secular history, as uncertain as it is, and impose it on the bible rather than taking dates from the bible itself. This is my contention with you. If you would actually go deal with the Judges period and put the bible ahead of secular history, you would see that I have not rewritten history nor come up with a ficticious period for the Judges. I actually had not idea that the modern translations based on the so called older and better manuscripts differed from the Geneva, KJV, NKJV, Tyndale, etc on Acts 13:20 when I calculated the period of the Judges. It wasn't until after. I didn't have an axe to grind, I honesty crunched the numbers from the bible and found it in accord with Paul. Only afterwards did I realize that so many of the MVs were in error here. I brought it up here because I haven't seen it discussed before. I figured people would give it a fair hearing. I was wrong.

We must use the bible, and only the bible for dating or we are sure to err. This illustrates this point greatly. There are no such things as fixed dates in the bible. If you want to go by secular dating, know this: there are dates given in the Assyrian Eponym Chronicles which flatly contradict the bible chronology. Which is wrong? I say they are wrong and the bible is right. What do you say?

 

So you blindly accept MacArthur's dates? I'm not picking on MacArthur, but come on. Go check it out for yourself. It is a good study. Do yourself a huge favor though, don't go into it with any preconceived notions other than the divine authority of the bible. Don't use secular dating, don't use dates given by scholars, simply work through the bible chronology. It is truly interesting and enlightening.

As far as arguing for the KJV, Geneva, and NKJV - I'm not so much arguing for them as pointing out a fact that they have properly consistent dating while many modern translations based on different manuscripts have a rendering of Acts 13:20 which is not consistent with the bible chronology. My point was to bring this up for discussion. Some aren't willing to discuss it and honestly look at it, instead relying on scholars. I read learned men too, a lot of them. However, we should always check things out for ourselves. Just where, for instance, do they get these supposed rock solid B.C. dates for events like the Exodus and the beginning of Saul's reign? There's a question we should ask. I guarantee you the answer is not from the bible.