Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 54:214 (Apr 1897)
Article: The Period Of The Judges
Author: A. A. Berle

BSac 54:214 (April 1897) p. 387

The Period Of The Judges

A. A. Berle

In the December (1896) issue of the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, Professor Flinders Petrie has a very interesting and suggestive article on the vexed matter of the period of the Judges, which seems to promise that the whole matter may soon be completely understood, and the differences reconciled. And the importance of the relation of the thorough understanding of the Judges period to the whole Egyptian question cannot well be overestimated. Professor Petrie fixes the date of the Exodus at about 1204 B.C., or later, which it seems is certainly late enough, though his method of arriving at the date is clear and reasonable enough. He reasons from the inscription of Merenptah stating that he fought and subdued Israelites, that he did not restrict his campaign to the Philistines, and that, had the Jews been in Palestine at that period, the record of the war would have appeared in the book of Judges. This is in general a safe inference, though it is possible that, from so composite a book as the Judges, a portion of the record may have been lost or dropped out. In addition hereto, there is no sign of a Palestinian campaign of Ramessu III. and that hence, the Jewish invasion must have been subsequent to Ramessu III.’s last campaign. His date appears to have been not later than 1180-1148 B.C., which puts the date of the Jewish invasion at 1164 B.C., or lower; and hence the date of the Exodus at a point very near 1200 B.C.

He also discusses the reigns of the kings and the priestly genealogies, and then proceeds from these results to discuss the period of the Judges itself. Professor Petrie, as others have often done before him, shows the careless use of the expression “forty years “in connection with the reigns of Saul and David, and illustrates, from the probable facts concerning Saul’s reign, how productive of misunderstanding that expression has been. For example, Saul was warned in his second year, that his successor was already chosen (1 Sam. 13:14), and David comes to the front almost immediately in the Amalekite war. Now if Saul died when David was but thirty (2 Sam. 5:4), David probably not being less than twenty years old in the war just mentioned, Saul’s reign is limited to about three years before David, and ten years after, making about thir-

BSac 54:214 (April 1897) p. 388

teen years in all. This, it may be mentioned, is but one of many such examples of Old Testament use of figures.

From this it would appear that, taken with the genealogies and other data, the period of the Judges covers about one hundred and live years between 1150 and 1045 B.C. Now t...