50 
reign over Israel,” etc., omitting all mention of the words “in the 
480th year of Exode,” which clearly were not in Origen’s copy 
of the LXX. or of the Hebrew; for had they been in either, Origen 
would surely have inserted them, as they are the most import- 
ant words in the text. If I am not mistaken, Eusebius is the 
earliest authority who gives the passage in dispute ; and we may 
therefore conclude, that between the time of Origen (third 
century) and Eusebius (fourth century) it had some how or 
other crept into the text. 
24. It is certain that this disputed clause was unknown to both 
Jewish and Christian writers, from the fact that one and all com- 
pute a longer period between the Exode and the building of the 
Temple than the present Hebrew text allows. Thus Demetrius of 
the third century B.C., and Josephus of the first century A.D., 
computed the interval at 592 years ; Theophilus, Bishop of 
Antioch in the second century A.D., at 580 years; and Clemens 
Alexandrinus at 573 years; showing sufficient agreement with- 
out any servile copying from each other, when there was no 
regular era for the period in existence, to afford the approximate 
estimate of the opinion of chronologers, as to what was the real 
interval between the Exode and the building of the Temple. 
And we have now a remarkable secular testimony on this very 
point. Theophilus, besides giving his own computation of this 
interval, which he places at 580 and 540 years, according to 
various readings, says: “There is an account among the 
Syrian archives about the building of the Temple in Judea, 
which King Solomon built 566 years after the Jews went out 
of Egypt.”* When we recollect that Hiram, King of Tyre, 
materially assisted in the building of the Temple, and that 
Josephus mentions, outlie authority of Menander, the historian 
of Tyre, with what care they recorded important events in their 
annals, we are warranted, I think, in assuming that, according 
to contemporary and impartial evidence at the time when 
Solomon’s Temple was built, 566 years had elapsed since the 
Exodus of the children of Israel. 
25. Having ascertained from secular historians the date 
of Solomon’s Temple as B.C. 1014, by adding 566 years on 
similar authority, we obtain 1580 B.C. as the date of the 
Exode ; and this may be confirmed by the following Egyptian 
evidence. At the time of the death of the last of Joseph’s 
brethren, there were 126 years unexpired f of the 430 
* Theophilus, Ad Autolyc., lib. iii. §§ 22, 24. 
f The following table exhibits the Biblical chronology of the 4fl0 
years : — 
