Your View of Scripture

[gb93433]

How does your view of the Bible align with

Exodus 1:11, "So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor. And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Raamses."

and 1 Kings 6:1, “Now it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord”.
The fourth year of Solomon’s reign is 966 BC + 480 years = 1446 BC

The dates differ by about 200 years. Raamses came about 200 years after 1446 BC.

 

[Van]

My view is that we are to study God's word, discern as best we can what the message is, and then apply that message to our lives.

Yes, naysayers constantly point to difficulties in our understanding of scripture, to undermine its authority. And usually we can find some apologist who has untangled the difficulty so as to support biblical validity.

Bottom line, we should devote our priority to our application of God's word to our lives, and not spend too much time addressing the endless falsehoods hurled at scripture by the scoffers.

 

[Deacon]

How does your view of the Bible align with Exodus 1:11, .... and 1 Kings 6:1,

I generally ignore the accounting of years when dealing with a character's age or when accounting a period of time.

(1) There may have been some sort of numerical symbolism that we are ignorant about today.
Other than the "Wow," factor, I don't really know how to expound upon it with any authority other than what the Scriptures already contain.

(2) What is known is that the historical accounting in the books of Samuel / Kings / Chronicles was recorded well after the events in them.

the frequent phrase, "to this day," tells the reader that the events occurred long before the account was made,
(1 Kings 8:8; 9:13, 21; 10:12, 19; and 2 Kings 2:22; 8:22; 10:27; 14:7; 16:6; 17:34, 41; 20:17; 21:15).
​

(3) In 1 Kings 6, the scribe certainly was not providing a forensic accounting of the building of Solomon's Temple
(the scribe was not an accountant or an architect), the numbers just don't add up,
something in the translation or transmission of the text is missing or misunderstood.
​

So my view of the Bible when dealing with this passage is to plead ignorance.

Rob