Abraham was 75 years of age (1875 BC) when he left Haran (Gen. 12:4). This is when God promised that his seed should inherit the land, Gen. 12:7. Counting from 1875, 430 years later takes us to 1445 BC, the year of the Exodus. After Isaac was born in 1850 BC, on his 5th birthday, Abraham made a feast for his son, Gen. 21:8. The year of that feast was 1845 BC. The 400 year period (Gen. 15:13; Acts 17:6) counts from 1845 + 400 = 1445 BC. This way both ways of counting to the Exodus are very accurate.
Calculation: 1445 - 430 = 1875. So we get 1875 BC as the year when this occurred which makes 1950 BC the year Abraham was born. With this figure in mind let us calculate all the BC dates for the patriarchs.
Abraham born 1950 BC.
Isaac born 1850 BC.
Jacob born 1790 BC.
Joseph born 1699 BC when Jacob was 91 years of age.
Joseph's death 1589 BC.
Moses born 1445 + 80 = 1525 BC.
The interval between the death of Joseph and the birth of Moses: 1589 - 1525 = 64 years.
The other interesting date is when the flood occurred. Since Abraham died 467 years after the Flood, the year of his death was 1950 - 175 = 1825 BC and the flood occurred 352 years before about at 2303 BC when counting backwards. However, when counting forward from creation the flood occurred in 2344 BC. For approximate figures this is a remarkable correlation - only 41 years difference. Approximation may be the result of years of births and deaths being small or larger portions on 12 month years. One may be 100 years old a certain amount of time before the 100th birthday or even after it, depending how one looks at it.
Since Joseph was elevated by Pharaoh to be the second most powerful man in Egypt, we assume that this occurred within a few months or years after this pharoah became king. The interval to cover, therefore, by Egyptian kings before the Exodus we shall calculate next.
Calculation: Joseph was in 1669 BC 30 years of age. So we have 110 - 30 = 80 + 64 = 144 years after Joseph became ruler in Egypt, Moses was born. That means we must cover the first part of these 144 years with friendly kings toward Israel (all the years of Joseph), followed by hostile kings soon after Joseph died in 1589 BC.
In this setup we follow the biblical data and on the part of secular history, the assumptions made in our article on the `Old Kingdom.' Thus we differ considerably with conventional chronology.
To begin with we set the 12th dynasty Amenemhet/Amenemes I (ca. 40 yrs) as the Pharaoh who made Joseph the number two potentate in Egypt who was also known as Khufu and Cheops. He was followed by Sesostris I (ca. 40 yrs). Next we have the 12th dynasty Sesostris III/ Amenemhet III (ca. 48 yrs), also known as Chephren, who was followed by the 5th dynasty Mentuhotep II (ca. 51 yrs). Their reign covers ca. 179 years. To this sum we must add the 3 years of Sebeknefrure (179+3=182) and some years for the Pharaoh of the Exodus.
Let us assume there was only one Amenemhet who reigned ca. 40 years, that does not cover the 80 years during which Joseph ruled in Egypt. So there must have been more than one friendly king, perhaps two or even three Amenemhets (assuming they succeeded each other). The next data-point to realize is that Israel's period of slavery began probably quite soon after the death of Joseph in 1589 BC and lasted until 1445 BC, a period of ca. 144 years. Of these 144 years, less than 64 years were under conditions of slavery by the time Moses was born, plus 80 more years until the Exodus - sum total for the period of slavery would be ca. 60 + 80 = 140 years of slavery in Egypt.
Of this period, at the end, there was the Pharaoh of the Exodus and just before him the princess, later Queen, Sebeknefrure. Before Sebeknefrure would have been a Sesostris king of Egypt. We do not know how long the Exodus pharaoh reigned, but his time and that of Sebeknefrure should fit within the 80 years of Moses life and the male king's time should be longer than the 40 years Moses spent as a shepherd in Midian/Arabia. That makes the time for Sebeknefrure less than 40 years. Her reign is usually given as lasting only 3 years however. The kings are arranged as follows: Amenemhet I (29) > Sesostris I (45) > Amenemhet II (34) > Sesostris II (19) > Sesostris III (37) > Amenemhet III (45) > Amenemhet IV (12) > Sebeknefrure (3), plus the pharaoh of the Exodus, a tentative total of some 224 years plus those of the Pharaoh of the Exodus.
Convention covers therefore 29 + 45 + 34 + 19 + 37 + 45 + 12 + 3 = 224 years according to Peter Clayton's, `Chronicles of the Pharaohs'.
Eight Egyptian kings would cover the period between 1660, when Joseph was 30 years of age, to 1445 = 215 years, remarkably close to the 224 years of convention. That gives each king ca. 24 years (215 / 9=ca. 24) in average. If, however, Amenemhet and Sesostris did rule each for 40 years, that would cover some 75 to 80 of these 215 years, leaving us 140 more years to cover.
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