I found an article on internet infidels about the 430 years the Israelites spent in Egypt, very interesting. I would like to have some of your comments on it.
Future articles will examine in detail specific examples of textual errors in the Bible, so for now I will review only briefly a few of the ones that cast serious doubts on the doctrine of Bible inerrancy. An excellent one to begin with would be the obvious contradiction that results when Exodus 12:40 is compared to the Aaronic genealogy found in Exodus 6:16-20 . The first passage declares that the Israelites, who were beginning their famous journey to the promised land, had dwelt in Egypt for 430 years. According to the genealogy in Exodus 6 , however, the Israelite sojourn in Egypt could have lasted no more than 352 years and probably even considerably less than that.
This genealogy, along with its parallels in I Chron. 6:1-3 and 23:6-13 , establishes that Moses was the great grandson of Levi. Kohath, the grandfather of Moses, had already been born when Jacob took his sons and their families into Egypt, ( Gen. 46:11 ). If we assume that Kohath was only a suckling infant in his mother's arms when he was taken into Egypt and if we further assume that his last act on earth at the age of 133 ( Ex. 6:16 ) was to sire Amram, the father of Moses, then the very latest date of Amram's birth would have been around 134 years into the Israelite sojourn. If we then make similar assumptions about the birth of Moses, i.e., that Amram sired him just before dying at the age of 137 years ( Ex. 6:20 ), this would mean that Moses could have been born no later than 272 years after the Israelite sojourn began. Since Moses was only 80 years old when Jehovah (Yahweh) called him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt ( Ex. 7:7 ), the sojourn could have lasted no longer than 352 years.
But to allow even 352 years for the so-journ would require total abandonment of common sense. For one thing, the custom of listing sons in the order of their births in Jewish genealogies suggests that the Bible writers understood that both Kohath and Amram had younger brothers ( Gen. 46:11 ; Ex. 6:16-18 ), so Kohath was probably older than an infant when he was taken into Egypt. If he did live to be 133, he undoubtedly fathered Amram, Moses' father, long before he died, because, it is completely unreasonable to assume circumstances of birth anything at all like those theorized above. The aged Abraham fell on his face and laughed when Yahweh told him that he would soon father a son. "Shall a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old?" Abraham asked, ( Gen. 17:17 ). By the same token, we can ask if it is reasonable to believe Kohath and Amram were able to father children when they were well past the age of 130.
In the final analysis, however, whether the sojourn lasted as long as 352 years doesn't really matter. The genealogical data in Exodus 6:16-20 clearly indicate the belief in an Egyptian sojourn substantially shorter than 430 years, so that puts this Bible passage in unequivocal conflict with Exodus 12:40 , Genesis 15:13 , and Acts 7:6 , all of which teach that the sojourn lasted at least 400 years. There is an obvious contradiction in the Bible text.