December 27, 2025

In today’s post:

Dating the Exodus, Bethlehem, the Children of Bethlehem, the Place of Trumpeting

Dating the Exodus – the Period of the Judges

So far I’ve explained the two main competing dates for the exodus: 1) 1446 B.C. and 2) a later date during the time of Rameses II, approximately 1270-1250 B.C. Those who propose this later dating do not read 1 Kings 6:1 literally, preferring instead a figurative interpretation that allows for a thirteenth-century date, and they quickly double down on this interpretive preference after reading Judges 11:26. This verse states that 300 years (arguably a round number) had transpired between the entrance of the children of Israel into the Promised Land and the time of Jephthah, one of Israel’s judges.

Thankfully, there is little or no dispute among both biblical and secular historians that Jephthah dates to approximately 1100 B.C., so if we embrace a literal interpretation of Judges 11:26, the Israelites entered into Canaan around 1400 B.C., for obviously 1100 + 300 = 1400. Since 1 Kings 6:1 has already established a precise date of 1446 B.C. for the exodus and since Acts 7:36 (among other verses) teaches a forty-year period of wandering in the wilderness, then the biblical date for the beginning of the conquest under Joshua would be 1406 B.C., which dovetails with Judges.

Proponents of a thirteenth-century date for the exodus, however, must dismiss the number 300 in Judges 11:26 as yet another example of biblical error or gross hyperbole since they prefer a date for the conquest between 1230-1210 B.C. But if Jephthah lived in 1100 B.C. and if we accept this late dating for the conquest, then in the text of Judges 11:26 we should expect to see a number between 130 (1230 – 1100) and 110 (1210 – 1100).

It’s pretty clear that these numbers are nowhere close to 300, so then the biblical number must be swept under the carpet or else explained away. Here’s one popular attempt to do just that. The number 300 is divided into two periods—a 110-130 year period when all twelve tribes of Israel occupied the land and an earlier 170-190 year period when some of the tribes of Israel (who supposedly had no exodus tradition) were already living in the land. But this hardly helps. It is a confusing and desperate argument to brush aside the biblical chronology.

1 Kings 6:1 and Judges 11:26 present two reasonable, independent testimonies for a fifteenth-century dating of the exodus despite their authors’ having lived over 450 years apart, perhaps writing around 586 and 1050 B.C., respectively. There’s even more literary evidence for an early date for the exodus from 1 Chronicles 6:33-37 and from rabbinical literature (e.g., the Seder Olam Rabbah), but I’ll leave you with only two final points.

First, if the plain reading of the Bible makes good sense, then there’s no need to seek an explanation that requires mental acrobatics. Clearly the historical, literary and archaeological evidence available to scholars has led to two rather disparate conclusions regarding the date of the exodus, but it seems to me that the argument for a fifteenth century date requires far less speculation and manipulation of the evidence.

Second, why did I spend so much time on this question? Because once again the Bible has been shown to be accurate (or at least reasonable) in all that it presents, and if it speaks the truth about matters of dating like this, then it can be trusted to tell the truth about matters of eternal significance.

– Daniel McCabe

Trivia (Find the answer below)

Bethlehem is traditionally known as the birthplace of which biblical figure?

On Location: Bethlehem

Today the “little town of Bethlehem” boasts a population of roughly 30,000, and though 85% of its residents followed Jesus Christ as recently as 1948, now almost 90% recognize Muhammad as God’s final prophet. The words, “How still we see thee lie,” popularized by Phillip Brooks’ 1868 classic Christmas carol, no longer match a snapshot of modern Bethlehem with its ubiquitous tour buses, crowded sidewalks, happy church bells and punctual muezzins calling the Muslim faithful to pray.

A collage of historical, cultural and religious sites beckon two million tourists to Bethlehem each year, including Rachel’s Tomb, Solomon’s Pools, the cave of St. Jerome and a one-of-a-kind museum covering the history of olive oil production. Although many tourists load up on embroidered dresses, mother-of-pearl earrings and nativity sets carved from olive wood, the two main highlights of any visit to Bethlehem typically include stops at the Shepherds’ Field, the traditional site of the angels’ appearance to the shepherds on that first Christmas night, and the Church of the Nativity, the traditional site of the birthplace of Jesus. Annually on Christmas Eve the Roman Catholic Church televises a midnight mass to the world from a chapel adjoining the church. The Syrian, Coptic and Greek Orthodox also take their turn at celebrating Christmas on January 6th, and the Armenians follow on January 19th. Bethlehem is a busy place this time of year!

However, where once the hills surrounding Bethlehem witnessed the simple lives of Ruth, Boaz and a shepherd boy named David, now they are complicated by the jumble of nearby Jewish settlements, Bedouin villages, refugee camps, IDF outposts and a formidable border wall emblazoned with creative (often political) graffiti. Even so, “the hopes and dreams of all the years are met” in Bethlehem tonight.

– Daniel McCabe

Scripture Study: The Children of Bethlehem

Since it’s still the Christmas season, let’s look at the darker side of the birth of Christ, the great sin committed by Herod shortly after Jesus’ birth. When the magi from the east were looking for the baby who was to be king over Israel, Herod the Great (this title did not refer to his moral character, of course, but to his other worldly exploits), who was famously paranoid and zealous to maintain his own power, made a desperate attempt to eliminate the threat of this future king’s claim to his throne.

Matthew 2:16-18 reads, “Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”

This account gives us a timeframe of up to two years since Jesus was born, which could place his birth as far back as 6 B.C. since Herod most assuredly died in 4 B.C. Thankfully, Joseph had already taken his family to Egypt to escape this horrifying event upon the warning that an angel gave to him in a dream. Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, as it is known, was so evil and heartbreaking against the Jews, that Matthew cites Jeremiah 31 and applies the lamentation of Rachel herself to this event. Rachel here is serving as the symbolic mother over the whole people of Israel, even though Judah was born to her sister Leah. Rachel was, after all, Jacob’s first love.

The reference to the city of Ramah that hears Rachel’s weeping is a very good indication that Rachel’s tomb (which has competing locations), is actually not in the traditional site of Bethlehem, but rather about 10 miles to the northeast on the Benjaminite plateau, close to Ramah.

This mass murder by Herod is a classic example of what someone’s jealousy can do. The sin nature that lies in all of us is capable of taking us to extremes that would surprise even us, but thanks of course to the birth of Christ and what He would eventually accomplish on the cross, freedom from sin is available to all who believe.

– Adam Keim

The Greatest New Testament Archaeological Discoveries …

#6, Temple Inscriptions (part 2 of 2)—The Place of Trumpeting

Don’t picture the trumpet that you played in your high school or college band, but rather a narrow, almost yard-long, single-shafted, silver or gold trumpet with a pronounced bell, but no valves. The Lord instructed Moses to make two such silver trumpets for use by the priests to call congregational assemblies, to sound battle alarms and to instruct the people to move out from the camp. These ancient trumpets changed little in form over the generations and probably looked very much like the ones pictured on the Arch of Titus in Rome.

According to Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, the priests who served at Herod’s Temple in Jesus’ day marked a place on the wall for the trumpeter to stand at the southwest corner of the temple complex in order to announce the beginning and the ending of the Sabbath day. In 1968 while excavating at the foot of this corner of the wall an Israeli archaeologist found a stone inscribed in part, “The place of trumpeting.” In 70 A.D. the Romans destroyed Herod’s Temple stone by stone and threw each one over the wall, creating a layer of rubble that yielded this incredible find almost nineteen hundred years later.

Today a siren can still be heard in Jerusalem, announcing the beginning of every Sabbath, though not from a trumpet and not from this location on the wall. The Lord told Moses, “The sons of Aaron shall blow the trumpets … as an ordinance forever throughout your generations,” so it’s sad that the corner of the temple remains quiet, but one day soon a trumpet will sound again, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven … with the trumpet of God” and we will experience a “day” of rest that will last forever. What a day that will be!

– Daniel McCabe

Answer to the Trivia

B. David

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