Dates…..Dates…..Dates…..

That is all that is in my brain right now. I am putting together a paper for class and the section I am stuck on is Date of Events. Normally not a big issue but this is for the book of Exodus so it actually is a big deal. A huge deal actually.

But who cares really? I mean these dates, those dates ehhh whatever right? Well for one I care and I think you should too. I mean yes I suppose you can go through life and never once even think about when something in the Bible happened but a lot of people use dates as an excuse to not believe. Honestly they are grasping at straws to say I don’t believe because of dates but it is still what they hold onto.

So a few things. First the Bible is historically accurate because the events took place in history but it is not a recording of history. It records what was going on at the time but that is not the point. The point is God revealing Himself to man and calling a people to Himself. Second the Bible is not a geography book, but it does include locations. Again it talks about where things happen but by and large they are not the intent of the story. Now that being said the Bible has been proven very accurate in finding locations. I think the reason for this being the case is land was part of the conventional promise to Abraham. Third and final the times in the Bible are not very good. What I mean by that is they use completion and parts often. They might say 40 and it was only 32 but 40 is a complete time. So I do not prefer a literal reading of timespans in the Bible. Not to say that some of the times are not correct but I think (and could be wrong) that a lot of the time that “time” and numbers are used it is to represent something. I am not saying that the days in Genesis are or are not a 24 hour day.

So do the dates matter? Yes emphatically yes they do. Can we know with any degree of certainty? Yes! I mean NO! Well maybe I don’t know. It seems that when we decide one thing we change our minds so I don’t know but dates are no reason to throw out the Bible when there is so much we can say. There are good reasons for the dates and I tend to go towards Exodus occurring on the later side (mid 1200) because of Genesis ch 39 and the Merneptah Stele but I could be wrong.

The important thing again is the events in the Bible are real events that actually happened. I do not place my faith on a story but on events that can be traced. If we have to have all the details to believe something then we would believe nothing. Jesus for example was a real person who really lived and really said what He said. Some people have taken to saying He was not real but these are usually (not always) the same people who say the Holocaust never happened and we have people living from that time so what does that tell you.

Just a thought,

Mike