Adam When?

    In Chapter 7 the timetable of the reign of Sesostris III was discussed. We discovered that 1888 B.C. appears to be the logical date for his first year. This satisfies the secular record as determined by a Sothic Festival in the seventh year of his reign and relates it to a like celebration Thoth I, A.D. 139. It also satisfies the Biblical record very precisely.

    Some archaeologist, however, conclude that other data must be considered to arrive at the precise date of the Sothic Festival in any year. Based upon tables prepared by Neugebauer they conclude that the date of Sothic rising depends on the arc of vision (b) and the latitude of the city from which the viewing took place. Moreover, the 1460 years much be corrected slightly to take into account the precession of the equinoxes. Edgerton concludes that the viewing could have taken place from as far south as 29.2° (el-Lahem) or as far north as 30.1° (Heliopolis). Furthermore, he believes the arc of vision could have ranged from 8.6° to 9.4°. Thus, he concludes the first year of Sesostris III could have been somewhere between 1870 B.C. and 1882 B.C.¹ He hastens to add, however:

These limits may be a few years too narrow, since the value of B is subject to correction by competent astronomical authority on the basis of future experiments.2

    We might note, however, that assuming Edgerton’s computations and assumptions are correct, the city of Tanis or Avaris must also be considered as a candidate from which the viewing took place, for it was the seat of rule during Joseph’s rule as Prime Minister. If B equaled 9.5° at the latitude of Tanis (31°), then the 7th year of Sesostris III could have been 182 or 1883 B.C. which coincides with the Biblical record and the secular conclusions we discussed in Chapter 7.

    Another calculation was made by Ingman. He set forth the following table for the Sothic rising on Thoth I.³

    In these calculations he assumes the arc of vision (B) varied from 8° in 4000 B.C. to 9° in 2000 A.D. Thus, B would have been about 8.4° in 1316 B.C. He furthermore assumes the viewing took place at Memphis (latitude 29.9°).

    If his computation is correct, the Thoth I Sothic Festival could have been celebrated in 1316, 1317, 1318, or 1319 B.C. If the arc of vision was the few tenths of a degree from 8.4°, the celebration could have occurred a few years later and embraced the year 1322 B.C., which upon calculation agrees with the Biblical data. Moreover, if the iewing had taken lace in Tanis at latitude 31°, the year 1316 would have shifted a few years later to approximately 1322 at B = 8.4°.

    From the above notes it is obvious that if the secular record’s date of A.D. 139 for a Thoth I Sothic rising is used as a basis for calculation, and if the anniversary of the Sothic rising is figured at 1460 years as Breasted, Wheeler, and Finegan have done, then exact agreement with the Bible is obtained.

    If the computations of Edgerton, Ingman, and others are used, an exact secular date cannot be obtained because of lack of knowledge concerning the arc of vision employed and the latitude of the city from which the viewing too place. However, the range of possible dates based on the data supplied by these latter men gives complete assurance that the Biblical date 1888 B.C., as the first year of the reign of Sesostris III, is tenable.

    From the above evidence it seems entirely feasible that the earlier computation of Breasted, Wheeler, and Finegan for a Thoth

I rising in 1322 B.C., as based on a similar rising in 139 A.D., is dependable. Thus, the seventh year of Sesostris III would have been 1882 B.C. and his first, 1888 B.C.

    ¹W. F. Edgerton, “Chronology of the Twelfth Dynasty,” in Journal of Near Eastern Studies (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1942), pp. 308-309.

    ²Ibid.

    ³M. F. Ingman, “The Length of the Sothic Cycle,” in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (pub. By Egyptian Exploration Society, London 1969), p. 39.