NOTICES IN GENESIS.
CHAPTER
123
XIV.
FURTHER NOTICES OF EGYPT IN GENESIS.
THE history of Joseph in Egypt after he was thrown into prison by Potiphar, which occupies the last eleven chapters of Genesis, is delivered to us at too great length to be conveniently made the subject of illustration by means of corumeiit on a series of passages. propose therefore to view it hi the mass, as a picture of Egypt at a certain period of its history, to be determined by chronological considerations, and t/hen to inquire how far the portraiture given corresponds to what is known to us of the Egypt of that time from profaue sources.
We
The time of Joseph's visit to Egypt is variously given by chronologers. Archbishop Usher, whose dates are followed in the aiargin of the English Bible, as published by authority, regards him as having resided in the country from B. c. 1729 u> B. c. 1635. Most other chronologers place his sojourn earlier: Stuart Poole* from B. c. 1867; Clinton f from
K. c.
1862 to
B. c.
1770
;
Hales
t
from
1886 to
B. c.
the latest of these dates would make his arrival anterior to the commencement of the New Empire, which was certainly not earlier than B. c. 1700. If we add to this the statement of George the Syncellus, that all writers agreed in making him the prime minister of one of the shepherd kings, we seem to have sufficient grounds for the belief that the Egypt of his time was that of the Middle Empire or Hyksos, an Asiatic people who held Egypt in subjection for some centuries before the great rising under Aahmes, which re-established a native dynasty upon the old throne of the Pharaohs. B. c. IV 92.
Even
* " t I
Dictionary of the Bible," vol. i., p. 508. "Fasti Hellenici," vol. i., pp. 300, 320. "Ancient Chronology," vol. i., p. 104, et seq. " Chronographia," p. 62. B.