430 Years of Slavery

I have heard over the course of my years a number of preachers and individuals talk about the 430 years that the Israelites were in slavery in Egypt.  There are two things that make this an incorrect assertion.
== Paul's Statement to the Galatian Churches ==
Galatians 3:16-17 - 16Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.17And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law(*1), which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.
Paul is writing about the promise to Abraham concerning Christ.  He then says the covenant (the promise to Abraham) that was confirmed in Christ could not be disannulled and made of no effect by the law (the Law of Moses) which came 430 years after.  Paul quite plainly says that the law (of Moses) came 430 years after the promise to Abraham.  This is quite simply a contradiction to the idea that the Israelites were in Egypt for over 4 centuries.  The pure histories (which are based on this false assertion to a degree also) get it wrong.
: *1 As a side note, it is important once again to point out that Paul here refers to the Law of Moses simply as "the law" unmodified.  He does this in every letter he wrote.  It is a given in his letters that when we see the term "the law" he is speaking about the Law of Moses.  Only when Paul modifies the phrase "the law" by something that we may understand it to be something else.
== Lineage of Moses & Aaron ==
A more subtle approach to understanding why the Israelites could not have been in Egypt for 430 years is the lineage of Moses.  From Genesis 46 (vs. 11 specifically) we learn that Jacob, with his entire family,  moves to Egypt under Joseph's reign as Pharaoh's second.  His son Levi has already had his own children, among whom is Kohath.  In Exodus 6:18 we know that Kohath bears a son named Amram while in Egypt.  Amram grows up and marries a woman of Levi named Jacobeth, who is his aunt (*2), Kohath's sister (Ex. 6:20).  Amram and Jacobeth bear Aaron and Moses.
Now, Kohath only lived 133 years and part of those years were before Egypt and part of those years were after he bore Amram.  Amram lived to be 137 and part of those years were after he bore his younger son, Moses.  Moses grew up in Egypt and fled when he was 40.  He spent 40 years in the wilderness making him 80 when the Israelites left Egypt (and then another 40 in the wilderness, where he died just before they entered the promised land).
At most with these numbers we are looking at 350 years if you add up all the numbers.  Since we know that is not the case, it is closer to 200 something years that the Israelites were in Egypt.  Only three generations of Levites were in Egypt for any significant amount of time, considering their longer life spans.  450 years is waaaay too long a time and an incorrect statement to make. 
Please check your facts before stating things like this from a position of authority.
: *2  Remember that it was not until during the 40 years of wandering, well after Moses was born to Jacobeth and Amram, that incest was condemned in scripture (which has to do with the flood, the loss of the 'waters above the heaven', and the genetic degradation caused by the bombardment of UV radiation).  Leviticus 18 was more than 80 years after the marriage of Amram to his aunt and not sinful.
== Population Objection ==
One objection raised by those who argue for the full 430 years being in Egypt is that in the book of Numbers we read of the numbering of the children of Israel. There are 603,550 men of ages 20 and up who could fight and this doesn't include the tribe of Levi! All told, we are looking at around 2 million people marching around in the wilderness here. How is that possible if only 70 males went into Egypt?
First, let's confirm that 70 males is correct.
Exodus 1:5 
And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already.
Genesis 46:26-27
All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, all the souls were threescore and six; and the sons of Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, were two souls: all the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten.
Numbers 1:46-47 gives us the count of the fighting males.
So how would this work? Well, the Bible actually tells us. Look in Exodus 1:7 - "And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them."
They didn’t just have a lot of kids, they:
* were fruitful
* increased abundantly
* multiplied
* waxed exceeding mighty (in number)
* the land was filled with them
You can see why the Egyptians did not like the way this was working. This is why Pharoah began persecuting the Israelites and tried to have the midwives kill them off at birth. However, after the initial wave of persecution that the midwives resisted, scripture tells us that the reproductive boom continued even more:
Exodus 1:20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty.
There was an enormous boom in the population of Israel. How could this happen? The answer is simply that there were really enormous families.
I have done a bit of math here. If we start with 70 males going into Egypt and come out of Egypt with 2 million after only 3 generations of reproduction we get the equation: 70(x)^3 = 2,000,000 where x is the number of children per male for each generation on average. When you solve for x, you get 31. Here is the breakdown by generation:
230 years
Levi * Kohath * Amram * Moses & Aaron = Gershom & Eliezer/Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar
70   *  31    *   31  *    31         =  2,000,000 
Now, while this might seem a bit much, especially for one wife, remember that there was no injunction against polygamy and it was fairly common. Israel himself had two wives and two concubines. So it is reasonable to grant that the males took multiple wives, Egyptian and Hebrew, and that 31 average is spread over multiple women per male.
Moses is 80 years old when he brings Israel out of Egypt. By that time, some children of the next generation would be old enough to have their own children. Aaron is the older brother and his four sons were adult men and able to carry out the priestly duties. So we could potentially add another generation to bear children if we needed to, but let's only make it half a generation in case some are too young like Moses' boys.
70(x)^3.5 = 2,000,000 gives us an average of 19 children on average per father.
Either way, it is feasible and not beyond reason as some would argue. In fact, this reasoning can also be applied to Noah and his family coming off the ark and to all the animals that were with him.
Be fruitful and multiply indeed.
In Truth and Love
Category:Thematic