ABSTRACT
The biblical book of Kings provides a date for Moses and the exodus from Egypt. In 1 Kgs. 6.1 we read: ‘In the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the LORD’. This has commonly been taken to indicate a date c. 1440 BCE (Bimson 1981: 74). Since the number 480 seems schematic rather than precise, many have suggested other, usually later, dates, a popular one for twentieth-century scholars being the thirteenth century BCE (J. Gray 1977: 160-61). At the very least it can be said that scholars who accept their historicity almost unanimously place Moses and the exodus in the second half of the second millennium BCE.
