adition ascribes it to Samuel. It may well have been written during
his life, and possibly under his supervision, though on this point we
can affirm nothing positively. The writer must have availed himself of
earlier written documents. See Chap. 15, No. 5.

9. The _chronology_ of the book of Judges is a matter of debate among
biblical scholars. Some contend for a longer period, in accordance with
the reckoning of the apostle Paul, who says that after God had divided
to the people the land of Canaan by lot, "he gave unto them judges about
the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet."
Acts 13:20. Others seek to reduce the period so as to bring it into
harmony with the statement in 1 Kings 6:1, that Solomon began to build
the temple "in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of
Israel were come out of the land of Egypt."

If we suppose that the oppression of the Israelites by the
Philistines, described in the beginning of the first book of
Samuel, is the same as the forty years' oppression mentioned in
the book of Judges, and that the judgeship of Samson falls
within the same period (Judges 15:20), it is easy to make out
the four hundred and fifty years of the apostle's reckoning.
From the beginning of the first servitude under
Cushan-rishathaim to the close of the last under the
Philistines, we have, reckoning the years of servitude and rest
in succession, and allowing three years for the reign of
Abimelech, three hundred and ninety years. For the remaining
sixty years we have (1) the time from the division of the land
by lot to the death of the elders who overlived Joshua; (2) the
time from the close of the last servitude to the establishment
of the kingdom; and possibly (3) a further period for Shamgar's
judgeship, though it is more probable that this falls within the
eighty years of rest after the oppression of the Moabites. Those
who adopt a shorter chronology, assume that the forty years'
dominion of the Philistines was contemporaneous with the
oppression of the northeastern tribes by the Ammonites and the
period during which Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon judged
Israel; their jurisdiction being, as they suppose, restricted to
the northeastern part of the land. For both the longer and
shorter chronology, there are several variously modified
schemes, the details of which the s