The Torah in Exodus 12:40–41 states clearly the length of Israel’s stay in Egypt: “The length of time that the Israelites lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. 12:41 At the end of the four hundred and thirtieth year, to the very day, all the ranks of Yhwh departed from the land of Egypt.” But there are several other ways that the evidence implies the period of Israelite habitation in Egypt was far less than 430 years.

Some of the ancient translation versions solved this problem by extending the period of 430 years back to Prophet Abraham’s arrival in Canaan. The Greek Septuagint and the Hebrew Samaritan Pentateuch solve the problem by adding the stay in Canaan explicitly into Exodus 12:40: Septuagint (LXX) said “And the sojourning of the children of Israel, while they sojourned in the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan, was 430 years. 

And the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP) “says ‍the same thing: “And the sojourning of the children of Israel, while they sojourned in the land of Canaan and the land of Egypt was 430 years.

This clarifies the text by explaining that about half of the Torah timeline is the pre-time period in Canaan. People who are polemicists, look for scribal errors or conscious Tahrif , which they think makes the whole Torah text to be........

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