Are Gen 15:13 and Acts 7:6 Contradicted By Exodus 6:16-20?

Because of the public nature of my teaching (national radio program), every now and then I get people challenging me with atheist type arguments. One of the more difficult alleged “Bible contradictions” I have been presented with is the argument that Gen 15:13 and Acts 7:6 (copied below) assert the Israelites were in Egypt 400 years, but the genealogy found in Exod 6:16-20 (see also Num 26:58-59 and I Chron 6:1-3a) shows it was much less time than that. Their point from Exod 6 is that the ages of Kohath and Amram add up to 270 years, Kohath was already born when the Israelites went into Egypt (Gen 46:11), and Moses was eighty years old when the Israelites left Egypt. Add those numbers up and you come to a max of 350 years (or possibly much less depending upon how old Kohath was when they started in Egypt, and how old Amram was when Moses was born).

How to solve this difficulty? My answer comes from Henry Ainsworth, a British theologian from the early 1600s (found at https://answersingenesis.org/bible-questions/how-long-were-the-israelites-in-egypt/?srsltid=AfmBOoqJUVS0gHxFRJuIfi8cRxfLrX7luu2n5r2DVNCPliCi08VZ7g0s ), but I am going to simplify his answer in my own words. Ainsworth points out the Israelites were considered strangers before they were in Egypt according to Gen 17:8 and Psa 105:1-2 and were therein afflicted – Gen 21:9 and 26:7,14-15. So if one looks at Gen 15:13 and Acts 7:6 below thinking the pronoun “they” (used twice) refers to all of Israel’s opposition (Egypt and before) taken together, aren’t both verses accurate?:

· Gen 15:13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

· Acts 7:6 And God spake on this wise, That his seed should sojourn in a strange land; and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred years.

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