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nounces his intention to continue his narrative to the point of time at which Prideaux commences his inquires . , { ¦¦ The uncertainty of chronology in roost : hisiori ? al writings of early times forms one of the principal difficulties in reconciling the accounts given by different authors . In the Old Testament , where the only standard by which the progress of time is marked is the duration of life , or the length of a generation , the difficulty becomes almost insurmountable . Science has
laboured to remove the obscurity , but so uncertain are the data on which her reasonings can proceed , that a difference is to be found in the various computations of time , from the creation to the deluge , of not less than seven hundred years , and of eight hundred from the deluge to the death of Abraham . Nothing is more dry and uninteresting in general than chronological details , because they are for the most part inconclusive and unsatisfactory ; Dr . Russell has , however , considered the subject , in his preliminary dissertation , with great clearness and perspicuity , and thrown into it all the interest of which such a subject can admit
It is a fact well known , that there is a very great and remarkable difference between the chronology of the Hebrew Scriptures and that of the Samaritan Pentateuch , the Septuagint Version , and the works of Josephus . This difference did not always exist , nor , in our author ' s opinion , did it originate in the ignorance or carelessness of transcribers , but was regularly planned and effected to serve an important purpose . The difference is exhibited in a table of the various statements contained in the Hebrew , the
Samaritan , and the Septuagint Scriptures , together with the statement of Josephus respecting the whole duration of life of the antediluvian patriarchs , and the time that each lived before the birth of his eldest son" In which it is to be observed , that between Josephus and the Septuagint the difference is only six years , while both of these differ frqm the modern Hebrew Bible not less than six hundred . The cause of this remarkable
difference , or rather , perhaps , the manner in which it was effected , may be discovered in the principle according to which the Jews constructed their chronological tables . They measured the several seras of their ancient history , not by adding together the full lives of their successive patriarchs , but by taking the sum of their generations , that is the age which they had respectivel y attained at the birth of their eldest sons ; for example , the generation of Enos , or his age at the birth of Calnan , is estimated by the Hebrew and Samaritan texts as having extended to ninety years—the residue of his life , according to the same authorities , is eight hundred and fifteen years , and the
total length of life , being the amount of both these sums , is nine hundred and five years : whereas , in the Septuagint and Josephus , the generation is enlarged to one hundred and ninety years , the residue of life is diminished to seven hundred and fifteen years , while the full length of life , or nine hundred and five years , is , of course , the same in all these ancient records . " From the deluge to the birth of Abraham the length of time n varied on
the same principle , and extended in the Septuagint by the insertion of a second Cainan , to whose generation one hundred and thirty years have been assigned ; by these means , while in the Septuagint this period appears to have been 1072 years , in Josephus nine hundred and ninety-three , in the Hebrew text it is diminished to two hundred and ninety-two years . From Abraham to the departure of his descendants from Egypt , the account of time is not so dark or obscure , but from that event to the building of the temple there is a greater intricacy ; some chronologers making the time seven hundred and forty-one years , while , from the Hebrew text it appears to have been four hundred and eighty . Thus the whole deviation of time ,
Untitled Article
554 Review *—Kus&eWe Sacred and Profane History .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1828, page 554, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2563/page/42/
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