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    from the creation to the birth of Christ , is supposed , by Jackson , to be 5426 years , by Hales , 5411 , both following the authority of the Septuagint and Josephus , and maintaining that the modern Hebrew text has been greatly vitiated , which makes the same period 4004 years . This difference between the Septuagint and the Hebrew Scriptures did not always exist . Dr . Russell argues ,

    " First , on general grounds , it is to be presumed that in all cases the version shall agree with the original in regard at least to the important matters of fact and date , and that , in every instance where there is no deficiency on . the part of the translators in point of knowledge or of fidelity , the former shall present a correct view of the events recorded in the latter , embodying all the

    circumstances of time , place , and persons , with which the narrative was at first accompanied . The nicer shades of distinction which belong to the idioms of language may indeed be lost in the process of translation from one tongue to another ; vigour of conception , as well as propriety and beauty in the delineation of thought , may escape amid the mechanical efforts of a mere linguist to find out suitable terms and corresponding phrases ; but there is not , within the range of casualties incident to this species of literary labour , any reason to apprehend an inaccurate version of such palpable things as numerical lists , genealogies , and records . "

    Philo and Josephus both assure us that the Greek version was made with the utmost exactness , and obtained a remarkable reputation for exactness among the learned Jews . Josephus , according to his own statement , compiled his Antiquities from the Hebrew originals . He was a complete master of the Hebrew tongue , and his numbers coincide with those of the Septuagint . Demetrius and Eupolemus , both of whom wrote histories of the Jewish kings , and who of course made use of the Septuagint , accord exactly with Josephus .

    " Such a coincidence , " Dr . Russell observes , " could not be accidental . In no particular are authors of the best faith and the greatest industry found so frequentl y to differ as in the minute details of chronology . When , therefore , we fina that three historians , who wrote on the same subject , at times and p laces considerably removed from each other , and who derived their materials from different sources , two of them from the Septuagint , and the third from the Hebrew original , and who yet agree not onl y m the substance of the

    events and occurrences which they narrate * but even in the order , succession , relative distance , and chronological position , and ^ more especially in the length of the gross period which these events occupied , from the commencement to the very end of the series , —are we not under a moral necessity to conclude , that in regard at least to the principal facts and dates contained in the archives to which they had recourse , the original and the version must have been entirely the same ?"

    Previous to the second century of the Christian eera no traces are to be found of any difference supposed to exist between the Greek and Hebrew sacred books . During the unsettled state of the Jews after their expulsion from their own country , all the Hebrew copies of the Bible which escaped destruction remained in the hands of the Jews , of whom a few only retained

    any knowledge of the language of Moses and the ancient prophets . The Septuagint was not onl in the possession of the learned Jews , and read in their synagogues in various parts , but it was also in the hands of Christians in every part of the empire . This materially diminished the chance of corruption in the Greek Scriptures , and rendered afty general corruption almost impossible , while it was perfectly easy to practise the arts of interpolation or alteration in the Hebrew .

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    Review . — -Russell * * Sacred and Profane History . 555

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1828, page 555, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2563/page/43/