This last, however, need not come Into consideration, since it is well understood that the Samaritan text, here as elsewhere, is merely fobricated from the Greek (Hengstenberg, AvSk, dee Pent, 1, 82 sq.) ; and those who treat it as an independent authority (e. g. Lepsius, Chronol. der JEg, p. 897 sq.) only show themselves ig- norant of the results of criticism on this subject. Of course the Sept., in one or more of its enumerations, would be followed by those early inquirers who had access to that text only ; the earliest extant estimate, by Demetrius, an Alexandrine Jew of the third cen- tury B.C. (quoted from Alexander Polyhistor by £u- sebius, Pritip, Evang. ix, 21, 12), makes the interval from Adam to the birth of Abraham 2262 phu 1072. Josephus certainly did not follow the Sept. ; his num- bers in the generations before and after the Flood have been forced into conformity with the Greek by a later and unskilful hand, which betrays itself by leaving its work incomplete (Browne, Ordo Sad, § 819-821). As the chronology of Dr. Hales (wliich some still accept as authoritative) professes to be based on the Sept., rectified by the aid of Josephus, it ought to be known that the text of this author, besides having been pal- pably vitiated in this portion of it (ilfi<. i, 8, 4 ; 6, 6), swarms with gross inconsistencies, caused, it would seem, by his adopthig, without reflection, statements belonging to diffBrent chronological systems (see Nie- buhr, Getchichte Ateurs u, BabeU, p. 847 sq.). Of the Christian writers of the first three centuries Origen alone knew Hebrew, and he first leaves the Sept., but only in part; Jerome, the learned Hebraist, declares for "the Hebrew verity,*' and as his recension of the old italic version forms the basis of the Sixtine Vul- gate, which a canon of Trent declares, under anathe- ma, to be canonical and infollible, the Hebrew chro- nology is virtually perpetuated in the churches of the Roman obedience. The Greek Church still holds by the Sept. Our own t>opular Bible chronology (Ush- er's, which Bishop Lloyd attached to the margin of our Bibles) follows the Hebrew. During the last cen- tury there has been a disposition, in some of our own and the Continental writers, to abandon the Hebrew for the Sept., chiefly prompted by the wish to enlarge the period before Abraham, so as to allow more time for the growth of nations after the Flood, and (more recentiy) to focUitate the " connection (ji sacred and profone chronology" in the earliest ages of mankind, especially with respect to Manetho's Egyptian chro- nology. The question of probability and inducement— to enlarge on the part of the Aleiumdrine Jews (comp. Bnnsen, jEp, St. v, 68), to contract on the part of the Masoretes— is discussed in Browne's Ordo Sadorum, § 808 sq. ; and the artificial processes by which the Sept. numbers are formed frtnn the Hebrew, and not vice versOy have been exposed by the same writer, ib, § 818 sq., and ftirther in The Cydee of Egyptian Chro- ndogy, § 72 (Arnold's Theological Critic, M, 145 sq.). The fundamental importance of the subject in Biblical chronology requires a more exact and detailed exam- ination than we find in the Dictionaries of Smith and Kitto, from which the preceding investigations are chiefly taken, ai are also portk>ns of subsequent dis- cussions in this article.
(a.) Oeneral Internal Evidence,— It is a noticeable foct that In the antediluvian portion the Heb. is the only list (unless we except that of Josephus, which has no independent value) in which every number is cor- roborated by the corresponding one in some one or other of the rest ; whUe in the post-dilvuian line, after the exclusion of the second Cainan, it stands almost alone : the preponderance of evidence ftt>m this meth- od of comparlBon is therefore about balanced. Ag^aln, it is a most suspicious circumstance in the Samar. that ' its numbers, where there is any variation, regularly lessen the period prior to parentage, as the lineage de- scends, by removing the irregular hundred years be- fore the Flood, and annexing it to the ages below that
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point; wUk the Sept. (and Joeephas) attain a rimtlar niiiforinitj by adding one hundred yean to the defi- cient nombers throoghont ; whereas the Heb. exhibits no such marks of gradation, but presents a natural ir* regularity in this respect, although the numbers, on the whole, decrease as the period of longevity con- tracts ; while, on the other hand, if either of the other lists be assumed as the prototype, no possible reason can be assigned or imagined for the arbitrary enlarge- ment or diminution here and there of a particular nmnber. The briefer scheme of the Heb. post-diluvi- an genealogy is also exactly sustained by the sum 867 0. e. the both of Abram 292 years ftiom the Deluge + 76 years to his departure from Haran) definitely given by Josephus, In opposition to his own magnified num- bers in detail, although the weight of this argument is aifected by the existence of various readings of that aggregate in his text We must not omit to observe that those who espouse the schedule transmitted by the Sept. and Josephus, as affording the longer space between the Creation and the Deluge for the extensive propagation of the antediluvian race, and also alter the Flood for the dissemination of mankind into pow- erful nations in the earliest times, herdn only defeat their own argument; for it is obvious that, so long as the entire length of each patriarch's life remains un- changed, by whatever amount the period prior to mar- riage IB augmented, just so much time is taken from the remainder for procreation : the earlier the age of paternity, the greater will naturally be the increase of population in a given number of generations. The rapid advance in adolescence after the Deluge, so marked in the Heb. numbers, was doubtless providen- tial for the purpose of replenishing the earth as speed- ily as possible after that catastrophe.