become determined through an accurate examination of all its historic fountains. . ..
Leaving therefore aside anysoever system of biblical chronology ; because, of the quantity
hitherto brought into the field by the erudite none are certain, nor exempt from difficulties
the most grave ; and, because the Ch u e c h , to whose supreme magistracy belongs the decision
of controversies appertaining to dogma and to morals, has never intermeddled in pronouncing
sentence upon any one of the systems aforesaid, of which but one can be true,
■while all peradventure may be erroneous. . . . I shall finish by repeating in this place that
which already I declared elsewhere, viz.: it is not my intention to combat any systems
regarding biblical chronology ; but inasmuch as, of these, not one is propounded as true
under the Ch u e o h ’s infallible authority ; I have placed all these (systems), aside in the
present examining, in order to treat Egyptian chronology through the sole data of history
and of Egyptian monuments.”
Finally, we quote Lepsius :— (330)
“ The Jewish chronology differs in a most remarkable manner from every other; and
even in times as modern as those of the Persian kings the difference amounts to no less
than 160 years, from knewn dates. Its several sources present but little difference among
themselves. They count according to years of the world ; a calculation which, as also Ideler
(Rand d Chron. I. pp. 569, 578, 580), considers most probable, was invented, together trial
the whole prisent chronology of the Jews, by the Rabbi H i b l e l H a n a s s i , in the year 344 after
Christ : and thenceforward gradually adopted. .They fix the creation of the world 3671
B. o. • and. all agree, even Josephus, in the usual calculation of the Hebrew text. They
fix the deluge at 1656, the birth of Abraham at 1948, Isaac's 2048, Jacob’s 2108, Joseph’s
2199, Jacob’s arrival in Egypt 2238, Joseph’s death 2309, years after Adam.” . . . “ The
question is now, how must we explain this obvièus dislocation of facts as compared with
the true dates. ■ I d e l e r has demonstrated that the introduction of the era of the world, and
consequently of the whole system of chronology, must be ascribed to the author of the
Moleds, (or ‘ New Moons,’) and in general of the whole later Jewish Calendar, the Rabbi
H i l l e l who flourished in the first half of the IVth century,”
Reserving further extracts until we take up the Hebrew chronology, it here suffices to
notice that M o s e s , who lived about the ’fourteenth century b . c ., is not amenable for numerical
additions, made, to books that go by his venerable name, about 1800 years after his
death, by a modem Rabbi.
Thé unanimity of science in the rejection of any system of biblical computation might
be exemplified by many hundred citations : either, of savans who, establishing grander
systems more in accordance with the present state of knowledge, pass over the rabbinical I
ciphers in contemptuous silence ; or, of divines who, like the Rev. Dr. Hitchcock (President
of Amherst College, and Professor of Natural Theology and Geology) strive, vainly we
opine, to reconcile the crude cosmology of the infantine Hebrew mind with the terrestrial
discoveries of matured intellects like Cuvier, De la Beche, Murchison, Owen^Lyell, or |
Agassiz. Nevertheless, Calvinism in the pages of Hitchcock begins to affect a more amiable
disguise than was worn by the magnanimous slayer of S e b v e t u s , or by the iconoclastic
John Knox ; to judge by the following admissions : —
1 If these positions be correct, it follows that, as we ought not to expeffi the doctrines
of religion in treatises on science, so it is unreasonable to look for the principles of philosophy
in the Bible. . . . But a still larger number of [clerical] authors, although men ot
talents, and familiar, it may be, with the Bible and theblogy, have no accurate knowledge
of geology. The results have been, first, that, by resorting to denunciation and charges
of infidelity, to answer arguments from geology, which they did not understand, they have
excited unreasonable prejudices and alarm among common Christians respecting that science
and its cultivators ; secondly, they have awakened disgust, and even contempt, among
scientific men, especially those of sceptical tendencies [ ! ] , who have inferred that a cause |
which resorts to such defences must be very weak. They have felt very much as a goo«
Greek scholar would, who should read a severe critique upon the style of Isocrates, or
Demosthenes, and, before he had finished the review, should discover internal evidence that
the writer had never learned the Greek alphabet.” (331)
How true the latter part of this paragraph is, the reader has convinced himself by the
perusal of our Essay I. [supra] ; where the Hebraical knowledge of Calvinistie divines in Ame-
(330) Chronologie der Ägypter: “ Kritik der Quellen,” i. pp. 269, 360, 361, 362.
(331) The Religion of Qeölogy; Boston, 1862; p . 3, and Preface, p. 7.
rica has been compared with that of coetaneous Lutherans and Catholics in Europe. Contentions
between scramblers for the loaves and fishes may, however, be left to the diverted
contemplation of the gatherers of St. Peter’s p en c e .N o n e of them have real bearing upon
the science of mundane chronology, to which our present investigations are confined.
Until very recent times, it was customary, among chronologers, to follow the Judaic and
post-Christian system in assigning eras to events; v iz .: by assuming that a given occurrence
had taken place in such a year (Anno Mundi) of the Creation of the world. This
arrangement would have been absolutely exact, if the precise moment of Creation, according
to the p book of Genesis,” had been previously settled, or even conventionally agreed
upon: but, unhappily, no two men ever patiently reckoned up its numerals and exhibited
the same sum total; as will be made apparent anon, in its place. Besides, this arrangement
was foiihd by experience to be theologically unsafe; because, on the one hand, the
Christian Fathers, by assuming the Septuagint computation, demonstrated that Jesus, appealing
exactly in Josephus’s 5555th year of the world, could be no other than the Xpiflos,
“ the (332) whilst, on the other hand, the Jewish Doctors, proving through
computation of the Hebrew Text that the birth of Jesus had occurred in the year of the
world 3751, demonstrated that he could not possibly be their MeSAaiaH. (888)
“ There was an old tradition,” says the profound Kennicott, (334) “ alike common among
Judseans and Christians, sprung from the mystic interpretation of Creation in six days, that
the duration of the world should be 6000years: that the Messianic advent should be in
the sixth millennium,- because he would come in the latter days. The ancient Jews, therefore,
their chronology having been previously contracted, made use of an argument sufficiently
specious, through which they did not recognize Jesus: for the Messiah was to come
in the sixth millennium ; but Jesus was born (according to the computation of time by them
received) in the latter part of the fourth millennium, about the year of the world 3760 (Seder
Olam, edit. Meyer; pp. 95 and 111). The very celebrated [Muslim-Arab] Abul-Pharagius,
who lived in the X lllth century, in his history of Dynasties, thus proffers a sentence worthy
of remembrance; by Pococke so rendered into Latin:—‘A defective computation is ascribed
by Doctors of the Jews—For, as it is pronounced, in the Law and the Prophets, about the
Messiah, he was to be sent at the ultimate times: nor otherwise is the commentary of the
more antique Rabbis, who reject Christ; as if the ages of men, by which the epoch of the
world is made out, could change. They subtracted from the life of Adam, at the birth of
Seth, one hundred years, and added them to the rest of the latter’s life; and they did the
same to the lives of the rest of the children of Adam, down to Abraham. And thus it was
done, as their computation indicates, in order that Christ should be manifested in the fifth
[fourth, K.] millennary through accident in the middle of the years of the world; which in
all, according to them, will be 7000: and they said, We are now in the middle of this time,
and yet the time , designated for the advent of the Messiah has not arrived. ’ The computation of
the LXX also indicates, that Christ should be manifested in the sixth millennary, and that
this would be his time. . . . The old Italic version, which, according to St. Augustine, was
‘ verborum tenacior cum perspicuitate sententiae,’ is the foundation of the chronologia major
of the Latin Church, to this day (1780); for, ‘in the Roman Martyrology, which is publicly
chanted in church, on the 8th Jan., the Nativity of the Lord is thus announced to the
people from the ecclesiastical table: Year from the creation 5099 (5199 in Martyrol. Rom.
Antwerp. 1678, p. 388): and from the deluge year 2957 (H od., p. 447).”
A quotation from a Christian work next to canonical will establish the belief of those
early communities who lived nearest to the apostles: — the 5500 years, be it noted, had
been, by Nicodemus, “ found in the first of the seventy books, where Michael the archangel”
had mentioned them to “ Adam, the first man.”
“ 13 By these five cubits and a half for the building of th e Ark of th e Old Testament, we perceived and
knew th a t in five thousand years and half (one thousand) years, JesUs Christ was to come in the
ark or tabernacle of the body;
14 And so our Scriptures testify th a t he is the Son of God, and the Lord and King of Israel.
15 And because after his suffering, our chief priests were surprised at the signs which were wrought by
his means, we opened th a t book to search all the generations down to the generation of Joseph
and Mary the mother of Jesus, supposing him to be the seed of David;
(332) H ennell : Christian Theism ; 1845; pp. 82) 83.
(333) Seder Olam, JRdbba, composed about a . d. 130 ; apud H ales.
(334) Dissertatio Generalis; § 75, pp. 32, 33, 76.