own imaginary inaccuracies, are the cause of that confusion of personages and dates, from out
of which modern archaeology is now beginning, through hieroglyphical CQllations, to emerge.
Of coarse, Chinese computations are distinct: being the production of other lands, other
races, other histories, other worlds of thought and action. So, likewise, may be the lost
Chaldsean systems, of which fragments survive through scanty extracts of Sanconiatho
and of Berosus; or, as we shall s(ee, through the more recent Sanscrit astrologico-cyclic
fables of the Hindoos: but, with the above exceptions, and (if you please) of Mexico and
Peru, there is no system of what we call fj chronology” but is historically posterior to Ma-
netho, whose era stands at the middle of the 3d century b. c.
This is facile of comprehension to the reader of our Essay I. He therein perceives
that the oldest computatory data based upon Judaic traditions are found in the Greek Sep-
tuagint; being itself a collection of translations manufactured at Alexandria after b. o. 250,
and before b. c. 130; in which, Alexandrian Greek dialects and Alexandro-Egyptian “ sothic.
periods ” of 1460 years, betray a people, an age, and a fusion of philosophical notions,
such as could have been produced, through natural causes, in no locality upon earth but
Alexandria; and that too during Ptolemaic generations subsequent to Manetho.
The next in order is the Hebrew Text. Its canonical antiquity, in its oldest and last
form, cannot reach up to Ezra in the 5th century, and descends unto the Maccabee princes
in the 2d centuryB. c., i. e. after the writer of the book called “ Daniel.” But, our Introductory
has effaced the validity of textual numeration in any Hebrew codex (no MSS. being 900
years old); because, while on the one hand its radically discordant numbers show that, when
the Septuagint was translated, the original Hebrew exemplar in its patriarchal enumeration
either did not then exist, or must have been identical with its copied Greek version; on the.
other, the Hebrew square-letter character, of this Text’s present form, not having been
invented until the 3c? century after c., the chronological elements now in the Text must
originate from manipulations made above 400 years after Manetho.
Thirdly, and lastly, there is the Samaritan Pentateuch. Its numerical system altogether
departs, for patriarchal ages, from both the Septuagint and the Hebrew Text. The age of
its compilation is utterly unknown; but the palseographic shape of its alphabetic letters
bring such MSS. as exist now to an epoch below that of our Hebrew Text itself. Supposing
the rumored estimate of one Nabloosian codex did make that unique copy attain to
the 6th century after c., such fact would merely prove our view to be correct; but, in Europe,
no Samaritan MS. is older than the 13th century. In consequence, we cannot accept,
in scientific chronology, any more than Siracides', the modern hypotheses of that “ stultus
populus qui habitat in Sicimis.” __ . •
These facts being posited, one can understand the apparatus and the efforts made upon
them by the learned Rabbi Hillel, about the year 344 after c., to place Jewish chronology
upon a scientific basis that it never possessed before his labors. He was acquainted with
Grecian calendrical computations; probably with the cycles of Meton and Callippus, the
mathematical formulae of Theon of Alexandria, and with the chronography of Africanus,
perpetuator of Manetho. •
A quotation from Lepsius has been submitted on a preceding page. Another extract
will illustrate his views (543): — •.
“ But then it is very improbable that Hillel went to work in the manner that Ideler believes.
‘Evidently,’ says Ideler, ‘he started from the then-still-generally used (by the Jews) Seleu-
cidan era, v iz .: the autumn of the year 312 b. o. Calculating backwards, his next epoch
was the destruction of the second Temple. This epoch he fixed at only 112 years (before);
thus counting more than 150 years too little, and making Nebuchadnezzar contemporary
with Artaxerxes I. Going back to the Building of the first Temple, the Exodus, the Deluge
and the Creation, partly according to the express dates of the Bible, partly according to
his explanation of those dates, he found, as the epoch of the Minjan Shtaroth beginning of
the year 3450 of the World.’ So gross and inconsistent an error of 160 years in so modern
a time was impossible to a savant of the 4th century. But there is not much difficulty in
explaining it, if we suppose, that, the Rabbis, after the great hiatus in Jewish literature
543) Chronologie—“ Kritik der Quellen” ; i. pp. 363, 364.
(whioh began with the conclusion of the Talmud, 500 a. d. to the 8th century,) did receive
the few general points, which Hillel had connected with his universal calendar, from
him, and that then, only then, they began to fill up their universal history of 5000 years
according to the records of the Old Testament. Indeed, we find neither in the Talmud nor
even in the ante-Talmudic writings, — ex. gr. in the Seder Olam Rabba, one of the most
ancient of these writings— the whole chronological fillings up. This seems to have taken
place in the 12th century; consequently at the epoch of a long-previously commenced
scientifico-literary barbarism. From the Creation to the Deluge, and the Exodus, they had
only to follow the numbers of the Pentateuch to attain the given date (a. m.) 2448 = 1314
(b. o.). But thenceforward they based themselves upon the convenient number of 480 years
to the Building of the Temple (in the 1st Book of Kings), and according to this they arranged
the chronology of the time of the Judges. By this, then, was the real link of chronology
dislocated for 160-170 years, which occasionéd the displacement of all the succeeding members.
Only when arrived at the next fixed point, in the year (a.m.) 3450 4== 312 (b. c.),
was it found, that the chain of events, for the given space from the Building of the first to
that of the second Temple, was much1 too long. The history of the second Temple, built
under Darius Hystaspis, down to Alexander, from whom the Greek era took its name,
shrunk then at once from 184 to 34 years. At first this created little sensation, but afterwards
the difficulties becoming greater, they were removed by the simple means of adopting
Darius II. and (Darius) III,, as one and the same person. In this manner alone can
we explain the singular phenomenon of an entirely dislocated and mutilated chronology,
which notwithstanding possesses two firm and only-sure points ; and at the same time offers
us the most important and probably most accurate determination of the epoch of the Exodus
by a really learned chronologist.”
It is from the original that the reader must gather, what our space and objects permit
us not to transcribe, the citations, &c., through which the author establishes his view conclusively.
To us the important facts are these||j- 1st,, that the Jews had made no attempts
at scientific chronology prior to the 4th century after c. ; nor did they complete such as
their later schools adopt until the 12th. — 2dly, that, through their childlike prepossessions,
and owing to their superstitious notions that the era of “ Creation” could be humanly
attained, they ciphered out a fabulous number, equivalent to “ b. c. 3762,” for a divine act,
which their ignorance of the phenomena of astronomical and geological unceasing progression,
led them to imagine instantaneous lux !”— and 3dly, that, having blundered
by 160-170 years, only between the Exodus and Solomon’s temple, they sank deeper into
the mud when, in efforts to account for their own imbecilities, they made one man of two
Dariuses in order to rob the world’s history (184 minus 34) of 150 years! And it is such
wretched stuff as this rabbinical arithmetic which is to be set up, forsooth, against the
stone-boolcs of Egypt and Assyria, the records of China, the annals of Greece and Rome at
the age of Alexander the Great, and every fact in terrestrial history! Well might Le-
sueur indite the passage above quoted — “ Nous sommes, depuis dix-huits cents ans, dupes
de la sotte vanité des Ju ifs:” and justifiably may archæological science hold cheaply
the acumen of the whole series of those who, amid other conceits, have adopted 480 years
between Solomon’s temple and the Exodus.
Before examining which fact, it may be expedient that we should set forth our own point
of view, founded upon the same principles hitherto pursued, viz., that our process is always
retrogressive ; ever starting from to-day, as the known, and going backwards, in all questions
of human registration of events.
The era of Nabonassar,\i astronomy be certainty, is a point fixed, by eclipses, &c., in the
year b. o. 747. Thencejfbackwards to the “ 5th year of Rehoboam,” when Jerusalem was
plundered by the Egyptian Sheshonk (of which event the hieroglyphical register stands at
Thebes), we have a positive synchronism about the years 971-3, “ b . c . ; ” for, in ancient .
chronology, asserted precision to a year or so is next to imposition. Thence, taking Solomon
with his “ chariots dedicated to the sun,” and his Masonico-zodiacal Temple, for
granted, we accept the era “ 1000 years b. c.,” as an assumed fixed point when that temple
was already completed. We say “ assumed,” because Calmet’s date for the completion of
this edifice is b. c. 1000 ; whilst Hales’s is b. c. 1020 : and, rather than trouble ourselves
With ascertaining which of these computations may be the least wrong, we would greatly
prefer discussing whether Solomon ever built a Temple at all. Why, if for the second, or
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