however alarming and perplexing such circumstances may be to the sincere believer.

See an exposition of a marginal note of this kind introduced into the Gospel of St John, v. 1-6, in Granvill Penn's "Mineral and Mosaical Geology."

The deluge is alluded to in the following places in Scripture: Isaiah, liv. 9; Ezekiel, xiv. 14, 20; Matthew, xxiv. 37, 39; Luke, xvii. 26, 27; 1 Peter, iii. 20; 2 Peter, ii. 5, and iii. 6; Hebrews, xi. 7.

NOTE XV. p. 98.

CHRONOLOGICAL EPOCHS OF THE WORLD.

"The period from the Creation to the Deluge, according to the Hebrew text, is

Samaritan,
Septuagint,

1656 years.

1307

2242

The era of Moses, according to Usher, i. e. the length of his life, was from 157 2 to 1452, before the Christian era. The era of the Exodus Usher makes 1492 B.C.

The era of the Exodus, according to Dr Hales, calculating also by the Hebrew text, was 1648 B.C. or 156 years earlier than Usher makes it.

The period from the deluge to the present time is one of the most controverted points in chronology. Dr Hales (Analysis of Ancient History) gives a table of 127 discrepant statements, varying between 6984 and 3616 years B.C. for the date of the Creation. The Jews, upon the data of their own Hebrew Scriptures, give the year 3760 B.c. for the Creation. Arehbishop Usher, upon the very same data, (i. e. the Hebrew text,) makes it 4004. Jackson and Hales, (the two most approved modern chronologists,) calculating upon the Septuagint data, make it, respectively, 5426 and 5411

B.C. Josephus, the Jewish historian, makes it 5402; or rather, to speak correctly, this is the calculation made upon his data; for the only calculation he makes himself is of the period between the Creation and the Deluge, which he states to be 2256 years. (Antiquities, chap. iii.)

None of the texts of Scripture, Hebrew, Greek, or Samaritan, exhibits any system of chronology. They merely narrate certain events, giving the lengths of the patriarchal generations, and of the reigns of the kings of Judah; and it is upon these particulars chiefly that chronologists have formed their systems. The grand points of difference between the texts are with respect to the lengths of the patriarchal generations, the nature of which difference may be seen at once from the following table, wherein it is shewn, that the period between the Creation and the Flood is made up of the sum of the differences between the birth of one patriarch and that of his son. The words of Scripture run thus: "Adam lived an hundred and thirty years and begat Seth; Seth lived an hundred and five years and begat Enos;" and so forth.

The principle is obvious: the Septuagint makes the length of some generations just 100 years longer than

the Hebrew; the Samaritan generally corresponds with the latter, but in three cases is different. Josephus agrees with the Septuagint in all except the generations of Methuselah and Lamech, which he makes 187 and 182, therein agreeing with the Hebrew. The discrepancies of the Samaritan text cannot be accounted for or explained.

A similar principle of difference runs through the generations of the postdiluvian patriarchs between Noah and Abraham, occasioning a difference of nearly eight hundred years between the Hebrew and the Septuagint, the latter having also an additional patriarch of the name of Cainan who is wanting in the Hebrew text, but is, nevertheless, mentioned by St Luke in his genealogy of our Saviour. There is every reason to think, that the two texts agreed precisely at the time of, or shortly preceding, the birth of Christ. Prior to his advent, the Jews were deeply impressed with the notion that the Messiah was to appear at the end of the sixth millennium of the world's age, and that his reign on earth would endure for another millennium, thus making the length of the world's existence to consist of seven millennial days, corresponding analogically with the seven natural days of creation. So far from any discrepancies being then observed in the Septuagint version, it was held by the Jews themselves in the highestesteem, and was even believed to have been made by divine inspiration. St Luke copies his genealogy from it; and Josephus, who lived in the same age, and who professes to have taken his materials from the Hebrew sacred books, agrees with it in giving the long generations of the patriarchs. It was only after their disappointment, with respect to the non-arrival of the Messiah, and in consequence of the appeals made by the Christians to the Septuagint version, as confirmatory of the new doctrine, that the Jews began to have an aversion for it. At length their hatred induced them to prepare a new Greek version of their own, and to

solemnly curse the Septuagint. Their new version corresponded with the Hebrew text; but it is alleged, and there is the strongest grounds for believing the charge, that they purposely altered the sacred text in order to disprove the Christian references, and particularly the patriarchal generation, in order to extend the millennial periods to a more distant futurity, and thus defeat the proof of Christ's messiahship, based upon the fact of his having actually arrived at the very time he was expected by themselves, namely, near the end of the sixth millennium. This vitiation of the text must have taken place about A. D. 130. The Septuagint, however, still remained the standard Christian Bible till the era of the Reformation, when the Reformers, in order to depart as widely as possible from every thing Popish, discarded it, and began to prefer the Hebrew, without ever troubling themselves to inquire whether it was or was not more genuine than its rival. Some of them even were so absurd as to assume that it had been divinely preserved immaculate, without a shadow of change or error.

With respect to the periods or lengths of the days, months, and years, mentioned by Moses, in his antediluvian history, nothing certain is known. Many conjectures have been hazarded by divines and chronologists, but to no purpose; for Moses himself gives no definition of his terms, and there is nobody else from whom we can learn what he has left unexplained. The word rendered day in Genesis, chap. i. some critics would make out to mean, not a natural day, of twenty-four hours, as at present, but an indefinite time; but Moses certainly never even hints at such an interpretation, or gives the smallest reason, in any part of his writings, to suppose that he meant any other than solar or natural days. The Septuagint renders the Hebrew word, (yom,) by the common Greek, ugá. Josephus speaks of them as natural days, and nobody, I believe, ever doubted this till geological theories were found to be inconsistent

with the short Mosaic periods. The months of Moses were lunar, running from one new moon to another, and his years consisted of twelve months, of thirty days, or three hundred and sixty days. This, however, is, like every thing else relating to these early times, not expressly recorded, only a conjecture; and it is just as probable that his years were lunar, or three hundred and fifty-four days, like those of the later Jews."

I have been favoured with the above concise statement from my friend, James Laurie, Esq.; see also Bishop Russel's Sacred and Profane History, vol. I. chap. I.

K