214 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



approximation to this estimate apparently best ac- 

 cords with history and with actually discovered 

 relics of man, and well accords with Holy Scrip- 

 ture. 



No set number of years can be ascertained from 

 the Bible. All that science can with any certainty 

 tell us in the question of man's antiquity is, there- 

 fore, once more in full harmony with the account 

 of the Inspired Book. The 5,199 years before 

 Christ, laid down in the Martyrology for the cre- 

 ation of Adam, is not to be taken as in any way 

 defining the Scripture chronology. "The uncer- 

 tainty which surrounds its chronology," says J. 

 A. Hewlett, "in no way detracts from the trust- 

 worthiness of the Bible as an historical document, 

 or from its authority as an inspired record. The 

 further back we go, the more general and in out- 

 line are our ideas of history; and so in Genesis 

 the whole history of the world to the Flood is 

 contained in a few brief chapters. As it is with 

 the narrative of the events so it is with the chro- 

 nology." 21 



The chronological differences in the various 

 Scripture versions are sufficiently well known. It 

 is very clear, as Hugh Pope, O.P., points out, that 

 there is no question here of mere idiosyncrasies of 

 translators or copyists, but of a systematic pro- 

 cedure. The clue to this has been lost. What- 

 ever chronology was given in this portion of Gene- 



*Loc. X P. 738. 



