THEORY OP THE EARTH. 147 



tfther notions respecting the antiquity of the hu- 

 man race than are contained in the book of Genesis. 

 And, as Moses establishes the event of an univer- 

 sal catastrophe, occasioned by an irruption of the 

 waters, and followed by an almost entire renewal 

 *)f the human race, and as he has only referred it 

 to an epoch fifteen or sixteen hundred years pre- 

 vious to his own time, even according to those co- 

 pies which allow the longest interval, it must ne- 

 cessarily have occurred rather less than five thou- 

 sand years before the present day.* 



The same notions seem to have prevailed in 

 Chaldea on this subject ; as Berosus, who wrote 

 at Babylon in the time of Alexander, speaks of 

 the Deluge nearly in the same terms with Moses, 

 and supposes it to have happened immediately be- 

 fore Belus, the father of Ninus.t 



Whatever may be the authenticity of the wri- 

 tings attributed to Sanconiatho, he does not ap- 

 pear to have mentioned the Deluge in his His- 

 tory of Phcemcia.J Yet this event seems to have 



* Joseph. Antiq. Jud. lib. I. cap. 8. Eusebii, Praep. Evang. lib. 

 IX. cap. 4. Syncelli, Chronogr. 



f Eusebii, Praep. Ev. lib. I. cap. 10. 



t The Deluge, according to the Hebrew text of the scriptures, took 

 place 2348 years before the commencement of the Christian era, or 

 4160 years before the present year 1813. The creation of the world, 

 on the same authority, was 5817 years ago; but the Samaritan text 

 extends that event to the distance of 6513 years, and the Septuagint 

 to 7685 years. Trtmsl. 





