﻿ANNIVERSAKY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, lxix 



that man could not possibly have existed upon the earth for a longer 

 period than considerably less than 4000 years b.c. 



But this determination of the Archbishop is only one of many 

 dates which chronologists, in their vain calculations, have presumed 

 to assign to this the most stupendous of all events, to attempt to 

 form a faint idea of which, in anything relating to it, will ever be 

 gross presumption and folly. In the well-known work, ' L'Art de 

 verifier les Dates,' the following passage occurs : — " Les chronolo- 

 gistes sont loin d'etre d'accord sur le nombre des annees du monde. 

 Desvignoles (Cbronologie de l'Histoire Sainte, preface) assure qu'il a 

 recueiile plus de 200 calculs differents, dont le plus court ne compte 

 que 3483 ans depuis la creation jusqu'a 1'ere vulgaire, et le plus long 

 en suppose 6984." There then follows a " Table des annees ecoulees 

 depuis Adam jusqu'a la naissance de Jesus Christ, selon le calcul 

 des principaux chronologistes," numbering 108, beginning with 



" Alphonse X, roi de Castille, mort le 24 Avril 1284, dans 



les Tables de Jean Midler, appele aussi Regiomontanus 6984," 

 and ending with 



"Louis Lippoman, savant Venitien, mort en 1554 3616." 



The Bev. Dr. Hales, in his ' New Analysis of Chronology,' gives 

 a similar list of " Epochs of the Creation," and adds : — " Here are 

 upwards of 120 different opinions, and the list might be swelled to 

 300. This specimen, however, is abundantly sufficient to show the 

 disgraceful discordance of ehronologers even in this prime era." 



I have endeavoured, by inquiries at Oxford, Cambridge, Edin- 

 burgh, and at the Queen's printers in London, to ascertain by what 

 specific authority, Royal or ecclesiastical, the date of 4004 was 

 added to the first verse in Genesis in the authorized version, and 

 I have not been able to discover that any record exists of such an 

 authority. In Lewis's ' Complete History of the Translations of the 

 Holy Bible into English*,' it is stated, in p. 349, that, to an edition 

 in folio of the Bible, published in 1701, under the direction of Arch- 

 bishop Tenison, Dr. Lloyd, Bishop of "Worcester, added chronological 

 dates at the head of the several columns, and on the margin of the 

 title of Genesis the following : — " Year before the common year of 

 Christ, 4004." This edition is to be seen in the British Museum : 

 it was " printed by Charles Bill and the executrix of Thomas New- 

 comb, deceased, printers to the King's Most Excellent Majesty." 



The copy of the Bible in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, in which 

 that date first appears over against the first verse of Genesis, bears 

 the date of 1727 ; but there is no doubt that for more than a cen- 

 tury and a half that unauthorized marginal note has been added, up 

 to the present timet. 



* By John Lewis, A.M., 1738. New edition, London, 1818. 



t In the Royal Library at Eerlin, I last summer found a folio Bible, printed 

 at Liege in 1702, being a French translation with the Latin Vulgate side by side, 

 and over against the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis there is printed in 

 the margin 4004 years for the creation of the world. 



Editions of the Bible with marginal notes, printed at Oxford and Cambridge 

 in the year 1858, and an edition by the Queen's Printer in London, with the 

 date of 1860, hare the same date for the same event. 



