Mr Laurie on the different Chronology of the Deluge. 315 



rational supposition (and which, moreover, is supported by strong 

 circumstantial evidence), which I have heard of, is, that the 

 Hebrew text of the patriarchal ages was falsified by the Jewish 

 doctors of Tiberias, some time in the beginning of the second 

 century of the Christian era, for the purpose of defeating what 

 was, in that age, considered a very strong evidence that Jesus of 

 Nazareth was the true Messiah, viz. that he had appeared to- 

 wards the end of the sixth millenium of the world's age. This 



I.. ~, . ; - — \i • -O 



they effected by the very simple process of transferring 100 

 years from the age of the patriarchs at the births of their sons 

 to the surplus, and by thus shortening the chronology, they 

 thought to bring the world back to its fourth millenium, and 

 thereby defeat the Christian argument. Previous to this time 

 the Septuagint was considered by the Jews as holy and inspired, 

 but afterwards they solemnly cursed it, instituted a penitential 

 fast to deprecate God's wrath against the impious work of the 

 translation, and set about a new translation of their own, con- 

 forming to the altered Hebrew text. The Septuagint, however, 

 is supported by the writings of Josephus, the Jewish historian, 

 who professes to have derived his information from the Hebrew 

 sacred books as they existed in his .time. It also agrees with 

 the genealogy of Christ given by St Luke, and is altogether 

 more consistent with itself and with profane history than is the 

 short chronology of the Hebrew. Accordingly, chronologists 

 are now pretty well agreed in preferring the authority of the 

 Septuagint, thus making the age of the world at the epoch of 

 Noah's Flood 2242 years, instead of 1656, the date of Arch- 

 bishop Usher's chronology, founded upon the Hebrew text. 



The principles of the long chronology are detailed in Dr 

 Hailes's " Analysis of Ancient History." His dates are adopted 

 by the Rev. G. R. Gleig, in his popular " History of the Bible," 

 in preference to Usher s. The modern Jews differ from both, 

 and make the year of the Creation 3760, and of the Flood 2104, 

 before Christ. 



Dr Von Schubert also refers to the Samaritan Pentateuch, 

 which differs from both the Hebrew and the Greek. All, how- 

 ever, that need be said of it is, that in it, as in the others, the 

 chronology is deduced from the patriarchal generations, to which 

 his ratio does not apply. 



Edinburgh, 3\st Jitty 1835. 



