136 



LT.-COL. G. MACKINLAY ON BIBLICAL ASTRONOMY. 



De Cheseaux, a Swiss astronomer, who lived in the middle of 

 the eighteenth century, was searching for other such cycles, and 

 found that the number 1260 (Rev. xi, 3, and xii, 6), and also 

 2300 (Dan. viii, 14) gave excellent cycles when taken as years r 

 each having a small error in the same direction. He therefore 

 expected and found that their difference 1040 would be more 

 correct still. In recent years Dr. Grattan Guinness has taken 

 advantage of this cycle to construct tables giving the times 

 directly of all new moons for a period of over 5,000 years ; this 

 has been certified, by competent astronomical authorities, to be 

 in very close accord with the results of long and careful 

 computations : for the practical purpose of chronology the 

 two methods may be said to give identical results. 



This cycle was apparently not understood by the writer 

 Dan. viii, 15 : it was only discovered by a comparison of 

 Bible numbers. 



The assumption that the 1260 and 2300 days in the text in 

 the Bible, may be regarded as years, is based upon the two 

 passages, Numb, xiv, 34, " searched out the land . . . each day 

 for a year," and Ezek. iv, 6, " I have appointed each day for a 

 year." 



(4) Direction and Orientation. 



The 'points of the Compass. — We have already noted that in 

 Old Testament times observations were generally made of the 

 risings of the sun and stars on the visible horizon ; we can 

 therefore readily understand why the East was regarded as the 

 front ; the West was consequently behind ; the North was on 

 the left ; and the South on the right.* It may be assumed 

 that when the words front or before, hinder, left, right, are 

 used with respect to a fixed object such as a building, town or 

 country, that East, West, North, South respectively are 

 intended. Our versions do not always carry this out, as will 

 be seen from the appended table, which refers to our own 

 authorised and revised versions, and also to French and Spanish 



* The same arrangement is observable in Sanscrit and in some at least 

 of the Indian languages {e.g., Bengali and Mara tin) derived from it, In 

 modern Arabic the same rule also obtains, though in some places one or 

 more of the terms have become obsolete and other expressions are now 

 used instead. 



Yemen in Arabia and the Deccan in India both owe their names to this 

 arrangement, and both mean "the south country," literally " the right 

 hand," in Arabic and in Sanscrit respectively. 



