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785 years which is the sixth number different from the Hebrew-instead of 800, after the birth of his son, to prevent his living beyond the flood. It appears, therefore, perfectly evident that the later Samaritan copies, which differ from the Hebrew chronology in the fifth chapter, have been, by an unknown hand, corrupted in most of the numbers; and that they differ from the anc ent Samaritan itself. Was this fact unknown to Houbigantius, the recent defender of the Samaritan chronology, or did he conceal it?

And on this point again, I should like to ask Kennicott and Durell, whether there may not be some Samaritan codices in the British collection, which have the same numbers as those found by Jerome in the fourth century? Likewise, what numbers has the Arabic version, written in the Samaritan character, which Durell found in the Bodleian library?

§ 8. The testimony of Josephus.

As the testimony of Josephus is of great importance in the question, he must be spoken of separately. That he read both the Greek and the Hebrew, and, as a compiling historian, compared them together, I could show, if this were the proper place, by numberless examples. Jackson cites him as anthority for the Greek reading, never once supposing that his testimony would be against it. Nor can I deny that the Antiquities, B. I. ch. 3, coincides almost entirely with the Septuagint; except that there is a slight discrepancy in regard to the age of Methuselah and of Lamech, before the birth of sons. For he gives to Methuselah not 167 years, but, as the Hebrew codex, and, in fact, the former Greek codices, 187 years before he begat Lamech: 10 Lamech himself he gives, before the birth of Noah, 182 years, as it stands in the Hebrew. Now all these numbers of Josephus added give us, from the creation to the flood, 2256 years; while the numbers found in the Septuagint amount to 2242;-a slight disagreement, considering that it is in numbers, in which transcribers easily err.

But Ernesti, in his first "Exercitatio Flaviana," has justly remarked, that this passage of Josephus has been almost entirely corrupted, to make it agree with the chronology of the Seventy, by transcribers who had been accustomed to read the Greek version. For though, as I just said, from the numbers

found here, the creation appears to have been 2256 years before the deluge, yet Josephus himself, in another place, where he has escaped the hands of false correctors, tells us that the building of Solomon's temple was commenced 3102 years after the creation, and 1440 after the flood; whence it follows, that the flood took place A. M. 1662. This differs from the Hebrew account but very little,-only the small space of six years; of which discrepancy I shall speak again, after quoting the words of Josephus: "Solomon began to build the temple... 1440 years after the deluge. And from the creation of Adam, the first man, to the building of the temple by Solomon, had passed, in all, 3102 years." So then the 1662d year of the world is assigned to the flood, which differs immensely from the Greek chronology, but very slightly from the Hebrew. Indeed, Josephus seems in this place to have followed the Greek only in giving to Lamech 188, instead of 182 years, before the birth of his son. But to whatever conclusion we may come, respecting these six years, this is certain; if Josephus wrote this which we find in the history of Solomon, and upon which no suspicion of alteration has fallen, then what is found in the first book of the "Antiquities," in the third chapter, in regard to the chronology before the deluge, cannot be the work of Josephus, nor can he have agreed with the Seventy in the number of centuries.

§ 9. The Ethiopic version.

I have already mentioned the Ethiopic version, which has, indeed, no weight as to the Hebrew reading, because it was made from the Greek. It has, moreover, numbers so contradictory and absurd, that no one can believe it, who can add 9 and 1. And yet, this very version deserves to be heard, because it convicts the Greek version of manifest corruption, and shows that other numbers, agreeing with the Hebrew, were formerly found also in the Greek. We will hear a foolish witness, who relates what he has been told so faithfully, as not even to vary from his authority to save his credit.

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ἀπὸ τῆς

* Τῆς δὲ οἰκοδομίας του ναοῦ Σολομών ἤρξατο ἐπομβρίας μετὰ χίλια καὶ τετρακόσια καὶ τεσσαράκοντα ἔτη. ̓Απὸ δὲ του πρώτου γενηθέντος Αδάμου ἔως ου τὸν ναὸν ᾠκοδόμησεν ὁ Σολομὲν διεληλύθει τὰ πάντα ἔτη τρισχίλια καὶ ἑκατὸν καὶ δύο.

Job Ludolph tells Leibnitz,* that the Ethiopic version, though in other respects it follows the Greek xarà пóda, has a different chronology, of uncertain origin; but he does not explain what that chronology is. The Ethiopic language is known to but few, and those who are acquainted with it are destitute of books; for the Ethiopic Pentateuch has never been printed; whence it happens, that those who have very lately discussed the chronology and reading of the chapter before us-Jackson and Houbigantius-have neither examined, nor even named the Ethiopic version. But I have in my possession an Ethiopic Pentateuch in manuscript; and can therefore bring forward this witness never yet examined;-a witness, indeed, of not very great weight, but honest, and never wilfully swerving from the truth. But, as I use a manuscript copy, it is reasonable to show it to you, and to mention by what means it came into my hands, so that you may judge of its value. I received it as a legacy from my father, who obtained it from the library of John Henry Michaelis. It bears this title: "Pentateuchus thoipice, a Christiano Ludolpho, illustris Ludolphi filio, ab exemplari Dn. Ludovici Piques, doctoris et socii Sorbonnae, quod illi Joannes Michael Wansleben, Romæ a se descriptum, vendiderat, Parisiis, anno 1684, descriptus."

You may therefore call it the Wanslebian, or Ludolphian copy, as you please. If any error has been committed by the copyists, I am not answerable for it; every one must see that the numbers 90 and 60 have fallen from the whole ages of Mahalaleel and Jared; a thing, which might very easily happen in the Ethiopic, because they write numbers, not in words, but with numeral characters borrowed from the Greek, but with distorted forms.

But the most important point, and that to which I wish to direct your attention, is, that in the age of each patriarch, in which the Greek differs from the Hebrew by a whole century, viz. Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel and Enoch, the Ethiopian, like the Greek, adds the hundred years before the birth of a son, but does not subtract them from the remainder of the life; in this respect, differing from the Greek as it now stands, and agreeing with the Hebrew. And though these six patriarchs are thus made to have lived each a hundred years more than they did, according to the Hebrew, Samaritan and

* Leibnitz' Epistolary Correspondence, p. 161.

Greek readings, yet the Ethiopian translator, a man of by no means bad intentions, was either so unobserving, or so faithful to his original, that he assigned to them the same ages which the other versions give them, copying what was before him, without any regard to the contradiction in which he involved himself. Here is a table extracted from the Wanslebian codex.

Adam lived, before he begat a son, 230, after, 800: Whole age, 930

Seth

206* " 807

912

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The conclusion to be drawn from this is easily seen; in that Greek codex from which the Ethiopic version was made, the years of the patriarchs after they had issue, and the years of their whole life were still the same that are found in the Hebrew. Thus, the very blots, as it were, of the corrupted chronology are almost presented to our eyes, and we can readily imagine how the change was brought about. For if, in the years after the birth of a son, and in the years of the whole life, the Greek copies had formerly the same numbers as the Hebrew, no one, who can count, or who can subtract 800, 807, 815 and 840 from 930, 912, 905 and 910, will doubt that the numbers of years before the birth of issue were also originally

* Here I think some one of the copyists must have erred; or, possibly the Roman copy is in fault, having substituted 206 for 205. The Ethiopic figures answering to 5 and 6 differ but little in form.

For 895. The middle figure, 9, has accidentally fallen out.
For 962; the 6 having fallen out.

Here also, in the age at the birth of a son, the Ethiopic agrees with the Hebrew. And indeed some Greek copies, as the Alexandrine, have the same number.

In respect to Lamech, the Ethiopic agrees with the Hebrew throughout, and shows that, instead of the numbers 188, 565 and 753, some of the Greek copies formerly exhibited the same numbers as are now found in the Hebrew, viz. 182, 595 and 777.

the same in the Greek and the Hebrew; and that they were afterwards changed. When and by whom this was done, is unknown, but it was certainly the work of some rash sytematizer.

If now the former Greek reading, and the Samaritan in the time of Jerome were different from what they are at present, and if they both agreed with the Hebrew, from which they now differ, what kind of critic, I ask, is he who would, in these very points, change the Hebrew text to suit the Samaritan or the Greek, as either may chance to please him? Nor are these remarks made by one who is charmed by the name of the Hebrew text, and who admires it only as exhibited by the Masorites. For I have often charged that text with faults, and have, not unfrequently, corrected it by reference to the Septuagint and the Samaritan. But in this passage I think it more correct than the others.

§ 10. Systematic discrepancies of the tens and units.

Nor are the differences in the centuries alone to be referred to the systematic corruption, which I have mentioned, of the Greek and Samaritan; but some, and, I begin to think, many tens and units, which differ from the Hebrew, are liable to the same suspicion. Nor was I myself aware, when I began to write, that so many numbers, which seem to vary from the Hebrew readings by chance, have been changed by some copyist or translator to make them conform to the Greek or Samaritan system. I will now mention those that seem to me to belong to this class.

1. To this class I refer the fact, that the Samaritan subtracts 15 from the 800 years which Jared lived after the birth of his son, leaving him only 785. For, if he had lived 800 years after the birth of his son, he must have survived the deluge; which, according to the Samaritan chronology, occurred on the seven hundred and eighty-fifth year from the birth of Jared's son.* But as this seemed inadmissible, and irreconcilable with Moses' account, the Samaritan placed Jared's death in the very year of the flood, leaving us in doubt whether he died by disease, by old age, or, as is perhaps more probable, by the deluge itself.

* Add the age of Enoch at the birth of his son, 65; that of Methuselah, 67; of Lamech, 53; of Noah, 500, and 100 between that and the flood, and you have 785.

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