A brief sketch of the history contained in their Scriptures, arranged tabularly, from Genesis to Kings, may be of use to our present enquiry, and save the trouble of referring to the Scriptures themselves. The years given in the margin of our bibles, though in many places imperfect, furnish data for determining, with some degree of accuracy, the system of chronology generally received among the learned. The creation of the world is placed 4004 years before the beginning of the Christian era. The intervening dates of most importance are the following: B. C. 4004 World created-Adam and Eve formed by God out of the dust of the ground. 3130 Lamech, the seventh in descent from Adam, born. 3074 Adam dies. 3048 Noah is born. 3353 Lamech dies. 2448 The inhabitants of the earth, except Noah and his family, destroyed by the Deluge. 2093 Noah dies. 1921 Abraham goes down to Egypt. 1706 Jacob and his family go to settle in Egypt. 1491 The Israelites are led by Moses out of Egypt. 1451 The Israelites are led by Joshua into the land of Canaan. 1427 Joshua dies. The Israelites are governed by Judges. 1095 Saul is elected the first king of Israel. 1055 David becomes king of Israel after the death of Saul. 1015 David dies and is succeeded by Solomon. 975 Solomon dies, and is succeeded by Rehoboam; but Jeroboam, at the head of ten tribes, revolts from Rehoboam; and the kingdom is from this time divided into the two separate sovereignties of Israel and Judah. 536 Date of the edict of Cyrus, authorising the Jews to return into their own country. 515 The Temple finished and dedicated in the sixth year of Darius king of Persia. 457 Ezra goes up from Babylon to Jerusalem in the seventh year of Artaxerxes king of Persia. 4.45 Nehemiah goes up to Jerusalem, in the 20th year of Artaxerxes. CHAPTER. VII. OF THE SEPTUAGINT TRANSLATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. The Hebrew Scriptures were often translated into foreign languages, at a very early period; but no other ancient version of them, made before the Christian era, than the Greek translation commonly called the Septuagint, is now in existence. The earliest of the Chaldee Targums,* i. e. paraphrases made, at a later period, in what is called the Chaldee dialect, for the use of the Jews themselves, when they had forgotten the Hebrew and afterwards spoke Chaldee, was written by Onkelos, who is supposed by Professor Eichhorn to have been contemporary with Christ, * See the extract on the Targums in the Appendix. though Bauer and Jahn place him in the second century after the Christian era. For our present purpose therefore, which is to ascertain, on credible evidence, the real antiquity of the Hebrew Bible, all these translations or paraphrases may be set aside; for the Septuagint alone, which is generally understood to have been made about 280 years before Christ, is a sufficent proof that the Hebrew bible, of which it is a tolerably accurate translation, was at that time extant. A brief notice of the Septuagint translation will here suffice. When Alexander the Great died in the year 323 before Christ, his empire was broken up into its component parts. Ptolemy Soter, son of Lagus, became king of Egypt, and in 312 he gained possession of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, which continued 100 years under the dominion of him and his descendants. A vast number of Jews were carried captives into Egypt, where they settled; and learned the Greek language which was generally spoken in Alexandria. Ptolemy and his descendants were great patrons of learning, and there is no reason to doubt the assertion of Josephus and Philo Judæus, that the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible was made, in the reign, if not by the command, of Ptolemy Philadelphus. With the critical questions, that may arise concerning the dialect, grammatical forms and peculiar idiom to be found in that translation, we have nothing to do at present. The existence of a translation- the Septuagint-made from the Hebrew Bible at that time, involves the inference that the Hebrew itself also was then extant, or the less probable conclusion that the Hebrew text is itself a version, and the Greek Septuagint the original. * The fact, before noticed in page 5, that the Septuagint version comprises works, not found in the Hebrew canon, is of not much importance to this question; for the Hebrew originals of these apocryphal books may have once existed, and afterwards perished, as we know has happened to the books of Gad the seer and Nathan the seer. VALUE OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY. It has been said that the authority of historical writings depends entirely on its being known who is their author. This, however, is not universally true; for many historical accounts, mostly fragments, and short treatises, are now in existence, the names of whose authors have perished, whilst the accounts themselves, being known by the antiquity of the MS. where they are found, or by other means, to be contemporary with the events, are of the greatest historical value. It is, therefore, more correct to say that an historical record is more likely to contain the truth, when we know not only who wrote it, but that its author had a good opportunity of ascertaining the truth of the facts which he relates. It is not, however, absolutely necessary that both these conditions should exist together; it is sufficient that an historical record can be traced back to the very time when the facts, which it relates are said to have occurred; in this case it becomes what is called Contemporary History, which is always considered more valuable than any other, though to give it a place among first-class historical documents, it is still necessary that we should know where or how the writer gained his information, and, if possible, we should know who that writer was. This will be evident from a few examples. The campaigns of Julius Cæsar in Britain are related to us by the pen of that general himself, whose writings contain the only authentic records remaining of the events which happened whilst the Roman army was in this island. But several of the later Roman writers have recounted the same events, and their narratives, if Cæsar's Commentaries had perished, would have given us the only account of Cæsar's invasion and its consequences. In reading their histories, |