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on that account, to regard these four ages of the patriarchs as primitive inventions? No one who admits the strictly historical character of the principal branch of the family narrative of this period will come to this conclusion."* (Vol. iii. pp. 340, 341.)

“But, then, this family possessed an era, as was always the case with noble Semitic races; this era must have been that of the immigration." † (Ibid.)

"In the history of Abraham we find two predominant numbers, the seventy-fifth year (that of the immigration), and the one hundredth (the birth of Isaac). In this interval, so many events occurred, also, as to require a considerably long sojourn in Canaan prior to his birth.

"We assume, therefore, seventy-five as the year before the birth of Isaac, twenty-five as the duration of the sojourn in Canaan, and, consequently, fifty-one as the first year of the settlement in Canaan.

6.

• But there is also a place for the one hundredth year (which is said to be that of the birth of Isaac), as the year in which Abraham died. This, again, can not be accidental. The computation backward - the turning-point is so historically important and well established leads directly to the same conclusion. According to this, Jacob died in the one hundred and forty-seventh year, not of his own life, but of the era from the immigration of Abraham. Joseph again, not of his own age, but of the era of Jacob." (Vol. iii. p. 344.)

"The reader will here find an account taken of every date which occurs in the Scripture narrative. Whatever is determined upon grounds of internal probability, such as the births of Isaac and Jacob, is placed in brackets. There can not, therefore, be an error of more than two or three years at most. §

* Our author distinctly admits that Abraham is strictly an historical person, as well as Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.

† Mere assumption.

The Italics are ours.

§ Referring to a table which is not copied, the essential part appearing in what follows.

Those which are placed in parentheses are such as arise out of the entries in the Bible in reference to years of marriage. These are, consequently, in themselves thoroughly authentic. All the other dates are taken directly from the Bible.” *

Truly, this is taking the subject of chronology "out of the domain of chronology and history into that of pure philosophy." (Vol. iv. p. 22.) An account is taken of every date in the Scripture narrative! Only the date of the son's birth is changed to that of the death of the father, the real date of this latter event being ignored altogether. Is any language, proper for a Christian to use, too severe in reprehension of such a procedure? What! we involuntarily exclaim, was the man insane? Had he become imbecile? Had he so long been groping amid the sepulchral monuments of antiquity that he could not recognize, in the clear light of day which other men use, a plain historical fact?

“And Abraham was an hundred years old when Isaac was born" (Gen. xxi. 5); that is, as our author interprets it, "he was a hundred years old when he died." "And. Abraham was seventy-five years old when he departed out of Haran" (Gen. xii. 4); that is, "the seventy-fifth year is the year before Isaac was born." And so of other dates and events in connection with the Scripture narrative.

"An account is taken of every date in the Scripture narrative." He might as well have taken the alphabetical letters and figures in the first fifteen chapters of Genesis, and so transposed and arranged them as to make out a story of the creation about 20,000 B. C., and of the flood

* Egypt's Place in Universal History, vol. iii. p. 344.

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occurring 10,000 B. C., and the "development" and "strata" of languages, &c., according to his system, and then have claimed the Bible as authority, telling us we should find "an account taken of every letter and figure in the Scripture narrative. If any x's or z's, or other letters, or any figures, had remained unappropriated, he could have found a 66 place" for them. We say, had he done this, the process would have been about as rational as that which he has adopted in relation to the history of Abraham and his successors in the patriarchal line.

Bunsen lays great stress on the improbability of a man having a son at the age of a hundred years, especially in such a land as Palestine, this improbability being even a corner-stone in his argument. With him, in his “ philosophy," the assertion of the sacred writer that the event is miraculous, and the indorsement of the miracle by an inspired apostle (Rom. iv. 19, and Heb. xi. 11), go for nothing. Thus the New Testament suffers alike with the Old under this rationalizing process.

. When we first read the following caustic criticism on Bunsen's work, we thought it probably a little extravagant. But we are now prepared to receive it as just.

"Sesostris is the great name of Egyptian antiquity. Even the builders of the Pyramids and of the Labyrinth shrink into insignificance by the side of this mighty conqueror. Nevertheless, his historical identity is not proof against the dissolving and recompounding process of the Egyptological method. Bunsen distributes him into portions, and identifies each portion with a different king. Sesostris, as we have stated, stands in Manetho's list as third king of the twelfth dynasty, at 3320 B. C., and a notice is appended to his name, clearly identifying him with

the Sesostris of Herodotus. Bunsen first takes a portion of him, and identifies it with Tosorthrus (written Sesorthrus by Eusebius), the second king of the third dynasty, whose date is 3119 B. C., being a difference in the dates of seventeen hundred and ninety-nine years about the same interval as between Augustus Cæsar and Napoleon. He then takes another portion, and identifies it with Sesonchosis, a king of the twelfth dynasty; a third portion of Sesostris is finally assigned to himself. It seems that these three fragments make up the entire Sesostris.” *

B. Page 27.

CHRONOLOGY OF BOËCKH.

BоËCKн makes the duration of the reign of the gods to be seventeen Sothic cycles, beginning July 20, B. C. 30,522, and reaching to July 20, B. C. 5703. The governing principle in his system seems to be the aforesaid cycle, and the distinguished author did not hesitate to make alterations in numbers in order to apply it. His scheme is confessedly artificial. Thus Bunsen says, "We believe that no Egyptologer has ever ventured upon so many and such bold alterations in the dates of Manetho as Boëckh was obliged to propose, in order to make good his assumption that Manetho's chronology was an artificial system of applying cyclical numbers to Egyptian history. There is every reason to suppose that the illustrious master of Hellenic archæology long ago abandoned a

* Sir G. C. Lewis's Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 369.

theory so triumphantly refuted by the most stubborn facts of contemporary evidence. On the other hand, it is to be hoped that Egyptologers will not hesitate to admit the instinct of genius which led him to assume a certain connection between Manetho and the Sothic cycles, inasmuch as his three books of Egyptian history were divided according to that cycle of 1460 years." (Vol. v. p. 119.) The first part of this criticism appears emiently just. We doubt, however, if the "instinct of genius" ever led any one" to assume" anything in chronology or history.

C. Page 29.

CHRONOLOGY OF RODIER.

RODIER places his highest date in human history at about B. C. 24,000. This, however, is not the beginning of history; for before this, at undefined dates, he makes to have taken place the "dissemination of the ProtoScyths," and the movement of the Japetite or Indo-European races toward Western Asia and Europe. But about B. C. 24,000, he says, took place "the breaking up of the ice at the north pole. The shock which this gave to the crust of the earth was perhaps the cause of the sudden cold which drove the Japetite Aryans from primitive Asia." Intermediate between B. C. 24,000 and 21,778 was the commencement of the period Phta in Egypt, and the outline of Egyptian civilization. At B. C. 21,778 was the commencement of the period of Phre. At B. C. 19,564

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