5. The ancient Hebrews had no era, and the current denotation of time, down to the age of Solomon, is expressed in terms of the lives of men. The whole book of Genesis is pervaded by a thread of chronology of this description. Thus, Adam at a specified age begat Seth, who at such an age begat Enos, and so on without intermission, down to the birth of Jacob at such a year of Isaac. The death of Joseph at the age of 1 ro years, is the last event recorded in this book; and as it is clearly to be gathered, that when Jacob was 130 years old (xlvii. 9), Joseph had reached or completed his 39th year (xlv. 6; xli.•46), the sum total of the years con tained in Genesis can be ascertained: not indeed with exact precision, unless the birth of each patri arch be supposed to coincide with the exact com pletion of the given year of his father's life ; but with less than 23 or .24 years of excess or defect, since that it is the number of the successive lives recorded. The year of the Hebrews after the time of Moses was lunar, of 12 months, with now and then a 13th, which was added whenever, on inspec tion of the barley fields towards the close of the 12th month, it appeared that there would not be ripe ears enough to form the omer or first-fruits offering by the t6th day of the next moon (Levit. ii. 14; xxiii. so, 11 ; Ordo Sxclarum, sec. This economical arrangement secured to the lunar year of the Hebrews a general average conformity with the year of the seasons. Whatever was the form of year in the earlier times, there is no reason to doubt that the years intended in the enumeration of men's lives are years of the seasons, marked by the recurrence of seed-time and harvest, or other events dependent on the earth's revolution round the sun. (In fact, the Hebrew ryv, year, implies this, its original meaning, like the Lat. anus, annu lus, being ring, round). There can be no question, that the author or last redactor of the book of Genesis intended that the narrative should be connected by this continuous series of time-marks. Jewish and Christian chronographers accepted the statements unquestioned, and held that the series of `years of the world' thus formed, from the creation of the first man to the death of Joseph, accorded with the truth of facts. The ' import' and the authority' of the numerical statements were to. them unimpeachable ; the only question was that which related to their genuine form' (sec. 4). For so it is, that while the received Hebrew text gives one set of numbers for the descents from Adam to Terah, father of Abraham, the numbers in the LXX. differ from these by enlargements, usually an entire century added to each descent (Adam 23o years, where the Hebrew has 130 years, etc.), while the Samaritan text varies from the Hebrew by deductions from the antediluvian, and agrees for the most part with the LXX. in the postdiluvian portion of the genea logies. And supposing the inquirer to have de cided in favour of the Greek text, even so there are diversities to be discussed ; for the LXX. has vari ous readings of some of the numbers both before and after the Flood : in particular, while most of the copies have a second CaInan after Arphaxad, with a descent of 130 years, this addition is ignored by other copies and by important authorities (Ordo Steel., see. 307 and note, and Dr. Mill on the De scent and Parentage of the Saviour, p. ff.) These considerations will account for the enormous discrepancy which appears in the estimates formed by different chronologists of the number of years contained in the Book of Genesis. The Hebrew numbers, from Adam to Terah's loth year, make 1656 plus 292 years; the LXX. with its various readings, 2242 or 2262 plus 942 or 1042 or 1072 or 1172; the Samaritan, 1307 plus 942. This last, however, need not come into consideration, since it is well understood that the Samaritan text, here as elsewhere, is merely fabricated from the Greek (Ilengstenberg, Huth. des Pent., 1, 32, ff.); and those who treat it as an independent authority (e.g., Lepsius, Chronol. der Aeg, p. 397, ff.) only spew themselves ignorant of the results of criticism on this subject. Of course the LXX. in one or other of its enumerations would be followed by those early enquirers who had access to that text only : the earliest extant estimate, by Demetrius, an Alexan drine Jew of the third century B.C., quoted from Alexander the Polyhistor by Euseb., Prep. Ev. ix. 21. 12, makes the interval from Adam to the birth of Abraham, 2262 plus 1072. Josephus certainly did not follow the LXX.: his numbers in the gene rations before and after the Flood have been forced into conformity with the Greek by a later and un skilful hand, which betrays itself by leaving its work incomplete (Ordo Steel., sec. 319-321). As the chronology of Dr. Hales (which some, it seems, still accept as authoritative) professes to be based on the LXX., rectified by the aid of Josephus, it ought to be known that the text of this author, be sides having been palpably vitiated in this portion of it (Ant. i. 3. 4, and 6. 5), swarms with gross in consistencies, caused, it would seem, byhis adopting, without reflection, statements belonging to different chronological systems (see this well shewn by M.
v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Assurs u. Babels, p. 347, ff.) Of the Christian writers of the first three centuries, Origen alone knew Hebrew, and he first leaves the LXX., but only in part ; Jerome, the learned He braist, declares for `the Hebrew verity,' and as his recension of the old italic version forms the basis of the Sixtine Vulgate, which a canon of Trent de clares, under anathema, to be canonical and infalli ble, the Hebrew chronology is virtually perpetuated in the churches of the Roman obedience. The Greek church still holds by the LX X. Our own popular Bible chronology (Ussher's, which Bishop Lloyd attached to the margin of our Bibles) follows the Hebrew. During the last century, there has been a disposition in some of our own and the Continental writers to abandon the Hebrew for the LXX., chiefly prompted by the wish to enlarge the period before Abraham, so as to allow more time for the growth of nations after the Flood, and (more recently) to facilitate the ' connection of sacred and profane chronology' in the earliest ages of mankind, especially in respect of Manetho's Egypt ian Chronology. The question of probability and inducement—to enlarge on the part of the Alexan drine Jews (comp. Bunsen, Aeg. St. 5, 6S); to con tract on the part of the Masoretes—is discussed in Ordo Sirclorum, sec. 308, ff. ; and the artificial pro cesses by which the LXX. numbers are formed from the Hebrew, and not vice versa-, have been exposed partly, ibid., sec. 313, ff., and further in The Cycles of Egyptian Chronology, sec. 72 (Amold's Theolo gical Critic, vol. ii., p- 145, ff.) 6. At the loth year of Terah the discrepancy between the Hebrew and the LX X. ceases. But here another difficulty arises in the question rela tive to the birth of Abraham : whether this is to be set, as Gen. xi. 26 seems to say, at Terah 70, or, since the Call is placed at Abraham 75, and seems to have taken place only upon the death of Terah at the age of 205, whether the birth of Abraham must not be set 6o years later (Gen. xi. 32 ; comp. Acts vii. 4). Ussher contends that the latter is the true construction, and since his time it has been very generally adopted by writers on Chronology. There are evident traces of it in ancient writers, Ordo Sad. sec. 297, and note. The modem Jewish chronology (Mundane Era of Hillel) takes the numbers as they lie in the text, and reckons from Adam to the birth of Isaac, when Abraham was too years old, = 2048. From the birth of Abraham to the end of Genesis no further difficulty occurs, the enu meration being, expressly or by implication, as follows :—To birth of Isaac, ioo ; to birth of Jacob, 6o; to birth of Joseph, 91 ; to his death, I 10.
7. With Joseph the enumeration by genealogical succession is discontinued, and the book of Exodus opens with the birth of Moses, without note of time : only we learn that between Levi and Moses were two descents, indeed by the mother's side (Jochebed, daughter of Levi) only one ; and as the sum of the lives of Levi, Kohath and Amram is 137-E 133i 137, it follows that from the birth of Levi to the birth of Moses must be considerably less than 407 years. The desiderated information is supplied further on in the statement, emphati tally worded and iterated (Exod. xii. 40-42, 51), that the Exodus took place at the exact close, to a day, of a period of 430 years. But the question is, from what point of time are these years reckoned ? And as this is variously answered, the chronological schemes vary accordingly. Some, as the LXX., Josephus, the Jewish Chronology, and most Christian writers, assign the period to the entire sojourn in Canaan and Egypt, beginning either with the Call of Abraham (Gen. xii.), or the Promise (xv.) ; others date it from the close of the period during which the Promises were made (Perizonius, Schdttgen) ; some (as Bengel) from the birth of Jacob ; while numerous recent writers give the whole period to the sojourn in Egypt, reckoned from the descent of Jacob and the patriarchs into that country. See Knabel, ad 1., and Ordo S•cl. sec. 281. The genealogy of Moses is inconsistent with so long an interval as 430 years between Jacob 13o, and Moses 80 ; as are the others, in which (with one exception, and that only apparent), in the 4th, 5th, or 6th descent from the twelve patriarchs, we constantly arrive at contemporaries of Moses (Orda Sad. sec. 284 28S). Any argument from the increase of popula tion must be precarious, because the basis of cal culation can only be conjectural. We only know that the settlement in Goshen was eventually con stituted as twelve tribes in seventy houses (for so Gen. xlvi. 8-27 must be understood, see Heng stenberg, Authentic des Pent. 2, 35, ff.): if these houses, or rather clans, consisted not only of the offspring of the twelve patriarchs but of the families of the circumcised male-servants (Gen. xvii. 13), who were probably numerous, a basis of population is provided which might increase in the course of rather more than two hundred years into a nation numbering more than 600,00o fight ing men.