A. M. 1997. A. C. 2007; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3318. A. C. 2093. GEN. CH. x. AND CH. xi. VER. 10. TO THE END. The want of certain records of ancient times, and, Consequently, the gross ignorance which some nations laboured under as to their original, has thrown several into a wild notion and conceit that they were self-originated, came never from any other place, and had never any primordial founder or progenitor. But now, whatever hypothesis they are minded to take; whether they suppose a beginning or no beginning of human generation; whether they suppose men to have sprung out of the sea or out of the land; to have been produced from eggs cast into the matrix of the earth, or out of certain little pustulæ or fungosities on its surface; to have been begotten by the anima mundi in the sun, or by an anima terræ, pervad-world older than our sacred books do make it; since the ancient tradition, they were driven to the necessity of a perpetual vicissitude, either of general or particular deluges; by which, when things were come to their crisis and perfection, they were made to begin again, and all preceding memoirs were supposed to be lost in these inundations. But this is all a groundless conjecture, a mere begging of the question, and a kind of prophesying backwards of such alterations and revolutions as it is morally impossible for them to know any thing of. ing the body of this terraqueous globe; to have been sent forth into the world silently and without noise, or to have opened the womb of their common mother with loud claps of thunder: and, whether they suppose the succession of generations of mankind a parte ante, to have been infinite, indefinite, or finite, and the geniture, or origination of mankind, to have been either the same with the geniture of the great world, or later, or heterogeneous, or quite foreign to it: take they which of these hypotheses they will, I say, and when they once come to reason upon it, they will soon find themselves hampered and entangled with absurdities and impossibilities almost innumerable. All nations to whom the philosophers, in search after knowledge, resorted, had memorials, we find, left among them of the first origin of things; but the universal tradition of the first ages was far better preserved among the eastern than western nations, and these memorials kept with greater care by the Phoenicians and Egyptians, than by the Greeks and Romans. 1 Among the Greeks, however, when they first undertook to philosophize, the beginning of the world, with the gradual progression of its inhabitants, was no matter of dispute; but that being taken for granted, the inquiry was, out of what material principles the cosmical system was formed; and Aristotle, arrogating to himself the opinion of the world's eternity as a nostrum, declared that all mankind before him asserted the world's creation. Since, therefore, an eternal succession of generations is loaded with a multitude of insuperable difficulties, and no valid arguments are to be found for making the presumed grandeur of the Assyrian and other monarchies, too soon after the flood to be peopled by Noah's children, is a gross mistake, and the computations of the Chaldeans and other nations, from their observations of the celestial bodies, groundless and extravagant; since all the pretensions of the several aborigines are found to be ridiculous, and the more plausible inventions of successive revolutions entirely imaginary; since neither the self-originists, nor the revolutionists, even upon their own principles, can account for what is most easily accounted for by the writings of Moses; and (what is a farther consideration) since there are many customs and usages, both civil and religious, which have prevailed in all parts of the world, and ean owe their original to nothing else but a general institution; which institution could never have been, had not all mankind been of the same blood originally, and instructed in the same common notices before they were divided in the earth :since the matter stands thus, I say, we have all the reason in the world to believe, that this whole narration of Moses concerning the origination of mankind, their destruction by the flood, their renovation by the sons of Noah, their speedy multiplication to a great number, their dispersion upon the confusion of languages, and their settling themselves in different parts of the world according to their allotments, is true in fact; because it is rational and consistent with every event, consonant to the notions we have of God's attributes, and not repugnant to any system of either ancient or modern geography that we know of. : From this wild notion of Aristotle, in opposition to an universal tradition and the consent of all ages, the poets took occasion to turn the histories of the oldest times Time, indeed, and the uncertain state of languages; the into fables; and the historians, in requital and courtesy different pronunciation of the same word, according to the to them, converted the fables which the poets had dialect of different nations; the alterations of names in invented into histories, or rather popular narratives; and several places, and substitution of others of the like immost of the famous nations of the earth, that they might portance in the vernacular tongue; the disguising of anot be thought more modern than any of their neigh-cient stories in fables, and frequently mistaking the idiom bours, took occasion too of forging certain antiquities, foolish genealogies, extravagant calculations, and the fabulous actions and exploits of gods and heroes, that they might thus add to their nobility, by an imaginary anticipation of time, beyond the possible limits that could be made known by any pretence of certainty. The wiser sort of men, however, saw into this, and from the ordinary increase and propagation of mankind, the invention and growth of arts and sciences, and the advancements carried on in civil discipline and governTent, could discern the folly and superstition of all such romantic pretensions: but then, having lost the true 'Bibliotheca Biblica, vol. 1. Occasional Annotations, c. 17. of oriental languages; the inundation of barbarism in many countries, and the conquests and revolutions generally introductive of new names, which have happened ing time by a cycle of seven days; 3. The sacredness of the a Such are, 1. The numbering by decades; 2. The computseventh number, and observation of a seventh day as holy; 4. The use of sacrifices, propitiatory and eucharistical; 5. The consecration of temples and altars; 6. The institution of sancfruits to the service of the altar; 8. The custom of worshipping tuaries and their privileges; 7. Separation of tenths and firstthe Deity discalceated or barefooted; 9. Abstinence of husbands from their wives before sacrifice; 10. The order of priesthood, and the maintenance of it; 11. Most of the expiations and pollutions mentioned by Moses, in use among all famous nations; 12. An universal tradition of two protoplasts, deluges, and renewing mankind afterwards.-Bibliotheca Biblica, vol. 1. p. 296. 8 A. M. 1997. A. C. 2007; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3318. A. C. 2093 GEN. CH. x. AND CH. xi. VER. 10. TO THE END. almost in all; these, and several other causes, create some yet why might not there formerly have been such a perplexity in determining the places recorded by Moses, bridge (as we may call it) between the south-east part of and ascertaining the founder of each particular nation: China and the most southern continent of this new world, but still, notwithstanding these disadvantages, we may, though now broken off (as "some suppose England to in some measure, trace the footsteps of the sons of Noah, have been from France) by the violent concussions of issuing out from Babel into the different quarters of the the sea; as indeed the vast number of islands which lie world, and, in several countries, perceive the original between the continent of China and New Guinea (which names of their founders preserved in that of their own. are the most contiguous to each other) would induce one For though the analogy of names be not, at all times, to think, that once they were all one continued tract of a certain way of coming to the knowledge of things; yet, land, though, by the irruption of the sea, they are now in this case, I think it can hardly be denied, but that the crumbled into so many little islands? Assyrians descended from Assur; the Canaanites, from The difference, however, between the inhabitants of Canaan; the Sidonians, from Sidon; the Lydians, from South and North America is so remarkably great, that Lud; the Medes, from Madai; the Thracians, from there is reason to imagine they received colonies at first Tiras; the Elamites, from Elam; the Ionians, from from different countries; and therefore some are of Javan; with several others produced by 1 Grotius, 2 Mon- opinion, that as the children of Shem, being now well tanus, Junius, Pererius, and, more especially, by versed in navigation, might, from the coasts of China, Bochart, that most splendid star of France, (as one take possession of the southern parts; so might the chilcalls him upon this occasion,) who, with wonderful dren of Japheth, either from Tartary pass over the straits learning and industry, has cleared all this part of sacred of Anien, or out of Europe, first pass into Norway, thence history, and given a full and satisfactory account of the | into Iceland, thence into Greenland, and so into the northseveral places where the posterity of Noah seated them-ern parts of America. And this they think the more proselves after the deluge. bable, because of the great variety of languages which are observed among the natives of this great continent; a good indication, as one would imagine, of their coming thither at different times and from different places, a 8 Patrick's Commentary. How the large continent of America came to be peopled (since no mention of it is made in the writings of Moses, and so vast a sea separates it from every other part of the known world,) is a question that has exercised the wit of every age since its first discovery. It is worthy our observation, however, that though all the great quarters of the world are, for the most part, separated from each other by some vast extensive ocean; yet there is always some place or other, where some isthmus or small neck of land is found to conjoin them, or some narrow sea is made to distinguish and divide them. Asia and Africa, for instance, are joined together, by an isthmus which lies between the Mediterranean sea and the Arabian gulf. Upon the coasts of Spain and Mauritania, Europe and Africa are divided by no larger a sea than the Fretum Herculis, or straits of Gibraltar; and above the Palus Mootis, Europe has nothing to part it from Asia but the small river Tanais. America, as it is divided into north and south, is joined together by a neck of land, which, from sea to sea, is not above eighteen leagues over what separates North America from the northern parts of Asia is only the straits of Anien; or South America, from the most southern parts of Asia, is only the straits of Magellan. And therefore, since Providence, in the formation of the earth, has so ordered the matter, that the principal continents are, at some places or other, either joined together by some little isthmus, or generally separated by some narrow sea; and (what is further to be observed) since most of the capital islands in our part of the hemisphere, such as Sumatra in Asia, Madagascar in Africa, and England in Europe, are generally at no great distance from the continent; we have some reason to presume that there may possibly be a certain neck of land (though not as yet discovered) which may join some part of Asia, or perhaps some part of Europe, to the main continent of America. Or, if we may not be allowed that supposition, See Annot, b. i. de Verit. See the New General Atlas. a The discoveries of Captain Cook and other celebrated navigators, whilst they have detected the mistakes that prevailed in the days of our author respecting a southern continent and immense oceans in the north, have rendered it much less difficult now than it was then to trace the population of America from Asia and Europe. It appears from Cook's and King's Voyage, vol. 3. p. 272, that the continents of Asia and North America are usually joined together by ice during the winter. In Behring's Straits, at a place about 66 N. the two coasts are only thirteen leagues asunder, and about midway between them lie two islands, the distance of which from either shore is short of twenty miles. At this place the natives of Asia could find no difficulty in passing over to the opposite coast, which is in sight of their own. That in a course of years such an event would happen cannot admit of a doubt. The canoes which we saw,' says Mr Damwell, among the Tschutski were capable of performing a much longer voyage; and however rude they may have been at some distant period, we can scarcely suppose them incapable of a passage of six or seven leagues. People might even have been carried over by accident upon floating ice; they might also have travelled across on sledges or on foot, for we have reason to believe that the straits are entirely frozen over in the winter; so that during that season the continents, with respect to the communication between them, may be considered as one." North America might likewise have been peopled from Europe. The Lutheran and Moravian missionaries, who first settled in Greenland, have informed us that the north-west coast of that country is separated from America by a very narrow strait: "that at the bottom of the bay into which this strait conbitants of the two countries have some intercourse with one ducts, it is highly probable that they are united; that the inhaanother; that the Esquimaux of America perfectly resemble the Greenlanders in their aspect, dress, and mode of living; that some sailors, who had acquired the knowledge of a few words in the Greenlandish language, reported that these were understood by the Esquimaux; that, at length, a Moravian missionary, well acquainted with the language of Greenland, having visited the country of the Esquimaux, found, to his astonishment, that they spoke the same language with the Greenlanders, that they were received and entertained by them as a friend and a brother." in every respect the same people; and he was accordingly There can therefore be no doubt, but that either that part of America, which is occupied by the Esquimaux, was first peopled from Greenland, or Greenland from North America. The great historian, however, from whose works these extracts are immedi A. M. 1997. A. C. 2007; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3318. A. C. 2093. GEN. CH. x. AND CH. xi. VER. 10. TO THE END. We, indeed, according to the common forms of speech, rounded by the sea; but the Hebrews were wont to give call those places islands, which are on every side sur-that name to all maritime countries, such as either had ately taken, justly observes, that the Esquimaux are the only tribe of Americans who can be rationally supposed to have emigrated from the north of Europe. All the other American nations, from Cape Horn to the northern confines of Labrador, appear to have migrated from the north-east of Asia. "There is (says he) such a striking similitude in the form of their bodies, and the qualities of their minds, that notwithstanding the diversities occasioned by the influence of climate, or unequal progress in improvement, we must pronounce them to be all descended from one source. It is remarkable, that in every peculiarity, whether in their persons or dispositions, which characterize the Americans, they have some resemblance to the rude tribes scattered over the north-east of Asia, but almost none to the nations settled in the northern extremities of Europe. We may therefore refer them to the former origin, and conclude that their Asiatic progenitors, having settled in those parts of America where the proximity of the two continents have been discovered, spread gradually over its various regions. This account of the progress of population in America coincides with the traditions of the Mexicans concerning their own origin, which, imperfect as they are, were preserved with more accuracy, and merit greater credit than those of any other people in the New World. According to them, their ancestors came from a remote country, situated to the north-west of Mexico. The Mexicans point out their various stations as they advanced from this into the interior provinces, and it is precisely the same route which they must have held if they had been emigrants from Asia. The Mexicans, in describing the appearance of their progenitors, their manners, and habits of life at that period, exactly delineate those of the rude Tartars, from whom I suppose them to have sprung." -Robertson's History of America, book iv. This is undoubtedly such an account of the peopling of the New World as ought to satisfy every candid reader. It is, however, true, as Dr Hales observes, that South America may have been peopled by means of the great chain of lately discovered islands scattered between the two vast continents, and successively colonized from Asia; and also on its eastern side, by vessels driven by storms, or trade winds and currents, from the shores of Europe and Africa. There can, indeed, be little doubt, as the same learned author observes, but that such of the tropical isles, in the great South Sea or Pacific Ocean, as are inhabited, were colonized by the Malayans, those Phoenicians, as he calls them, of the oriental world; for the Malayan language is found to prevail in some degree through all the various clusters of those isles, from Madagascar westwards, near the African coast, to the remotest of Captain Cook's discoveries, the Marquesas and Easter island, towards South America. Nor let any man object to this theory, by asking what could induce the Malayans first to undertake voyages of discovery in so immense an ocean. The discoveries were probably made by ships driven far out of their intended course, to islands from which those who had unexpectedly arrived at them could never return; and this is now well known to have actually happened to barbarians less likely than the Malayans to undertake voyages of discovery. Captain Cook, in his last voyage, when carrying back Omai to his native country, discovered the island called Wateeoo; and had scarcely landed with his passenger on the beach, when Omai recognised among the crowd three of his own countrymen, natives of the Society Isles. The Society Isles are distant from Wateeoo about two hundred leagues; and the account which those men gave of their arrival at that island is extremely affecting, while its truth could not be questioned. "About twenty persons of both sexes had embarked on board a canoe at Otaheite, to cross over to the neighbouring island Alixtea. A violent and contrary wind drove them they knew not whither, to a distance from both islands. They had all perished but four men, when their vessel was overset in sight of Watecoo, when canoes came off and carried them ashore." Had all the persons, male and female, who left Otaheite, been thus driven on a desert island, who can entertain a doubt but that in a short time they would have peopled it; and if a few barbarians were thus carried, in a wretched canoe, not intended for voyages out of sight of land, to an island distant 600 miles, there is surely no difficulty in conceiving that the oriental Phoenicians, in better vessels, and with greater skill in seamanship, may have successively colonized the several islands belonging to them, or such as had no islands at all, provided they were divided from Palestine or from Egypt by the sea, and could not conveniently be to any gone other Lesser Asia and the countries of Europe, where the de1 Such are the countries of the way. scendants of Japheth were seated; and that by these are denoted the isles of the Gentiles, a might be evinced from several parallel passages in Scripture. At present we need only take notice, that as the Lesser Asia was from Babel the nearest place of Japheth's allotment, it is very probable that he and his sons continued there for some time, till the increase of their progeny made them send out colonies, which not only peopled the isles of the Mediterranean and Ægean seas, but, passing into Europe, spread themselves farther and farther, till at length they came to take possession of the very island wherein we now live. To this purpose the writers on this subject have made it appear, that, from their original country, which was Asia Minor, they sent a colony to the Maotic Lake, on the north of the Euxine sea, and as they were called Cimmerii in Asia, so they gave the name of Bosphorus Cimmerius to the straits we there meet with; that, after this, spreading farther they fell down the Danube, and settled in a country, which from them was called Germany; that from Germany they advanced still farther, till they came into France, for the inhabitants of France (as Josephus tells us) were anciently called Gomerites; and that from France they came into the south part of Britain, and therefore we find that the Welsh (the ancient 1 Wells' Geography of the Old Testament, vol. 1. Antiq. b. i. islands between Asia and South America, and at last America itself. Indeed if there be any credit due to the Peruvian traditions concerning the founders of their empire, Manco Capac and his wife must have been far advanced in civilization; and were probably some enlightened Asiatics driven on the Peruvian coast. -See Hales' Analysis of Chronology, and Prichard's Researches into the Physical History of Man-one of the most satisfactory works on the colonization of the earth, and the varieties of the human species, that I have ever seen. a Thus the prophet Isaiah (ch. xi. ver. 10, 11) speaking of the calling of the Gentiles, and of the restoration of the Jews, has these words- The Lord shall recover the remnant of his people from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamah, and from the isles of the sea:' where, by the isles of the sea (which is the same with the isles of the Gentiles) we must necessarily understand such countries as are distinct from the countries which are here expressly named; namely, Assyria, Egypt, &c., and, therefore, most likely the countries of Lesser Asia and Europe. The same prophet, in order to show God's omnipotency, speaks in this manner- Behold the nations are as a drop of the bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance; behold he takes up the isles as a very little thing,' ch. xl. 15. Where, if by isles we mean those which we call strictly so, the comparison of the disparity is lost, because those which we call isles are indeed very little things; and therefore the proper signification of the word in this place must be those large countries which were beyond the sea, in regard to Egypt whence Moses came, or Palestine whither he was now going.-Wells' Geography, vol. 1. p. 113. b The people of this country are called Germeans, and they call themselves Germen, which is but a small variation and easy contraction for Gomeren, that is, the Gomerians: for the termination en is a plural termination in the German language, and from the singular number Gomer is formed Gemren, by the same analogy that from brother we form brethren.-Wells' Geography, vol. 1. p. 127, and Bedford's Script. Chron. b. ii. c. 4. R 3 Josephus Heb Sam Sept restored by Hales. Josephns by Hales. Heb Sam Sept restored Зомерная A. M. 1997. A. C. 2007; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3318. A. Č. 2093. GEN. CH. x. AND CH. xi. VER. 10. TO THE END. inhabitants of this isle) call themselves Kumero or Cym- | of Noah's family, but only that of Shem and his descenro; call a woman Kumeraes, and the language they dants in a direct line to Abraham; and the different speak Kumeraeg; which several words carry in them computations relating to them may be best perceived such plain marks of the original name from whence they by the following table :are derived, that if any regard is to be had to etymologies in cases of this nature, we cannot forbear concluding that the true old Britons, or Welsh, are the genuine After the flood descendants of Gomer. And since it is observed that the Germans were likewise the descendants of Gomer, particularly the Cymbri, to whom the Saxons, and especially the Angles, were near neighbours, it will hence likewise follow that our ancestors, who succeeded the old Britons in the eastern part of this isle, were in a manner descended from Gomer, the first son of Japheth. Thus we see that the plantations of the world by the sons of Noah and their offspring, recorded by Moses in this tenth chapter of Genesis, and by the inspired author of the first book of Chronicles, are not unprofitable fables, or endless genealogies, but a most valuable piece of history, which distinguishes from all other people that particular nation of which Christ was to come; gives light to several predictions and other passages in the prophets; shows us the first rise and origin of all nations, their gradual increase and successive migrations, cities building, lands cultivating, kingdoms rising, governments settling, and all to the accomplishment of the divine benediction,- Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth; and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every other creature.' CHAP. III. Of the Sacred Chronology and Profane History, Letters, Learning, Religion, and Idolatry, &c., during this period. BEFORE we enter upon the history of the world, as it is 4 1. Shem was.. 2 2 2 Heb Sam Sept restored by Hales 2 500 500 500 500 600 135 4. Eber...... 5. Peleg.... 6 Reu.......... 32 132 132 132 130 birth of 130 at the Haran, 145 75 205 145 205 205 Now, whoever casts his eye into this table may easily perceive, that except the variations which may possibly have been occasioned by the negligence of transcribers, the difference between the Samaritan and Septuagint chronology, and that of Josephus, is so very small, that one may justly suspect that the Samaritan has been transcribed from the Septuagint, on purpose to supply some defect in its copy, and that Josephus had, for some reason or other, adopted the chronology of the same version; but that the difference between the Greek and Hebrew chronology is so very great, that the one or other of them must be egregiously wrong; because the Seventy do not only add a patriarch, named Cainan, never mentioned in the Hebrew, and so make eleven generations from Shem to Abraham instead of ten; but, in the lives of most of these patriarchs, they insert 100 years before they came to have children, that is, they make them fathers 100 years later than the Hebrew text does, though (to bring the matter to a compromise) they generally deduct them in the course of their lives. 5 On both sides have appeared men of great learning; but they who assert the cause of the Septuagint, are not unmindful to urge the testimony of St Luke, who, between Arphaxad and Salah, has inserted the name of Cainan, which (as he was an inspired writer) he could never have done, had not the Septuagint been right in correcting the Hebrew Scriptures: besides that, the numbers in the Septuagint give time for the propagation of mankind, and seem to agree better with the history of the first kingdoms of the world. On the other hand, they who abide by the Hebrew text, cannot think that the authority of the Septuagint is so sacred as their adversaries imagine. Upon examination they find many things added, many things omitted, and, through the whole, so many faults almost every where occurring, that "were a man to recount them all" as St Jerom expresses it, "he would be obliged not only to write one, but many books;" need we seek for distant examples of this kind," says Bochart, "since this very genealogy is all full of anachronisms, vastly different both from the Hebrew and the vulgar version." A. M. 1997. A. C. 2007; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3318. A. C. 2093. GEN. CH. x. AND CH. xi. VER. 10. TO THE END. Editions moreover there were of an ancient date, Nor must the testimony of Varro be overlooked, which which, in imitation of the Alexandrian manuscript pre- tells us, that there were but 1600 years between the first served by Origen in his Hexapla, had none of this flood and the Olympiads; whereas this number is exceedinsertion. Both Philo and Josephus, though they make ed seven or eight hundred years by the Septuagint's use of the Septuagint version, know nothing of Cainan; account. These, and several other considerations," and Eusebius and Africanus, though they took their says he, "incline me to the Hebrew numbers of the accounts of these times from it, have no such persons patriarchs generating, rather than to the Septuagint's; among their postdiluvians; and therefore it is highly because, by the numbers of the Septuagint, there must be reasonable to believe, that this name crept into the about 900 years between the flood and the first year of Septuagint through the carelessness of some transcriber, Ninus, which certainly is too much distance between a who, inattentive to what he was about, inserted an ante-grandfather and a grandchild's beginning to reign."” diluvian name (for such a person there was before the flood) among the postdiluvians, and having no numbers for his name, wrote the numbers belonging to Salah twice over. Since therefore the Hebrew text, in all places where we find Noah's posterity enumerated, takes not the least notice of Cainan, but always declares Salah to be the immediate son and successor of Arphaxad; 2 we must either say that Moses did, or that he did not know of the birth of this pretended patriarch: if he did not, how came the LXX. interpreters by the knowledge of what Moses, who lived much nearer the time, was a diligent searcher into antiquity, and had the assistance of a Divine spirit in every thing he wrote, was confessedly ignorant of? If he did know it, what possible reason can be assigned for his concealing it, especially when his insertion or omission of it make such a remarkable variation in the account of time, from the flood to the call of Abraham, unless he was minded to impose upon us by a false or confused chronology, which his distinct observation of the series of the other generations, and his just assignment of the time which belonged to each, will not suffer us to think. Rather, therefore, than impeach this servant of God (who has this testimony upon record, that* 'he was faithful in all his house)' either of ignorance or ill intent, we may affirm (with Bochart and his followers) that St Luke never put Cainan into his genealogy, (for as much as a it is not to be found in some of the best manuscripts of the New Testament) but that some transcribers, finding it in the Septuagint, and not in St Luke, marked it down in the margin of their copies as an omission in the copies of St Luke; and so later copiers and editors, finding it thus in the margin, took it at last into the body of the text, as thinking, perhaps, that this augmentation of years might give a greater scope to the rise of kingdoms, which otherwise might be thought too sudden : whereas (if we will believe a very competent judge of this matter) " those who contend for the numbers of the Septuagint, must either reject, as some do, the concurrent testimony of the heathen Greeks, and the Christian fathers, concerning the ancient kingdoms of Assyria and Egypt, or must remove all those monarchies farther from the flood. Heidegger's History of the Patriarchs, vol. 2. Essay 1. Heidegger's History of the Patriarchs, vol. 2. Essay 1. " Heb. iii. 2. ⚫ Bishop Cumberland's Origin. Antiquis. p. 177, &c. a The ancient manuscript of the Gospels and Acts, both in Greek and Latin, which Beza presented to the university of Cambridge, wants it; nor is it to be found in some manuscripts which Archbishop Usher, in his Chron. Sacr., p. 32, makes mention of.-Millar's History of the Church, ch. i. period 2. 6 Thus it seems reasonable to suppose, that the interpolation of the name of Cainan in the Septuagint version, might be the work of some ignorant and pragmatical transcriber: and in like manner, the addition and subtraction of several hundred years, in the lives of the fathers beforementioned, might be effected by such another instrument, who, thinking perhaps that the years of the antediluvian lives were but lunar ones, and computing that at this rate the six fathers (whose lives are thus altered) must have had their children at five, six, seven, and eight years old, which could not but look incredible, might be induced to add the 100 years, in order to make them of a more probable age of a manhood, at the birth of their respective children. Or, if he thought the years of their lives to be solar, yet still he might imagine, that infancy and childhood were proportionably longer in men, who were to live 7, 8, or 900 years, than they are in us; and that it was too early in their lives for them to be fathers at sixty, seventy, or eighty years of age; for which reason he might add the 100 years, to make their advance to manhood (which is commonly not till one fourth part of our days is near over), proportionable to what was to be the ultimate term of their lives. Shuckford's Connection, vol. 1. b. v. ex Lud. Capelli, Chron. Sacra in Apparatu Walton ad Bibl. Polyglot. 6 This last observation respecting the proportion that the length of the period before puberty bears to the longevity of men and of all other animals, is well founded, has been already shown in the discussion concerning the antediluvian chronology of the Hebrew Scriptures; and it is almost needless to observe, that the Jews who corrupted the Hebrew chronology, had the very same reason for curtailing the period between the flood and the birth of the human race and the flood. Their object in both cases, was Abraham, as for shortening the distance between the origin of to prove by the authority of their own Scriptures, to which the Christians as well as they appealed, that Jesus of Nazareth had come into the world a thousand years earlier than the period decreed for the advent of the Messiah promised to their fathers. With this view, as they had sunk 600 years in the successive generations of the antediluvian patriarchs, they chose to sink 700 in the generations of those descendants of Shem, from whom had sprung Abraham, the founder of their own nation, and the ancestor as well of Jesus of Nazareth as of the promised Messiah. culate purity of the Hebrew Scriptures, the postdiluvian genealogy Notwithstanding all that has been said in favour of the immaof those Scriptures in their present state, furnishes internal evidence of its own corruption more striking perhaps than even that by which the corruption of the antediluvian genealogy has been detected. In the antediluvian genealogy the sums total of the lives of the several patriarchs are uniformly given; but in the postdiluvian genealogy, they are all, except the life of Abraham, as uniformly omitted, though retained in the Samaritan copy. This cannot have been done but for some sinister purpose; and indeed the absurdity in which the editors of the present text have involved themselves in their genealogy of Terah and Abraham, shows how unsafe it would have been to persist in their short generations, and at the same time to give the ages of the several |