Correspondence.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4916, 11 October 1884, Page 3

Correspondence.

SCEIPTURE CHRONOLOGY.

(To the Sditor of the Evening Star.)

Sib,—The loss of Origen's Hexap'la is a real literary and chronological misfortune, for by it at a glance would be seen that we possess not one bible but three very ancient bibles^ all inspired, all infallible, all authoritative, yet all differing and contradicting each other. Hebrew chronology is counted almost entirely by lives of men. From the alleged creation of the universe and man, to the supposed universal Deluge, was about 1650 years, and from that period to tbe birth of Christ 2348. According to the Samaritan versions of the Did Testament, the time from tbe creation to the deluee is 1307 jears, and according to the Septuagint version 2243 years From the deluge to the birth ot Abraham is, according to the Hebrew version or No. 1 bible, 292 years; according to the Samaritan version, or No. 2 bible, 942 years ; and according to the Septuagint version, or No. 3 bible, 1172 years. In modern times the sciences of geology, ethnology, and anthropology show all these contradictory systems of chronology to be too short for the age of the universe and of men. Authentic records of the Egyptians and Assyrians have shown tbe time allowed from tbe deluge to be too short, and various plans have been adopted for allowing more time without imperilling the infallibility of Scripture. The latest chronologers on this principle fix the deluge at B.C. 3099 or 3150. and the creation of Adam about B C. 5301 or 5421. The Hebrew Scriptures have not always been regarded by Christians as the most important, although it is so now by the unlearned, principally because they have been taught to think that by it the age of the universe aDd mankind is positively fixed. The Samaritan version extends the time between the deluge and birth of Abraham from 292 to 942 year?,—a modest chronological difference of merely six centuries and a half. The Septuagint version increases the same period to nine centuries. The first version is at the present time generally taught to children as truth, but the other versions are frequently relied upon when the chronology of the first is exploded. Tbe inaccuracy of biblical dates is convincingly manifested by the late Assyrian discoveries. The Izdubar, or Flood Legends, or Chaldsean story of tbe deluge, was composed during the early Babylonian empire, about 2000 BC. The A.M. date of the Hebrew version is 1656, Samaritan 1307, Septuagint 2242. The Hebrew record turns a generally received Semitic legend or solar myth into an historical fact, and gives it an exact place in jebronology. It demands the belief that tbe waters covered the whole earth, and destroyed everjthing in which was the breath of life except one maD; bis family and the creatures in the Ark, which surely would have been destroyed also by atmospheric changes. The ash cones of extinct volcanoes which are thousands of years older than the supposed flood, remain to this day nntouched. The Ark was too small, the water too little. The wide distribution of man, animals, and the diversity of language, together with the discovery of ethnology, antropology, astronomy, geology, and other sciences, demolish the credibility of thin stpry. No supposition of a partial flood, no alteration of chronology, no countless ages or periods ot time,.will help to overcome the countless objections that exist, atd will arise, on this subject. The twelve Babylonian tablets Irom which the Hebrew account of the deluge is doubtless borrowed, contain myths corresponding to tbe technical chronology of the months of the year, and signs of the JZodiac. They relate to Gisdnbhar, a solar hero. The tale of the Flood is on the eleventh tablet. The month to which it corresponds is termed in Accadian, the " rainy," over which Aquarius presides.— lam,&e., Cbedenda.