families, and in their public affemblies for worship and inftruction, the Greek verfion, as better understood, was by both parties preferred. Certain it is, that the numbers in that verfion were enlarged at its very formation *. Now, if either party were convinced that an origin too remote by feveral centuries was afcribed to the creation, the natural method would have been to reduce the notations in the Greek Pentateuch to a more authentic ftandard. That ftandard must have been the Hebrew text; if fo be that the Alexandrian interpreters firft deviated from the Mofaical computation.

4. THAT the Jews, as a collective body, could, at no time after Mofes, and before the final catastrophe of Jerufalem, by a public deed, vitiate their facred records, and escape detection, are points fo intuitively obvious, that every attempt to evince the impoffibility of fuccefs in attempts for that end, would be a needlefs expence of argument.

5. On the other hand, every fufpicious circumftance, every colour of actual guilt, and every probable temptation to amplify numbers, refts on the Alexandrine interpreters.

IT is faid, that they were but five in number, one for each volume of the Pentateuch; and all confined to separate cells t. But be it admitted that the number was lxxii. much stronger is the probability that fo

See Yardley's Genealogies, and Winder on Knowledge. For the truth of this fact Prideaux refers to the authority of Tract. Sopherim. cap.i.

fmall

small a number of men fhould agree in a fraud, than that the whole Jewish nation, magiftrates, priests, levites, fcribes, and people, did unanimously vitiate their facred books. Such a project could not have been executed without a controverfy, and hiftorians would have recorded the names of the agents, the time, the place, the motives, the circumstances, which obftructed or favoured the reception of the scheme. The impoftor Arifleas takes notice, that only one true copy of the Hebrew original was tranfmitted from Jerufalem to Alexandria. To prevent the danger of a shameful detection, that one copy, if difmembered and destroyed, could never be produced, as an evidence either of fidelity or fraud. But at Jerufalem an immediate difcovery must have been unavoidable.

6. IT mul farther be confidered, that the translators of the Septuagint, whatever was their number, had very fpecious and prevalent inducements to amplify the Hebrew antiquities. Herodotus, mifled by the oftentatious vanity of the Egyptian priefts, affigned to that Empire an incredibly remote establishment. This national pride, like the peftilence, foon infected the contiguous inhabitants of Samaria and Phoenicia. The former, one full century prior to the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, had procured a copy of the law for the use of the temple on mount Gerizim; and from every probable circumftance it is inferred, that the amplified numbers were firft inferted in that copy, [the Samaritan] and afterwards in the Greek verfion, where freedoms, far more unreasonable, were taken with the venerable original;

which, however, both parties left immaculate. The result of all these prefumptions is, that the numbers of the Hebrew text were not retrenched, but those of the Greek verfion exaggerated. Be the terms of the indictment, as framed by Jackfon and Kennicott, inverted, the following will be its tenor :

"THE tranflators at Alexandria had a mind to add one century to the ages of all the patriarchs before they begat children, and to fhorten in proportion the after-term of their lives: but they found, that, if they augmented the ages of Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech, before they begat children, (as they had done of all the reft), they must, by this reckoning, have extended these three lives beyond the Flood." Every competent and impartial judge, who weighs probabilities in an equal balance, will pronounce, without hesitation, that the Alexandrian Jews, biaffed by an attachment to an exorbitant chronology, added about fifteen centuries to the Mofaical numbers, with the view of fheltering the Hebrews from the fuppofed reproach of an upstart race, and a recent origin.

7. KENNICOTT feigns an imaginary motive which he thinks influenced the Jews of the fecond century. "Let it not be forgotten, that their plan was to bring back the birth of Jesus Christ from the vith to the ivth Chiliad, from about the year 5500 to 3760; in order to prove, that, at the birth of Jefus, the time for the Meffiah, was not then come *."

Gen. Differt. p. 32, and Remarks, p. 20.

THE

THE Jews were indeed inexpert chronologers, and the primitive Chriftians ftill lefs accomplished. The former anticipating the birth of Abraham by 60 years, and retrenching almost two centuries from the duration of the Perfian Empire, allow about 3760 years from Adam to our vulgar era. But these mistakes had no reference to the term fpecified for the advent of the Meffiah. Their computation was much more accurate than that of the Chriftian Fathers, prior to Jerom and Auguftine. If the birth of Chrift be brought into coincidence with 5500, the date exceeds the truth by almost 15 centuries, whereas, that affigned by the mafters of the fynagogue falls fhort by about 244 years. On the authority of tradition, they believed that the continuance of the world would be fix millenaries, divided into three equal periods, under the Patriarchs, the Law, and the Meffiah; and the viith millenary they characterised as fabbatical. This is the doctrine of their Gemara, or collection of traditions; but it certainly was much more ancient. The opinion is reported by Barnabas, the companion of the apostle Paul, and was maintained by others of the Chriftian Fathers even those of the FIRST century

8. HERE is direct hiftorical evidence, authenticating the adherence of the incredulous Jews of the FIRST century to the chronology of the Hebrew Pentateuch, in direct contradiction to thofe of the Chriftian Fathers, whose authority is alleged for the first introduction of

Bp. Watfon's Theological Tracts, vol. iii. p. 56.

the

t

the abbreviated reckoning in the SECOND century. The truth is, that the Chriftian Fathers were themfelves the heretics of that age, as far as the computation of times is concerned. Except on this one principle, the plenary inspiration of the Alexandrian interpreters, it never can be affirmed, that Jefus Chrift was born at Bethlehem in, or about, the year of the world 5500. The Hebrew notations connect this memorable event with the close of the ivth millenary. But if this latter date be rejected the attribute of inspiration is transferred from Moses to these interpreters,-a set of men whose names were never recorded in hiftory, of whose abilities their version gives a very contemptible specimen, and whose want of principle, in giving their fanction to the abfurd fictions of paganism, in oppofition to the authority of a venerable record, (which they were under facred obligations to translate with fidelity), tranfmits their infamy to all ages.

9. OBVIOUS are the reasons, which induced first the Hellenift Jews, and afterward thofe Chriftians who had abjured gentilifm, to prefer the Greek verfion of the Old Teftament to the original Hebrew. One motive, as felf evident, fuperfedes a train of arguments; both parties were totally ignorant of the language, in which the facred oracles had been compofed.

THE pofterity of thofe Jews, who accompanied Onias, the first high priest of the temple built in Egypt, like to that at Jerufalem, during the reign of Ptolemy Philometor, having acquired the Greek tongue, which had become vernacular over the whole Macedo

Egyptian