Way back in 1650 the Archbishop of
Ireland, James Ussher, calculated the date of the Creation to have been nightfall preceding 23
October 4004 BC. Often ridiculed today, Ussher represented the
best of scholarship in his time. He was part of a substantial research
tradition, a large community of intellectuals working toward a common goal
under an accepted methodology. It is interesting to revisit Ussher and to
update his analysis of the time interval between Adam and Jesus according to
the Bible.
Ussher's chronology represented a
considerable feat of literary scholarship: it demanded great depth of learning
in what was then known of ancient history, including the rise of the Persians,
Greeks and Romans, as well as expertise in biblical languages and an intimate
knowledge of the Bible itself. Ussher's account of historical events, for which he
had multiple sources other than the Bible, is usually in close agreement with
modern accounts -- for example, he placed the death of Alexander in
323 BC and that of Julius Caesar in 44 BC.
But Ussher's last extra-biblical
coordinate was the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, and beyond this point he had
to rely on other considerations. Faced with inconsistent texts of the Torah,
each with a different number of years between Flood and Creation, Ussher chose
the Masoretic version. Partly his reasons were sound scholarly ones --the
Masoretic text claims an unbroken history of careful transcription stretching
back centuries -- but his choice was confirmed for him because it placed
Creation exactly four thousand years before 4 BC, the generally accepted date
for the birth of Christ; moreover, he calculated, Solomon's temple was
completed in the year 3000 from creation, so that there were exactly 1000 years
from the temple to Christ, who was the fulfillment of the Temple. (adapted from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology, also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masoretic_Text).
In retracing Ussher's footsteps back
through time today, we probably ought not to rely on the Masoretic text (MT) of
the Hebrew Bible. Intuitively, 4004 BC is surely a tad too recent for many of
us students of the Bible. The oldest extant manuscripts of the Masoretic Text
date from approximately the ninth century AD. We do not have a copy of the
Hebrew Bible used by Jesus Christ and His Apostles, but it was probably a
version of the Greek Septuagint, (the LXX). (See http://www.setterfield.org/Septuagint_History.html). Dates derived from the LXX are
invariably older that the dates given in the MT! Our preoccupation today with
exact dates and precise times is part of our Western heritage handed down to us
from the Greeks. The Semitic peoples of the Middle East considered the quality of
time to be more important than the exactness of calendar dating, (http://ldolphin.org/time.html). The authors of the Old Testament
were not especially interested in exact dating. But let's see if we can update
Ussher, preferring the LXX to the MT when possible.
The late
Curt Sewell, a scientist at Lawrence Livermore Labs, compared various Bible
chronologies used today, (http://ldolphin.org/sewell/sewellchron.html). His helpful paper shows that
building a genealogy or a history time line from the Old Testament is a fairly
complex procyodan88@yahoo.com
ess.
Arthur Custance has shown that there
are probably no gaps in the genealogical record of the Bible connecting the
first man, Adam, with the "Last Adam," Jesus Christ. For a chart of this
lineage, with notes added from Custance, see http://ldolphin.org/2adams.html.
In summary, I believe the Old Testament writers, as well as the New, have shown
that the Two Adams are connected. "And so it is
written, 'The first man Adam became a living being.' The last Adam became a
life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and
afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the
second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those
who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are
heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear
the image of the heavenly Man." (1 Corinthians 15:45-49)
All said and done, the time period
between the first human, Adam, and Jesus, the "second" or last Adam,
lies somewhere between about 4000 to 8000 years. There is enough uncertainty in
some of the dates to be a bit tentative on this, however tens of thousands or millions of years,
is not
reasonable at all for the date of Adam. Adam did not live very long ago -- and
we humans are all the sons of daughters of Adam.
On the other hand, secular
scientists today insist that the universe is several billion years old. The
paradigm of a very old universe, which is almost universally accepted today,
came about during the Age of Enlightenment, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment). See my earlier discussion of the
age of the universe, http://ldolphin.org/Uage.html.
I am fascinated at how well the
results of analyzing data on the speed of light, c, have held up for more than
two decades now. It is not generally recognized that dating methods in
astronomy have historically been linked to dating methods in geology, and tied
to various radiometric dating methods. Just as the speed of light was assumed
to be a fixed constant of nature until fairly recently, so also all of the
various radiometric decay rates were at first thought to be invariant with
time. It turns out, however, that the speed of light, c, occurs in the
numerator of each equation (whether empirical or analytical) used for
calculating rates of radioactive decay. It is therefore now possible to compare
radiometric dates for events in history back to Adam with ordinary calendar
time.
For my everyday Bible study I use
Barry Setterfield's chronology. It is based on adjustments in an ordinary OT
chronology in dynamical or clock time from the Septuagint. The corresponding
"atomic time" date is shown in the far-right column. (Table Two in http://ldolphin.org/barrychron.html, see http://www.setterfield.org/ for details). I believe we can now
begin to correlate the known geological record with a reasonable time scale of
ordinary earth history, see http://setterfield.org/Bibleandgeology.html.
Why all the fuss? I believe there is
no need for us to make vague and nebulous statements about human history as if
it has all taken place over a time spans of millions of years. To my way of
thinking, human history encompasses less than 10,000 years in "real"
clock time. The homework assignment I leave for you, the reader, is to develop
your own Old Testament chronology starting with Jesus and going back to Adam.
Do your homework and tell me what you've found.
Consider how human history would
look if we could time travel back to Adam's time, and then step into the past
just a little bit further. We would encounter a major space-time disconnect at
the time of the Fall. Before the Fall (recorded in Genesis 3), Adam and Eve
lived in "eternity." So also, during creation week (Genesis One),
time as we know it now was not defined. The clocks which record real time did
not start until the work of creation was finished.
Construction sites are often
surrounded by a tall wooden fence for safety and security reasons. Sometimes
the contractor will leave open knot holes in the fence for passersby to peek at
what is going on inside. Genesis One resembles a peep hole in the fence of
creation so we can (as it were) watch God creating the universe outside of time
-- in six days. (See the following
short essays, http://ldolphin.org/approach.html, http://ldolphin.org/Unique.html, http://ldolphin.org/creationphysics.html, http://ldolphin.org/Introgen.html, http://ldolphin.org/genesis1.html).
I am not overly interested in
"proving" that the universe was created recently. It all depends on
the clock one uses. But I do suggest that we all should know the Old Testament
as well as the New. Consider the above study an extra-credit exercise for
students of the Bible.
by Lambert Dolphin
lambert@ldolphin.org
May 15, 2010.
Addendum: As
I had hoped, several people wrote me to send me useful comments on the problem
of Old Testament chronologies. The following is from the 2003 International Creation
Conference (ICCC) in Pittsburgh. Added June 5, 2010.
SEPTUAGINTAL VERSUS MASORETIC CHRONOLOGY IN GENESIS 5 AND 11
by J. A. YOUNG
MISSIONARY, GOSPEL RECORDINGS
28 HANO TRAIL
FLAGSTAFF, AZ 86001
KEYWORDS:
Archetype; Dead Sea Scrolls;
Deuteronomy 32; Genesis 5; Genesis 11; Masoretic Text; Samaritan
Pentateuch; Septuagint; Sexagesimal
numerical system; Textual criticism
ABSTRACT
As a result of analyzing the Dead Sea
Scrolls, numerous scholars have concluded that before the first century
standardization of the Hebrew
Masoretic text and the imposition of external rabbinical controls,
some scribes employed
text-correctional procedures, which are discoverable by comparing the extant
textual witnesses. An analysis of
three records indicates conscious harmonization of the chronological
data rather than accidental error,
perhaps in order to correct suspected errors or to conform to certain
theological views. Patriarchal ages
at death in Genesis 5 seem to have been recorded using the ancient
sexagesimal numerical system,
testifying to their great antiquity and providing a diagnostic test for
reported ages in other biographical
categories. Applying text-critical criteria to the evidence of the ages
at paternity in the three traditions
tends to the inference that the greater ages found in the Septuagint
may be more independent, older, and
possibly more original, with a stronger claim to authenticity than
the lower ages reported in the
Masoretic Text or the Samaritan Pentateuch.
INTRODUCTION
Our three major textual sources (the
Masoretic Hebrew text [7; 38], here referred to as "M"; the Greek
translation called the Septuagint or
LXX [2; 20; 38; 39], here referred to as "G"; and the Samaritan
Pentateuch [35; 38], here called "S")
differ in their presentations of pre- and post-Flood genealogical
chronologies. M reports only 292
years from the Flood of Noah to Terah's 70th year. Mysteriously, S
presents this period as 650 years
longer than that, with an interval of 942 years; yet G reports even
more time between these events: 1172
years. Thus, the Greek text presents a post-Flood period nearly
900 years longer than that reported
by M. Is there any textual evidence that the greater ages of G of
Genesis 5 and 11 could be more
original than the younger ages of M? While we do not yet possess
direct evidence that answers
unequivocally, with extant texts from the pre-Christian era we can now
engage this question.
Jesus Christ quoted Old Testament
Scripture as being authoritative, and referred to it as "the word of
God." In affirming Ps. 82:6, He said,
"The Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35). The same Holy
Spirit who verbally inspired the Old
Testament as originally given, also preserved it; but He did not
superintend the transmission of the
text in the same manner as He had its initial writing. The Bible, we
are discovering, has had a complex
history of transmission. The Lord Jesus and His apostles
encountered Old Testament textual
variants qualitatively similar to the ones we encounter. In Mark 7:10,
our record of Jesus' quotation of
Exodus 21:16 seems to use the Septuagint instead of the Masoretic
(21:17). He was confronted with
religious practice based on variants in the Samaritan Pentateuch (John
4:20) [35, Deuteronomy 27:4]. Yet He
and His followers unhesitatingly affirmed the authority of Scripture
[37]. In Matthew 5:18 (NASB), Jesus
said, "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not
the smallest letter or stroke shall
pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished." Unless He was
here teaching scribal infallibility,
He was surely not referring to the absolute perfection of the written
copies. He used similar language in
Matthew 24:35, declaring that His own words were as lasting as the
heaven and the earth—yet not in
written copies, for they were not then translated from the Aramaic and
written down, and in any case, we
have only a small part of His teaching. He is therefore probably
referring to the truth, moral
authority, and eternal force of His words, as enduring as those of the Old
Testament [10, pp. 46-47].
With the discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls ("DSS"), a new perspective has opened onto the history of
the text of the Old Testament. We now
have actual specimens of what have been called "proto-
Masoretic," "proto-Septuagint," and
debatably "proto-" or "pre-Samaritan," or "Samaritan-related" (here,
"pre-S") texts, from the centuries
before Christ [31, pp. 80-1]. It seems that between Malachi and Paul
there existed more than one textual
tradition with complex relationships. Analysis and evaluation of the
DSS have reinforced respect for M by
demonstrating that it was handed down virtually unaltered for a
thousand years. Scholars have also
gained a new esteem for G. Many now hold that the Greek
translation was based on an alternate
Hebrew textual tradition. The Greek translator of Genesis tried to
stay as close as possible to his
Hebrew Vorlage, the text before him, with a consistent word-equivalency
translation technique [32, p. 76].
Other G translators also followed their texts far more closely than had
previously been supposed [24, p. 14;
33, pp. 42,101-2, 210]. The working assumption that G in general
was a free-wheeling, innovative
translation of proto-M has become something of a "scholarly
anachronism." Rather, G in many
sections was a literalistic translation of a Hebrew text that differed in
some details from M [11, pp. 16-17].
As James Davila wrote, "The most important general implication of
the new Qumran material presented in
this study is that we must take the LXX of Genesis very seriously
as a source for a Hebrew textual
tradition alternate to the MT. We have strong reason to believe that
the translators of Genesis treated
their Vorlage with respect and rendered the Hebrew text before them
into Greek with great care and
minimal interpretation" [quoted in 11, p. 17].
Manuscript evidence. The Old Greek
was probably the earliest translation of the Old Testament. It is
thought that a recension was made at
the beginning of the first century before Christ, to harmonize it
more with proto-M, which the central
Jewish authorities preferred. G underwent a very complex history
of transmission and is possibly not a
unified entity, but originated in sections (the Pentateuch was
translated first, sometimes put at c.
280 BC) [14; 33, p. 101]. The textual variation found in G
manuscripts presents considerable
difficulty and challenge. Neither the respected Codex Vaticanus nor
the Sinaiticus is extant for
the relevant parts of Genesis; the G chronology has to depend on the
Alexandrinus, which in places carries textual corrections [44, p. 73]. But in spite of
the new recognition
of G's value for critical
reconstruction, M is usually thought to represent the best form of the text.
The
Hebrew Codex Leningradensis,
the basis of the Biblia Hebraica [7], was copied in AD 1008 [44, p. 10].
The oldest extant Samaritan
Pentateuch codex may be MS Add 1846 in the University Library in
Cambridge, copied before AD 1150 [44,
p. 47]. The preserved S texts reflect a form of the Hebrew script
which dates from Hasmonean times [31.
p. 82]. As has been fairly well established, the Samaritans
adopted a text that had been commonly
circulating in Palestine, which to a greater degree than either G
or M, was characterized by expansion,
insertion of parallel passages, and modernizing revisions [5,
p.141]. The three major sources, M,
G, and S, are thought to be representatives of textual traditions
perpetuated by three different
scribal groups [11, pp. 79-80]. The construction of an adequate theoretical
model explaining the relationships
between these presumably Exilic or post-Exilic traditions has been a
complex and contested issue. F.M.
Cross proposed a theory of local texts, S. Talmon focused on
groups that selected and conserved
them, and E. Tov emphasized the complexity of the textual
witnesses [6, p. 205-21; 11, p. 78;
44, p. 15; 26, p. 198; 29; 31, pp.14-15; 33, p. 81-85].
TEXTUAL TRANSMISSION
The earliest compositional stage of
the written text is not recoverable except by the conjectures of
literary critics based on literary,
archaeological, and philological considerations. Literary criticism has
led
to proposals purportedly dealing with
stages in the composition of the original, such as the
"Documentary Hypothesis," with which
we are not here concerned. Methodologically, textual criticism is
distinct, as it deals with the
subsequent transmission of completed literature, based on actual extant
writings. Some textual critics
propose reconstructions of the past, such as a pre-first-century Palestinian
plethora of uncontrolled and
unrelated texts, that are troubling to the ideal of a single inspired original
that was providentially and carefully
transmitted. More conservative thinkers shy away from proposing
such textual multiplicity and instead
propose grouping models to help explain the evidence of textual
witnesses. Some feel that the
combined evidence of major and minor sources points to only three
recensions of Genesis having ever
been made [11, p. 80].
Terminology. The original Pentateuch
could perhaps be thought of as a pre-Exilic text which we no
longer possess. We have few authentic
samples of pre-Exilic Scripture. Two tiny silver amulets were
found in a tomb in Ketef Hinnom in
1979. They are generally dated late seventh- or early sixth-century
BC, although an eighth- century date
has now been proposed [36] and carry the earliest attested Biblical
text, from Numbers, which is proto-M
[22, p. 84; 31, pp. 118, 379]. The archetype, which could be much
later than the original, is the
non-extant state of the text that textual criticism tries to reconstruct by
adjudicating between extant variants
[31, p. 167]. This archetype is the supposed parent of the large
branches, or hyparchetypes. A
hyparchetype is then the ancestor of any sub-branches that ostensibly
came from it. Sadly, in some cases,
no decision can be made as to which variant is probably prior, so
the archetype cannot be determined.
In others, the deducible archetype may not reach far enough back
into history; one can only say that
something is "more original" or "superior." In a very few, one can only
say that the archetype, the oldest
available reading, is still probably not the inspired original, for it has
evidently suffered some corruption.
Such situations are lamentable, for we have to remain in doubt
about the original reading [11, pp.
113-4]. Nonetheless, this need not undermine our trust that the
originals were divinely inspired.
In M, the Biblical Hebrew of the
entire Old Testament changes little in character, from the texts of the
oldest to the newest books. At some
stages in transmission, it is thought that the text was smoothed out
somewhat, rare constructions being
replaced with more common ones. In some spots, scribes are
thought to have supplemented phrases
in order to clarify, and removed phrases referring to cursing
God. Such alterations of the text
were made with the aim of preventing misunderstandings. The
observed editorial activity was in
many respects official, and may be traced to an early period [44, p.
112]. Editorial activity was more
pronounced in S and G than in M. 4QpaleoExodm shows us that most
of the expansionistic characteristics
associated with S were already present in the text they chose. An
earlier recensional layer was
subjected to later Samaritan sectarian alterations [33, pp. 38-41, 84,103;
43, p.101]. By the end of the first
century AD, the textual traditions "had become firmly anchored in
various socio-religious frameworks"
[31, p. 187]. The preferred proto-M text became established as the
canonical text of Rabbinic Judaism
[6, p. 216-7;14, p. 38]. The recovered Herodian Masada manuscripts
[27] and phylacteries from the first
revolt, copied before AD 73, all show evidence of external rabbinic
controls in their copying details
such as margins and spacing, and in their content, exhibiting in every
case the standardized M (Rabbinic)
text [5, p. 180]. The recovered Wadi Murabba'at materials from the
Second Revolt, copied before AD 135,
as well as phylacteries from Naal Se'elim, show standard
rabbinically-prescribed forms [23, p.
200]. At least nineteen fragmentary manuscripts of Genesis have
been recovered from Qumran. There are
also several copies of Genesis from elsewhere in the Judean
desert, which are later and conform
more closely to the official MT as we know it [23, p. 299].
Unfortunately, the only DSS fragment
directly recording the genealogies of Gen. 5 or 11 is a tiny piece
from a Late Herodian or post-Herodian
manuscript. 4QGenb has one word from Genesis 5:13 or 14, the
name of Cainan (qynn). The
text is proto-M [22, pp. 54, 141; 32, pp. 31-37].
Criteria. Once variants are collected
and collated, textual criticism considers the intrinsic probability of
the readings, using established
criteria [1; 17; 28; 31]. Numerous sorts of changes, both conscious and
unintentional, are considered. The
reading is preferred which would have been more likely to give rise to
the others. A more difficult reading,
one which is unusual, unfamiliar, or distinctive, is probably prior,
because a later change would tend to
be in the direction of "correcting" it, making it more familiar and
easier to understand (lectio
difficilior probabilior) [1, p. xi; 11, p. 20; 17, pp. 17, 73]. Since
difficult
readings can occur by mistake as
well, qualifications must be attached to this criterion [31, p. 302-5; 44,
p.119]. One type of textual
processing that results in variant readings is called harmonization, where
elements of two texts are brought
into harmony with each other by importing or exporting details from
one to the other [30, p.4]. This is a
widespread phenomenon in Biblical manuscripts. The differences in
degree of harmonization among the
three textual traditions probably reflect the textual hermeneutics of
the respective scribal groups [11, p.
84]. The pre-S and the proto-G scribal communities promoted the
insertion of harmonizing details far
more than the proto-M scribal groups [30, p. 15]. In general, M is a
conservative, persistent, and stable
text, and has been shown repeatedly to be the best and most
important witness to the ancient
Hebrew Bible. But it is not perfect; in places it has suffered corruption.
One example of a mistake that has
been retained in M is in the age of Saul at his accession. I Samuel
13:1 literally says: "Saul was one
year old when he began to reign; and he reigned two years over
Israel" [7; 31, p. 10]. The
uncorrupted original text would have had a realistic number for Saul's age.
The fact that this error persisted
shows that M conscientiously handed down a text, even though parts of
two numbers had dropped out. Since G
in this verse is also corrupted [7], the problem presumably
affected their common archetype. G
has a tendency to change chronological notices that were viewed
as problematic [43, p. 100], making
things explicit that were vague, etc. Nevertheless, in some
instances where M has been affected
by scribal errors, it is now commonly thought that G may preserve
superior readings, such as in Gen. 1:9
[11, p. 20].
Textual relationships. There is
evidence to commend the idea that G and S are two sub-branches of one
branch of the textual tree, where M
is the other branch [11, p. 98; 43, p. 101]. In Genesis 1-11, there are
no harmonizations in which M = G.
There are about twice as many instances in which S equals G, as
those in which S equals M [11, p.
97-100]. So, S has affinities to both M and G, but the affinities to G
are more pronounced. S and G share
major agreement on ages at paternity in Genesis 11. Arguably, S
revises G numbers in Genesis 5. All
this points to a common hyparchetype shared by G and S, proto-GS;
other data also indicate that M and G
belong to two distinct hyparchetypes, major branches of the
textual stemma [43, p. 101]. Sperber
hypothesized two pre-Exilic, or Monarchic, branches: Judah (M)
and Ephraim (S) [26, p. 180]. We
might call the two discernible hyparchetypes proto-M and proto-G-S.
A variant shared by S and G then
plausibly preserves their common hyparchetype; while a variant
shared by M and G plausibly preserves
the Genesis archetype. [11, pp. 64, 97]. A variant shared by S
and M, however, might well be
construed as S having been assimilated toward the emergingly dominant
proto-M. This suspicion means that
M-S agreement is not as strong an indication of the archetype as
instances where G = M [11, p. 99].
Example of Deliberate Theological
Correction
In order for us to appreciate the
reality of scribal intervention for theological reasons that has extended
even to the alteration of numbers, we
can look at an example from the Pentateuch that has DSS
attestation [24]. One intervention in
the "Song of Moses," Deuteronomy 32:1-43, has evidently given rise
to five other inter-related
corrections. In 32:8, M and S read: "When Elyon {the Most High} apportioned
the nations, When He distributed
humankind, He established the boundaries of the peoples, According
to the number of the sons of Israel"
(beně yisrael). Instead of reflecting "sons of
Israel," the Greek
witnesses read either "angels of God"
(aggelon theou) or "sons of God," (huion theou, Aquila, Cod. z,
Gott.) [28, p.194]. (The LXX
sometimes translates "gods" {'elōhim} euphemistically as 'angels', as in
Ps.
8:5; 96(97):7, and "sons of God" {beně 'elim, or beně 'elōhim} as 'angels', as in Job 38:7. Cf.
also Job 1:6
and 2:1 {oi aggeloi tou theou},
but Gen 6:2(3), Pss. 29:1, 89:7 {de huioi tou theou} and Ps. 82(81):6
[4,
pp. 291-294; 8, p. 78; 40, pp.
75-76]). The reading 'elōhim, "God," rather than yisrael, "Israel,"
is presupposed
in several early sources and referred
to as late as the medieval period. The Hebrew Vorlage
of G is now confirmed by DSS 4QDeutj, which preserves the phrase "sons of
God" (beně 'elōhim). This
is held by some to be the prior
reading [8, p. 78]. They think it more likely that a Hebrew reference to
"sons of God" was later suppressed for theological reasons, than that "sons of God"
would have been
substituted for "sons of Israel"
[1, p. 70; 23, p. 200]. The next verse, 32:9, does refer to Israel as a
nation. The two verses may have
originally alluded to the idea that although the nations have 'sons of
God' as rulers over each one of them
[18, p. 254], the children of Israel belong to Yahweh Himself; as
Ecclesiasticus (Ben Sira) 17:17 says (c. 190 BC), "Over every nation he places a
ruler, but the Lord's
own portion is Israel" [25, pp.
277-83]. However, instead of using the original term "sons of God," which
left the verse open to the
polytheistic interpretation that Yahweh was one of the sons of Elyon or
alluding
to the popular idea that every nation
had its own ruling angel (Jubilees 15:32)—it is thought that the
pious scribe changed 32:8 to read "sons
of Israel." He decided to allude instead to the people who had
entered Egypt with Jacob (Israel, and his family). It was commonly held that
Genesis 10 had described
seventy nations that had descended from the three sons of Noah [18, p. 254]. He
could harmonize
toward Deuteronomy 10:22, which put the
number of souls who had entered Egypt with Jacob at the
traditional seventy.
According to the Hebrew Old Testament
Text Project, a committee of six Old Testament scholars under
the direction of the late Dominique
Barthelemy, sponsored by the United Bible Societies, this change to
"sons of Israel" triggered a
series of other changes. The proto-M scribe deleted half a verse in Genesis
46:20, where G includes the names of
Joseph's three grandsons and two great-grandsons, five in all. In
verse 21, M presents Benjamin's
descendants in the same generation, whereas G has them in three
generations. In verse 22, the
presumably original 19 attested by G was reduced to 14 in M. The HOTTP
decided that in verse 27, and in
Exodus 1:5, M reduced the 75 people who entered Egypt with Jacob,
down to 70 [1, pp. 70-72, 88,
302-303]. The G total in Genesis 46:27, and in Exodus 1:5, is 75 persons.
In Acts 7:14, Stephen said, "After
this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventyfive
in all." The DSS manuscript 4QExodb also reads, "seventy-five" for Exodus
1:5 (mš wšb'ym, 'five
and seventy' [5, p. 136; 32, p. 85]
as does 4QGen-Exoda (šb'ym] wmš, '[seventy] and five') [32, pp. 18-
19]. Barthelemy noted that this
complicated intervention was costly, but for a serious motive:
suppressing possible polytheistic
overtones that were contrary to the principles of monotheism.
Observed text-editing efforts with
this goal have come to be called, "demythologizing." In this case, it
affected a number; M has arrived at a
reduced number. And in this case, G, propagated by a different
community, preserves the more
original, unedited texts.
BIOGRAPHICAL NUMBERS IN GENESIS 5
In Genesis 5 and 11, the three
witnesses differ in their "chronogenealogies," and the discrepancies have
caused considerable perplexity. If it
had been easy to discriminate between the textual traditions, a
definitive solution and consensus
would have been reached long ago; but it remains a thorny problem.
Recent discussion has reflected
varied positions and approaches [11, p. 62; 28, p. 302; 31, p. 337].
Larsson [16] and Williams [43] defend
the priority of M. According to Klein, followed by Hendel, the
systems of all three recensions are
secondary and derive from an original which had implied that three
patriarchs lived through the Flood
[11, pp. 61-69; 15, pp. 262-263; 31, p. 337]. Whitcomb and Morris [41,
p. 475] labeled G numbers as "obviously
false," referring to a study done by W. H. Green in 1890. But
Honeyman [12] supported a prior
status for the long chronology. Due to the systematic nature of the
variations, it is apparent that the
biographic data in the genealogies have been intentionally altered, and
that the basic strategy was either
adding or subtracting 100 years to/from life before paternity, and then
subtracting or adding 100 years
from/to life after paternity. To achieve this, a specific quantity, a hundred
(the Hebrew word mē'a),
was switched from one biographical category to the other, leaving the total
length of life unchanged. But the
question is, in which direction was the switching? One way, from prepaternal
to post-paternal, would shorten the
chronology; but the other way, from post-paternal to prepaternal,
would lengthen it. By comparing the
three witnesses, we can try to decide which process was
used.
Before son's birth After son's birth
Length of life
M S G M S G M S G
1 Adam 130 130 230 800 800 700 930
930 930
2 Seth 105 105 205 807 807 707 912
912 912
3 Enosh 90 90 190 815 815 715 905 905
905
4 Cainan 70 70 170 840 840 740 910
910 910
5 Maleleel 65 65 165 830 830 730 895
895 895
6 Jared 162 62 162 800 785 800 962
847 962
For the first five patriarchs in
Genesis 5, there is a clear, consistent pattern among the three: M and S
are 100 years shorter than G in years
of life before paternity, 100 years longer than G in years after
paternity, and agreed on the total
length of the patriarchal life [2; 7; 20; 35; 38; 39]. However, in Genesis
5:18-20, the pattern seen in the
first five patriarchs is broken for Jared. Here, uniquely, G and M agree
on a number, and it is large: he
lived 162 years up until the birth of Enoch [2; 7; 38; 39]. And they agree
that there were 800 years remaining,
for a total of 962 years. G and M therefore plausibly preserve the
archetype: 162. But independently, S
is still following its pattern. Regardless of M's witness, S alone
(echoed by Jubilees 4:15, c.160-140
BC), is 100 years shorter for Jared. He was but 62 years old when
his son Enoch was born. From this it
is more probable that S is reducing, than that G was adding, and
M also decided to add, in this
particular instance. This is a clear example of the process of subtraction
rather than addition. Here, where G
and M agree (so the probability is that the received numbers have
not been changed), a change was
unilaterally made in S--downward. But now a problem was created.
Jared lives so long that he survives
the Flood. S subtracts both 100 years from the age before
fatherhood and, unexpectedly, another
15 years from the life span after fatherhood, to get 785. Then, S
re-calculates a different length of
life, independently of M and G. So it is here that unanimity is broken,
and a length of total life is
changed, S reporting 15 years less than the others. A life span of 847,
instead of 962, results in Jared
dying in the same year as the S Flood, Anno Mundi (A.M.) 1307.
Before son's birth After son's birth
Length of life
M S G M S G M S G
7 Enoch 65 65 165 300 300 200 365 365
365
8 Methuselah 187 67 167 782 653 802
969 720 969
9 Lamech 182 53 188 595 600 565 777
653 753
In the seventh generation, Enoch's
pattern matches that of the first five patriarchs (Genesis 5:18-24).
Enoch had lived 65 years when
Methuselah was born, according to M and S, but G has 165, a hundred
years more. All three agree that he
lived 365 years. The years after the birth of the son were 200 by G,
but 300 by M and S, following the
previous pattern. Up until this point, the chronologies of the three
witnesses have been consistent except
for Jared. However, as we come closer to the time of the Flood,
the remaining patriarchs, Methuselah
and Lamech, exhibit the greatest discrepancies of the genealogy
in Genesis 5. M reports that
Methuselah lived 187 years before Lamech was born: wa-yei metu^šela
ševa' u-šemoni^m šana^h
u-mē'a šana^h ('And lived Methuselah 7 and 80 years
and 100 years', 5:25).
J.W. Wevers, who edited the Gottingen
Greek Pentateuch (an eclectic critical edition) believes, with
many others, that the original G
number was 167 (although—as his edition reports [39]—correctors and
some manuscripts recorded 187, as he
feels, to harmonize it with M) [15, p. 259; 20; 38; 43, p. 105,
n.20]. The number 167 is preserved in
the Codex Alexandrinus (although corrected to 187) and some
subsidiary copies; but other copies
report a G revision of 167 to 187 which is plausibly prehexaplaric [11,
p. 69]. In passing, we note that if G
had been looking at M's figures and changing them, it would not
make sense for G to adjust 20 years
here intentionally, from M 187 down to 167, when later correctors
desired to put it back to 187 (and
with good reason).
Greek 167 or 187? Long before the
Hexapla, the historian Demetrius (c. 220 BC) reported the Flood at
A.M. 2264, 22 years later than a
strictly G Flood at A.M. 2242 [9, p. 844; 40, pp. 72-3]. Demetrius
probably lived in Alexandria,
reasonably close to the time of the Greek Pentateuchal translation (c. 280
BC). Yet, he seems to have been
working from a G manuscript that reported 20 extra years, and so read
187 rather than 167 for Methuselah's
paternal age (similar to the Lucianic text which Josephus may
have used in Ant. 1.80-88 [15,
p. 259]), coupled with a 2-year tradition derived from Gen. 11:10 [9,
p.852]. This early evidence for a G
reading of 187 allows us to surmise either (a) that the G number 167
may have been harmonized upwards
toward M at a very early point in its transmission; or, (b) that at first
G might have reported 187, with M,
and 167 could be a somewhat later corruption in G (so thinks the
"Larger Cambridge" edition of G) [2,
p. 12]. For the first and only time, M reports a greater age at
paternity than G. The singularity of
this event seems to point to M's 187 as the archetype, and to 167 as
perhaps a copyist's error, but it
would be premature to accept that evaluation. Either proto-M already
had 187 for Methuselah in his
hyparchetype, or he had 167, and changed it to 187. He then would have
had to subtract 20 years from 802, to
get 782 in life after paternity, to maintain the life span unchanged.
G reports 802. If G scribes had seen
167 as an accidental corruption, at some point when correcting to
187, they would have adjusted the
original 782 upwards to 802, to keep the 969 life span. (Our possibly
corrected G texts that report 187,
also report 782 instead of 802 here). One of these two numbers, then,
182 or 802, is a secondary reading,
derived from a correction.
Dating for pre-S changes. Now, G's
Methuselah at 167 is still 100 years more than S's 67 years. S
here shows its dependence upon the
G number, which conjecturally is either a unique error that predated
his work; or an inherited error that
M also received; or else, the archetype. Pre-S was not
depending on the proto-M's 187, or he would either have come up with 87, or have
aligned himself with
M (as he did with Adam and Seth) and
not subtracted here at all, so retaining M's 187. This being so,
we could infer that the composition
of Jubilees 4:20, using the S chronology for Methuselah, would be
a
terminus ad quem witness as to when G's figure of 167 came into being, i.e., before
c.160-140 BC.
This, then, would outline the period
when the pre-S scribe was making his Methuselah revisions as pre-
Maccabean. These chronological
changes were then part of the earlier recensional layer of pre-S
produced well before the Hasmonean
period when increasing Samaritan estrangement from Judaism
encouraged their own sectarian
redactions (and culminated in the destruction of the Samaritan temple
by John Hyrcanus c. 128 BC) [6, pp.
200-201]. We will see some persuasive evidence that these pre-S
pre-Maccabean chronological revisions
were not made piecemeal, but in a single concerted effort.
Issues as the Flood Approaches
All of the witnesses agree that Noah
lived 950 years and that the Flood came in Noah's 600th year.
These unanimous numbers are
archetypal. Now, according to M, Lamech was 182 years old at the birth
of Noah. This plus 600 makes 782
years from Lamech's birth until the Flood. As this is exactly the
number of years that Methuselah lived
after Lamech's birth, Methuselah died in the year of the Flood.
But Lamech lived 595 years after Noah's
birth, so he died 5 years before the Flood. According to G,
however, since Lamech only lived 565
years after Noah's birth, he died 35 years before the Flood.
A major problem in the Greek
chronology. G's Lamech was 188 years old when Noah was born, so
from Lamech's birth to the Flood was
188 + 600, or 788 years. But—G's Methuselah lived 802 years
after Lamech's birth. This means he
lived for 14 years after the Flood! Since he wasn't on the Ark, this
obviously indicated an error. But
where the error lay was not clear. For G, these were the received
numbers, and these numbers were what
G transmitted, come what may.
A dismal solution. In S, Jared,
Methuselah, and Lamech, all die in the year of the Flood. Hendel,
following Klein, proposes that the
original of Genesis 5 had these three patriarchs all living through the
Flood. Pre-S made the minimum
adjustment necessary to solve these problems, independently of the
solutions of G and M. Proto-M solved
it well, adding 120 years to Methuselah and 100 years to Lamech;
but, inflexibly pursuing his addition
agenda, proto-G managed to solve it for only two of the three
patriarchs [11, p. 69; 15]. But this
solution is disturbing. It is not quite in keeping with the conservative
character of M to impute large
additions—20 perhaps, but 120? And, of course, it is manifestly
unsatisfactory to conservative
scholars to suppose that the original had three patriarchs who
were not
on the Ark, living through the Flood!
S on Lamech. Pre-S subtracted more
than the usual 100 from Lamech's age at the birth of Noah in
order to have him die in the Flood
year. By this analysis, he was looking at his proto-G-S figure 188,
and subtracted 135 years, to come up
with 53. If he needed to further shorten Lamech's life, why did he
subtract the amount of 35 in addition
to the usual 100 years? Possibly, because G's Lamech had died
35 years before the Flood (pre-S
harmonizing paternal age, by reminiscence of the proto-G-S period
between his death and the Flood).
Thus pre-S arrived at an age of 53 for Lamech when Noah was born,
and an age of 653 when he died in the
year of the Flood. Working backwards from Lamech, pre-S knew
that the Flood would come 653 years
after Lamech's birth. So Lamech's father Methuselah could live at
most 653 more years after Lamech's
birth. However, this meant changing Methuselah's total life span,
for 67 before paternity + 653 after
paternity gives 720 in all, not 969; and that is the age pre-S gives. In
this derived life span S again stands
alone, against the plausible archetype 969 of both M and G.
In the case of Methuselah, Klein and
Hendel posit that the young age for Methuselah reported by S, 67,
is the archetype, because they are
expecting G to have added 100—but normally G would have
presumably added to M, which has 187,
not to S. They propose a similar situation for Jared, so that in
spite of strong M-G agreement, S
preserves the archetype. They propose that most of the archetypes
were small numbers, on the basis of
regularity of small numbers. Thus M added 120 years to an
originally small 67, to delay the
onset of the Flood so that Methuselah would die in the year of the Flood
[11, p. 66; 15, p.261]. But not only
is it unsatisfactory to propose that the conservative M decided to add
120 years; one has to propose that G
also independently decided to add 100 (and, arriving at 167,
caused itself much grief). If M and G
are both therefore secondary, implausibly, the strong and ancient
M-G agreement on a larger number is
be set aside in order to give archetype status to the much later
pre-S.
Use of an Ancient System of
Numeration
In addition to partially concurring
with other ancient documents which weakly point to ancient longevity
such as the Sumerian King Lists [4,
vol. 1, pp. 257, 262], the great ages of the patriarchs dimly reveal
the Sumerian sexagesimal numeration
system. This was a very old system of counting, used during
3000-2000 BC and probably before,
based on the number 60 (primarily thought of as 5 x 12). It would
have been natural to count this way.
The universe was created in 6 days. The year was thought to have
360 days, 12 months of 30 days, with
more or less 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. Five
played a subsidiary role as a
counting unit, since we have 5 fingers. From this system we have inherited
12 months in the years, 60 minutes in
the hour, and 360 degrees in a circle. The practice of counting by
60's is akin to other groupings, or
bases, by which things can be counted. For instance, we are still
familiar with a "dozen",12, and a "score",
20. According to the Sumerians, what we would call a
"lustrum," five years, which is
one-twelfth of sixty years, is a basic counting unit of sixty months. Sixty
years (twelve periods of five years)
form a time unit called a šūš; ten šūš, 600 years, equal a nēr; sixty
šūš, 3600 years, equal a šar; and sixty šar, 216,000 years, equal a great šar (šūš-šar) [4, p. 258].
Patriarchal life spans in Genesis
appear to have been initially recorded using large sexagesimal
numbers. This circumstance indicates
the purity and antiquity of Moses' source of information. White
notes, "The appearance of the large
sexagesimal numbers in the early chapters of Genesis proves
beyond a shadow of a doubt the
antiquity of the text or literary tradition utilized by Moses" [42, p. 459].
We do not say here that an alien and
artificial system was schematically imposed on the patriarchal
data, invalidating their actual ages;
but rather, that their true ages may initially have been based on this
system of counting. The last vestige
of counting by 60's was passed on in the Seleucid era, and then
forgotten [42, p. 454].
For Judaism, the Creation number, seven,
was a sacred number, signifying completeness, entirety, and
sufficiency. Some groups considered
it a holy number with cosmic significance. Interest in this number
extends far back before the inter-testamental
period (when we see it flowering in numerological
schemes and apocalypticism) [13; 18;
34]. In the more distant past it was also special to other ancient
Eastern civilizations. For instance,
the Sumerian King List (W.B. 444) states that the total length of the
monarchic period preceding the flood
was a "great šar plus seven šar" (241,200 years). This section of
the SKL came from a mythological epic
from Eridu, so we see its great antiquity [4, vol. 1, pp. 257-8].
All numbers of 800 and over in the
chronology are divisible by 60, with a remainder that is divisible by 5
or 6 (optionally, plus 7 or 14). All
the numbers that are reported in the G chronology, with the exception
of two, are either exact multiples of
5 (5n), or else multiples of 5 plus 7 (5n + 7), or in one case,
plus 14
(2 x 7). The dual structure of the
lustrums in the sexagesimal system, plus the perfective seven from the
Creation story, is carefully
maintained [4, vol.1, pp.12-15, 258-64]. One researcher says, "The scheme
cannot possibly be accidental" [42,
p. 459]. The numbers given in all biographical categories, all fit this
pattern, with some notable
exceptions.
The numbers for the life spans from
Adam to Methuselah are identical for M and G. They are all either
multiples of five, or multiples of
five plus seven, or (in the case of 969) plus fourteen. In terms of
probability, in any series of ten
figures above 20 (e.g. 20... 29), five figures are going to conform with the
formula (e.g. 20, 22, 24, 25, 27), so
the probability of ten out of ten numbers conforming to the formula is
(1/2)10 = 1 in 1024.
Adam, 930, is (5 x 186) Seth, 912, is
(5 x 181) + 7 Enosh, 905, is (5 x 181)
Cainan, 910, is (5 x 182) Mahalaleel,
895, is (5 x 179) Jared, 962, is (5 x 191) + 7
Enoch, 365, is (5 x 73) Methuselah,
969, is (5 x 191) + (2 x 7)
BUT: Lamech at 753 doesn't
work. Lamech at 777 is (5 x 154) + 7 Noah, 950, is (5 x 190)
Of all the reported numbers in
Genesis 5, in any biographical category, for any tradition (54
unique
numbers), the only exceptions to this
system are: (1) G's problem number 188 for Lamech's age before
Noah's birth and (2) G's resultant 753
for Lamech's total age (which precipitated the unfortunate series
653 and 53 associated with the pre-S method of fixing Lamech and
Methuselah). Setting these four
numbers aside, the probability of 50
numbers out of 50 conforming to the formula is (1/2)50.To one who
understood this system, Lamech's
failure to fit this pattern was another indication (along with the
problem of Methuselah outliving the
Flood) that G numbers close to the Flood were somehow corrupted
and inauthentic. The failure of 188
to fit the pattern could well have seemed diagnostic to a proto-M
reviser, failing to support it as
original. One who knew the system would reject 188, 753, 653, and 53.
G, or proto-G, or proto-G-S, had made
or encountered a blunder, and in trying to repair it did not
recognize the number system being
used. But we must also understand the possibility that a corruption
had come into proto-G-M, the
archetype, so that M also encountered the number 188 and attempted to
repair it.
Objections. It could be objected that
there are several ways of finding a system in the numbers, such as
dividing by 40 combined with a
multiple of 5 with some additions of 2, or two 2's. Although the factors
can be combined in different ways,
and, of course, there are several instances of the number 40 in
Scripture—such as 40 years of
wandering in the wilderness—there appears to be no historically
demonstrable numeration system to the
base 40, as opposed to 60, or intrinsic interest in 2 as opposed
to the Torah's emphasis on 7. It is
usually harder to devise a system with larger factors, such as 60, than
with smaller factors, such as 40. And
since 7 = 5 + 2, one can easily divide a remainder of 7 by another
5, and get a remainder of 2.
Interestingly, though, the number 188 fails that test as well: it is (4 x 40) +
(5 x 5) +3, not 2. We might
conjecture that in the diagnostic system, a major authentic sexagesimal
number (divisible by 60) is either
perfectly divisible by 60 (such as 600), or if not, it should have a
remainder which is at least 5 (large
enough to be divided by 5, 6, or 7); so that a remainder of only 2
would be suspect.
Rounding. We can tell from a number
such as the age of Enosh at 905 years, that rounding in our
modern decimal sense, which seeks to
avoid fives, was not used. But whether the ancients rounded
towards sexagesimal numbers, or
toward those plus 7, we are not in a position to determine with any
assurance. However, it could be that
when patriarchal ages were known precisely (so many years and
so many months) the nearest number
conforming to the (5 x z) + (7 or 14) formula would be considered
'round'. To eliminate the months, one
can either round up or down. Nearly all numbers could be
rounded up or down to a whole number
that would be in conformity with this formula.
Repairing 188. The hypothesis that M
repaired Lamech's age by subtracting 6, is strengthened by
seeing that such a move would have
restored the basic pattern, making it a multiple of five, plus seven:
182, (5 x 35) + 7, satisfies it.
Alternatively, we have the possibility that 182 was the original number.
We may still wonder, though, if G's
802 is a superior sexagesimal number: 60 x 13 + (5 x 3) +7. M's 782
is so close to a multiple of 60 (60 x
13 = 780), that its remainder, 2, is not divisible by 5. Be that as it
may, if we conclude that M worked
from 188 to solve an inherited problem of Methuselah outliving the
Flood, then we see that M's superior
plan successfully repaired everything and maintained this ancient
pattern. If anyone had invented a
plan of subtracting or adding a number such as 99 or 103, the pattern
would have been broken and the
numbers would have been suspect. A simplifying suggestion is to think
that M had the correct archetypal
number for Methuselah, 187, which had not been corrupted in his
hyparchetype; so that, supposing he
had received 188 for Lamech, he only had to correct that one
number (setting aside for the moment
the possibility that he had tried to correct both 188 and 167). On
what basis could we suspect that M
corrected 188 to arrive at 182? Why not just assume that 182 is the
original archetype? M's figure of 777
for Lamech's total age is composed of 182 + 595, and we could
doubt 595 on the grounds that 600 was
reduced to save Lamech from the possible ignominy of it being
surmised that he died in the Flood.
We might also be slightly suspicious that M has also fiddled with 188
and adjusted Lamech's life after
paternity. One reviewer suggested that this was done to reach a
number, 182, divisible by 7 (which
would indicate late editing). With these changes, Lamech's life span
reaches the arresting figure of 777
(which fits the pattern). The values for Lamech's life span are
arguably secondary in M and S. M and
G agree on the figure 700. Of the two, we could prefer G's 753
years, surmising that most plausibly
G preserves the archetype for Lamech's life span, as it has
constantly done in every other total
age [11, p. 67; 15, p. 261]. However, since 753, like 188, does not
fit the pattern, we could regard it
as corrupted.
We could suppose that earlier than
the time of the Maccabees, a proto-M reviser from the central Jewish
authorities knew about the underlying
system. He looked at the received protoo-G-M, the archtype, and
suspected that 188, Lamech's age at
Noah's birth, was the corrupted number, the very one which
resulted in Methuselah living through
the Flood. Since he, with his hyparchetypal 187 already had, or
had achieved, 20 more years for
Methuselah, the problem he faced was not as severe as the problem
that G had, on the basis of 167. Lamech's
188 plus Noah's 600 gave 788 years to the Flood, but the M
Methuselah had lived 782 years after
Lamech's birth. When M subtracted 6 years, shortening Lamech
from 188 to 182, Methuselah, who
still lived 969 years, died in the year of the Flood.
M on Lamech's life span. However,
with Lamech, for the first and only time, the proto-M reviser broke
the rule about not changing the total
life span of a patriarch. All the other life span figures had been held
in common with G. But now G had a
problem that made its 753 unreliable. On the basis that 753 did not
fit the pattern, M may have felt it
had to differ. The net effect was to increase G's figure of 753 by 24
years to 777. It has been suggested
that the possibly schematic figure of 777 was a secondary number
influenced by reminiscence of the
fate of the other Lamech in Genesis 4:24, whose vengeance is 77-fold
compared to Cain's 7-fold [11, p. 66;
15, p. 261]. But perhaps the 24-year difference is not as arbitrary
as it seems, and not the result of a single
calculation. We could speculate that, having reduced 188 to
182, it may have been seen as
necessary to reduce the G 753 years by 6 years to 747. Then, M may
have gone to the years of Lamech's
life after Noah's birth, and have raised the long chronology figure
565 by 30 to 595. 182 + 595 gave the
perfect number 777 for the last of the pre-Flood patriarchs. The
finality of Lamech's existence is
emphatic and conspicuous by the way M states his age: "And all the
days of Lamech were seven and seventy
and seven hundred, and he died."
On the other hand, the pre-S reviser
had, unsuspectingly, relied heavily on the G number 188 for the
number of years Lamech had lived
before the birth of Noah. He was probably unaware of the
sexagesimal numerical system underlying
all these numbers, for he ignored it. Subtracting 100 had kept
within the system; but his revisions
dealing with the Flood problem, presumably unknown to him, did not.
S's subsequent derivations, 53 and
653, like the G 753 they derive from, fail the internal system's test
for authenticity. But M's 182 passes
the test. Instead of relying on 188, he corrected it toward the
underlying system (i.e., he
harmonized it), by subtracting 6, which otherwise seems an odd thing to do,
unless he was accidentally or purposefully
trying to assimilate toward Methuselah's remaining years,
782 [11, pp. 67-68]. We note that G
would have had little motivation to intentionally add 6 to M's 182 and
create or worsen a big problem, but M
had good reason to subtract 6 from a received 188 for Lamech,
and solve a problem that had led to a
contradiction.
If this conjecture is right, the S
revision was responding to a prior and parallel process of revision of M's
Hebrew text. If M had corrected 188,
then 188, the difficult reading, was prior to M's solution, 182, and
G's hyparchetype here is prior. We
could infer on that basis that G's 188 would be the archetype; but of
course, if it is an error, as both S
and M seemingly suspected it was (trying to fix it in two different ways),
it is not the original. Our
notion of archetype, however, can be separated from the original by
hundreds
of years. If so, this unfortunately
corrupted archetype, similarly to that of I Samuel 1:13, would indicate
that the transmitted text had
suffered early accidental corruption in this particular number.
Various Solutions
Compared to G, the Samaritan is
exactly 100 years lower for eight of the nine periods of life before
paternity, and 135 years lower for
Lamech, to result in being 935 years shorter in Genesis 5. S never
agrees with G, but in Jared and Methuselah it evinces literary dependence on
the Hebrew behind G, or
on the prior proto-G-S, by
subtracting from it. By identifying the process as one of subtraction from
G, a
picture emerges as to the textual
situation with the chronologies which differs from what one sees when
the presumption is that M's lower
figures are prior to G's.
S changed toward M. Of course, any
attempted solution, or historical reconstruction of events, is
hazardous and conjectural. One
proposal was that in the first century AD, M reduced its chronology, as
a Pharisaic/Rabbinic reaction to the
claim of Jesus to be the Messiah (so the time for the Messiah would
not seem to be just then) [3, p. 57].
However, because of Jubilees, which is almost exactly like the S
chronology from Adam to Methuselah
(in the end, differing by only one year) [11, pp. 69-70], we know
that S's chronology existed well
before the first century. Rather than supposing that the preferred and
dominant proto-M harmonized toward
what could have been a somewhat less culturally esteemed pre-
S, and at such a late date, pre-S is
more likely to have earlier harmonized toward the ascendant proto-
M, as can be seen in other sections
of Scripture [11, p. 99; 33, pp.38-41, 103]. Thus in Genesis 5, S
agrees with M in 6 cases over against
G: for the first five patriarchs, and Enoch. The reductions that S
made, and the scheme S used, were not
randomly chosen. The S chronology became not merely
shorter, but purposefully aligned more
with M in this chapter. Pre-S was harmonizing toward the proto-M
chronology in the choice of scheme.
So M's numbers were already smaller well before the time of the
Maccabees and Jubilees. Pre-S
evidently tried to provide a tertium quid between the long chronology it
had inherited and the prestigious,
already shorter chronology of the central Jewish authorities. It may
have been influenced in the invention
of its system by the scribal and hermeneutical religious circles
within Judaism who were meticulously
perpetuating the proto-M.
Solutions with additional
assumptions. Many who have thought about this question have incorporated an
assumption in their thinking: that
proto-G and proto-S revisers were quite concerned about how old
someone should have been when they
begot (instead of being concerned mainly about fidelity to a
received text and making repairs in
presumably damaged sections). On this assumption, many have
proposed a process of G sporadically
adding to M; for example, G adding 100 years whenever the
426
Hebrew states that a patriarch begat
his first son before an age of, say, 150. They similarly propose that
S reduces by 100 the three who begat
after an age of, say, 150. These solutions are inadequate to
explain features such as why in
Genesis 11 G adds 50 only in the case of Nahor, how S arrives at odd
numbers such as 67 and 53, or why S
reports smaller paternal ages before the Flood than afterward.
Genesis 11. In Genesis 5 we saw (most
easily with Methuselah and Jared) that the basic pattern was
that pre-S systematically subtracted
100 from proto-G (or from their shared hyparchetype), and arrived
at a figure for age at paternity
aligned with M; then, with respect to proto-G, it added 100 in the life after
paternity, so it could equal M there,
and keep the total life span unchanged. But in Genesis 11, pre-S
changes course, and does an
about-face. Here S is aligned with G in every case, from Shem to Terah,
for the age at paternity. Since we
think that pre-S was working from proto-G, it appears that pre-S
decided not to change its
received hyparchetypal post-Flood numbers. In Genesis 11 M is precisely 100
years lower than both G and S from
Arphaxad to Serug, and fifty years lower than both of them for
Nahor. In the life after paternity
category, however, the pre-S reviser not only stops, but reverses his
approach completely, and instead of
adding to G's figure, he subtracts; and not only from the parent,
proto-G, but from both G and M, who
are here in very close agreement, defiantly steering his own
course. (If instead we supposed that
pre-S had been dependent on proto-M, and added 100 to equal
proto-G, he could have just retained
the life after paternity numbers of M, which come close to or equal
G. But clearly, he didn't want to
equal G—he had a different agenda.) There are evidently a few copying
problems in the ages of life after
the birth of the son. Yet we can see the new approach: S aligns solidly
with his hyparchetype G on age at
paternity but tries to reduce his figures for life subsequent to
fatherhood. However, we have to put
into this picture the news that in Genesis 11, S has independently
interpolated the category of life
span, harmonizing the form of the genealogy towards Genesis 5. S
calculated and inserted numbers for
the total lengths of life in an expansion of the text that neither G nor
M has. S adjustments to the lengths
of life after paternity must therefore have much to do with a pre-S
desire for the total life spans to be
shorter than both M and G would have said if that category had been
included.
The overarching pre-S agenda. Whereas
the S antediluvian chronology was 349 years shorter than M
(1307 compared to 1656 years), its
chronology from Arphaxad to Terah's 70th year, in Genesis 11, is
about 650 years longer (940 to
290 years). In the matter of ages at paternity, why did pre-S decide to
stop harmonizing toward M, and simply
adopt the G chronology wholesale (except for Cainan)?
Perhaps he was working backwards. Perhaps
he was not worried about trying to change the length of
the post-diluvial period in Genesis
11 at all, but, looking back, he was concerned about Genesis 5. He
wanted to harmonize the ages toward
M, but shorten that period to a pre-determined extent. The total of
the S antediluvian period (1307
years) plus 2 years after the Flood until the birth of Arphaxad (Genesis
11:10) [43, p. 98], plus the S
post-diluvial period (940 years) is 2249 years. According to Jubilees (which
in other respects depends on the
pre-S chronology, so, perhaps here also), we learn that Adam was in
the Garden of Eden for seven years (Jub.
3:17). If we subtract 7 from 2249 we arrive at the precise G
figure for the date of the Flood,
A.M. 2242. There is a carefully-established relationship of S to G. Pre-S
did not want to change paternal ages
in chapter 11, but considered lowering them in chapter 5. If pre-S
had started with proto-G-S's total of
2242, added 7 years for Eden, and subtracted his 942 years for
chapter 11, he would have known that
he could make exactly 1307 years' worth of subtractions in
paternal ages in chapter 5 to
establish this relationship between his new chronology and the proto-G-S
that it developed from. Now we see why
pre-S determinedly subtracted 100 from Jared anyway, even
though M did not; he had another
agenda in the background that propelled him onward. But in achieving
his overarching agenda, he was
remarkably successful, and all concerned may have felt quite satisfied.
We, too, may feel satisfied with this
clarity in seeing what pre-S was doing. There was just one
imperfection: the system failed to
meet the strict requirements of the hexadecimal-plus-seven system.
Since neither pre-S nor proto-G seem
to have tried to meet those requirements, I suggest that only the
keepers of the scrolls in Jerusalem
really understood it. G had thrown up its proverbial hands and just
decided to keep its ancient error.
Pre-S had valiantly and brilliantly fixed it, yet there was something
amiss. But when M made its
adjustments, they were closer to perfection, just like Lamech's total age;
and rather difficult to trace.
Did proto-M reduce? But what, then,
about the proto-M? It is thought to have followed a separate
hyparchetype. Just because pre-S
lowered its proto-G-S ages to align itself more with proto-M's lower
ages, does not necessarily mean
that earlier M had done exactly the same thing, and invented that
mē'a-switching system; although we could wonder. Whereas S consciously and
demonstrably reduced
the larger numbers, and we find M
matching the same pattern in some of its numbers, we could be
suspicious of those smaller numbers, a
posteriori. It is just possible that pre-S could have borrowed M's
formula and partaken of M's motives
in Genesis 5. Two possibilities seem to be the best candidates. (a)
M's mostly lower, inconsistent ages
at paternity are original, but in the distant past, perhaps at the point
when these two hyparchtypes diverged,
an effort at textual inflation created the G-S hyparchetype
chronology, which pre-S subsequently
partially deflated. (b) The proto-G larger ages at paternity reflect
427
the original, which first proto-M
reduced, in stages, and then pre-S, echoing M's precedent, also
reduced, but all at once and even
more systematically.
Irregular order. The argument for (a)
may be stated as follows. Of the three traditions for which we
possess witnesses, M is the most
inconsistent. Ages at the birth of a son fluctuate wildly, varying by
approximately a hundred years: M
reports Mahalaleel, 65; Jared, 162; Enoch, 65; Methuselah, 187;
Lamech, 182. It seems to combine some
of the large figures with some of the smaller ones, but
haphazardly, not in an immediately
obvious, rational order [40, p. 73]. This irregularity leads some
scholars to surmise that no schema can
be detected. They feel that because the order is irregular, no
schematizing alterations were
superimposed; it bespeaks originality. This perception of a difficult reading
links with an inability to think of
any compelling reason why something irregular should have replaced
something that was already fairly
regular. But sometimes, irregularities lead to the recognition of
disturbances in a text, such as
interpolations or displacements [44, p. 117]. When faced with the
contrast of a harder and an easier
reading, with certain caveats (hesitating to give preference to a
reading that makes no sense, for
instance), one prefers the reading that is more difficult, from a
viewpoint of subject matter or
linguistics [1, p. xi; 17; 31, pp. 302-5]. Accordingly, unresolved problems
or irregularities can indicate
originality. The invocation of inconsistency, though, as an
argument for
originality, tries to make a virtue
out of what would otherwise be problematic, namely, that in real life,
sons tend to have grandsons at more
or less the same ages in life as their fathers did. The burden of
proof on those who claim irregularity
as one of their best arguments for originality, is to show that no
disturbances have taken place in the
text. The proposition of several different recensional efforts applied
to specific patriarchs for specific
reasons, but leaving others untouched, would produce irregularity; so
the argument of inconsistency is
weakened.
Various recensional efforts. We could
conjecture that proto-M's process of subtracting 100 years was
possibly individually applied to
Enoch, the 7th from Adam. Even before the Maccabean period, much
effort was put into transcribing the
many traditions about Enoch, heavily influenced by Babylonian
astronomical and cosmological lore
re-contacted in the Exile [13; 18; 19; 25, p. 498-9; 34; 40, pp. 71-2].
We also know that the position of the
seventh generation was very important [21]. Separately, a
reduction may have been applied to
the first five patriarchs en masse, conceivably as a precautionary
measure to suppress any potential
polytheistic inferences. A two-step process for Genesis 5 would
explain how it managed to skip the 6th generation, Jared. In M, Jared
retained his original large age at
paternity. He was not reduced because
there was no pressing reason to reduce him that could
overcome a natural strong reluctance
to emendation. The M conservative reluctance to change also
stopped the 100-year-reduction
process from being applied to the last two, Methuselah and Lamech,
thus preserving the evidence for us.
Problem and motive. M's extremely
short chronology in chapter 11 has what could be seen as a
problem of overlapping generations.
All of the post-diluvial patriarchs including Noah are alive when
Abraham is born. Noah does not die
until Abraham is nearly 60. Three of them (Shem, Shelah, and
Eber) live longer than Abraham does,
and Shem is still alive when Jacob is an old man. If this is
accepted as having constituted a real
problem, there is no easily-identifiable motive for proto-M to have
reduced the numbers and created it,
so that argues for M's authenticity. However, if it is seen as a real
problem, and if it is proposed that M's
numbers are the original ones, then the archetype as a whole is
deeply flawed [11, p. 71], which is
not very flattering to the Biblical text. On the other hand, if it was not
seen as a problem, proto-M could have
actually liked that situation. He may have wished to have them
seem more normal, and bring
post-Flood patriarchs closer to the present day. From the outset postdiluvial
ages at paternity in M are young,
starting with Arphaxad: 35, 30, 34, 30, 32, 30, 29. In complete
contrast to chapter 5, these M
numbers are, humanly speaking, reasonable paternal ages, and show
great consistency (and so, conjecturally, could be schematized)—except
for Terah, who suddenly
seems unaccountably old. But then,
the age of 70 years has unanimous support, and therefore was
probably not tampered with. A strong
motive for wanting younger ages at paternity, wherever that could
be done (and it could not be done
with Terah, who figures in the next story), is that Genesis is just about
to launch into the story of Abraham.
A key element in his story is that it is unusual and difficult to sire a
child at an old age, especially with
an old wife. So in Genesis 11, there was a strong motive for
reduction for M, and the argument
from irregularity cannot be employed.
G presents the archetype? The
arguments for (b), i.e. in favor of G embodying the archetype, might be
as follows. Adam, Seth, Noah, and
Shem are unanimously attested at 100 or more; and Terah also has
unanimous support at 70. Not one
age under 70 has unanimous support. However, there are several
great ages at paternity of 100 or
more, meaning that they share the Hebrew word mē'a), which by M-G
agreement are probably archetypes:
for Jared, Methuselah and Lamech they agree on the 100 (differing
only in the units or the tens
figures). None of the younger ages enjoy that mutual agreement and are
thus clearly archetypal, until one
arrives at the very end of the two lists (and 70 is not very young). With
428
seven clearly archetypal ages including mē'a compared to one archetypal
small number lacking it (and
that not very young, and at
the end), it would seem unwise to rule out the possibility that the rest
of the
archetypal numbers are also large,
not small. In favor of G is the fact that for nine out of ten life spans in
Genesis 5, possibly ten out of ten, G
preserves the archetype. G seems more natural in ages at
paternity that don't radically bob up
and down. The greater ages more majestically reflect the
sexagesimally-oriented milieu of
ancient times, saying more effectively, "Long ago, they lived longer
than you do, but they were not gods."
An early G inflation? Suppose,
though, that we wanted to argue that proto-G-S changed most of its
numbers upwards from small originals.
If this inflation occurred at all, it would have had to be in the far
distant past. It would have had to be
well before the time of the Maccabees, because S depends on it,
and that is attested by Jubilees.
But any inflation could have been much older than that. It would be
precarious to surmise that G
translators introduced a wholesale change in numbers at the time of
translation. (1) It has been shown by DSS studies that they were normally faithful to
their Hebrew text,
even literalistic, and careful. (2)
The dependence of Hebrew S on the longer chronology as evinced in
Jared and Methuselah, and Genesis 11,
indicates the existence of the longer chronology in Hebrew,
which tells us it was probably in the
pre-Greek phase of G. It also seems clear from the DSS that after
the G translation was made in
Alexandria, its Hebrew Vorlage, proto-G, continued to circulate in
Palestine, for it appears at Qumran.
Such a major discrepancy between the Hebrew and its Greek
translation would have been noted and
would have cast doubt on the translation, but it enjoyed
popularity among Greek-speaking Jews
(including the apostles). (3) To solve the problem of
Methuselah outliving the Flood, in a
simple manner, G's Lamech could have been at least 14 years older
at the birth of Noah, thus making the
Flood later; or, Methuselah could have lived 14 years less after
Noah's birth. J. W. Wevers wrote: "It
can be safely concluded that Gen [the LXX Genesis translator] had
another chronology in the background.
It was not the product of his imagination, since he would
obviously have made one that was
exactly right" [40, p. 73]. G's chronology certainly existed in the third
century BC, and may have existed in
the fourth. We have some direct evidence for the existence of the
proto-G text perhaps not long after
400 BC. The Chronicler often used an edition of Samuel which was
closer to the tradition of 4QSama, related more to the Hebrew text
underlying G than to that which
survived in M [5, p. 139]. Since the
Chronicler used proto-G or proto-G-S, we could conjecturally push
its arrival back into the fifth
century BC, or even earlier than that.
The Superior Reading
The solution of a textual problem
indicates secondary revision. Applying this view, we can see that at
least in the case of Lamech, proto-G
was faithfully preserving an ancient error. This can be seen as
having been successfully corrected by
proto-M, and somewhat inadequately corrected by pre-S. If that is
accepted, G's figure for Lamech is
more likely to have been prior, and likely preserves the damaged
archetype. Although damaged, it is
still clearly a large number, the 100, the Hebrew word mē'a, being
preserved. There remains the
possibility that in very early times, the paternal ages of numerous
patriarchs of proto-G-S, including
the first five, were inflated, each by a hundred, but proto-M's were not.
In the sixth patriarch, though, the
fog lifts: G and M both preserve the archetype, and it is a larger
number, not a smaller one. M also
agrees that the archetypal ages for Methuselah and Lamech, even
though at the end of the Genesis 5
list, were great, not small; in fact, oddly, even greater than the ages
closest to Creation for Adam and
Seth. M's longevity and age at paternity (improbably) increased rather
than decreased as time went on. But M's
ages for Methuselah and Lamech are not larger than G's
numbers for Adam and Seth. The
numbers with mutual M-G support are the larger numbers.
If we apply the criterion that of
several readings, the one which best explains the development of the
others is to be preferred, we will
regard late, conscious reductions of S as secondary. We have several
reasons to be suspicious also of some
of M's figures, and to doubt some arguments adduced in their
support. We have no evidence as to
whether proto-G-S inflated numbers or not in the distant past; but
we do have reasons to support the
greater ages as more original than the smaller ones. The readings of
M and S may seem satisfactory. But if
this contentment is actually due to attempts to cope with prior
difficult readings, wanting to
demythologize what may have been seen as paganistic inflations, repair
corruptions, or provide explanations,
then those M or S readings, far from being truly satisfactory,
actually offer nothing more original
than early conjectural emendations. If that be so, these readings do
not preserve the archetypal text.
Original age for Lamech. But what of
the original, then? We ought to think that a reading that contains
a mistake, even if early, is not original,
because we should assume a flawless original. A mistaken
reading, though, is logically prior
to a correction, at a hyparchetypal or archetypal level. If the earliest
available reading for Lamech's age at
paternity is a mistake; if the archetype was somehow corrupted
toward the end of Genesis 5, and the
original reading is in no extant sources, we could either say that
we do not know what the original age
of Lamech was at the birth of Noah (similar to I Samuel 13:1); or
that we accept M's emendation, and
propose 182 as the best conjecture for the original number.
Augustine defended G as inspired, but
added, "One thing remains certain: Methuselah did not live on
after the Flood!" [quoted in 11, p.61].
He followed M at this point. But another option is to propose an
emendation. If we are persuaded that
the G 167 for Methuselah's paternal age is correct, then, so is the
G figure of 802 years of remaining
life, rather than M's 782. Then we have to add at least 14 years; G's
presumably faulty 188 + 14 gives 202
as a conjectural emendation of an age for Lamech at the birth of
his son (202+ 600 years to the Flood,
= 802). So the long-chronology Methuselah dies in the year of the
Flood.
Original Ur-text. The total life
spans of the pre-Flood patriarchs are for the most part identical, and
attested in all three extant
traditions. This is strong presumptive evidence for the existence of an
original
Ur-text, a very ancient genealogy,
carefully guarded, from which they all descended. It is not
unreasonable to surmise that those
original ages were the larger rather then the smaller numbers,
yielding the longer chronology. Thus
G in the Codex Alexandrinus, although slightly flawed, is arguably,
in the main, our best witness to the
original chronology for Genesis 5. We may also regard the larger
numbers in Genesis 11, presenting a
chronology from the Flood to Abraham, as the archetypal, more
original numbers.
CONCLUSION
While the paucity of direct evidence
limits our ability to obtain a complete and certain solution, there is
reason to believe that revisers of
what would be the Samaritan Pentateuch systematically reduced the
prior ages of the patriarchs at
paternity now mainly preserved in the Septuagint. The revisers of the
proto-Masoretic text may have
invented the reductive technique, but, being more conservative and
purpose-directed, only applied the
reduction where they thought it was needed, not across the board.
We may conjecture that this process
provided the pattern and stimulus for the pre-S revision. The
evidence suggests that our extant
Genesis 5 texts may be somewhat stratified, containing original
readings, possibly a unique error, an
inherited error, and perhaps more than one layer of revision during
their long history of transmission.
Although evidently slightly corrupted, the long chronology of the
Septuagint may be closest to the
archetype, the best exponent of the data transmitted to us from
antiquity.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have greatly appreciated
correspondence with Dr. Herbert Basser of Queen's University, Ontario, who
was consistently gracious, helpful,
and magnanimous. Dr. Peter Williams, while he has published an
opposite position, helped in my
research and made many fair and helpful comments. I'm indebted to Dr.
Robert H. Brown, who encouraged me to
look into this issue years ago; to my editor, Dr. David Fouts;
and to Steven Robinson, for his
informed and thoughtful input.
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pp. 452-461.
[43] Williams, P. J., Some Remarks
Preliminary to a Biblical Chronology, Creation Ex Nihilo
Technical Journal, vol. 12 (1), 1998,
pp. 98-106.
[44] Wurthwein, Ernst, The Text of
the Old Testament, E.F. Rhodes, trans., 1995, (first published as
Der Text des Alten Testaments, 1952;
5th ed. 1988), Eerdmans, Grand Rapids.