ording to the Septuagint, no
patriarch has a son before the age of one hundred years. It adds
to the age of each of the five patriarchs that preceded Jared,
and also to the age of Enoch, one hundred years before the birth
of his son, deducting the same from his life afterwards. To the
age of Lamech it adds six years before the birth of Noah,
deducting thirty years afterwards. In respect to the age of
Methuselah when Lamech was born, there is a difference of twenty
years between the Vatican and the Alexandrine manuscripts. The
latter agrees with the Masoretic text: the former gives one
hundred and sixty-seven instead of one hundred and eighty-seven.
Thus the Septuagint makes the period from the creation to the
deluge 2262 years (according to the Vatican manuscript 2242
years) against the 1656 of our Masoretic text.

The Samaritan-Hebrew text agrees with the Masoretic for the
first five patriarchs and for Enoch. From the age of Jared it
deducts one hundred years; from that of Methuselah one hundred
and twenty (one hundred according to the Vatican manuscript of
the Septuagint); and from that of Lamech, one hundred and
twenty-nine--three hundred and forty-nine years in all--before
the birth of their respective sons. This places the deluge in
the year of the world 1307.

(2.) _Genealogy from Noah to Abraham._ Chap. 11. Here the
Samaritan-Hebrew and the Septuagint (which Josephus follows with
some variations) give a much longer period than the Masoretic
text. They both add to the age of each of the six patriarchs
after Shem one hundred years before the birth of his son. To the
age of Nahor the Samaritan-Hebrew adds fifty, and the Septuagint
one hundred and fifty years. The latter also inserts after
Arphaxad a _Cainan_ who was one hundred and thirty years old at
the birth of Salah.

In respect to the variations in these two genealogical tables
(chaps. 5 and 11) it is to be remarked: (1) that the authority
of the Masoretic text is, on general grounds, higher than that
of the Septuagint or Samaritan Pentateuch; (2) that in the
present case there is reason to suspect systematic change in
these two latter texts; strong external corroboration alone
could warrant us in adopting the longer chronology of the
Septuagint; (3) that any uncertainty which may rest on the
details of