Note 15 — PART I
Reading edition
Introduction to the Pentateuch, by E. Harold Browne, D.D., Bishop of Ely. Holy Bible, with Commentary, edited by F. C. Cook, M.A., Canon of Exeter.
[16] The following extracts are taken from the Preface to An Universal History from the Earliest Account of Time to the Present: Compiled from Original Authors [Etc.]. Dublin: Printed by Edward Bate for the Editors: M,DCC,XLIV.
They are interesting as showing that even before archæological research had extended the limits of ancient history, as it has done during the last fifty years, many biblical scholars assigned a far higher date than Archbishop Usher’s 4,004 years for the history of Adam’s race on earth.
P. lxv. et seq.: “So that on a strict view and due examination of the antiquities of nations, and the records that have been left us, those of the Jews, exclusive of their divine authority, will evidently appear to be the most certain and authentick.... However it must be confessed that there is no certain uniformity in the Jewish computation, and that the several copies of their records, viz., the Hebrew, Samaritan Pentateuch, and Septuagint differ very much from one another.... This variety of computations hath left room for Chronologers to enlarge or contract the space of time betwixt the flood and the birth of Christ, by adhering to one copy rather than another; or by rejecting or retaining the whole numbers, or the particulars, just as it suited their humour of making the Sacred History agree with the Prophane; or otherwise of reducing the Prophane to the Sacred, and as the disagreement among the heathen writers is great also, and every author hath followed the historian he liked best, hence a wide difference hath arisen amongst modern Chronologers as appears by the various computations ... which we here give as collected by Strauchius, Chevreau, and others. It would be endless as well as unnecessary here to examine into the particular causes of this great difference amongst authors, every one still pretending to ground his system on the authority of the Scripture.
A Table of the years of the world to the birth of Christ, according to the computations of several chronologers.
Alphonsus, King of Castile, in Muller’s Tables 6,984
The same, in Strauchius 6,484 9 months
Onuphrius Panvinius 6,310
Suidas 6,000
Lactantius, Philastrius 5,801
Nicephorus 5,700
Clemens Alexandrinus 5,624
The author of the Fasti Siculi 5,608 9 months
Isaac Vossius, and the Greeks 5,598
Etc. etc.” „