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But if I say this, I shall presently be answered, It is one of the
Jews' lies. This, however, we have disposed of above, showing
that it cannot be that men of so just a reputation as the seventy
translators should have falsified their version. However, if I ask
them which of the two is more credible, that the Jewish nation,
scattered far and wide, could have unanimously conspired to forge this
lie, and so, through envying others the authority of their
Scriptures, have deprived themselves of their verity; or that seventy
men, who were also themselves Jews, shut up in one place (for
Ptolemy king of Egypt had got them together for this work), should
have envied foreign nations that same truth, and by common consent
inserted these errors: who does not see which can be more naturally and
readily believed? But far be it from any prudent man to believe either
that the Jews, however malicious and wrong-headed, could have
tampered with so many and so widely-dispersed manuscripts; or that
those renowned seventy individuals had any common purpose to grudge the
truth to the nations. One must therefore more plausibly maintain,
that when first their labors began to be transcribed from the copy in
Ptolemy's library, some such misstatement might find its way into the
first copy made, and from it might be disseminated far and wide; and
that this might arise from no fraud, but from a mere copyist's error.
This is a sufficiently plausible account of the difficulty regarding
Methuselah's life, and of that other case in which there is a
difference in the total of twenty-four years. But in those cases in
which there is a methodical resemblance in the falsification, so that
uniformly the one version allots to the period before a son and
successor is born 100 years more than the other, and to the period
subsequent 100 years less, and vice versa, so that the totals may
agree, and this holds true of the first, second, third, fourth,
fifth, and seventh generations, in these cases error seems to have,
if we may say so, a certain kind of constancy, and savors not of
accident, but of design.
Accordingly, that diversity of numbers which distinguishes the Hebrew
from the Greek and Latin copies of Scripture, and which consists of
a uniform addition and deduction of 100 years in each lifetime for
several consecutive generations, is to be attributed neither to the
malice of the Jews nor to men so diligent and prudent as the seventy
translators, but to the error of the copyist who was first allowed to
transcribe the manuscript from the library of the above-mentioned
king. For even now, in cases where numbers contribute nothing to the
easier comprehension or more satisfactory knowledge of anything, they
are both carelessly transcribed, and still more carelessly emended.
For who will trouble himself to learn how many thousand men the several
tribes of Israel contained? He sees no resulting benefit of such
knowledge. Or how many men are there who are aware of the vast
advantage that lies hid in this knowledge? But in this case, in which
during so many consecutive generations 100 years are added in one
manuscript where they are not reckoned in the other, and then, after
the birth of the son and successor, the years which were wanting are
added, it is obvious that the copyist who contrived this arrangement
designed to insinuate that the antediluvians lived an excessive number
of years only because each year was excessively brief, and that he
tried to draw the attention to this fact by his statement of their age
of puberty at which they became able to beget children. For, lest the
incredulous might stumble at the difficulty of so long a lifetime, he
insinuated that Too of their years equalled but ten of ours; and this
insinuation he conveyed by adding 100 years whenever he found the age
below 160 years or thereabouts, deducting these years again from the
period after the son's birth, that tim total might harmonize. By
this means he intended to ascribe the generation of offspring to a fit
age, without diminishing the total sum of years ascribed to the
lifetime of the individuals. And the very fact that in the sixth
generation he departed from this uniform practice, inclines us all the
rather to believe that when the circumstance we have referred to
required his alterations, he made them; seeing that when this
circumstance did not exist, he made no alteration. For in the same
generation he found in the Hebrew manuscript, that Jared lived before
he begat Enoch 162 years, which, according to the short year
computation, is sixteen years and somewhat less than two months, an
age capable of procreation; and therefore it was not necessary to add
100 short years, and so make the age twenty-six years of the usual
length; and of course it was not necessary to deduct, after the son's
birth, years which he had not added before it. And thus it comes to
pass that in this instance there is no variation between the two
manuscripts.
This is corroborated still further by the fact that in the eighth
generation, while the Hebrew books assign 182 years to Methuselah
before Lamech's birth, ours assign to him twenty less, though
usually 100 years are added to this period; then, after Lamech's
birth, the twenty years are restored, so as to equalize the total in
the two books. For if his design was that these 170 years be
understood as seventeen, so as to suit the age of puberty, as there
was no need for him adding anything, so there was none for his
subtracting anything; for in this case he found an age fit for the
generation of children, for the sake. of which he was in the habit of
adding those 100 years in cases where he did not find the age already
sufficient. This difference of twenty years we might, indeed, have
supposed had happened accidentally, had he not taken care to restore
them afterwards as he had deducted them from the period before, so that
there might be no deficiency in the total. Or are we perhaps to
suppose that there was the still more astute design of concealing the
deliberate and uniform addition of 100 years to the first period and
their deduction from the subsequent period, did he design to conceal
this by doing something similar, that is to say, adding and
deducting, not indeed a century, but some years, even in a case in
which there was no need for his doing so? But whatever may be thought
of this, whether it be believed that he did so or not, whether, in
fine, it be so or not, I would have no manner of doubt that when any
diversity is found in the books, since both cannot be true to fact, we
do well to believe in preference that language out of which the
translation was made into another by translators. For there are three
Greek Mss., one Latin, and one Syriac, which agree with one
another, and in all of these Methuselah is said to have died six years
before the deluge.
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