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A Chronological TABLE of the Years of the Poftdiluvian Patriarchs to the call of Abraham, according to the Computation of the Septuagint.

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A Chronological TABLE of the Years of the Poftdiluvian Patriarchs to the call of Abraham, according to the Computation of the Samaritan Pentateuch.

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There is no difference in this period between the Hebrew and the Samaritan, but what arifes from the different computation of the years of the genitures of the patriarchs: the great difficulty, in both copies, confifts in Terah's age at the birth of Abraham; fome will have him born in the feventieth year of Terah, which cannot be, unless Abraham were the eldeft fon, as it is evident he was not (for Lot, Haran's fon, was near as old as Abraham) or unless Haran was born before his father was feventy, which seems not to be agreeable to the text; and, if Terah was two hundred and five years old at his death, Abraham being then but feventy-five, he must have been one hundred and thirty when Abraham was born. The Samaritan copy, indeed, makes Terah's age, at his death, no more than one hundred and forty-five; but then the first objection as to Haran's feniority remains, fo that in this point the fault feems to be in the Samari

tan;

tan; for it must be confeffed, the Hebrew number is in this place more to be depended upon.

The call of Abraham, where the period ends, is, by fome, reckoned five years fooner, when he left Ur; but this will not agree with Scripture, as fhall be fhewn, when we come to fettle the next period.

There are fome variations between the present copies of the Septuagint; but as most of them relate to the length of fome of the patriarchs lives, a circumftance not very material, and which makes no difference in the computation, we fhall pafs them by; and only observe, that fome copies place the birth of Arphaxad twelve years after the flood, which will encreafe the total of this period ten years; and that some make the age of Nahor, at the birth of Terah, one hundred and feventy-nine (F).

We have chofen to follow the readings of the Alexandrian manufcript; according to which, the only difference between the Septuagint and the Samaritan, in this period, is one hundred and thirty years given to Cainan, who is added between Arphaxad and Salah; but is to be found neither in the Hebrew nor the Samaritan, nor in the chronology of thofe times, given us, from the Septuagint itself, by Africanus and Eufebius; which circumftance we look upon as fufficient authority to reject him out of the number of the patriarchs, notwithstanding his name is inferted in St. Luke, which may easily have happened, by its being added from fome erroneous copies of the Septuagint, and firft, as is moft probable, put in the margin, though it has fince crept into the

text.

The difference between the Hebrew reckoning and the Samaritan, in this period, is very confiderable, being no lefs than five hundred and fifty years; in which the Hebrew falls fhort of the Samaritan. As to the objections,

b Vide Eufeb. Chron. Græc. p. 9.

(F) Father Pezron, following the prefent copies of Jofephus, places the birth of Terah in the one hundred and twenty-ninth year of Nahor; which agrees with the Hebrew, and the amended number of Jofephus, with the addition only of one hundred years and thus the total VOL. I.

of this period will be one thoufand two hundred and fifty-feven. But afterwards, taking in the ten years, added as above, between the flood and the birth of Arphaxad, he, in his fecond computation, makes the whole one thousand two hundred and fixty-feven.

G

which

Yr. of Fl.

I.

Ante Chr.

2347.

Noah comes out of the ark.

The precepts given

him by God.

which have been thence formed against the former calcu lation, the reader will find them fully answered by Usher, Capfovius, and other eminent chronologers; and we shall have occafion to take notice of them hereafter.

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The Hiftory of Noah after the Flood, and of his De fcendents to Abraham.

THE

E time of Noah's going forth of the ark is fixed, in Scripture, to the first day of the fix hundred and first year of his age. Immediately upon his landing, he built an altar, and offered a burnt-facrifice, of every clean beaft, and every clean fowl (G). God, having accepted the facrifice, bleffed Noah, and gave him power over all living creatures, with a permiflion to eat of them as freely as of the produce of the ground: he prohibited him however from eating the blood of animals, or fhedding that of man; ordering him to punish manflaughter with death, and to people the world with all possible expedition.

The permiffion to eat flesh, now firft explicitly given, feems to intimate, that it had not been allowed before the flood d.

The rabbins pretend, that God gave to Noah, and his fons, certain general precepts, which contain the law of nature, common to all men indifferently. These precepts imported that they should abftain from idolatry, blafphemy, murder, adultery, and theft; and that judges fhould be inftituted to maintain thefe laws; and that they fhould carefully avoid eating the flesh of any animal, cut off while the creature was living. Which laft precept was supposed to be intended by the words, "The flesh, with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, fhall you not eat." This barbarity fome Pagans are faid to have practifed. From the time of Mofes, the Jews would not suffer á ftranger to live among them, unless he obferved the precepts of the Noachida, and never gave quarter, in battle, to any who were ignorant of these injunctions.

c Genef. viii. 13.
(G) Some rabbins pretend,
Shem offered the facrifice,
Noah being rendered unquali-

d Genef. viii. 20, &c.

fied for that office, by hav ing the misfortune to be big by a lion.

Maj

Maimonides fays, the fix firft precepts were given to Adam, and the feventh to Noah. To thefe, fome rabbins add others; fuch as a prohibition to draw out the blood of any living creature to drink; to maim animals ; to ufe magic and forcery; to couple beafts, and ingraft trees, of different kinds; but there is no notice taken of them, either in Scripture, nor in Onkelos, nor in Jofephus, nor in Philo; neither are they mentioned by Jerom, nor Origen, nor any of the ancient fathers.

Yr. of Fl.

1.

Ante Chr.

2347.

God offures Noah the world

fhould not perijh by a fecond de

God farther made a covenant with Noah, that he would never drown the world again; promifing, as a fign of this convention, to fet his bow in the clouds, when it rained. This feems to have been done in order to take away Noah's apprehenfions, who, according to Jofephus, facrificed to appeafe God's wrath, fearing an anniversary luge. deluge; for which fuppofition that hiftorian has been cenfured fomewhat too feverely.

man.

Noah, being come down from the mountain, applied Noah be himself to husbandry, and planted a vineyard; and hav- comes an ing drank of the wine to excefs, lay carelessly uncovered husband. in his tent. His fon Ham perceiving him naked, called in his brothers, Shem and Japhet, to behold the disgraceful attitude in which he lay; but they, out of a fenfe of duty and modefty, took a garment, and, going backwards, covered their father's fhame; for which act of filial decorum, when he came to know what had paffed, he bleffed them, and curfed Ham in his pofterity e.

Noah died in the nine hundred and fiftieth year of his Noah dies. age, and, according to the tradition of the Orientals, was buried in Mefopotamia, where they fhew his fepulchre, în a castle near a monaftery called Dair Abunah, that is, the monaftery of our father.

All mankind being the iffue of these three fons of The genea Noah, who were saved with him in the ark; before we logy of the proceed any farther, it will be proper to give a genealogi- defcendents cal table of their defcendents, in the fame manner as we of Noah. have already fpecified those of the antediluvian patriarchs.

The chief defign of Mofes being to record what particularly concerned the Ifraelites, he has given us the genealogy of the line of Shem only entire. As to the defcendents of the other two fons of Noah, his defign feems to have been, to bring them down as low as the difperfion,

Genel xi. 20, &c. Selden de Jure Nat. & Gent. lib. i. Calmet. Dist. Art. Noachid. Jofeph. Antiq. lib. i. cap. 3. Eutych. p. 43.

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