Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/336

 gives a period of 187 year-weeks from the Creation to the birth of Arp., followed by another of 81 (567 ÷ 7) to the birth of Abraham. We observe further that the earlier period embraces 11 generations with an average of exactly 17 year-weeks, and the later 9 generations with an average of exactly 9: i.e., as nearly as possible one-half: the author accordingly must have proceeded on the theory that after the Flood the age of paternity suddenly dropped to one-half of what it had formerly been.

[It is possible that the key to the various systems has been discovered by A. Bosse, whose paper became known to me only while these sheets were passing through the press. His main results are as follows: (1) In MT he finds two distinct chronological systems, (a) One reckons by generations of 40 years, its termini being the birth of Shem and the end of the Exile. In the Shemite table, Teraḥ is excluded entirely, and the two years between the Flood and the birth of Arp. are ignored. This gives: from the birth of Shem to that of Abraham 320 (8 × 40) years; thence to b. of Jacob 160 (4 × 40); to Exodus 560 (14 × 40); to founding of Temple 480 (12 × 40); to end of Exile 480: in all 2000 (50 × 40). This system is, of course, later than the Exile; but Bo. concedes the probability that its middle section, with 1200 (30 × 40) years from the b. of Abr. to the founding of the Temple, may be of earlier origin.—(b) The other scheme, with which we are more immediately concerned, operates with a Great Month of 260 years (260 = the number of weeks in a five-years' lustrum). Its period is a Great Year from the Creation to the dedication of the Temple, and its reckoning includes Teraḥ in the Shemite table, but excludes the 2 years of Arpakšad. This gives 1556 years to b. of Shem + 390 (b. of Abr.) + 75 (migration of Abr.) + 215 (descent to Egypt) + 430 (Exodus) + 480 (founding of Temple) + 20 (dedication of do.) = 3166. Now 3166 = 12 × 260 + 46. The odd 46 years are thus accounted for: the chronologist was accustomed to the Egyptian reckoning by months of 30 days, and a solar year of 365-1/4 days, requiring the interposition of 5-1/4 days each year; and the 46 years are the equivalent of these 5-1/4 days in the system here followed. (For, if 30 days = 260 years, then 5-1/4 days = 5-1/4 × 260 / 30 = 21 × 26 / 4 × 3 = 7 × 13 / 2 = 45-1/2 [say 46] years.) The first third of this Great Year ends with the b. of Noah 1056 = 4 × 260 + 16 (1/3 of 46). The second third nearly coincides with the b. of Jacob; but here there is a discrepancy of 5 years, which Bo. accounts for by the assumption that the figure of the older reckoning by generations has in the case of Jacob been allowed to remain in the text.—(2) G reckons with a Great Month of 355 years (the number of days in the lunar year), and a Great Year of 12 × 355 = 4260 years from the Creation to the founding of the Temple, made up as follows: 2142 + 1173 + 75 + 215 + 215 + 440 = 4260.