(C.) The chronology of the book of Genesis involves, as is well known, some difficult questions.  In the genealogical tables contained in the fifth and eleventh chapters, the texts of the Masoretic Hebrew (which is followed in our version), Hebrew-Samaritan, and Septuagint, differ in a remarkable manner.

(1.) Antediluvian Genealogy. According 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 numbers in the Pentateuch ought not to affect our confidence in the Mosaic record as a whole, for here, as it is well known,