Is Ussher's Bible Chronology correct?

[Van]

How would the addition to or deletion of the timeline discredit Jesus?

 

[Logos1560]

How would the addition to or deletion of the timeline discredit Jesus?

S. Douglas Woodward claimed: "Because the tradition of the Jews held that the Messiah would arrive near the time Jesus appeared on the scene, the timing of the Messiah's arrival had to be altered so that Jesus would not be identified as the Christ. Thus, over one thousand five hundred years (1,500) were cut out of the original Genesis genealogies/chronologies. And another 165 years or so were deleted by the rabbis in the timing laid out in Daniel's prophecy of the the 70 'weeks' of years set forth in Daniel 9:24-27. Their efforts amounted to a conspiracy to disqualify Jesus as the Christ. To accomplish this, Rabbi Akiba and his disciples at Jamnia obscured the Messianic prophecies and changed the chronology of Genesis from Adam to Abraham" (Rebooting the Bible, Part One, p. xv).

 

[Van]

S. Douglas Woodward claimed: "Because the tradition of the Jews held that the Messiah would arrive near the time Jesus appeared on the scene, the timing of the Messiah's arrival had to be altered so that Jesus would not be identified as the Christ. Thus, over one thousand five hundred years (1,500) were cut out of the original Genesis genealogies/chronologies. And another 165 years or so were deleted by the rabbis in the timing laid out in Daniel's prophecy of the the 70 'weeks' of years set forth in Daniel 9:24-27. Their efforts amounted to a conspiracy to disqualify Jesus as the Christ. To accomplish this, Rabbi Akiba and his disciples at Jamnia obscured the Messianic prophecies and changed the chronology of Genesis from Adam to Abraham" (Rebooting the Bible, Part One, p. xv).

Thanks, but since Christ was accepted by some (His disciples such as Paul) the chronology does not seem to have carried worthwhile weight. Does Christ's fulfillment of prophesy get negated if either timeline is accepted as the correct one?

 

[Alan Dale Gross]

So, generally speaking, Philip Mauro made a comment about the Greek speaking Apostles and others who addressed primarily Greek speaking audiences, used a Greek version of the Scriptures, not saying whether it is reliable in what it said, compared to the Hebrew texts.

And where is a copy of it in the edition it was in at that time, so we can compare it to what we have Preservered today?

Philip Mauro makes a couple positive comments concerning the Greek Septuagint.
KJV defender Philip Mauro (1859-1952), whose book Which Version were partially reprinted in David Otis Fuller’s book True or False, wrote: “The apostles and other Jews of their day used the Septuagint version, from which version Stephen was evidently quoting, for that version adds two sons of Manasseh and three sons of Ephraim (see Num. 26:28-37 and 1 Chron. 7:20) who are not included in the Hebrew text” (Wonders, p. 48).

Philip Mauro referred to “the sense of the passage, as given in the Septuagint version, which our Lord quoted in Matt. 24:15” (p. 142).

And that vague comment indicts his work how?

Then, Philip Mauro mentioned Josephus and apparently knew of him. That sure is nice.

What did Josephus do with any authentic records he knew about or not do with any authentic records that he did not know about?

Was Mauro saying that regardless of what Josephus had for resources, his writings were more reliable than anything else could be?

Philip Mauro also makes a positive comment about "Josephus, the Jewish historian" (Wonders, p. 14). Referring to Josephus, Philip Mauro commented: "He would most likely have known of any authentic records of that era and region, if any existed in that day" (p. 14).

Yet, I did not notice any mention by Philip Mauro of the fact that the chronology of Josephus and the chronology of the Greek Septuagint differ from Ussher's chronology. Josephus knew of authentic records in his day that differed from Ussher's chronology and that agreed with that in the Greek Septuagint.

Oh my. You specifically think you found something from those two sources that Mauro made the most general of all comments about which differ from Usher?

Nice work.

Who's talking about Ussher, btw?

Here again is one example of the difference in the chronology between Josephus' translation of Hebrew sacred books that is in agreement with the old Greek Septuagint and that differs from the chronology in the KJV translated from the Hebrew Masoretic Text.

Gee, I wonder which one you bank on as automatically being basically perfect compared to some other pure junk?

Flavius Josephus as translated by William Whiston wrote: "[Enos] delivered the government to Cainan his son, whom he had in his hundred and ninetieth year" (Works of Flavius Josephus, p. 28).

Genesis 5:9 And Enosh lived one hundred and ninety years, and he fathered Kenan [Lexham English Septuagint]

Two strikes and not anything Mauro suggested could or would indicate these numbers to be any surprise.

But, you said his comments about them were 'positive' in some very general way, so I guess that means if some specific thing that exists about them can be said to be different than his Bible Chronology, then his highchair must have fallen over and he bumped his head.

Obviously.

Genesis 5:9 And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan [KJV]

The Masoretic text (MT) is the basis for most English translations of the Old Testament today and is widely regarded as the best-preserved text of the Hebrew Bible.

Yet, the oldest extant manuscript is dated to around ad 900, and we cannot simply assume that its genealogical figures arethe most accurate without further investigation. Interestingly, the Latin Vulgate follows the MT exactly for the figures in question, meaning the MT tradition must date at least back to the translation of the Latin text, several hundred years earlier than the oldest surviving MT manuscript.

The Samaritan Pentateuch (SP) is also known only through manuscripts from the Medieval period; the earliest manuscript dates to the tenth century. It differs from the MT in about 6,000 places and agrees with the Septuagint (LXX) in about 2,000 of those places.1

While it was obviously and intentionally changed to align with Samaritan practices most notably with the addition of a commandment to build an altar on Mt Gerizim—most scholars agree that it bears witness to an ancient textual tradition.

The LXX refers to a family of ancient Greek texts of the Old Testament. The earliest and most complete copies
are preserved in the Christian ‘great uncials’ (?)* Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus, though there are LXX
fragments dating as far back as the first century bc, and the New Testament gives many quotes of LXX passages, testifying that those particular readings date at least to the first century ad. Most scholars, whether ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’, view its version of the Genesis 5 and 11 chronologies as clearly secondary, a recension (a deliberate editorial revision of a text) possibly to agree with the Egyptian chronology of Manetho.2

In fact, Wenham goes so far as to say, “Which of these chronologies is closest to the original? There is no consensus on this issue, except that the LXX looks secondary.”3

Even though it is widely acknowledged that the term ‘Septuagint’ does not refer to a single monolithic entity, the various LXX texts do not have significant variants in the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies.

The relevant passages in Genesis.
The genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 have been called ‘chronogenealogies’ because they contain more than just
a list of names; they also provide the age of the father when his son was born, allowing us to construct a proper
timeline.

Genesis 5 also provides a total lifespan for each patriarch, which serves as a checksum. This important detail
constrained the changes (deliberate or otherwise) ancient scribes could have made to the text.

Genesis 5:1–32 contains a list of Adam’s descendants through his son Seth to Noah’s sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Textual Traditions and Biblical Chronology by Lita Cosner and Robert Carter.

There are three major textual traditions for the chronogenealogies of Genesis 5 and 11: the Masoretic text (MT),
the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), and the Septuagint (LXX). Comparisons of the three texts side-by-side show some
important differences. The number and types of changes made to the texts by ancient scribes is most easily explained
if the SP and LXX deliberately manipulated the chronological numbers in specific ways, causing date inflation and downstream chronological difficulties.

Many changes are demonstrably deliberate, for they involve changing two
numbers simultaneously, and all the differences occurred within the chronogenealogies themselves, not in the data for the individuals that link the two or for those that extend beyond the second. Most significantly, a single change to Jared’s age when Enoch was born from 162 to 62, shared by the SP and proto-LXX, appears to have had a cascade effect, causing multiple patriarchs to be recorded as living past the Flood. The scribes involved in copying these texts were aware of the problem.

The LXX translators seem to have inflated their text and left only the death of Methuselah post-Flood. The SP tradition seems to have truncated the lifespans of Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech to make them all die in the Flood year. Taking the various text types into consideration, the Masoretic seems to most closely reflect the original reading in the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies.

*Looks like someone thinks these manuscripts could be found to be useful for something?

 

[37818]

It is my persuasion that the Greek NT OT quotes correct the Hebrew MT to its original readings.