A DISSERTATION ON THE TRUE AGE OF THE WORLD, IN WHICH IS DETERMINED =The Chronology of the Period= FROM CREATION TO THE CHRISTIAN ERA. BY PROFESSOR WALLACE. “Mundum tradidit disputationi eorum.” ECCLES. iii. 11. Lat. Vulg. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER AND CO. 65, CORNHILL. 1844. London: Printed by STEWART and MURRAY, Old Bailey. PREFACE. The following Dissertation treats of a subject which has divided the opinions of the learned world from the third century till the present time; namely, the discrepancies which exist between the present Hebrew text and the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, respecting the generations of the Ante and Postdiluvian Patriarchs. It treats also of the similar discrepancies, which exist between the Hebrew and the Samaritan texts, and of the testimonies of Josephus and other ancient historians and chronographers, in favour of the accuracy of the Septuagint on this point. These discrepancies, with others of minor extent, which are here also duly considered, occasion a difference between the Hebrew and the Septuagint as to the chronology of the period from creation to the Birth of Christ, amounting in all to nearly 1500 years,—the difference between the modern and ancient computation of the _true age of the world_. This question, which has never been satisfactorily settled, notwithstanding the efforts of the ancient chronographers Theophilus, Africanus, Eusebius and Syncellus, and the labours of the modern chronologers, Petavius, Usher, Jackson, Hales, Russell and Clinton, has acquired fresh importance from the late discoveries of Astronomers and Geologists, and the recent investigations of learned writers on the prophecies and the millennium. The startling announcements made by Geologists regarding the antiquity of the earth, which, according to their discoveries, amounts to millions of millions of years; and the curious statements of Astronomers respecting the ages of time required for the transmission of the light of the stars, the continual development of new nebulæ in the heavens, and the gradual formation of new suns and systems in the universe; are sufficient causes, why a new inquiry into the chronology of the Bible has become both popular and necessary, and why the question concerning the discrepancies between the Hebrew text and the ancient Greek version has been revived.