The pretensions of any nation to a remote antiquity could only arise from ignorance of the sacred records, and of the true traditions of its ancestors, or from a bold disbelief of both. The Jews cannot be charged with either of these, their character being remarkably the reverse until Christ came. Hence we cannot suppose that the Seventy Interpreters would wilfully shut their eyes to the glaring facts, that the true age of the world was well known to their countrymen, that many of them were then living in the hope of the fulfilment of the prophecies concerning the Messiah, and that they were then accustomed “to calculate the times.” Any attempt on their part, therefore, to increase that age by 1500 years, would have been looked upon with abhorrence; nor could they hope to escape detection and severe reprobation; unless, indeed, we can suppose that they had assembled all the Jews “from every nation under heaven,” and made them privy to the transaction! Before the advent, therefore, such an alteration in the sacred text was impossible; but after that event it was not only possible, but actually took place, not in the _Greek_ but in the _Hebrew_, the former being read all over the world, but the latter being confined to the Jewish synagogue. Footnote 21: Chronologia Sacra, pp. 162 and 171. Footnote 22: Although the extent of the _third_ age is clearly established by the reference of Paul to the period of 430 years, from the confirmation of the covenant to Abraham to the promulgation of the law from Mount Sinai, yet it will be satisfactory to observe, that the passage cited from the book of Exodus originally stood as follows:—“And the sojourning of the children of Israel, _which they and their fathers_ sojourned in the land of Egypt _and in the land of Canaan_, was 430 years. And it came to pass, after the 430 years, that all the host of the Lord went out of the land of Egypt _by night_;” see the Septuagint, Alexandrine edition, and the Samaritan Pentateuch, Exod. xii. 40, 41. The words in Italics in this passage are omitted in the Hebrew text, and the words “_even the self-same day_,” are interpolated. That this is an interpolation is quite evident, for even in the Hebrew, in the very next verse, we are _twice_ told that “It is a _night_ much to be observed unto the Lord,” for this great deliverance. Thus, by the testimony of _three_ witnesses against _one_, the true reading is established. Nevertheless, Archbishop Usher calls the passage just cited from the Septuagint a _paraphrastic explanation_ of the words of Moses; and he says that the corresponding passage in the Samaritan text is _interpolated_ from the Greek version!—“Chronologia Sacra,” cap. viii. p. 127. Biblical critics and commentators, in general, _now_ admit that these texts have preserved the _true reading_; see the note on this passage, by the editor of the