Mr. Clinton finally asserts that “the first translators of the Hebrew Scriptures had a very obvious motive for enlarging the chronology,” because the “Chaldeans and Egyptians laid claim to a remote antiquity!” The wished for inference is, that the Jewish translators, from a very natural desire not to be behind their neighbours in these pretensions, went upon an opposite tack, and “lengthened the genealogies!” This statement, for argument it cannot be called, proves a great deal too much; because the scheme which they adopted, falls immensely short of the end proposed. We have seen that the difference between the Hebrew and Septuagint chronologies, is only about _fifteen_ centuries! This difference was, indeed, quite sufficient for the purpose of the Jews, in denying the advent of the true Messiah; but, it was wholly insufficient, nay, utterly useless, for the purpose of coping with the pretensions of “the Chaldeans and Egyptians to a remote antiquity.” For, it appears, from the testimony of Cicero, Diodorus, and others, that Berosus claimed for the _first_ Chaldean kings, an antiquity of no less than 470,000 years! And, from the fragments of Manetho and the Old Chronicle, preserved by Syncellus, that for the _first_ Egyptian kings, an antiquity is claimed, of 36,525 years! But, what are _fifty-five_ centuries of antiquity, to 365 centuries, or to 4,700 centuries? To add _fifteen_ centuries was to add nothing! The Jews should have added 1500 or 15000 centuries, in order to meet the exigency of their “obvious motive!” The argument, therefore, founded on the supposition that the Seventy Interpreters enlarged the chronology of the Scriptures, in order to place the claims of the Jews to “a remote antiquity,” on a par with those of the Chaldeans and Egyptians, is so very absurd, that it completely refutes itself:[20] CHAPTER IV. EXTENT OF THE THIRD AGE OF THE WORLD. Table VIII. Patriarchal Eras and Intervals from Usher—Table IX. Extent of the _first Three Ages_ of the World—Date of the Exodus of Israel from Egypt. The extent of the _Third_, or Patriarchal age, is ascertained from the text of Exodus xii. 40 and 41. That this passage originally stood in the Hebrew as it now stands in the other two texts, is evident from Galatians iii. 17; and as all commentators and chronologers are now agreed that the commencement of the 430 years was reckoned from the date of the Call, or the year following, it is unnecessary to revive former disputes on this point. The following table, partly from Usher,[21] who distinctly enumerates all the texts of Scripture on which their determination depends, exhibits the _intervals_, between the _Patriarchal eras_ of this period, and the corresponding _years of the world_, according to the Hebrew and Septuagint computations:—