It is a commonplace of Biblical students that numbers are peculiarly liable to corruption, and that consequently little dependence can be placed on the numbers given in the text of the Old Testament. But the conclusion does not follow from the premiss. The later dates of Israelitish history are for the most part reliable, and it would be strange if the causes of corruption were fatal only to the dates of an earlier period. Moreover, the numbers fit into a self-consistent system, the several fractions of which agree with the whole summation. Such a self-consistent system would perhaps demand acceptance were it not that there are three such systems, rivals one of the other, and mutually incompatible. One is that of the Massoretic Hebrew text, which makes the period from the Creation to the call of Abraham exactly 2000 solar years (or, 2056 lunar years), 1600 of which extend from the Creation to the Deluge, and the remaining 400 from the Deluge to the call of Abraham. A second is that of the Septuagint, according to which the period from the Creation to the Flood is 2200 solar years (or, 2262 lunar years), 1600 of these elapsing between the Creation and the birth of Noah, and 600 from that event to the Flood, while 1200 are counted from the Flood to the call of the patriarch. The third is that of the Samaritan text which divides the period into two halves of 1200 years each; the first 1200 comprising the time from the Creation to the birth of the sons of Noah, and the second 1200 the rest of the period. It is obvious that all these systems are like the similar chronological systems of the Egyptians, the Babylonians, or the Hindus, mere artificial schemes of an astronomical character, and differing from the latter only in their more modest computation of time. For historical purposes they are worthless, and indicate merely that materials for a chronology were entirely wanting. The ages assigned to the patriarchs before the Flood, for example, stand on a level with the reigns of the ten antediluvian kings of Chaldæa which are extended over 120 sari, or 432,000 years. The post-diluvian patriarchs are in no better position; indeed, one of them, Arphaxad, is a geographical title, and the Septuagint interpolates after him a certain Kainan, of whom neither the Hebrew nor the Samaritan text knows anything.