Creation vs. Evolution: Was Josephus Divided over Post-Flood Patriarchs? · New blog on the kid: A Discussion of Masoretic vs Septuagint Chronologies
The Bible’s Most Overlooked Change: A 1,400-Year Discrepancy
Biblical Studies and Reviews, Stephen Hackett | 12 April 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGPvW1uk7kE
Stephen Hackett will reference Henry Smith's pro-LXX work.
Deliberate changes (whichever side is changed).
The numbers are intended to be counted.
The Dead Sea scrolls are not providing Genesis 11 or most of Genesis 5 (except a fragment).
Stephen Hackett is certain that Second Cainan really is in Luke since the autograph.
(Lita) Sanders and (Robert) Carter are cited as holding to Masoretic priority and integral Masoretic chronology, which, Stephen Hackett notes, is not reconcilable with Luke 3 as the manuscripts go (Sanders and Carter are associates of Jonathan Sarfati who has argued Luke 3 has a scribal error and very rare manuscripts give the correct reading without the Second Cainan).
Eusebius and Origen favoured the LXX, the former stating that the Hebrews had altered the text.
The translators did not make the change. LXX and Masoretic apart from the chronology align very closely, not much liberties are taken.
Emmanuel Tov argues LXX is based on an earlier Hebrew text. Samaritan Pentateuch has for Genesis 11 a very close match for the LXX.
The LXX went very far without central control, from Alexandria all through the Mediterranean. So, even if Alexandrians wanted to stretch years to harmonise with Manetho, they would have lacked occasion. On top of that, the LXX actually doesn't match Manetho's chronology, by far.
Josephus matches the longer chronology (more precisely, his sum total matches Masoretic, but his details match LXX, as I have noted to show that Josephus was raised before and wrote Antiquities after Masoretic chronology changed). Josephus claims to be working from a Hebrew text (and it is his detail that''s a direct reading of it). Eupolemus who's writing about 158 BC, agrees with the LXX. Demetrius the chronographer, 3rd. C BC, dito.
The earliest evidence Stephen Hackett has for the shorter chronology would be Eusebius writing against it in the 4th C. AD (one could probably cite Aquila of Sinope as well, c. 130 AD, plus the summing up in Josephus, which differs from the detail).
If the Masoretic text is original, so many early post-Flood patriarchs would be still alive at Genesis 25:8 or recently before, that it would seem idiotic to describe Abraham's age at death as "died in a good old age, and having lived a long time," ...
Excursus from resumé to elaborate on this point.
And the days of Abraham's life were a hundred and seventy-five years 8 And decaying he died in a good old age, and having lived a long time, and being full of days: and was gathered to his people
Genesis 25:7-8
So, on Masoretic Chronology, Abraham was born 292 after the Flood, and that would make his death 467 after the Flood. For one, Shem would still be alive. I conjecture that the motive of Jews to chose a shorter text or even to shorten the text was so as to allow Shem to be Melchisedec. In polemics against Hebrews:
And (as it may be said) even Levi who received tithes, paid tithes in Abraham:
Hebrews 7:9
St. Paul's point is clearer if Levi didn't receive tithes in Shem on that occasion.
But not just Shem would be still alive.
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This point could actually be weakened if: a) those surviving him were all so close to the beginning of the genealogy that people weren't really comparing them, and b) if "ripe age" is by contrast with three people dying within two years, if that means they died as martyrs, refusing participation with Nimrod. Now, that means, for those who find Masoretic chronology correct, I'd put Babel at the death of Peleg, on his death day (as a martyr) the collaboration in Babel ceased. Nachor who died a year later could be other than the Nachor mentioned in Joshua 24, or he could have survived an apostasy by only little, either by God's punishment or because he refused to repeat offend and so was killed one year later.
However, this is again in favour of LXX chronology being original, since commentators older than a certain Seder Olam Rabbah, 2nd C AD, place the events of Babel at the birth of Phalec, not at his death. There is a demography problem if you try to put the events of Babel at the birth of Phalec in Masoretic chronology, i e in 101 after the Flood. See hereon "Dating the Tower of Babel events with reference to Peleg and Joktan" by Andrew Sibley, JOURNAL OF CREATION 31(1) 2017. He also mentions the Book of Jubilees, in which Phalec is born 256 after the Flood. In this context, the division is however the division of portions of Earth, as per Genesis 10, well prior to Babel. This still leaves Seder Olam Rabbah the earliest text tying Babel to the death of Phalec.
End of excursus, the general idea is not that strong but some side issues to it favour the LXX.
The serving the details of the argument, Stephen Hackett differs from me. However, he has a point, all of the issues are resolved if we take the LXX timeline.
Stephen Hackett also takes arguments for the Masoretic text:
1) in LXX, Methuselah dies after the Flood (there is a response for that from the LXX side)
2) MT is the traditional Protestant text (hardly a recommendation for a Catholic!)
3) Gordon Wynham, a Hebrew scholar, thinks the LXX looks secondary
4) Henry Smith's deflation theory seems crazy.
The theory says that "rabbi Akiba wanted to change the text so that Jesus could not be the Messiah" ... Stephen Hackett considers this as a really remote conspiracy theory, basically. (May I remind that the "intertestamental chronology" suffered a similar deflation so that the weeks could add up to Bar Kokhba? And that, Josephus, though he gives text witness to detail adding up to a long chronology of Genesis 11 actually, just after the Temple was destroyed, also gave a short chronology in the sum of years?)
5) Augustine and Jerome would be voices in favour or a standard Hebrew text (not univocally for either of them, though — City of God sits on the hedge, and Jerome authored a chronology that is still used at Christmas by the Catholic Church, which has years from Adam to Flood 2242, and from Flood to birth of Abraham, 942, like LXX minus second Cainan). 6) Geographic distribution (noted as argument 7, which one did I miss or which two did I conflate?), "if the Jews did this, how did they manage to alter all Hebrew manuscripts across their widespread communities, from Babylon to Rome, without leaving evidence of dissent?" (Sanders and Carter, I'd answer, a cohesion of Antichristianity, a thing also seen in Communist history forgery more recently, like the guys who equate Fascist to Nazi, and not one left winger who dissents these days, despite independent Fascist régimes not having certain Nazi politics they like to cite in the context.)
Stephen Hackett discusses his motives, which are clearly human and not shared by this other human summarising him. He now admits that "omission of Cainan is huge to him" ... I'd actually consider in that case, that Masoretic text is making a damnatio memoriae. Deliberately omitting a generation, like Matthew omits the son of Athaliah. Including him in LXX and Luke would be "cultural translation" and Greeks not having this custom would be served the facts in a statement they would be more comprehensive of. Similarily in the 430 years that Israel was in "Egypt" (Masoretic) or "Egypt and Canaan" (LXX), they start with the promise to Abraham, since in his day, Canaan was a vassal state to Egypt. No longer the case to people where Ptolemy's held Egypt and Seleucids Syria, so, cultural translation.
Now, he doesn't actually give the LXX-favourable note for Methuselah, he just said at the end of the video, the arguments for the LXX seem hard to omit. For Methuselah, I'd say that a misreading is possible, I think I have this from Henry Smith:
21 And Enoch lived an hundred and sixty and five years, and begat Mathusala. 22 And Enoch was well-pleasing to God after his begetting Mathusala, two hundred years, and he begot sons and daughters. 23 And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty and five years. 24 And Enoch was well-pleasing to God, and was not found, because God translated him. 25 And Mathusala lived an hundred and sixty and seven years, and begot Lamech.
Misreading for:
21 And Enoch lived an hundred and sixty and five years, and begat Mathusala. 22 And Enoch was well-pleasing to God after his begetting Mathusala, two hundred years, and he begot sons and daughters. 23 And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty and five years. 24 And Enoch was well-pleasing to God, and was not found, because God translated him. 25 And Mathusala lived an hundred and |[eighty] and seven years, and begot Lamech.
I agree with Henry Smith. And Josephus is the smoking gun. Whether he read from a Hebrew text or whether he recollected from childhood, either of them gives a total near the LXX. BUT before giving the details so adding up, he also gives his presumed total, which was a doctrine recently adopted.
Abraham, who accordingly was the tenth from Noah, and was born in the two hundred and ninety-second year after the deluge
That's the total he gives. Now, the thing is, the total disagrees with the details. I would say, the total is a doctrine he adopted from contemporary decisions within the Jewish community, while the Hebrew text he had (or had had as a child) disagreed with it.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Palm Lord's Day
13.IV.2025
PS, he mentions Codex Alexandrinus for 187 years of Methuselah's age when Lamech was born./HGL
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