# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1857_S304
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

304   The True Chronology of the Old Testament, etc.

reckoning of the years of the world has two difficult questions. The one arises from the words of St. Stephen, Acts 7:4, where St. Luke writes how he says that Abraham was brought out of Haran into the land of Canaan after the death of his father Terah; from which, if it is true, it follows that Abraham was born in the 130th year of his father Terah.. But again, and contrary to this, it is written in Genesis 11:26: Terah was 70 years old and begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Now it would be very hard and a great boldness to say that Moses writes that Abraham was born 60 years before he was born.. Neither can it be denied that this same text, Acts 7, has been corrupted in more than one place, perhaps by some clever fellows." (XIV, 1291—93.) Further, our old orthodox theologians almost universally believe that Cainan, whom Luke (3:36) has taken into his genealogy and who is well known to be lacking in the Hebrew Old Testament — though by his inclusion the chronology of the Old Testament naturally undergoes a change — was foisted upon Luke, although Cainan is found in all reliable manuscripts. Calov maintains that Cainan first came into the text from a marginal note, and then adds among other things: "But once one codex had been corrupted, there is no doubt that the error could pass over into countless others; hence afterward, following the corruption of the copies of the Greek text, the Syriac, Arabic, and Latin translations also had to receive the corruption, since before them the error had already gained the upper hand in the original text." Calov concludes the whole with the remark: "In these and similar matters one must leave each man his conjecture, since no one can have an indubitable certainty." (Bibl. illustr. ad Luc. 3, 33—36.)

The more, then, that there are according to this still dark, unopened areas in the field of biblical chronology, and the greater therefore the divergence of conviction here even among orthodox students of Scripture, so much the greater joy it would give to all lovers of divine truth if at last some Christian scholar should succeed in finding the key to what has hitherto belonged among the riddles of biblical chronology, and an unshakable foundation of full certainty in this field as well — especially also because thereby an important prop on which unbelievers stiffen themselves in their unbelief, and a dangerous weapon with which they have already felled many an inexperienced person, would be taken away.

The little work named in the heading, from the pen of our highly revered dear teacher, Professor Dr. Seyffarth, containing the results of thirty years of tireless research and the sum of many, in part voluminous, works already published by the same author, announces nothing less than that it has at last found the so long vainly sought key to biblical chronology and herewith offers it to everyone who desires it.

We remark in advance that we do not venture to pass a decisive judgment on this writing, which within a few