CREATION’S CHRONOLOGY 2

In a former article we traced the age of the world, through the lives of the Patriarchs, as given in the fifth chapter of Genesis, down to the flood; and found that this great catastrophe occurred in the year of the World 1656. We are aware that the Samaritan and Septuagint Versions of the Old Testament give figures for the ages of the Antediluvians different from those found in our Hebrew Bible, just as various speculators give different periods for the age of the world; but we have new the means of testing these years in a scientific manner by various Solar and Eclipse Cycles, so that we have no hesitation in affirming that the figures of both the Samaritan and Septuagint Versions have been tampered with, and that those of the Hebrew Bible, from which our own good English Translation is derived, are alone worthy of credence and capable of verification. This will be clearly shown later on; in the meantime I may quote from “All Past Time,” Mr Dimbleby’s “Antediluvian Solar Cycle,” which he affirms will show the dates of all the days of the week from the prime date of Creation down to the Flood year A.M. 1656.

I had better here briefly explain the construction of this Table II. I may subsequently have some further remarks to make respecting it, and another Solar Cycle of Mr. Dimbleby’s, when I come to make some animadversions thereon.

It will be seen that the following A.S. Cycle consists of seven years. These years are lunar, The lunar year is about II days shorter than the solar year, and consists of twelve months, or a period of 354 days. A lunar month, or the time between one new moon or lunation and the next, is 29 days, 12 hours, and 44 minutes, which is close upon 293 days. Not to be troubled with the half day it appears that the ancients gave 30 days to one month and 29 to the next, thus equalizing the months. I have therefore, for the sake of clearness, added the second column to the above table to shew the reader how many days are given to each month.

Now the first year of Creation was the year 0. It began, according to Genesis I, with Sunday, the first day of the week. Sunday, therefore, was not only the first day of the World, but also the first day of the week, the first day of the first month, and the first day of the first year. This is a grand date. It was the Prime Date of Creation, and is corroborated by the dates of All Past Time, whether in the history of the World, or in the motions of the heavenly bodies. God’s Word and His Works are in perfect harmony. But to come to the Table, Sunday being the first day of Creation week, the following Saturday, or Sabbath, was the Seventh Day of the week. Any one, therefore, could put down the dates of the first four Sabbaths in the first month, namely, the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th. As the first month consisted of 30 days, the last day of the month would be Monday, and the first day of the second, or following month,
would be Tuesday. This causes the first Sabbath of the end month to fall on the 5th day of the month. The Sabbath dates then follow in succession on the 12th, 19th, and the 26th; and so on, to the end of the first year.

The dates of the Seventh Day SABBATHS, in the last month of the first year would fall on the 4th, the 11th, the 18th, and the 25th of the month. The last day of the first year would therefore fall upon Wednesday, the 29th; and the second year of the cycle would of course begin with Thursday, while Saturday, the following Sabbath, would fall on the 3rd of the first month. The rest of the Sabbaths would follow in order by additions of seven days. The reader will now be able to dot down the rest of the dates for himself. Thus the weekly Sabbath becomes, as it were, not only the Memorial of Creation, but one of the fingers and a very important finger, in the great clock of All Past Time, and I think we shall be able to show, before these articles are finished, how many weekly Sabbaths have elapsed since the first day of Creation to the present time.

But I ought to state here that this Table II. consists really of seven lunar years; and, as I have already shewn, the lunar year is about II days shorter than the solar year. Therefore, in order to bring the lunar year into line with the solar year, these eleven days have to be added somewhere as intercalary days. They might be added at the end of two or three years, as an intercalary month; or perhaps, as a longer period, at the end of the seven lunar years. Mr. Dimbleby is evidently not clear on this point, though he says: “It is evident by their dates that they (the Antediluvians) did not insert the extra, or intercalary days, till the seven lunar years were ended.”

He therefore says that the dates of the “Sabbath Days of this intercalary period would be: 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56, 63, 70, 77.” As I have already intimated, I may have some further remarks to make under this head, about his two solar cycles; but these remarks will be better understood after both those cycles have been given, I will therefore proceed to show how the dates of the Flood Year are applied to Table II.

We have already seen from the Bible alone that the year of the Universal Deluge was A.M. 1656. We have now to ask: “How many cycles of seven years are there in 1656 years? If we divide this number by 7 we get 236 complete cycles, with four complete years over, and multiplying 236 by 7 we get A. M. 1652 as the first year in the 237th cycle. We shall see that this is so if we remember that we called the first year of the first cycle year o. Or we may prove it by the longer process of putting down the first years of each cycle in order thus: 0, 7, 14, 21, 28, &c., when we shall finally come to the year 1652, as the first year of the cycle. The reader can make this Table for himself, which will save the writer some trouble, the printer some space, and -the publisher some expense. Now if this Table he correct, the year A.M. 7652, being the first year of the cycle, the dates of its Sabbath Days would be those of the first year on Table II., viz: -7, 14, 21, 28. &c., because they repeat after every seven years. The Sabbaths of the year, A. M. 1653, would have the dates of the second year of the cycle; A.M. 1654, those of the 3rd year; A.M. 1655, those of the 4th year; and A.M.1656, the Flood Year would have those of the 5th year of the cycle. We may now compare the dates of these Sabbath Days with the dates given by Moses in his account of the particular events of the Flood. In doing so, we shall find the remarkable fact that in putting down the dates of the Sabbath Days for the fifth and sixth years of the cycle, we have unconsciously written down nine out of the ten dates given by Moses himself!

Let us briefly refer to them. We find from Gen.7:1, 4, that Noah was finally warned one week before the rain came, to take his family, and everything else needed, inside the ark. Verse II gives us, the two dates. The booth year of Noah’s life, as we have already seen, was A.M. 1656. We read: “In the second month, and the 17th day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows (margin: FLOODGATES) of heaven were opened.” These two dates, the coth and 17th, are found in the second month of the fifth year of the cycle, according to which they were both Sabbath Days when God thus revealed Himself to man. Noab and his family being safely “shut in,” the flood rains began, and lasted forty days, that is: from the 17th of the second month until the the 27th of the third month. So great was the volume of water from these two sources that we read: “All the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered.” This shows that the Flood was not a mere local affair, as some would belittle it to accommodate it to their so-called “science;” but that it was an awful and a universal catastrophe. The passage also teaches that all the hills of the earth were “under the whole heaven;” that is, that heaven is everywhere “above” the earth, not all round and consisting of mere empty “space!” How could the floodgates of heaven be “opened” in empty “space”? And let me remind the reader that it is not only a question of believing Moses, who was a learned man, but our exalted Redeemer, who “came DOWN from heaven,” and who says: “HEREAFTER ye shall SEE heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” John 1:51. Blessed be His great and glorious Name for ever and ever.

The next date given is found in Gen. 8:4, where we are informed that the Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, “in the seventh month, on the 17th day of the month.” In the last verse of the previous chapter we are told that the waters “prevailed upon the earth 150 days.” These, with the previous 40 days’ rain, make 190, ending with the eighth month, on the 29th day. See Table. The “tops of the mountains were scen” in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, which gives the beginning of the forty days Noah waited before he “opened the window of the Ark” and sent forth a raven, which returned not, and “also he sent forth a dove,” which did return. This would be on the 11th day of the 11th month, which is again found in the Table. After seven days he sent forth the dove again, which returned with an olive leaf. This would be on the 18th. Then Noah waited “yet OTHER seven days,” before sending out the dove a third time, on the 25th, after which the dove returned to the Ark no more.

Then, in the beginning of the following year A.M. 1657, the 1st day of the first month, “the waters were dried up from off the earth.” Gen. 8:13. And in the second month, and the 27th day of the month, the earth being thoroughly dry, God commanded Noah to come forth from the Ark, after being in it 365 days, or one solar year. Gen. 8:14 17