Types of mankind, or, Ethnological researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history / illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher, and H.S. Patterson ; by J.C. Nott and Geo. R. Gliddon.

  • Nott, Josiah C. (Josiah Clark), 1804-1873.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Types of mankind, or, Ethnological researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history / illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher, and H.S. Patterson ; by J.C. Nott and Geo. R. Gliddon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    674/800 (page 618)
    having been made singularly harmonious; owing to scrupulous care on the part of the apostles to cite each passage according to its Greek coloring in the Septuagint; for a long time held in common to be canonical as well by Jews as by Greeks. Bewildered for a time by these dexterous sophisms, and mystified through literary am- buscades which it required a Grecian intellect to comprehend, the worthy old Rabbis (taken in reverse) had no resource but to proscribe the Septuagint, and ostracize its readers. “ The law in Greek! Darkness! Three days fast!” (170) Because, says the Talmud, “on that day, in the time of King Ptolemy, the Law was written in Greek, and darkness came upon the earth for three days.” (171) Little by little, however, their perceptive faculties expanded to the true posture of affairs; and by proving incontinently that many things, which looked one way in the Greek, looked quite another in the Hebrew, the Rabbis soon defeated their assailants ; routing them so repeatedly, that gradually the latter thought it safer to let such doughty controversialists alone: a method of repulsion continued with never-failing success by Israel’s wide-spread posterity even now; who, when summoned by anxious “ Missionaries for the Conversion of the Jews” to adopt a Trinitarian faith which Semitic monotheism (172) despises, have merely to show such well-meaning persons that king James’s version does really copy the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew, to see these itinerant simplicities pocket their English Bibles and slink off. Some day, perhaps, when the rules of archaeology through popular diffusion have augmented, all over Anglo- Sajfondom, that mental element termed “ common sense,” sundry excellent persons, in the language of Letronne, “ sentiront, je pense, l’inutilitt}, la vanity de leurs efforts.” (173) The above conclusions on the Septuagint, long known to scholars, if not previously ex- pressed in print with the same “brutale franchise” habitual to writers who believe they speak the truth (so far as ratiocination can deduce logical results from known premises,— humanum est errare), have enfeebled its value—except for purposes of archtEological restora- tions of the Hebrew text — to such degree that, in this discussion, the ablest theologians have advanced into the positivist’s stage of philosophy. No scientific exegetist of the present generation—save for purposes aforesaid—perils his Continental reputation on the letter of any Greek version, unless chronological computations be the objects of his research. An- other Essay (III.) of this book gives parallel tables wherein the Septuagint system is compared with others; but, to evince the numerical discrepancies between Text and versions, it suf- fices here to note, that, from the creation of Adam to the “ Deluge,” computations (based upon the Hebrew original, as now extant) generally yield 1656; upon the Samaritan Pen- tateuch, 1307 ; and upon the Septuagint, 2242 years. The indefatigable labors of a profound Hellenist and Egyptological scholar, enable us to sweep away any chronological superstitions, yet in fashionable vogue, built upon the Sep- tuagint : — “ The chief disagreement between the [Hebrew] original and the [Greek] translation is in the chronology, which the translators very improperly undertook to correct, in order to make it better agree with Egyptian history and the more advanced state of Alexandrian science. They only made the Exodus of Moses 40 years more modern; but they shortened (170) Bunsen : Op. cit.; p. 185. (171) De Wette: Note, p. 150; — Hennexl: Origin of Christianity; pp. 454, 455, note. (172) “Bear witness! God is one. He is the God eternal. He never has begotten, and was never begot” (Kur’dn; Sura cxii). (173) Recueil des Inscriptions; Paris, 1843; Jntrod., i. p. xliii. We clip the following from the London In- quirer, 1853: “ The Cost of Converting a Jew.—After some twenty years of labor—after the erection of a church on Mount Zion, at an enormous cost — after the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of pounds, the ‘London Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews ’ (a mission presided over by a bishop and endowed by the joint efforts of the kingdoms of Prussia and England) produces as its fruits, according to its own statistics, a congregation of just thirty seven Jewish converts. During the whole of last year, the result of its labors was the conversion of one. Jew. The cost of this one convert was the annual outlay at Jerusalem alone, besides the bishop’s stipend, of £1228 expended on the mission, £445 on the church, £1173 on the hospital, and £400 (we beg pardon, £399 19s. lid.; see Iteport, p. Ill) on the house of industry. The Jerusalem Mi.ssion, then, if vie add to its cost the £1200 per annum paid to Bishop Gobat, arising from the endowment, has actually, in the past year, baptized converts at the moderate rate of only £4443 7s. 2d. per head.”