George Syncellus' chronology, vindicated

If you read Theophanes you'll see that he used an Anno Mundi calendar - a sort of Long Count from the Creation. But he does not count as Archbishop Ussher would count, from 4004 BC. Theophanes reaches back earlier. This from the Greek translation of Torah, called "Septuagint".

The Young Earth Creationists are on the case, here Henry B. Smith Jr (pdf). Smith documents how non-Greeks, including Pseudo-Philo and Josephus, despite using (mostly) proto-Masoretic Bibles, still assumed that longer chronology. Smith concludes that the rabbinate after the Temple (and after Josephus) imposed a shorter chronology. Their motive: by pulling the world's birth later, they also pulled the millennia later, such that the Christ could not have appeared in 4 BC. Clearly they hadn't counted on the good Archbishop . . .

Smith has convinced me on the LXX's superiority, I must admit. Although it forces some dates: the Flood is 3298 BC, on assumption Abraham be born 2166 BC (this seems to be everyone's assumption). So Isaac is, what, still mid 2000s? That puts Jacob not long after 2000 BC. The Banu Israel will have been born far too early to be the Asiatics who followed the XV Dynasty Hyksos' train, usually set in the middle 1600s. Although maybe "Khendjer" (cf. Arabic khinzir) can bridge this.

I don't know that the rabbis had messianism in mind when they compressed the dates. The effort is futile - as Ussher proves, a motivated Christian can play numerology all day long. Maybe they just got it wrong?

As to the fourth-millennium Flood... ur. (As it wur.) Eridu had a flood... 2800 BC. There were some famous Ice-Age floodmelts north of Ararat but those were more like 5600 BC. Dor was eighth-millennium.

I'd say we should await discovery of the Torah's own sources before we decide upon their historicity.

OTHERS 4/24/22: The Syriac world noticed. The Peshitta had accepted the MT, famously; I now learn, infamously in this particular instance, incorporating the Jewish chrono. This adds fodder to claims that the Edessene Pentateuch was, in origin, a Torah; to which we may add the Psalter including some Qumran pluses. As the Syrians acquired more Greek lore the Melkites, in particular, cried foul: Agapius of Manbij / Mabbug being one and Abu Qurra Theodore Edessene being another.