For had I defigned (as the vindicator of Milton fuppofes) to impose a trick on the public, and procure credit to my affertions by an impofture, I would never have drawn lines from Hog's translation of Milton, a book common at every fale, I had almost said at every stall, nor afcribed them to authors fo easily attained: I would have gone another way to work, by tranflating forty or fifty lines, and affigning them to an author, whose works poffibly might not be found till the world expire at the general conflagration. My impofing therefore on the public in general, inftead of a few obftinate perfons (for whose fake alone the stratagem was defigned) is the only thing culpable in my conduct, for which again I most humbly ask pardon and that this, and this only was, as no other could be, my defign, no one I think can doubt, from the account I have just now given; and whether that was fo criminal, as it has been reprefented, I fhall leave every impartial mind to determine.

PREFACE

PREFACE*

то

A new Method of Stating and Explaining the SCRIPTURE CHRONOLOGY, upon Mofaic Aftronomical Principles, Mediums, and Data, as laid down in the PENTATEUCH. BY JOHN KENNEDY, Rector of Bradley in the County of Derby. First published 1752.

HE importance of the point, the settling of which

THE

is the attempt of the following fheets, fully appears from its having employed the researches and pens of the most learned and inquifitive in all ages; and the difficulties, with which its determination is attended, are no less apparent, from all human calculations having been hitherto devoid of agreement, and their endeavours unable to bring it to any precife regulation. To afcertain then a branch of fcience no lefs difficult than useful to be adjusted, may be thought well to claim the divine interpofition.

Incidit.

Deus interfit.Dignus vindice Nodus

*Afcribed to Dr. Johnfon on the authority of Hawkins's Life of Johnson. E.

I therefore

I therefore present the reader with a fyftem of chronology built upon Mofaic principles and data; and do request of him to lay aside, for a while, all preconceptions of difficulties and objections, till he has viewed my whole scheme, and confidered it in all its parts.

It has feldom or never happened, that a scheme of any kind has been brought to perfection in the first attempt. But here it must be remembered, that the fcheme of genuine facred chronology, is of too refined and delicate a nature to admit of any mean; and the proof of it, like the fource and fountain from whence it was derived, must be perfect in its origin.

;

My calculations, founded on the terms, principles and data of the Pentateuch, lay a claim to a just exactness and should they, upon a due examination, be found liable to produce erroneous conclufions in Sun and Moon aftronomy, they cannot be Mofaic, and I must acknowledge myself to have been guilty of a very high misnomer, in giving them fuch a facred appellation. And therefore the conviction of a fingle error in time, from the creation to this day, which, upon notice given, cannot be corrected upon the principles laid down, must be admitted as a confutation of this whole performance, and there will be no plea left, but only,

Quod fi non tenuit magnis tamen excidit aufis.

The more immediate view of this work is to evince, amongst others, the following propofitions, which were drawn up by me nearly in the fame form, and published fome time ago, when feveral fubfcriptions were taken in

upon

upon them; and forry I am that I could not discharge my obligations fooner to thofe, who were fo kind as to encourage my defign, which I certainly would have done, had I not in this interval met with many unexpected interruptions.

I. The original pofition of the two great luminaries, the Sun and Moon, with respect to the Earth, on the fourth of the Hexaëmeron, deduced from the firft chapter of Genefis, and afcertained in the Levitical law, by Mofes, when he enjoins the obfervation of the feast of the In-gathering on the 15th day of the month, in the revolution, i. e. end of the year: here the number 15 (which is the Scripture full-moon day, and was its quality on the 4th of the Hexaëmeron) does really and in fact, with a true aftronomical exactness, exprefs the distance of the Mofaic cardinal, i. e. autumnal æquinoctial point, from the evening of the Moon's vifibility,

€ 15.

II. An aftronomical determination on what day of the week was the 4th of the Hexaëmeron, collected and ftated from the Mofaic terms of computation, viz. days, weeks, and years; beginning his account of time, and his chronology, from a cardinal point of the heavens, viz. the autumnal æquinox; and from a cardinal point of the day, viz. noon, with refpect to the Mofaic meridian, which is geographically defcribed, Gen. ch. 2. ver. 10. &c.

III. Mofes

III. Mofes measures the lives of the patriarchs by the course of the Sun, or tropical folar years; and records all hiftorical tranfactions and events by the months and days of the lunar year, computed from new Moon («) to new Moon («).

IV. In confequence of the preceding propofition, it will appear from Gen. i. 14. and Mofes's account of the deluge, that Noah was in the ark, part of two diftinct folar, and part of two diftinct lunar, years.

N. B. (1ft) The two diftinct folar years are expreffed by the numbers 600 and 601. Gen. ch. vii. ver. 11. and cb. viii. ver. 13.

The two distinct lunar years are thus pointed out: Noah entered into the ark, Gen. ch. vii. ver. 11. on the 17th day of the 2d month of that lunar year, which was concurrent with the folar year of his life 600; and he received the divine command to come out of the ark, Gen. ch. viii. ver. 14, 15, on the 27th day of the 2d month of that lunar year, which was concurrent with the folar year of his life, 601.

(2dly) In the year of Noah 600, in which the deluge began and ended, there was a co-incidence of the lunar year with the folar, the epact at the conclufion of that year being 11, and is plainly deducible from the Mofaic account, according to the Hebrew text.

(3dly) The Mofaic hiftorical narration of the circumftances, procefs and conclufion of the deluge, is extremely curious, and will be found to be the key, whereby we may open many, if not moft, of the fecrets of the fcripture computation, as, (1) not only the number of days

in