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CHAP. XLIX. Of the Greek Translation of the fifth of Genesis. (Book 49)
HOW the Septuagint does add hundreds of years to mens ages before and after the Flood, few Scholars but they know. This bred the difference of computa∣tion of the times, while some followed the Hebrew, some the Greek, Hence came two notorious doubts. About Methuselah living after the Flood, who died a month or two before. And of Sem his death before Abrahams birth, who lived as long after Abraham came to Canaan, as Abraham was old when he came thither, viz. seventy five years. And so might well be Melchizedek. The Greeks had a great deal of stir where to put Methushe∣lah all the Flood-time for fear of drowning: At last some laid him on the top of Noahs Ark, and there he was all that watry year. The Jews lay Og the Giant there also (as the Chaldee Paraphrast upon the fourteenth of Genesis ridiculously observeth:) Whose words (for your fuller sport) I will not spare to set down. The thirteenth verse be renders thus in Chaldee. And Og came who was left of those that died in the Flood: for he rode upon the Ark, and was as a covering upon it, and was nourished with Noahs vict∣uals, but he was not preserved for his own sake or merit, but that the inhabitants of the world might see the power of the Lord, and say: Did not the Gyants in old time, rebel against the Lord of the world, and he destroyed them from the earth, yet assoon as these Kings make war, behold Og is with them, Og saith with himself, I will go and shew Abraham, Lots case, that he is taken prisoner, that so he may come to rescue him, and may himself fall into their hands: He goes and comes to him about the Passover day, and finds him making unleavened cakes, then he told Abraham the Hebrew, &c. Thus far the Chaldee: of whose conceits here, and in one thousand of places more, and so of his Nation the Jews; I know not whether to say, Risum or fletum teneatis amici? But to return to my purpose. The Greek* 1.1 Bible makes Methushelah live fourteen years after the Flood, their reason of this their addition of years, many render, which I omit. But S. Austen saith, some fall short of this mans age. In three Greek books, saith he, and one Latine, and one Syrian book, all agreeing one with another, Methusalem is found to die six years before the flood. So Austen in Civ. Dei, lib. 15. cap. 13. Such differences may incite men to apply themselves to the He∣brew Text, where is no falsifying nor error.