The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

2. The Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis In previous articles, I have argued that evangelicals should jettison LXX inflation hypotheses in favor of a different model that far better explains the textual and historical evidence: deliberate chronological deflation in the proto–Masoretic Hebrew text by the Jewish rabbis in the post–AD 70 period (Sexton 2015, pp. 215–216; Sexton and Smith Jr., pp. 45–48; Smith Jr. 2017, p. 169, nn. 3–4). Eusebius (AD 310) was the first historian to explain that the proto– MT chronology was deliberately deflated by the rabbis ( Chronicle 23; 25; Karst pp. 39–40). Julian of Toledo (AD 642–690), Jacob of Edessa (AD 640–708), Byzantine chronologist George Syncellus (d. AD 810), and Armenian annalist Bar Hebraeus (AD 1226– 1286) also made this claim (Smith Jr. 2017, p. 171, n. 14). Why would the rabbis deflate the primeval chronology by 1250 years? Chronological speculations and calculations pertaining to the time of the messiah’s arrival (messianic chronology) were widespread in Second Temple Judaism (Beckwith 1981; 1996, p. 217; Wacholder 1975). Messianic chronologies were connected to the prophecy of Daniel 9:24–27 and closely associated with the days of Creation, with each day symbolizing 1000 years of world history. In some schemes, the messiah would arrive in the 6th millennium from creation (AM 5000–5999 AM), and usher in the kingdom in the 7th millennium (AM 6000; Wallraff, et. al 2007, pp. XXIII, 291). Other schemes held that the Messiah would arrive in/around the year AM 4000 (Beckwith 1981; Silver, pp. 6, 16), an idea later repeated in the rabbinic Babylonian Talmud ( Abodah Zarah 9a; Sanhedrin 97b). The rabbinic world chronology in the Seder Olam Rabbah ( ca . AD 140–160; Guggenheimer 1998), based on the MT, dates Creation to 3761 BC, placing the arrival of the Messiah to around AD 240 (Beckwith 1981) in the AM 4000 messianic scheme. The Seder Olam was developed and written by the very same rabbis who deflated the MT’s numbers in Gen 5/11 to discredit Jesus and the ascending Church. Simply stated, the rabbinic date of Creation derived from the authoritative Seder Olam places Jesus’ life too soon for him to be the Messiah. The Seder Olam’s massive chronological deflation scheme is also exhibited in its erroneous post–Exilic chronology, which the rabbis significantly reduced by about 185 years (Hughes, p. 257). This reduction was done in conjunction with their reinterpretation of Daniel 9, which they associated with the Temple’s destruction instead of the Messiah (Beckwith 1981, p. 536). Reinterpreting Daniel 9, adopting the Seder Olam as authoritative, and reducing the primeval chronology in their Hebrew texts worked together as rationales for rejecting Jesus as the Christ. Silver explains further: The collapse of the Bar Kochba [revolt, ca . AD 135] movement at the close of the putative fifth millennium prompted the Rabbis not only to project the Messianic date to a more distant future, but also to revise their notion of the Creation calendar . They were living not at the close fifth millennium [ca. 4999 AM] but at the close of the fourth [ca. 3999 AM] millennium. The people need not despair of the Messiah. He is still to come… Christian polemics may also have been responsible for this 1000– year revision in the Creation calendar, which took place before the third century. Christian propagandists from the first century on maintained that Jesus was the fulfillment of prophecy, and that he was born at the close of the fifth [4999 AM], or in the first part of the sixth millennium… The Rabbis found it necessary to counter this by asserting that this claim is false, inasmuch as the sixth millennium is still far off (p. 18–19, emphases added). In an ideological and historical context rife with apocalyptic expectation expressed in various forms of chrono–messianism, Pharisaic/rabbinic Judaism was facing a cataclysmic crisis. The Gospel was spreading like wildfire, while the Romans had razed the Temple to the ground, set Jerusalem ablaze and ravaged Israel twice in 65 years. Barely clinging to life was the rabbinic community, desperate to preserve its heritage and intensely threatened by the expanding Jesus movement. Their circumstances were dire, and their intense hatred of Jesus and His Church has undeniable NT theological support. The small core of Judaism that arose from the ashes had autonomous control over the few surviving Hebrew MSS from the Temple. Judaism was no longer variegated, but dominated and controlled by the “scribes and Pharisees” (Mark 2:16). The powerful Rabbi Akiba (40–137 AD) was a fierce enemy of the Gospel. Akiba could decree certain Hebrew texts in the Temple Court to be unfit for public reading, and have them removed from use (Nodet 1997, pp. 193–194). Akiba and his fellow rabbis possessed the necessary authority and opportunity to introduce wholesale chronological changes into the biblical text while also purging the higher numbers from the textual stream (Sexton 2015, pp. 210–218). In the aftermath of 70 AD, it became possible for the rabbis to amend their Hebrew MSS and hide the trail of evidence. Akiba’s disciple Aquila, along with the later Jewish recensions of the LXX, also deflated the numbers in their Greek translations to match the MT (Wevers 1974b, pp. 102–105). “In short, after the destruction of Jerusalem it was possible to introduce a corrupted Biblical chronology” (Seyffarth, p. 125). The rabbis possessed adequate motive, authoritative means, and unique opportunity to systematically revise the sacred text, introduce the shorter chronology in the Seder Olam and proto–MT as authoritative, and remove evidence of the longer chronology. They are the only group who could have made this kind of radical chronological alteration permanent in future manuscripts. 3. Internal Evidence for Chronological Deflation The rabbis did everything they could to hide evidence of these systematic changes, but ultimately, the MT betrays internal evidence of its monumental 1250–year chronological reduction. First, the change of 50 years in Nahor’s ba points to chronological deflation (Table 1). If we assumed for the sake of argument that the MT preserves Nahor’s original ba , and that the LXX’s 79 (Wevers 1974b, p. 146) is the result of chronological inflation, we must ask why the corruptors only added 50 years instead of 100. Nothing prevented them from increasing Nahor’s ba by 100 years. Not only would 129 have been consistent with the (alleged) 100– year inflations throughout the rest of the primeval chronology, this number would also fit in better with the previous LXX ba in Gen Smith ◀ The case for the Septuagint’s chronology in Genesis 5 and 11 ▶ 2018 ICC 122