Paul, Minnesota.]
{p. 278}
of time from thence to the assumed date of Job's trial will give the
difference of these longitudes, and ascertain their positions then
with respect to the vernal and equinoctial points of intersection of
the equinoctial and ecliptic; according to the usual rate of the
precession of the equinoxes, one degree in seventy-one years and a
half."[1]
A careful calculation, based on these principles, has proved that
this period was 2338 B. C. According to the Septuagint, in the
opinion of George Smith, Job lived, or the book of Job was written,
from 2650 B. C. to 2250 B. C. Or the events described may have
occurred 25,740 years before that date.
It appears, therefore, that the book of Job was written, even
according to the calculations of the orthodox, long before the time
of Abraham, the founder of the Jewish nation, and hence could not
have been the work of Moses or any other Hebrew. Mr. Smith thinks
that it was produced _soon after the Flood_, by an Arabian. He finds
in it many proofs of great antiquity. He sees in it (xxxi, 26, 28)
proof that in Job's time idolatry was an offense under the laws, and
punishable as such; and he is satisfied that all the parties to the
great dialogue were free from the taint of idolatry.
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