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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 Excerpt:...with the captivity to Philistia, eighteen years, may denote so many cycles of the return of the same eclipses; that is, fifty-four years, the first two of which are in decimestrial years. Scheme II. reckons the period down to the captivity of Mesopotamia in decimestrial years; also all items of forty years as ten-month years. All other items in both schemes are in years of twelve months. The decimestrial year is in cycles of six years, equal to five of twelve months. For every five years counted from the era they fall as in the following table: The chronological table gives every year of each ruler, and captivity, which causes the last year of a preceding item to overlap the first year of a succeeding one. The decimestrial years follow the Jewish vague year, which in B.C. 1397 began on April 2, the day of the vernal equinox. Only nine months and five days of the Jewish vague year fell in B.C. 1397, hence the first decimestrial year fell partly in B.C. 1396. The table does not show this, but simply designates the decimestrial years corresponding to the vague years as found in the column headed Era of Tabernacle. The Julian epochs in the first column are only for the beginning of the vague year. The astronomical knowledge of the Jews fully equalled that of the same class in the surrounding nations. I am aware the opposite of this opinion is held. Special mention of astronomical matters are absent from the Bible. There are found only a few allusions to this subject, made in a more or less obscure way; but these, when given the consideration due them, point to a not inferior knowledge of these matters. The Jews possessed truer knowledge of the length of the solar year than that usually ascribed to the ancients, and it is proposed to be made evident, in the cour...