Preface (Apology)

During the height of good book writing⸻the last half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th⸻the author would begin with an Apology, that is, for having contributed to the warning ‘of making many books there is no end’ of Ecclesiastes. In this particular case the Apology is especially warranted, for the writer of these words unknowingly perpetuated a editorial Blunder of the worst sort by failing to fully research the 1950 source for Ivan Panin’s Bible Chronology and Panin’s Bible Chronology, two versions of the same work recently published.

In a routine search for corrections, an earlier copy of Panin’s 1923 work was consulted; one published by Green & Co, Caxton Press, Lowestoft Great Britain in 1939. It became immediately apparent that the 1950 revision done by Gustav E Hoyer took liberties that ventured significantly past revision.

This work is a restoration of Ivan Panin’s original publication. It is typed out word-for-word from his. If Panin deems an ellipsis to require four periods separated by spaces in one place, and three but preceded by a space in another, so be it. If Panin deems tho’ to be appropriate in the same paragraph in which he elsewhere spells it though, so be it. Without these little quirks being preserved, the reader might as well be reading a stranger’s opinion as to what Panin wrote . . .which indeed is what the 1950 edition is.

In the ‘revision’ by Gustav Hoyer it is stated that typographical errors had been corrected. Indeed, a careful inspection shows that he found and corrected 28 printing errors, about a third of these punctuation. That he missed 27 more was perhaps due to the fact that his attention was held elsewhere, such as the changing of ‘Jehovah’ to ‘the Lord’ (and not properly to ‘the LORD’) in 116 instances.

It seems that the intended audience also did not countenance any expressions of passion, criticisms of orthodoxy (Fundamentalist and Higher Critic alike), or personal anecdotes: no less than 79 extractions were made totaling 5,868 words. An additional 270 attempted enhancements of Panin’s writing were made. As for fixing those 27 mistranscriptions? Mr. Hoyer made no less than 574 new ones of his own.

Occasionally Panin gets into delicate doctrinal issues at the pivot of one of his discussions. In five of these deletions were made, changes in five more, and additions in two; all of which substantially changed the meaning of what Panin was expounding.

This is Panin’s original work restored to exactly what Panin published. There is a mathematical error of one (duly noted in its place) in summing the years of Period IV of Table I, which does affect some of the proofs of the last section of his book (also noted in that place), but does not diminish the scope of Panin’s discoveries. They are left for the reader to analyze, rather than, as the 1950 edition, half-corrected by the means of dropping affected passages as leprous without taking the time to recalculate the new scenario, which in fact is significantly enhanced by the correction.

The only additions to this work are in the section following Panin’s complete work, in the Appendix. While a researcher may obtain for himself a 1923 or 1939 Edition of Panin’s Bible Chronology, he may find useful a copy that does not require the use of heavy set of lineman pliers to hold the book open while reading the words closest to the stapled gutter of the book, as this transcription required.

Panin begins with nine Canons by which to approach chronology. These are key; in fact they define what is or is not appropriate to the investigation of the field. And they eliminate useless debate; the overwhelming percentage of scholars who find the idea of textual inerrancy ‘quaint’ need not trouble themselves with an author whose object it is to demonstrate it.

His second section is a “List” of every relevant date to an unbroken chronology to be found in the Bible. This reference list is valuable to all investigators, even adherents to the latest model of Assyrian chronology.

The third section is a guided tour through the patterns of the numerics woven throughout the Chronology. While he could have written volumes on the subject, he limited himself to examples that have specific impact on the discussion.

The archaic presentation style will make its presence felt; this gives as close as possible a sense of not only the content of his work, but the timing and background. If you are merely looking for dates to compare, skip to Table I; but be warned; you will miss one of the only uses of ‘Gibraltaresqueness’ found anywhere in English literature.

Those familiar with the classic problems of chronology that are revisited by each generation of scholars will appreciate the depth of Panin’s often unique and always thorough approach.

—Mark Vedder, 2018