Gettysburg Address

[maharba]

I think you're right and that all the other sources, one of which Lincoln may have cribbed 'four score and seven' from, all of them trace back to that verse in the O.T. of the King James Bible. My memory is that dates to 1611, and even that (verse or chapter) may have been copied over by the translators from an earlier Bible version. Several beautiful KJV bible phrases were copied over from earlier bibles, and not just
'translated'. So, "three score" and "fourscore" may date back to the 14th century in usage as english and in some bible version.

Likely we've all been to several funerals and even called on to say a few words at the gravesite. It takes little imagination to know that many must be the time, over the years, that proud friends and relatives must have harkened back to this 90th Psalm and to call to the notice of those attending that "Maude lived to four score and ten or three score and nine, etc". Basically cheering on the longlife of the departed with a bible verse, commending their great age. A preacher more than a politician would be more likely to hear such usage, but possibly Abraham Lincoln attended such.

I was looking using SEARCH in this Syposium for past discussions of The Gettysburg Address, to see if there had been close, line by line, analyses of the Gettysburg Address. I have not come across that, yet. For instance, many would say that this country was not at all created in 1776 but instead in 1787, which would have been 76 years (before the 1863 Gettysburg Address), and in that case given as three score and 16 years ago".