>> And this tradition dates from when they had that authority (though I maintain they still do). <<
And on what basis do you make that assertion that the tradition is that old? Asserting through appeal to Tradition what Tradition held in the past requires that the authority to discern Tradition be held in the present.
1. The only appeal to assert the pre-Christian antiquity to the Masoretic text is Tradition itself. Historical techniques seem to contradict it, although, again, I would not allow those techniques to invalidate religious convictions.
2. The Septuagint is where the Catholic Church holds that the authority of discerning scriptual authority is held. It contradicts the dates of the Masoretic text. You would at least be in somewhat firmer ground asserting merely 144-hour creationism, than the entire dating system derived from the Masoretic text.
3. These questions are not rhetorical: What is the delimiter of Tradition, according to you? Are you asserting the year 0/ Year 1/ year 2 stuff is part of Tradition, or just a corrollary to reconcile tradition with history? How about the Kaballah? That group (sorry, I forget their names) that believe the Messiah is the 130-year-old dead guy from Brooklyn?
I'm not making light; obviously there are as many embarrassing splinter groups in the Catholic/Christian churches, if not more. My point, though, is that there is an understood repository of Tradition within the Catholic Faith. Where is the repository that holds that your dating system? Am I wrong in supposing it cannot be the Talmud? (I suppose that, despite not having read the entire Talmud, or even an entire abridgment of it, but because other Talmudic Jews don't seem to agree with you.)
The authentic text of the Torah is not to be found by the "historical critical" method which excavates ancient pointed texts from archaeological digs. It is rather to be found in the authentic kosher Torah Scroll, which is present in the 'aron of every synagogue in the world. The very rules and regulations for writing a Torah Scroll are part of the Oral Torah rather than the Written, and a Scroll must be written strictly in accordance to these rules. One rule is that an already-written Torah Scroll be kept before the scribe as he writes the new one. Another is that he must keep his mind purely focused on his task. To miscopy a single letter, or even to write something while thinking of something else, invalidates the entire thing and it has to be buried and the task begun again. Interestingly, the text of the Seifer Torah are identical throughout the world in both 'Ashkenazi and Sefaradi worlds (only the Teimanim [Yemenites], who lived for so many centuries out of contact with the rest of the Jewish world, have a few difference in the letters of the Torah and these never change the meaning of a word). Since every Torah scroll must be written on organic material, decay inevitably sets in and it must be reverently buried in a Jewish cemetary. Thus it is not the age of any Scroll that guarantees its accuracy but rather the writing process itself.
Incidentally, the text of the Torah Scroll contains only consonants. There are no vowels or punctuation. These (for which the Masoretes created symbols of their own) are actually a part of the Oral Torah even though they appear in all printed Rabbinic Bibles. Unlike Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, Orthodox Judaism has this perfect justification for its Oral Tradition!
I'm not making light; obviously there are as many embarrassing splinter groups in the Catholic/Christian churches, if not more. My point, though, is that there is an understood repository of Tradition within the Catholic Faith. Where is the repository that holds that your dating system? Am I wrong in supposing it cannot be the Talmud? (I suppose that, despite not having read the entire Talmud, or even an entire abridgment of it, but because other Talmudic Jews don't seem to agree with you.)
The translation of the Hebrew Bible into a foreign language, which removed it from its true context and made all today's false interpretations possible, is actually mourned as a tragedy (on the fast day of `Asarah BeTevet). For the Catholic Church to vouch only for the Septuagint is really not much different from cultural Protestants who insist that only the King James Version is the "true Bible."
Now, as to your claim that "other Talmudic Jews don't seem to agree" with me. First, I'm not Jewish. Second, what do you mean by "Talmudic Jews?" Do you mean actual Orthodox Jews? There are secular and non-Orthodox Jews who study the Talmud academically; these of course would not agree with the traditional chronology. It is also true that there are some Jews who call themselves "orthodox" or "traditional" but who have accepted such foreign concepts as the documentary hypothesis and who basically fit in perfectly with American secular academic culture. However (and forgive me for putting this so bluntly), this is blatant heresy. Other than this group ALL Orthodox Jews accept this chronology--even the ones who accept evolution! Did you know that one of the foremost Orthodox Jewish Theistic evolutionists, Dr. Gerald Schroeder, becomes a literalist once the text arrives at the Sixth Day and even accepts such things as a real Adam and Eve who lived precisely as Torah and Tradition teach. He even accepts the Tradition that Adam divorced Eve after Cain killed Abel and that they remained apart for 130 years until Adam presided at the divorce of Cain's descendant Lamekh, after which he went back to her and fathered Shet. And this is a man of science!!! So again, which "Talmudic Jews" disagree with "me?"
If on the other hand you are asking why don't Orthodox Jews ever talk about this stuff, I'll tell you--
I don't know! (With apologies to Tevye!)
If you are assuming that the Orthodox Jews on this forum don't agree with the chronology I summarized, then that is merely an assumption. Do they? I don't know. Perhaps they do and never talk about it outside the shul. Perhaps there are some here who really do reject it (though again, it isn't "me" they're disagreeing with). I can only say that the mystery you have highlighted, why Orthodox Jews don't make this known to the outside world is one that has plagued and befuddled me for my entire life. You can go into any Orthodox synagogue in America, ask the name of Noah's wife, and be told (as I was), yet when these same Orthodox Jews speak to the outside world it is always about prejudice, the Holocaust, or Israel, with the actual contents of Jewish teaching assumed by the outside world to be the invention of the Southern Baptist Convention. Perhaps, as I have specualated, the image of the "sophisticated secular skeptical Jewish intellectual" is so powerful that Orthodox spokesmen literally have to tiptoe to avoid offending potential returnees to Jewish practice. But ask yourself this: isn't the entire Jewish religion a mystery to most people? Everyone knows it's there but most of those people know very little about it. Do they know what a lulav cluster or a hosha`'na' bundle or seider hazkarat neshamot are? Do they know that before reading the Megillah (the Book of Esther) on Purim they recite a blessing thanking G-d for actually doing the things related in it, which would be a terrible sin (called a birkat shav') if they didn't actually happen? Unfortunately Judaism is known to the outside world almost entirely as an ethnoculture.
Once again, I assure you that whoever does or does not agree with the chronology I gave in the lead post to this thread, it is not my creation. It is entirely indirect quotations from my sources. If you go to the original post you will see a link to an online Jewish chronology. Have you clicked on it to check it out? I urge you to do so if you believe I'm making this stuff up. Some of my information came from books which I own. Rabbi Rotenberg's (zt"l) work on `Am `Olam is being translated into English and being made available. Volume I is the main source of everything I said and Rabbi Rotenberg insists over and over that this chronology is absolutely certain and sure and "we cannot do without it." He also critiques the flimsy grounds on which our "common era" count is based. This book as well as Bible Basics are available from Feldheim. Look over their inventory if you are interested in purchasing copies. I also own books published by ArtScroll. Interestingly, one of my books from this source (The Wisdom of the Hebrew Alphabet by Rabbi Michael L. Munk) has material on an issue no one has yet raised: the problem of a Phoenician-drived "palaeo-Hebrew" script as a forerunner of today's Hebrew script.
If you don't want to invest in purchasing these books then visit any Orthodox Jewish acquaintance who may have one or more of these books in his personal library. Perhaps he will allow you to borrow them. Or if it doesn't violate your conscience, attend an Orthodox shul some time and look at the books available in the library. If they have a Stone TaNa"KH be sure to look at the chronological tables in the back. Ask any member of the congregation the name of Moses' wife, or if Methuselah really did live 969 years, or how `Og Melekh HaBashan (a giant from before the Flood who was killed by Moses) survived the Flood without actually being inside the ark. Go ahead, ask. Or find an Orthodox rabbi online and ask him. I did!
With regard to your questions about the nature and authority of Jewish Tradition and in whom it is vested, I direct you to the Shavu`ot page at Aish.com. It has all sorts of material on the transmission and accuracy of the text and transmission of the Written and Oral Torah.
Finally, while you and I have sparred a bit recently, I appreciate the fact that this post of yours was respectful. I hope that, however much you disagree with me, you find this response to be equally respectful.