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BUNSEN ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.1

To the Editor of the Christian Remembrancer.

MY DEAR SIR,-You ask me whether a statement in another periodical is correct, that Chevalier Bunsen looks upon the ages of the patriarchs as being periods and phases of civilization, not literal years; and whether he takes a rationalistic view of this portion of the sacred history?

It is painful to speak thus of one who is known to us by the employments of earlier years-the compilation of pious hymns and of public prayers, superior to what the Germans yet possessed. But when one comes among us to introduce a very grave ecclesiastical change, and bring our Church into relations with religious bodies, such as it never yet entered into, the English Church may justly desire to know what the religious belief of the individual is, who recommends to her a great religious change in her relations, were his plan carried out,-which God avert!

This work of Chevalier Bunsen touches only incidentally upon the history of the Bible, and much more is contained in the way of implication, or of general principle, than of direct statement. Chevalier Bunsen wishes to disbelieve as little as, without giving up his hypothesis, he can; he wishes also to represent to himself that what he disbelieves is detached from the actual substance of religion; he wishes, too, to put forward rather what he believes than what he disbelieves. But his statements do amount to disbelief in plain facts of Scripture history; his principles involve the denial of all historical inspiration; his glowing approbation of other books, of which I must speak, does evince a most painful amount of unbelief in the divinity of the Old Testament and its prophecies.

The occasion of his entering into the question of the history of Holy Scripture at all is the Egyptian chronology. Of course the chronology of nations, proud of their antiquity, and exaggerating that antiquity, whether in Egypt or in India, must be at irreconcilable variance with that of the Bible; and the wisdom. of this world,' which has not learned to subject the wisdom of the Egyptians' to the simplicity of Holy Scripture, will take part with the latter. The world sides with the world. Chevalier Bunsen thinks he can take a middle course; sacrifice the chrono

1 'Egyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte, von C. C. J. Bunsen.' Hamburgh, 1845. (Egypt's Position in the History of the World.)

logy of the Bible, as the most outward part of outward history,' and yet not part with what a Christian must retain.

I will first set down what he says on the side of belief. He believes in the truth, as matter of fact, of the relation of Joseph's personal character and power' (p. 223). He believes 'the historical personality of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob' (pp. 222, 5); and that the beginning of the historical inquiry of the Jews into the past, and their tradition as to the present, 'which have been preserved to us [in the Pentateuch,] are to be 'carried back to Moses and his times' (p. 201). But this, unless he does himself great wrong, is the whole amount of what he believes of the sacred narrative up to Moses. He does not profess to believe more; and what he does disbelieve leaves but this naked residuum, which, except as far as it might be a step to further belief, is in itself as good as nothing.

To Chevalier Bunsen it seems something, because he is inured to systems in which less is believed, or nothing. In all stages of imperfect belief, they who believe a little more may seem to themselves to believe, by the side of those who believe still less. Eichhorn, who treated Holy Scripture with a miserable lightness, could, in 1825, speak of himself as 'too orthodox for his times,' because he believed in the genuineness of the Pentateuch, apart from all miracles, prophecy, or revelation. And now in a more earnest school (would it had learned humility also!) writers speak of themselves as being on the side of belief, because there is something which, in a shadowy way, they do not altogether disbelieve-something which they can abstract from Holy Scripture as it stands, and take as an ideal of their own. Such have no idea of the objective way in which the Christian Church has ever looked upon Holy Scripture, and believes every thing, because "it is written.' Luther (as is so well known) gave them the unhappy example of subjecting Holy Scripture to a standard of his own, and accepting or rejecting its parts accordingly; and now those German writers on Holy Scripture, who do believe more or less, with rare exceptions, part, without scruple, with what does not fit in with their standard, and yet doubt not as to their own belief, because they are in conflict with those who believe less, and because they have given up that old simple belief, as something which it is hopeless to maintain.

Some statement of this kind seemed necessary, to explain how Chevalier Bunsen could represent to himself what he parts with, as something wholly outward only; while it, in fact, involves the whole reverence for, and credibility of, this portion of Holy Scripture, and, by implication, of so much besides. Thus he cannot bring himself to think that he is rejecting more than the chronology of Holy Scripture, arms himself with the case of

Galileo, and ridicules the idea of an inspired knowledge of the duration of this world from its beginning. He begins by rejecting the date assigned to the sojourning in Egypt, and is met by the prophecy in the mouth of Almighty God himself, as revealing it to Abraham (Gen. xv. 13). Yet, in the way in whicn Germans are unhappily inured to look upon Holy Scripture, he cannot bring himself even to regard this as being possibly prophecy; he disbelieves it without even the consciousness that he is disbelieving anything which any one can now think of believing; he supposes the prophetical account to have been a little earlier or later than the Exodus,' i. e. that the statement that it is a prophecy, is altogether a fiction; and yet cannot imagine that he has thereby stated anything derogatory to Holy Scripture. He disposes of the prophetical account with as little scruple as we might with a date of his Egyptian chronology, or of Livy. He assumes that the whole is entirely untrue. He is writing for those accustomed so to regard it. He cannot even bring himself to think that it so far claims to be true, that he is necessarily imputing untruth to it. The passage is as follows: For the 'sojourning in Egypt, there was no historical chronology trans'mitted, any more than there was history itself; nay, in this 'period there were not even eminent individuals, by aid of whom 'a genealogy might be formed between Joseph and Moses. They 'doubled then that patriarchal period [215 years] for the sojourning in Egypt, in order to express its far greater duration, and 'gave to this number the form of an historical sum without any 'basis of genealogies. This statement is accompanied-something earlier or later, (for this is doubtful,) by that prophetical statement of four centuries and four generations, Gen. xv. 13-15.'-(P.217). Yet what is this but to say, that there being no data as to the length of the sojourning of the children of Israel in Egypt, a sum entirely arbitrary was taken, whereas Holy Scripture lays a remarkable stress upon the date (Ex. xii. 41:) At the end of 'the 430 years, even the self-same day, it came to pass that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt?' But not only so, but whereas Holy Scripture says that Almighty God revealed to Abram, Thy seed shall be a stranger in a land not 'theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four 'hundred years; and also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterwards they shall come out with great sub'stance,' Chevalier Bunsen says that this was not so; that this whole sum of 400 years was a fictitious one; and that whether this statement was somewhat earlier or later' than the account of the Exodus is doubtful. Anyhow it was not a prophecy, nor said to Abram, since it was only a little earlier or a little later than its completion.

Having thus set aside the later chronology, as to the length of the sojourn in Egypt, he thinks, as matter of consistency, that no greater credit can be claimed for the earlier, the patriarchal period, from the call of Abram (as we believe it to be) to Jacob's going down into Egypt. As before he dispensed with prophecy, so here with the history of the Bible. He denies that Abraham was the father of those whom Holy Scripture calls his sons; and altogether, that this history contains the personal relation of father and son' at all. Yet he does not seem conscious that he thereby denies almost every detail which Holy Scripture relates, and leaves himself only (which, indeed, is all which he professes to believe,) the bare personal existence of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' The occasion of this denial is, that for his Egyptian chronology he needs a longer period than the 215 years assigned by Holy Scripture, from Abraham's coming to the promised land, to Jacob's going down into Egypt. As a ground for the denial, he takes occasion partly of some of Abraham's descendants having the same name as the countries they settled in, (a ground which would make many of our forefathers unhistorical personages, or all who 'call their lands after their own names,' or whose sons, as Holy Scripture often mentions, called places by the name of a forefather,) partly that the names. of three of the grandsons of Keturah have plural endings. The passage stands thus:

'The numbers which make up the 215 years are as follows:

As to these numbers, no difference of accounts has been transmitted to us; still, historical criticism assuredly is not entitled to claim more belief for the chronological nature of the genealogies before the going down into Egypt than for the like in Egypt. Besides this, it must call attention to the nature of the genealogy of Abram as a whole.

'Abram the Hebrew (Eber) was great grandson of Serug, whose name Buttmann has proved to be that of the district of Edessa, Erech, and the first forefather of Osroene. He was the son of Terah, who quitted Uz, in Chaldæa, and removed to the land of Haran. He is called the brother of Haran, Lot's father; father of Ishmael, the first forefather of thirteen Arabic districts, and of Midian. Further, through Jokshan and Sheba (two names proved to be those of districts), as his son and gian lson, great-grandfather of the Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim. Any one who still wished not to see, with regard to these names, that they are names of tribes, not of persons, will here, through the plural form of the names, be compelled to acknowledge that he is in the province of traditions as to the connexion of tribes of people, in which epochs are indicated in the form of genealogies. 'Lastly, as Abram, through Isaac and Jacob, is great-grandfather of the twelve tribes of Israel, so is he, through Esau, grandfather of Amalek, and

five other Idumæan tribes of Northern Arabia, which, together with the sons of Seir, i. e. of the mountain-chain of Edom, dwelt in this land, and together with the descendants of Seir, among whom is the Idumæan district Uz, known to us through Job. Any one, then, may be perfectly convinced of the personality not only of Jacob and Isaac, but also of that of Abraham; and any one may see that with Abraham historical personages take the places of early forefathers of tribes; and yet, in the age of "Abram the Hebrew," have some glimpse into a period not continuing on along natural generations, nor capable of being measured from our present point of view. Thereby it will become the clearer that the genealogy of the chosen friend of God is historically to be looked upon as exhibiting great and longenduring commotions of the old population of Asia from the mountains of Armenia and Chaldæa, which rolled through Mesopotamia to the northern and eastern boundaries of Egypt, to Amalek and Edom. They represent the relations of tribes of people, and their ramifications, not personal relations of father and son; consequently they authenticate to us epochs, not natural generations.'

'On this ground,' he adds, we pass over in entire silence the chronological measurement of the two periods before Abram, the primeval history before and after the Flood." (P. 223-225).

Now, if one is to glean from this how much Chevalier Bunsen does believe of the history of the 'father of the faithful, the 'friend of God;' who, by faith, sojourned in the land of 'promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise,' it would be difficult to say, probably for himself also. He does think these three, Abraham also, historical personages; yet in their history, whether in its moral, religious, or typical character, the birth of each descendant of Abraham, whether in the line which had the promises, or by the foreknowledge and election of God excluded from it, and the relation of each to the other, are very prominent, and this in the minutest details. As a Divine history, every part of it is instructive. Chevalier Bunsen distinctly expresses his disbelief that Ishmael was any historical son of Abraham, or even Isaac, or Jacob of Isaac; for if this were admitted, since the period is measured by their lives, the chronology of the Bible would stand true, and his own would be overthrown. He tells us that they designate not the relations of father to son, but epochs, movements of people, &c. Now, let any English Christian, even apart from this sacred history itself, think how the truth of its details is implied throughout the Bible; how a minute accuracy of those details is assumed by St. Paul, in the Epistles to the Romans, Galatians, Hebrews; by St. Stephen, when full of the Holy Ghost' (Acts vii.); or in the Psalms; or more, Who it is Who calls Himself the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob;' or how our blessed Lord speaks of them, as though the whole history on the surface of the Bible was true; and let him imagine what a chaos it would make of that which is now part of his faith, and more recious to him than the apple