VII. WAS SAMUEL THE ELOHISTIC WRITER OF THE PENTATEUCH XV. THE JEHOVISTIC PSALMS CONSIDERED XVI. THE JEHOVISTIC NAMES IN THE BOOK OF JUDGES THE Hebrew Scriptures I have examined and appreciated, as I would any other writings of antiquity; and I have bluntly and honestly delivered my sentiments of their merit and demerit, their beauties or imperfections, as becomes a free and impartial examiner. I am well aware that this freedom will, by the many, be considered as an audacious licence, and the cry of heresy! infidelity! irreligion! will resound from shore to shore. But my peaceful mind has been long prepared for, and indeed accustomed to, such harsh Cerberean barkings; and experience has made me (not naturally insensible) callous to every injury, that ignorance or malice may have in store for me. I only enter my protest against downright misrepresentation and calumny. I disclaim and spurn the imputation of irreligion and infidelity. I believe as much as I find sufficient motives of credibility for believing and without sufficient motives of credibility there can be no rational belief. Indeed, the great mass of mankind have no rational belief. The common Papist and the common Protestant are here on almost equal terms. The common Papist rests his faith on the supposed infallibility of his Church. He reads in his catechism, or is told by his catechist, that the Church cannot err in what she teaches, and then he is told that this unerring Church is composed only of those, who hold communion with the Bishop of Rome, and believe precisely as he, and the Bishops who hold communion with him, believe. From that moment reason is set aside; authority usurps its place, and implicit faith is the necessary consequence. He dares not doubt: for in his table of sins, which he is obliged to confess, he finds doubting in matters of faith to be a grievous crime. But, on the other hand, is the faith of the common Protestant better founded? He rests it on a Book, called the Holy Bible, which he believes to be the infallible Word of God. He is taught to believe the Bible to be the infallible Word of God, before he has read or can read it; and he sits down to read it, with this prepossession in his mind, that he is reading the infallible Word of God. .. His belief, then, is as implicit as that of the common Papist, and his motives of believing even less specious. On the whole, then, I think, it may be laid down as an axiom, that the bulk of Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, cannot be said to have a rational faith; because their motives of credibility are not rational motives, but the positive assertions of an assumed authority, which they have never discussed, or durst not question. Their religion is the fruit of unenlightened credulity.-Rev. Dr. A. GEDDES (Rom. Cath. Priest), Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures, 1800, vol.I,p.v. PREFACE TO PART II. Ir will be seen that, în this Second Part of my work, the argu→ ment to prove the non-Mosaic and unhistorical character of the Pentateuch is removed altogether from the ground on which the question was discussed in Part I, and is treated upon other, chiefly philological, grounds. My former book has had, I believe, the effect which I desired, having met with such a reception, generally, at the hands of English readers, as satisfies me that there will now exist a very general feeling among them, that there is certainly something in the story of the Exodus, as recorded in the Pentateuch, which needs to be explained, and assures me that the requisite attention will be given to the further examination of this important subject. It was my earnest desire and hope to secure such attention from the more thoughtful and intelligent of the Laity, without whose aid nothing, I knew, could be done to deliver the Church of England from the restraints of those time-honoured traditions, which have hitherto checked freedom of thought and speech among her members, and sealed, to a very great extent, the mouths of her doctors and clergy. But, in order to do this, it was absolutely necessary to awaken their interest in the question to be discussed, by treating it, in the first instance, in the most plain and popular manner, and using chiefly such reasoning as would require in the reader no extensive scholarship, no knowledge of the Hebrew tongue or acquaintance with the higher departments of Biblical criticism,-nothing but an honest, English, practical commonsense, with a determination to know, if possible, the real truth upon the points at issue, where the argument turns upon matters of every-day life, lying completely within his cognisance, and, when known, to embrace and avow it. I must now take a step forward with those, who are resolved to investigate thoroughly the question which has been raised, as to the real origin, age, and authorship of the different portions of the Pentateuch. I shall still, however, bear constantly in mind that my book, to produce the effect which I desire, must be brought within the grasp of an intelligent layman, though unskilled in Hebrew learning. The difficulty, no doubt, is great, which must be here encountered, if it is to satisfy at once the demands of the scholar and the requirements of the unlearned. But the vital importance of the subject under consideration is such as to leave me no alternative but to make this attempt; and I can have no excuse for sparing any labour, which may help to simplify, as far as possible, the unavoidable difficulties of the case. This will account for the endeavour, which I have made throughout, to make each step of the reasoning plain to the apprehension of the general reader, though a critical scholar may, perhaps, complain that time and space are occupied in clearing ground, which has been cleared for him long ago, and in fortifying a position, which, he may think, needs no defence. I have gone upon the principle of taking nothing for granted,—of assuming that my reader will desire to see for himself every step of the argument, and to have each point cleared up completely as he goes. Where, therefore, it has been necessary to appeal to some knowledge of the Hebrew language, I have sought by means of a translation, or in some other way, to supply the information needed to produce conviction in the mind of the unlearned,— sufficiently strong, at all events, to enable him to go on confidently with the train of reasoning, which is followed throughout this Second Part, if less certain than that which would arise from actual acquaintance with the original tongue. A few words may here be said in reply to my Reviewers. I desire to acknowledge thankfully the hearty welcome and encouragement, which my book has met with from many influential quarters. And I am too well aware of the pain, which its publication must have caused to many excellent persons, to be surprised at receiving some hard words from others. I am sure, however, that the truth will prevail at last, and I shall abide patiently and hopefully the issue of the contest. Some of my critics have complained that I have set forth nothing new in the First Part,—that the objections, which I have stated, had all been heard and answered before. I made, however, no pretence of bringing forward novelties. The very point, indeed, of my argument in Part I was this, that these difficulties were not new, though many of them were new to me, when I first began to engage in these investigations, as, I believe, notwithstanding the assertions of not a few of my critics, they were new to very many of my readers, lay and clerical, when first laid before them. But I expressly said that these contradictions, generally, had been noticed by others, and must be noticed by every one who would carefully study the Pentateuch, comparing one statement with another. I said, also, that they have never been satisfactorily explained; and I say so still. Having carefully considered the various replies which have hitherto been made to the First Part of my work, I find no occasion to modify any of its main conclusions; though I have gladly availed myself of suggestions, whether from friends or opponents, which have enabled me to amend, and, not unfrequently, to strengthen, some of my arguments. But the line of reasoning pursued in the present portion of my work is that, probably, which with many minds will produce a more decided effect. It will be seen that all the elaborate attempts, which have been made to 'explain away' difficulties and 'reconcile' contradictions, are but as breath spent in vain, when the composite character of the story of the Exodus is once distinctly recognised, and the Pentateuch falls to pieces, as it were, in the reader's hands, the different ages of the different writers being established beyond a doubt, and clearly exhibited. It was, perhaps, my knowledge of the overwhelming amount and weight of this evidence, and of much more of the same kind to be produced hereafter, which led me to express myself in the First Part with an assured confidence in the certainty of my conclusions, which some of my reviewers have condemned, as scarcely warranted, in their opinion, by the premisses, even if they were admitted to be true. Others, again, have said that such a work as mine was unnecessary, because in these days the notion of literal inspiration is generally abandoned. 'It is but fighting, therefore, with a shadow, to attack the doctrine of Scripture infallibility, which is a thing of the past, and has either already died away, or is fast dying away, under the influence of modern science, and amidst the growing intelligence of the age.' But is this statement true? I quoted in the Introduction to Part I, words addressed to the junior members of the University of Oxford by one of their select preachers. Could any language have set forth more explicitly the duty of regarding the Bible, as in its every 'sentence, word, syllable, letter-where shall we stop?'-infallible and Divine? But many of that writer's best friends, it is said, regret the delivery and publication of those sermons. 'It is not to be supposed that such views are at all widely entertained within the Church in the present day.' What, then, shall be said of the following extracts? The Rev. E. GARBETT, M.A., 'Select Preacher and Boyle Lecturer,' in a sermon also preached before the University of Oxford, Nov. 16, 1862, writes as follows: But this notion of an infallible Bible, and of the historical truth of its contents, is no more, it is replied, than the mistake of a popular religion, of which the severer criticism and more accurate habits of modern thought have undermined the very foundations. .... It is the clear teaching of those doctrinal formularies, to which we of the Church of England have expressed our solemn assent, and no honest interpretation of her language can get rid of it. p.9. If the belief in the infallibility of the Scripture be a falsehood, the Church founded upon it must be a living fraud; . . in all consistent reason, we must accept the whole of the inspired autographs or reject the whole, as from end to end unauthoritative and worthless. p.10. |