the time of Manasseh, and long after the return of the latter from captivity.

CHAPTER 13.

THAT MOSES IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH, PROVED1. FROM INTERNAL EVIDENCE.

Thus then have we examined the grounds upon which it is generally believed that Moses is the author of those five books which form the beginning of the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament, as they are termed by Christians in contradistinction to their own books which they call the New Testament.

It remains to produce more positive testimony to the same end, and in doing so I shall class the various arguments under two heads also: 1. The Internal Evidence furnished by the books themeselves that Moses is not their author, and 2. External Evidence, obtained from various sources leading to the same conclusion.

The Internal Evidence, (which will now have to be considered, shall be also classified under different sections, as tending to make the subject more clear, and to give grea

ter force to the general principles of criticism on which the inferences, which I would draw, are grounded:

1. The two tables of stone seem to have supplied the place of a book of the law.

That the Hebrew legislator should deliver to his countrymen Two TABLES OF STONE, on which the principal heads of their law were engraved, is consistent with all the information which History supplies concerning those early times and the practice of other nations. But, if we suppose a book of such length and bulk as the Pentateuch to have been given at the same time to the Israelites, what becomes of the two tables of stone? where was the necessity that these also should be given? It was not that they might be set up as monuments visible to the whole people, and as exponents of the heads of a law, which the written book would develope more fully, for the two tables of stone were never set up at all; they were kept in the ark of the covenant, and there is no mention made of their ever being taken out; not even when the Temple of Solomon was built, when they might with propriety have been set up in some public place, if this had been the use for which they were originally designed. But no such use is hinted at, by the writer, nor were they originally given by God for such a purpose; as is manifest from their size, for when Moses came down from the mount, he held the two tables in his hand, which he could not have done, if they were of the usual size of monuments made to be set up in public.

But the supposition that the two tables of stone were intended to be set up as monuments, is refuted by the fact that other stones were actually set up by Joshua, according to a command given by Moses, and that on them was inscribed a copy of the law of Moses. The original injunction of Moses is found in the 27th chapter of Deuteronomy) vv. 1-8.

And Moses with the elders of Israel commanded the people saying, Keep all the commandments which I command you this day. And it

shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaster them with plaster: and thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law, when thou art passed over, that thou mayest go in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, a land that floweth with milk and honey; as the Lord God of thy Fathers hath promised thee. Therefore it shall be, when ye be gone over Jordan, that ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day, in mount Ebal, and thou shalt plaster them with plaster. And there shalt thou build an altar unto the Lord thy God, an altar of stones: thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them. Thou shalt build the altar of the Lord thy God of whole stones: and thou shalt offer burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord thy God: and thou shalt offer peace offerings, and shalt eat there, and rejoice before the Lord thy God. And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly.

The fulfilment of the command is related in the 8th chapter of Joshua vv. 30-32:

Then Joshua built an altar unto the Lord God of Israel in mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones, over which no man hath lift up any iron: and they offered thereon burnt offerings unto the Lord, and sacrificed peace-offerings. And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel. And all Israel, and their elders, and officers, and their judges, stood on this side the ark, and on that side before the priests the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, as well the stranger, as he that was born among them; half of them over against mount Gerizim, and half of them over against mount Ebal; as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded before, that they should bless the people of Israel. And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them.

This narrative is remarkable, for it commemorates a public solemnity, held for no other purpose than that the laws of Moses might be impressed on the minds of the Jewish people. The writer also tells us that it was held in accor

dance with the book of Moses, and yet he does not tell us that the book of Moses was produced on that occasion, though we are to suppose that it was in existence. Yet something is then done which seems to prove, by implication, that there was no such book at all at that time. Joshua is said to have engraved on certain stones a copy of the law of Moses, and afterward to have read all the words of the law, and the concluding paragraph relates that "there was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel." Must we, then, suppose that the whole of the Pentateuch was inscribed on those stones by Joshua? what could be the use of inscribing the historical parts of the Pentateuch on those stones, or reading them afterwards to the people, if the object was simply to admonish them that they should observe the law of Moses? It is more probable that an inscription much shorter than the whole of the Pentateuch, was carved upon these stones, and, as no mention is made of any book at all on the same occasion, we have a negative proof that no such book was in existence at that time.

The delivery of the two tables renders it unlikely that any other writing was bequeathed by Moses to the Israelitish people, particularly as the age in which Moses lived precedes by many centuries the times in which books, as far as we know of them, can be proved to have been written.

2. Manner in which Moses is mentioned in the Pentateuch.

If however, notwithstanding this antecedent improbability, it should yet be contended that Moses certainly wrote a book called the Book of the Law, it may be shewn that the Pentateuch, at all events, is not that book, as must be evident to every one who will dispassionately consider the manner in which the Pentateuch is written. This is a consideration which involves no question of grammatical idiom or style, which can be intelligible to the Hebrew student only-I reserve that for a separate chapter-but

is easy of comprehension to the most ordinary intellect. My meaning may be illustrated in this manner. If we read in a book the account of certain transactions in which a particular man is concerned, and his name always occurs in the third person, it is a natural inference that this man did not write the book, in which he is so described. This general principle is, no doubt, to be taken with some limitation; for it is well known that some persons have, from modesty or some other motive, introduced their own names in the third person, into their narrative of events in which they have acted a prominent part. Thus Thucydides the celebrated historian of the Peloponnesian War, prefaces his work with these words;

Θουκυδίδης Αθηναῖος ξυνέγραψε τόν πόλεμον τῶν Πελοποννησίων καὶ ̓Αθηναίων, ὡς ἐπολέμησαν πρὸς ἀλλήλους.

Thucydides, of Athens, wrote the war between the Peloponnesians and Athenians, how they fought one against the other.

This mode of introducing his work, however, does not prevent the author from speaking, elsewhere, in the first person, as for instance in chapter 48 of the second book of his history, where he describes the plague at Athens :

Ἐγὼ δὲ, οἷον τε ἐγίγνετο, λέξω, καὶ ἀφ ̓ ὧν τις σκοπῶν, εἴποτε καὶ αὖθις ἐπιπέσοι, μάλιστ ̓ ἂν ἔχοι τι προειδὼς μὴ ἀγνοεῖν, ταῦτα δηλώσω, αὐτός τε νοσήσας, καὶ αὐτὸς ἰδὼν ἄλλους πάσχοντας.

I will relate its nature, together with such details as may best enable a man hereafter, if it should come again, to recognize it and to be prepared against it; for I both had the complaint myself, and saw others who had it also.

It is clear, from this passage, that Thucydides was the author of the book which bears his name; and the mode of speaking in the third person, with which the history commenced, is compensated by other direct expressions, and does not detract from his claims to be regarded as the author of the book. Indeed, the former sentence may be considered as equivalent to a modern title page "The History of the Peloponnesian war &c. by Thucydides."