PART I.

THE PENTATEUCH EXAMINED AS AN

HISTORICAL

NARRATIVE.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

of the Spirit of God, that he was kept
from making any serious error, and
certainly from writing anything alto-

doubting confidence --such is the state-
ment usually made on the historical
veracity, and infallible accuracy, of the
Mosaic narrative in all its main par-
ticulars.

2. There was a time, in my own life,
before my attention had been drawn
to the facts, which make such a view
impossible for most reflecting and en-
quiring minds, when I thought thus,
and could have heartily assented to such
language as the following, which BUR-
GON, Inspiration, &c. p.89, asserts to
be the creed of orthodox believers, and
which, probably, expresses the belief of
many English Christians at the present
day:-

1. THE first five books of the Bible,-gether untrue. We may rely with un-
commonly called the Pentateuch, or
Book of Five Volumes,-are supposed
by most English readers of the Bible
to have been written by Moses, except
the last chapter of Deuteronomy, which
records the death of Moses, and which,
of course, it is generally allowed, must
have been added by another hand, per-
haps that of Joshua. It is believed
that Moses wrote under such special
guidance and teaching of the Holy
Spirit, that he was preserved from
making any error in recording those
matters, which came within his own
cognisance, and was instructed also
supernaturally in respect of events,
which took place before he was born,
-before, indeed, there was a human
being on the earth to take note of what
was passing. He was in this way, it is
supposed, enabled to write a true ac-
count of the Creation. And, though
the accounts of the Fall and of the
Flood, as well as of later events, which
happened in the time of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, may have been handed
down by tradition from one generation
to another and even, some of them,
perhaps, written down in words, or re-
presented in hieroglyphics, and Moses
may, probably, have derived assistance
from these sources also in the composi-
tion of his narrative, yet in all his state-
ments, it is believed, he was under such
constant control and superintendence

The BIBLE is none other than the Voice of
Him that sitteth upon the Throne! Every book
of it-every chapter of it-every verse of it-

every word of it-every syllable of it-(where
are we to stop?) every letter of it-is the direct
utterance of the Most High! The Bible is
none other than the Word of God-not some

part of it more, some part of it less, but all
alike, the utterance of Him who sitteth upon
the Throne-absolute-faultless-unerring—
supreme.

3. Such was the creed of the School in
which I was educated. God is my wit-
ness! what hours of wretchedness have
I spent at times, while reading the Bible
devoutly from day to day, and reveren-
cing every word of it as the Word of
God, when petty contradictions met me,
which seemed to my reason to conflict
with the notion of the absolute histori-

Nevesense!

cal veracity of every part of Scripture, and which, as I felt, in the study of any other book, we should honestly treat as errors or misstatements, without in the least detracting from the real value of the book! But, in those days, I was taught that it was my duty to fing the suggestion from me at once, as if it were a loaded shell, shot into the fortress of the soul,' or to stamp out desperately, as with an iron heel, each spark of honest doubt, which God's own gift, the love of Truth, had kindled in my bosom. And by many a painful effort I succeeded in doing so for a

season.

all the circumstances of the case, or by supposing some misplacement, or loss, or corruption, of the original manuscript, or by suggesting that a later writer has inserted his own gloss here and there, or even whole passages, which may contain facts or expressions at variance with the true Mosaic Books, and throwing an unmerited suspicion upon them. However perplexing such contradictions are, when found in a book which is believed to be divinely infallible, yet a humble and pious faith will gladly welcome the aid of a friendly criticism, to relieve it in this way of its doubts. I can truly say that I would do so heartily myself.

the accounts of the Creation and the Deluge, (though these of themselves are very formidable,)-or the stupendous character of certain miracles, as that of the sun and moon standing still, or the waters of the river Jordan standing in heaps as solid walls, while the stream, we must suppose, was still running, or the ass speaking with human voice, or the miracles wrought by the magicians of Egypt, such as the conversion of a rod into a snake, and the latter being endowed with life.

4. But my labours, as a translator of the Bible, and a teacher of intelligent 6. Nor are the difficulties, to which converts from heathenism, have brought I am now referring, of the same kind me face to face with questions, from which as those, which arise from considering I had hitherto shrunk, but from which, under the circumstances, I felt it would be a sinful abandonment of duty any longer to turn away. I have, therefore, as in the sight of God Most High, set myself deliberately to find the answer to such questions, with, I trust and believe, a sincere desire to know the Truth, as God wills us to know it, and with a humble dependence on that Divine Teacher, who alone can guide us into that knowledge, and help us to use the light of our minds aright. The result of my enquiry is this, that I have arrived at the conviction,—as painful to myself at first as it may be to my reader, though painful now no longer under the clear shining of the Light of Truth.-that the Pentateuch, as a whole, cannot possibly have been written by Moses, or by any one acquainted personally with the facts which it professes to describe, and, further, that the (so-called) Mosaic narrative, by whomsoever written, and though imparting to us, as I fully believe it does, revelations of the Divine Will and Character, cannot be regarded as historically true.

7. They are not such, again, as arise, when we regard the trivial nature of a vast number of conversations and commands, ascribed directly to Jehovah, especially the multiplied ceremonial minutiæ, laid down in the Levitical Law. They are not such, even, as must be started at once in most pious minds, when such words as these are read, professedly coming from the Holy and Blessed One, the Father and Faithful Creator' of all mankind :—

'If the master (of a Hebrew servant) have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons her master's, and he shall go out free by himor daughters, the wife and her children shall be

self,' E.xxi.4:

the wife and children in such a case being placed under the protection of such other words as these,

5. Let it be observed that I am not here speaking of a number of petty variations and contradictions, such as, on closer examination, are found to 'If a man smite his servant, or his maid, exist throughout the books, but which with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall may be in many cases sufficiently ex-continue a day or two, he shall not be be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he plained. by alleging our ignorance of punished: for he is his money.' E.xxi.20,21.

of feeling, with which a very intelligent Christian native, with whose help I was translating these last words into the Zulu tongue, first heard them as words said to be uttered by the same great and gracious Being, whom I was teaching him to trust in and adore. His whole soul revolted against the notion, that the Great and Blessed God, the Merciful Father of all mankind, would speak of a servant or maid as mere 'money,' and allow a horrible crime to go unpunished, because the victim of the brutal usage had survived a few hours!

8. I shall never forget the revulsion | cases, may ensue from such a publication. There will be some now, as in the time of the first preaching of Christianity, or in the days of the Reformation, who will seek to turn their liberty into a 'cloke of lasciviousness.' 'The unrighteous will be unrighteous still; the filthy will be filthy still.' The heart, that is unclean and impure, will not fail to find excuse for indulging its lusts, from the notion that somehow the very principle of a living faith in GOD is shaken, because belief in the Pentateuch is shaken. But it is not so. Our belief in the Living God would 9. But I wish, before proceeding, to remain as sure as ever though not repeat here most distinctly that my the Pentateuch only, but the whole reason, for no longer receiving the Bible, were removed.' It is written on is educate Pentateuch as historically true, is not our hearts by GoD's own Finger, as that find difficulties surely as by of Apostle into us by

Nonsense

All our fints

const coutly

with regard to the miracles, or super- in the Bible, that 'GOD IS, and is a natural revelations of Almighty God, rewarder of them that diligently seek recorded in it, but solely that I cannot, Him.' It is written there also, as as a true man, consent any longer to plainly as in the Bible, that 'GoD is to the my

shut my eyes to the absolute, palpable, not mocked,'-that, 'whatsoever a man self-contradictions of the narrative. soweth, that shall he also reap,'-and

ments made in the books themselves, by whomsoever written, about matters

which they profess to narrate as facts of

common history,-statements, which every Clergyman, at all events, and every Sunday-School Teacher, not to say, every Christian, is surely bound to examine thoroughly, and try to understand rightly, comparing one passage with another, until he comprehends their actual meaning, and is able to explain that meaning to others. If we do this, we shall find them to contain a series of manifest contradictions and inconsistencies, which leave us, it would seem, no alternative but to conclude that main portions of the story of the Exodus, though based, probably, on some real historical foundation, yet are certainly not to be regarded as historically true.

10. The proofs, which seem to me to be conclusive on this point, I feel it to be my duty, in the service of God and the Truth, to lay before my fellow-men, not without a solemn sense of the responsibility which I am thus incurring, and not without a painful foreboding of the serious consequences which, in many

to

of the flesh reap corruption.'

11. But there will be others of a

preaching only extan precepto

different stamp, meek, lowly, loving given already

souls, who are walking daily with God,
and have been taught to consider a
belief in the historical veracity of the
story of the Exodus an essential part of
their religion, upon which, indeed, as
it seems to them, the whole fabric of
their faith and hope in God is based.
It is not really so: the Light of God's
Love did not shine less truly on pious
minds, when Enoch 'walked with God'
of old, though there was then no Bible
in existence, than it does now. And
it is, perhaps, God's Will that we shall
be taught in this our day, among other
precious lessons, not to build up our
faith upon a Book, though it be the
Bible itself, but to realise more truly
the blessedness of knowing that He
Himself, the Living God, our Father
and Friend, is nearer and closer to us
than any book can be,-that His Voice
within the heart may be heard con-
tinually by the obedient child that
listens for it, and that shall be our
Teacher and Guide, in the path of duty,
which is the path of life, when all other

And again he writes, commending a closer attention to Biblical studies to the CE of the Divine Teacher, for awakening younger members of the University,p.12,