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ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION.

IN preparing for this Edition, I have endeavoured to avail myself, as far as I could, of the different kind and candid criticisms which have been passed upon this Work. But it is particularly gratifying to me to find that no criticisms have been offered, which rendered it necessary to alter my statement of facts, or my reasoning upon them, in any material particular.

I have judged it expedient to add THREE Lectures; one on the Originality and Design of the Jewish Ritual, which appeared necessary to complete the series of reasonings there adduced to confirm the divine original of the Jewish religion;-and the other two on the Accomplishment of Prophecy in the past history of the Jews, and the expectations which the same prophecies appear to justify as to the future Conversion and Restoration of this chosen People, and on the Circumstances of the World, at the period when these Lectures were written, which seemed preparatory to the accomplishment of these Expectations —a speculation into which the existence of those circumstances, together with the nature of the subject on which I had treated, almost irresistibly led me, but in which, I trust, it will not be found I have unreasonably or presumptuously indulged.

LECTURES

ON THE

FOUR LAST BOOKS OF THE PENTATEUCH.

PART I.

ON THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE PENTATEUCH, AND THE
TRUTH OF THE HISTORY, BOTH OF COMMON AND
MIRACULOUS EVENTS, CONTAINED IN THE
FOUR LAST BOOKS OF IT.

LECTURE I.

The Jewish Nation has received the Pentateuch as containing the only authentic History of their Lawgiver and his Institutions, from the very Era when these Institutions commenced to the present day-Arguments to prove the reception of the Pentateuch from the present day, back to the return of the Jews from the Babylonish Captivity-Arguments to prove that the Pentateuch was not first compiled at that Era, or altered and modified according to circumstances then existing; but that it was a previously existing and acknowledged Code-Pentateuch proved prior to the separation of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah-Prior to the establishment of the Regal Government in Israel-Not first compiled by Samuel-Acknowledged by Joshua.

DEUTERONOMY, xxxi. 9, 10, 11.

"And Moses wrote this Law, and delivered it to the Priests the sons of Levi, which bare the Ark of "the Covenant of the Lord, and unto all the Elders of Israel: and Moses commanded them, saying, "At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the Feast of Ta

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"bernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God, in the place which he shall 'choose; thou shalt read this Law before all Israel, in their hearing."

SUCH is the charge which the Jewish Lawgiver is related to have delivered to his nation, while they were yet collected in one body under his command, on the borders of the land of their inheritance; solemnly publishing the volume of his law, and inculcating its constant preservation and periodical public recitation as a sacred duty, to which the priests and rulers of the people

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were bound most religiously to attend. It shall be the object of this lecture to examine, how far it can be proved, that the Pentateuch which our Bible contains, is in all material points the same as the book of the Law thus uninterruptedly received by the Jewish nation, as having been written and published by their Lawgiver at the period of their first settlement in the land of Canaan; a point of the highest importance, to establish the truth of the facts which this portion of the Scripture history contains, and the divine original of that Law which it promulgates.

That the Jews have acknowledged the authenticity of the Pentateuch, from the present time back to the æra of their return from the Babylonish Captivity, a period of more than 2,300 years, admits not a possibility of doubt. The five books of Moses have been during that period constantly placed at the head of the Jewish sacred volume, and divided into fixed portions, one of which was read and explained in their synagogues, not only every Sabbath with the other Scriptures, but in many places twice a week, and not unfrequently every evening when they alone were read: they have been received as divinely inspired by every Jewish sect, even by the Sadducees, who questioned the divinity of the remaining works of the Old Testament.

In truth the veneration of the Jews for their Scriptures, and above all for the Pentateuch, seems to have risen almost to a superstitious reverence.* Extracts from the Mosaic Law were written on pieces of parchment, and placed on the borders of their garments, or round their wrists and foreheads; nay, they at a later period counted with the minutest exactness not only the chapters and paragraphs, but the words and letters, which each book of their Scripture contains: Thus also the translation, first of the Pentateuch, and afterwards of the remaining works of the Old Testament, into Greek, for the use of the Alexandrian Jews, disseminated this sacred volume over a great part of the civilized world, in the language most universally understood, and rendered it accessible to the learned and inquisitive in every country; so as to preclude all suspicion that it could

*Compare Deut. xxii. 12. and Numbers, xv. 38 and 39, with Matt. xxiii. 5. They are in use at this day. Vid. Picart's Ceremonies Religieuses, for the forms and modes in which they are written and worn: Vol. I. p. Part I. ch. xi. 2.

5.

be materially altered by either Jews or Christians, to support their respective opinions as to the person and character of the Messiah; the substance of the text being by this translation. fixed and authenticated at least 270 years before the appearance

of our Lord.

But how far have we reason to believe that the Pentateuch was not first compiled after the Babylonish Captivity, from the indistinct traditions of the history of the Jewish nation, which, in an absence of seventy years from their country, may perhaps have lost all clear records of former events? In answer to this suspicion I observe, that it is not supported by any semblance of probability, because the period of seventy years was not long enough to lose all clear public records of former events: nineteen years of the captivity of the Jewish nation had elapsed before the burning of the Temple, and the carrying away the last of the people; it is therefore perfectly credible that many individuals then alive may have survived the close of the Captivity, and witnessed the rebuilding of the second Temple; and of this really having taken place we have direct testimony. "Many," says Ezra," of the Priests and Le“vites, and chief of the Fathers, who were ancient men, "that had seen the first house; when the foundation of this "house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice:" Doubtless from the melancholy contrast between the magnificence of the old Temple, and the infancy and poverty of

the new.

*

Still further: Not only the individuals who remained could compare the circumstances which had existed before the Captivity, and thus could not be deceived by so gross an imposition as any attempt to fabricate, as the public code of the national religion and government, a new compilation never before heard of; but we know that writings of far less importance were preserved; for example, no priests were admitted to resume their offices, who could not trace back their genealogy to Aaron and the heads of the Levites contemporary with Moses: In the book of Ezra who presided over the Jews after their restoration from the Babylonish Captivity, the particular families are specified," who sought their "register among those that were reckoned by genealogy,† but they were not found, therefore were they, as polluted, put * Ezra, iii. 12, and Nehem. vii. 64. † Ezra, ii. 62.

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