a fictitious writer to load his account with so improbable and so apparently * useless a circumstance? Does it not, therefore, supply a presumptive argument, that the system of which it forms a part, was known and received by the Jewish nation before their settlement in the promised land? I now proceed to confirm the conclusion thus derived from the testimony of the Jewish nation, still further, by considering the internal structure of the history itself. If the Pentateuch is not the work of Moses, it is a forgery imposed upon the nation in his name. It is totally impossible this should have been done during the life of the legislator, or immediately after his death, during the lives of his cotemporaries. If then the Pentateuch was not the original record of Moses himself, it was the work of some compiler in a period long subsequent, who assumed the character, and wrote in the name of the Jewish Lawgiver, to answer some design different from genuine truth. And if so, we can hardly fail of discerning, in the texture of the work itself, marks of a compilation long subsequent to the facts it relates. We cannot but perceive some traces of the particular purpose for which it was composed. If it was calculated to obtain fame for its author, as an elaborate and beautiful composition, this will appear in its style and sentiments; if it was intended to falsify the history, in order to gratify personal vanity, party interest or national pride, this will be discernible. Let us then examine whether the four last books of the Pentateuch are liable to any such suspicions as these. Are the facts and institutions which they contain, so public and important, that we cannot suppose any account of them materially false could, at any time, be fabricated and imposed upon the nation? And if this be so evident that we must admit the main substance of the history to be true, yet can we be sure of truth in its minuter detail? Does this relation bear in it the marks of simplicity and undesignedness, of impartiality and sincerity? Does it exhibit such particularity, and exact suitableness to the different situations in which the author is supposed to have been placed, as indicate a writer engaged in the transactions he * It was not, I am persuaded, really useless; it may have been to give the trees age and strength, and to give the eaters a knowledge of what was wholesome or otherwise, which, after their long detention in the desert, they might not be sufficiently acquainted with. describes, and recording them from his own personal knowledge with exact fidelity? And finally, are the miraculous facts of the history so blended with, and so necessary to the common. events, and related with such clear characters of simplicity and reality, as to form one inseparable, uniform, and consistent narrative, evidently dictated by nature and truth? * On the most cursory perusal of the four last books of the Pentateuch, it seems most evident that the main facts (considering at present only such as were not supernatural) were so public, so singular, and so important, affecting in their consequences the most valuable rights and interests of every order of society, nay, almost of every individual; that we cannot suppose any man could have ventured to fabricate a false account of them, and have been successful in gaining for such a fabrication, that universal credit and permanent authority, which it has been proved the Pentateuch certainly obtained amongst the Jews from the very commencement of their state. The rapid incase of the Jews in Egypt; the severe oppression they sustaine there; the treasure cities, and other public works raised by their labours; above all, the cruel edict to destroy all their male children, in order, gradually and totally, to exterminate the nation; all these were facts, which must have been engraven on the hearts, and handed down in the traditions of every Hebrew family: nor were the circumstances which led to their departure from the land of bondage, less public and notorious. On the first application of Moses, united with the Elders of Israel, to Pharaoh, intreating him to permit their departure, he was so incensed as to increase the severities under which they laboured, by a public order rigorously enforced throughout the land. The people complain heavily of this new grievance, many public interviews take place between the Jewish Lawgiver and the Egyptian monarch; at length the obstinacy of the latter is overcome, he not only permits the Jews to retire, but his + people are eager to implore and hasten their departure. The Hebrews § demand of the Egyptians gold and silver and jewels, and the Egyptians comply with the demand; the nation emigrates in a great body: Pharaoh soon repents his having permitted them to retire, and pursues them Ibid. xii. 33. * Exod. i. + Ibid. v. with the chief force of his kingdom; the Jews notwithstanding escape, Pharaoh and his host are destroyed. * Moses, instead of leading his people the shortest way to the land which they hoped to possess, detains them forty years, marching or encamped in the wilderness of Arabia. At the ‡ commencement of this period, he lays down a code of religious institutions and civil Laws; he builds a tabernacle of great expense and elaborate structure for divine worship, to which all the nation contributed; he sets apart a tribe for divine service, and for instructing the people in religion. At the § close of their abode in the wilderness, Moses recapitulates all the Laws which he had before delivered in detail, and appeals to the people in attestation of the different events which had befallen them. He prescribes the mode in which they should divide the land they were proceeding to conquer; they take possession of so much of it as lay east of Jordan;¶ and before they proceed to the conquest of the rest, their legislator dies, having shortly before his death composed a popular song or hymn,** which he "spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel, and "taught it them, that it should not be forgotten out of the "mouths of their seed, but testify against them," if they should attempt to forsake the Law and the God of their fathers. Such is the series of facts, which the four last books of the Pentateuch detail, separated from the miracles to which many of them are ascribed. Now can we believe that these facts were not true, and yet that the Jewish nation should have universally received them as such? Let it be remembered that this history does not recount the origin and growth of an infant colony, or the emigration of a savage horde, but the march of a numerous nation; for they++ "journeyed about 600,000 men, besides 66 women and children; and a mixed multitude went up also "with them, and flocks and herds, and very much cattle." While the magnificent structure of their tabernacle, the distribution of property, the tribe of the Levites set apart for ministers of divine worship and for public instructors, and the code of their religious and civil institutions, prove that a great de * Exod. xiv. + Compare Numb. xiv. 33, and Deut. i. 3. Vide Deut. i. Vide Exodus and Leviticus, passim. ** Deut. xxxii. Compare xxxi. 21. ++ Exod. xii. 37, and 38. gree of civilization prevailed amongst the Jews at the very time when these facts were said to have taken place. Now can we believe a nation so great and so civilized were universally and palpably deceived as to a whole series of facts, so public and important as this history details? If then the leading events of the Pentateuch were so public, so momentous, and so recent, that the history detailing them could have found no credit had it not been true; if the laws and institutions it contains were so important, and of such a singular nature, that had they not been derived from unquestioned authority they could never have been adopted; it remains to enquire how far the relation carries with it marks of truth, even in its minutest detail. Now in this view, the first character of the Pentateuch which strikes us, is the perfect artlessness and simplicity of its style and structure. Writers mix fiction with truth, either to form a beautiful and engaging composition, or to gratify some particular interest or passion; in either case it is impossible but the object always uppermost in the mind of the writer should frequently discover itself to the attentive reader: if to please and interest be his design, this will appear by his selecting such circumstances as are adapted to affect the passions and impress the imagination, and by his keeping out of the way, as far as is consistent with probability, every thing tediously minute and uninteresting. We shall find sometimes the sublime and sometimes the pathetic resorted to: in a word, the design will appear in the entire structure of the work, and in the effect which is evidently intended to be produced upon the mind. It is not unimportant to remark, that had this been the object of the writer of the Pentateuch, he undoubtedly might have pursued it with considerable success. In the triumphant *hymn which he has inserted on the deliverance of the terrified Israelites from the host of Pharaoh, we discover a boldness and sublimity of composition seldom excelled. In the address to the assembled nation, supposed to be delivered by Moses shortly before his death; in the blessings promised for obedience, and the curses denounced against offenders; and especially in the song he * Exod. xv. + Vide Deut. iv. to ix.; also from xxviii. to xxxiii.; particularly xxxii. and xxxiii. taught the people, recapitulating the wonders of God's providence which they had witnessed, and the judgments they might expect; we discover a judicious selection of striking circumstances, strong imagery, pathetic appeals to the tenderest feelings, and the authoritative language of the legislator and the prophet combined so aptly, as prove the writer fully capable of commanding most powerfully the attention, and interesting the heart. But nothing is more evident in the entire structure of the Pentateuch, than its being written without the least effort to form an elaborate and engaging history, an impressive and beautiful composition. A writer who had such a design, would have separated the history from the Laws; the former he would have related with such a selection of circumstances as would most interest and affect his reader; the latter he would have delivered in some regular system, and avoided minute detail and frequent repetitions. On the contrary, the author of the Pentateuch proceeds in such an order as was indeed most natural to a writer relating the different occurrences which took place, exactly as they took place; but which renders his work exceedingly irregular, and even tedious as a composition. The history in Exodus is perpetually interrupted with exact details of the laws as they were occasionally delivered; with minute and even tedious, though necessary descriptions of the materials and work of the tabernacle and its furniture, of the altar, the ark, the dress of the priests, and the mode of offering the sacrifices; these are detailed in the most inartificial manner, if we consider the book as intended for a finished or interesting composition. The description of the method in which these things should be formed, is spread through near six chapters; then the history proceeds for five more; and then succeeds a relation of the fact, that each particular directed to be made was made according to the direction given, in most cases word for word the same as the direction, and this extended through five long chapters. The measures of the curtains, and the boards, and the borders; the number and size of the rings and the loops, of the tenons, and the pillars, and the sockets of the curtains and the hangings; are enume→ rated with such exactness, as proves the detail was not at all * * Exod. from xxv. to xxx. both included; also from xxxvi. tọ xl. |