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mined whether it should be on this side or beyond Jordan. The objection then lies against the Vulgate and the Septuagint, which translate beyond Jordan, a situation which supposes the writer in Palestine, where Moses never was.

ANSWER. The objection is founded on a mistranslation: the original word 2 is completely ambiguous, signifying sometimes beyond, sometimes on this side, or more properly at or on the passage of Jordan; thus in Joshua, xii. 1. the words translated on the other side Jordan towards the rising of the east, and ver. 7. on this side Jordan on the west, are both expressed by the same Hebrew word. For more, vide Le Clerc in locum: Witsius's Dissertatio, No. 46. p. 129; Huetius Demonstratio Evangelica, Prop. 4. cap. xiv; and Bibliotheca Biblica in locum, notwithstanding Dr. Geddes's difference of opinion..

No. XV.

TEXT: Deut. iii. 11.-" Only Og king of Bashan remain"ed of the remnant of giants: behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron: is it not in Rabbah of the children of "Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits "the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man,

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OBJECTION. It is not natural Moses should speak thus of a man lately slain, and all the circumstances about whom must have been so well known to the Israelites; and it was more likely his bedstead should be at Basan, his own capital, than in any city of the children of Ammon.

ANSWER.-Le Clerc, who made the objection, observes, Moses might wish to refer posterity to this bedstead as a lasting monument of the extraordinary stature of Og; and we know from Deut. ii. 21. that the Ammonites had expelled a race of gigantic stature from their country; and possibly this very Og had been one of them, and his bedstead may have been preserved as a trophy of victory at Rabbah, for a considerable time before Moses wrote.-This answer of Le Clerc's seems sufficient; yet I acknowledge this verse and the 9th," which "Hermon the Sidonians call Sirion, and the Amorites call it Shenir," appear to me explanatory additions by a later hand; as also ver. 14, (Vide infra.) Perhaps the situation of this territory beyond Jordan, and its remoteness from the land of Judea Proper, might have made some subsequent writer more anxious to illustrate this part of the history by short marginal notes, and confirm it by reference to known monuments and names. This opinion I formed before I had read Dr. Geddes's strong assertion, "that he who could believe this verse was "written by Moses, is ripe for believing any thing." I do not believe it was written by Moses, and yet I do most firmly believe Moses was the author of the Pentateuch.-N. B. Dr. Geddes with some probability interprets this word, a coffin, not a bedstead, and conjectures

that Og, after the battle in which he was subdued, when he found himself unable to defend his own capital, had fled to Rabbath, where he may have died and been buried in this coffin.

No. XVI.

TEXT: Deut. iii. 14.-" Jair the son of Manasseh took all "the country of Argob, unto the coasts of Geshuri, and Maac"hathi; and called them after his own name Bashan-havoth"jair unto this day."

OBJECTION." Unto this day," could not have been written by Moses, as the event happened only a few months before his death.

ANSWER. This is undoubtedly the insertion of some later writer willing to connect this memorandum of ancient history with the part of the Mosaic record to which it properly belonged. And though the critics have not noticed it, yet it seems to me evident, that the very substance and structure of this verse mark it as an interpolation. In the two verses before, and the two verses after, Moses mentions the distribution he had made of the lands taken on that side Jordan, to the two and a half tribes, with this remarkable phrase annexed to each "I gave them." Thus the 13th verse is, " And the rest of Gilead, " and all Bashan, being the kingdom of Og, gave I unto the half-tribe "of Manasseh; all the region of Argob, with all Bashan, which was "called the land of giants.' The verse now in question repeats this fact in a form different from that used immediately before, interrupting the narrative by telling us, that Jair the son of Manasseh took all the country of Argob, &c.; and then the legislator proceeds again in the first person, in perfect connexion with the 13th verse, but very abruptly as following the 14th, " And I gave Gilead unto Machir." In a word, we must include the 14th verse in a parenthesis, to preserve the train of thought and style unbroken: its introduction is forced and unnecessary.

No. XVII.

TEXT:-The entire Thirty-fourth chapter of Deuteronomy, which gives an account of the death of Moses.

ANSWER. The words of Moses evidently conclude with the thirtythird chapter, which contains the blessings pronounced by him on the whole people collectively, and the several tribes distinctly, before he went up the command of God to Mount Nebo, to view the land of Canaan and to die there. The thirty-fourth chapter was added to complete the history, the first eight verses probably immediately after his death by his successor Joshua, the last four by some later writer, probably Ezra.

We have now collected all the passages which the ingenuity and diligence of Le Clerc, a most acute critic, could discover in the Pentateuch, calculated to raise a doubt whether it was not composed by some writer later than Moses, which on a hasty view of the subject, he maintained was the fact; and adopted the wild hypothesis, that the Pentateuch was compiled by the priest, sent from Assyria to teach the colonists settled by Nebuchadnezzar in Samaria, the manner of worshipping the God of the land. On maturer consideration, he distinctly saw and candidly acknowledged, that these passages did not bear him out in this opinion; which he accordingly publicly retracted, and distinctly reconsidered all the Texts he had alleged in its support, and refuted the arguments against the genuineness of the Pentateuch, which he had derived from them. Witsius, who answered his original objections, and says of him, "In iis conquirendis omnium ni fallor diligentiam superavit doctissimus Clericus," concludes his answer with observing, that "if all these texts are considered without prejudice, only four passages of the entire volume can be found, in which an "interpolation must be recognized; and this an interpolation so slight, as only to extend to the change of some one word, or the addition of some one historical memorandum (in additione brevissimæ historiola) "to which the words of the original gave a natural occasion.""And

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surely (concludes Witsius) these minute additions do not bear out the enormous assumption of pronouncing, that Moses was not the au"thor of the Pentateuch, in opposition to the credit due to the suffrage of all antiquity, as well as the authority of Christ and the "Apostles."

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Le Clerc was very naturally disposed to give his own objections as great a degree of importance as they would bear, and his conclusion is as follows: "Hence we may collect, that of eighteen passages, which are adduced as indications of a more modern date in the Pentateuch, "the greater number are doubtful; and it cannot therefore be urged, "that there are every where through the Books of Moses marks of a "different age. Some are plainly added by another hand, and yet they are not such as to prevent us from acknowledging these books to be "the work of Moses; just as no one would deny that the Iliad and Odyssey were the works of Homer, because, as the old grammarians allege, there are various verses interpolated in different parts of these poems. We are not to imagine that in the most ancient times, "there was as great a variety of books or as many copies of the same "book as at present; therefore it might easily come to pass, that any thing added to the writings of Moses by any later prophet, might "afterwards appear in all copies of a subsequent date."

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Le Clerc adds, "If indeed it was not from other considerations evident, that far the greatest part of the Pentateuch must have been "written by Moses himself, as we have before shewn, there would, I 66 confess, arise from these marks of a more modern hand, most strong reasons for believing that the entire work was written at a later pe

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"riod. But as we have certainly proved, that we must acknowledge "almost the entire Pentateuch to have been written by Moses, there "is no cause why we should not attribute these books to him.”

These arguments of the learned Critic I have endeavoured to combine with such others, as appeared to me most important, in the First Part of the preceding Work, Lect. I. and II.; and I hope I may add, that I have traced another series of proofs from the internal structure of the history, in Lect. III. and IV. which preceding writers had not adverted to, and which, combined with those before adduced, form a mass of direct proofs that the entire Pentateuch was the work of Moses himself; against which the presumptions and suspicions grounded on the Texts we have been now considering, are of so little weight as to be incapable of raising any serious doubt in any candid or reflecting mind.

Dr. Geddes's opinions on the Authenticity of the Pentateuch, considered:-Specimens of his reasonings on this subject.

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THE minuteness of this discussion will, I trust, be excused, when it is recollected, that the genuineness of the Pentateuch is still doubted or denied, by Writers who claim the character of learned critics, and even of profound divines. Amongst these, the LATE Reverend Dr. GEDDES must not be passed by. As a theologian, commentator on, and translator of the Scriptures, he certainly has reached the very acme of liberality, even in this liberal age. The general tenor of his opinions is indeed very clearly summed up, where he tells us that "On the whole I think it may be laid down as an axiom, that the bulk "of Christians, whether Protestants or Papists, 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. A very small number of curious "and learned men only have thoroughly examined the motives of their religious belief, in any communion; and it will be found, I presume, "that the MORE CURIOUS and LEARNED they were, the LESS they GENERALLY BELIEVED: hence, perhaps, the old adage, Ignorance "is the mother of devotion." A writer holding this principle as an AXIOM, and ranking himself if not with the learned, yet certainly with the curious, we may expect would be careful not to believe too much. He tells us indeed, (and I will not presume to question his veracity, to his own master he must stand or fall) "I willingly pro❝fess myself a sincere though unworthy disciple of Christ; the Gospel "of Jesus is my religious code, and his doctrines my dearest delight: "Christian is my name, and Catholic my surname. Rather than renounce these glorious titles, I would shed my blood. Catholic

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* Vide Preface to Critical Remarks, p. 5 and 6.

"Christianity I revere wherever I find it," &c. &c. But as he has no where condescended to tell us, in what Catholic Christianity consists, "that Christianity which is a rational, a most rational religion;" I can only enter this solemn protest against any rash infidel, who may claim Dr. Geddes's authority as supporting infidelity, from his supporting particular opinions, which with minds differently constituted would lead to it. His conclusion we see is different, though his premises are unhappily too often the same with those of the infidel. I am compelled to notice some of them connected with the subject of this Work.

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The Pentateuch this learned Critic admires and applauds, declaring that "whether it be considered as a body of history, or as a system of "jurisprudence, it will not appear to shrink from a comparison with any piece of ancient writing, even when divested of every privilege "it might claim from revelation." To prove this more clearly, the Doctor in the process of his inquiries strips it of all such privileges. With him, Moses was no more inspired than Teutas, Numa, or Lycurgus; * and the query, whether Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, appears to him “ never to have been sufficiently answered, un"less injurious language may be deemed an answer." And he declares that from intrinsic evidence it appears to him indubitable, "first, that "the Pentateuch in its present form was not written by Moses; se“ condly, it was written in the land of Canaan, and most probably at "Jerusalem; thirdly, it could not be written before the reign of David, 66 nor after that of Hezekiah." Here he was impatient to enlighten mankind by communicating the result of his inquiries, though he had not leisure to communicate the proofs on which that result depends. He had reserved those for his general preface, which he had not time to write in fourteen years (for his Prospectus was published in 1786, his Critical Remarks in 1800;) and unhappily death has closed his labours, before he was able to favour the world with this long promised Preface; we are therefore compelled to glean his reasons as they are scattered in his volumes.

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I think it however necessary to remark his concession, that though he is inclined to believe the Pentateuch was reduced to its present form in the reign of Solomon, yet he is persuaded, "it was compiled "from ancient documents, some coeval with and some even anterior to Moses." And he further observes, "From the time of Moses "there can be no doubt, I think, of the Jews having written records. Moses, who had been taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians, most probably was the first Hebrew writer, or the first who applied writing to historical compositions. From his journals a great part of the Pentateuch seems to have been compiled. Whether he were "also the original author of the Hebrew cosmogony, and of the history prior to his own days, I would neither confidently assert nor "possitively deny."

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On the integrity of the present text of the Pentateuch, he observes,

* Vide his Verses in answer to a Friend, who asked him, Whether he thought Moses inspired?— End of the Critical Remarks.

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