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bine 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, consi dered:-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, 44 that the MORE CURIOUS and LEARNED they were, the LESS they 64 GENKRALLY 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 re"nounce these glorious titles, I would shed my blood. Catholic “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

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

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; secondly, it was written in the land of Canaan, and most probably at "Jerusalem; thirdly, it could not be written before the reign of David, 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 his tory prior to his own days, I would neither confidently assert nor "positively deny."

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On the integrity of the present text of the Pentateuch, he observes, that "though it has not come down to us without alterations, yet what "work of antiquity is there, the text of which we have so many means of correcting as that of the Pentateuch? Two rival peoples, "the Jews and Samaritans, have preserved separate exemplars of it in "different characters; it was excellently translated into Greek, at a

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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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period when the copies must have been much less imperfect than they afterwards became; and we have various versions of very early date, by the help of which, compared with the original and with one another, and of the various readings of the text itself, collected "in the present century from a great number of manuscripts, a nearly genuine copy of the Pentateuch may, by the rules of a judicious "criticism, be at length obtained."

In this entire account there is certainly some obscurity and confusion. What is meant by the Pentateuch in its present form? Does it mean this work with every word or verse which now is found in it, e. g. with the last chapter of Deuteronomy; or the text, as to the kings of Edom, marked above, No. X.? In this sense it might be admitted, that the Pentateuch in its present form, i. e. so far as relates to these few passages, plainly inserted by some later writer long after Moses, to explain or complete the history, was not entirely written by Moses, nor completed perhaps until the time of Ezra. But if, as the Doctor admits, there can be no doubt that the Jews had written records from the time of Moses; if the Pentateuch was compiled from the very journals of Moses himself; then it becomes the province of sound criticism to decide, how much of it is thus formed of the journals of Moses. I think I have proved from clear internal evidence, it was entirely composed of these identical journals, that is, entirely written by Moses himself, except only the few passages above referred to.

The learned Doctor has no where clearly detailed his opinions on this point in their full extent, by distinguishing the passages he considered as the genuine production of Moses, from those which he attributes to the supposed modern compiler. He has, however, given us some specimens of his mode of reasoning on this subject, which I proceed to consider.

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Gen. x. 19.-Dr Geddes in this verse adopts the Samaritan reading, which describes the bounds of Canaan as more extensive than the Hebrew text, viz. "from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates and to the HINDER sea," (an expression elegant perhaps, but to me not very clear.) And he observes, I prefer the Samaritan reading to the Hebrew, for the following reasons: in the promise made to Abraham, chap. xv. ver. 18, 19, 20, 21, the very same boundaries are assigned "to the land of Canaan in all the copies, which are here marked in "the Samaritan, and the same number of peoples or tribes included in "them. Again, in Exod. xxiii. 31, the same boundaries are assigned "in a more particular manner from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines (that is, the Mediterranean) and from the Wilderness of "Shur to the great river Euphrates. It is true this was not accom"plished until the reigns of David and Solomon, which latter is expressly said in the first Book of Kings, iv. 21. to have had dominion over all the kingdoms from the river Euphrates unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the borders of Egypt. But whence (asks the Doctor) sprung the present reduction of those boundaries in the present text of Genesis? That I know not; but I suspect it arose "from this; that when the compiler or translator of the present copy "of the Hebrew text lived, the boundaries of Judea had been greatly 'circumscribed, and he had accommodated his text to that circum

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scription. But why then left he the other two passages unaltered? This indeed, I cannot account for, nor am I obliged to account for "it but this I affirm, the present Hebrew text is inconsistent with it"self, the Samaritan is consistent; let the reader choose whether of "the two he will abide by." Now I should have no hesitation in choosing the consistent text; but I really think it not very candid in the learned Doctor, to impute to his imaginary compiler of the present Hebrew Pentateuch exactly knavery enough to alter, so as to accommodate to the existing bounds of the land of Judea, a text where no allusion to these bounds occurs, and dulness enough to leave unaltered passages which prophetically and directly pointed out these bounds, in a manner contrary to what Dr Geddes supposes to have been their extent in the compiler's time. Let us, however, consider on what grounds this charge of inconsistency against the Hebrew text, as it now stands, is founded. Gen. xv. 18 to 21, relates, In that same day the Lord made a co"venant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, "from the river of Egypt, unto the great river, the river Euphrates: "the Kenites, and the Kennezzites, and the Cadmonites, and the Hit"tites, and the Perrizzites, and the Rephaims, and the Amorites, and "the Canaanites, and the Gergashites, and the Jebusites." Here God promises to the Jews a great extent of country, from the Nile to the Euphrates, inhabited by ten distinct nations or rather tribes, of whom one was distinguished by the name of CANAANITES, who therefore inhabited only a part* of this extended country. Now Genesis, x. 15 -19, states that Canaan begat Sidon his first-born, and Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Gergashite, and the Hivite, "and the Arkite, and the Senite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, "and the Hamathite; and afterward were the families of the Ca"naanites spread abroad. And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar unto Gaza; as thou goest unto So"dom and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lashah." This country is certainly only a part of that included in the subsequent promise to Abraham. But is it not obvious that there are two natural and credible hypotheses, on which this apparent difference can be reconciled; one that of the numerous descendants of Canaan, some one tribe were particularly distinguished by the name of Canaanites: and that when the text says, " and afterwards were the families of the Canaanites enlarged," it means to mark out the peculiar extension of this tribe, and describes in the 19th verse the borders of their territory. This is not an imaginary hypothesis, because it appears from Gen. xv. 21. and Exod. xxiii. 28, that in the time of Abram and also of Moses, one peculiar tribe or nation descended from Canaan were called Canaanites, while others also descended from him had other

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* The learned Bochart, Phaleg, Lib. IV. cap. xxxvi. remarks that "the Canaanites were those **who inhabited partly on the sea and partly on the banks of Jordan; deriving their name either "from their being merchants, which the word in Hebrew imports, or because they held the chief "place for some time amongst the descendants of Canaan." Vide p. 348. Bochart remarks that "of the eleven families of the Canaanites enumerated, Gen. x. 15, six were not invo.ved in the "anathema or condemnation which the Jews were authorized to execute, the Sidonii, Arkæi, “Sinæi. Avadii, Samarai, Hamathæi; a new proof, if any were wanting, that it was their own "national guilt, not merely their descent from a guilty ancestor, which drew down on the con**demned nations the judgments of God."

names. Admitting this, is there any inconsistency between the passage which states, Gen. x. 19, that this single tribe occupied a small country, and Gen. xv. 18 to 21, which states, that this tribe united with nine others, occupied a much larger space? But if this solution be not admitted, and it be maintained that Gen. x. 19, describes the entire country occupied by all the descendants of Canaan; is there yet any inconsistency in supposing that this is only the country occupied by them soon after their first division into distinct tribes, or as the text expresses, "after the families spread abroad;" but that in three hundred years after, when the promise was made to Abraham, the same nations occupied a much greater extent of country, and four hundred years after Abraham, in the time of Moses, a still greater? which is then (as Dr Geddes observes) more particularly marked out, for this plain reason, that then it became more necessary to point out its precise bounds, that the Jews might know how much they were authorized to take possession of. Such then is the foundation on which this critic charges the sacred text with inconsistency, and its compiler with fraud. I feel no inclination to give any man injurious language; but the friends of this learned Doctor must excuse me, if I do not in this instance give him credit for that caution, judgment and candour, which such a discussion requires; and if, taught by this single example, I feel indisposed to adopt his conclusions, where he has not stated the reasons by which they are maintained.

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But Doctor Geddes insists strongly on the text, Gen. xxxv. 21. "Israel journeyed, and spread his tent beyond the tower of Edar." (Vide the texts considered before No. IX.) He founds his objection not so much on the identity of this tower with that over the gate of Jerusalem, as on the use of the word beyond. He observes, " whether "this tower were not far from Bethlehem, or near to the sheep-gate of Jerusalem, if Moses had written this, he would not, he could "not have expressed himself in this manner; in describing a journey "from Bethel to Jerusalem, he could not with propriety say of any 'intermediate place, that Jacob had come beyond it, when such an " event happened; whether he be supposed to have written his history "in Egypt or in his way to Canaan.' As this objection did not occur to any preceding writer, let us consider it. The expression translated beyond is N, compounded of the word 5, which by itself signifies trans, ultra, beyond, further on, or as Leigh (vide his Critica Sacra) expresses it, "loci et temporis distantiam et remotionem signi"ficat, and the præfix, which signifies a, ab, from. The compound is translated by Montanus, ab ultra, from beyond, i. e. he stretched his tent from beyond the tower of Edar, or from a distance beyond the tower of Edar to that tower, marking an approximation to the place of the writer, as a person journeying from Bethel to Jerusalem or Bethlehem, must have approximated to a writer coming from Egypt towards the land of Canaan. Compare Gen. xix. 9, where the words buy are employed to signify removal to a greater distance; accede ultra, says Montanus; stand back, says our translation; the præfix D, marks a removal in the contrary direction. Now if this remark be just, what becomes of Dr Geddes's criticism? I do not question his

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