private concern may easily be counterfeited, but not the laws and constitution of a whole country. It would, indeed, have been impossible to forge the civil and religious code of the Jews without detection for their civil and religious polity are so blended and interwoven together, that the one cannot be separated from the other. They must, therefore, have been established at the same time, and derived from the same original; and both together evince the impossibility of any forgery more than either of them could singly. The religion and government of a people cannot be new modelled. Further, many of the institutions, contained in the ceremonial and moral laws given to the Jews by Moses, were so burthensome, and some of them (humanly speaking) were so hazardous, or rather so certainly ruinous to any nation not secured by an extraordinary providence correspondent to them- especially those relating to the sabbatical year, the resort of all the males to Jerusalem annually at the three great festivals, and the prohibition of cavalry, that forged books, containing such precepts, would have been rejected with the utmost abhorrence. As the whole Jewish people were made the depositories and keepers of their laws, it is impossible to conceive that any nation, with such motives to reject, and such opportunities of detecting, the forgery of the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, should yet receive them and submit to the heavy yoke imposed by the laws contained in them. That they should often throw it off in part, and for a time, and rebel against the divine authority of their law, though sufficiently evidenced, is easily to be accounted for, from what we see and feel in ourselves and others every day but that they should return and repent and submit to it, unless it were really delivered by Moses, and had the sanction of divine authority, is utterly incredible. "We are therefore reduced to this dilemma, to acknowledge either that these laws were actually delivered by Moses, or that a whole nation during fifteen hundred years groaned under the weight of an imposture, without once detecting or even suspecting the fraud. The Athenians believed that the system of laws, by which they were governed, was composed by Solon; and the Spartans attributed their code to Lycurgus, without ever being suspected of a mistake in their belief. Why then should it be doubted, that the rules prescribed in the Pentateuch were given by Moses? To deny it, is to assert that an effect may exist without a cause, or that a great and important revolution may take place without an agent. We have therefore an argument little short of mathematical demonstration, that the substance of the Pentateuch proceeded from Moses; and that the very words were written by him, though not so mathematically demonstrable as the former, is at least a moral certainty. The Jews whose evidence alone can decide in the present instance, have believed it from the earliest to the present age: no other person ever aspired to be thought the author, and we may venture to affirm, that no other person could have been the author. For it is wholly incredible, that the Jews, though weak and superstitious, would have received in a later age a set of writings as the genuine work of Moses, if no history and no

:

tradition had preserved the remembrance of his having been the author."

3. Although the spirit of antient simplicity, which breathes throughout these books, renders it improbable that they were fabricated in a later age; yet, when we add to this the universal consent of those persons, who were most concerned, and best able, to ascertain the point in question, we have an additional testimony in favour of the genuineness and authenticity of the Pentateuch. If we believe other nations, when they attest the antiquity and specify the authors of their laws, no just reason can be assigned why we should not give equal credit to the Jews, whose testimony is surely as much deserving of credit as that of the Athenians, the Lacedemonians, the Romans, and the Persians, concerning Solon, Lycurgus, Numa, and Zoroaster:a or rather, from the facts we shall proceed to state, they are better entitled to belief than any other nation under heaven. "Every book of the Old Testament implies the previous existence of the Pentateuch in many of them it is expressly mentioned, allusion is made to it in some, and it is quoted in others. These contain a series of external evidence in its favour, which is hardly to be confuted; and when the several links of this argument are put together, they will form a chain, which it would require more than ordinary abilities to break. In the first place, no one will deny that the Pentateuch existed in the time of Christ, and his apostles, for they not only mention it, but quote it. This we admit,' reply the advocates for the hypothesis which it is our object to confute, but you cannot therefore conclude that Moses was the anthor, for there is reason to believe that it was composed by Ezra.' Now, unfortunately for men of this persuasion, Ezra himself is evidence against them; for, instead of assuming to himself the honour which they so liberally confer on him, he expressly ascribes the book of the law to Moses; and they set the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses, for the service of God, which is in Jerusalem, as it is written in the book of Moses. Further, the Pentateuch existed before the time of Ezra, for it is expressly mentioned during the captivity in Babylon by Da

6

1 Bishop Marsh's Authenticity of the Five Books of Moses vindicated, pp. 7, 8. See also Bishop Gleig's edition of Stackhouse's History of the Bible, vol. i. pp. xiv. -xix. The following articles of the Jewish Confession of Faith sufficiently attest how firmly the Jews believe the Pentateuch to be the work of Moses.

7 I firmly believe, that all the prophecies of Moses our master (God rest his soul in peace) are true; and that he is the father of all the sages, whether they went before or came after him.

8 I firmly believe, that the law which we have now in our hands was given by Moses; God rest his soul in peace! - Lamy's Apparatus Biblicus, vol. i. pp. 245, 246.

2 Stillingfleet's Origines Sacræ, lib. ii. c. i. § vi. vii.

3 Matt. v. 27. Mark x. 3. xii. 26. Luke x. 25. xxiv. 44. John vii. 19. viii. 5 Acts xxviii. 23. 1 Cor. ix. 9. 2 Cor. iii. 15.

4 Ezra vi. 18. See also Ezra iii. 1. and Nehemiah xiii. 1. The Law of Moses, the servant of God, is expressly mentioned by Malachi, the contemporary of Ezra. See Mal. iv. 4. The learned Abbadie has shown at considerable length that Ezra could not and did not forge the Pentateuch, and that it was extant long before his time: but his arguments do not admit of abridgment. See his Traité de la Verité de la Religion Chretienne, tom. i. pp. 312–330.

niel (ix. 11—13.) B. c. 537 or 538. Long before that event, it was extant in the time of Josiah (2 Chron. xxxiv. 15.) B. c. 624, and was then of such acknowledged authority, that the perusal of it occasioned an immediate reformation of the religious usages, which had not been observed according to the "word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this book." (2 Chron. xxxiv. 21.) It was extant in the time of Hoshea, king of Israel, B. c. 678, since a captive Israelitish priest was sent back from Babylon (2 Kings xvii. 26.) to instruct the new colonists of Samaria in the religion which it teaches. By these Samaritans the book of the law was received as genuine, and was preserved and handed down to their posterity, as it also was by the Jews, as the basis of the civil and religious institutions of both nations. It was extant in the time of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, B. c. 912, (2 Chron. xvii. 9.) who employed public instructors for its promulgation. And, since the Pentateuch was received as the book of the law both by the ten tribes, and also by the two tribes, it follows as a necessary consequence, that they each received it, before they became divided into two kingdoms: for if it had been forged in a later age among the Jews, the perpetual enmity that subsisted between them and the Israelites, would have utterly prevented it from being adopted by the Samaritans; and had it been a spurious production of the Samaritans, it would never have been received by the Jews. "There remains, therefore, only one resource to those who contend that Moses was not the author, namely, that it was written in the period which elapsed between the age of Joshua and that of Solomon. But the whole Jewish history, from the time of their settlement in Canaan, to the building of the temple at Jerusalem, presupposes that the book of the law was written by Moses." The whole of the temple service and worship was regulated by Solomon, B. c. 1004, according to the law contained in the Pentateuch as the tabernacle service and worship had previously been by David, B. c. 1042. Could Solomon indeed have persuaded his subjects, that, for more than five hundred years, the worship and polity prescribed by the Pentateuch had been religiously observed by their ancestors, if it had not been observed? Could he have imposed upon them concerning the antiquity of the sabbath, of circumcision, and of their three great festivals? In fact, it is morally impossible that any forgery could have been executed by or in the time of Solomon. Moreover, that the Pentateuch was extant in the time of David is evident from the very numerous allusions made in his psalms to its contents; but it could not have been drawn up by him, since the law contained in the Pen

1 For a critical account of the Samaritan Pentateuch, see Vol. II. pp. 12—14. infra.

2 It is true that the ten tribes, as well as those of Judah and Benjamin, were addicted to idolatry; but it appears from 2 Kings iii. 2. x. 21-23. xvii. 23. and 2 Chron. xxxv. 18. that they considered the religion of Jehovah as the only true religion.

3 See particularly Psal. i. 2. xix. 7-11. xl. 7, 8. lxxiv. 13–15. lxxvii. 15–20. lxxviii. 1–55. lxxxi. 4–13. cv. throughout. cvi. 1-39. cxxxv. 8—10. cxxxvi. 10— 20. and particularly the whole of Psal. cxix.

tateuch forbids many practices of which David was guilty. Samuel (who judged Israel about the years, B. c. 1100-1060 or 1061) could not have acquired the knowledge of Egypt which the Pentateuch implies; and Joshua (viii. 31.) plainly describes some such book as already extant in his time. Indeed, in the last cited book, there is one passage in particular, which clearly proves that the Pentateuch, or, as the Jews termed it, the Book of the Law,' existed in the time of Joshua: "Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do all according to the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee, this Book of the Law shall not depart out of thy mouth." Josh. i. 7, 8, (compare also xxiii. 6.) The Pentateuch, therefore, can be attributed to Moses alone; and this indirect evidence from tradition is stronger than a more direct and positive ascription, which would have been the obvious resource of fraud. Nor would any writer posterior to Moses, who was contriving a sanction for actual laws, have noticed the progressive variations of those institutes (compare Lev. xvii. with Deut. xii. 5-27.) as the composer of the Pentateuch has done. These considerations most completely refute the assertion of a late writer, who has affirmed in the face of the clearest evidence, that it is in vain to look for any indication whatever of the existence of the Pentateuch, either in the book of Joshua (one of the most antient), or in the book so called, of Judges, or in the two books entitled Samuel, or finally, in the history of the first Jewish kings. Such a bold and unfounded assertion as this, could only have been made, either through wilful ignorance, or with a design to mislead the unthinking multitude.

Decisive as the preceding chain of evidence is, that the Pentateuch is the undoubted work of Moses, a question has of late years been agitated, whence did he derive the materials for the history contained in the book of Genesis which commenced so many ages before he was born? To this inquiry, the following very satisfactory answers may be given :

There are only three ways in which these important records. could have been preserved and brought down to the time of Moses, viz. writing, tradition, and divine revelation. In the antediluvian world, when the life of man was so protracted, there was, comparatively, little need for writing. Tradition answered every purpose to which writing in any kind of characters could be subservient; and the necessity of erecting monuments to perpetuate public events could scarcely have suggested itself; as, during those times, there could be little danger apprehended of any important fact becoming obsolete, its history having to pass through very few hands, and all

1 Bp. Marsh's Authenticity of the Five Books of Moses vindicated, pp. 9—10. The arguments above stated are more fully considered and elucidated in Mr. Faber's Hora Mosaicæ, vol. i. pp. 305-336. The very numerous texts in which the Pentateuch is cited by the writers of the old Testament, subsequent to Moses, are given at length by Huet, Demonstr. Evangel. lib. i. prop. 4. cap. i. (tom. i. pp. 6873. 8vo.); Dr. Graves, Lectures on Pentateuch, vol. i. pp. 19-34; and Prof. Jahn, Introd. ad Vet. Fœd. pp. 209-214. 221-224.

2 M. Volney.

these friends and relatives in the most proper sense of the terms: for they lived in an insulated state, under a patriarchal government. Thus it was easy for Moses to be satisfied of the truth of all he relates in the book of Genesis, as the accounts came to him through the medium of very few persons. From Adam to Noah there was but one man necessary to the correct transmission of the history of this period of 1656 years. Adam died in the year of the world 930, and Lamech the father of Noah was born in the year 874; so that Adam and Lamech were contemporaries for fifty-six years. Methuselah, the grandfather of Noah, was born in the year of the world 687, and died in the year 1656, so that he lived to see both Adam and Lamech (from whom doubtless he acquired the knowledge of this history), and was likewise contemporary with Noah for six hundred years. In like manner, Shem connected Noah and Abraham, having lived to converse with both; as Isaac did with Abraham and Joseph, from whom these things might be easily conveyed to Moses by Amram, who was contemporary with Joseph. Supposing then, all the curious facts recorded in the book of Genesis to have had no other authority than the tradition already referred to, they would stand upon a foundation of credibility superior to any that the most reputable of the antient Greek and Latin historians can boast.

Another solution of the question, as to the source whence Moses obtained the materials for his history, has been offered of late years by many eminent critics; who are of opinion that Moses consulted monuments or records of former ages, which had descended from the families of the patriarchs and were in existence at the time he wrote. This opinion was first announced by Vitringa, and was adopted by Calmet; who, from the genealogical details, the circumstantiality of the relations, the specific numbers of years assigned to the patriarchs, as well as the dates of the facts recorded, concludes that Moses could not have learned the particulars related by him with such minute exactness, but from written documents or memoirs. Of this description, he thinks, was the book of Jasher or of the Upright, which is cited in Josh. x. 13. and 2 Sam. i. 18.; and he attributes the difference in names and genealogies, observable in various parts of scripture, to the number of copies whence these numerations were made. Calmet further considers the notice of a battle fought during the sojourning of the Israelites in Egypt, which occurs in 1 Chron. vii. 20-22, as derived from the same source. The hypothesis of Vitringa and Calmet has been adopted in this country by the learned editor of Stackhouse's History of the Bible ;3 who, regarding the current opinion of the late invention of writing as a vulgar error, thinks it probable that the posterity of Shem, and perhaps also of Japheth, kept regular records of all the remarkable events that occurred, as well as memoirs of all those members of their seve ral families who were distinguished for virtue and knowledge; and

1 Observationes Sacræ, cap. iv. 2 Commentaire Litterale, tom. i. part 1. p. xiii. 3 Bishop Gleig. See his Introduction, vol. i. p. xx.