ed on a mistranslation, and does not apply to our authorised English version. According to these objectors, the verse runs thus: These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel BEYOND Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red Sea between Paran and Tophel and Taban and Hazeroth and Dizahab. And as Moses never went over Jordan, they say it is evident that the writer of the book of Deuteronomy lived on the west side of that river, and consequently could not be Moses. The Hebrew word (BeEBER), how

ever, is completely ambiguous, signifying sometimes beyond, and 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 sun, and ver. 7. on this side Jordan on the west, are both expressed by the same Hebrew word. In our authorised English version, the first verse of Deuteronomy runs thus: These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel ON THIS SIDE JORDAN, in the wilderness, &c. This version is agreeable to the construction which the original requires, and which is sanctioned by the Syriac translation, executed at the close of the first, or in the beginning of the second century of the Christian ara: the objection above stated, therefore, does not apply to our authorised English translation. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, as well as that of Dr. Geddes, and several of the versions in the continental languages, are all erroneous.

2. With regard to the alleged marks of posterior interpolation, it must be acknowledged, that there are some such passages, but a few insertions can never prove the whole to be spurious. We have indeed abundant reason still to receive the rest as genuine : for no one ever denied the Iliad or Odyssey to be the works of Homer, because some antient critics and grammarians have asserted that a few verses are interpolations.

The interpolations in the Pentateuch, however, are much fewer and less considerable than they are generally imagined to be; and all the objections which have been founded upon them (it is observed by the learned prelate to whom this section is so deeply indebted) may be comprised under one general head —namely, "expressions and passages found in the Pentateuch which could not have been written by Moses." The trite objection, drawn from the last chapter of Deuteronomy, where an account is given of the death of Moses, is of no importance whatever, and is rejected as trivial even by those who contend that the Pentateuch is spurious. The thirty-third chapter of Deuteronomy has evident marks of being the close of the work, as finished by Moses, and the thirty-fourth was added, either by Joshua or some other sacred writer, as a supplement to the whole. But there are names of cities mentioned in the Pentateuch, which names were not given to those cities till after the death of Moses. For instance, a city which was originally called Laish, but changed its name to that of Dan, after the Israelites had conquered Palestine, (Judg. xviii. 22.) is yet denominated Dan in the book of Genesis, (xiv. 14.) The book itself therefore, it is said, must have been written after the

Israelites had taken possession of the Holy Land. But is it not possible that Moses originally wrote Laish, and that, after the name of the city had been changed, transcribers, for the sake of perspicuity, substituted the new for the old name? This might so easily have happened, that the solution is hardly to be disputed, in a case where the positive arguments in favour of the word in question are so very decisive.1 Another objection is taken from the following passage in the book of Genesis, (xxxv. 21.) and Israel journeyed, and spread his tent beyond the tower of Edar. Now Edar was the name of a tower over one of the gates of Jerusalem; the author of the book of Genesis therefore, it is said, must have been at least a contemporary of Saul and David. But this objection involves a manifest absurdity, for if the writer of this passage had meant the tower of Edar in Jerusalem, he would have made Israel spread his tent beyond a tower that probably did not exist till many hundred years after his death. The tower of Edar signifies literally the tower of the flocks; and as this name was undoubtedly given to many towers, or places of retreat for shepherds in the open country of Palestine, which in the days of the patriarchs was covered with flocks, it is unnecessary to suppose that it meant in particular a tower of Jerusalem. In Exod. xvi. 35. we read thus: - And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came into a land inhabited: they did eat manna, until they came into the borders of the land of Canaan. Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah. It has been objected, that this could not have been written by Moses, as the Jews did not reach the borders of Canaan, or cease to eat manna, until after his death: nor would Moses speak thus of an omer, the measure by which all the people gathered the manna, an omer for every man. It is the language of one speaking when this measure was out of use, and an ephah more generally known. But to this objection it has been forcibly replied by Dr. Graves, that this is plainly a passage inserted by a later hand. It forms a complete parenthesis, entirely unconnected with the narrative, which, having given a full account of the miraculous provision of manna,` closes it with the order to Aaron to lay up an omer full of manna in the ark, as a memorial to be kept for their generations. This was evidently the last circumstance relating to this matter which it was necessary for Moses to mention; and he accordingly then resumes the regular account of the journeyings of the people. Some later writer was very naturally led to insert the additional circumstance of the time during which this miraculous provision was continued, and probably added an explanatory note, to ascertain the capacity of an omer, which was the quantity of food provided for each individual by God. To ascertain it, therefore, must have been a matter of curiosity.

In like manner, Numb. xxi. 3. was evidently added after the days of Joshua: it is parenthetical, and is not necessary to complete the narrative of Moses.

1 An example of the same kind is "Hebron," (Gen. xiii. 18.) which before the conquest of Palestine was called Kirjath-Arba, as appears from Josh. xiv. 15. This example may be explained in the same manner as the preceding.

VOL. I.

9

Further, it has been asserted, that the third verse of the twelfth chapter of the book of Numbers-(Now the man Moses was very meek above all the men which were upon the face of the earth) — bear sufficient proof that Moses could not be the author of it; and that no man, however great his egotism, could have written such an assertion of himself. If the assertor of this objection had been acquainted with the original of this passage, instead of adopting it at second-hand from some of those who copied it from Spinoza (for it was first broached by him,) he would have known that the passage was mistranslated, not only in our own English version, but also in all modern translations. The word 1 (ANav), which is translated meek, is derived from (ANH) to act upon, to humble, depress, afflict, and so it is rendered in many places in the Old Testament, and in this sense it ought to be understood in the passage now under consideration, which ought to be thus translated. Now the man Moses was depressed or afflicted more than any man TNT (HADaMaH) of that land. And why was he so? Because of the great burthen he had to sustain in the care and government of the Israelites, and also on account of their ingratitude and rebellion, both against God and himself. this affliction and depression, there is the fullest evidence in the eleventh chapter of the book of Numbers. The very power which the Israelites envied was oppressive to its possessor, and was more than either of their shoulders could sustain.1

Of

But let the passage be interpreted in the sense in which it is rendered in our authorised English version, and what does it prove? Nothing at all. The character given of Moses as the meekest of men might be afterwards inserted by some one who revered his memory; or, if he wrote it himself, he was justified by the occasion, which required him to repel a foul and envious aspersion of his character.

The most formidable objection, however, that has been urged against the Pentateuch," is that which is drawn from the two following passages, the one in the book of Genesis, (xxxvi. 31.) the other in the book of Deuteronomy, (iii. 14.) These are the kings, that reigned over the land of Edom, BEFORE THERE REIGNED ANY KING OVER THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. And again, Jair, the son of Manasseh, took all the country of Argob unto the coast of Geshuri, and Maacathi, and called them after his own name, Bashon-havothjair UNTO THIS DAY. Now it is certain that the last clause in each of these examples could not have been written by Moses: for the one implies a writer who lived after the establishment of monarchy in Israel, the other a writer who lived at least some ages after the settlement of the Jews in Palestine. But if these clauses themselves are spurious, that is, if they were not written by the author of the Pentateuch, but inserted by some transcriber in a later age, they affect not the authenticity of the work itself. And whoever impar

1 Dr. A. Clarke's Commentary, in loc.

2 Witsius, in his Miscellanea Sacra, p. 125. says, the clause "before there reigned any king over the children of Israel," might have been written by Moses; but he outs the knot, instead of untying it.

tially examines the contents of these two passages, will find that the clauses in question are not only unnecessary, but even a burden to the sense. The clause of the second example in particular could not possibly have proceeded from the author of the rest of the verse, who, whether Moses or any other person, would hardly have written, "He called them after his own name unto this day.' 99 The author of the Pentateuch wrote, "He called them after his own name;" some centuries after the death of the author, the clause "unto this day" was probably added in the margin, to denote that the district still retained the name which was given it by Jair, and this marginal reading was in subsequent transcripts obtruded on the text. Whoever doubts the truth of this assertion, needs only to have recourse to the manuscripts of the Greek Testament, and he will find that the spurious additions in the texts of some manuscripts are actually written in the margin of others.1

So far, however, is the insertion of such notes from impeaching the antiquity and genuineness of the original narrative, that, on the contrary, it rather confirms them. For, if this were a compilation long subsequent to the events it records, such additions would not have been plainly distinguishable, as they now are, from the main substance of the original: since the entire history would have been composed with the same ideas and views as these additions were ; and such explanatory insertions would not have been made, if length of time had not rendered them necessary.2

We have therefore every possible evidence, that "the genuine text of the Pentateuch proceeded from the hands of Moses; and the various charges that have been brought against it amount to nothing more than this, that it has not descended to the present age without some few alterations; a circumstance at which we ought not to be surprised, when we reflect on the many thousands of transcripts that have been made from it in the course of three thousand years." The authority of the Pentateuch being thus established, that of the other books of the Old Testament follows of course for so great is their mutual and immediate dependence upon each other, that if one be taken away, the authority of the other must necessarily fall.

1 To mention only two examples. The common reading of 1 Cor. xvi. 2. is play cabbarov, but the Codex Petavianus 3. has rν kupιakην in the margin, and in one of the manuscripts used by Beza, this marginal addition has been obtruded on the text. See his note to this passage. Another instance is 1 John ii. 27. where the genuine reading is xpiopa, but Wetstein quotes two manuscripts in which πvενμa is written in the margin, and this marginal reading has found its way not only into the Codex Covelli 2. but into the Coptic and Ethiopic versions.

2 Dr. Graves's Lectures, vol. i. p. 346.

3 Bishop Marsh's Authenticity of the Five Books of Moses vindicated, pp. 15. 18. The texts above considered, which were excepted against by Spinoza, Le Clerc (who subsequently wrote a dissertation to refute his former objections), the late Dr. Geddes, and some opposers of revelation since his decease, are considered, discussed, and satisfactorily explained at great length by Huet, Dem. Evang. prop. iv. cap. 14. (tom. i. pp. 254-264), and by Dr. Graves in the appendix to his Lectures on the four last books of the Pentateuch, vol. i. pp. 332-361. See also Carpzov. Introd. ad Libros Biblicos Vet. Test. pp. 38-41. Moldenhawer, Introd ad Libros Canonicos Vet. et Nov. Test. pp. 16, 17.

SECTION II.

ON THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

I. General title of the NEW TESTAMENT.-II. Account of its CANON. -III. GENUINENESS of the books of the New Testament.- - Their AUTHENTICITY proved, 1. From the IMPOSSIBILITY OF FORGERY; 2. From EXTERNAL or HISTORICAL EVIDENCE, afforded by antient Jewish, Heathen, and Christian testimonies in their favour, and also by antient versions of them in different languages; and 3. From INTERNAL EVIDENCE, furnished by the character of the writers, by the language and style of the New Testament, and by the circumstantiality of the narrative, together with the coincidence of the accounts there delivered, with the history of those times.

I. THAT an extraordinary person, called Jesus Christ, flourished in Judæa in the Augustan age, is a fact better supported and authenticated, than that there lived such men as Cyrus, Alexander, and Julius Cæsar; for although their histories are recorded by various antient writers, yet the memorials of their conquests and empires have for the most part perished. Babylon, Persepolis, and Ecbatana are no more; and travellers have long disputed, but have not been able to ascertain, the precise site of antient Nineveh, that exceeding great city of three days' journey (Jonah iii. 3.) How few vestiges of Alexander's victorious arms are at present to be seen in Asia Minor and India! And equally few are the standing memorials in France and Britain, to evince that there was such a person as Julius Cæsar, who subdued the one, and invaded the other. Not so defective are the evidences concerning the existence of Jesus Christ. That he lived in the reign of Tiberius emperor of Rome, and that he suffered death under Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator of Judea, are facts that are not only acknowledged by the Jews of every subsequent age, and by the testimonies of several Heathen writers, but also by Christians of every age and country, who have commemorated, and still commemorate, the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, and his spiritual kingdom, by their constant and universal profession of certain principles of religion, and by their equally constant and universal celebration of divine worship on the Lord's day, or first day of the week, and likewise of the two ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper. These religious doctrines and ordinances they profess to derive from a collection of writings, composed after the ascension of Jesus Christ, which they acknowledge to be divine, and to have been written by the first preachers of Christianity.

As all who have claimed to be the founders of any particular sect or religion have left some written records of their institutes, it is