the sense of its nearness to Jehovah, and of the work it had to do for him.

These are broad and solid considerations, which far outweigh all the difficulties which critics have brought forward upon the other side. In a book so old there must be difficulties, and we cannot tell what have been its fortunes during the vast period of its existence. We know that God's providence has not miraculously interfered to preserve for us an absolutely certain text of the New Testament. At this very time a warm controversy is raging as to whether that text is to be settled by the authority of two or three of the great uncial manuscripts, or whether we are to abide substantially by that of Erasmus, founded upon what was the received text of subsequent times. So, too, may scribes have made errors and mistakes in copying a book so vastly more ancient, but none of material importance.

For, as regards the Old Testament, we may claim, on the authority of the LXX., combined with the Targum of Onkelos and the Samaritan Pentateuch and Targum, that we have the Pentateuch such as it was in Ezra's days. But before this time we have probabilities only, and such slight proof as arises from the collation of the passages in which the Law is referred to with the words of the Pentateuch itself. There is no reason for supposing that there was ever any wilful falsification of the national law; but it has passed through many a trying time, and we do not know how manuscripts were treated in those old days, nor how many of the illustrative notes which we ascribe to Ezra may really have been added long before.

But thus the discovery of the "book of the law" in the Temple acquires fresh interest. We read that the effect upon the mind of king Josiah of the reading of the denunciations contained therein was so great that he rent his clothes, and sent a solemn embassy to inquire of Jehovah. Now it has been well pointed out that this is an argument against there existing a very considerable knowledge of the Pentateuch in those days. Manasseh, in his violent and persecuting reign, had probably destroyed as many copies of it as he could find, and had suppressed the schools of the prophets. Still, even so, many would survive who knew the Pentateuch by heart. Probably one important part of the instruction given in these schools was the committal to the memory, if not of the whole, yet of large parts of the Pentateuch; and the teachers would learn it in its entirety. The priests would similarly be, to a considerable extent, acquainted with it, though their methods of sacrifice may have been mainly learnt by practice. Now Josiah was but eight years old when he restored the worship of Jehovah, and as his father, Amon, had "served idols" like Manasseh (2 Kings xxi. 21), but was so unpopular that his own servants slew him, the king's acts at first must have been chiefly the result of the counsels of the pious men who had gathered round him, and who were now the dominant party because of the re-action against Amon. It is probable, therefore, that not very much was done until the king was older, and in his eighteenth year threw the whole energy of his noble character into the work of reformation. was about this time that the copy of the Torah was found in the Temple, and though Josiah had doubtless heard portions of it recited before, yet now for the first time the whole was before him, and he listened with awe to the threatenings against the nation in case it lapsed into idolatry, which were actually so soon to be fulfilled. These threatenings are indeed contained in Deuteronomy, but we have no authority for dividing

It

See article Pentateuch in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.

this portion from the rest. It was probably the whole Torah that was found, and we cannot wonder at the excitement caused by the discovery when we remember that the reign of Manasseh lasted fifty-five years, and that he was a bitter enemy of the religion of Jehovah. Under such a monarch, at a time when books were very rare, it must have been only very old people, who belonged to Hezekiah's days, and a few secretly trained by them, that would still have the Pentateuch written in their memories.

Now if, as there is reason for supposing, this was the autograph copy of Moses that had been laid up beside the ark, we have every probability for the conclusion that the copies of the Law possessed by the exiles at Babylon had a text founded on the original manuscript. Most other copies had perished, and though this was doubtless reverently stored up again in the Temple near the ark, we can see by the writings of Jeremiah that he had diligently studied it, and he would take care that those in captivity, over whose welfare he watched so carefully, would also have transcripts of this great treasure. And thus this narrative gives us the assurance that the Pentateuch has come down to us in an authentic form. No doubt this particular copy perished when the Temple was burnt by Nebuchadnezzar, but not until it had done its work. Nor would other manuscripts be wanting; for as the schools of the prophets arose again from their ruins, many an old copy of the Pentateuch would be brought forth from its hiding-place. There may have been insertions here and there which Ezra regarded as authorised additions, because placed there by prophetical hands. But we have no reason to suppose that these were of any great extent or importance; and certainly this copy found by Josiah is our security that we have the work of Israel's lawgiver much as it left his hands. The idea broached by some that Jeremiah forged the book, and that it was therefore Deuteronomy only, is disproved by the character of the man, and by the local knowledge which is as remarkable in Deuteronomy as in the rest of the Pentateuch.

There are numerous other considerations which all confirm the foregoing conclusions, but to which we can only briefly refer. Such points are the numerous divergences between the blessing of Jacob and that of Moses. The one belongs exactly to the age of the Patriarch, gives vent to his feelings at the misconduct of his sons, magnifies Judah as the future head of the nation, and yet shows no knowledge of the time when, under David, this prediction was fulfilled. In the blessing of Moses, Levi stands well nigh foremost in the abundance of his happiness, while Simeon, who had been classed with him by Jacob, absolutely disappears. Moreover, Ephraim holds the place which was actually his until the days of David; and the relative importance of the tribes is different from that of the sons of Jacob in their father's eyes. Authentic documents are sure to have these divergences, and if these two are genuine, they were separated by many centuries. If fabricated, such divergences would be

avoided.

We find also that the family of the lawgiver ends in obscurity, while that of the brother holds an office of great and lasting power. The headship of the tribe of Levi is bestowed by Moses upon Aaron and his sons, and not upon his own children. His own tribe, too, is represented as lying under Jacob's curse. This is changed into a blessing but the Levites remain destitute of all political importance; they have no tribal government, and are even left dependent upon the

goodwill and religious feeling of their countrymen. As the result, Jeroboam's change of policy drives them away from ten of the tribes in poverty and humiliation. Now this dispersion of the Levites throughout the tribes, and the refusal to them of a share of the conquered territory in Palestine, is absolutely unintelligible upon any other supposition than that they had more than an equivalent in their religious privileges. But these privileges pre-suppose the Levitical law, and represent it as firmly established in the hearts of the people at the time of the conquest of Canaan. Levi would not have abandoned his tribal independence and his share of the conquered lands unless the Israelites had looked upon the Mosaic institutions as the law that was to be permanently in force throughout their territory.

Arguments such as this might be greatly multiplied; but I will only add that the silence of the Pentateuch is as remarkable as its knowledge of the manners and peculiarities, and the physical geography of the many regions it describes to us. There is, indeed, here said to be an exception. For in the book of Deuteronomy the probability is clearly set forth that the Israelites would not be content with that somewhat loose organisation of independent tribes which Moses arranged for them, but would demand a king. But they had seen Egypt governed by a king; there were kings in all the countries round. Moses himself had been king virtually (Deut. xxxiii. 5), and Balaam had described Israel's greatness by representing his king as greater than the monarch of what was then the mighty race of the Amalekites (Numb. xxiv. 7). Moses, surrounded by nations ruled by kings, must have often reflected

upon the problem of the national government. He deliberately preferred a more free form, but it was impossible for him to put from him the thought of the likelihood that the nation would wish for and demand a form of government which, while it gave up some domestic advantages, was all important in war. The miserable state of things under the Judges actually arose from the want of a strong central rule (Judges xxi. 25), and would have been avoided if Joshua had been made king, or probably if Gideon had not, out of regard to the Mosaic principles, declined the offered crown (Judges viii. 23). But, excepting this foreboding of the longing for a king, the Pentateuch has no allusion to subsequent events or institutions. Even prophecy, which in time became, with the priesthood and the king, the third power in the state, has no allusions made to it. It existed. Moses was himself a prophet; the seventy elders received the gift (Numb. xi. 16, 25), but only on one special occasion* as the proof of their appointment. Of it, such as it became after the time of Samuel, there is no single word; and generally the Pentateuch is true to its own time, and contains no indications, casual or otherwise, of any later age.

Granting, then, that there are difficulties in the text, as was to be expected in a work written more than three thousand years ago, and difficulties in criticism and interpretation, yet the conclusion seems sure, that we have in the Pentateuch the work of Moses, and that we have it substantially as it left his hands.

* The words rendered, "they did not cease," really mean that they did not continue to prophesy.

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THE Book of Genesis is a record of the highest interest, not only as being probably the oldest writing in the world, but also because it is the foundation upon which the whole Bible is built. As well the Jewish as the Christian religions have their roots in this book, and there is even no doctrine of Christianity, however advanced, which is not to be found, at least in outline, therein. Written in the very infancy of the human race, made sub. ject, as are all the Scriptures, to the external conditions of their times, bearing upon its very surface proofs that the art of writing was in its infancy, and the science of arithmetic scarcely advanced beyond its first principles, it nevertheless contains the germ of every future truth of revelation, while, in accordance with the law which regulates the growth and development of the written Word, it never goes beyond the limits which were afterwards to be reached. No portion of Genesis has to be omitted as inconsistent with the truth which was subsequently to be revealed. Necessarily, the truths it teaches are imperfect and incomplete, for this is the rule of all the Old Testament Scriptures (Heb. i. 1); but they are the proper preparation for the brightening light that was to illuminate the world.

This consistency of Holy Scripture with itself is made the more remarkable by the fact that in Genesis we have records of an age far anterior to the exodus from Egypt. Though the hand be the hand of Moses, the documents upon which the narrative is founded, and which are incorporated in it, date from primæval times. Upon them Moses based the Law, and subsequently the prophets built upon the Pentateuch the marvellous preparation for Christ. But though given thus "by diverse portions and in diverse manners,' through a vast period of time, and under every possible variety of culture and outward circumstance, the Bible is a book which from first to last is at unison with itself. It grows, proceeds onward, develops, but always in the same plane. It is no national anthology, full of abrupt transitions and violent contrasts, with the writings of one age at variance with those of another, and with subsequent generations ashamed of and destroying what went before. Rather like some mighty oak it has grown slowly through long centuries, but with no decaying limbs, no branches which have had to be lopped away. Christianity has developed, also. Starting from a far higher level, and amid a riper culture, it too has expanded its creed; but all those developments which are more than the arrangement and consistent expression of its first teaching are rejected by the most enlightened portions of Christendom as corruptions at variance with the truth.

Judaism also has had its development in the Talmud, but the development is inferior to the starting-point, and is marred by a curious admixture of puerility. From Genesis to Malachi there is in Holy Scripture a steady

and homogeneous growth, advancing upwards to a stage so high as to be a fit preparation for the full sunshine of the Gospel; and in the Book of Genesis we find the earliest stages of this work founded upon preMosaic documents. We read there of the forming of a being in the image of God, of the fall of that being, of the promise given of restoration, and of the first steps taken towards the fulfilment of that promise; and not only is the foundation thus laid for future revelation, but many a pregnant hint is given of the course which that revelation would follow. But though thus preserving for us records of vast antiquity, the Book of Genesis is arranged upon a definite plan. Having set man before us as the goal of creation, but nevertheless as incapable of serving God aright and of saving himself by his natural powers, and thereby attaining to the end and purpose for which he was made, it next lays the foundation for the plan of supernatural religion by the promise made to Eve in the very hour of her punishment, of a Deliverer who should arise from her sced. Thenceforward the fulfilment of this promise is steadily kept in view; and while much valuable subsidiary knowledge is bestowed upon us, yet so directly does Moses advance onward to his purpose, that by the end of Genesis we have the family chosen to be the depositaries of revelation located in an extensive and fertile region, wherein they were to multiply into a nation. So essential is the Book of Genesis to the Bible, that without it Holy Scripture would be scarcely intelligible: with this introduction all is orderly and follows in due course.

To

As regards its contents, it consists of an account of creation given in chaps. i.-ii. 3, and, as we have shown in Excursus D, of ten histories, called in the Hebrew Tôldôth, or genealogies, written each in its own style, and with a distinct local colouring, but with evident marks of arrangement for a settled purpose. account for these differences of style numerous theories have been devised, one of which especially has exercised the ingenuity of a large number of writers, among whom the best known in this country is Bishop Colenso. Discarding, or not observing, that the book itself asserts that it consists of eleven parts, the beginning of each of which is carefully noted, these commentators have attempted to divide Genesis into portions according to the prevalence in them severally of the names of Elohim and Jehovah. With this theory they also combined attempts to settle the dates of the Elohist and the Jehovist, generally bringing them down to a late period, and endeavouring to find in Holy Scripture some person or persons who might be credited with what was virtually a forgery.

This theory has been often met and refuted on its own ground; but this is an age of a most rapid increase of knowledge, and the exhumed libraries of ancient Chaldea and Egypt have at last exhibited to