Errors of Copyists.

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the sacred text, especially considering that long course of centuries during which the Hebrew books must have been written by individual scribes. The truth of this will be made plain, if we compare one of the statements already produced with a parallel place in another part of Scripture, where the text has been preserved pure. If we turn (e. g.) from 2 Chron. xxii. 2 to 2 Kings viii. 26, we shall at once see that Ahaziah was "twenty-two years old when he began to reign: "a statement which renders the whole account accurate. A critical comparison, therefore, of these two parallel passages at once demonstrates that the number "forty-two" in 2 Chron. xxii. 2, is a mistaken transcript by some old copyist of the Hebrew text in place of "twenty-two." Ex uno disce omnes. The same thing frequently occurs. It is, therefore, the legitimate province of textual criticism rigidly to examine the Scriptures, for the purpose of determining when and where such instances are to be found. But, wherever they may be discovered, let it be clearly understood that the original autographs of the sacred penmen are no more responsible for such errors, than George Herbert or Henry Vaughan. were responsible for the printer's mistakes which were made in the reproduction of their works after they themselves had died.

1

1 Thus in 2 Sam. viii. 4, and x. 18, we read 700, which, in 1 Chron. xviii. 4, and xix. 18, is 7000. Again, in 1 Kings iv. 26, and 2 Chron. ix. 25, we have statements which may be reconciled in the same way.

Serious, then, as this style of sceptical objection may seem to be to the authenticity of some portions of the Bible, it immediately crumbles to pieces when properly dissected, and leaves no standing-place for honest and conscientious doubt.

2. Let us now take another class of objections under this division of the subject.

It is often the habit of sceptical writers to impugn the authority of certain books in the Bible, by selecting passages from those which were purposely written in by later hands, and, upon that ground, questioning the entire genuineness of such books. Instances of this sort are very numerous. As the same line of defence to these allegations, however, equally suits every example, it will be quite enough if I illustrate what I mean by limiting myself to the Pentateuch. And even here it will be quite unnecessary to cite more than two or three of the most striking and noteworthy; for, if the Caution which I shall presently give be satisfactory and conclusive in those cases, it will apply with equal force to the whole bulk of infidel objections raised under this branch of attack.

Now, let it be observed that, for candour's sake, I shall cite the strongest specimens of objection which it is possible to select. We gain nothing. by shirking difficulties; and our faith need never quail before them. Take, then, first, a passage in Gen. xxxvi. 31-43, where we read the following words: "These are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the

children of Israel," etc. It is impossible that language like this could have been written by Moses, who lived at least five hundred, if not six hundred years before the Hebrew monarchy. Accordingly, we find the exact words here recorded in Chron. i. 43-54, plainly showing that its date was coeval with the later prophets. It is open, therefore, to any objector to argue that, as Moses was not the author of that passage, doubt may be cast upon the genuineness of the rest of the text. In the same way, it is clear that Deut. ii. 12 must be an interpolation, for it refers to the conquest of Canaan as having been achieved, and, therefore, could not have been written by Moses, who never entered the land. The passage, also, in Deut. xvii. 14-20 is questionable, for, if Moses had written it by inspiration, it would appear improbable that the request of the Israelites for a king in I Sam. viii. could have been treated as any rejection of Jehovah's sovereignty, or have taken Samuel by surprise, seeing that the contingency would have been foreseen and provided for without any semblance of censure. But a still more striking instance of the same kind may be found in another chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. I refer to the last, which contains an account of the death of Moses, and which, certainly, could never have been written by himself. I am aware that some injudicious defenders of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch have attempted to maintain that this chapter was the product of the lawgiver's pen,

written under the power of prophetic inspiration. But all candid criticism revolts from that line of artificial defence. Honest scholarship is ashamed of such false argument, and deplores the weakness which betrays its own cause into the hands of the enemy. No mistake is greater than that of attempting to prove too much. We dare not do it. Truth is too precious to sacrifice to false argument. We, therefore, frankly allow that this chapter, as well as other passages, were post-Mosaic; and, though the confession may seem to leave our enemies the liberty of alleging that, if these passages were not the product of Moses' pen, other passages may be equally consigned to the same position, yet we must boldly confront this difficulty, and answer it in some other way.

How, then, is it to be done? By one very simple canon of criticism, which is alike consistent both with candour and common sense.

CAUTION II.-Passages which were written into the old text, either of the Pentateuch or of any other book, by later hands after its original publication, form no greater argument against its first authorship by one writer, than the fact of some old Norman church having had a window or a door built into it during the reign of Henry VIII. need prove that the main fabric of the church had not been erected by an original Norman architect.

Is it not the fate of every author, when repub

lished in a subsequent age, to have footnotes or marginal annotations added to his work, by way of occasional explanation or illustration? Before the invention of printing it was usual to insert such notes into the margin in such a way that, through the process of constant transcription, they gradually became embodied in the text, and so presented the appearance of having been part of the original manuscript. Some of these interpolations were simply parenthetical; as in Gen. xii. 6, where it is written, "And the Canaanite was then in the land;" a passage which could not have been written by Moses, inasmuch as during his lifetime the Canaanites had not been driven from the land; and which must have, therefore, been incorporated into the text by some copyist who lived among the schools of the prophets in a later age. The insertion of this parenthesis, however, is no more a proof that the rest of the text belonged to the same date than the presence of a Tudor arch in a Norman cathedral would prove that the whole building belonged to the age of Queen Elizabeth. Other interpolations were more distinctly additional and supplementary; and were intended by the transcriber, or perhaps by some inspired prophet, to be emendations or elucidations of the original text. In either of which cases the remark just made would apply with equal effect. That is to say, the occurrence of these passages does not in any way prove that the whole book in which they stand is ungenuine; but only that Textual Criticism