SECTION IV. Some general Considerations respecting the Authorship of the Pentateuch. Ir may appear, then, from what has been said, that ther is no historical evidence, that the Pentateuch was written by Moses; but, on the contrary, that the Jewish history affords proof that he was not its author. We will now pas to some general considerations by which the same conclu sion seems to be established. I. ACCORDING to the common computation Moses lived in the fifteenth century before Christ. Such, however I conceive to be the uncertainty of the early Jewish history and chronology, that no approach to accuracy can be made in fixing the time when he lived. But, though it may have been earlier, it, probably, was not much later than the period just mentioned; and in assuming this as correct w shall commit no error which will affect our reasoning. There is, then, no satisfactory evidence that alphabetica writing was known at this period. If known to others, i is improbable that it was known to the Hebrews. And, in any case, there is no reason to suppose, that they were s familiar with its use, that a book, and especially that fiv such books as compose the Pentateuch, might have bee written for their instruction. Such books are not writter except for a people among whom there are many readers The injunctions, likewise, respecting the use of writing in the Pentateuch,* imply that the Jews, at the time whe * Deut. vi. 9; xi. 20; xxiv. 1. they were given, were familiarly acquainted with it; and so also does the reference, which it contains, to another book, "The Book of the Wars of the Lord," as already in existence. But it must have been long after the first rudiments of alphabetical writing had been attained, before the invention. was brought to a state so nearly complete, as that in which it appears in the Hebrew alphabet. It must have been a still longer time, before an acquaintance with it had become so common, as to lead to its use for the purpose of communicating instruction by books. Probably it was first used in inscriptions, and in committing to writing compositions, principally metrical, which had already become familiar by oral tradition. In the latter case, the intended significance of the newly discovered signs being already known, they would be easily deciphered, and the art of reading would thus be gradually spread. Books, like those which form the Pentateuch, in prose, and in a style so well constructed, must have been comparatively a very late result of the invention. But, if we suppose Moses to have been the author of the Pentateuch, we must suppose, that before his time the art of writing was in common use, and the consequent demand for the materials employed in it so great, as to render them of very easy acquisition; for Moses must either have provided himself prospectively with a large store of them in the haste of his departure from Egypt, or have afterwards obtained them in the deserts of Arabia. But for a long time after the supposed date of the Pentateuch we find no proof of the existence of a book, or even of an inscription, in proper alphabetical characters among the nations by whom the Hebrews were surrounded.. "Numbers xxi. 14. The descendants of Jacob, according to their history resided not less than two hundred and fifteen years i Egypt. During this time they could not have learned alphabetical writing from the Egyptians; for the mode of representing ideas to the eye, which the Egyptians em ployed till a period long subsequent, was widely differen from the alphabetical writing of the Hebrews. Nor is i probable, that the descendants of Jacob, who were firs shepherds and then slaves in Egypt, were the inventors o the art. If they were acquainted with it, they must, i would seem, have brought it with them into the country But we can hardly suppose, that it was invented, or ac quired except by tradition, in the family of Isaac, or in that of Jacob before his residence in Egypt, engaged as they both were in agriculture and the care of cattle. We mus then go back to Abraham at least for what traditionary knowledge of it his descendants in Egypt may be supposed to have possessed. But it would be idle to argue against the supposition, that alphabetical writing was known in the time of Abraham. II. WE proceed to another consideration. The vocabu lary and style of the Pentateuch cannot have been the Vocabulary and style of Moses. There is no important difference between the Hebrew of the Pentateuch and that of the other books of the Old Testament, written before the reëstablishment of the Jews in Palestine after their Captivity. But from the time of Moses to this event was an interval of about nine hundred or a thousand years. Every other language, the history of which we can trace, if it have continued a living language, has undergone great changes during the same or a shorter period; as, for instance, the English, during the four centuries and a half since the days of Wicliff and Chaucer, and the Latin, in a still shorter interval between the laws of the Twelve Tables and the time of Cicero. But the language of the Israelites was peculiarly exposed to change during the long period of its existence as a spoken tongue after the time of Moses. Its vocabulary, never copious, must have been originally barren; accommodated to the wants of a people having but a narrow sphere of thought. It must not only have enlarged itself to receive the new accession of religious conceptions communicated by Moses; but must have been afterward in a state of continual growth, to adapt itself to the subsequent intellectual developement of the Hebrews, and to the most extraordinary circumstances in which they were placed by the new dispensation. After the death of Moses, they established themselves in a new country, widely different in its natural aspect from Egypt; from being slaves employed in making bricks, they became accustomed to the use of arms; they were placed in new relations, and became familiar with new objects and new customs. They were pressed upon by other nations, speaking, as we have reason to believe, languages or dialects different from their own, with whom they intermingled, whose idolatrous rites, and other customs, they sometimes adopted, and to whom, in the earlier part of their history, they were sometimes in servitude. Their engaging in commerce in the time of Solomon must have had its customary effect to give a new coloring to their speech. Before the time of Samuel, they were wholly without that attention to literature, and that intellectual cultivation, which might have served to fix their language, and certainly had no literary watchfulness to guard against its corruption; nor can we suppose that those habits of mind existed in a high degree during any stage of their history. Under such circumstances a language cannot remain the same for nine or ten centuries. Th supposition, that the Pentateuch in its present form wa written by Moses, is as untenable as would be the suppo sition, that some book written in modern English was composition of the age of Chaucer. The attempts whic have been made to point out certain archaisms of style i the Pentateuch, only show that no evidence can be pro duced of such peculiarity of language as the case requires. * In treating of the perfection of the Hebrew language, Leusder one of the most learned Hebrew scholars of his time, thus write “The uniformity of the Hebrew language in all the books of the Ol Testament contributes much to its perfection. I have often wondere that there should be so great a correspondence between the Hebre of all the books of the Old Testament, when we know that they we composed by different men (whose respective styles of writing a often distinguishable), at diverse times, and in diverse places. Shou a book be written by different men of the same city, we should ceive for the most part greater differences in it, as respects style orthography, or some other circumstances, than appear in the who Old Testament. But let a book be written by a German and by Frieslander, or let there be an interval of a thousand the writers, as there was between many of those of the Old Test ment, what a difference of language would appear! He who u derstood the writing of one might scarcely understand that of t other. Nay, the difference of time and place would render the modes of speech so unlike, that it would be very difficult to apply them the same rules of grammar and syntax. But in the Old Tes ment there is so great a uniformity, such a correspondence in ortho raphy and construction, that one might almost think that all the boo were written at the same time and in the same place, though different authors." Philologus Hebræus, Diss. XVII. pp. 166, 167 years betwee It is the opinion of Gesenius, the most distinguished Hebr scholar of our day, that the antiquity of the Hebrew language, in present form, hardly reaches higher than the age of David or So mon. Upon the supposition," he says, "that the Pentateuch wa production of the age of Moses, we must indeed carry its exister back to a period considerably more remote. But notwithstanding |