violence from the paternal land of Canaan, and carried to Babylon, where they remained in captivity until the first year of the reign of Cyrus king of Persia.

As no evidence remains to prove that the separate divisions, entitled Genesis, Joshua, Judges, &c., are any more than consecutive parts of the same work, we are justified in viewing them in this light until good grounds shall be adduced for disconnecting them.*

Next in order to the books of Kings succeed the Chronicles, which certainly do not form a sequel, nor yet, strictly speaking, a supplement to the books of Kings; for they comprise the same period of history often in the very same words, and record many particulars omitted in the books which precede. The beginning of Chronicles is remarkably abrupt, but its connection with the end of Kings is not more incoherent than is the relation which its own internal parts bear to one another. It may be suggested as probable that the compilers of the Bible, seeing these books to be composed of unconnected fragments, or perhaps having them only as separate fragments, treating on subjects which were already woven into the continuous history, which they had already put together, added them as a sort of appendix, that the information which they contained might not be altogether lost, although in some parts inconsistent with the collateral narrative.

They contain so many allusions to the Babylonish Cap-\ tivity, that they must undoubtedly have been written after that event. They are admitted by all the commentators to have been written, perhaps, by Ezra, after the Babylonish Captivity, whereas most of the preceding books are said to have been written, before the destruction of the Hebrew Commonwealth.

The remaining books, which complete the volume of the Old Testament, do not at present require to be noticed: they will supply us in a future chapter with numerous argu

* An illustration of this subject may be drawn from the case of Herodotus, who wrote a history of the wars between the Greeks and Persians, in nine books. These books bear, each the name of one of the nine Muses, Clio, Melpomene, &c., and no one has ever disputed their unity, the iden tity of their author, or the continuity of their subject.

ments serving to support the theory that the whole volume must be received as the production of that period of Jewish history which extends from the re-building of Jerusalem to the beginning of the Christian era.

CHAPTER V.

THAT THE OLD TESTAMENT IS COMPILED FROM MORE

ANCIENT WORKS.

If the reasons produced in the last chapter are sufficient to establish the belief that the several books of the Old Testament are but different sections of the same work, and form a continuous narrative; so, also, are there other equally strong reasons for believing that the Old Testament is a compilation, and not an original work. These reasons are all deduced from the books themselves, and may be classed as follows.

§ 1. Interruptions in the narrative.

The narrative of the Old Testament, though historically continuous from the end of one book to the beginning of the next, is, in other places, interrupted by the insertion of separate and complete histories, which are even distinguished by such appropriate titles as, in any other volume of antiquity, would be acknowledged to point out the beginning of detached compositions. Thus, at Genesis ii, 3, is concluded the account of the creation of the world with the words: "And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work, which God created and made."

Then follows another brief history of the creation, the garden of Eden, and the fall of man, with an exordium which intimates a distinct and independent composition. "These are the generations of the heaven and of the earth, when they were created, &c." GEN. ii, 4.

This second narrative ends with Chapter the Third. The Fifth Chapter begins with an appropriate title, which more particularly indicates a distinct and independent composition: "This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him."

3

The history of the creation of man is here again briefly recited, as an introduction to a separate book, which is complete in its kind; it begins from the creation and concludes with the birth of the sons of Noah. It might be regarded by many as a transcript from an authentic genealogical table or pedigree, which had been regularly kept in the family of the patriarch.

We have afterwards-"These are the generations of Noah," "These are the generations of the sons of Noah, &c."

The reflections, which flow from these observations, are obvious. Those which follow are taken from the Celtic Researches, the author of which has entered deeply into several subjects that will occur to our notice in the course of this volume.

These things I cannot but consider as internal proofs, that Moses has not only alluded to writings which existed before his own time, but has actually given us transcripts of some of the compositions of the primitive ages and that the book of Genesis, like other historical parts of the Scriptures, consists in a great measure of compilations from more early documents. May not these several books, which recapitulate the same events, and the matter of which has not been wholly forgotten by the heathens, be regarded as so many primitive records, adding mutual strength to each other, and reflecting mutual light, in the same manner as the books of Kings and Chronicles, and the narratives of the four evangelists?

If we duly consider the matter contained in the book of Genesis, I think we shall be led to conclude that much of it must necessarily have been collected from prior documents. For example (Gen. xxii, 20) Abraham receives information respecting the family of his brother Nahor. No reason is given why it was told Abraham : nor does anything immediately follow, as a consequence of such information. But as the account related to Abraham's family, we are left to conclude, that he recorded it; and, upon his authority, Moses preserves the record. He gives it not as a subject of revelation, nor as the result of his enquiry amongst the descendants of Nahor, nor yet does he content himself with registering the simple fact, but he tells us what had been told Abraham at such a time. At a distance of 400 years, he transcribes the names of Nahor's eight sons in due order, with some particular circumstances respecting them, as it had been told Abraham, and therefore, as it must have been recorded in some memorials in Abraham's family. Moses must have possessed a very exact detail of the transactions of Abraham's time. Hence the circumstantial account of the expedition of the four kings, of

that patriarch's treaties with the princes of the land in which he sojourned, of his sacrifices, and of the promises he received, and the allusion (Ex. xii) to the year, the month, and the very day on which he began his peregrinations.

In confirmation of the opinion advanced above, it may be observed, that history furnishes no instance of an exact chronology having been preserved, for a series of ages, by any people who were totally illiterate. Relative dates, and the enumeration of months and days, would soon become unmanageable in oral tradition: and the precise length of men's lives, and their age at the birth of their children, are circumstances not likely to have been the subject of immediate revelation to Moses. Yet his history of the primitive world preserves an unbroken chain of chronology, from the creation.-DAVIES's Celtic Researches, p. 40.

§ 2. Repetitions.

In the several portions of which each book of the Old Testament consists, the same events are recapitulated, to the same general effect, and sometimes with the addition of fresh matter. The earliest instance of this is in the history of the creation which is related over again three several times, yet putting the subject each time in a somewhat different light. The instances of similar repetition are so numerous that, if duplicates were rejected, the Pentateuch would not occupy more than half of its present compass. It is sufficient to name two or three notable instances which are the most difficult to be explained, except on the supposition that there once were earlier records, and, perhaps, fragments, out of which our present books were compiled.

The first which I shall adduce is the repetition of many parts of the Jewish Law, and in particular the ten commandments, which are first given in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, and in such a manner that their insertion furnishes an example of a break in the recital, as well as of a repetition. The nineteenth chapter of Exodus ends with these words: "So Moses went down unto the people and spake unto them."

He went down, as we learn from the preceding verses, to caution the people not to come too near. There is nothing said of his going up again: but the next words to these, which are certainly the words that God spoke to him, are: "And God spake all these words, saying I am the Lord thy God, &c."

The narrative is here plainly broken, and must be reunited by inserting an account of Moses going up again into the Mount: if, indeed, the narrative is continuous at all.

The ten commandments are again enumerated in the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy from the mouth of Moses, and prefaced by the admonitions of the lawgiver not to forget those commandments and the other parts of the covenant which God had given them. It cannot be supposed that Moses wrote them twice, though he may have recited them many times to the people, neither would a later historian have written them twice in an original historical work; but in a collection of narratives taken from earlier documents, it is plain that, to preserve the original words as far as possible, many such repetitions would be unavoidable.

The whole of II Kings xviii, 13, to xx, 19, is the same as Isaiah, xxxvi, 1, to the end of the thirty-ninth chapter: the two passages contain the history of Hezekiah's alarm at the approach of Sennacherib, and God's vengeance on the Assyrian army. As it is impossible to say which of the claimants for these chapters is the real author, it is best to ascribe them to some third unknown author, from whom both have copied them.

The next instance of repetition is still more striking, because we fall into an inevitable dilemma, in endeavouring to explain it. The 36th chapter of Genesis contains a separate and complete account of the genealogy of Esau, entirely disconnected with what goes before, and with what follows. In the 31st verse of this chapter we find the heading or title: "And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel."

This verse and the twelve which follow, occur almost verbatim in the First Book of Chronicles, i, 43; and this circumstance involves us in a double dilemma. Either the two documents were copied, the one from the other, or both. were copied from a common original. It will not, I presume, be readily allowed that the author of Genesis copied these thirteen verses from Chronicles; though even this argument has been put forward: neither can I admit that the author of Chronicles, supposed to be Ezra, would