me.

The profopopoeia may be readily allowed to be beautiful; but I very much question whether the writer of the Pentateuch ever dreamed of it. I wish to divest myself of prejudices, as much as this effayift, whoever he be; and, although I cannot altogether forget what I learned in my years of pupillage, I have been long accuftomed to think for myfelf, on every subject that has come before On the prefent fubject, which I have studied with great attention, my opinion is, that there are only two admiffible modes of interpretation: either to allegorize the whole, with Philo; or tenacioufly to adhere to the letter, in every refpect. That the latter, only, was in the writer's view, I have not the smallest doubt: but I doubt, whether his relation were founded upon real facts; or imagined, to account for known phenomena. Why might not the Hebrews have their mythology, as well as other nations? and why might not their mythologifts contrive or improve a fyftem of cofmogony, as well as thofe of Chaldæa, or Egypt, or Greece, or Italy, or Perfia, or Hindoftan? If we may fuppofe, then, that the Hebrew hiftoriographer invented his Hexahemeron, or fix days creation, to inforce more ftrongly the observance of the Sabbath; which I think much more than probable; may we not, in like manner, confider his history of the Fall as an excellent mythologue, to account for the origin of human evil, and of man's antipathy to the reptile race? Regarded in this light, it will require no ftraining effort to explain it : it will be perfectly coherent in all its parts: it will be attended with no abfurd confequence: it will give no handle to the enemies of religion to turn it into ridicule. The ferpent will then be a real mythological ferpent; will fpeak, like the beafts and birds in Pilpay or Efop; will be a moft crafty envious animal, that feduces the woman from her allegiance to God; will be punished, accordingly, with degradation from his original ftate; and an everlafting enmity The refpective eftablished between him and the woman's feed.

punishments of the woman and of the man, will be, in the fame fenfe, real; and the whole chapter an incomparable example of oriental mythology.-Reader! doft thou diflike this mode of interpretation? Embrace any other that pleafes thee better. Be only pleafed to obferve, that the authority of Scripture is by no means weakened by this interpretation, as will be fully proved in its proper place.'

The doctor now proceeds with an historical fummary from the expulfion of mankind out of Paradife to the time of Abraham, whofe birth is placed by the Hebrew copies in the 292d year after the deluge; but, by the Samaritan copy and the Greek verfion, in the 949th. This he confiders as the beginning of the Hebrew history, and, after defending the genuineness of it, by various arguments, adverts to the fyftem of the Hebrew legislation.

K 4

The

1

The fpeculative part of the Mofaic divinity is extremely concife ; and fummed up in the belief of One fupreme God, the creator and governor of the heavens and the earth, and of fubordinate beings, called his angels or meflengers. His abfolute attributes are omnipotence and omnifcience. He is alfo reprefented as juft, benevolent, longfuffering, and merciful; but thefe qualities are clothed in colours that infpire rather fear than love; the empire of this latter was, long after, to be eftablished, by a greater lawgiver than Mofes. The God of Mofes is a jealous God, who punisheth the iniquity of fathers in their children, unto the third or fourth generation; an irafcible and avenging God, who confumeik like a devouring fire; who maketh his arrosos drunk with the blood of his enemies, and his fword fatiated with their fiel. He is even faid to harden, fometimes, the hearts of wicked men, that he may take more flagrant vengeance of them. Indeed, the whole tenor of the Pentateuch convinces me, that the more ancient Hebrews were real anthropomorphites; and to this alone, I think, we are to afcribe all thofe expreffions concerning the Deity, that feemingly degrade the Deity. At any rate, all fuch xpreffions must be confidered as metaphorical imagery, adapted to he ideas of a stupid, carnal propie; if we would fupport the general credit of Hebrew fcripture, on rational principles.-Of God's angels, we learn nothing, but that they always appeared in a human form, and spoke the language of man. Of bad angels, I find no mention made in the whole Pentateuch; unless it be supposed that, they are alluded to in Levit. xvii. 7. and Deut. xxxii. 17. which the reader may turn to, and examine, together with my remarks on both paffages.'

The practical theology, it is obferved by Dr. Geddes, is of much greater extent; and may be divided into the moral and the ritual. The former, as contained in the decalogue, and reducible to the love of God, and the love of our neighbour; the latter as confifting of various ceremonies, which though at first fight, to thoughtlefs and fuperficial readers, appearing trivial, will upon a deeper inlight be found to have been compiled with great judgment, and a more than ordinary know ledge of the human heart. This, the doctor proceeds to evince, by brief but luminous illuftrations of its feveral objects, and concludes his sketch of the Pentateuch, by inferring, that, whether it be confidered as a body of hiftory, or as a fyitem of jurifprudence, it will not appear to fhrink from a comparifon with any piece of ancient writing, even when divefed of every privilege, it might claim from revelation.'

The next confideration that occurs is: who was the author of fo admirable a work ?--In reply, the doctor obferves:

There was a time, when this would have been deemed an im pertinent, may an impious query; for who, it was faid, could be

the

the author of the books of Mofes, but Mofes himself? Yet this query appears to me to have never been fufficiently anfwered, unless injurious language may be called an anfwer. As the fubject will necetarily occupy a confiderable place in my. General Preface, I fhall now content myfelf with giving, in very few words, the refult of my own investigation. It has been well obferved by Michaelis, that all external teftimony is here of little avail: it is from intrinfic evidence only, that we must derive our procfs. Now, from intrin fic evidence, three things to me feem indubitable. ft. The Pentateuch, in its prefent form, was not written by Mofes. 2dly. It was written in the land of Chanaan, and most probably at Jerufalem. 3diy. It could not be written before the reign of David, nor after that of Hezekiah. The long pacific reign of Solomon (the Auguftan age of Juda) is the period to which I would refer it: yet, I confels, there are fome marks of a pofterior date, or at leaft of pofterior interpolation.

But although I am inclined to believe that the Pentateuch was reduced into its prefent form in the reign of Solomon, I am fully perfuaded that it was compiled from ancient documents, fome of which were coeval with Mcfes, and fome even anterior to Mofes. Whether all these were written records, or many of them only oral traditions, it would be rafh to determine. It is my opinion, that the Hebrews had no written documents before the days of Mofes; and that all their hiftory, prior to that period, is derived from monumental indexes, or traditional tales. Some remarkable tree, under which a patriarch had refided; fome pillar, which he had erected; fome heap, which he had raifed; fome ford, which he had crofied; fome fpot, where he had encamped; fome field, which he had purchafed; the tomb in which he had been laid- all thefe ferved as fo many links to hand his flory down to pofterity; and concborated the oral teftimony tranfmitted, from generation to generation, in fimple narratives, or ruftic forgs. That the marvellous would fonetimes creep into thefe, we may eafily conceive: but ftill the effince, or at leaft the skeleton, of hiftory, was preferved.

From the time of Mofes, there can be no doubt, I think, of their having written records. Mofes, who had been taught all the ifdem of the Egyptians, moft probably was the firft Hebrew writer, or the first who applied writing to hiftorical compofition. From his journals, a great part of the Pentateuch feems to have been compiled. Whether he were alfo the original author of the Hebrew tofmogony, and of the story prior to his own days, I would rţither confidently affert, nor pcfitively deny. He certainly may have been the original author or compiler; and may have drawn the whole or a part of his cofmegeny and general hiftory, both before and after the deh ge, from the archives of Egypt: and thofe origis pal materials, collected first by Mofes, may have been worked up into their prefent form by the congiler of the Tentaich, in the

rel

reign of Solomon. But it is alfo poffible, and I think more probable, that the latter was the first collector; and collected from fuch documents as he could find, either among his own people, or among the neighbouring nations.

Some modern writers, indeed, allowing Mofes to be the author of the Pentateuch, maintain, that he compofed the Book of Genefis from two different written documents; which they have attempt. ed to distinguish by refpective characteristics. Although I really look upon this as the work of fancy, and will elsewhere endeavour to prove it to be fo; I am not so self-sufficient as to imagine that I may not be in the wrong, or that they may not be in the right. The reader who wishes to fee the arguments on which they ground their affertion, may confult Aftruc or Eichhorn. As the latter has ventured to give a more minute discrimination than the former, I fhall here infert it.

According to him, the firft document is to be found in Gen. i. and ii. 1—3; v. 1—28, 30—32; vi. 1. 2, 4, 9 −22; vii. 11—16 (except the laft three words), 18 (perhaps 19), 20-22, 24; viii. 1-19; ix. 1-17, 28, 29; xi. 10—26, 27—32 ; xvii. 1—27; xix. 29-38; XX. I—17; xxi. 2— −32; xxii. 1—10, 20-24; xxiii. 1—20; XXV. 7—11, 19, 20; xxvi. 34, 35; xxviii. 1-9, 12, 17, 18, part of 22; XXX. I—13, 17, 19, half of 20, 21-24 to the middle; xxxi. 2, 4-48, 50-54; xxxii. 1-33; xxxiii. 1-18; xxxiv. 31; XXXV. 1-29; xxxvii. 1-36; xl. xli. xlii. xliii. xliv. xlv. xlvi. xlvii. 1-27; xlviii. 1—22; xlix. 29—33; l. 12, 13, 15—26.

The fecond document is discovered by him in iv. 1-26; v. 29; vi. 3, 5-8; vii. 1-9, the three laft words of 16, 10, 17, perhaps 19, 23; viii. 20—22; ix. 18—27; x. 1—32; xi. 1—9; xii. xiii. 18; xv. xvi. xviii, xix. 1-28; xx. 18; xxi. 1, 33, 34; xxii. 11—19; xxiv. vxv. 1—7, 12—18, 21—34; xxvi. 1—33; xxvii. xxviii. 10-22; xxix. xxx. 14-16, half of 20, and the end of 24; xxxi. 1, 3, 49; xxxviii. 1-39; xxxix. 1-23; xlvii. 28-31; xlix. 1-28; L. 1—12, 14.—Befide these two documents, he finds a third one incorporated, which he ranks under the name of Interpolations; namely, ii. 4-25; iii. xiv. perhaps xxxiii. 18. to xxxiv. 31; xxxvi. perhaps xlix. 1-27.'

- But though the Pentateuch-from whatever documents, at whatever period, and by whatsoever writer compiled-has not come down to us in its full integrity; yet the advantages for reftoring it are infinitely fuperior to thofe that are incident to any other work. What these are, Dr. Geddes' judiciously ftates; and after giving his reafon for joining the book of Jofhuah to the Pentateuch, concludes his Preface with notices and explanations.

In respect to the Verfion itfelf, the doctor remarks:-

9

• I could

"I could have often made it more clear, and, I believe, more elegant; if I had not, with fome reluctance, adhered too ftrictly to the rigid rules of verbal tranflation: for which, however, many of my readers will, probably, be more thankful, than if I had, like my fellow-renderers on the Continent, taken a freer range. The fetters of long ufage are not eafily broken, even when that ufage is tyrannical. But the day may come, when the tranflator of the Bible will be as little thackled as the tranflator of any other ancient book,'

On the last obfervation we cannot help adding, that we greatly prefer the mode of tranflation Dr. Geddes hath adopted, to that which he here appears to prefer. In our judgment, the notion of an unfhackled tranflation' is a contradiction in terms, it being the proper object of every one, who translates, to give as ftrictly as poflible the fenfe of his originai *.

In what manner the doctor hath acquitted himself, the specimens annexed may help to exhibit,

25 They now made ready the present against Joseph fhould come home at noon; for they had heard that they were to dine there. 26 So when Jofeph came home, they brought the prefent, which

they had, into the house; and bowed themfelves to him, to the 27 ground. And he afked them of their welfare, and faid: "Is your father well, the old man of whom ye fpoke? Is he still 28 alive?" They anfwered: "Thy fervant our father is well: he is ftill alive." "The bleffing of God be on the man!" said he. 29 Again they bowed down their heads and made obeifance. Then, raiting his eyes, and feeing his brother Benjamin, his own mother's fon, he said: "This is your youngest brother, of whom ye fpoke to me?" and added: "God be gracious to thee, my 30 fon!" Jofeph now made hafte (for his bowels yearned towards

his brother) and fought where to weep. And he went into his 31 chamber, and wept there. He then washed his face, and came 32 out; and, refraining himself, faid: "Serve up dinner." And they ferved up for him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians who ate with him, by themfelves; for the Egyptians might not eat a meal with Hebrews: that would be 33 an abomination to Egyptians. Now his brothers fat before him, the elder according to his feniority, and the younger according 34 to his youth; fo that they marvelled, one at another. And fofeph fent meffes to them from what was before himself; but the mefs of Benjamin was five times as much as any of their meffes. But when they had drunken with him, until they were merry; he commanded his fteward, faying: "Fill the men's facks

I

We do not remember to have feen the true principles of tranflation any where fo juftly laid down than in an anonymous pamphlet not long fince publifhed, under the title of An Efay toward a New Edition and Tranflation of Tibul, printed for Johnson.