^'vnL, \f - 
 
 BISHOP COLENSO 
 
 ON 
 
 THE PENTATEUCH 
 
 R E y I E W E D 
 
 REV. J. L. IpOKTEB, M.A., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF SACRED LITERATURE, ASSESIBLT's COLLEGE, BELFAST; AUTHOR OF 
 *'riVE YEARS IN DAMASCUS;" "HANDBOOK FOR STRIA & PALESTINE," &C. 
 
 BELFAST: C. AITCHISON, 9, HTGR STREET. 
 1863. 
 
% 
 
 BISHOP COLENSO 
 
 ON 
 
 THE PENTATEUCH 
 
 REVIEWED 
 
 BT THE 
 
 REV. J. L. TORTEK, M.A., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF SACRED LITERATURE, ASSEMBLY'S COLLEGE, BELFAST; AUTHOR OF 
 "five years in DAMASCUS;" "HANDBOOK FOR SYRIA & PALESTINE," &C. 
 
 BELFAST: C. AITCHISOX, 9, HIGH STREET. 
 18G3. 
 
BELFAST : 
 
 PnrxTED AT THE " NE WS • L E T T E U " OB'FICK, 
 
 DONEGALL STREET. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE, ^^^4 
 
 CHAP. I.— The General Design of Bishop Colenso's Book stated. Necessity for a 
 Thorough Examination of his Arguments. The Ethics of the Book False and 
 Pernicious. How Conscience is to be Stifled and Ordination Vows set aside. 
 The Bishop's Plea niogical and Inconsistent, 5 
 
 CHAP. II.— Bishop Colenso's Summary Rejection of the Facts of Bible History shown 
 to be Unjustifiable. His Dogma that " The Bible only contains the Word of 
 God " proved to be Derogatory to God's Character, and Contrary to Scripture. 
 Our Lord's View of the Authorship and Divine Authority of the Pentateuch 
 contrasted with Bishop Colenso's. Charges of Ignorance against our Lord met 
 and Refuted, 10 
 
 CHAP, m.— The Morality and Humanity of the Mosaic Institutions Vindicated. 
 How a Jew became a Slave or "Bondman." Why the Master was permitted to 
 inflict Punishment on the Slave. True Character of the Laws regulating 
 "Bondage," 17 
 
 CHAP. IV.— The Object of Bishop Colenso's Book Stated, How his Arguments 
 must be met. 1st Objection — Alleged Impossibilities in the History of Judah 
 and his Family shown to be without foundation. 2nd Objection— Assemblies 
 of the People. 3rd Objection— Moses addressing all Israel. 4th Objection — 
 Extent of the Camp and Duties of the Priests. 5th Objection — Numbers of the 
 People, &c. 6th Objection— The Tents of the Israelites: Where they Got them, 
 and how they Carried them. Bishop Colenso's Ignorance of Eastern Life, ... 20 
 
 CHAP. V. — 7th Objection— The Israelites Armed. Meaning of "Hamushim." 8th 
 Objection — Institution of the Passover. Dr. Colenso's Ignorance of Hebrew. 
 Number of Lambs required. 9th Objection — The March out of EgyjDt: How it 
 was Conducted. 10th Objection— The Sheep and Cattle of the Israelites: How 
 they were Fed. 11th Objection — The Number of the Israelites, and the extent 
 of Canaan. Remarkable Blunder of the Bishop. Wild Beasts in Palestine, ... 27 
 
 CHAP. VL— 12th Objection— Number of the First-born. 13th Objection— Time of 
 Sojourning in Egypt. 14th Objection — The Exodus in the Fourth Generation. 
 Meaning of the word "Dor." The Numbers of the Israelites estimated. 15th 
 and 16th Objections — Number of the Danites and Levites. 17th Objection — The 
 Priests and their Duties. 18th Objection — The Second Passover. 19th Objection 
 — The War in Midian, 33 
 
 CHAP. VII. — Concluding Remarks. Bishop Colenso's proposed Substitute for the 
 
 Bible, His New Views regarding Christian (?) Missions, 38 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The following Eeview of Colenso on the Pentateuch appeared in the form of 
 letters, addressed to the Editor of the Belfast News-Letter, during the months of 
 November and December last. The substance of a portion of it was also pub- 
 lished in the Athenceum of January 3. Urgent requests having been made to 
 me by many influential persons, both in this country and in England, that I 
 should issue the letters in a more permanent form, and instances having been 
 communicated of good already done by them, I now give them to the public. 
 In revising them for the press, I have made a number of changes and additions, 
 with the view of rendering reference to particular points more easy, and the 
 replies to Bishop Colenso's arguments more complete. My earnest prayer is, 
 that the great Head of the Church may be graciously pleased to bless this 
 humble effort to defend the integrity of His Holy Word, and to promote the 
 cause of Divine Truth. 
 
 Brandon Towers, Belfast, 
 January 24, 1863. 
 
COLENSO ON THE PENTATEUCH 
 
 REVIEWED. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE GEiTERAL DESIGN OF BISHOP COLENSO'S BOOK STATED. — NECESSITY FOR A 
 
 THOROUGH EXAMINATION OF HIS ARGUMENTS. THE ETHICS OF THE BOOK 
 
 FALSE AND PERNICIOUS. HOW CONSCIENCE IS TO BE STIFLED AND ORDINATION 
 
 VOWS SET ASIDE. — THE BISHOP's PLEA ILLOGICAL AND INCONSISTENT. 
 
 These are strange and eventful times in which we Kve. Nations professing the 
 Christian faith are presenting to the world the most melancholy examples of 
 hatred and bloodshed the world ever witnessed; and Chnrches professing un- 
 feigned belief in the Holy Scrij)tures are making, from their centres of learning 
 and centres of influence, the most determined assaults ever made upon the Divine 
 authority of the Scriptures. This is surely an age of startling paradoxes. The 
 excitement caused by "Essays and Reviews" has not yet passed away. The 
 shock given by that book to the religious feelings and moral principles of the 
 whole Christian community still thrills through the heart of every conscientious 
 man in Britain. Here were seven members of the Church of England — six of 
 them ministers, and all of them holding, offices of high trust — openly and deli- 
 berately denouncing the doctrines to which they had given a willing "assent 
 and consent," and which they had sworn to maintain. But now we have to 
 bear a ruder shock. One of the most plausible works ever written against the 
 Bible has just proceeded from the pen of an English Protestant Bishop! 
 Hitherto we have been wont to look to his Church as one of the great cham- 
 pions of revealed truth. We would even have been inclined to inscribe as a 
 noble motto on her escutcheon the proud title borne by our beloved Sovereign — 
 Fidei Defensor. Now, alas I we see rising from the very heart of that Church 
 the most skilful and the most dangerous enemies Christianity has ever 
 encountered. 
 
 "Bishop Colenso on the Pentateuch" has been everywhere received with un- 
 mingled sorrow by true Christians, andwithunmingled joy by professed infidels. 
 Judging from the reviews which have appeared in the public prints, and from 
 the sentiments too often expressed in private conversation, it would seem to 
 have left an aching void in many a pious soul. It is a most dangerous book to 
 certain classes of readers ; — to worldly philosophers who have never received any 
 theological training, and to gay young men who were eagerly looking for some- 
 thing that might aiford a fair excuse for their practical scepticism. The 
 "Preface" and the " Introductory Remarks" would seem to have been framed 
 with the special design of attracting such persons, and of entrapping the un- 
 wary of every class. They contain a series of charges against the truthfulness 
 of Bible history and the morality of some of its laws, which, if sustained, 
 must completely overthrow its Divine authority. These charges are advanced 
 in such an ingenious way that the ordinary reader would suppose them to be 
 beyond doubt or question ; and, unless carefully Avarned or fully informed upon 
 the subject, he would be liable to be deceived, and to have his faith in the Sacred 
 Records overthrown at the very outset. Another most dangerous element in 
 the book is what may be termed its Ethics — the principles which the author lays 
 down for the guidance of the consciences and the acts of all who adopt his 
 
 B 
 
views, or who may hold any other views at variance with the Word of God and 
 the standards of the Church with which they claim connection. 
 
 The whole subject of Avhich the book treats is of the gravest import. It con- 
 cerns, not the Church of England merely, but Christianity and Christendom. 
 The book has obtained a large amount of notoriety. It has been reviewed in 
 all the leading journals; and it forms, at the present moment, a fruitful topic 
 of conversation and controversy in all the literary circles of the land. The po- 
 sition of its author, as a bishop of the English Church, has gained for it a wide 
 celebrity. The boldness — not to say hardihood — with which he assails the 
 standards of his Church, and the credibility of the Bible, has arrested the atten- 
 tion of the whole Christian public. Bishop Colenso's language is free from the 
 haziness of the Oxford Essayists. There can be no doubt as to his meaning. 
 He does not leave his readers to infer his infidelity ; he states it in words as plain 
 as they are bold. He gives the results of his inquiries, too — all the sweeping 
 conclusions to which his investigations have led him — in the opening paragraphs 
 of his work. He tells the reader that he does not wish " to take him by sur- 
 prise, or to entrap him by guile." He wishes him "to go forward with his eyes 
 open, to watch carefully every step of the argument, with a full consciousness of 
 the momentous results to which it leads, and with a determination to test severely j 
 with all the poiver and shill he can hring to the worJc, the truth of every infer- 
 ence and every conclusion," but "to test honestly and fairly." The reader can 
 scarcely fail to be deeply impressed with such language ; it is so earnest, so can- 
 did, and so free from that flippancy of style and tone which characterised the 
 Essayists. Then, again, there is a deep pathos in some of his personal allusions, 
 which serves to invest both author and subject with a romantic interest. Thus 
 he writes: — "For myself, I have become engaged in this inquiry from no wish 
 or purpose of my own, but from the plain necessities of my position as a mis- 
 sionary bishop. I feel, however, that I am only drawn in with the stream, 
 which, in this our age, is setting steadily in this direction, and swelling visibly 
 from day to day. What the end may be, God only— the God of Trath— can 
 foresee. Meanwhile, believing and trusting in His guidance, I have launched my 
 barque upon the flood, and am carried along by the waters" — (p. 5). Again — 
 "It Avould be no light thing for me, at my time of life, to be cast adrift upon 
 the world, and have to begin life again under heavy pressure and all unfavorable 
 circumstances — to be separated from many old friends — to have my name cast 
 out as an evil, even by some of them, and to have it trodden underfoot, as an 
 unclean thing, by others who do not know me," &c. — (p. xiii.) All this is very 
 touching, and largely tends to render his arguments attractive, and to smooth 
 the way for his somewhat startling conclusions. It is, therefore, the more ne- 
 cessary that all his arguments should be thoroughly tested, that their fallacies 
 should be fully exposed, and that the baneful influences of the whole book should 
 be, as far as possible, counteracted. The author is perfectly conscious of the 
 momentous results to which his charges and reasonings would lead. So am I. 
 So must every thoughtful man be. He challenges examination. Pie wishes 
 every step of his argument to he " carefully watched," and to be tested ''severely." 
 He shall have his wish; and, if he should smart during the operation, he has 
 himself to blame. 
 
 Before proceeding to review the statements and so-called arguments of Bishop 
 Colenso, I think it my duty to expose the /a?se ethics of his book — to hold up to 
 the well-merited scorn of every honest man that moral code which he has laid 
 down for his own guidance, imder difficulties confessedly great, and which he 
 presses so strongly upon the acceptance of the clergy of his Church. In doing 
 so, I am obliged to glance at the origin and history of his sceptical opinions, as 
 related by himself. 
 
 Doubts regarding the truthfulness of many of the narratives and statements 
 of Scripture existed in Mr. Colenso's mind 7rom an early period. While en- 
 gaged in parish work in England he had no time to solve them ; and so he says, 
 '^ I contented myself with silencing, by means of the specious explanations 
 
wMcli are given in most commentaries, the ordinary objections against the histo- 
 rical character of the early portions of the Old Testament, and setthng down 
 with a willing acquiescence in the general truth of the narrative, whatever diffi- 
 culties might still hang about particular parts of it."— (p. vi.) It seems, how- 
 ever, that his attempt at " silencing" objections was not very successful. They 
 were " avoided," and " set aside," but never silenced. When elected bishop, and 
 sent to his diocese at Natal, circumstances occurred which brought up his latent 
 scepticism with redoubled force. He began to translate the Bible into the Zulu 
 tongue, and was assisted by " a simple-minded, but inteUigent, native— one with 
 the'docility of a child, but the reasoning powers of mature age." When trans- 
 lating the story of the Deluge, his assistant asked, "Is all that true? Do you 
 really believe that all the beasts, and birds, and creeping things upon the earth, 
 large and small, from hot countries and cold, came thus in pairs, and entered into 
 the' ark with Noah? And did Noah gather food for them all, for the beasts and 
 birds of prey, as well as the rest?" The bishop was completely taken aback by 
 the question. The simple fact is, he did not beheve one word of the narrative 
 himself; and he was now ashamed to utter a direct falsehood. But hear his 
 own words — "My heart answered in the words of the prophet, 'Shall a man 
 gpeak lies in the name of the Lord? ' I dared not do so. My own knowledge of 
 some branches of science, of geology in particular, had been much increased 
 since I left England ; and I now knew for certain . . , that a universal de- 
 luge, such as the Bible manifestly speaks of, could not possibly have taken 
 place in the way described in the Book of Genesis. . . . Knowing this, I 
 felt that I dared not, as a servant of the God of Truth, urge my brother-man to 
 believe that which I did not myself he\k-.Y e—u-Jdch Ilnew to he untrue,'" &c. 
 
 Now, whatever opinion we may form here of the bishop as a theologian, as a 
 philosopher, and especially as a critic — however we may deplore his utter inca- 
 pacity for explaining Scripture, and, consequently, for discharging the duties of 
 the holy office he has undertaken, we must give him credit for honesty towards 
 the poor Zuhi who was unfortunately x^laced under his spiritual instruction. He 
 would not attempt to lead him to believe what he did not believe himself. All 
 this is well, and was so far creditable to his moral principles. But we must not 
 forget in what relationship the bishop stood to other parties ; what engagements 
 he had undertaken ; what duties he had bound himself faithfully to discharge 
 for the Church which had given him his office, his commission, and his support. 
 Did he act with equal conscientiousness in regard to it as he did in regard to the 
 Zulu? Had he not given full " assent and consent" to the Thirty -nine Articles ; 
 and in Article VI. all the Books of the Old and New Testament are declared to 
 be canonical.? When ordained a deacon, was he not asked — '^Do you unfeignedly 
 helieve all the canonical Scriptures of the Old and Neiu Testament P' and did he 
 not answer — '■'■ I do helieve themV When consecrated bishop^ was not this 
 question put to him — '■''Are you read.y, with all faithful diligence, to hanish and 
 drive aiuay all erroneous and. strange doctrines contrary to the Word of God, and 
 hoth privately and openly to call upon and encourage others to do the samef" 
 and did he not answer — "lam ready, trk Lord being my helper?"' Were 
 not these solemn vows upon him when he conversed with the poor Zulu? Were 
 they not upon him still when he wrote and published this work, in which he 
 labours to overthrow the canonicity of five books of Scripture? Are they not 
 upon him yet, when he is planning and preparing new attacks upon the Woixl 
 of God? Where now is the conscientiousness — the moral honesty displayed 
 toward the Zulu? Why will he not practise it toward his Church? Why d^oes 
 his heart not whisper to him the words of the prophet, " Shall a man speak lies 
 in the name of the Lord?" Had Bishop Colenso resigned his office when he felt 
 he could no longer conscientiously discharge its duties — had he deliberately re- 
 leased himself from his solemn ordination vows before he ventured so daringly 
 to violate them — then, however much the Church might have deplored his errors 
 and his fall, it must have admired his integrity. It is with pain and sorrow I 
 feel myself compelled, by the bishop's own acts and statements, to conclude thci 
 
Lis conscientiousness and his honesty reach onlv as far as may serve the purposes 
 of his scepticism. I impute no motives to the "man— God forbid I should on a 
 subject of such solemn import ! I only deduce, what every impartial mind must 
 admit to be a legitimate conclusion, from his acts and his words. He holds his 
 office still. ^ It gives him a position in society, and an influence over the minds 
 of men which he never could otherwise have attained; and these he is now- 
 employing, with determmed energy, to destroy those very standards which, on 
 taking office, he had sworn to defend. 
 
 He even goes so far as to attempt to justify the course he is adopting. 
 Speaking of the authors of ''Essays and Keviews," he says, *'For my own 
 part, however much I may dissent, as I do, from some of their views, I am very 
 far, indeed, from judging them for remaining within her (the Church's) pale — 
 knowing too well by my own feelings how dreadful ivould he the wrench to be torn 
 from all one has loved and revered by going out of the Church. Perhaps they 
 may feel it to he their duty to the Church itself, and to that which they hold to be 
 the Truth, to abide in their stations, unless they are formally and legally excluded 
 from them, and to claim for all her members — clerical as well as lay — that free- 
 dom of thought and utterance Avhich is the very essence of the Protestant reli- 
 gion, and without which, indeed, in this age of advancing science, the Church of 
 England would soon become a mere dark prison-house, in which the mind both 
 of the teacher and the taught would be fettered still with the chains of past 
 ignorance," &c. — (pp. xi.-xii.) This reasoning, were it not ao self-contradictory, 
 would be worthy of the most distinguished disciple of Ignatius Loyola. Surely 
 it only requires to be repeated to draw down upon its author the indignation of 
 every honest man. According to Bishop Colenso, then, a man may break his 
 engagements in order to save his feehngs from too rude a shock ! He may violate 
 the most solemn oath in order to act the part of a traitor in the Church he has 
 sworn to defend ! According to him, conscience is to be sacrificed to feehng, and 
 vow^s to expediency ! 
 
 That the bishop has felt, to some degree at least, the force of this is evident 
 from what follows. "For myself," he says, '' if I cannot find the means of 
 doing ciiuay luith my present difficulties, I see not how I can retain my Episcopal 
 office, in the discharge of which I must require from others a solemn declaration 
 that they ' unfeignedly believe all the canonical Scriptures of the Old and N'ew 
 Testament,'" &c.— (p. xii.) It is difficult to understand by what process of 
 casuistry he can relieve his own conscience from a burden which he could not 
 honestly place upon others. He has himself solemnly professed his " unfeigned 
 belief in all the canonical Scriptures." He continues to hold an office which 
 binds him to that confession by a sacred vow, and which pledges him, moreover, 
 to ''banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's 
 "Word, and both privately and openly to call upon and encourage others to do 
 the same." Yet he tells us plainly he does not believe the Scriptures. In 
 his published work he not only labours to overthrow their canonicity, but he 
 strives also to induce others to join him in his eiforts. He appears to indicate 
 that the only difficulty he feels is regarding the part he is obliged to take in 
 nuposing a vow similar to his own upon others. The painful question is here 
 reluctantly forced upon one — " What about his oiun conscience?" If the young 
 man entering the ministry— enlightened, of course, as the bishop is enlightened 
 — could not honestly profess to believe implicitly in the Scriptures — (p. xxiv.)^ 
 then I ask, how can the bishop honestly continue in a Church which required, 
 mid still requires, from himself a yet stronger profession? 
 
 He says, as if to meet some such question, " For myself, if I cannot find the 
 means of doing away luith my present difiiculties, I see" not how I can retain," 
 &c. The difficulties he alludes to are, of course, his ordination vows. And what 
 are the means by which he is endeavouring to do away with them? They are 
 three. First — By the decisions of the Court of Arches, Avliere it has been ruled 
 "that the words in the Ordination Service for Deacons, ' I do unfeignedly believe 
 all the canonical Scriptures,' must be understood to mean simply the expression 
 
9 
 
 ot a bona fide belief that ' tlie Holy Scriptures contain everything necessary to 
 salvation/ and *to that extent they have the direct sanction of the Almighty.' " 
 Thus he attempts to free himself from the obligation of his ordination vows by 
 the quibble of a law court I Roman Catholics are said to hand over their con- 
 sciences to the keeping of the priest. Bishop Colenso appears to have handed 
 over his to the keeping of the Court of Arches — (pp. xii. and xiii.) Second — 
 He next attempts to release himself from his difficulties by mystifying and per- 
 verting the plain and honest meaning of the sixth Article, and of the question in 
 the Ordination Service — (pp. xxiv., note, and xxxiii.) In this respect he appears 
 to coincide with the opinions expressed by Mr. Wilson in " Essays and Reviews" 
 — " Subscription may be thought even to be inoperative upon the conscience by 
 reason of its vagueness. For the act of subscription is enjoined, but its effect 
 or meaning nowhere plainly laid down ; and it does not seem to amount to more 
 than an acceptance of the Articles of the Church as the formal law to which the 
 subscriber is in some sense subject." — (" Essays and Reviews," p. 181.) Arguing 
 thus, Bishop Colenso says — " As a bishop of that Church, I dissent entirely 
 from the principle laid down by some — that such a question as that which is 
 here discussed {i.e., in his book) is not even an open question for an English 
 clergyman — that we are bound by solemn obligations to maintain certain views 
 on the points here involved to our lives' end, or, at least, to resign our sacred 
 
 office in the Church On the contrary, I hold that the foundations 
 
 of our national Church are laid upon truth itself, and not upon mere human pre- 
 scri]jtions.''^ Kow, I maintain that no rational man can consistently or conscien- 
 tiously base such arguments on the Articles or the Ordination Service. His 
 subscription was appended, not to abstract truth, but to the Thirty -nine Articles; 
 his reply at ordination was given, not to the question, " Do you believe in truth? " 
 but to the question, " Do you unfeignedly believe all the canonical Scriptures of 
 the Old and New Testament?" His argument, therefore, is neither more nor 
 less than an attempt to mystify and pervert plain language. Third — He seems 
 not to be quite satisfied that even the liberality of the Court of Arches, or the 
 elasticity of his own canons of interpretation, applied to the language of the 
 Prayer Book and the Articles, could altogether free him from his difficulties ; and 
 so he makes a strong appeal to the clergy and laity of the Church, to rise up, 
 and sweep away, at once and for ever, all creeds and confessions. 
 
 It seems to me that his several arguments, strange as they are when taken 
 separately, are stranger still when compared. They do not hang well together. 
 It is impossible to reconcile their discordant statements. They do not look like 
 the products of one mind. Thus, at one place he professes to have grave doubts 
 whether he can remain a bishop of the Church, which requires of its ministers 
 ''unfeignedly to believe all the canonical Scriptures;" at another, he affirms 
 that these words are not binding upon the conscience at all ! — (cf. pp. xii. and 
 xxxii.) On one page we tind him saying that he is not aware of any breach of 
 the law of the Church of England involved in writing against the truthfulness 
 of Scripture history, and the Divine authority of whole books of the Bible: 
 while in another he thus appeals to the laity of the Church-—" AVould they have 
 the clergy bound, under pains and penalties, to profess belief in that which they 
 do not themselves believe in? Are they willing that their own sons, who may 
 feel the Divine call to devote themselves to the ministry of souls, should be en- 
 tano-led in these trammels, so galling to the conscience, so injurious to their sense 
 of truth and honesty?" And then he adds, " AVe, indeed, who are under the 
 yoke may have for a time to bear it, however painful it may be, while we 
 struggle and hope for deliverance" — (cf. pp. xxxiii. and xxxiv). AVould it not 
 seeml'rom such statements and counter-statements as if the logical faculty of 
 the -bishop had been as seriously deranged by his scepticism as the moral? Or 
 can it be so that reason itself is tottering under the rude shocks of afalsephilo- 
 sophv and a destructive rationalism? 
 
 I have thought it necessary to dwell at some length on the ethics of Bishop 
 Colenso's book, because they show us the prinfiple.^ and the character of the 
 
10 
 
 author. They go far to explain and account for the free handling he gives to the 
 plain language, not merely of human creeds, but of God's Word. They pre- 
 pare us, in a great measure, for the serious accusations he brings against Moses, 
 and for his almost blasphemous insinuations against our blessed Lord. They 
 enable us to understand why he can see difficulties in the Sacred Kecords, and 
 yet can neither frame satisfactory replies himself, nor comprehend them when 
 framed by others. They fit us thus for forming a correct estimate both of his 
 specious arguments and his bold assertions. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BISHOP COLENSO'S SUMMARY REJECTION OF THE FACTS OF BIBLE HISTORY SHOWN 
 TO BE UNJUSTIFIABLE. — HIS DOGMA THAT ''THE BIBLE ONLY CONTAINS THE 
 WORD OF god" PROVED TO BE DEROGATORY TO GOD's CHARACTER, AND CON- 
 TRARY TO SCRIPTURE. OUR LORD's VIEW OF THE AUTHORSHIP AND DIVINE 
 
 AUTHORITY OF THE PENTATEUCH CONTRASTED WITH BISHOP COLENSO'S. 
 
 CHARGES OF IGNORANCE AGAINST OUR LORD MET AND REFUTED. 
 
 I WOULD beg to call attention, at the outset, to the manner in which Bishop 
 Colenso disposes of a vast number of what Christians have hitherto been accus- 
 tomed to call the faci& of Bible history. He either sets them aside as myths, or 
 pronounces them to be positively untrue; and that, too, in most cases, without 
 even an attempt at proof. The way in which he speaks of the Bible in his in- 
 troduction is as offensive as it is unwarranted. Thus, at page 8 — " Let it be ob- 
 served I am not here speaking of a number of j9e% variations im^ contradictions, 
 such as, on closer examination, are found to exist throughout the books, which 
 may be in many cases sufficiently exj^lained .... by supposing . . . 
 some loss or corruption of the original manuscript, or by suggesting that a later 
 writer has inserted his oivn gloss . . . however perplexing such contradic- 
 tions are," &c. (p. 8.) Again, he notices what he is pleased to call "the trivial 
 nature of a vast number of the conversations and commands ascribed directly to 
 Jehovah" (p. 9.) In regard to the Creation, the Fall, and the Deluge, he says — 
 "Many who feel these difficulties very strongly are able to get over them, by 
 supposing the first Uyo to embody some hind of allegorical teaching, and the last 
 to be a report of some dread catastrophe, handed down in the form of a legend, 
 from hoar antiquity" (p. xxi.) In another place he writes: "I am acting in no 
 light spirit, but with the serious earnestness of one who believes that he owes 
 it as a duty to the Church itself to do his part to secure for the Bible its due 
 honor and authority, and save its devout readers from ascribing to it attributes 
 of perfection and infallibility .... tchiclifhe Bible never claims for itself 
 (p. xxxiv.) One would think he had never read such passages as the follow- 
 ing;— 2 Tim. iii. 1(3; 2 Pet. i. 21; Heb. i. 1; Mic. iii. 8; Luke xxiv. 25—27 ; 
 Mark vii. 13. I need only cite one other statement: — " I now know for certain, 
 on geological grounds .... that a universal deluge, such as the Bible 
 manifestly speaks of, could not possiUg have taken place iu the way described in 
 the Book of Genesis." — (p. vii.) 
 
 A very little reading, indeed, will serve to convince any unprejudiced man that 
 these bold and sweeping assertions have been met and refuted long ago. It is, 
 consequently, unfair to assume them thus, as if they had been proved, or even 
 generally admitted by scientific theologians. It is unfair to make such unjusti- 
 fiable assertions the introduction to what he professes to call his real arguments. 
 It is on a par, however, with what I have shown to be the false ethics of this 
 whole book. Under the guise of candour and honesty, the author endeavours, 
 
11 
 
 at the very outset, to sap the foundations of the Christian's faith, that it may 
 tumble to ruin the moment his direct assault is made. I warn the reader not to 
 receive anything upon his dictum — not to assume anything as proved, or gene- 
 rally admitted, because he asserts it. Prove all things. The bishop would have 
 given far more palpable and satisfactory evidence of his vaunted honesty and 
 candour (see p. xix.), had he entered at once on what he calls his direct and main 
 arguments, and not occupied one-third of his book with these insidious prelimi- 
 naries. 
 
 One of Bishop Colenso's chief aims in the "Preface" and "Introductory Re- 
 marks" is to estabhsh the proposition, with which recent publications have 
 made the literary world only too familiar, that "the Bible is not the Word of 
 God, but it contains it," There is a distinction of vital importance here. When 
 we say that " the Bible is the Word of God," we mean that the Word of God 
 is co-extensive with the Bible; or, in other words, that the whole Bible is a Di- 
 vine Revelation. When, on the other hand, it is said that "the Bible contains 
 the Word of God," the meaning is, that a part of it only is of Divine origin, 
 and that the rest is human, and therefore fallible. Bishop Colenso affirms that a 
 great jMrt of it is positively and palpably untrue! Christians arc usually taught 
 to regard the Bible as the Word of God — pure, perfect, and infallible. Chris- 
 tianity, in fact, is founded upon that doctrine. Destroy the infallibility of the 
 Bible, and you destroy at once the foundation of Christianity, and of the whole 
 fabric of the Christian Church, with its ministry and its ordinances. 
 
 Lest it should be thought I misrepresent the bishop in this matter, I give 
 his own words: — "The result of my inquiry is this: that I have arrived at the 
 conviction . . . that the Pentateuch, as a whole, cannot possibly have been 
 written by Moses . . . and, further, that the (so-called) Mosaic narrative, 
 by whomsoever written, and though imjmrting to us, as I fully believe it does, 
 revelations of the Divine will and character, cannot be regarded as historically 
 
 true." (p. 8.) Again: — " I wish to repeat here most distinctly that my reason 
 
 for no longer receiving the Pentateuch as historically true is not that I find 
 insuperable difficulties with regard to the miracles or sujH^rnatural revelations of 
 Almighty <Jo(^ recorded in it, but solely that I cannot, as a true man, consent any 
 loucrer to shut my eyes to the absolute, palpable self-contradictions of the narra- 
 tive!" (p. 10.) His statements become still more daring as he proceeds. Thus 
 
 at p. 12 he writes: — "The heart that is unclean and impure will not fail to find 
 excuse for indulging its lusts, from the notion that somehow the very principle 
 of a living faith in God is shaken because belief in the Pentateuch is shaken. 
 But it is not so. Our belief in the living God remains as sure as ever, though 
 not the Pentateuch only, hut the whole Bible, were removed." And then he adds : 
 
 <'It is perhaps God's will that we shall be taught in this our day, among 
 
 other precious lessons, not to build up our faith upon a hook, though it be the 
 Bible itself' Still more clearly his views are brought out at p. 13. He feels 
 himself compelled to state the truth:— "And that truth is this— that the Penta- 
 teuch as a whole, was not written by Moses; and that, with respect to some, at 
 least 'of the chief portions of the story, it cannot be regarded as historically 
 true' It does not, therefore, cease to contain the true Word of God, with all 
 thin'cTs necessary for salvation. ... It still remains an integral portion of 
 that^book which, whatever intermixture it may shoiv of human elements— of 
 error infirmity, passion, and ignorance— has yet, through God's providence, and 
 the special luorking of Eis Spirit on the minds of its writers, been the means of 
 revealing to us His true name," &c. The bishop's meaning in plain language is 
 iust this"-— That a God of truth has mixed up a system of heavenly doctrines 
 with a tissue of Iving fables. The sublime history of Creation and the Fall he 
 calls an alleo-ory (p. xxi.) ; the account of the Deluge he declares to be physi- 
 callv imposSble (p. vii.) ; the whole story of the Exodus he affirms to be a series 
 of extravagant absurdities (pp. 11, seq.); portions of the law he represents as 
 positivelv Immoral and revoltingly inhuman (p. 9) ; of the whole Bible, he 
 affirms that it is intermixed with error, infirmity, passion, and ignorance, let 
 
12 
 
 he professes to believe, and lie would have rational, thoughtful men to believe 
 with him, that in this conglomerate of myths, impossibilities, absurdities, error, 
 passion, ignorance, immoralities, and revolting inhumanities, a God infinite in 
 wisdom, holiness, justice, love and truth, has incorporated a revelation of 
 heavenly doctrine! Would man, short-sighted and fallible as he is, do so? "We 
 cannot — we dare not — admit a dogma so derogatory to the Divine character. 
 
 But what saith the Scripture? What information do the sacred writers them- 
 selves give upon this subject? Do they put forward claims to infallibility and 
 Divine inspiration ? or do they anywhere, directly or indirectly, plead ignorance 
 or admit error? The testimony of Scripture is full and explicit. Thus, the 
 Lord said to Moses, " I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will 
 teach you what ye shall do." — (Exod. iv. 15.) Agam, " The Lord said unto 
 Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I 
 speak with thee, and believe thee for ever." — (xix. 9.) Again, ''And Moses wrote 
 this law, and delivered it unto the priests, the sons of Levi, which bare the ark 
 and covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel." — (Deut. xxxi. 9.) 
 David says, " The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my 
 tongue." — (2 Samuel xxiii. 2.) Jeremiah says, " The Lord said unto me. What- 
 soever I command thee thou shalt speak. Then the Lord put forth his hand and 
 touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me. Behold, I have put my words 
 into thy mouth." — (i. 7 — 9.) Ezekiel thus writes : — " And he said unto me. Son 
 of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto 
 them." — (iii. 4.) The New Testament writers declare the whole of the Old Tes- 
 tament Scriptures to be divinely inspired. Paul says, "All Scripture is given 
 by inspiration of God," &c. (2 Tim. iii. 16) ; and the word " Scripture" as used 
 by him was as definite as the word "Bible" is now. Peter says, "Prophecy 
 came not in old time by the will of man, but men spake from God by the Holy 
 Ghost." — (2 Pet. i. 21.) The term " Prophecy " is shown by the context to mean 
 the Old Testament Scriptures, 
 
 These are but a few out of multitudes of passages that might be produced to 
 prove that all the sacred writers claim for themselves Divine inspiration. Our 
 Lord, too, by numerous incidental references, sanctioned the same view. We are 
 thus bound, in common honesty, to reject the dogma of Bishop Colenso, and to 
 accept the Bible cis a luhole, or, as a whole, to reject it. We must not attempt to 
 divide it into sections, to classify it into Divine and human, to arrange its narra- 
 tives under the headings of "True" and "False," Our blessed Lord made no 
 such distinctions when he told the Jews to " search the Scriptures" (John v. 39), 
 and when he said to the Scribes and Pharisees, " Howbeit, in vain do they worship 
 me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the 
 commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men." — (Mark vii. 7, 8.) And, 
 further, he accuses them of " Making the Word of God of none effect through 
 your tradition" (ver. 13,); and in the parable He puts these words into the 
 mouth of Abraham, as a message from heaven to earth, " They have Moses and 
 the Pro^Dhets; let them hear them," — (Luke xvi. 29,) And the Ai)Ostle Paul, in 
 his own striking and vigorous style, nobly protests against any such humiliating 
 doctrine, when he thus exclaims, as if indignant at the very thought — " What 
 fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath 
 light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part 
 hath he that believeth with an infidel?" — (2 Cor. vi. 14, 15.) I maintain, with a 
 writer in "Aids to Faith" (p, 146), that "a narrative purporting to be one of 
 positive facts, which is wholly, or in any essential or considerable portion, untrue, 
 can have no connection with the Divine, and cannot have any beneficial influence 
 on mankind," To suppose otherwise is derogatory to the God of truth and 
 holiness, and opposed to the eternal principles of moral consistency. 
 
 In his preface. Bishop Colenso attempts to overthrow the argument in favour 
 of the Divine authority of the Pentateuch, which is derived from the testimony of 
 our Lord. Any unprejudiced man would admit at once, on reading the Gospels, 
 that our Lord believed both in the Mosaic authorship and Divine authority of the 
 
13 
 
 Pentateuch. That belief would surely be hievitable after examining such pas- 
 sages as the following: — "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; 
 for he lurote of me" — (John v. 46) ; " Now that the dead are raised, even Moses 
 showed at the bush," &c. — (Luke xx. 37) ; " They have J/oses and the Prophets ; 
 let them hear them. ... If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither 
 vv^ill they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead" (Luke xvi. 31) : "Think 
 not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets : I am not come to de- 
 stroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one 
 jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from theLaw, till all be fulfilled." — (Matt. v. 
 17, 18.) If, after such fidl and explicit testimony, we still affirm that Moses did 
 not write these books, we virtually contradict the statements of Christ, and impugu 
 His veracity. Bishop Colenso thinks otherwise. He says there is no force in the 
 argument; and he gives a threefold reply to it. T shall now review his so-called 
 reply; and I hope to be able to show to every unprejudiced mind that from first 
 to last it is illogical. 
 
 1. "First," he says, "siich words as the above, if understood in their most 
 literal sense, can only be supposed, at all events, to apply to certain imrtsoi the 
 Pentateuch; since most devout Christians will admit that the last chcipter of 
 Deuteronomy, which records the death of Moses, could not have been written 
 by his hand, and the most orthodox commentators are obliged also to concede the 
 probability of some other interpolations having been made in the original story." — 
 (p. XXX.) A weaker or more futile argument was probably iiever advanced by a 
 rational man. The question concerns the Pentateuch as it existed at the time of 
 Christ. Would any man venture to deny the genuineness of Macaulay's 
 "History of England" because a brief memoir of the author was appended to 
 the last volume? And w^ould any man venture to deny the genuineness of the 
 Pentateuch because Joshua had added, in a postscript of twelve verses, an account 
 of the death of its author? To bring this into the argument is the merest 
 quibble ; and it is irrelevant besides. Then, again, with the opinions of com- 
 mentators we have nothing to do. Their concessions or denials do not affect 
 the argument in the least degree. It might have been well however if Bishop 
 Colenso had just given the names of those ^^ most orthodox" commentators who 
 feel themselves "obhged" to "concede interpolations." 
 
 But, leaving such trifling, let us test the argument. Every critical scholar 
 must know that in the time of our Lord the Jews had the Pentateuch in its 
 entirety as we have it this day; that the technical names by which they distin- 
 
 .); 
 
 guished it were, "The Law," "The Law of Moses," and sometimes "Moses 
 and that each of these names was as definite, and as fully understood by the 
 people as the name " Pentateuch" is now in England. This is ah important 
 point, and I beg to ask my reader's attention to the proof. In the Apocryphal 
 book of Ecclesiasticus, written about two centuries B.C., Moses is spoken of as the 
 author of the whole Pentateuch (chaps, xliv — xlvi). In the prologue to that 
 book, written not later than B.C. 130, a threefold division of the Old Testament 
 Scriptures into "The Law, the Prophets, and the rest of the hooJcs," is men- 
 tioned. The first of these divisions, the " Law," contained the five books, then, 
 as now, ascribed to Moses. Our next witness is Philo Judasus, a Jewish philo- 
 sopher who flourished at Alexandria in the early part of the first century. He 
 also mentions the same threefold division of the Old Testament. He wrote a 
 life of Moses, and gives a full account of his works and their contents. He 
 goes through the principal events recorded in Genesis, he gives a summary of 
 the history of the Exodus, and the wilderness journey, and he specifies nearly 
 every law and enactment contained in the Pentateuch, and he everywhere repre- 
 sents Moses as the author of that whole division of the Bible. Philo may be 
 regarded as the representative of the great Jewish community of Egypt, and our 
 next witness, Josephus, is the representative of the Jews in Palestine. Josephus' 
 testimony is most satisfactory. In his work Against Ajnon, after mentioning 
 the number of books contained in the Bible, and stating that they are all "Justly 
 accredited as Divine,''' he says, " Of these, five hehng to Mcses, which contaiii 
 
 C 
 
14 
 
 both the laws, and the history of the generations of men until ids death.'' In 
 another treatise he gives a summary of the history, and proves that these five 
 hooks were identical with our Pentateuch. On examining carefully the testimony 
 of these two writers, every man can see for himself that they give, not their 
 own opinion, hut that of the whole Jewish nation. 
 
 Let us now turn to the New Testament, and examine the testimony of our 
 Lord and His apostles. Bishop Colenso affirms that the words of Christ apply 
 only to certain parts of the Pentateuch ; we are now prepared to prove to de- 
 monstration that they onrnf have applied to the tvhole Pentateuch. Our Lord 
 mentions the threefold division of the Bible, referred to by Philo and Josephus, 
 and which was universally known in that age. Thus, in Luke xxiv. 44, He says : 
 "These are the words which I spake unto yon, while I was yet with you, that 
 all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the Laiu of Moses, and the 
 Prophets, and the Psahns, concerning me." Here Moses is recognised as the 
 author of the first great division of the Old Testament canon. At verse 27 of 
 the same chapter, we read: ''And beginning at Hoses, and all the Propjhets, he 
 expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." 
 Here He classifies all the Scriptures under two heads; and by ^' Moses'' He mani- 
 festly means the "Lcnv," or "Pentateuch," of which Moses was the author. 
 Again, when speaking of the Scriptures as sufficient guides on all matters of 
 faith and morals, he represents Abraham as saying, "They have Moses and the 
 Prophets, let them hear them. . . If they hear not Moses and the Prophets^ 
 neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Our Lord also 
 repeatedly alludes to facts and statements in the several parts of the Pentateuch 
 as written by Moses: thus, in Matt. xix. 4, 9, John vii. 19, Luke xx. 37. But 
 the most important passage is that in John v. 45, 47, where He closes an 
 elaborate argument in favour of His Divine mission, and a sweeping condemna- 
 tion of the infidelity of the Jews, with these words: — "Do not think that I will 
 accuse you to the Father • there is one that accuseth you, Moses, in whom ye 
 trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of 
 Me. But if ye beheve not his luritings, how shall ye believe My words?" 
 
 Further, our Lord frequently mentions facts recorded in the Pentateuch in such 
 a way as to show that He not only admitted their truth, but that He agreed with 
 the Jews in admitting the Divine authoritjr of the whole books which contaift 
 them. In John viii. 56, He says: "Your father, Abraham, rejoiced to see My 
 day ; and he saw it, and was glad," In Matt. xxiv. 37-39, He alludes to the 
 Deluge, and gives His Divine sanction to the story as told in Genesis. In Luke 
 xyii. 28, and Matt. x. 15, He indorses the narrative of the destruction of the 
 Cities of the Plain. And as if to sum up in one emphatic sentenee, the 
 strongest and fullest possible testimony to the Divine authority of the whole 
 Pentateuch, He said, in Luke xvi. 17: "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, 
 than one tittle of the Law to faiV 
 
 We can now understand the precise meaning of the phrases *' The Law," 
 "The Law of Moses," and "Moses," as used in such passages as the above. 
 When our Lord said, " They have Moses and the Prophets," every one to whom 
 the words were addressed knew that He meant " the Pentateuch and the Pro- 
 phets;" and when, in the Sermon on the Mount, He said, "Till beaven and 
 earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the Law," &c., all must 
 have undei-stood him to mean the Pentateuch. If our Lord did not use these 
 tei-ms in their common, and, indeed, their only understood acceptation, then He 
 must have been a -wilful deceiver ; if He did use them in their common accepta- 
 tion, then His testimony to the Mosaic authorship and Divine authority of the 
 Pentateuch is conclusive. 
 
 The views of our Lord are fully developed by His apostles. All the New 
 Testament writers are witnesses of the Divine Authority of the Pentateuch. 
 Luke, at the very commencement of liis Gospel, admits the truth of the account 
 of the creation of Adam, and of the annals of his posterity. (Luke iii. 38.) 
 Zacharias, in his noble hymn of praise, savs: "Blessed be the Lord God of 
 
15 
 
 Israel ; for he hath visited and redeemed His people ; and hath raised iqj an horn 
 of salvation for us, . . . As He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, 
 which have been since the world began. ... To perform the mercy pro- 
 mised to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He 
 sware to our father Abraham." (Luke i. 68.) The prophetic truth of Gen. xxii. 
 16, 1 8, is here assumed as the basis of the Gospel narrative. Stephen, in his address 
 to the Jews, grounds his faith on the call of Abraham, and the fulfilment of the 
 Divine promises recorded in Genesis to him and his posterity. (Acts vii. 2.) Paul, 
 in Rom. v., unites the fall of Adam with the redemption of Christ (see also 1 
 Cor, XV. 22,) In Eom, iv, 1, he connects the Abraliamic covenant with the 
 whole Christian scheme of Redemption. Even the historical narratives of the 
 Pentateuch are, in the Epistles, linked to the doctrines of the Gospel. The 
 -creation has its parallel and compliment in the new creation. (Eph. ii. 10.) In 
 Genesis (i. 27) we read that Adam was creat-ed in the image of God ; in Ephe- 
 sians (iv. 24) it is said of the new man that, ** After God he is created in 
 righteousness and true holiness." The story of Melchisedec is shown to have 
 been typical of Christ's priesthood. (Heb. vii.) In the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 the story of Cain and Abel, the history of Noah and the Deluge, the miraculous 
 translation of Enoch, the birth of Isaac, the sacrifice on Moriah, the prophetic 
 blessings given by Jacob to the patriarchs, are all ivoven into the grand scheme 
 of Christianity. There is thus, whether viewed historically or doctrinally, a 
 close and indissoluble connection between the Pentateuch and the New Testa- 
 ment — a connection Avhich no amount of sceptical sophistry can shake, and which 
 no force of dogmatism can sever. True, Bishop Colenso calls many of these 
 'narratives of the Pentateuch myths and legends; but our Lord calls them facts. 
 I need scarcely say that in this, as in every other thing, I prefer to follow God 
 rather than man. 
 
 2. Bishop Colenso is manifestly distrustful of his ovm. argument, and so he 
 proceeds thus: — "But more generally it may be said that, in making use of 
 such expressions, our Lord did but accommodate His words to the current 
 popular language of the day, as when he speaks of God * making his sun to 
 rise,' or of the ' stars falling from heaven' . . , or of the woman ' with a 
 spirit of infirmity' whom ' Satan had bound eighteen years,' without- our being 
 at all authorised in drawing from them scientific or psychological conclusions" 
 (p. xxxi.) The bishop here gives us a good example of a fallacy well known to 
 logicians — a non vera pro vera. He takes it for granted that our Lord, in speak- 
 ing of natural and mental phenomena, made use of such unscientific terms and 
 phrases as showed that he fell in with current popular errors upon those subjects. 
 I deny it. Even in scientific treatises to this day the phrase *' rising of the sun" 
 is the only one employed to define that natural phenomenon ; and it is likely to 
 remain so until Bishop Colenso, or some Zulu, furnish us with a better one. As 
 regards the expression *' spirit of infirmity," it is clear the bishop does not be- 
 lieve in demoniacal possessions. He again taJces it for granted that this was a 
 popular delusion. How, then, can he explain the story of the " herd of swine ? " 
 ^Matt. viii. 30.) His opinion is directly opposed to that of our Lord and the 
 Evangelists. The third expression he cites every one must see to be meta- 
 phorical. But, in any point of view, whether we grant his premises or not, his 
 argument is inconclusive. It is a clear case of what logicians call a no7i tali pro 
 icdi. There is no real parallel between the two classes of expressions. The 
 bishop says, our Lord *' accommodated his words to the current j^opular lan- 
 guage of t\\e day." I agree with him so far. Our Lord used ^oj9?.<7c/r language^ 
 but He never countenanced popidar errors. Moses, in popular language, was the 
 name given to the Pentat-euch; and so Christ says, " They have Moses {i.e., the 
 Pentateuch] and the Prophets." The Laiu, in popular language, was another 
 name for the Pentateuch; and so our Lord says, " Think not I am come to de- 
 stroy the Law {i.e., tlie Pentateuch) or the Prophets." 
 
 3. The bishop's final argument is, that the Son of God, in taking our nature, 
 <' fully and voluntarily entered into all the conditions of humanity, and, among 
 
16 
 
 Cithers, into tliat wliicli makes our growth in all ordinary knowledge gradual ixnd 
 limited. We are told that 'Jesus increased in tvisdom.' It is not supposed 
 that, in His human nature, He was acquainted, more than any other Jew of the 
 age, with the mysteries of all modern sciences ; nor that, as an infant or young 
 child, He possessed a knowledge surpassing that of the most pious and learned 
 adults of His nation upon the subject of the authorship and age of the different 
 portions of the Pentateuch, At what period, then, of His life upon earth is it 
 to be supposed that He had granted to Him, as the Son of Man, supernaturally , 
 full and accurate information on these points, so that He should be expected to 
 speak about the Pentateuch in other terms than any other devout Jew of 
 that day would have employed?" (p. xxxi.) The meaning of all this, in plain 
 terms, is, that when our Lord spoke of the Pentateuch in such a way as to show 
 that He fully believed in its Mosaic authorship and Divine authorit}^. He spoke 
 in iguGrance, and His testimony can have no more weight or authority than that 
 of any learned Jew of that age. 
 
 Surely such a monstrous doctrine must carry with it to every devout mind its 
 own refutation. Nevertheless, let us review the so-called process of proof. 
 Luke states that "Jesus increased in ivisdom.''^ (ii, 52.) Now, whatever this may 
 mean, it is evident we cannot conclude from it, with Colenso, that as a child. He 
 did not possess a knowledge surpassing that of the learned adults of His nation 
 on the subject of the authorship and authority of the Pentateuch, or on other topics, 
 because the statement made in verse 40 would then be untrue; " and the child 
 grew, and waxed strong in spirit, fiUed with wisdom; and the grace of God was 
 fij)on Him.'''' This last clause alone might have been enough to deter the bishop 
 from his daring insinuations against the Divine Child. And this is not all. The 
 bishop has overlooked, it is to be hoped inadvertantly, that remarkable scene 
 with the Doctors in the Temple, when, at the age of twelve, Jesus was found 
 sitting in the midst of a, learned and venerable circle, not the hearer only, but 
 the teacher by the Divine depth of His mysterious questions, — " And all that 
 heard Him were astonished at His understanding and ansiuers'' (ver. 47.) The 
 Boy's reply to the half-reproachful address of His mother contains in itself a 
 sufficient refutation of Colenso's argument — "Wist ye not that I must be about 
 my Father's business?" Here is a declaration of a full consciousness alike of 
 His Divine mission, and His Divine qualifications. 
 
 But, again — whatever view may be entertained of the early life of Jesus, can there 
 possibly be any doubt as to the time Avhen He became perfectly fitted — infinite 
 in wisdom, and infinite in power— for His oflice as the revealer of a new dispen- 
 sation, and the worker out of a great salvation, as the Prophet and the Priest of 
 His people? When he was baptised, " the Spirit of God descended tqyonHim;'' 
 and Luke adds — "Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan," 
 (Luke iv. 1.) In reference to the same event, the Baptist testifies, "He whom 
 God hath sent speaketh the ivords of God; foe God giveth not the Spirit by 
 ^measure to him."" (John iii. 34,) John also, in the, opening words of his Gospel, 
 thus writes: — "And the Word was made flesh, and dvv^elt among us, and we 
 saw His glory \ the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and 
 truth.''' (i. 14-) When Jesus battled with Satan in the wilderness, at the com- 
 mencement of His public life, did He not display infinite wisdom? When He 
 delivered that noble Sermon on the Mount, in which He embodies His testimony 
 to the Pentateuch, did He not display infinite wisdom? AVhen He made the 
 statement, " All things are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man 
 knoweth the Son but the Father ; neither knoweth any man the Father save the 
 Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him" — (Matthew xi. 27) ; when 
 He made that statement, was he not conscious of possessing infinite wisdom? 
 It is as clear as language can make it that our Lord, from the time of His bap- 
 tism, was full of the Holy Spnrit, and, consequently, full of wisdom. For any 
 man in the position of Bishop Colenso to ask, in the face of such declarations, 
 " At what period our Lord had granted to Him .... full and accurate 
 information" regarding the Old Testament Scriptures, seems perfectly inexpli- 
 
IT 
 
 cable. It shows either a woeful ignorance of the meaning of Scripture, or a re- 
 markable dulness of the logical faculty. 
 
 I have no personal knowledge of Bishop Colenso ; but I will presume to make 
 this mournful comment upon him, judging of him from his book, as I have a 
 right to do — that, had he studied the Bible with as much care and fulness as he 
 appears to have studied the writings of some German and Enghsh Eationalists, 
 he never could have been guilty of propagating such shallo vv scej)ticism as is 
 set forth in these objections. In the author of such objections and such a book 
 "we may, indeed, shudderingly recognise what is meant by the 'evil heart of 
 unbelief — what it is to have that mind that will excogitate doubts where the 
 very instinctive feelings repudiate them, and will disbelieve where disbelief 
 itself becomes plainly monstrous and revolting." 
 
 CPI AFTER III. 
 
 THE MOEALITY AND HUMANITY OF THE MOSAIC INSTITUTIONS VINDICATED.— 
 HOW A JEW BECAME A SLAVE OR " BONDMAN." WHY THE MASTER WAS PER- 
 MITTED TO INFLICT PUNISHMENT ON THE SLAVE. TRUE CHARACTER OF THE 
 
 LAWS REGULATING " BONDAGE." 
 
 Bishop Colenso has planned his attack on the Pentateuch Avith singular skill. 
 As a controversial tactician he has rarely been surpassed. Had his arguments 
 been at all equal to his strategy, he would have gained an easy victory. His 
 rhetorical skill is nowhere better evidenced than in his assault on the morality 
 of some of the enactments of the Mosaic Law. He attempts to prove that they 
 were immoral, and even inhuman. If so, they could not possibly be Divine. 
 I shall now review this argument, which, though put forward apparently inci- 
 dentally, is manifestly intended to be one of the strongest, as it is one of the 
 most striking, points in the whole book. It has been quoted with approbation 
 by some reviewers, who seem to think it unanswerable. It is as follows : — 
 
 " Xor are the difficulties to which I am now referring .... such even 
 as are raised when we regard the trivial nature of a vast number of the conver- 
 sations and commands ascribed directly to Jehovah, especially the multiplied 
 ceremonial minutise, laid down in the Levitical Law. They are not such, even, 
 as must be started at once in most pious minds, when such words as these are 
 read, professedly coming from the Holy and Blessed One, the Father and 
 'Faithful Creator' of all mankind : — 'If the master (of a Hebrew servant) have 
 given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, tlie wife and her 
 children shall he her master'' s, and he shall go out free by himself ' (Exod. 5xi.4) ; 
 the wife and children in such a case being placed under the protection of such 
 other words as these, — 'If a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and 
 he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Not ivithstav ding, if he con- 
 tinue a day or two, he shall not be punished ; for he is his money.' (Exod. xxi. 
 20, 21.) 
 
 " I shall never forget the revulsion of feeling with which a very intelligent 
 Christian native, with whose help I was translating these ^vords into the Zulu 
 tongue, first heard them as words said to be uttered by the same great and 
 gracious Being whom I was teaching him to trust in and adore. His whole soul 
 revolted against the notion, that the great and blessed God, the merciful Father 
 of all mankind, would speak of a servant or maid as mere 'money,' and allow a 
 horrible crime to go unpunished, because the victim of the brutal usage had sur- 
 vived a few hours. My own heart and conscience at the time fully symi)athised 
 vrith his. But I then clung to the notion that the main substance of the narra- 
 tive was historically true. And I relieved his difliculty and my own for the 
 present by telling him that I supposed that such words as these were written 
 
18 
 
 down by Moses, and believed by him to have been divinely given to him, be- 
 cause the thought of them arose in his heart, as he conceived, by the inspira- 
 tion of God, and that hence to all such laws be prefixed the formula, 'Jehovah 
 said unto Moses,' without it being on that account necessary for us to suppose 
 that they were actually spoken by the Almighty. This was, however, a very 
 great strain upon the cord which bound me to the ordinary belief in the histo- 
 rical veracity of the Pentateuch ; and since then that cord has snapped in twain 
 altogether." (pp. 9, 10.) 
 
 This is most admirably put. It is one of the most telling passages in the 
 whole book. It is detailed with rare dramatic power. The burning indignation 
 of the African on hearing such a law, professedly emanating from Heaven ; the 
 bishop's own reluctant but uncontrollable sympathy with him ; the ingenious 
 attempt to explain it away; and the final triumph of conscience and truth over 
 prejudice and credulity — all these are so vividly portrayed that the reader can 
 scarcely control his own feelings. It is only by a determined effort he can suc- 
 ceed in bringing reason into exercise to examine and test. As a reviewer, I must 
 suppress all sentimentalism, I must summon the author's rhetoric and logic 
 alike before the tribunal of reason ; and I greatly mistake if I do not succeed in 
 creating in the mind of my reader a feeling very different from that which 
 Bishop Colenso anticipates — a feehng of profound astonishment at his ignorance 
 of the nature of the Mosaic institutions, and of the signification of simple 
 Hebrew words. 
 
 The first objection is here made to the statute which enacts that, should a 
 Hebrew "bondman" claim his liberty at the end of six years, he could not take 
 his wife with him, supposing she had been given him by his master during ser- 
 vitude. He might go free, but ''the ivife and her children shall he her master' s.'' 
 A knowledge of the whole circumstances shoAvs that this statute, instead of being 
 cruel, was eminently humane. The Israelitish Constitution was a pure Theo- 
 cracy. Grod was King, and His laws formxcd the national code. The mode of 
 government was extremely simple. There was no expensive and complicated 
 machinery of police, and there were no convict depots or prisons for the puni- 
 tive incarceration either of malefactors or debtors. The execution of the sen- 
 tences was left, to a great extent, in the hands of the parties immediately con- 
 cerned. In case of murder, the nearest of kin to the murdered man became the 
 legal executioner. (Num. xxxv. 25-27.) In case of theft, the thief was com- 
 pelled to restore double, or four-fold, or five-fold, according to the nature of the 
 crime. If he had not the means of making /?f?? reslitution, then he ivas sold for 
 his theft (Exod. xxii. 3, 4) ; that is, he became the property of the man whom 
 he had robbed until by his labour he could make legal compensation. So, also, 
 when a man got into debt, and was imable to pay his creditor, he tvas sold, or, 
 in other words, he became the property of the creditor for a period not exceed- 
 ing six years, so that by his labour he might, as far as possible, satisfy the just 
 demands of the man he had vv^ronged. (Lev, xxv. 39, 40; Exod. xxi. 2 seq.) 
 These were the only two ways in which a Hebrew could become a bondman, 
 and this explains what is meant by "buying a Hebrew servant." And this 
 system, in my opinion, both ns regards thieves and debtors, but especially the 
 latter, was at once more equitable and humane than our present English system 
 of enslaving them in prison, taxing the public heavily for their support, and 
 leaving the man who had been plundered of his goods or his money without any 
 compensation. The law provided that such bondmen could claim their freedom 
 at the end of six years. If it happened, however, that an indulgent master 
 gave a Avife to his bondman — that is, evidently, his daughter or one of his de- 
 pendants, for he had no power to give any other — then, if the bondman claimed 
 his liberty according to the letter of the law, he had no right to take his wife or 
 his children with him. He might go forth himself to poverty or to a new 
 career of crime, but he had no right to drag his wife and infant family with him: 
 the master was still their legitimate guardian. Just as English law^ Avill release 
 an injured wife and starving children from the cruelties and neglect of a profli- 
 
gate husband, and afford them shelter and support, so the Mosaic law exercised 
 a similar power, though in a different way — a way, however, more humane than 
 ours. But if the bondman loved his wife, his children, and his master, and if, 
 acting as an honorable and conscientious man, willing to fulfil all his duties and 
 engagements, social and domestic, he remained with his master and family till 
 the year of jubilee, then they could all go free together; and then his hereditary 
 property which he had squandered or lost would revert to him, and he would 
 have the means of providing for the wants of a household. (Exod. xxi. 2-6 ; 
 Lev. XXV. 38, 39, 41.) 
 
 But the statute to which the chief objection is made, and which caused the 
 whole soul of the African to revolt is this: — " If a man smite his servant with 
 a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, 
 if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money. '^ 
 This ajypears unnatural, and even revolting, but only to those who do not under- 
 stand it. The master was a public officer, recognised and appointed by Govern- 
 ment, as the governors of our prisons and reformatories are. He had thus a 
 legal right to administer punishment when necessary, but under certain wise re- 
 strictions, which are elsewhere laid down (Lev. xxv. 39 seq. ; Deut. xxv. 3). He 
 had no right to punish to excess. *' If he die under his hand, he shall he surely 
 punished.'" The meaning of the lattel' clause Bishop Colenso seems to be totally 
 ignorant of. The Hebrew phrase is most expressive. Its full signification is, 
 *' Vengeance shall assuredly he taken upon him;" that is, he shall pay the penalty 
 of his crime with his life. If, however, the bondman should linger " a day or 
 two," then "vengeance shall not be executed upon him;" that is, his life shall 
 not he forfeited. It is not now deliberate murder. The fact of his not killing 
 him on the spot proves that he did not intend to kill him. But this did not 
 imply by any means that he should go altogether unpunished. Nothing is said 
 about that here ; it is treated of elsewhere. The reason assigned why, under* 
 such circumstances, he should not be punished with death, is " he is his money .'' 
 The Hebrew expression is proverbial, and is still in use in the East. It means, 
 "He is his property;" he has a legal claim upon him, and a legal right over 
 him.. He might inflict punishment like the governors of our own prisons, but 
 within certain limits prescribed by law. "When he exceeded these limits, he 
 punished himself, for he lost the valuable services of the bondman. The words^ 
 " He is his money," do not mean, as Bishop Colenso would have us believe, and 
 as the Zulu seemed to suppose, that the mere fact of one man buying another, 
 gave him any right in the sight of God to call him his property, to retain him 
 in bondage, or to inflict punishment. The bondman in this case was a prisoner, 
 and the master was his legal jailer. The bondman had broken the law, and the 
 master Avas commissioned to execute a just sentence. But the master himself 
 was held accountable for his acts. The laws by which he was bound were strin- 
 gent as they were humane. (Lev. xxv. 43; Deut. xxv. 3.) They protected the 
 bondman against cruelty, by obliging the master to give him freedom in case of 
 wanton injury even of a slight character; "And if a man smite the eye of his servant, 
 or the eye of his maid, that it perish ; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. And 
 if he smite out his servant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake." 
 (Exod. xxi. 26, 27.) Thus was the master to be "punished " for cruelty ; and thus 
 was the "bondman" placed under the protection of laws as merciful as they were 
 stringent. In addition to all this, there Was a solemn injunction laid upon the 
 master : — " Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour, but shalt fear thy God." 
 (,Lev. xxv. 43.) Had Bishop Colenso been more conversant with Jewish insti- 
 tutions, and had he been more familiar with the nature of the Hebrew language 
 and idioms, he could not have fallen into such grevious blunders ; and he would 
 not have so fatally misled his poor African converts regarding the meaning of 
 God's Holy Word, and the character of His wise Laws. 
 
 I have now done with the Introduction. The remainder of the book contains 
 a series of charges against the truthfulness of the narrative recorded in the Pen-- 
 tateuch and Book of Joshua. Most of them are founded upon alleged discre-- 
 
2(3 
 
 pancies in the numbers given. Some of tlie charges are trivial in the extreme; 
 others arise from the preconceived opinions of the author, who insists on treat- 
 ing the history of the Exodus as a case of ordinary migration ; others, again, 
 present real difficulties — difficulties, however, which can be explained to the 
 gatisfactiou of every enlightened and unprejudiced man, and which can never 
 shake that firm foundation on which the Divine authority of the Pentateuch 
 has now rested for three-and- thirty centurie:^. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE OBJECT OF BISHOP COLEXSO's BOOK STATED. — HOW HIS ARGUMENTS MUST BE 
 MET. 1st OBJECTION, — ALLEGED IMPOSSIBILITIES IN THE HISTORY OF JUDAH 
 
 AND HIS FAMILY SHOWN TO BE WITHOUT FOUNDATION. 2nD OBJECTION, 
 
 ASSEMBLIES OF THE PEOPLE, uRI) OBJECTION, MOSES ADDRESSING ALL 
 
 ISRAEL. 4tH OBJECTION, EXTENT OF THE CAMP AND DUTIES OF THE 
 
 PRIESTS, 5th OBJECTION, — NUMBERS OF THE PEOPLE, &C. 6tII OBJECTION, 
 
 THE TENTS OF THE ISRAELITES : WHERE THEY GOT THEM, AND HOW THEY 
 
 CARRIED THEM. BISHOP COLENSO'S IGNORANCE OF EASTERN LIFE. 
 
 The great object of Bishop Colenso iii Avriting this book was to prove that the 
 Pentateuch is not historically true; and, consequently, that it cannot be, though 
 it may contain, the Word of God. Hear his own words, — " T shall nowprCceed 
 to show, by means of a number of prominent instances, that the Books of the 
 Pentateuch contain, in their own account of the story which they profess to 
 relate, such remarkable contradictions, and involve such plain impossibilities, 
 that they cannot be regarded as true narratives of actual, historical, matters of 
 fact." (p. 17.) This is a serious charge. It unquestionably involves the Divine 
 authority of that part of the Bible. I have no wish to deny or cloak this. And 
 the charge cannot be met by any proofs, however clear, of the general authenti- 
 city of the history. These are most important in their own jilace ; but they are 
 not sufficient to meet specific charges of "contradictions" and "impossibilities." 
 Each one of such charges must be examined separately, honestly, and thoroughly. 
 There must be no shirking of the question at issue — no setting it aside by aii 
 epithet hurled against its author, or by any description, however eloquent, of 
 the fatal consequences to which it would lead. It must be subjected to the test of 
 a calm, yet searching criticism. But, then, it will not do to isolate any passage 
 of Scripture, and judge its statements or figures altogether apart from the con- 
 text. Sound canons of interpretation forbid such a procedure in regard to the 
 Bible or any other book. The connection of the context, the scope of the his- 
 tory, the design of the author, and the peculiarities of style and idiom must all 
 be fully considered in illustrating, explaining, and defending each statement or 
 story. It is in this way I purpose to meet "the bishop's charges ; and it is by 
 these means I hope, God being my helper, to show that the so-called " contra- 
 dictions" and "impossibilities" have no existence, except in a mind darkened 
 by error, and distorted by a Piationalistic philosophy. 
 
 (1.) The bishop's first instance is substantially as follows : — The number of 
 Israelites who " came with Jacob into Egyyt, which came out of his loins," is 
 said to have been threescore and six. (Gen. xlvi. 26.) The names arc given, and 
 include Eezron and Hamul, sons of Pliarez, the son of Tamar by her father-in- 
 law Judah. (ver, 12.) *' Now Judah was /or^^Z-iJ'WO years old, according to the 
 etory, when he went down with Jacob into Egypt. But, if we turn to Gen. 
 xxxviii. we shall find that, in the course of these forty -two years of Judah's life, 
 the following events are recorded to have happened, (i.) Judah grows up, mar- 
 ries a wife — ' at that time,' v. 1, that is, after Joseph's being sold into Egypt, 
 when he was ' seventeen years old ' (Gen. xxxvii. 2) ; and Avhen Judah, conse- 
 
21 
 
 quently, was at least twenty years old — and has, separately, three sons by her? 
 (ii.) The eldest of these three sons grows up, is married, and dies. The second 
 grows to maturity (suppose in another year), marries his brother's widow, and 
 dies. The third grows to maturity (suppose in another year still), but declines 
 to take his brother's widow to wife. She then deceives Judah himself, conceives 
 by him, and in due time bears him twins, Pharaz and Zarah. (iii.) One of 
 these twins also grows to maturity, and has two sons, Hezron and Hamul, born 
 of him, before Jacob goes down into Egypt. The above being certainly incredible, 
 we are obliged to conclude that one of the two accounts must be untrue. Yet 
 the statement, that Hezron and Hamul were born in the land of Canaan, is 
 vouched so positively, that to give up this point, is to give up an essential part 
 of the whole story." (pp. 17-19.) 
 
 Now the whole of this argument is based upon two assumptions, neither of 
 which will stand the test of fair criticism. First, Dr. Colenso assumes that 
 Judah's marriage took place "after Joseph's being sold into Egypt," and conse- 
 quently at the age of twenty; because it is said in Gen. xxxviii. 1, "And it 
 came to pass at that time, that Judah went down," &c. If Dr. Colenso 
 understood his Hebrew Bible he would know that the phrase translated ''at that 
 time" does not fix the date of the incident recorded at the precise period in which 
 the narrative in the preceding context broke off. The expression is indefinite, 
 and may refer to a time many years previous. The whole argument is thus 
 unsound. 
 
 Second, it is assumed that the phrases "crt'/ne into Egypt'' "came ivith Jacob 
 into Egypt,'' and ''went clown into Egypt" (Gren xlvi. 8, 2G; Exod. i. 1; Dent. 
 X. 22), must be interpreted with strict mathematical hterahty. Now every mail 
 will surely admit that the sacred historian is his own best interpreter, and that 
 he understands the language he uses quite as well as Bishop Colenso. We hayei 
 only to study closely the historian's method of relating events, and his object in 
 giving this list in Genesis, in order to see how the w^hole difficulty may be 
 removed, even although we should admit that Judah married at the age of twenty. 
 
 From a comparison of the passage in Gen. xlvi. with Num. xxvi. 5-50, and 
 Exod. vi, 14-20, we find that one main design of the writer was to furnish a list 
 of the great heads of families from whom the whole nation sprung. So, when 
 enumerating Judah's sons, he mentions the death of Er and Onan. They ought 
 to have been among the '"heads," but they died in Canaan. Then the historian 
 mentions Hezron and Hamul, "heads of families" in that tribe, and evidently 
 looked upon as the legal representatives of Er and Onan. The latter died in 
 Canaan ; but, being represented subsequently by the two former, it was in 
 accordance with the scope of the history and the method of the author to speak 
 of them as going down. This explanation is suggested by the narrative : — " Er 
 and Onan died in the land of Canaan; and the sons of Pharez Avere Hezron aud 
 Hamul." Bishop Colenso insists on attaching their full literal signification to 
 the words "came with Jacob into Egj^pt." The sacred historian is against him, 
 however, and indicates in other passages that the phrase is to be understood 
 with a certain latitude of meaning. Thus, in verse 27, he writes — " All the 
 souls of the house of Jacob, ivhich came into Egpyt, were threescore and ten." 
 Yet, we are informed that Joseph's two sons were included in the number, aud 
 they had not come into Egypt — they were born there. Again, in Exod. i. 1-5 : 
 "These are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt: every 
 man and his household came tvith Jacob. . . . And all the souls that came 
 out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls; for Joseph teas in Egypt already." 
 The last clause explains the meaning the author attaches to the phrase came 
 into Egypt; it is not to be understood hterally. Nor is the statement that 
 "seventy soids came out of the loins of Jacob" to be interpreted literally, because 
 Jctcob himself was included in that number. The meaning of the historian is 
 clear. No man who will read it as a tvhole can misunderstand it. Explanations- 
 are given of statements made which indicate what meaning is to be attached to 
 each clause and sentence; and Bishop Colenso's alleged "manifest contradiction" 
 
 D 
 
22 
 
 is based iii3on a misapprehension of the design of the author and scope of tW 
 narrative. 
 
 (2.) The Bishop founds his second objection upon ''The size of the court of 
 the Tabernacle compared with the number of the congregation." He quotes 
 the following passage : — "And the Lord spake unto Moses, sayijig, gather thou 
 the congregation, and Moses did as the Lord commanded him, and the assemble/ 
 tvas gathered unto the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation.'" (Lev. viii. 1-4.) 
 The occasion was the consecration of Aaron and his sons. The bishop assumes 
 that the phrases "all the congregation" and "the assembly" must mean the 
 "whole body of the people — at all events, the adult males in the prime of life;'' 
 and these he estimates at 603,550. He says, however, "We need not press the 
 word all so as to include every individual man of this number ;..... 
 but the mass of these . . ought to have obeyed such a command." (pp. 31-33.) 
 
 He next assumes that, as the assembly were summoned "unto the door of the 
 Tabernacle," they must have come loithin the court in which the Tabernacle 
 stood, and they must have arranged themselves with mathematical precision 
 exactly at or before the door. He then proceeds to measure the "court," and 
 " the door of the Tabernacle," and the breadth of the end of the Tabernacle in 
 which the door was, and to calculate the space required for each man, &c., &c. ; 
 and he finally demonstrates that, supposing all the congregation of adult males 
 had assembled and taken their stand as closely as possible in front, not merely 
 of the door, but of the whole end of the Tabernacle in which the door was, they 
 could only have stood nine deep, and would thus have formed a column nearly 
 twenty miles long. Further — the "court" into which, he affirms, the people 
 must have come, if they obeyed the command, would only hold 5,000 packed 
 closely together, whereas the able-bodied men alone exceeded 600,000. His con- 
 clusions are, first — That it is utterly inconceivable that Almighty God could have 
 given such a command, seeing it was impossible to obey it ; and, second, that the 
 statement that the assembly was gathered together at "the door of the Taber- 
 nacle" is untrue. 
 
 This is most remarkable reasoning. The bishop's mind appears to be filled 
 with figures, to the exclusion of all the rules of Aristotle and Bacon, and even 
 of common sense. Here is a whole process of reasoning, followed by sweeping 
 conclusions, based upon two assumptions! He himself admits that the expres- 
 sions, "All the congregation" and "the assembly," are indefinite. Why, 
 then, does he attempt to define or limit them ? If they may not include all the 
 people, old and young, male and female — if they may not even include all the 
 al3le-bodied men, as the bishop grants — then what right has he to affirm that 
 they ^nui'^nclude the main body or the mass? We have no data whatever 
 whereby to fix the precise meaning of the phrases, and, consequently, no argu- 
 ment can be based upon them. Again, what ground has he for the assumption 
 that "unto the door of the Tabernacle" must mean unthin the court? Such 
 expressions as these are well known, and well understood to be general, and 
 their meaning can only be ascertained by a consideration of the whole circum- 
 stances of each individ\ial case in which they are used. 
 
 Let us see how these and similar expressions are used by accurate and logical 
 writers, and even in official documents, in our own day. Is it not so that at the 
 close of each session of Parliament the " House of Commons" is summoned to 
 ihefoot of the Throne to hear the Queen's speech, while there is not sp)ace there 
 for one-twentieth part of the members? And is it not so that it is always officially 
 recorded that " the House of Commons having been ushered in by the Black 
 Hod," &c., while often not more than a dozen members appear? Take another 
 case. A meeting of the inhabitants of County Down was recently summoned 
 by the High-Sheriff to assemble in the Grand Jury-room of the County Court- 
 house. I have now before me the qficial report of that meeting, commencing 
 as follows : — " At a public meeting of the nobility, gentry, clergy, and inha- 
 bitants of the County Doiun generally, held in ^/^e Grand Jury-room oi the County 
 Court-housC;" &:q. The population of the County of Down is just about 300,000 ; 
 
23 
 
 the Grand Jury-room in wliicli they tuere summoned to meet, and in which the 
 official report says they did actually meet — " nobility, gentry, clergj^, and inha- 
 bitants generally" — might possibly contain, if closely packed, one hundred peo- 
 ple! Now, according to the logic by which Bishop Colenso would seek to over- 
 throw the historical veracity of the Pentateuch, these official records of the 
 closing of the British Parliament, and of the County Down meeting, must be 
 pronounced, not merely historically false, but, under the circumstances, utterly 
 inconceivable ! The bishop would enter the House of Lords, he would measure 
 the breadth of the " foot of the Throne," and the total length of the passage 
 opposite to it. He would then reason as follows: — The House of Commonr: 
 contains uf)wards of 650 members. The mass of these 650 men ought, we must 
 believe, to have obeyed such a command, and hastened to present themselves at 
 the foot of the Throne. Now, allowing t^vo feet for the width of each full-grown 
 man, three men could just have stood in front of it. Suj)i30sing, then, that 
 "all the House" had given due heed to the Royal summons, and had hastened 
 to take their stand side-by-side, they would have reached (allowing eighteen 
 inches between each rank of three men) for a distance of more than 350 feet — 
 in fact, about five times the length of the w^hole chamber! It is inconceivable 
 how, under such circumstances, the House of Commons could have been sum- 
 moned to the foot of the Throne by the express command of the Sovereign. 
 This is the bishop.'s argument; and surely it is not too much to say that such 
 reasoning show's a weak cause and a weak-minded advocate. 
 
 (3.) The third charge of Bishop Colenso against the historical veracity of the 
 Pentateuch is precisely similar in character to the preceding. It is as follows: — 
 ''Moses sjmke unto all Israel" (Deut. i. 1); and " Joshua'read all the words of 
 the law . . . before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the 
 little ones, and the strangers," &c. (Josh. viii. 34, 35.) The people numbered 
 at least two millions. No human voice could have reached the ears of such an 
 assembly. He adds, by way of making his argument unanswerable, " The very 
 crying of the little ones must have sufficed to drown the sounds at a few yards dis- 
 tant." (pp. 35, seq.) 
 
 This may justly be termed a childish argument. We read that "Moses spake 
 unto all Israel;" but would any sensible man interpret this as necesscirily mean- 
 ing that his words reached the ears of every man, woman, and child? Is lan- 
 guage ever used with such mathematical precision in ordinary waiting, or in 
 ordinary conversation? Again, it is said that Joshua read the law " before all 
 the congregation." The bishop has either strangely overlooked, or else he does 
 not understand the meaning of the Hebrew word neghed, "before." It means 
 " in the presence of," not necessarily " in the hearing of;" it comes from a root 
 which signifies to be in front, or to be in sight. The same word is used in Num. 
 XXV. 4 — " The Lord said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people and hang 
 them up . . . against [neghed) the sun;" that is, "in front of the sun — in 
 Xhefull sunlight.'''' 
 
 But, again, do we not often read in history of generals addressing their vast 
 armies, and of popular orators addressing immense mass-meetings? And noAv, 
 if we adopt Bishop Colenso's canons of interpretation, unless we suppose, wdiich 
 is physically impossible, that the voice of the speaker reached the ear of every 
 individual, the historic narrative must be pronounced untrue. Indeed, the cry- 
 ing of a few babies might thus convert history into fable. 
 
 Further, the statement of Joshua that " all the congregation, w^th the women 
 and little ones," &c., assembled, must be interpreted in accordance with the 
 scope of the whole narrative. Joshua himself tells us that the vast body of the 
 tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh never crossed the Jordan at alf (Num. 
 xxxii. 16, 17; Joshua iv. 12, 13; xxii. 9. seq.); and he therefore knew perfectlv 
 that they could not have been present at the great national assembly. These 
 facts prove that the phrases, "ah Israel," and " all the congregation," w^ereused 
 by the sacred historians just as similar phrases are used by historians now: con^ 
 sequently, the bishop's arithmetic is entirely out of place, and his difficulties 
 spring from a simple misapprehension of the meaning of common lan2:uage. 
 
24 
 
 (4.) Dr. Colenso's fourth alleged impossibility arises from " tlie extent of the 
 camp, compared with the priest's duties and the daily necessities of the people." 
 Tt mainly rests on Lev. iv. 11, ]2: "And the skin of the buUocJc, and all his 
 flenh, with his head, and tvith his legs, and his inwards, and his dung, even the 
 whole hidlock shall he carry forth without the camp into a clean place, where the 
 ashes are poured out, and hum him on the vjood with fire; where the ashes are 
 poured out shall lie he hurned." The number of the people the bishop estimates 
 at two millions. By measurements and calculations he shows that a camp con- 
 taining this number must have covered, at the very least, a square of a mile and 
 a-half J' The refuse of the sacrifices would thus have to be carried by the 
 priest himself (Aaron, Eleazer, or Ithamar — there were no others) a distance of 
 three quarters of a mile." Wood and water would have to be brought from 
 without for all purposes, if they could have been found at all in the wilderness. 
 The ashes, rubbish, ^and filth of every kind would have to be carried without 
 the camp. The difliculty becomes far greater, also, if we take the more reason- 
 able estimate that the camp was twelve miles square — that is, about the size of 
 London, In that case, we have to imagine the priest having himself to carry, 
 on his hach, on foot, a distance of six miles, " the skin, head,"flesh, legs, inwards, 
 dimg, even the whole bullock," and the people having to carry out all their rub- 
 bish, and to bring in wood and water. Further, we have to imagine half-a-mil- 
 lion of men going such a distance for the common necessities of "nature. Such, 
 in substance, is the bishop's reasoning ; and he concludes that the bare supposi- 
 tion involves an absurdity, and that, therefore, the whole narrative is untrue, 
 (pp. 38-40.) 
 
 This argument, like his others, is based upon groundless assumptions. He 
 assumes, first, that the whole two millions of people were grouped close together 
 in a camp. Such a view is opposed to the general scope of the narrative and to 
 common sense. Any one w^ho has had an opportunity of visiting the great 
 Arab tribes of the Syrian desert can easily understand the whole matter, and 
 can see that the bishop's difficulties are purely imaginary. The Israelites had 
 immense flocks and herds — "very much cattle'." (Exod. xii. 38.) These, from 
 the necessity of the case, and like the flocks of the modern Bedawin, were scat- 
 tered far and wide over the peninsula, and probably over the plain northwards. 
 On one occasion I rode for two successive clays in a straight course through the 
 flocks and herds of a section of the Anezeh tribe. The encampment w^as then 
 at a noted fountain some thirty miles distant, at right angles to the line of my 
 route ; yet the country was swarming with men and women, boys and girls, 
 tending the flocks. In like manner, the great mass of the Israelites would be 
 required to tend their flocks. The camp would thus be a mere nucleus — large, 
 no doubt, but not approaching the exaggerated estimate of Bishop Colenso. 
 Yet, as it was, the head-quarters of the nation, containing the Tabernacle, the 
 priests, and the chiefs, and forming the rallying point for the w\arriors, it was 
 the only place with which the sacred historian was concerned. The sacred his- 
 tory was only intended to sketch the events which took place there. 
 
 The bishop also assumes that the priest had to carry the bullock on his hack 
 to the outside of the camp. There is no ground for any such assumption. The 
 word translated "he shall carry forth" [hotsi) is in the Hiphil, or "causative" 
 form of the verb, and its literal meaning is, as every Hebrew scholar must 
 know, "He shall cause to go out,'' or, " to be carried forth." The mode of con- 
 veyance is not indicated. The same form is used in Exod. iii. 12 — " When 
 thou (Moses) hast brought forth the people out of Egypt;" and in Exod. xiv. 
 ] 1 — " Wherefore has thou dealt thus Avith us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?" 
 And would Bishop Colenso insist that the historian intended to reprcsent^Moses 
 as carrying the whole people out of Egypt on his back? (For other examples 
 of the use of this word the student may turn to Gen. viii. 17; xix. 5; Num. 
 XX. 10 ; xix. 3; Lev. xxiv. 13, 14, 23.) The mode in which the priest was to 
 convey the offal of the bullock is not stated in this place ; but on turning to 
 Kum. vii. 3, we may leain it:~" They (the princes) brought their offering be- 
 
25 
 
 fore the Lord, six covered waggons, and twelve oxen ; . . . and the Lord 
 spake unto Moses, saying, Take it of them, that they may he to do the service of 
 the Tahernade.^' 
 
 The bishop inshiuates that wood sufficient for the wants of the people could 
 not be found in the wilderness, and he compares their requirements in this re- 
 spect with those of London! He can know nothing of Eastern desert hfe. A 
 single house in London, even at midsummer, would consume more fuel than a 
 whole Arab encampment. Besides, it is possible that wood may have been 
 abundant in the peninsula of Sinai in those days. The nomads of Arabia use 
 very little water. When going to Palmyra, in the year 1854, I passed a night 
 at an Arab camp, and I was informed that there had not been a drop of water 
 in it for three days ! This is no unusual circumstance. The people drink milk, 
 and use it in cooking. The flocks are driven to wells and fountains often more 
 than a day's journey distant. The remarks as to the impossibility of observing 
 the directions regarding cleanUness, the calls of nature, &c., cannot, of course, 
 be minutely examined. Delicacy forbids it. But anyone acquainted with the 
 habits of the Bedawin— male and female, old and young — and with the features 
 of the country through which the Israelites passed — its rocks and glens— can 
 easily dispose of such difficulties. 
 
 (5). The fifth objection arises from "the number of people at the first mus- 
 ter compared Avith the poll-tax raised six months previously." (p. 41.) " It is 
 surprising," he says, " that the number of adult males should have been identi- 
 cally the same on the first occasion (Exod. xxx.) as it was half-a-year afterwards." 
 (Num. i.) Well, suppose it be surprising, what then? Is the historical veracity 
 of the Pentateuch to be set aside because Bishop Colenso is surprised at some of 
 its statements? He does not attempt to make out a contradiction here; he does 
 not even advance a charge of discrepancy. He thinks the numbers ought to have 
 been different from whaf they are ; and though he does not know, and has no 
 means of knowing the whole circumstances of the case— whether there were 
 two numberings or only one— he concludes that the narrative is not historically 
 true ! Such argument, if argument it can be called, needs no answer. W^ith 
 his long critique upon Kurtz and Hiivernick we have nothing to do ; the Word 
 of God is not affected by it. 
 
 (6). The sixth alleged impossibility is entitled " The Israelites dweUing in 
 tents." — " Take ye every man for them which are in his tents." (Exod. xvi. 16.) 
 A number of charges are based upon this passage, which I shall review 
 seriatim. 
 
 First. The Israelites are here represented as dwelling in tents, and this, it is 
 affirmed, "conflicts strangely with Lev. xxiii. 42, 43, where it is assigned, as a 
 reason for their ' dwelHng in booths ' at the feast of tabernacles, • that your gene- 
 rations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in hooths when I 
 brouo-ht them out of the land of Egypt.' " (p. 45.) 
 
 There is no contradiction here. The Hebrew word swccof/^ translated "booths," 
 is apphed in the Bible to a shelter made wholly of branches (as in Leviticus 
 xxiii. 42; Nehemiah viii. 14, 15), or to tents (as in 2 Samuel xi. 11, succoth in 
 the Hebrew is rendered in our version "tents;" 1 Kings xx. 12, 16). Is it not 
 natural to suppose that great numbers of the Israelites, in passing through the 
 Avflderness, acted as the Bedawin so often do now? Those who have tents use 
 them, but they are few in number. Those who have only a small patch of cloth 
 set it up as a kind of roof, and weave round the sides branches of trees or shrubs, 
 and sometimes reeds. Others who have nothing construct rude arbours against 
 the side of a rock or cliff, or in some natural cavity in the ground, or between 
 piles of stones. I have seen hundreds of such habitations in the valley of the 
 Jordan, and in other parts of Syria. They led me to see how wonderfully ac- 
 curate the Mosaic narrative is in the minutest details. The Israelites dwelt 
 partly in tents and partly in booths. And, besides, the command to dwelHn 
 booths seven days at the feast of tabernacles was not intended to define with 
 mathematical precision the way in which the Israelites had lived in the wilder- 
 
26 
 
 ness, but rather to remind tliem in all future ages how their fathers had spent 
 forty years in the open desert, without the protection of city or house, and that 
 God himself had been alike their provider and protector. 
 
 Second. It is affirmed that, allowing ten persons for each tent, two millions of 
 people would need 200,000 tents ; and it is asked, " How did they acquire 
 these?" The bishop plainly hints that the thing is incredible. But how does 
 he know that there must have been a tent for every ten persons ? He says 
 decency demands it, and a Zulu hut at Natal contains, on an average, only 
 three and a-half. Now, Bishop Colenso will surely admit that the modern Beda- 
 win of Sinai and the neighbouring desert, and the inhabitants of Syria, aiford a 
 far more natural and trustworthy parallel than the people of Natal. It is a fact 
 that among the Bedawins of the Sinai peninsula, who live there and are not 
 mere pilgrims, there is not one tent for every fifty persons. When they make 
 a journey they never carry tents with them, and even when humane European 
 travellers provide tents for their escort, they will not take the trouble of pitch- 
 ing them. The climate of the peninsula is such that no shelter is absolutely 
 necessary at any season for those accustomed to nomad life, and who prefer 
 living and sleeyjmg in the open air. It is a fact that three-fourths of the in- 
 habitants of Syria, even the dwellers in large cities, sleep in the open air, on the 
 roofs of their liouses. during more than half the year. It is a fact that a large 
 number of the peasantry leave their houses and villages altogether, and bivouac 
 in their fields and vineyards dm-ing a great part of the Summer. I have seen 
 on such occasions a rude Ijootli of branches, about the size of an umbrella, formed 
 over the cot of a young infant, as a shelter from the sun's rays. In the Spring 
 of 1858, I encamped several nights near the Christian pilgrim caravan, which 
 goes yearly from Damascus to Jerusalem at Easter. Though it was the month 
 of March, and though the journey occupies some twelve days, yet there were 
 only about half-a-dozen small tents among more than a thousand people — men, 
 women, and children. That the Israelites had some tents I admit, but we know 
 not how many; and, judging from the foregoing facts, they perhaps did not 
 amount to one-fiftieth part of the number suggested by Bishop Colenso. 
 
 Third. The difficulty is still pressed — " How did they acquire these?" Now, 
 everyone must admit that the historical veracity of the narrative cannot be 
 affected in the slightest degree by our ability or inability to answer this question. 
 Yet it can be answered. The patriarchs dwelt in tents. (Gren. xviii. 1 ; xxv. 
 27 : xxxi. 33.) When they went down to Egypt they retained their pastoral 
 and semi-nomad habits. (Gen. xlvii. 1 seq.) We have every reason to believe 
 that those settled in Goshen lived mostly in tents up to the period of the Exodus. 
 The bishop affirms the Israelites must have all dwelt in houses at the time of the 
 first passover, because the blood was to be sprinkled " on the side-post and upper 
 door-post of the houses^ (Exodus xii. 7.) I reply that this command was not 
 designed to indicate with mathematical precision the nature of the habitation 
 occupied by every indvidual Israelite on that night. The spirit of the order Avas, 
 that the mark of blood should be visible at the entrance of every dwelling. 
 Again, the Hebrew word haith does not necessarily signify " a hotise." In Genesis 
 xxvii. 15, Exod. xxiii, 19, 2 Kings xxiii. 7, and other places, it means " a tent." 
 And, at the present day, the Bedawy uniformly calls his "tent" heit, i.e., "a 
 house," though the proper Arabic word for "tent" is kheimeh; and he sjieaksof 
 the door of his house, &c. Admitting, then, that some of the Israelites pos- 
 sessed tents ; they took them with them. We are farther told that they obtained 
 so many things from the Egyptians on going out that they " spoiled them." 
 Were there no tents among the spoil? 
 
 Fourth. The last difficulty is, " How did they carry the tents?" The bishop 
 says in a recent letter (addressed to the " Morning Post "), " I have not dwelt so 
 much upon the fact of the Israelites having acquired tents as on the impossibility 
 of their carrying them." The patriarchs possessed great numbers of asses and 
 camels (Gen. xii. 16, xxx. 43, xxxii. 15) ; and we learn from Exod. ix. 3, 4, that the 
 Israelites at the time of the Exodus still possessed these useful animals, in ad- 
 
27 
 
 dition to oxen, and apparently also horses. Having these animals, they could hare 
 experienced no difficulty whatever in conveying all requisite suppHes of camp 
 furniture. 
 
 I would here take the liberty of most earnestly pressmg upon Bishop Oolenso 
 the absolute necessity of a far more acurate study of the Bible, not in the English 
 version merely, but in the original Hebrew ; and also of the language, manners, 
 and customs of Bible lands, before he i^ublishes his second volume. His blunders 
 have already not only exposed him to the ridicule of Oriental scholars, but they 
 have entailed upon him a fearful load of responsibility. He owes it to himself, 
 to the pubhc, to the Church with which he is still connected, and, above all,_ to 
 his God, to investigate deeply and thorovghh/, before he agam ventures to brmg 
 such sweeping accusations against the truthfulness of Scripture. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TtH objection, THE ISRAELITES ARMED. MEANING OF "HAMUSHIM." 8tH 
 
 OBJECTION, INSTITUTION OF THE PASSOVER. DR. COLENSO's IGNORANCE 
 
 OF HEBREW. NUMBER OF LAMBS REQUIRED. 9tH OBJECTION, THE MARCH 
 
 OUT OF EGYPT: HOW IT WAS CONDUCTED. IOtH OBJECTION, THE SHEEP 
 
 AND CATTLE OF THE ISRAELITES: HOW THEY WERE FED. IItH OBJECTION, 
 
 THE NUMBER OF THE ISRAELITES, AND THE EXTENT OF CANAAN. REMARKABLE 
 
 BLUNDER OF THE BISHOP. WILD BEASTS IN PALESTINE. 
 
 (7). Bishop Colenso's seventh alleged impossibility in the Pentateuch narrative 
 is entitled "The Israelites armed ;"'and it is mainly founded on Exod. xiii. 18 : 
 — " The children of Israel ivent up harnessed out of EgupV He says the word 
 hamushim, v:liich. is rendered "harnessed," appears to mean " armed," or " in 
 battle array," in all the other passages where it occurs, (p. 48.) He quotes and 
 comments on those passages, and concludes that " it is inconceivable that these 
 down-trodden oppressed people should have been allowed by Pharaoh to possess 
 arms, so as to turn out at a moment's notice 600,000 armed men. If such a 
 mighty host had had arms in their hands, would they not have risen long ago 
 for 'their liberty?" (p. 48.) It is not easy to reconcile these and many similar 
 statements with the bishop's explanation of them in a recent letter to the 
 "Mormng Post," in which he affirms, "I have laid no stress whatever upon a 
 a certain Hebrew word being translated armed.'' If this be so, then he has been 
 most unfortunate in the choice of language. I venture to say that there is not 
 a scholar in Britain who, after reading chap ix., would not conclude that he did 
 lay very special stress upon the word translated " armed." The chapter is entitled, 
 "The Israelites Armed." The text m which the word occurs stands at the head 
 of the chapter in itcdics. The whole argument, extending over six pages, is 
 either based upon that word, or it has no basis at all. It would have been far 
 more creditable to the bishop, and would have impressed the observing public 
 far more deeply with a sense of his candour, had he simply acknowledged his 
 error, instead of vainly trying to excuse himself by such an unworthy shift. He 
 now affirms that he laid no stress ivhatever on the word hamushim; yet, as his 
 book ap)pears to favor an opposite view, I think it right to make a few com- 
 ments upon it. 
 
 Hamushim only occurs four times in the Bible. (Exodus xiii. 18 ; Joshua 
 i. 14, iv. 12; Judges vii. 11.) From none of these passages can we infer with 
 certainty its precise meaning. Its root is a matter of question. It might come 
 from the word hamesh, " five;" hence the rendering in the margin of the Author- 
 ised Version, " by five in a rank." It is remarkable, and it shows how obscure 
 the meaning is, that in the Septuagint a ditferent translation is given of it in each 
 
28 
 
 passage: — Thus in Exodus xiii. 18, ** in the fifth generation ; " Josh. i. l4, "weli 
 girt (for travel) ;" Josh. iv. 12, "in order;" Judges vii. 11, "of the fifty." I be- 
 lieve the most probable derivation is from the Arabic root hamasha, which 
 signifies "to marshal," or " to range in order." This meaning would suit all 
 the passages. The Israelites went out " ranged in order." There is no reference 
 to arms or armour. 
 
 Bishop Colenso insists, however, "on the fact that the Israelites are said to 
 have discomfited Amalek with ' the edge of the sword,' about a month after they 
 came out of Egypt ; and, therefore, at that time they must liave been armedJ'^ 
 Where did they get these arms? Now, supposing we had no means of even 
 conjecturing how or where they got them, would that justify us in pronouncing 
 the whole narrative incredible? But we can conjecture where they got them. 
 Before leaving Egypt, they were commanded to ask of the Egyptians certain 
 articles; and " God gave them favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and tliey gave 
 them; and they spoiled the Egyptians." (Exod. xi. 2,3; xii. 35, 36.) I have 
 often been struck, when residing in Syria, with the intense eagerness of every 
 man, when about to set out on a journey, to obtain a good supply of arms. If 
 he has none himself, he will beg, borrow, or steal them. I have no doubt that, 
 on such an occasion as the Exodus, arms would be among the very first things 
 asked for. Then, again, Josephus tells us the Israelites obtained many weapons 
 from the Egyptian army destroyed in the Ked Sea. And, further, could they 
 not have made for themselves, when on the march, spears, and clubs, and slings, 
 and other rude weapons, such as were used in ancient warfare ? We have no 
 means of knowing how many of the people had arras, or how many were engaged 
 with Amalek. The phrase, " discomfited with the edge of the sword," merely 
 means " discomfited in battle." We are not warranted in concluding from it 
 that every man engaged in the fight had a sword ; one may have had a spear, 
 another a club, another a sling, another stones. It is with such Aveapons the 
 Bedawin chiefly fight now ; and, when they gain a battle, they say they " dis- 
 comfited the enemy with the mouth of the siuord." The bishop farther affirms — 
 " We must suppose that the ivhole body of 600,000 warriors were armed when 
 they were numbered (Num. i. 3) under Sinai." In reply, it is only necessary to 
 quote the passage: — " Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children 
 of Israel. . . . from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go 
 forth to war." Does this affirm or imply that they were all armed, or even that 
 any of them were armed? 
 
 Bishop Colenso thinks it incredible that the Israelites should bravely fight 
 with Amalek, and yet only " weakly wail" and murmur against Moses when 
 pursued by the Egyptians (p. 51). The cases are widely different. In the latter 
 case they were hemmed in — men, women, and children together; and the fear 
 of their cruel oppressors was still upon them. In the former, the warriors were 
 led out in battle array, at the command of the Lord. The bishop, of course, 
 overlooks, and would probably ignore, the main reason — the Lord gave them 
 courage and strength to war with Amalek. (Exod. xvii. 12, 15, 16.) 
 
 (8.) The eighth impossibility is "The institution of the Passover." The 
 bishop quotes Exod. xii. 21-28, and brings forward several objections to its his- 
 torical truth. His first objection is, that it was impossible to communicate all 
 necessary instructions to two miUions of people in the time specified. He says that 
 time was only one single day, because the first notice of the feast is given in. 
 Exod. xii.; and in that chapter it is said, "I will pass through the land of Egypt 
 this night, and will smite all the first-born." He affirms that the pronoun "^/ris" 
 (hazzeh) requires such an interpretation; and besides, in chap. xi. 4, Moses is 
 represented as saying to Pharaoh, " Thus saith the Lord, About midnight will I 
 go out," &c., where there can be no doubt that the " midnight" then next at 
 hand is intended (pp. 54, 55). Such in substance is Dr. Colenso's critical objec- 
 tion to the Mosaic narrative. 
 
 It is truly painfid to find a man so manifestly ignorant of the structure and 
 idioms of Oriental languages, venturing to ground his sceptical theories upon 
 
29 
 
 points of verbal criticism. One could pardon it in a profound German philologist ; 
 but it is altogether unpardonable in a mere tyro such as Bishop Colenso shows 
 himself to be. The Hebrew pronoun zeh, (or hazzeh, with the article,) is de- 
 monstrative, and points to the person or thing forming tJie immediate subject of 
 the discourse, without regard to the time of the discourse itself. It may refer 
 to the past : thus, in Gen. vii. 11, speaking of the breaking out of the Flood, the 
 historian says, "In the sixth hundreth year of Noah's life, in the second month, 
 the seventeenth day of the month, the same {hazzeh) day," &c. Or it may refer to 
 the future : thus, in Psalm vii. 4, " Lord, if I have done this {zoth),'' namely, what 
 follows. In Exod. xii. 6, the Lord instructs the people to kill the paschal lamb 
 on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, and tells them how they are 
 to eat it ; and'then adds, " For I will pass through the land of Egypt this^ night ;" 
 that is, as every Hebrew scholar knows, the night of which he is speaking— the 
 night of the fourteenth. The i^ronoun "this" [hazzeh) does not fix the time 
 when the instructions were given. It has nothing to do with that. The bishop 
 in looking at other parts of the story, and trying in vain to reconcile them with 
 his theory, says, it is perplexing and contradictory as it now stands. So it must 
 be to one who does not understand the language. 
 
 In regard to the words in Exod. xi. 4, where Moses says to Pharaoh — " Thus 
 saith the Lord, about midnight will I go out," &c.— even an English reader must 
 see that the reference is to a specific future midnight when the Lord would smite 
 the first-born, and not to the midnight then next at hand. 
 
 I have thus swept away the basis on which the whole of Bishop Colenso's 
 aro-ument rests ; and I shall now show the true state of the case. It appears 
 from Exodus xi. 1-3, that the Israehtes had notice of the final plague a consider- 
 able period before it was inflicted, and that they were fully instructed how to act. 
 It would seem from chap. xii. 2, that the instructions regarding the Passover 
 were given to Moses in the very beginning of the month. It is evident from 
 verse 3 that they must have been communicated to the whole people before the 
 tenth day. There was thus ample time to make all necessary preparations for 
 the Passover on the fourteenth, and for the journey which followed. It Avould 
 seem from Exodus iv. 29, and v. 4, 5, that the chiefs and the great body of the 
 people of Israel were concentrated in and around the royal city soon after Moses' 
 arrival. They fully expected their release, and they vcere prepared to go at a 
 moment's notice. *Their flocks were, doubtless, at a distance for pasture, perhaps 
 under the care of slaves. Even independent of all supernatural agency, Moses 
 could have had no difiiculty in communicating with the whole body of the people. 
 Their concentration around the royal city brought them closer to the wealthy 
 Egyptians, and gave them opportunities of obtaining from them all requisites. 
 
 "the bishop brings out a second difiiculty. He says tiuo millions of people 
 would require, allowing ten for each family, 200,000 lambs ; or, allowing ffteen 
 for each family, vrhich he considers a fair average, they would need 150,000 
 lambs. These" must be males of the first year. By calculations and corres- 
 pondence with sheep-farmers in Natal and Australia, he learns that such a num- 
 ber of males " of the first year implies a flock of two millions, old and young." 
 Then he consults again with experienced sheep-masters in Africa, Australia, New 
 Zealand, and England, and shows that this flock would require 400,000 acres of 
 grazing-land, or about twenty-five miles square. His conclusion is, that the 
 Israehtes must have been scattered over a very wide district, and that communi- 
 cation with them all in twelve hours was impossible. 
 
 In reading this whole chapter, one is painfully reminded of Matt, xxiii. 15. 
 I have proved that, instead of twelve hours to communicate inteUigence, make 
 preparations, &c., the Israelites inudhaxe had four clear days to jorepare, after 
 the instructions were received ; and that it is probable they had as much as four- 
 teen. So far, then, all his calculations, even if correct, are useless. 
 
 But, are the calculations correct ? He allows, on an average, fifteen to a house- 
 hold, and refers, in proof, to Josephus, who states that ten was the minimum 
 allowed for each lamb, but that many of the companies numbered twenty, 
 
 K 
 
30 
 
 Josepliiis speaks of another time altogether, Avhen the whole ceremonial had be- 
 come greatly changed. The command in Exodus xii. 3 is, " In the tenth of this 
 month they shall take to them each man a Iamb, according to f callers' houses a 
 lamb for the house." In the enumerations of the Hebrews, the "tribes" were 
 divided into "families" [mislipaliotli] , and the families into " fathers' houses " 
 (Beth-avoth.) Thus, in Exod. vi. 14 — " These are the heads of their fathers' 
 houses,'" &c. See also Num. i. 2, 18, &c. The phrase, /c/Y/^ers' /iowses, therefore, 
 designated sub-divisions of the tribes, and not single families, or undefined 
 groups of families. The cognate Arabic vvord, Beit, is still very commonly used 
 in the same sense ; and the Oriental " house " is made up of a group of relatives 
 living together — often as many as ten, twelve, and fifteen distinct families. The 
 *• house " of Jacob when he went into Egypt comprised upwards of sixty persons 
 (Gen. xlvi. 27.) Taking into account the number of infants and young children, 
 we may safely say that a lamb for every fifty persons would be much nearer the 
 truth than Bishop Colenso's estimate, and would probably still be much too low. 
 This would require only some 40,000 lambs, which could easily be supplied if 
 the flocks only amounted to 400,000. 
 
 Bishop Colenso evidently wishes to leave the impression on the minds of his 
 readers that the Israelites could not have possessed such numerous flocks as would 
 be needed for such a supph^. We are expressly told, however, that they had 
 " very much cattle " (Exod. xii. 38) ; and we know that they occupied the best 
 pasture land in Egypt. (Gen. xlvii. 6.) 
 
 (9.) Dr. Colenso founds his ninth alleged impossibility on "The march out of 
 Egypt." He quotes Exod. xii. 37, 38, and argues against its truthfulness substan- 
 tially as follows : — The people amounted to tivo millions. These were required to 
 start at a moment's notice. The order was conveyed to them all ; the Passover 
 was observed ; property to an immense amount was borrowed of the Egyptians ; 
 the flocks and herds were collected ; the sick and infirm, women in childbirth 
 and young infants, brought in from the various parts of a tract of country as 
 large as Hertfordshire, and congregated at Rameses. All this, he afSrms, was 
 done, according to the story, within twenty-foiu- hours. And then, having done 
 all this, they started again from Eameses that same night, and marched to 
 Succoth. He concludes — " I do not hesitate to declare this statement to be utterly 
 incredible and impossible." (pp. 61-65.) 
 
 The first thing that strikes one in this chapter is, that the author utterly 
 ignores any Divine element in the Exodus. He judges of it as a simple act of 
 inigration, in direct opposition to what is affirmed by tlie sacred historian empha- 
 tically and repeatedly. The power of the Lord was directly exercised in every 
 stage of the Exodus. (Exodus xii. 29, 36, 42, 51 ; xiii. 14, 15, 17, 18, &c.) We 
 know not how far the direct exercise of Divine poAver extended — how it 
 strengthened the weak, healed the sick, or directed the movements of the whole 
 multitude ; but we do know that it was exercised. Without it the Exodus 
 Avould have been impossible. 
 
 But, again, is it not so that Bishop Colenso invents, doubtless unintentionally^ 
 or rather in ignorance, a number of improbabilities, and charges them on the 
 sacred historian? He says ihe people were summoned at a moment's warning. 
 I have proved that they had, at the very least, four whole days to prepare. He 
 says they all first congregated at Rameses, with their flocks and baggage ; the 
 narrative does not warrant any such conclusion. (Exodus xii. 37, 38.) It would 
 seem, from a careful study of the Avhole story, that the flocks, herds, and mixed 
 multitude did not follow the same line of route as the main body. They are not 
 mentioned at the passage of the Red Sea, nor at Marah, nor at Elim. It is highly 
 probable they took a more northerly course, passing round the head of the gulf 
 and through the best pastures. This is the plan always followed by tribes of 
 Bedawin on the march. The chiefs and main body, with some of the women 
 and camp furniture, keep together, while the flocks and their attendants extend 
 for miles on each side. I have seen the flocks of a large tribe as much as twent}'' 
 miles distant from the chief. Yet, when an Arab historian gives a history of the 
 
31 
 
 migrations of his tribe, he confines the narrative wholly to the central group of 
 warriors. This supposition, which accords with the universal custom of Oriental 
 nomads, removes at once all the difficulties conjured up about a column twenty- 
 two miles long, cattle following each other in vast strings, and trampling down 
 the pasture, etc, 
 
 (10.) The tenth objection of our author is entitled, "The sheep and cattle of 
 the Israelites in the desert." His argument is : — They were so numerous that 
 they must have required a miraculous supply of food. We have no statement 
 that such a supply was provided ; consequently, the narrative is untrue, because 
 pasture and water could not have been found in the desert for such vast flocks, 
 (pp. 65, 81.) He estimates them attiuo millions ; but it has already been proved 
 that his data are incorrect. He seems to affirm that they were composed of sheep 
 and oxen only. There vrere also goats, apparently in as large numbers as sheep 
 (Exod. xii. 2,"^ 5), and camels. (Exod. ix. o, 4.) Their flocks were composed in all 
 respects like those of the modern Bedawin. He affirms that the flocks must 
 have marched in a dense column, (p. 68.) I reply that tliere is not a single pas- 
 sage in the Pentateuch which proves this, and it is in direct opposition to the 
 universal practice of Oriental nomads. He affirms that if scattered over a wide 
 country they must have been constantly guarded by armed men. I answer, No. 
 One Arab tribe will never venture to take a single camel from another tribe which 
 it has been taught to fear, and within the reach of whose vengeance it is, I 
 make this assertion from my own personal knowledge. We are told that the 
 fear of the Israelites had gone before them, and spread over all Western Asia. 
 The Lord's promises, and the sacred historian's assertions, to this effect are most 
 emphatic: — "I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to 
 whom thou shalt come ; and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto 
 thee." (Exod. xxiii. 27.) In further proof of this fact, I ask the reader's special 
 attention to the following passages : — Exod. xv. 14 ; Num. xxii. 2-4 ; Deut. ii. 
 24, 25 ; xi. 13, 25 ; Josh. ii. 9, 11. Under such circumstances, their flocks 
 might pasture in perfect security from the borders of Egypt to Palestine, over a 
 region containing 15,000 square miles. He affirms that the country has not 
 changed since the Israelites passed through it ; but facts are against him. There 
 are ruins of towns and villages, and traces of pretty extensive cultivation in 
 various parts of the peninsula and the plateau northward; and there are evidences 
 that wood was once much more abundant. But Bishop Colenso triumphantly ap- 
 peals to Num. XX. 4. where it is called '" a ivilderness ;'" and to Deut. viii. 15, where it 
 is called "a great and terrible wilderness;'''' and to Deut. xxxii. 10, where it is 
 called '• a desert land.'" He appears to be ignorant of the meaning of the 
 Hebrew word ?n{cZZ)ar, which is used in all tlie three places : it signifies " pasture 
 land" as opposed to "cultivated land." What made it so "terrible" and so 
 " evil " to the Israelites was, that it was " no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, 
 or of pomegranates." (Num. xx. 4, 5.) It is a singular fact, which Bishop 
 Colenso has overlooked, that nowhere in the sacred narrative is there a complaint 
 about want of pasture. There was scarcity of water, and that is still felt. 
 Some travellers, in passing through this region, think, because they do not see 
 the verdure of Western Eurojoe, that cattle could find no food. This is a great 
 mistake. I have often been astonished on observing what an amount of food 
 sheep, and especially goats and camels, can crop otf ground which to most j^eople 
 would appear completely barren. The herbage has a brownish hue, and is in a 
 great measure hidden by rocks and stones. 
 
 Bishop Colenso concludes a long and rambling chapter by affirming that it 
 seems idle to expend more time in discussing the question, whether the flocks of 
 the Israelites could have been suj^ported in the wilderness. I maintain, however, 
 that, even now, though the country is very difi"erent from what it was in ancient 
 times, there is sufficient pasture for flocks as numerous as it can be shown, with 
 any degree of probability, the Israelites possessed. 
 
 (11.) " The number ot' the Israelites compared with the extent of the land of 
 Canaan" forms the subject of our author's eleventh objection, (p. 82). He 
 
32 
 
 quotes Exod. xxiii. 27-30: — ^^ I loill send my fear he/ore thee, and will destroy 
 all the people to whom thou shalt come. And I ivill send hornets before thee, 
 luhich shall drive out the Ilivite, the Canaanite, and the Eittite from hefore thee. 
 1 luill not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become deso- 
 late, and the beast of the field midfijily against thee. By little and little I tvill 
 drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased and inherit the land.''^ 
 
 His argument is in substance as follows : — The Israelites numbered two mil- 
 lions. Canaan contained only 11,000 square miles. To suppose that with such 
 a population the land could become desolate, or the beast of the field multiply, 
 is absurd. It is farther stated, by way of illustration and jjroof, that Natal con- 
 tains 18,000 square miles, and only 150,000 souls, yet most of the wild beasts 
 have been exterminated. 
 
 Here is at once the greatest and the most inexcusable blunder in the whole 
 book. Bishop Colenso takes his estimate of the size of the land from Dr. Kitto, 
 and it is accurate so far as concerns that portion divided among the tribes by 
 Joshua; but that is not the land referred to in Exodus xxiii., out of which the 
 Lord said He would not drive the inhabitants at once, lest it should become 
 desolate. Had he looked at verse 31, he would have been saved from a blunder 
 of which he may well feci asliamed. The boundaries of the land alluded to are 
 there given: — " From the Bed Sea unto the sea of the Bhilistines, and from the 
 desert unto tlie river.''' They were defined before in the promise to Abraham, 
 Gen. XV. 18 : — " From the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.''' 
 That land is 500 miles long, by 100 broad, and contains about 50,000 square 
 miles; or nearly j/ire times Bishop Colenso's estimate! 
 
 Further, the population of that country at the present time is about two mil- 
 lions, or about equal to the number of the Israelites at the time of the Exodus ; 
 and I can testify that more than threefourths of the richest and best of the coun- 
 try lies completely desolcde. The vast plain of Moab, the plain of Esdraelon, and 
 the whole valley of the Jordan, are without an inhabitant. In the plains of 
 Philistia, Sharon, Bashan, Coelesyria, and Hamath, not one-tenth of the soil is 
 under cultivation. In one section of Bashan, I saw upwards of seventy deserted 
 towns and villages. 
 
 Bishop Colenso says that, though the population of Natal is so small, most 
 of the wild beasts have long ago disajipeared, and. the inhabitants are perfectly 
 well able to maintain their ground against the rest. He forgets, however, to 
 thank gunpowder and the rifle for this. Had the people of Natal contended against 
 the wild beasts, as the ancient Jews did, with spears, and arrows, and slings; had 
 the chiefs of the colony been forced to fight African lions as David fought the 
 bon that attacked his sheep, when he "caught him by the beard, and smote him, 
 and slew him" (1 Sam. xvii. 34, 35) ; the bishop would have had a very different 
 tale to tell this day. Many of the wild beasts have disappeared from Syria, but 
 many still infest the country. In tlie plain of Damascus, which is as densely 
 peopled as any rural district in England, wild swine commit great ravages on the 
 grain. This is the case also along the banks of the Jordan, and in man}^ other 
 places. On the sides of Ante-Lebanon, I have known the bears to destroy 
 whole vineyards in a single night, though every precaution is taken to shut them 
 out, and though armed watches are kept constantly patrolling during the vintage 
 season. Wlien travelling through some districts of the country, my tent was 
 surrounded every night by troops of jackals and hyenas; and more than once 
 they have left me without a breakfast. With my own eyes I have seen jackals 
 dragging fragments of corpses from the graves beneath the very walls of Jeru- 
 salem. Were it not that the peasants are pretty generally armed with rifles, the 
 grain crops and vineyards in many parts of the country would be completely 
 destroyed by wild beasts. 
 
 My reader can now see how very little Dr. Colenso knows of Bible lands, and 
 how wise and good was the Divine promise — " I will not drive them (the inha- 
 bitants) out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolcde, and the 
 least of the field multiply against thee.'' 
 
33 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1-!tH objection, — number of the first-born. 13th objection, — TIME OF 
 SOJOURNING in EGYPT. 14tH OBJECTION, — THE EXODUS IN THE FOURTH 
 
 GENERATION ; — MEANING OF THE WORD " DOR ;" THE NUMBERS OF THE 
 
 ISRAELITES ESTIMATED. loTH AND 16tH OBJECTIONS. — NUMBER OF THE 
 DANITES AND LEVITES. 17TH OBJECTION, — THE PRIESTS AND THEIR DUTIES. 
 18TH OBJECTION, — THE SECOND PASSOVER. 19tH OBJECTION, — THE WAR 
 IN MIDIAN. 
 
 (12.) Our author founds his twelfth impossibility on " The number of first- 
 borns compared with the number of male adults." (p. 84.) 'M/Z the Jirst-horn 
 males, from a month old and iqmards, of those that uere numbered, iccre ticenty 
 and tivo thousand two hundred and threescore and thirteen.'' (Num. iii. 43.) 
 
 His argument is as follows : — There were 600,000 males of twenty years 
 old and upv»'ards ; the whole number of males may therefore be reckoned at 
 900,000. It is expressly stated that the 22,273 first-borns were on the mothers' 
 side. (Numbers iii. 12.) Dividing the number of males by the number of 
 first-borns, we find that, according to the story in the Pentateuch, every 
 mother of Israel must have had on the average f or!iy-two sons ! Or, allowing 
 for deaths among the first-born, and for some who may have been killed, 
 suppose that instead of 44,546 first-borns, male and female, there were 60,000 ; 
 even this would imply an average of thirty children to each mother. Be- 
 sides which, the number of mothers must have been the same as that of the 
 first-borns, male and female. Hence, there would have been only 60,000 
 child-bearing women to 600,000 men ; so that only one man in ten had a wife 
 or children. The conclusion is, the narrative is untrue. 
 
 Now, surely such an accomplished arithmetician as Dr. Colenso ought to 
 be aware that no problem can be solved where the data are insufiicient. The 
 fallacy in this argument lies here, — sufficient data are not given ; the whole 
 facts are not before us. He -sdrtually admits this himself, when he says, at 
 p. 87, " In some families the first-born may have died ; some, too, who were 
 born about the time of the birth of Moses may have been killed." Then, 
 again, we cannot tell whether the phrase, " All the first-born males " is to be 
 taken absolutely, or as merely including those under a certain age, or those 
 who had the birth-right. The bishop assumes without any warrant that all 
 the first-born of every age and station are included, and that nothing had 
 occurred to alter the ordinary proportion between their number and that of 
 the whole population. In fact, sufiicient data are not given ; and we are not 
 warranted to attempt to work out a statistical problem, much less are we 
 warranted in pronouncing the narrative untrue. 
 
 (13.) The thirteenth objection is entitled " The sojourning of the Israelites 
 in Egypt." The author has here a laborious argument extending over some 
 six pages, designed to prove what most people will admit without it, — that 
 the period of 430 years, mentioned in Exod. xii. 40, extended from the call of 
 Abraham to the Exodus, (pp. 91-95.) No comment is needed ; for though 
 the tone of the argument is decidedly hostile to Scripture, aU eflbrts of the 
 author to conjure up any real difficulty are vain. 
 
 (14.) The fourteenth impossibility is entitled " The Exodus in the fourth 
 generation ;" and it is chiefly based on Gen. xv. 16, ''But in the fourth gene- 
 ration they shall come hither again.'' (pp. 96-101.) The author affirms that the 
 "fourth generation" must mean the "fourth in natural descent." This 
 forms the foundation of his arguments and conclusions. If we can prove his 
 interpretation to be erroneous, his argument falls to the ground, and his long 
 array of figures, quotations, and critiques is worthless. From the argument 
 founded upon the above passage he draws two conclusions— first, that the 
 
34 
 
 Exodus took place 215 years after the descent into Egypt. This we may 
 admit, though it has no logical connection with his argument on the above 
 passage. — Second, that the Israelites came out of Egypt in the fourth genera- 
 tion from the adults in the prime of life who went down with Jacob. This, 
 I admit, may have been true in a few cases ; but that it was true universally, 
 or that any such truth is deducible from the statement in Gen. xv. 16, I 
 utterly deny. 
 
 Let us examine the passage critically. The Hebrew word dor, translated 
 " generation," signifies, like the cognate Arabic dour, " a circuit," or "period ;" 
 hence it conies to mean an " age " or " generation." Several meanings are 
 attached to it in Scripture, which can only be accurately determined by the con- 
 text. Thus, in Ps. cxii. 2, Deut. xxxii. 5, Gen. vii, 1, it means " a class of men " 
 living at a given time; in Num. ix. 10, "posterity;" in Is. Iviii, 12, "past 
 ages;" in Is. Ix. 15, " future ages ;" in Jobxlii. IG, "descendants." Bishop 
 Colenso overlooks the context in Gen. xv. Had he examined it, even he could 
 scarcely have failed to see the meaning which the sacred writer there attaches 
 to the word dor. It forms part of the promise to Abraham ; and that promise 
 was, " know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not 
 theirs, and shall serve them : and they shal afflict them four hundred years. 
 . . . . But in the fourth generation they shall come up higher again ; for 
 the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full." Every scholar must see that the 
 four hundred years and the fourth generation are correlative expressions. To 
 date the commencement of the former from Abraham, and the commencement 
 of the latter from the descent of Jacob into Egypt, is against all rules of 
 interpretation. It is clear that the word dor here means " a century." The 
 Arabic word jil is used with the very same latitude of meaning ; so, also, the 
 Latin word seculum. Thus Bishop Colenso's " indisputable fact " is shown 
 to be a mere blunder in interpretation, and his whole argument based upon it 
 is consequently invalid. 
 
 But he further attempts to build up his argument upon a few passages in 
 which it is stated that the fourth in descent from the sons or adult grandsons of 
 Jacob did go out in the Exodus. I grant that there were a few such cases 
 in which the fourth in direct descent, from those who went down with Jacob, 
 went out in the Exodus, because the period of life was then long. But this 
 does not prove thai all who went out were of the fourth generation, nor that the 
 mass of them were so, nor even that any except those mentioned were so. It 
 is a singular fact that the bishop's own examples militate against his theory ; 
 but he has suppressed part of the truth. His object is to prove that, as a 
 general rule, those who went out at the Exodus were the fourth in descent 
 from those who went with Jacob to Egypt. He gives a table containing 
 eleven examples; but the whole table is a plausible fallacy. He commences 
 his enumeration from Jacob, or from his sons, or from his grandsons, accord- 
 ing as it suits his purpose; and he terminates each genealogy according to a 
 similar accommodating sliding scale. Thus Moses was the^'fourth in descent 
 from Jacob; but Bishop Colenso forgets to tell us that Moses' sons went out 
 with him, and they were tae fifth generation. Aaron was the fourth from 
 Jacob; but Aaron's grandson, Phinehas, is reckoned among the "heads of 
 fathers of the Levites" who went out in the Exodus; and he was of the sixth 
 generation. (Exod. vi. 25.) I shall give tv/o more of his examples, just to 
 show the unworthy shifts to which he is driven in attempting to make out a 
 difficulty. (1.) " Zarah, Zabdi, Carmi, Achan." The preceding ones he com- 
 menced with sons of Jacob ; this he begins with a grandson. Nov/, Achan was 
 the fifth in descent from Jacob ; and Achans sons who went out with him were 
 the^ sixth. (2.) " Pharez, Hezron, Caleb, Hur, Uri, Bezaleel." This is so 
 manifestly opposed to the bishop's theory that he says : — " In the last instance, 
 Bezaleel is in the ffth generation from Pharez. Perhaps he was a young 
 man, and was reckoned in the generation next to that of Joshua." 
 Bezaleel was the sixth from Judah, and the serenth from Jacob ! We thus see 
 how the bishop's own witnesses break down under a searching examination. 
 
'6d 
 
 And it is by sncli reasoning as this he would overthrow the historical veracity 
 of the Pentateuch ! 
 
 Let us now see what the sacred writers themselves say upon this point. In 
 Gen. 1. 23, we read that "Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the tJiird gene- 
 ration ; the children also of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were brought up 
 upon Joseph's knees." Joseph was about thirty-four years old when his sons 
 were born (Gen. xH. 46-50) ; he died, aged 110. (1. 26.) Hence it follows that 
 in this instance the fourth generation wasborn, and/o?n- r/eiierations ivere alive 
 together, only seventy-five years after the descent into Egypt. Again, in 1 
 Ciiron. vii. 22-27, we see that Joshua was the tenth in descent from Josei)h ; 
 that is, there were ten generations within the 215 years' residence in Egypt. 
 Again, Nahshon, who commanded the tribe of Judah at the Exodus, was the 
 sixth in descent from Judah, and not through the line of eldest sons. (1 
 Chron. ii. 3-10.) We have many incidental proofs that the Israeutes married 
 young, and that three and four generations were often alive together. Joshua 
 and his grandfather were both commanders in the army of Israel at the same 
 period. (Nuo. ii. 18; Exod. xvii. 8-16.) Bishop Colenso affirms that this is 
 hardly credible. A man who makes such a statement can know httle of the 
 East. Sheikh Kasem, of Hauran, was one of the leaders of the Druses in 
 the war against the Turks in 1853. His grandson was also a leader ; and his 
 great-grandson, a fine boy of twelve, was armed and in the field at the same 
 time! I have seen in Damascus a venerable gTandmother aged thirty, with a 
 child of her own and her grandchild on her knee at the same time. 
 
 We know, moreover, that a blessing of great increase of his seed was 
 repeatedly promised to Abraham: — "I will make of thee a great nation" 
 (Gen xii. 2); "I will make thee exceeding fruitfuV (xvii. 6); "Look now 
 toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them. And He 
 said unto him. So shall thy seed he" (xv. 5) ; " In blessing I will bless thee, 
 and in multiplying I uill midtiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as 
 the sand which is upon the sea-shore.'' (xxii. 17.) The same promise was re- 
 newed to Isaac (xxv. 23) ; and to Jacob the Lord said, " Thy seed shall be as 
 the dust of the earth ; and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the 
 east, and to the north, and to the south." (xxviii. 14.) On the point of his 
 departure for Egypt, the promise was renewed with a specific clause as to 
 the time of its fulfilment — "And He said, I am God, the God of thy father; 
 fear not to go down into Egypt; for I uill there maheofthce a great nation" 
 (xlvi. 3.) We are told also that this blessing was wondrously fulfilled to 
 the Israelites in Egypt : — "And the children of Israel were fruitful, and in- 
 creased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land 
 was filled with them." (Exod. i. 7.) The King of Egypt said too: "Be- 
 hold the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we." 
 (ver. 9.) When they afflicted them, " the more they afflicted them the more 
 they multipled and grew." (ver. 12.) 
 
 These plain facts prepare the way for a true estimate of the numbers of 
 the Israelites at the Exodus. We are not to form our estimate according to 
 what is probable or usual under ordinary circumstances, but according to 
 what is possible under such extraordinary circumstances as are detailed in 
 the history. Now suppose the Israehtes remained in Egypt only 215 years. 
 This will give seven generations of nearly thirty-one years each. Suppose that 
 each man had, on an average, four sons (with of course an equal number of 
 daughters) at the age of thirty. Suppose further, the number of males who 
 went down with Jacob, and afterwards became fathers, to be sixty-seven. 
 Calculating upon these data the number of souls at the Exodus would have 
 amounted to 2,195,456. And this does not include the descendants of Jacob's 
 servants, who were doubtless numerous ; nor does it take into account addi- 
 tional children bom after the father attained the age of thirty, nor the more 
 rapid increase of those born before that age. In many cases, besides that of 
 Joshua, there may have been ten generations instead of seven in the 215 years. 
 Bishop Colenso cannot deny that this is possible, nor can he deny that the 
 
36 
 
 nature of the Divine promises, and the whole tenor of the sacred narrative 
 warrant us in supposing an enormous, and even unparalleled increase. 
 
 (15 & 16.) The fifteenth and sixteenth objections are founded on the alleged 
 impossibility involved in the numbers of "the Danites and Levites at the 
 time of the Exodus." (pp. 107 seq.) 
 
 The argument is substantially as follows: — Dan had only one Son. Hence 
 we may reckon that in the fourth generation he would have had 27 warriors 
 decended from him, instead of 62,700, as given in Num. ii. 26. 
 
 Levi had only three sons. Thej increased in the second generation to 8. 
 (Exod. vi. 17-19.) The four sons of Kohath increased in the third generation 
 to 8. He goes on with his calculations, taking it for ganted that all the 
 children of each man in each generation are mentioned by the historian ; and 
 he thus shows that the Levites at the census could only have numbered 44, 
 instead of 8,580, as stated in Num iv. 48. 
 
 The fallacy in the whole argument is two-fold — First, he calculates only four 
 generations from the descent into Egypt to the Exodus. I have shown this 
 to be a mere delusion. Second, he supposes that when the sacred historian 
 gives the names of raii/ of a man's descendants, he necessarily gives them 
 all : this is a groundless assumption. The data are erroneous, and Dr. Colenso's 
 figures are all useless. 
 
 The replies to Kiirtz, Hengstenberg, Rawlinson, and others, in chap, xix., 
 are based on the same erroneous data, and require no notice. 
 
 (17.) The seventeenth alleged impossibility of our author is involved in 
 " the number of the priests at the Exodus compared with their duties, and 
 with the provision made for them." (p. 122.) 
 
 The various duties of the priests are summed up under ten heads, and they 
 certainly look very formidable. They are made to include ail connected with 
 sacrifices and ofi'erings, offerings of thanksgiving from women after child- 
 birth, cases of leprosy, ceremonial pollutions, vows of Nazarites, festival sac- 
 rifices, &:c. " Andnow let us ask," says the bishop, " for all these multifarious 
 duties during the forty years sojourn in the wilderness . . . how many 
 priests were there? There were only three." 
 
 Here again the data on which all the arguments, calculations, and decla- 
 mations are founded are mere assumptions. First, the author assumes that 
 the multifarious duties which he enumerates could only have been performed 
 by Aaron and his two sons, and that they had no assistants. Now had he 
 turned to Num. iv. 3-45; vii. 3-9; viii. 6-26; xviii., he would have seen that 
 the acts which were to be performed by the priests alone were very few — 
 such as would require neither much time nor much labour ; while for all the 
 rest of the duties they had a very large body of legally appointed and well 
 organized assistants. Second, he assumes that the whole ceremonial ritual 
 was intended to be observed, and was observed in the desert. But it appears 
 plainly that while a few of the leading ordinances were to be observed there, 
 the vast majoritj'- of them were intended for a state of rest in Canaan. On 
 carefully examining the details of the several institutions we see that reference 
 is generally made, in one way or another, to the Promised Land. In proof 
 I direct my reader's attention to the following passages: — Exod. xii. 25 ; Lev. 
 xix. 23.; xxiii. 10; xxv. 2; Num. xv. 2,18 seq. The Israelites did not even 
 observe the rite of circumcision during their wanderings in the wilderness, 
 though it was enjoined on the whole seed of Abraham uiKkr the 2^(^n(i^ty of 
 death. (Gen. xvii. 14.) God, in his mercy, relaxed the law during a period 
 when observance would have been attended with hardship and suftering. The 
 very perquisites of the priests mentioned in connexion with most of the 
 ceremonies are such as to show that reference was necessarily made to Canaan. 
 Oil, and wine, and wheat, and first-fruits they were to get; and these did not 
 exist in the wilderness. (Num. xviii. 9-11, 25-32, t&c.) Third, he assumes 
 that there were only three priests, Aaron and his tvro sous. Three are named ; 
 bat can he prove there were no more? Aaron may have had many sons and 
 grandsons; and the very fact that "thirteen cities with their suburbs" were 
 
37 
 
 allotted to the priests od the division of the land — a fact which Dr. Colenso 
 sneers at as incredible — is incidental evidence that Aaron's descendants had 
 become very numerous at the close of the wilderness journey. (Josh. xxi. 19.) 
 
 (18.) The eighteenth difficulty is entitled, " The priests and their duties at 
 the celebration of the Passover." (p. 131.) 
 
 Here again the author's difficulties and alleged impossibilites are of his 
 own creation. (1.) He estimates the number of lambs skin at the second 
 Passover at Sinai to have been 150,000. I have already shown that this is 
 a gross exaggeration. (2.) He affirms that the lambs were killed hy the j^riests, 
 trithin the court of the Tahernacle, and their blood siDrinlded hy the priests; but 
 there is not a shadow of proof for this in the whole Pentateuch. The author 
 brings his proof from the history of the celebration of a Passover /;? Jerusalem ^ 
 eight centuries after the time of Moses ! To assume that the regulations ob- 
 served in Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah at the Passover, were in force in 
 the time of Moses, is not only unwarranted, but it is opposed to Jewish history 
 and tradition. Special instructions were given just before the Israelites 
 entered Palestine for the observance of the feast under the new circumstances 
 in which they should there be placed. (Deut. xvi. 5-7.) (3.) He affirms that 
 there were only three priests, and that they had to kill all the lambs with 
 theii' own hands. He cannot prove either statement. There may have been 
 more than three priests, and they had besides a large staff of assistants, as 
 has been proved. 
 
 (19.) Bishop Colenso's last objection, or alleged impossibility, is entitled, 
 " The war in Midian." (p. 139.) He commences the chapter with a statement 
 of what he thinks he has done in the preceding part of the book: — " we have 
 surely exhibited enough to relieve the mind from any superstitious dread, in 
 pursuing fiu'ther the consideration of this question." He believes, in fact, 
 that he has completely overthrown the historical veracity of the Pentateuch ; 
 and he looks back on his work of destruction with no little pride and com- 
 placency. He plumes himself, too, on being an original investigator in the 
 realms of scepticism — "I believe that to the great majority of my readers 
 many of the above facts will be new, as I freely admit, they were to myself 
 till within a comparatively recent period. It seems strange that it should be 
 so. . . . But the case is really as I have stated it, viz. : — that the Clergy 
 and Laity of England generally have not had these facts before their eyes at 
 all," &c. The bishop's readingmust surely have been very limited on Biblical 
 literature and criticism ; and even in infidel literature. His claim to originality, 
 so far as his leading objections are concerned, cannot fail to be a source of 
 considerable amusement to the theologians of this country and Germany. 
 Some of his objections are certainly original — the blundering criticisms upon 
 Hebrew words and phrases, for example ; but these wiU not add much to his 
 fame as a scholar. 
 
 The remaining part of this chapter is planned after the model, and written 
 in the style of the Introduction to the book. The author collects from various 
 parts of Scripture a series of isolated and fragmentary statements as to numbers 
 and events ; and by the help of exclamations and comparisons, and notes of 
 admiration, or rather wonder, he contrives to place them in the worst 
 possible hght before the reader. He does his best thus to hold the Bible up, 
 piecemeal as it were, to scorn and ridicule. This is not only imfair in argu- 
 ment, but it is positively dishonest in principle. The careful reader wiU not 
 fail to note that Bishop Colenso does not make out one solitary instance of 
 contradiction— that he does not even attemj^t argument. He thinks that the 
 numbers given and the events narrated could not be true ; and he therefore 
 concludes that they are myths and legends. Now, I would earnestly ask "and 
 entreat readers to pause and to reason before they rashly admit as facts the 
 f nicies of Bishop Colenso. I ask them to peruse the chapter, and then just 
 answer the questions— Is this logic ? Is it common sense ? When a man 
 advances arguments, we can review them ; when he makes statements, we can 
 test them; when he brings forward evidences, we can examine them; when 
 
38 
 
 lie frames sophisms, we can expose tliem ; but when he attempts to over- 
 throw the Divine authority of the Bible by sneers, and exclamations, and 
 notes of wonder, such a course is so startling, so abhorrent in its very aspect 
 and character, that the only proper reply to it is a prompt and energetic ex- 
 pression of righteous indignation. 
 
 " But how thankful ought we to be," he says, *' that we are no longer 
 obliged to believe . . . the story related in Num. xxxi." — the story, 
 namely, of the capture, plunder, and slaiTghter of the Midianites. " The 
 tragedy of Cawnpore, where 300 were butchered, would sink into nothing 
 compared with such a massacre, if, indeed, we were required to believe it." 
 Such is the cool manner in which this profound philosopher, and most 
 scrupulous moralist, sets aside the great facts of the Bible. He compares 
 the destruction of the Midianits //// the express commcnid of the Lord, with the 
 wanton and frightful massacre of the English by the Indian rebels at Cawnpore ! 
 Does Bishop Colenso believe that God is the governor of the world? Does 
 he believe that all maniknd are subject to His laws? Does he believe that 
 God can and does inflict punishment on such as are guilty, not merely of open 
 acts of rebellion, but of the most hideous crimes? Does he not admit that 
 earthquakes, pestilence, lightning, tempest are all occasionally employed as 
 the executioners of God's righteous sentences on a guilty world? And when 
 God is pleased, by express enactment, or direct command— as in the case 
 under consideration (Num. xxxi. 1, 2) — to make a man or a nation His execu- 
 tioner, are we to accuse that man, or that nation, of cruelty for obeying? Or 
 is the moral character of the judgment changed because the sirord, and not 
 the pestilence or the earthquake, has been made the instrument of punish- 
 ment? The bishop's theology seems to be as defective as his critical 
 scholarship. 
 
 CHAPTEPw VII. 
 
 CONCLUDING REJIARKS. — BISHOP COLENSO's PROPOSED SUBSTITUTE FOR THE BIBLE. 
 HIS NEW VIEWS REGARDING CHRISTIAN (?) MISSIONS. 
 
 The concluding remarks of Bishop Colenso are very sad and very startling. He 
 expresses his belief that he has overthrown that notion of Scripture inspiration 
 which Christians have hitherto been taught to regard as the foundation of their 
 faith and their hope. In plain terms — for it really amounts to this — he believes 
 he has proved that the Bible is not and cannot be the Word of God. He supposes 
 that, having done so, a demand will be made upon him for something to supply 
 the loss — "for something to fill up the aching void." He informs us that he is 
 not 5^et able ftdly to answer this demand; we must wait patiently until his pre- 
 sent Avork is brought to a close ! Meantime, however, he bids us turn for the 
 comfort and support of our -troubled souls to — his Commentary on the Epistle to 
 the Roraans I So, then, instead of an inspired Bible, he would give us as the 
 sole ground of our faith and hope, in the meantime, his Commentary ! ! And 
 he farther encourages us to look forward to a time when a second part of this 
 Avork on the Pentateuch shall appear — characterised, doubtless, by the same 
 ])rofound scholarship, by the same critical acumen, and by the same high-toned 
 morality to which I have called my readers' attention in the first i)art — and 
 shall serve as a firm and satisfactory basis for our faith! Surely, in the whole 
 Avorld of Christian and anti-Christian literature there was never aught penned 
 to equal this ! 
 
 And even this is not all. Bishop Colenso coolly tells us that he expects, as 
 a missionary, to be able "before long to meet the Mahommedan, and Brahmin, 
 mid Buddhist, as well as the untutored savage of South Afi'ica, on other and 
 bulter terms than we do now." And what arc these terms? The Bible is to be 
 
39 
 
 no more offered to them as the Word oi God. The great fimdament.il doctrmes 
 of the fall hnman depravity, the atonement, sanctification by the Holy fepirit, 
 are to be lio lono-er preached ; but, in their stead, men are to be taught to trust 
 implicitly in God's love, and on Bishop Colenso's Commentary on the Romans. 
 That hi4 and heavenly standard of morality laid down in the Bible is no longer 
 to be enforced ; but in its room will be set up a more cathohc morahty of Bishop 
 Colenso's own invention, according to which polygamy will be tolerated. 1 o bring 
 about this salutary change in the management of Christian missions is coniessedly 
 one of the objects for wMch the present treatise has been pubhshed. I trust,_how- 
 ever ere that day come, that the voice of the whole Christian public will be 
 raised in defence of that Bible which is at once the foundation of our country s 
 liberties and the source of all her glory. I hope, too, if Bishop Colenso should 
 continue to be so far lost to all feelings of honor, to all principles of honesty, as 
 not to abdicate wilhngly his office when he has publicly abjured histaith— i 
 hope that the Church with which he is connected will rise m her might and 
 drive him forth as a traitor from within her pale. 
 
 I have now done with " Bishop Colenso and the Pentateuch. 1 hav3 en- 
 deavoured in my remarks to gratify to the utmost the wish expressed by the 
 author in his preface :— " I wish the reader to watch carefully every step ot t he 
 aro-ument, with a determination to test severely, with all the power and skill he 
 caS bring to the work, the truth of every inference I have drawn, and every 
 conclusion at which I have arrived." I have done so ; and I believe I have done 
 so both Jionesfly and fairhj. I have tested the author's ethical principles, and L 
 have shown them to be false and pernicious. I have tested his critical scholar- 
 ship and I have shown it to be superficial. I have tested his theology, and I have 
 shown it to be shallow and unscriptural. T have tested his arguments and i 
 have shown them to be inconclusive, and, in some cases, even sophistical. 
 
 If Bishop Colenso or any of his friends should feel aggrieved by the apparent 
 severity of some of mv remarks, I would beg of them to bear in mmd the posi- 
 tion he has assumed, the charges he has preferred against the Bible, and the 
 momentous results to which his book would lead. He occupies a place of high 
 trust and influence in an evangelical Church ; and yet he is employing all his 
 talent and influence to overthrow evangelical truth. He has pub icly affirmed 
 that he unfeignedly beheves all the canonical Scriptures, and he has solemnly 
 vowed, both privately and publicly, to uphold and defend them, and to encou- 
 rage others to do the same ; yet now he publicly affirms that the Scriptures are 
 no't the Word of God, and he boldly charges them with falsehood, absuMity, and 
 immorality. Xeed he, or any man, be surprised, therefore, when, m language 
 strong and indignant, I endeavour to expose such conduct, and to sweep away 
 the fltmsy fallacies on which he grounds his charges?