THE PENTATEUCH AND BOOK OF JOSHUA.*

(From the London Examiner,)

IT is a notable sign of the times that the publication of a treatise on the Pentateuch should be chief literary event of any week, as it is certainly of this. The diffused interest lies obviously not in a general taste for theological controversy. The public at large is concerned only for the concession or denial of that right of full critical searching of the Scriptures by the clergy of the English church, which is in this volume again boldly put the test by an earnest, honest, and undoubted religious man. Dr. Colenso is not a priest on but a missionary bishop. He is a good Hebrew scholar, and a man of high intellectual attainments with a taste for exact reasoning. Some fourteen years ago he wrote an elementary treatise on algebra, which has gone through several editions ; and he has since published a book of arithmetic, which is now widely accepted in schools as the best of its kind extant. As Bishop of Natal he has devoted himself with the most practical zeal to his duty, studied the Zulu tongue, and published a Zulu grammar and dictionary, before proceeding, by the aid of natives, to translate the Scriptures. He has translated into Zulu the whole of the New Testament and several parts of the Old, including the books of Genesis and Exodus ; but while engaged upon that work under interrogation from his native helpers, he was brought, he says, face to face with old difficulties that in England might be felt, but tolerated.

" Engrossed with parochial and other work in England, I did what, probably, many other clergymen have done under similar circumstances,—I contented myself with silencing, by means of the specious explanations which are given in most commentaries, the ordinary objections against the historical character of the early portions of the Old Testament, and settled down into a willing acquiescence in the general truth of the narrative, whatever difficulties might still hang about particular parts of it. In short, the doctrinal and devotional portions of the Bible were what were needed most in parochial duty. And, if a passage of the Old Testament formed at any time the subject of a sermon, it was easy to draw from practical lessons of daily life, without examining closely into the historical truth of the narrative, in true there were one or two stories which presented great difficulties too prominent not to be noticed, and which were brought every now and then before us in the lessons of the church, such, e.g., as the accounts of the Creation and the Deluge. But, on the whole, I found so much of Divine Light and Life in those and other parts of the Sacred Book, so much wherewith to feed my own soul and the souls of others, that I was content to take all this for granted, as being true in the main, however wonderful, and as being at least capable, in an extreme case, of some sufficient explanation.

" Here, however, as I have said, amidst my work in this land, I have been brought face to face with the very questions which I then put by. While translating the story of the flood, I have had a simple-minded, but intelligent native,—one with the docility of a child, but the reasoning powers of mature age,— look up, and ask, 'Is all that true? Do you really believe that all this happened thus, —that all the beasts, and birds, and creeping things, upon the earth, large and small, from hot countries and cold, came thus by 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? My heart answered in the words of the Prophet, 'Shall a man speak lies in the name of the Lord?' Zech. xiii., 3. 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, on geological grounds, a fact, of which I only had misgivings before, viz., that a universal deluge, such as the Bible manifestly speaks of, could not possibly have taken piece in the way described in the Book of Genesis, not to mention other difficulties which the story contains."

At this time, also, the sound of the controversy raised over the Essays and Reviews was heard in Natal, and it seemed to Dr. Colenso that the upholders of a literal interpretation of the Pentateuch were hardly strict enough in argument. Thus from Archdeacon Pratt's Scripture and Science Not at Variance he quotes a passage concerning the possible arrest of the earth's rotation, when Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, with this comment:

" It will be observed that Archdeacon Pratt does not commit himself to maintaining the above view. He says, 'It is supposed by some to have been accomplished thus. But he argues as if this explanation were possible, and not improbable ; that is to say, he lends the weight of his high position and mathematical celebrity to the support of a view which every natural philosopher will know to be wholly untenable. For, not to speak of the fact that if the earth's motion were suddenly stopped a man's feet would be arrested, while his body would be moving at the rate (on the equator) of 1000 miles an hour—or rather, 1000 miles a minute, since not only must the earth's diurnal rotation on its axis be stopped, but its annual motion also through space —so that every human being and animal would be dashed to pieces in a moment, and a mighty deluge overwhelm the earth, unless all this were prevented by a profusion of miraculous interferences,—one point is at once fatal to the above solution.—Archdeacon Pratt quotes only the words, 'So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hastened not to go down about a whole day;' and, although this is surely one of the most prominent questions in respect of which it is asserted that 'Scripture and science are at variance,' he dismisses the whole subject in a short note, and never even mentions the moon. But the Bible says, 'The sun stood still, and the moon stayed,' Jo. x., 13 ; and the arresting of the earth's motion, while it might cause the appearance of the sun 'standing still,' would not account for the moon 'staying.' "

Dr. Colenso was led, therefore, early in 1861 to devote his time to that minute critical study of the books of Moses upon which this volume, the first part only of his dissertation, has been founded. The spirit of the volume is unexceptionable, and there is no flinching from the full expression of opinions honestly and carefully arrived at. This journal enters, as its readers know, into no theological controversy, and we can only report the opinions expressed in Dr. Colenso's book as matter of information to our readers. They will become a ground of public controversy and a subject of action, doubtless, in ecclesiastical courts, It behoves us all, therefore, at the outset to understand clearly and fairly what the opinions are against which we shall have censures abounding. The bishop declares himself ready to take any consequences of his act in publishing this book that may be forced upon him. "But although he denies the inspiration and authenticity of the Pentateuch, he says :—

" I am not aware of any breach of the law of the Church of England, as declared by the recent judgment in the Court of Arches, which is involved in this publication. It is now ruled that the words in the Ordination Service for Deacons,' I do unfeignedly believe in all the Canonical Scriptures, must be understood to mean simply the expression of a bona fide belief that the Holy Scriptures contain everything necessary to salvation, and 'to that extent they have the direct sanction of the Almighty.'

" I am not conscious of having said anything here which contravenes this decision."

The purport of his book Dr. Colenso thus expresses:—

" The result of my inquiry is this, that I have arrived at the conviction,—as painful to myself at first as it may be to my reader, though painful now no longer under the clear shining of the Light of Truth,—that the Pentateuch, as a whole, cannot possibly have been written by Moses, or by any one acquainted personally with the facts which it professes to describe ; and, farther, that the (so called) Mosaic narrative, by whomsoever written, and though imparting to us, as I fully believe it does, revelations of the Divine Will and Character, cannot be regarded as historically true.

" Let it be observed that I am not here speaking of a number of petty variations and contradictions, such as, on closer examination, are found to exist throughout the books, but which may be in many cases sufficiently explained, by alleging our ignorance of all the circumstances of the case, or by supposing some misplacement, or loss, or corruption of the original manuscript or by suggesting that a later writer has inserted his own gloss here and there, or even whole passages, which may contain facts or expressions at variance with the true Mosaic books, and throwing an unmerited suspicion upon them. However perplexing such contradictions are, when found in a book which is believed to be divinely infallible yet an humble pious faith will gladly welcome the aid of a friendly criticism, to relieve it in this way of its doubts. I can truly say that I would do so heartily myself. Nor are the difficulties to which I am now referring of the same bind as those which arise from considering the accounts of the creation and the deluge (though these of themselves are very formidable), or the stupendous character of certain miracles, as that of the sun and moon standing still,—or the waters of the river Jordan standing in heaps as solid walls, while the stream we must suppose, was still running,—or the ass speaking with human voice,—or the miracles wrought by the magicians of Egypt, such as the conversion of a rod into a snake, and the latter being endowed with life. They are not such, even, as are raised, when we regard the trivial nature of a vast number of conversations and commands, ascribed directly to Jehovah, especially the multiplied ceremonial minutiæ 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, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out free by himself.' Ex. xxi. 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 be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished : for he is his money.'—Exodus 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 words 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 survived a few hours. My own heart and conscience at the time fully sympathised with his. But I then clung to the notion, that the main substance of the narrative was historically true. And I relieved his difficulty and my own for the present by telling him that I supposed that such words as these were written down by Moses, and believed by him to have been divinely given to him, because the thought of them arose in his heart, as he conceived, by the inspiration of God, and tint hence to all such laws he 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 historical veracity of the Pentateuch ; and since then that cord has snapped in twain altogether.

"But 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 supernatural revelations of Almighty God, recorded in it, but solely that I cannot, as a true man, consent any longer to shut my eyes to the absolute, palpable self-contradictions of the narrative."

But what, he says, if he should by his argument shake belief in the Pentateuch?

" Our belief in the living God remains as sure as ever, though not the Pentateuch only, but the whole Bible, were removed. It is written on our hearts by God's own finger, as surely as by the hand of the Apostle in the Bible, that 'God is, and is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.' It is written there, also, as plainly as in the Bible, that 'God is not mocked'—that, 'whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap'— and that 'he that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption.'

" But there will be others, of a different stamp, —meek, lowly, loving souls, who are walking daily with God, and have been taught to consider a belief in the historical veracity of the story of the Exodus an essential part of their religion, upon which, indeed, as it seems to them, the whole fabric of their faith and hope in God is based. It is not really so ; the light of God's love did not shine less truly on pious minds when Enoch 'walked with God' of old though there was then no Bible in existence, than it does now. And 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 book, though it be the Bible itself, but to realise more truly the blessedness of knowing that He Himself, the Living God, our Father and Friend, is nearer and closer to us than any book can be,—that His Voice within the heart may be heard continually by the obedient child that listens for it, and that shall be our teacher and guide in the path of duty, which is the path of life, when all other helpers—even the words of the best of books—may fail us."

The whole or very nearly the whole argument of the book thus introduced is, we may say, arithmetical. Dr. Colenso applies throughout the arithmetic he has so well taught, to a testing of the facts connected with the figures of the book of Exodus, and passages in other books of the Old Testament relating to the Exodus. The acceptance of all his reasoning would involve the belief that a narrative compatible only with the passage of the wilderness by a few thousand people —which would in the course of nature have been the real number of the Jews at the time of the Exodus—is applied in some respects absurdly to number of more than 2,000,000, yet that the exaggeration of number is no clerical error, but deliberately and variously repeated, and inextricably connected with some portions of the history. If that be so, it would follow that this could be no contemporary narrative written by Moses himself but a later story. Having argued the case up to this point in the volume now before us, in the second part of the work, which has yet to be published Dr. Colenso will proceed to consider when, judging from internal evidence, it may be considered that the Pentateuch was really written.

The calculations upon which be founds his argument are various. The chief of them are these.

Heziron and Hamul, grandsons of Judah, are reckoned with the seventy born in Canaan before the going down into Egypt. But Judah himself, when he went down into Egypt, was only forty-two years old. He married at twenty, and Pharez, the father of Hezron and Hamut, was born to him of the widow of his eldest son, who had been also married to, and had become, the widow of his second son.

Dr. Colenso then replies to the suggestions of expositors who recognize and attempt to meet this difficulty. The same method of discussion he adopts throughout, not only stating the difficulty that he finds, but showing why he accepts none of the commonly-accepted methods of avoiding it. This clears the ground for writers who will answer him. He has replied already to the answers that are to be drawn from books, and either new argument must be adduced or his objections to the existing arguments must be directly met and invalidated. There will be no force in a mere repetition of the arguments themselves.

Another difficulty arises out of the ordinance that the whole assembly of the congregation should be gathered before the door of the tabernacle. The size of the tabernacle was eighteen feet by fifty-four. The congregation included 603,550 warriors, and if we consider these only, without regard to the infirm, the women, and the children, though they had stood side by side 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 would have reached, allowing eighteen-inches between each rank of nine men, for a distance of more than 100,000 feet—in fact, nearly twenty miles." The court of the tabernacle closely packed would contain only 5000 people, whereas the able-bodied men alone are said to have been more than 600,000.

A similar difficulty is then urged against the possibility that Moses could read, except in dumb show, the words of the law " before all the congregation of Israel, with the women and the little ones, and the strangers, that were conversant among them," when all Israel exceeded two millions in number, and, with the strangers, must have made a mixed population equal to that of London.

The extent of the camp, as compared with the priest's duties, is Dr. Colenso's next difficulty. If for each man there were allowed only three times as much space as he would require when in his coffin, the camp must have been a mile and a half square, with the Tabernacle in the middle, whence the priests were to carry out the skin of the bullock of sacrifice and all his flesh, &c.—L. iv. ll, 12.

"Thus the refuse of these sacrifices would have had to be carried by the priest himself (Aaron, Eleazar, or Ithamar,—there were no others) a distance of three-quarters of a mile. From the outside of this great camp wood and water would have had to be fetched for all purposes, if, indeed, such supplies of wood or water, for the wants of such a multitude as this, could have been found at all in the Wilderness—under Sinai, for instance, where they are said to have encamped for nearly twelve months together. How much wood would remain in such a neighbourhood after a month's consumption of the city of London, even at mid-summer? And the 'ashes' of the whole camp, with the rubbish and filth of every kind, for a population like that of London, would have had to be carried out in like manner, through the midst of the crowded mass of the people. They could not surely all have gone outside the camp for the necessities of nature, as commanded in D. xxii. 12—14. There were the aged and infirm, women in childbirth, sick persons and young children, who could not have done this. And, indeed, the command itself supposes the person to have a 'paddle' upon his 'weapon,' and therefore, must be understood to apply only to the males, or rather, only to the 600,000 warriors. Bot the very fact, that this direction for insuring cleanliness,—' For Jehovah thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp ; therefore shall thy camp be holy ; that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee,'—would have been so limited in its application, is itself a very convincing proof of the unhistorical character of the whole narrative.

" But how huge does this difficulty become, if instead of taking the excessively cramped area of 1652 acres, less than three square miles, for such a camp as this, we take the more reasonable allowance of Scot, who says, 'this encampment is computed to have formed a moveable city of twelve miles square,' that is, about the size of London itself ; as it might well be, considering that the population was as large as that of London, and that in the Hebrew tents there were no first, second, third, and fourth stories, no crowded garrets and underground cellars. In that case, the offal of these sacrifices, would have had to be carried by Aaron himself, or one of his sons,a distance of six miles ; and the same difficulty would have attended each of the other transactions above mentioned. In fact, we have to imagine the priest having himself to carry, on his back on foot, from St. Paul's to the outskirts of the metropolis, the 'skin and flesh, and head, and legs, and inwards and dung, even the whole bullock,' and the people having to carry out their rubbish in like manner, and bring in their daily supplies of water and fuel, after first cutting down the latter where they could find it! Further, we have to imagine half a million of men going out daily —the 22,000 Levites for a distance of six miles —to the suburbs for the common necessities of nature! The supposition involves, of course, an absurdity. But it is our duty to look plain facts in the face."

The next difficulty arises from comparison between the number of the people at the first muster and the poll-tax raised six months before; the next from a question of the possibility of carrying the tents, which are said to have been possessed as dwellings by the two millions who fled in haste from Egypt, "taking their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders." In carrying the tents Dr. Colenso urges that 200,000 oxen must have been employed. The Israelites departed, also, "harnessed." Could Pharaoh, it is asked, have so held these down-trodden people that they could produce 600,000 armed men at a moment's notice ?

The institution of the Passover is then presented as a source of difficulties. The killing of at least 150,000 lambs, all males of the first year, implied when we add the females and the males left to continue the breed, a possession of 400,000 lambs of the first year, or, according to the usual proportion, 2,000,000 sheep and lambs of all ages. In the Australian feeding grounds, one sheep to a acre of land is thought to imply good pasturage, five acres to a sheep is the government estimate. Allowing for the Israelites in Egypt five sheep to an acre, we still have the population of 2,000,000 scattered over a country twice the extent of Middlesex, no estimate being made even then for pasturage of their horned cattle. How, Dr. Colenso asks, could detailed instruction be conveyed in a night to each one of 2,000,000 of people so dispersed, and all within doors? Not one was "to go out at the door of his house until the morning." The march out of Egypt suggests even greater difficulties.

" And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about 600,000 on foot that were men besides children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them, and flocks and herds even very much cattle." —E. xii., 37, 38.

"It appears from N. i. 3, ii. 32, that these six hundred thousand were the men in the prime of life, 'from twenty years old and upwards, all that were able to go forth to war in Israel.' And as we have seen, this large number of able-bodied warriors implies a total population of at least two millions. Here, then, we have this vast body of people of all ages, summoned to start, according to the story, at a moment's notice, and actually started not one being left behind, together with all their multitudinous flocks and herds, which must have been spread out over a district as large as a good-sized English county. Remembering, as I do, the confusion in my own small household of thirty or forty persons when once we were obliged to fly at the dead of night,—having been roused from our beds with a false alarm that at invading Zulu force had entered the colony, had evaded the English troops sent to meet them, and was making its way direct for our station, killing right and left as it came along,—I do not hesitate to declare this statement to be utterly incredible and impossible. Were an English village of (say) 2000 people to be called suddenly to set out in this way, with old people, young children, and infants, what indescribable distress there would be! But what shall be said of a thousand times as many? And what of the sick and infirm, or the women in recent or imminent childbirth, in a population like that of London, where the births are 264 a day, or about one every five minutes.

" But this is but a very small part of the difficulty. We are required to believe that, in one single day, the order to start was communicated suddenly, at midnight, to every single family of every town and village, throughout a tract of country as large as Hertfordshire, but ten times as thickly peopled :—that, in obedience to such order, having first 'borrowed' very largely from their Egyptian neighbours in all directions (though, if we are to suppose Egyptians occupying the same territory with the Hebrews, the extent of it must be very much increased), they then come in from all parts of the land, of Goshen to Rameses, bringing with them the sick and infirm, the young and the aged ; further, that since receiving the summons, they had sent out to gather in all their flocks and herds, spread over so wide a district, and had driven them also to Rameses ; and, lastly, that having done all this since they were roused at midnight, they started again from Rameses that very same day, and marched on to Succoth, not leaving a single sick or infirm person, a single woman in childbirth, or even a 'single hoof'—E. x. 29—behind them !"

In the wilderness, how were the sheep and cattle fed is the next question? Canon Stanley's admirable account of the country is quoted, and his suggestions in relief of the difficulty are discussed in succession.

The next difficulty arises from comparison between the number of the Israelites and the extent of the land of Canaan. Of the heathen occupants, it is written, "I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased and inherit the land."

But, urges Bishop Colenso, had the Canaanites all been driven out, there were Israelites enough to people their land as thickly as our counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex are now peopled, and Norwich, Ipswich, Yarmouth, Colchester, &c., are in no danger of being overrun by the beasts of the field. There were enough in the 2,000,000 to establish a population twenty times as thick as that of Natal, from which the strongest of the wild beasts have been extirpated and others are disappearing.

Difficult results are then obtained from comparison of the recorded number of the first-borns with the number of male adults. The statement as it stands would give, it is urged, to every mother of Israel an average of forty two sons. Dr. Colenso considers the explanations of this difficulty by Kurz, and finds his problem yet unsolved.

"There is, indeed, one point, though he has not noticed it, which might help slightly to diminish it. In some families the first-born may have died before the numbering ; some, too, who were born about the time of the birth of Moses may have been killed by the order of Pharaoh. And if all those who may have thus died be reckoned with the 22,273, the proportion of the remaining males to be placed under each of the first-born will be somewhat altered. Still we cannot suppose any unusual mortality of this kind with- out checking in the same degree the increase, of the people. Let us, however, reckon that one out of four first-borns died, so that instead of 44,546 first-borns, male and female, there would have been, if all had lived, about 60,000. But even this number of first-borns, for a population of 1,800,000, would imply that each mother had on the average thirty children, fifteen sons and fifteen daughters. Besides which, the number of mothers must have been the same as that of the first-borns, male and female, including also any that had died. Hence there would have been only 60,000 child-bearing women to 600,000 men, so that only about one man in ten had a wife or children !"

The duration of the sojourn in the land of Egypt is next examined, and then follow some comparisons between the natural order of facts and the recorded figures representing the number of the Israelites at the Exodus.

" The twelve sons of Jacob, then, as appears from the above, had between them fifty-three sons—that is, on the average four and a half each. Let us suppose that they increased in this way from generation to generation. Then in the first generation, that of Kohath, there would be fifty-four males (according to the story, fifty-three, or rather only fifty-one, since Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan, v. 12, without issue) ; in the second, that of Amram, 243 ; in the third, the of Moses and Aaron, 1094 ; and in the fourth, that of Joshua and Eleazar, 4923—that is to say, instead of 600,000 warriors in the prime of life, there could not have been 5000.

" Further, if the numbers of all the males in the four generations be added together (which supposes that they were all living at the time of the Exodus), they would only amount to 6311. If we even add to those the number of the fifth generation, 22,154, who would be mostly children, the sum total of males of all generation could not, according to these data, have exceeded 28,465, instead of being 1,000,000."

The subject is considered also in detail:— "Thus Dan in the first generation has one son, Hushim, G. xlvi. 23 ; and, that he had no more born to him in the land of Egypt, and therefore, had only one son, appears from N. xxvi. 42, where the sons of Dan consist of only one family. Hence we may reckon that in the fourth generation he would have had twenty seven warriors descended from him, instead of 62,700, as they are numbered in N. ii. 26, increased to 64,400 in N. xxvi. 43.

" In order to have had this number born to him, we must suppose that Dan's one son, and each of his sons and grandsons, must have had about eighty children of both sexes.

" We may observe also that the offspring of the one son of Dan, 62,700, is represented as nearly double that of the ten of Benjamin 35,400, N. ii. 23.

"Again, we have in E. vi. the genealogy before quoted, of the three sons of Levi, who came with Jacob into Egypt,—Gershon, Kohath, Merari.

"(i). These three increased in the second (Amram's) generation to eight (not to nine, as it would have been if they had had each three sons on the average, viz., the sons of Kohath four, of Gershon two, of Merari two,—E. vi. 17—19.

" (ii.) The four sons of Kohath increased in the third (Aaron's generation) to eight (not to twelve) viz , the sons of Amram (Moses and Aaron) two, of Azhar three, of Uzziel three E. vi. 20 —22. If we now assume that the two sons of Gersbon and the two sons of Merari increased in the same proportion, that is to four and four respectively, then all the male Levites of the third generation would have been sixteen.

" (iii.) The two sons of Amram increased in the fourth (Eleazar's) generation to six—viz, the sons of Aaron, four (of whom, however, two died N. iii. 2—4), and of Moses, two. Assuming that all the sixteen of the third generation increased in the same proportion, then all the male Levites of the generation of Eleazar would have been forty-eight, or rather forty-four, if we omit the four sons of Aaron who were reckoned as priests. Thus the whole number of Levites who would be numbered at the first census would be only forty-four—viz., twenty Kobathites, twelve Gershonites, twelve Mararites; instead of 8580, as they are numbered in N. iv 48, viz.—2750 Kohathites, 2630 Gershonites, and 3200 Mararites—v. 36,40, 44.

" Or we may put the matter in another and a yet stronger light, using only the express data of Scripture, and omitting all reference to the 215 years sojourn in Egypt, and to the four generations—in fact, making no assumptions of our own whatever.

"The Amramites, numbered as Levites in the fourth (Eleazar's) generation, were, as above, only two—viz., the two sons of Moses, the sons of Aaron being reckoned as priests. Hence the rest of the Kohathites of this generation must have been made up of the descendants of Izbar and Uzziel, each of whom had three sons, E. vi. 21, 22. Consequently, since all the Kohathites of Eleazar's generation: were numbered at 2750, N, iv. 36, it follows that these six men must have had between them, according to the Scripture story, 2748 sons, and we must suppose about the same number of daughters !"

Dr. Colenso then compares the number of priests at the Exodus with their duties, and with the provision made for them. There were but three priests, Aaron and his two sons. But the duties assigned to them in personal attention to the numerous sacrifices from a population of two millions, involve, it is argued, impossible labours. Besides, there were strict ordinances (Lev. vii. 7—10, 34) as to their eating the meat from the altar.

" These last directions are given in the story before Aaron and his sons were consecrated. Hence they must be considered as intended to apply to them, while the camp was in the wilderness, as well as to the 'sons of Aaron' in future generations. But what an enormous provision was this for Aaron and his four, afterwards two, sons, and their families! They were to have the skins of the burnt-offerings, and the shoulder and breast (that is double-breast) of the peace-offerings, of a congregation of two millions pf people, for the general use of their three families! But, besides these, they were to have the whole of the sin-offerings and trespass-offerings, except the suet, which was to be burnt upon the altar, L. iv. 31, 35, v. 6, and the whole of the meat- offerings, except a handful, to be burnt as a memorial, L. ii. 2; and all this was to be eaten only by the three males, in the most holy place, N. xviii. 10."

Dr. Colenso remarks also on the provision made for their habitation.

"Further, in Jo. xxi., we have an account of the forty-eight Levitical cities ; and we read v. 19, 'All the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests, were thirteen cities, with their suburbs.'

"At this time, according to the story, there was certainly one son of Aaron, Bleazar, and one grandson, Phinehas, and his family. Ithamar, Aaron's other son, may have been alive, but no mention whatever is made of him. We may suppose, however, that he had sons and daughters. For this small number of persons, then, there are provided here thirteen cities and their suburbs, and all, let it be observed, in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem, where the temple was built, and where the presence of the priests was especially required, but in a later age.

The next difficulty arises from a similar discussion of the duties of the priests at the celebration of the Passover, when lambs would have to be killed, during the space of two hours, within a court capable of holding only 5000. people, at the rate of 1250 lambs a minute.

The arithmetical turn of all this argument is curiously prominent, but the bishop urges that here is no question of a chance of error of figures.

" We cannot here have recourse to the ordinary supposition, that there may be something wrong in the Hebrew numerals. This suggestion will not avail here, however it might be applied in other cases to reduce within the bounds of probability the extravagant statements 0f Hebrew writers—such as that in Ju, xii, 6, where we are told that the Gileadites under Jephthah slew of their brethren, the Ephraimites, 43,000 men—or that in Ju. xx, where, first the Benjamites slay of the Israelites, 40,00o men, v. 21, 25, and then the Israelites kill of the Benjamites 43,100. v. 35, 44, all these being 'men of valour,' that 'drew the sword'—or that in 1 S. iv. 10, where the Philistines slew of Israel 30,000 footmen, or in 1 S. xiii, 5, where the
Philistines had 30,000 war-chariots, or in 2 S, x. 18 where David slew the Syrians 40,000 horsemen or in 2 Ch. xxviii, 6, 8, where Pekah, King of Israel, slew of Judah in one day 120,000 'sons of valour,' and carried away captive 200,000 women, sons, and daughters,' or in 2 Ch. xiii. 3 where Abijah's force consisted of 400,000, and Jeroboam's of 800,000; and Judah slew Israel v. 17, 'with a great slaughter : so there fell down slain of Israel 500,000 chosen men !!!'—it being remembered that, at the battle of Waterloo, there were killed of the allies, 'British, Germans, Hanoverians, Brunswickers, men of Nassau, Belgians, and Prussians,' altogether only 4172 men." (Alison's History of Europe xix. p. 372 )

"But as regards the Pentateuch, not only is the number 600,000 on foot, besides women and children." given distinctly in E. xii. 37, at the time of their leaving Egypt, but we have it recorded again, thrice over, in different forms, in B. xxxviii., 25—28, at the 'beginning of the forty years' wanderings, when the number of all that 'went to be numbered from twenty years old and upward,' is reckoned at 603,550 ; and this is repeated again in N. 1., 46 ; and it is modified once more, at the end of the wanderings, to 601,730, N., xxvi., 51. Besides which, on each occasion of numbering, each separate tribe is numbered, and the sum of the separate results makes up the whole.

"Thus this number is woven, as a kind of thread, into the whole story of the Exodus, and cannot be taken out without tearing the whole fabric to pieces. It affects, directly, the account of the construction of the tabernacle, E. xxxviii, 25—28, and, therefore, also the reality of the institutions, whether of the priesthood or of sacrifice, connected with it. And the multiplied impossibilities introduced by this number alone, independent of all other considerations, are enough to throw discredit upon the historical character of the whole narrative."

And as he has by these reasonings absolutely convinced himself of the uninspired character of the Pentateuch, he now can write—

" But how thankful we must be that we are no longer obliged to believe, as a matter of fact of vital consequence to our eternal hope, the story related in N. xxxi., where we are told that a force of 12,000 Israelites slew all the males of the Midianites, took captive all the females and children, seized all their "cattle and flocks (72,000 oxen, 61,000 asses, 675,000 sheep,) and all their goods, and burnt all their goods, and burnt all their cities, and all their goodly castles, without the loss of a single man ; and then, by command of Moses, butchered in cold blood all the women and children 'except all the women-children, who have not known a man by lying with him.' These last the Israelites were to keep for themselves.' They amounted, we are told, to 32,000, v. 35, mostly, we must suppose under the age of sixteen or eighteen. We may fairly reckon that there were as many more under the age of forty, and half as many more above, forty, making altogether 80,000 females, of whom, according to the story, Moses ordered 48,000 to be killed, besides (say) 20,000 young boys. The tragedy of Cawnpore, where 3001 were butchered, would sink into nothing compared with such a massacre, if, indeed, we were required to believe it. And these 49,000 females must have represented 48,000 men, all of whom, in that case, we must also believe to have been killed, their property pillaged, their castles demolished, and towns destroyed, by 12,000 Israelites, who in addition, must have carried off 100,000-captives (more than eight persons to each man), and driven before them 808,000 head of cattle (more than sixty-seven for each man), and all without the loss of a single man! How is it possible to quote the Bible as in any way condemning slavery, when we read here (v. 40) of Jehovah's tribute of slaves, thirty-two persons?"

The work closes with reflections that express again the spirit in which it has been undertaken. There is a wide and general change imminent, says Dr. Colenso, in our manner of applying criticism to the letter of scripture.

"In view of this change, which, I believe, is near at hand, and in order to avert the shock which our children's faith must otherwise experience when they find, as they certainly will before long, that the Bible can no longer be regarded as infallibly true in matters of common history, an we value their reverence and love for the sacred book, let us teach them at once to know that they are not to look for the inspiration of the Holy One, which breathes through its pages in respect of any such matters as these, which the writers wrote as men, with the same liability to error from any cause as other men, and where they must be judged as men, as all other writers would be, by the just laws of criticism. . . . .

* The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined. By the Right Rev. John William Colenso, D.D., Bisbop of Natal. Longman and Co.

 Empire 10 February 1863,