g “ That the Hebrew Text of the Bible, tried and condemned by the Holy Tribunal, burned
as an act of-faith at Seville, and in the Square of St. Stephen at Salamanca, proscribed
during the sixteenth century, prohibited in the pulpits of Catholic preachers, declared
dangerous, infected with Judaism, and causing those Christians who read it to Judaize
likewise, finds itself—owing to this solemn condemnation froip which it cannot be purged
save through the adoption of a new translation — finds itself, I repeat, does this Text to
have-lost the character and authority that, in the spirit of Christianity, the Fathers [only
wQrigen and Jerome] attributed to it. One may, therefore, after all, study tliis Text in a
new point of view, purely philosophical and philologie; and seek in it a new interpretation
without being scared at the sense which such interpretation may produce. The anathema
with which it has been stricken has abandoned it to criticism and to the investigations of
the world ; tradidit disputatione : its testimony is no longer anything but mere human testimony,
liable to error like all things that proceed from man.” (199)
Conceding his premises, and allowing for his peculiarly catholic point of view, the deduction
is logical ; but they who deny Papal infallibility may continue to reverence the Hebrew
Text just as if excommunication had never been pronounced upon it; notwithstanding the
avowal of those manifold corruptions which, owing to these Inquisitorial holocausts of
ancient,manuscripts, it seems now humanly impossible to expunge. To persecutions and to
the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, after 1491, the extinction of the most preciolls
Hebrew exemplars may be, in part, attributed ; for Muslim intolerance had never knowingly
laid the hand of sacrilege upon documents which Christian charity has. for ever
destroyed. (200) Mohammed had built up his Kur'àn upon the monotheistic foundations
of Mo se s ; (201) and his faithful disciples have been always too consistent, whatever
barbarities, they may have inflicted upon the Jews, to injure that chosen people’s sacred
books, and thereby stultify themselves. With reference to textual corruptions, says Ken-
nicott (202 : —
“ Hæc denique sunt verba eruditissimi Professons J. A. Starck— * cum negari prorsus
nequeat (si quidem luminibus uti, et antiquos libros ab omnibus præjudicatis opinionibus
liberi inter se conferre velimus) multa et ingentia &0atyata inisse sacris libris ; qualia sunt,
gravissimi in chronologicis errores; in historicis manifestes contradictiones ; numerorum
exaggerationes ;‘ literarum, nominarum, sententiarum, omissiones, additiones, transposi-
tiones: quæstio jure orietur — Unde tot tamque graves immutationes originem suam ha-
beant? Et si gravissimis arguments',/quibus solis permota ita sentio, tides habenda est;
prorsus omni caret dubio, Judaeorum imprimis fallaciam et malevolam mentem accusandam
esse, post librariorum inertiam et negligentiam.’ ”
Ho avoid mistakes we have given the Latin text, and now offer its straightforward signification
in English : —
“ Since it cannot altogether be denied (if indeed we free ourselves from all prejudiced
opinions, and wish to compare ancient books with each other and to avail ourselves of
the instructions of the learned,) that many andrenormous acpaXiiara [lapsi, mistakes] exist in
the sacred books; such as, most graye errors in chronological (matters); .manifest contradictions
in historical; exaggerations in numbers; omissions, additions, transpositions of
letters, of names, of sentences:— the question will naturally arise, Whence have such
and so many serious mutations their origin ? And if faith is to be placed in most weighty
arguments, by which alone I am influenced, every doubt is altogether wanting, (that) first
one must accuse the fallacious and malevolent mind of the Jews, (and) afterwards the
inertness and negligence of librarians.”
Such are the published facts. Yet one marvels at the ways of theology; on seeing the
Rev. Prof. Stuart skip nimbly over that “ immense desert” with his “ gun, man, and dog,”
(Arma virumque cano,) and the dégagé air of a juvenile Nimrod, without finding “ game
enough to be worth the hunting;” and then asserting with equal frivolity,, that the Jewish
“ Bible has remained inviolate ” / How can the unlettered distinguish truth from error,
when their Teachers mystify the plainest results that scholarship the most exalted, honesty
the most unbending, and science the most profound, have striven to make public to
all men for the last hundred years ?
¡È ' : ~ «----------------------!—=---------------- '
(199) L acour : Op. cit. ; i. p. -33.
(200) Sismo n d i, not now before me, gives many other examples of literary destructions in Italy, Portugal»
and Spain.
(201) Compare L a n e : Selections; pp. 183-225,-270, 271.
(202) Op. cit.; p. 33; note to $76.
Nevertheless, a time has come in which opinions,'that ignorance had laid down as fundamental
principies, begin to Compromise those institutional structures beneath, which they
were placed. Enlightened manhood, in a free Republic is fast approaching the hour when
such opinions will be openly recognized as nothing more than opinions of ignorance. To
attempt to impede reform, when it is necessary, is to jeopard the whole system. To
refuse to repair foundations whose vetustity perils an edifice, is to desire that the downfall
of such edifice shall prove that its foundations are rotten. “ Creeds,” says Sharpe, speaking
of the decrees of the oecumenic Councils, “ composed in the dark have now to be defended
in the light, and those who profess them have the painful task of employing learning
to justify ignorance.” (203)
A point has been now attained in this exposition, when a brief recapitulation of the halts
made during our journey will enable us to dismiss king James’s version from further consideration.
We opine that the foregoing pages have established, upon archaeological principles
and adequately for the demands of positive philosophy, — ; -
1st — by authority of the highest Biblical critics;
I 2d —by exegetical exposure of some of its false-translations;
3d — by historical testimony, that all versions in. English, (being mere popular accommodations
of defective editions printed in the “ Original Sacred tongues,”) have only perpetuated
or increased whatever errors their antecedent editions contain ;
4t(i — that because the Latin Vulgate', printed or manuscript, abounds in mistakes •
5th— that because the Greek Septuagint, if ever a faithful representative , of the Hebrew
original, is so no longer, in any printed editions or manuscript copies now known; and
that tradition, well authenticated, proves its vitiated state as. far back as the first century
of the Christian era;
bib. that because the only men, Protestant, Catholic, or Rabbinical, whose decisions
(owing to their respectively minute collation of every printed edition or manuscript
exemplar of the Hebrew Text) can be weighty in the premises, have pronounced the
whole of them to be radically, enormously, and irretrievably corrupt;__
in view of all of the above facts, we have a right to conclude that, our English “ authorized
Translation," made 250 years ago-under circumstances naturally adverse upon documents
so faulty, can claim, in science, no higher respect than we should accord to a poor translation
of mutilated copies of Homer; and finally, that those individuals who are most clamorous,
in its praises only bear witness that they possess the least acquaintance with its
origin and history, however familiar they may be with its contents.
But, universal orthodoxy, regardless of the collective researches of three centuries,
insists upon our credence that Moses wrote the Pentateuch; and still stigmatizes those who
respectfully solicit some evidences of this alleged authorship (a little more conclusive than
ecclesiastical tradition) with terms intended to be opprobrious; of which, perhaps, the most
courteous form in vogue nowadays is “ skeptic.” (204) If by this harmless vocablemothing
more is -implied than that a “ skeptic ” has, by laborious study, attained to the positive
stage of philosophy, while “ orthodoxy” vegetates in a sub-metaphysical stratum, it should
be cheerfully endured; if not with Christian fortitude, at least with gentlemanly equa-
nimity.
The real question, however, posited in logical shape, is this: —
The Hebrew Moses wrote the Hebrew Pentateuch. Did the Hebrew Moses write the Hebrew
Pentateuch ? I f the Hebrew Moses wrote the Hebrew Pentateuch, where-is the Hebrew Penta-
teueh the Hebrew Moses virote ?
For ourselves, we do not perceive what essential difference it would make, in positive
philosophy, supposing even that he did: but, inasmuch as we have embarked in an inquiry
(203) History of Egypt; p. 490.
(204) The Rev. Dr. Smitoe of Charleston, S. O.: U>nty of the Human Haces; Index, n. 401
79 .