Show THE genuineness GENUINE NES OF THE pentateuch AMONG the heresies her esies of which dr briggs is accused and for which he to now being tried by his church superiors to IB mentioned that he be denies the genuineness of the live five books of M moses oses the charge led or dr birch to make the remark that if moses did not write the pentateuch christ himself is dishonest I 1 the doctor hu has not yet replied to the charge perhaps when he has had a chance to state his views in his own language it will be won seen that the other side has ban misunderstood him the question is one of great import anoe ancs it if the books of moses closes are not genuine the whole bible must be rejected SO as a pious fraud for the pentateuch is in one of the great corner stones of christian as well as jewish theology with it the whole structure in must stand or fall the book is quoted as the work of moses by joshus joshua by theau the authors thore of the books of the kings king and chronicles and by other sacred writers and our lord him self and the apostles frequently refer to was it as genuine so bo numerous are the quotations and references to this volume that it could almost be rewritten from these tied had it perished it is therefore plain enough that it if the pentateuch to is not genuine an all the sacred writers who accept it as such are mistaken their writings are not reliable and revealed religion would properly be b in danger of being placed in the category of exploded th erlos the iries A question of such great importance dever deserved vea attention it Is known that although the he firm doubts expressed on the subject were published in the thirteenth century after aft or christ yet they received hardly any attention till in the sixteenth century when thomas hobbes essayed his bis criticism but the book had then existed and been accepted as genuine for over three thousand year and it was rather late to adduce so eo called proofs to the contrary the fact is that josephus in the first century of our era cont that the book is genuine and appealed to public records then extant MB s corroborating the fact porphyry an n infidel of the third century admits the same thing and julian the apostate was willing to admit that inspired men among whom he counted muses moses lived among the jews jew in their early existence mohammed also accepted the jewish law as divine and moses as the inspire J author of the pentateuch against the overwhelming testimony of ancient history and tradition it would seem to be unreasonable in the highest degree to doubt and deny the evidence furnished by chebook the book itself as to the authorship may be summarized briefly as follows the language used and the sentiments ex pressed prove that the author must have ave been a hebrew possessing the highest education no unlearned israelite elite and no foreigner could have composed the remarkable volume it must also have been written by a hebrew well acquainted with the geobra of egypt and arabia for all the descriptions given are minutely accurate rind and prove it is in no work of fiction the learning of egypt however was carefully guarded by the priests and none but priests and royal persons who were considered sacred acred had access to it the author must therefore have belonged to this privileged class the correspondence in style between the history and the legal enactments of the book is so similar that both must have had the same author if moses was the law giver he was also the historian no other conclusion to is reasonable or even conceivable further the style of the five books bears unmistakable evidence that the author must have composed his writings under such circumstances as moses really elpe loncek the first book is remarkable for brevity and simplicity of style being an introduction to the following and probably compiled ailed from various existing documents in the following three books treating on the remarkable hist blot ry of israel from the exodus the style la is abrupt broken and full of repetitions tit ti ions tion suggesting that the author wrote as time and circumstances would permit during the wanderings in the he wilderness the last book is cintins ous and didactic often reviewing and further explaining what had previously ly been bastil hastily y noted down all these points ought to be conclusive proof that no other than the great lawgiver law giver himself wrote the books that bear his hia name with the exception of a very small mall part relating to 60 his death which of course was added afterwards and most likely by joshua his great successor those who maintain that the books of moses are not his work but a forgery must necessarily show at least approximately when this stupendous supposed literary fraud was committed if they cannot do thle this all their arga mento are entirely vain judaism IB till still extant and is admittedly founded on these very books can that system be founded on a forgery if so BO when not in the christian era for judaism according to history precedes chris tl aulty not before our era for a forgery of that nature would easily have been detected one class of evidence is particularly instructive in the pentateuch we are told of many customs of the ancient egyptians using bricks as building materials is mentioned as are also the habits of keeping donkeys donke yc employing eunuchs and drinking wine at one time skeptics used to say that all those these customs are asiatic and not egyptian and that the mention of them proves that the author was unacquainted with life in ancient egypt the fact that it la Is stated that joseph shaved himself before he entered the presence of pharaoh was pointed out as an a glaring error since it was waa contended the egyptians did not shave beology has however come to the rescue and conclusively proved the correctness of moses in every particular excavations in egypt have brought to light many monuments with pictures to and engravings which show that brick making was a known art that wine was made in ancient times although herodotus says it was not as aa far as he know knew and that all egyptians Egyptian eg except slaves and great kings used to shave their boards beards off unlike the As syrians since these ri remarkable dieco discoveries co were made skeptics have been more careful in their denials of the thel truth of sacred history for it has become clear enough that science la is no assistant to skepticism it may be observed that this kind of objection to the pentateuch has been applied with apparent force to the book of mormon skeptics say that some rome of the implements and metals and animals mentioned in that sacred record never existed in ancient america the argument will of course have force with those who perchance suppose that scientists know everything there to is to know about ancient america ica but who can really entertain so absurd an tiles idea where archaeology does not happen to corroborate the book of mormon it is safer to suppose that th t science has yet some discoveries co veries to make on our continent As far as aa general scientific evidences go they all corroborate the book of mormon and when so much time and diligent research have been spent on this continent as have already been applied to the antiquities of egypt and the orient the results will undoubtedly be found to be similar to doubt therefore the iness or authenticity of either of the sacred records is to risk ones reputation not only as a believer tn in the divine truth but also as a true scholar skepticism in this cabe seems to be both heresy and fanaticism |