sitions of words, additions in some copies of the scriptures, omissions in others, are, indeed, matters so managed by the artful, who desire to perplex and deceive, as to raise terrible appearances or apprehensions in the minds of the well-meaning, but unwary and unlearned. And I know of no writer, who has aimed at this point more unfairly than the late Lord Bolingbroke; who roundly tells us, that "the scriptures are come down to us broken and confused, full of additions, interpolations, and transpositions, made, we neither know when nor by whom; and such, in short, as never appeared on the face of any other book on whose authority. men have agreed to rely." In another place, he says the scriptures are extracts of histories, not histories; extracts of gene alogies, not genealogies;"" and, in a third place, that "it would not be hard to shew, upon great inducements of probability, that the law and the history were far from being • Of the Study of History, letter iii. p. 95, 96. ▸ Id. p. 102. blended together, as they now stand in the Pentateuch, even from the time of Moses down to that of Esdras." It would not be decent in me to say how palpably untrue all these assertions are. The two last I considered very largely, some time ago; and, I hope, with the utmost freedom and impartiality.' And that the sacred books are far from having had a worse preservation than other ancient writings, has been unanswerably shewn by a more able hand, as far as concerns the New Testament; and should Dr. Kennicott proceed as he began, and collate the manuscript and printed copies of the Old Testament, we should see the event come out in the one case, as it is known to have done in the other.* Dr. Bentley would have told Lord Bolingbroke, upon what he of says Of the Study of History, letter iii. p. 100. * Dr. Kennicot has completed his task; and a learned foreigner, De Rossi, has greatly extended the enquiry ; and the result is as creditable to the cause of divine revelation, as Dr. Shuckford had conjectured. See Dr. additions, omissions, interpolations, variations, &c. in the scriptures, "that it filled him with disdain to see such common stuff brought in with an air of importance." All his lordship offers has been before offered even by the lowest creatures of the unbelieving tribe; even the assertion upon which his lordship seems to plume himself, that "the scriptures would have been preserved entirely in their genuine purity, had they been entirely dictated by the Holy Ghost," and they have been answered over and over." These are the kings, that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel." It is commonly observed concerning this paragraph, that it could not be written until after there had been a king in Israel; i. e. until after the Kennicott's Hebrew bible, 2 vols. fol. Oxon. 17-and the varia lectiones Vet. Testamenti, by J. B. De Rossi, 4 vols. 4to, Parma, 1784-88. EDIT. Lord Bolingbroke's letter, iii. p. 95. See Phil. Lipsien, W w Gen. xxxvi. 31. times of Saul, and consequently that it was not written by Moses. Now suppose that we can in no wise find out by whom it was written; admit that some private owner of a manuscript Pentateuch wrote it in the margin of his manuscript, as a remark of his own; that a copier of such manuscript carelessly wrote it into the text of his transcript; is there any thing material in this interpolation? must not the learned see that the scripture is perfect without it? and can the unlearned see any detriment in having the observation? Of this sort are the interpolations so formidably talked of. They are very few in number, though said, at random, to be so many. And whatever apprehensions may be raised in the minds of the unlearned about them; nothing is more easy to be shewn, than that no point of our religion is materially affected by them at all. "But there are omissions in some texts of scripture." They who say this should produce their instances, deal openly and fairly with the world; let us see of what nature their objection is, that we may not be amused and alarmed, where there is no reason. I will therefore give an instance or two, that even the unlearned reader may judge of this particular. In the xiith chapter of Exodus, ver. 40, we read, Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, (I would rather translate the Hebrew words, which they sojourned) in the land of Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. It is plain, that the Israelites were not four hundred and thirty years in Egypt; for they came into Egypt A. M. 2298,' and their exit was A. M. 2513; so that their sojourning in Egypt was but two hundred and fifteen years. But the Septu agint give us this text as follows: Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, which they sojourned in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, was four hundred and thirty years: the words here added are, and Y See Connect. vol. ii. b. vii. 12 Book ix. * Η δε κατοίκησις τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ, ἣν κατωκησαν ̓Αιγύπλῳ καὶ ἐν γῇ Καναὰν ἔτη τεσσαρακόσια τριάκοντα. Vers. Septuagint. |