ARTICLE VII.

SAWYER'S RECONSTRUCTION OF BIBLICAL SCIENCE.

Reconstruction of Biblical Theories; or Biblical Science Improved in its History, Chronology, and Interpretation, and relieved from Traditionary Errors and Unwarrantable Hypotheses. By LEICESTER AMBROSE SAWYER, Translator of the ScripBoston: Walker, Wise & Co. pp. 195. 12mo.

tures. 1862.

It pains us to see men make themselves famous by lifting up axes on the thick trees of God, and breaking down the carved work of the sanctuary. Doubtless we have among us Samsons in sacred erudition, but could they not show their strength in carrying away gates and removing pillars where only Philistines would suffer? Could there not be some gymnasium arranged and controlled by the republic of letters where intellectual athletes could enjoy practice and expend surplus force, without injury to any accredited and honored interest of the republic? We know that learning must have its play-ground. There must be a place for target-practice, and a field for knight-errantry, and a campus where it may mark off its diagrams and set up its hypotheses. We are only wishing that it would not seize on sacred inclosures for these exercises. Can we not have a substitute on which learned criticism may expend itself without injury to our most sacred interests? Could not the Vedas or the Iliad serve the purposes of this profound scholarship as well as the sacred oracles? The Sagas would furnish good material for those who love to revel in myths and allegories. Even a revival of the controversies about Ossian might give a wise employment to some of these literary polemarchs, and so create a diversion quite relieving to Moses, the prophets, evangelists, and apostles, leaving them free for their legitimate work.

We have no fears for the truth, nor would we, in mistaken tenderness, hold it back from manly and invigorating struggles, though it be but a repetition of victory on its old battle-field.

Probably each generation must see revealed truth hang up her fresh trophies on the old walls. Yet it would be well for the public crier to proclaim at each contest that this same battle has been fought over and over again, and that now the public are invited to its vigintal or semi-centennial repetition.

Mr. Sawyer, the writer of the work before us, is known as engaged in a new translation of the Scriptures. Of his theological and ecclesiastical antecedents we are ignorant. This volume, however, will serve for a definition and location of the author. It is characterized by great frankness of expression, and, we should add, boldness, did not the author so frequently allude to the need of it. He shows throughout the volume a consciousness and a wholesome uneasiness that he is departing from the old waymarks of the Christian church. To one familiar with the history of doctrines, the views here given will show no novelty. It would be easy to cite authorities for the most, if not all of them. But the names cited would not carry much weight in the American church. We suspect their omission was no oversight. German neology, English and French deism, and the latest popular reprint of the same in this country, Parkerism, have dealt very freely with the sacred canon and hermeneutics, and may be quoted as scholarly authority for the most extravagant opinions. It is a matter of policy whether an innovating author should affiliate himself with such. The book tempts strongly to references, and is singularly destitute of them. The works of Strauss, Norton, and Parker could have furnished them abundantly. As the author's translation of the Scriptures is being offered to the public in instalments, we are glad that he has turned aside for a little to give in his views on the canon, and on the principles that should hold in its interpretation.

In preparing the way for the "Reconstruction of Biblical Theories," it is a prominent labor with Mr. Sawyer to show, that the use of letters was unknown among the Hebrews till the times of Samuel and David. Then, of course, Moses did not write the Pentateuch, and, of course, he who did write it used traditions, myths, and any other drift-wood on the stream of time. Then we may treat the earlier portions of the Bible, including the Pentateuch and some other books, as we do the

earliest records of Greece, Rome, or any other nation. Our author thus states the case:

"It appears quite evident that letters were first introduced among the Hebrews in the times of David and Samuel;" p. 7. "The covenants of God with Noah and Abraham were not written documents, nor does any written document appear in their times. Noah was not a man of letters, neither was Abraham." "Joseph sent no letters to his father from Egypt;" p. 180. "The ascription of the Pentateuch to Moses is a Jewish fiction, analogous to that of attributing to him the unwritten traditions recorded in the Talmud, and there is as good reason to believe that he is the author of the latter as of the former. ... I infer that on their return to Canaan the Hebrews adopted purposely the language of Canaan, and that when letters were invented by the Tyrians, . . . the Hebrews, being in friendly relations with them, immediately adopted this improvement, and set themselves about committing their oral traditions, those of history, allegory, and poetry, to writing. This would, of course, be done imperfectly at first, and subsequently improved, and centuries be required for the perfection of the new medium to such a degree as to have any chance of being handed down to all coming ages. . . . No indications of letters appear in the Book of Judges. . . . From this time [the entrance into Canaan, 1451] to the establishment of the monarchy under Saul, 1095, according to the common computation, is three hundred and fifty-six years, during which there is not a reliable trace of a letter."

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pp. 8-10.

But writing is referred to in the Pentateuch and in Joshua, and Mr. Sawyer must account for the allusions. This he does in an easy way. As to the writing of the Law, "the literal writing by the finger of God must be rejected; and that being rejected, the other part of the description becomes uncertain." "The writing of the Ten Commandments on the tablets of stone is fictitious." In short, all allusions to writing in the Pentateuch are simply fictions of the allegorists or recorders. "The account of Joshua's writing is fictitious, and furnishes no evidence of the existence of letters," in the case where we are told that he made a covenant with the people and "wrote these words in the book of the law of God;" Joshua xxiv. 26. "The crossing of Jordan was commemorated by a stone heap. The altar of witness, erected by the sons of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh was a commemorative monument that could not have

been necessary if letters had existed in those times; p. 9. That is, the erection of Bunker Hill Monument is proof that letters were not in use in New England at that time, and the oration of Webster, said to have been pronounced at the laying of its corner-stone, was the composition of some allegorist in a later age.

In all this ignoring of great facts in profane history, and in the blunt denial, or special pleading against those in sacred history, we see in our author the victim of a theory and a purpose. He uses vast assumption and but little proof. Three great facts stand in his way, yet he hardly recognizes them. • (1.) The books within themselves give evidence that letters were in use in the times of Moses. He wrote all the words of the law," and he wrote "in a book" the overthrow of Amalek. He "wrote the goings out of the people of Israel according to their journeys." He "took the book of the covenant, and read it in the audience of the people." He commanded the Levites to "take that book of the law and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord." The charge of allegory and fiction by recorders of later ages will not avail against such primâ facie evidence of the use of letters in those times. (2.) Unanimous tradition, and the biblical worthies of twenty-five centuries, have assigned to Moses the authorship of the Pentateuch, and it is neither scholarly nor conclusive to meet it all with a simple denial. It is true De Wette and Gesenius maintained, at one time, that the Hebrews knew nothing of letters before the times of the Judges, but they afterwards found reason for changing their opinion, and did change it. (3.) Ancient history and monuments attest the existence of writings in the times and country of Moses. Modern discoveries show that hieroglyphical writing on stone was known in Egypt as early as the fourth dynasty, that is B. c. 2450.

"The period when hieroglyphics, the oldest Egyptian characters, were first used, is uncertain. They are found in the great pyramid, of the time of the fourth dynasty, and had evidently been invented long before, having already assumed a cursive form. . . . Hieroglyphics and the use of the papyrus, with the usual reed pen, are shown to have been common when the pyramids were built; and their style in the sculptures proves that they were then a very old invention." Rawlinson's Herodotus, London edition, 1858, Vol. II. p. 311.

This was a thousand years before the death of Moses, and writing on Babylonian bricks was common eight hundred years before Moses died.

“Among the earliest, if not actually the earliest of the royal line of Chaldæa, are two kings, father and son, whose names are doubtfully read as Urukh and Ilgi. The former would seem to have been the founder of several of the great Chaldæan capitals; for the basement platforms of all the most ancient buildings at Mugheir, at Warka, at Senkereh and at Niffer, are composed of bricks stamped with his name, while the upper stories, built or repaired in later times, exhibit for the most part legends of other monarchs.”. Id. Vol. I. pp. 435, 440.

But Urukh and Ilgi reigned about B. c. 2200.

And writing in both the hieroglyphic and sacred characters was common in Egypt in the days of Moses. For the Madame d' Orbiney papyrus, recently purchased by the British Museum, contains a romance of the Nineteenth Dynasty, about B. C. 1300. The Museum has also a collection of thirteen papyri comprising the following matter:

"A portion of an historical poem of which the subject is an exploit of Ramases Second; a small fragment of history relating to the Hyksos period; several collections of the miscellaneous correspondence of the Pharaonic scribes; a kind of biographical memoir of a scribe; the advice of King Amenem-ha to his son; the precepts of a certain high functionary addressed to his son; a hymn to the Nile; and a calendar of lucky and unlucky days and festivals throughout the year. The whole of these compositions belong to the Nineteenth Dynasty," B. c. 1300.- Cambridge Essays, 1858, pp. 229-30.

Here we find a familiar use of writing in Egypt on various topics only about a century and a half after the death of Moses. From the use of the sacred characters in writing many centuries before, we may fairly presume that in the times of Moses, letters were common in Egypt. And as Stephen informs us that "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," we may safely conclude that he was able to write, and did write as much as the Pentateuch ascribes to him. So the statement will seem strong and conclusive when we consider who makes it, that "there is every reason to suppose that writing was familiar to the Jews when they quitted Egypt." - Rawlinson's Bampton Lectures, American edition, p. 53.