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PART II.

THE AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE

PENTATEUCH CONSIDERED

M.

CHAPTER I.

SIGNS OF DIFFERENT AUTHORS IN THE PENTATEUCH.

190. In the First Part of this work we have been considering some of the most remarkable inconsistencies and contradictory statements, which a closer examination of the Pentateuch, as it now lies before us, reveals to the attentive reader. Most of these are of an arithmetical character, and some of them might be greatly diminished, or, perhaps, got rid of altogether, if it were possible to suppose that the number of warriors in the wilderness. was only 6,000, instead of 600,000. But the story itself forbids such a supposition. The numbers of the armed men of the separate tribes are given on two different occasions, and the sum-total of these twelve tribe-numbers is, in the one case, 603,550, N.i.46, and in the other, 601,730, N.xxvi.51; and, on the first occasion, the separate tribe-numbers and the sumtotal are again, a second time, accurately repeated in N.ii,nay, repeated carefully twice over, for the three tribes constituting each of the four camps are numbered and summed up together separately, and then these four sum-totals or campnumbers, 186,400, 151,450, 108,100, 157,600, are added together, and make up the same total as before, 603,550.

191. These numbers, indeed, are all round numbers, each ending with a cipher; and it has been suggested that there may be a clerical error, extending through the whole set of them, and that, if these ciphers be struck out, (which is equivalent to dividing all the numbers by ten,) the sum-total will be reduced to a more manageable number. But, in

fact, most of the difficulties will remain really as formidable, with a camp of 60,000 warriors, that is, with a population of 200,000 or 300,000 people, as with the larger camp of 600,000. We should only have to substitute in our imaginations the town of LIVERPOOL or MANCHESTER for the city of LONDON. Could the total number be reduced to about 6,000, some of the difficulties might, indeed, as we have said, disappear, but, even then, not all of them; for we should still have to imagine a town of 20,000 or 30,000 people, as OXFORD or CAMBRIDGE. But the separate numbers of the tribes in N.i,ii,xxvi, forbid this last reduction, as the numbers do not all consist of so many round hundreds.

192. Besides, the number of the Levites is expressly fixed by its relation to the number of firstborns, N.iii.39-51. These latter were 22,273, a number without a cipher, which cannot, therefore, be reduced;' and it is stated that these exceeded the male Levites by 273, v.46, for each one of whom a tax of five shekels was paid, and the whole number of shekels so paid is reckoned, v.50, as 1,365. Hence there can be no room for supposing that the whole number of male Levites was any other than 22,000, N.iii.39, numbered separately as Gershonites, 7,500, v.22, Kohathites, 8,600, v.28, Merarites, 6,200, v.34, (the sum of which three numbers, however, is actually 22,300 instead of 22,000, where we have a remarkable inaccuracy, which has to be reconciled,'); and of these, we are told, 8,580, N.iv.48,-viz. Kohathites, 2,750, v.36, Gershonites, 2,630, v.40, Merarites, 3,200,* v.44,-were from thirty years old and up

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*N.B. The whole number of male Kohathites, as above given, 8,600, is more than one-fourth as large again as that of the Merarites, 6,200; whereas the converse is the case with the adults, since the number of Merarite males from thirty to fifty years old, 3,200, is just one-sixth as large again as that of the Kohathites, 2,750. Besides this palpable inconsistency, the Merarite males from thirty to fifty' are more than half the whole number of males of that family, 'from a month old and upward,' contrary to all the data of modern statistical science. It is obvious that, with all the appearance of extreme accuracy, there is no real historical truth in any of these numbers.

ward, even unto fifty years old,' representing (say) 10,000 above the age of twenty, at which the census of the other tribes was taken, N.i.3. But, if there were 10,000 Levites 'from twenty years old and upward,' it is absurd to imagine that there were only 6,000 warriors of all the twelve tribes, and very unreasonable to suppose that there were only 60,000, even if the difficulties of the story would really be relieved by such a supposition. More hopeless still is the suggestion of LABORDE, of whom Canon STANLEY writes, Lectures on the Jewish Church, p.122

This difficulty, among others, has induced the well-known French commentator on the Exodus, with every desire of maintaining the letter of the narrative, to reduce the numbers of the text from 600,000 to 600 armed men.

193. If, therefore, it were still possible to believe that a whole series of numbers, such as the tribe-numbers and totals, had been systematically corrupted and exaggerated in consequence of clerical errors, yet it would then follow that all the above particulars about the Levites and first-borns must have been a pure invention of a later date, implying that the interpolating inventor had no particular reverence for the original text. And a similar reply must be made to any, who might suggest that there has been here a wholesale fabrication of numbers, such as is common in Oriental histories, which, however, are not in the main untrustworthy. It is true that in the East, and even in southern Italy, numerical exaggeration does take the place of imaginative ornament among the Kelts and Teutons. But then the histories or legends, containing such exaggerations, are not, and in extreme cases, similar to those which occur in the Pentateuch, cannot be conceived to be, contemporary; or, if the exaggerations are later interpolations in the original document, the interpolator did not regard the latter as divine.

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194. Besides which, it must be observed that the fabrication' required to produce the numbers of the Pentateuch, must

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