The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1874-04-07 00:00:00

Corrtsponlunte.

DEAN OF CANTERBURY'S PAPERS IN TUB
Tat
" BIBUCAL EDI:CATCH."
To the Rditor of the Record.
eir,—l tntly aluitik from this continuance of the exposure of
• en the paters of the •• Biblical &locator" on Gcnesis and
hot, increasing sense of the evil of ruch modifica-
tion• a the Serilaure narratives of Divine Interferences compels
rue to offer to your mailers the following remarks on two of the
sublecta mentionod in the posteript to my letter which
apf...nd in your impression Of the 9th
In hi' second paper on Genie/. (loge 10) the Dean of Canter-
bury wntes as follows napecting the inspired Is/wrathy of the
confoteion of tongues
"It [the sth secUem lends with the confusion .4 tongues by •
tea it God, which still 10•140 Kotal. 'The use of a °worn
mo
Inble, the study of great clusital writers like bhakespeare,
thme and the like things keep our language now free from
great changes. Iternove these Itifluettee., and prevent people
Irons travelling, and in ton years every village would have •
patois, and lit fifty year. a distinct language of ita own."
The method of induetion by which the existence of such "•
law .4 God " as this has be'. dctenoined, id not, I think, to be
readily divined. But etall lallititting, tile 101.011114 of
111111 k-feat number of instances of its operation, that it really
has existed and that It still holds gond, yet if the Scripture
narrative of the confusion of tongoce be true, it could on that
occasion have had to. I.laee "holder For neither previous to
the building .4 least could the people bat,' tonne.] a diveraity
of lammaJes, throwch being " st-attered into villages and pre-
vented from tn. elliog," sillee ,l.,tim to that time they were
oall of one language and of tote speech." Nor could that
divemity tml ll...eve:es hese been the nrsult .4 the dispersion of
the people. I'm It is distilietly asscrbal to have been the sande of it. o The Loni said, t to, let us go down and there e on.
b.utal their language that they may not understand one
another's lliteeell tO, Clio lintacatteretl them abroad from
thence upon the face .4 ell the earth; and they lA* off to build
the city."
Could any statement of a direct and immoliate Interference
with the ordinary omnic of things lee litre distinct ? Its exact
parallel in this respect is to be found 1,. the emitter miracle--
the gift .4 tongues oil llt,, tI ty Puittt r.st. IS it hot rat!,
then, that the effect of such atatement of miracle the 11111,11
should Ire neutralised by the continent in questioo? It would,
at keg, have affonled much greater aid to the Bible student II
hi." &locator" had lest him to "term,'that In Chap. x., in
that trustworthy document relating to the peopling .4
of the earth," the sacred writer hail three times spoken of the
descendantof tooth "niter their knob., the futyptes, their
oruntries, ad their Nothing had been said
previous!). t . this, of inore than one nor no., thy,
one family and piefill,. ; anal ito rtatattll is gisen in either of the
three versos for this remarkable choose. Mares therefore,
was Instructed in Ch. xi. I to exigent this change from
that whit* appLars rather to have been " theta", of Gel" from
the first—clit, that all mattklnd should he ttlie lipeech.
(This Is tinUccal ley Bishop Wordswonh, but unnotice‘i by the
writer in the "Neater'. (ommentary." The Ilebres idiom in
the opening of the chapter, which I hope, some day will receive
full notice, obtain.... it.) let • Stoat:lit be 10.1 thlls b. look
upon Ch. G. s, and he will read with for ouster attention,
" that to at precious relic ed amient ethnography "111 Ch. 0.,
and derise from it glimpses ..1 the mode t 4 livieg, both after
and before the thsei, nal of the origin .4 the great wordly
a)'stens that m 9 .o-. the cense alai kluge' 1111 l of God ; bath
'Chiapas. as without a lino reliance on inspired teaching, be
will lieVer
But I per MI to the Dean of Canterbury's clew of the
deesent of Jacob and his family into Egypt. Mows by the
direction 44 God made • law that every Israelite, 24 year by
per he pre•eithal before Jehovah the Ilmfruits of his harstet,
should utter these wools; -"A SyrLan ready t perish te.ol
father; and he went down into Egypt and tiojourned there
with a few, and became there a nation gnat, mighty, and
p.puinus." (I Met 05*1, b.) And again Mose, writes (poet.
x. ) "Your fathers went down Into Egypt threescore and
ten persons, and now the Lord thy God bath made thee as the
stars of heaven in multitude."
The counter statements to this In the " Bible &locator " are
as 1011. Ma —"Those": (seventy, including
were the chiefs only ; " men, some of whom "had something
both of the nurtial spirit and al.. I the power ofAholorlaon...e.
conqueror, Abraham." To these seventy souls we must add
"several Mandrel retainers " -"armed retainers" This large
lardy, with this martial spirit, were, because of this, placed
"Just where they would have b. bear the brunt .4 . very
San" (01 EDO I "Joseph would not hate placed them in so
egposs4 • fa,ition had they been only a feeble Ilk."
Could two views of the saute ColIl),”V and the am'

lion be more unlike? I-Sn both be true? Yet 1.1 11 be noticed
that this addition of hundred. to those who went down Into
Egyl4 has by professed believers in the Insisiration ...Scripture
losin much ommusonled. In the Speakers °momentary, for
instance ((Jen. air. and Rand 1.,) It is sanctii,noil ea" prob-
able," Justly Inferred, and as •• • point of importutee in its
bearings on the buttery of the Exodus." On what then does
the Dean ad l.Sitterbury rest such a view of this subject?
First, he rests it on the aseertiort for which, however, %lore le
no Scripture ground! !! that kiati and Jacob divided their
father's wealth betwoen them;" !min which It is inferred nat.
as Eeau, by the time of the Eatable, had grown into a great
kingdom, is Jacob by that time had great power.
Secondly, it rule on an usened fact. of which also there is
no proof; namely, that in the slaughter of all the rubs at
!thee:bent Dirlinon and Levi were "accompanied, of Collins, by
their armed retainer.;" In support of which assertion, more-
over, the Scripture expreesion "and all their little Wing and
their wives toot they captive" is enlarged into "their little
ones, that Is, their householda. of male and female servant,,
their children and their wives." By this" the power of Jao,t•
La said to be •• pot in a very vivi.l light" All this, however, is
I', prepare the way for the third ground on which this
visionary fabric reste, via, the cool usertion that the several
hundred retainers "are, In fact, mentionol in the descent into
Egy le:" for "Their little ones (in Ilebrew flippant) were
their howaltolils, consisting, IlUr of cltlldren merely, but of all
who were in a state of dependency upon the chiefs" (Gen.
all )
Now, as to till, main import .4 this fanciful view of the
dewynt into Kgypt, I wieert, without the slightest fear of edn•
tradiction, that emit a intanittg as that, which the Doan here
wagtail toUlu wan eapprta, Vattern fairly I,e given to it ila soy
Wan t,f the 42 instanevs of its occurrent', in the Old
Testament Scriptures. lint let lihn only substitute that him
Sandal a topes,. it the ra.ry postage quoted by him in proof
of the mention of booed huhdr,l artilia retainer. In the
ilisieinit Into Egypt, and he himself lowa open his eyes to the
rashiltan 04 such aanaratults. Ala Int suns of Jacob carried
Jacob their father and 'al:tura% Ituntire.l retainers-- trot their
children merely, but all MI. nag it, a state of dependence on
the chiefs,' In the waggons which l'haraub had sent to catty
This is enough; but Initial all the eingular suppirt afforded
I', the foregoing retstarks on lite word Neva, in a paler by
Dr. GintiltUrg (" p 44) "The (singular
ni fammoloi,) or little trotter, as the !tilde .1..-ermates the
weaned child, Is Int.latiuta,l Ito lead than forty Is •I, 4 ail the
Scriptures, chiefly in the Pentateuch, and is OMte.i reinkred
in the Authorised Verslooll by' little ione,• or • little eh ddren.'
Front tile fact that they held to and trotted after their mothers
i. walking, they aft Idle,' clouded together with the ttttt en,
Is that 'the little ones- and lite wan,sir is a wristival
AA Ih. if 'tends fr-0,, rev Cu feriae years, th,, arr.
comiden.si 1.1.1 enough to have focused curtain 'taints, All I lobs/
able t. • attelst instruction!"
In a work w ith the petered title " Bible Educator," siwit
sintrailictory 01.46.131,ns inertly. frali t tatlitrilatt.o • • •tt.la
na to he found. Rash Interpretations of the inspired te et,
and fanciful views Id the subjectlitatte r, should be carefully
shunned. I will venture In repeat that at'llich I hate prilitcal
al the claw .4 my tract, " Israel in Key 14." the
of which is Just out [published by W. Slacititonli, 42, Pater.
Fenner-Ford via, the espredtioli of a hopi: that the day Is at
hand when by large 1011tihrra of the leanied into in our
Universities —aye, atta It) lart'U 1111 l a prof...toed pie miters
of the Gospel —the Scriptures boils of tho old Testament ml of
the New will be carefully stu lied as the Word of i:0,1 should
be; when they shall lie diligently acarehoil loon end to c. 0.!,
and at, by the appointwi Manna of corm...ring Scripture with
tictipttre, Die truth he not barely conj.:l:tuts-NI, but found and
believed.

transac:

I am Slr, yours faithfully,
_ _ Itssir
.