The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1874-03-03 00:00:00

TUE DEAN Of CANTERBURY ON TUB BOON OF
EXODUS.
To the Etlitcr of the &cont.

81r,-1 beg to thank you for the just remarks In your
hopreasion of tka. 2115 an certain paper. In the first six
numbers of IS., Bible !absentee. That work S. its design and
In much of Be execution is miculated to be very popular. In
proporthai to its popularity, however, will be the extent of the
evil which must be the result of many of it, pitpers being either
carelessly written or unsound. Your remarks, to which I
refer, spleer to line calculated to awaken your residers to the
apparent danger In this direction. But for any effectual chock
of the rising evil, they Are not sulticiontly large and yet 'Ar-
ticular. By something of this kind I had hoped they would,
ere now, have been followed. Since this hao not been the
ease, I venture as an elder In the Church but in all humility to
offer to your reader, the following observations on the Doan
of Canterbury's paper on Esalua (No II.). There are nations
which I non nut give for AlArll I take up., owed: to speak
of this rather thins of Dr. Farrar', objectionable papers OA
Impiration.
The object of both publisher and editor of such a work must,
surely be to lead Ilirestlans in • direction, in which there is the
WAWA trout of the most careful gunhonsi, even in that of an
Intelligent, a reverent, NMI a careful study of the Word of God;
ever keeping this in view, "that they may understand the
bar of the Lord and find the know ludo. ul God" (Prue. To
this every contributor should direct his most earnest efforts •
and iii no mem' a work nu desire to render the work popular
eliould tempt him to take liberties with the text, nor to be
careless In his referencia, nor into. assertions either as to facts,
or a.to the signification of particular words, to be unguarded
and incorrect

Now, Sir, on each of these points the Dean of Canterbury In
his paper on Exodus has to • greater or lees &wee so
singularly faiksd, that If the &hie Educator should ever be re-
arranged, and beim oe • standard work, I 01111vt but think he
will ask to re-write this paper. The exposure i 4 a few Instances
of this kind of failure may at least eerie to prevent a further
repetition of them.
Like yourself, 1 wish not ti Mecum here the question of the
period of the sojourn in Egypt • 1 have done this elsewhere In
a paper read before the Victoria Institute. But In the Dean's
treatment of this subject I would point to the following as an
instance of candose (not to my unfair) reference (theit
iLS-
C4inrl p. 76):—
"hour hundred years had clapped since the descent of Jacob
and his family Into Egypt. Such had been the terms of the
prediction to Abraham ; his seed waa to be • stranger and a
mnAnt In a land that was not theirs for DV years(ol6l. iv. 13.)
So Stephen quotes the words &Lido in Acts sit 6, while the
four hundred and thirty pairs mentioned by St. Paul (UM. lit
17) exactly agree with the statement in Exodus xii 40, 41, that
such was the length of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt to
a day, and are not be understood of the whole interval from
Abraham to Moan."
Now Ist, the text of the promise to Abraham Is DOC here
correctly nor fully quoted (Oen. xv. 13, 14.)
tildly. —No account whatever Is made of the promise In the
contain, (verse 16) " but in the fourth generation they shall
come hither again."
3rdly.—While St. Paul (UM. 111. 17) certainly agrees se to the
number 430 with the statement of Moms in Eked- iii. 41, be
does not in that sewage smut, nor does he In any way
intitnate that Mufti asserts, the period of the sojourn of the
Israelites In Egypt to have been 430 yews. On the contrary,
he fully confirms the opinion that them 430 years are to be
understood am inclusive of the entire interval Lawn Abraham to
the Exodus. For his words are these (and why are they not
adduced ?), "The Covenant, which was conArrued before of
lied in Christ, the Law, which wad 430 years after
After whatf Not the dmeent Into Egypt, but alter the
Covenant with Abraham. t . -

As an instance of males' assertion I point to that, which
the Dean make; rompecting the translators of the Septuagint
Clinton, namely, that the only remain which those translators
had for their kind of paraphram of Exodus ell 40, al was
" that they hoped to avoid a difficulty." And I ask for the
ground on which they are thus charged with the guilt of a pious
fraud. For myself, lam not careful to rest as argument on
this translation; but I mu sure the Dean can show no cause
for such on sectiantion. And my coubilotwas is fully sustained
by the fact that st. Paul (Gal. hi. ID ogres. seitA tris (inn*
translators, and net, as the Doan asserts, raft Aism
4thly. —I would 15k, what is to be said of criticism and of
quotation such as the following, relating to the difficulty, which
the Greek translators "hoped to avoid "I
Thus the Doan writes First, it is mid (by those who bold
the pep.' of the sojourn in Egypt to have been 115 years that
Asuram's wife wag Jwhelstal, • daughter of Levi, whom one
bare unto Levi in 44)14, (Numbers xxvi. fAi.) This of Coarse,'
uoly insane that elle was a lxvite ; awl the impersonal manner
ln which the the Hebrew says, 'whom owe bare unto Levi,' is
• colifirMation of the."() Levi plainly is the tribe of Levi,
and not the !atria's* Literally understood, It makes
Autrani not merely marry his aunt, but an stint of the
very expectable age of eightydlve at the least; while it
further giro Loess no (ewer than 8,600 dret-cousins.
(Numbers M. Li.) Such (It is added) are the results of
tampering with Scripture."
Now, as to all this, the !wool exists in the text of Scripture
(kaod. vi.) that no such iixosesity as that, of Joehebed having
been 05 years old at her marriage is InrolVed in the fact of her
having been the daughter iif the patriarch Levi, and yet tho
mother of Moses. It is within the bounds of naismahle
probability that at her marriage she was not more than sixty-
live or even fifty.five em,. of age.
So, also as to the olt-repsated assertion, that under the con-
ditions, chore Stahal, Moss* mina have had o,Cee trot collsilul,
besaum there were at the Exodus 8,600 liuhathites, has the
Doan, or any other of the learned connuentatoni, either
tlerntati or ki.glish, ever considered that, although Moses was
only the second in descent from kohath- and, even supposing
that !WWII had no other children than the four Mad* of
Amrani, lzhar, Ilebron, and basin l —yet between the
birth el his eldest child and the Exodus there might have been
eight or stem ten generations Would all of those have been to
limns In the relation of that c•iusins

Not, however, to dwell on this, 1 would confidently ask the
Dian, is there any real grourid for his very cool assertion?
" This (a daughter of Levi) of C0.418C litmus only that she wad
• Lcsita r 1 would with equal widideum irk I to
estimate the force of the issue-nation affonbal by what he
terms the fuiperemal manner in which the ilebrew says,
" Whom wie bare unW Nurcly Cur translatoni were not
far ening in giving "his mother," Ai the nominative to Use
perismal verb "bare.' I would further inquire whether to
dital with Numbers xxvi. Lit, ad the Man has done, taking It
nu its isolation, and Colnillinitiiig on it so if it were the only
torsige which *peaks en We *object, ho not •` to tamper" (or
at bast to trifle) with Scripture last mititiro, which eau be
Lanai tither Just or sound, li. overiwk such a positive slid
char assertion &s tills " And Anaraui Wok unto btu Joclielreil
his father's sister defs-dah-lho4 to wile; and she hare him
.tandi and Mora" (Exod. vi. W.) I know that Coinmentalors
of high reputation will assert that this meet Ailed bees some
other Moreau than the lather of bloom Ilut they can afford
no lin.s.4 of the truth of this assertion. And may I not then
fairly inquire whether the saute measure is to be dealt out to
those Wilt, thus without ground wALW put aisle a idain
assertion, se Wu than has Malt out to the Lk X translators,
daintily, the imputation that by tor doing "they hoped to
avid a difficulty " f
I imams my surprise and grief that a divine who has written
thus severely about the sieve taken by these translators of
Word. aii. 44.0, 41 should mu welly rid penis ely risen that the
thick dark:iris fur three day* in all the laud of Egypt was no
more than an extreordinary sandstorm, and that. the light In the
dwellings of the children of Israel, during theee three days, was
Use result merely of the wind having delimited before it reached
Wieetniti, no touch of thii sand (Page 78.) 1 no. at • loss to
find the ground en which be asserts wet, in the tnuislation of
gek*.tied yliolt-roA "Us, servant" of the Lord our Authorised
Vcrition in Incorrect; for the phrase really nleana"the ViCektsrant
of Jehovah." And what could have led to such an asserUon as
the following? (Paper on (kneels, page 51) -" It" (the docu-
ment) "teaches Ila of man's original state of Innocency, of
woman taken from his flank -' rib' is • quaint mistranslation."
To Judge whether it was a love of accuracy or the hope to
avoid a difficulty" which led to this, there is 110 need el
to • Hebrew lexicon. We have only to real the passagnl,
the Deares corrected rendering of the word fse-fri "And He
took one of his flanks, and utaud up the flesh instead thereof.
And the dant which the Lunt tied had taken from man made
lie
_a woman." .

-
But enough, Sir. May these bow remarks serve to restrain
a style of writing which I cannot but ri.gard on of a downward
and dangerous tinsleimy. I for one an. I 01i,.0i to hope that
thrisUans are at longth at God's call about to awake too due
reveretioe and reprd for the ocripturm es given by inspiration
of the lioly lihoet. The help- the "Bible Islucation"—required
for such le not to be found in louse eunjeeturce, our In fanciful
opinions, nor in rash scholarship, nor in iutorpretatiowe resting
on' inner oonseiousnme," but on the subject maims! of Bevels-
tiou sought out with duo regard to the sacral text, In humble
depenilcuce on the Spirit's teaching, and with a careful com-
parison of "Scripture with Scripture."
To further this, Sir, and nut to hiuder the true work of " the
Bible kkliii.ator" is the object, of these remarks
Yours faithfully,
llama Mocks.

--
Forallngton Vicarage, January 12, 1674.
• " luau! In Egaria," nomad pried Gal. (W. GlaGillGe•Gi
publisher).
t hoe Bilge lidlicat.r, pogo 144.
The ilellosar. inj own.