earance སམས་པ་ ngelists or Apostles had any inward gift, or were subto any power external to them different from that of aching or teaching which they daily exercised; nor do - anywhere lead us to suppose that they were free ■ error or infirmity."1 mother writer of the same class has the following obations on the subject of the discrepancies in the Gos "It may be attributed," says Mr. Wilson, "to the ct of our understandings, that we should be unable gether to reconcile the aspects of the Saviour as preed to us in the three first Gospels and in the writings . Paul and St. John. At any rate, there were current e primitive Church very distinct Christologies. But er to any defect in our capacities, nor to any reasonpresumption of a hidden wise design, nor to any parpiritual endowments in the narrators, can we attrithe difficulty, if not impossibility, of reconciling the alogies of St. Matthew and St. Luke, or the chronof the Holy Week, or the accounts of the Resurrecnor to any mystery in the subject-matter can be red the uncertainty in which the New Testament ngs leave us as to the descent of Jesus Christ accord o the flesh, whether by his mother he were of the of Judah or of the tribe of Levi." And the expla, accordingly, which he proposes for these difficulsacknowledging freely the extent of the human -nt in the sacred books; for," he adds, "if this were acknowledged on the one side, the divine element be frankly recognized on the other."3 have thus, in this chapter, given a rapid sketch of appear to be the most prominent theories advanced ays and Reviews. Interpretation of Scripture, § 2. 1. The National Church, (p. 2011. Am. Ed.). 3 Ibid (p. 20C). CHAPTER III. INADEQUACY OF THE FOREGOING THEORIES. VE propose in this chapter, as we have said, to exne separately the different theories described in the ceding chapter, with a view to showing that they are e of them adequate to a satisfactory explanation of style and other peculiarities of the Biblical history. here, again, we shall, for the most part, make use of materials already furnished to our hand; since in the icisms of each theory by writers of a different and osing school, we shall generally find a sufficient expoe of its weaknesses and defects, and proof of its inay to satisfy the demands of the case before us. The er of the two preceding chapters will also be observed his, the theories in reference to the Old Testament Dries being first considered, and afterwards those in tion to the New Testament. 1. Critical Examination of Old Testament Theories. ese we shall consider in the order in which they occur e preceding chapter. First, then, as to the Document Hypothesis. This ry, as we have seen, while it maintains (at least as held by the more moderate, or orthodox, writers) Divine inspiration of the sacred history, seeks, neveress, to account for the numerous discrepancies, repeis, varieties of style and phraseology, &c., in the rent books, or, as is frequently the case, in the book, by supposing the existence of numerous er and original written sources to which the later his let us admit this supposition, or rather this fact, for it is distinctly declared to be such, as we have seen, in numerous places in the Old Testament,-to the full extent demanded, and doubtless many of these peculiarities of the sacred history will be accounted for. The repetition of the same fact or statute, or series of facts or statutes, in the same book or in different books, in different language and from a different stand-point, may, we can readily understand, very well have arisen from the compiler's making use of two or more documents each containing a record of the same thing, but regarded by each writer from his own point of view, and expressed in his own peculiar style and phraseology. So, too, we may easily imagine that many of the discrepancies or contradictions which exist in the history might be owing to the same circumstance. But, passing by the differences of opinion and the conflicting theories existing as to the extent and distribution of the documents, in order to meet the whole case and cover all the difficulties, how, upon this hypothesis, are the abrupt transitions, the strange and unnatural arrangement and singular dislocations, and, if we may be allowed the expression, the patch-work character of the story, in very many instances, to be explained? We may certainly allow to a compiler, drawing his accounts from several different sources, sufficient tact and ingenuity in the arrangement of his materials, even when, as this hypothesis requires, we suppose him simply to borrow verbatim from his originals, to be able to avoid glaring misplacements of events and incidents, and abrupt transitions from one subject to another; or, as is not unfrequently the case, stopping in the midst of a narrative to record a genealogy, or a series of laws; as. for ex пріе, ш x. vi., where the narrative suademy oreaks on, t the 14th verse), as the Lord is about to speak to Moses d Aaron, and "give them a charge unto the children of rael, and unto Pharaoh, King of Egypt," and a geneogy of Moses and Aaron is inopportunely "squeezed in,” employ Bleek's expression, and not until the 28th rse, is the history resumed. Nor is this all, "but," as eek further observes, "not only the family of Kohath e son of Levi, from whom they were both descended, is re named, but also that of the two other sons, Gershom 1 Merari, on whom nothing could depend in this conetion. Indeed," he adds, "the sons of Reuben and neon are, besides, previously mentioned here, on whom hing at all depended." And he further reasons: "That s list was originally drawn up without any special refere to Moses and Aaron is shown by the title as well as contents: 'These be the heads of their (the Israelites') ers' houses;' and by the conclusion (v. 25): 'These the heads of the fathers of the Levites according to r families.'" Whence he concludes that it could not e been drawn up by Moses, and observes respecting whole passage, "Certainly no historian could give it à a position, who composed his history as a thoroughly pendent author;" adding, "we can better explain a thing if we supposed that the author had borrowed ething out of some earlier written records and interen it in his own historical statement;" an explana-. which, in our view, is as little satisfactory as the r, inasmuch as it denies to the later author or com, as we have said, ordinary good sense and ingenuity he arrangement of his work. Crimine ab uno disce s! is objection applies with equal force to the Elohist eek, ut supra, § 87. |