ページの画像
PDF
ePub

that was escaped came, and had opened my mouth, until he came to me in the morning; and my mouth was opened, and I was no more dumb.

23. Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

24. Son of man, they that inhabit those wastes of the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land: but we are many: the land is given us for inheritance.

25. Wherefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Ye eat with the blood, and lift up your eyes toward your idols, and shed blood: and shall ye possess the land?

26. Ye stand upon your sword, ye work abomination, and ye defile every man his neighbour's wife: and shall ye possess the land?

27. Say thou thus unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, As I live, surely they that are in the wastes, shall fall by the sword; and him that is in the open field will I give to the beasts to be devoured; and they that be in the forts, and in the caves, shall die of the pestilence.

28. For I will lay the land most desolate, and the pomp of her strength shall cease; and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate, that none shall pass through.

29. Then shall they know that I am the Lord, when I have laid the land most desolate, because of all their abominations which they have committed.

30. Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people still are talking against thee by the walls, and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brothee, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh from the Lord.

[ocr errors]

31. And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their

covetousness.

32. And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not.

33. And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them.

Baruch (though not canonical) is very explicit on this point. He says, speaking of the restoration, or rather he says that the Lord says: "And I will no more drive my people of Israel out of the land that I have given them." Many, many other passages, might be quoted to support my positions, but these are sufficient to convince any reasonable man.

If I have said enough to excite even the honest christian's curiosity to read these prophecies, I have no fears but he will pronounce, after an ho

nest perusal of them, all my positions, not only tenable, but well sustained. Your doctors have gone into what you are pleased to term profane history, to prove that Moses, in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, had reference to the siege of Jerusalem by Titus. They quote the account given by Josephus, of the rich lady (probably a widow, as no husband is mentioned,) eating her child. And because Moses says, that in the siege (no place and no time specified) the delicate and tender woman shall eat her husband, and her children, and her after-birth; therefore, he had reference to the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, because there was, in that siege, what is common in all sieges, great famine and distress, and because a woman ate her child. I admit, that Moses had reference to no particular woman. He is to be understood as asserting, that " so great would be the distress in this siege of his, that women should eat their husbands," &c. But, even on this admission, before you can avail yourselves of Josephus' statement, you must shew from him, or some other source, that women, in your favorite siege, ate husbands, &c. But why go to profane history, to find a case of a woman eating her child? If such a circumstance is of any avail to prove that a city, where it happened, is the one referred to by Moses, he must have had reference to two cities and two sieges; because we are told in 2d Kings, 6th chapter, that a woman of Samaria killed, boiled, and ate her son, during the siege of that city, by Benhadad. But you pass by this piece of canabalism, because it does not answer your purpose, and lay hold of a similar one, perpetrated in Jerusalem, because it does; or rather, some of your fathers have interpolated this whole account into Josephus' history, for the purpose of proving that the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans was foretold by Moses. I do not pretend that I can prove this assertion to a mathematical certainty, but I will shew, that the probability is greater that some other person wrote it in his book, than that Josephus did.. I need not remind you that, before the invention of printing, copies of large works, like this, were not multiplied to any extent; hencc an alteration, or an interpolation, would not be so easily or readily detected as at present. We all know that such interpolations were common. You admit that many have been made in the small works of the several authors of your new testament. Now, Josephus has given us as full, if not a more particular account, of the "woman eating her child in Samaria," than is found in Kings. He makes no remarks on the circumstance-says nothing to call our particular attention to it-it does not appear to excite his special wonder. In about two hundred pages after this account, we find the other. He introduces the second with a great flourish; and what excites our special wonder is, that he tells us the like had never happened before under the Now, is it not more probable, that some zealot interpolated all this

sun.

flourish, at least, than that Josephus should be guilty of a falsehood, of which his own book would convict him? Is it probable that he would say, in his introduction to the second account, that he feared his veracity would be questioned, (the fact about to he stated was so wonderful,) when he had related a precisely similar fact about two hundred pages previous, and said nothing about veracity-manifested no apprehensiens for the loss of it? It is almost certain, that some other person must have written the introduction to this second account of child murder. If such liberties were taken in those days, is it not probable that some person, other than Josephus, wrote the whole story?

Al

I have not labored this question of interpolation, believing there was any force in the argument growing out of this account of child murder; but to shew my readers what little confidence is to be placed in the writings of those you call the fathers. Daniel settles this question in my favor. luding to the distress of the siege of Moses, he says, in his 9th chapter, 12th verse: "And he (that is God) hath confirmed his words which he spake against us (by Moses-see previous and succeeding verses) and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil, (that is the siege,) for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem," (during the siege by Nebuchadnezzar.) This is strong language. You may interpolate into Josephus-you cannot invent any expressions that will more fully respond to those of Moses.

It escaped my notice, until after the foregoing was in press, that Jeremiah in the 18th verse of his letter, prophesies that the Jews who were under Zedekiah would become, in Babylon, a curse, an astonishment, å hissing, and a reproach!

I have now finished what I intented to say on the prophecies respecting the dispersion of the Jews, and the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans. If I have not made myself so fully understood as that my arguments can be duly appreciated; I am certain that I have said sufficient to induce even the mentally sluggish to examine the prophecies, and to read them with more pleasure and satisfaction than they have heretofore done. Much of the obscurity found in them, is, no doubt, owing to a defective translation; though in some parts of Isaiah and some of the lesser prophets, there is no connexion between consecutive sentences.

The size of the bible deters the great mass of the people from attempting to understand it. The arrangement of the books tends to produce confusion. Not more than one in a thousand, of those called professors, is familiar with this arrangement, or knows of what each book treats—if historical, when it was said to have been written, and if prophetical, when the author is said to have lived. Nor does he know, that we have no

canonical history of the Jews, from the time of the restoration to the time of Christ-a period of about five hundred years. A great majority of christians look upon the bible, as a collection of isolated sayings, and think, that one part affords as good reading as another. There are, also, thousands of learned and intelligent men who will tell you they believe the bible; yet think it low and vulgar for a christian to introduce his religion. as a topic of conversation in a mixed company; and beneath their dignity to examine the scriptures critically, or be able to converse upon them intelligently and fluently. Many a young gentleman, and, I may add, young lady too, who would take it in high dudgeon to be charged with infidelity, would be deeply offended and mortified, to be charged with an intimate knowledge of the scriptures. The language of such is, "I seldom or ever read the bible. I have not had one in my hand for several years."

Hence, these scriptures are so little understood. The christians charge the infidels of disbelieving without examination. If the charge be true; I reply, that it is more rational to disbelieve without a rigid scrutiny, than to believe thousands of prodigies, merely because they are printed in a book. But the charge is not true. Our people, take them as a body, believe upon trust-because their fathers and neighbors do; but few disbelieve what their fathers believe, without examination.

Our preachers exhort their congregations to read their bibles. Should their advice be taken, they would soon cease to have congregations. For, if I were called upon to suggest the most effectual means of overthrowing the christian religion, I should say, let the people be compelled to understand the scriptures. Enough of this.

I have said, that we have no canonical history of the Jews, from the restoration to the appearance of Christ;—that is, we have no bible during this period, of about five hundred years. All the books, that we call canonical, are said to have been written before the restoration, except Nehemiah and Ezra, and some one or two of the lesser prophets.

Have you, christians, ever asked the question, how and when, and by whom these books were collected into a volume-by whom they were de clared to be the word of God, or canonical, or inspired? Who placed the few lines of some of the lesser prophets in the cannon of scripture? Have you ever inquired whether the Jews at the time of the restoration (before which time you allege the prophecies were written) were looking for or expecting a Messiah-some talented prince-to arise from the royal line of David--whether at this time they were divided into three sects, Saducees, Pharisees, and Escenes-whether they all returned to Jerusalem with Zorobabel at the restoration: or whether the greater part of them did not

K

remain in Babylon, scattered among all nations? Have you ever inquired whether the majority of the inhabitants of Judea, at the time of Christ, were Jews or not? What is the subject before us? I wish to remind the reader and impress it upon him, that there was, what I shall call, an interregnum, of about five hundred years, immediately preceding Christ, for which we have no bible; and I also wish to convince him, that the material parts of the bible must have been written during this interregnum. The books of Nehemiah and Ezra, Haggai, and Zechariah must necessarily have been written after the restoration; for they treat of it.— Kings and Chronicles must also have been written by some man who lived many ages after the time of the restoration; for he gives us the names of the descendants of Zorobabel, for several generations. Zorobabel, it will be remembered, was the messiah, or the person sent by Cyrus to lead back the Jews at the restoration, and to rebuild the temple. From many passages in the first five books of the bible, which have been noticed by Mr. Paine, it is evident these books were written as late as the Chronicles, probably by the same man. (Some few of the first chapters of Genesis to be excepted.) The writer gives names to places, which they did not bear till long after the time of Moses, the reputed author; and alludes to a time, before which, there were no kings in Israel. Moses lived some hundred of years before there were kings in Israel. Mr. Paine, as usual, was very happy and conclusive on this point.

The books of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and many of the lesser prophets, could not have been considered as the words of God, or as bible, before the captivity, for two reasons. First, they did not cease prophesying till the captivity: and, secondly, their prophecies or warnings were rejected, and their persons treated with contempt, by both kings and people.

Ezekiel and Daniel did not begin to prophesy until after the captivity-they both wrote in Babylon. I am then justified in the assertion, that the material parts of the bible, both historical and prophetical, were either not written, or, if written, were not held canonical, before the restoration. I have asked, if the Jews, at the restoration, were looking for a great Prince-a Messiah-the desire of all nations. This question I now answer in the negative.

Had they been expecting such a person to arise during their captivity? I answer, yes. But he came to them at the restoration, or rather, such a person or prince or Messiah arose, and led some of the Jews out of captivity, to their former home. This was Zorobabel, of the line of David. He was the great prince that was to arise, and to whom the prophets had reference, before the restoration. But as all their prophecies failed, respecting the power of this prince and the quiet and rest, and peace which

« 前へ次へ »