In Foxton's work on 'Popular Christianity,' a quotation is given from the Prospective Review, in which the writer suggests:—
'That the Jews, like every other nation of antiquity, have framed for themselves a mythical history, which, with the lapse of time, has been received for fact. This at once releases us from the necessity of any elaborate contrivances for reconciling their belief with probability and the laws of nature; and exhibits a phenomenon so universal and so natural, that it would have been a miracle if the Jewish literature had been an exception to it. But the transition from regarding the first chapters of Genesis as an inspired record, to treating them as only a picture of the popular notions of the age in which they were produced, is too violent to be made at once by any large portion of the public. We are not sorry, therefore, that, from time to time, hypotheses are proposed which smooth the descent from one of these opinions to the other, and make the gradients safer. The clerical geologists would have been suspended by their diocesans, or hooted from their pulpits, if they had not been able, at first, to profess that their discoveries confirmed the Mosaic account of the deluge, and did not contravene that of the creation. Time has familiarised men with the idea that they are not to look into Scripture for geology; and we hope that its professors will soon come openly to avow this, and cease to torture the words of Genesis into a conformity with their science. Public opinion is so tyrannically intolerant, and its penal power so fearful, that we cannot expect the whole truth to be told, or even to be seen, at once. But while we admit the temporary value of such intermediate stages of opinion, we are bound to declare our judgment that they are merely temporary, and have no solid basis.'
My only object in collecting together these criticisms on the Bible, is to free the human family from the many evils which, in my opinion, attach to, and are consequent on, a belief in the divine origin of the Book.
The child is taught to believe the Bible is the word of God, at an age when he can scarcely read its words; he is taught to regard with horror every attempt to criticise its pages; and the result is, that when his senses point out a fact, and that fact clashes with his Bible, he is bewildered and confused, he knows not what to think, and unless he be of great mental power, he ends by not thinking at all, and becomes professedly a believer, but in reality a man who dares not reason.
BOOK II. EXODUS
The title, 'Second Book of Moses,' is an interpolation, forming no part of the text. The remark on page four, as to titles and headings, applies to the whole of the Bible.
Chapter 1., vv. 6 and 7. 'Joseph died and his brethren, and all that generation and the children of Israel were fruitful, * * * and the land was filled with them.' If these words mean anything, they mean that in the duration of a little more than one generation, the children of one man multiplied so as to fill the whole of the land of Egypt, and to become exceedingly mighty. Devout believers can only wonder that this numerous and exceedingly mighty people allowed the Egyptians so to maltreat and oppress them; or that this fruitful and abundantly increasing people wno filled all the land, had only two midwives to attend them. The believers may also wonder why God made houses for those midwives to live in, when if the Israelites were so exceedingly fruitful and numerous, the midwives could have but little time to live in their own houses, but must have been always employed in their professional avocations. Admirers of God's truthfulness may likewise wonder why he rewarded the midwives for telling Pharaoh a lie, when by his power he might have saved them the necessity.
Chapter ii., vv. 16, 17, 18. From these verses it would seem that the name of the father-in-law of Moses was Reuel, but according to chap. iii., v. 1, chap, iv., v. 18, chap, xviii., vv. 1, 2, 5, 6, and 12, his name was not Reuel, but Jethro, while according to Numbers, chap, x., v. 29, his name was neither Reuel nor Jethro, but was Raguel. On reference to the Hebrew text, I find the same word [———] is carelessly anglicised as Reuel and Raguel; this will not, however, explain the third name, Jethro, and if we treat Moses as the author, it will be difficult to understand how he could be mistaken in the correct name of his own father-in-law.
Verses 23 and 24. These verses imply that until the cries and groanings came up to God, he had forgotten his chosen Israelites, and his solemn covenant, oath, and promise. This view is confirmed by the Douay translation of verse 25, which adds, 'And the Lord looked upon the children of Israel, and he knew them.' As though he had refreshed his memory by so looking on them.