We are expected, nevertheless, to regard such documents as the Septuagint as containing direct divine revelation: Documents originally written in a tongue about which nobody now knows anything; written by authors that are practically mythical, and at dates as to which no one is able even to make a defensible surmise; documents of the original copies of which there does not now remain a shred. Yet [pg 175] people will persist in talking of the ancient Hebrew, as if there were any man left in the world who now knows one word of it. So little, indeed, was Hebrew known that both the Septuagint and the New Testament had to be written in a heathen language (the Greek), and no better reasons for it given than what Hutchinson says, namely, that the Holy Ghost chose to write the New Testament in Greek.
The Hebrew language is considered to be very old, and yet there exists no trace of it anywhere on the old monuments, not even in Chaldæa. Among the great number of inscriptions of various kinds found in the ruins of that country:
One in the Hebrew Chaldee letter and language has never been found; nor has a single authentic medal or gem in this new-fangled character been ever discovered, which could carry it even to the days of Jesus.[333]
The original Book of Daniel is written in a dialect which is a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic; it is not even in Chaldaic, with the exception of a few verses interpolated later on. According to Sir W. Jones and other Orientalists, the oldest discoverable languages of Persia are the Chaldaic and Sanskrit, and there is no trace of the “Hebrew” in these. It would be very surprising if there were, since the Hebrew known to the Philologists does not date earlier than 500 b.c., and its characters belong to a far later period still. Thus, while the real Hebrew characters, if not altogether lost are nevertheless so hopelessly transformed—
A mere inspection of the alphabet showing that it has been shaped and made regular, in doing which the characteristic marks of some of the letters have been retrenched in order to make them more square and uniform—[334]
that no one but an initiated Rabbi of Samaria or a “Jain” could read them, the new system of the masoretic points has made them a sphinx-riddle for all. Punctuation is now to be found everywhere in all the later manuscripts, and by means of it anything can be made of a text; a Hebrew scholar can put on the texts any interpretation he likes. Two instances given by Kenealy will suffice:
In Genesis, xlix. 21, we read:
Naphtali is a hind let loose; he giveth goodly words.
By only a slight alteration of the points Bochart changes this into:
Naphtali is a spreading tree, shooting forth beautiful branches.