Reconstruction of Biblical theories : or, Biblical science improved in its history, chronology, and interpretation, and relieved from traditionary errors and unwarrantable hypotheses

Front matter

UNITED' STATES OF AMERICA.

RECONSTRUCTION OF BIBLICAL THEORIES;

BIBLICAL SCIENCE nrmoYED IN its history, chronology, and interpretation,

Contents

Chap. Page.

I. Theory of the Languages and Ages of the Sacred Books, and Periodic Divisions of Greek and Hebrew Literature, 5

II. Greek and Hebrew Hermeneutics, or Book Interpretation, its Relation to the Past, 13

Chapter I

Theory of the Languages and Ages of the Sacred Boohs, and Periodic Divisions of Greek and Hebrew Literature.

1. The Greek language originated in four dialects — the JEolic in Bceotia and the Boeotian colonies of Asia Minor, having among its writers Alcseus and Sappho ; the Doric in the Peloponnesus and the Dorian colonies of Asia Minor, having among its writers Bion, Callimachus, and Pindar J the Ionic in Ionia, Asia Minor, having among its writers Homer, Hesiod, and Herodotus ; and the Attic, in Attica, the capital of which was Athens, having among its writers Thucydides, the tragic poets, and Plato.

2. After the time of Alexander, 336 B. C, the Attic dialect superseded the others, and was called Hellenic or Greek. All these dialects constituted one language, with variations ; the variations, however, were, in many cases, considerable. The Attic, which finally prevailed, was the most simple, concise, and beautiful of the whole, and showed a greater and more successful attention to language culture by the Athenians than was attained by the other Greek communities.

3. Greek literature may be distributed into three periods — the Earlier, Middle, and Later.

1 * .(5) '

6 BIBLICAL THEOBIES. CHAP. I.

(1.) The Earlier is from the introduction of letters, previous to the time of Homer, about 1095 B. C, to the last year of the administration of Pisistratus, 536 B. C, = 559 years. The Homeric poems were reduced to writing near the close of this period, under the supervision of Pisistratus. The times of Homer are 884-834. Hesiod also belongs to this period, who sung 750-700.

(2.) The Middle period is from 536 to 336, the accession of Alexander the Great to the throne of Macedonia. To this period belong the early historians, the tragic poets, and the early philosophers.

(3.) The Final period is from 536 B. C. to A. D. 500. To this period belong the works of Aristotle, Strabo, the Septuagint, Josephus, the New Testament, and the Greek Christian Fathers.

4. The Greek language has not passed entirely away, like the Hebrew, but still holds its place as a living, but secondrate language in Greece and among the Greek Christians of the East, occupying a portion of its ancient seats. Its modern representative, however, differs very much from the ancient Greek, and may be considered essentially a different language, related to the ancient as the Italian is to the Latin.

5. The Hebrew language originated in Western Asia, and prevailed among the Hebrews and their neighbors on every side. It does not appear to have been a foreign importation*, but a product of that portion of the world, as the Greek language was a product of Greece, and the Latin of Italy. Abraham found it in Palestine, and probably adopted it ; if it was lost in any degree by the descendants of Jacob during their sojourn in Egypt, they adopted such modifications of it as they found in use by their neighbors on their return under Moses and Joshua.

6. The introduction of letters into Greece was probably from Tyre or Sidon, in the time of Samuel, 1095. At this

Chap. I. Biblical Theories. 7

time the Tynans and Sidonians were the most enterprising merchants in the world, and carried on a considerable commerce. Their superiority to the Hebrews in the arts is indicated in the history of the building of the Temple by Solomon, who was assisted in that great work by skilful artisans from Tyre. It is to be presumed, therefore, that the Tyrians or Sidonians were the inventors of letters, and gave them to the other Aramaean nations and to the Greeks at the same time. Such was the vast importance of the invention that a knowledge of it must have been immediately diffused as far as the intercourse and acquaintance of the inventors extended, and especially to all nations and tribes that were in friendly relations with them. The Tyrians and Sidonians are called by the common name of Phoenicians. Carthage was settled at an early period by Phoenician colonists, and the Punic language of that country is a slip from the Aramaean stock, transplanted by the Phoenicians.

7. It is generally supposed that the Hebrews brought up letters from Egypt. But the Egyptian writing, though of several different kinds, and of an ancient date, was hieroglyphic and pictorial, entirely unlike the Aramaean, and poorly adapted to literary purposes. In giving us their system of letters, the Aramaeans have conferred incalculable benefits on the entire western world, and contributed not a little to the superior development of the western mind that has since been attained. It never could have been attained without this instrument.

8. The Hebrew language is not called Hebrew in the Hebrew Scriptures, and was not distinctively such ; it was Aramaean, and belonged, in common, to the Aramaean nations of Western Asia. It was for the time an institution of the land, and whoever became a resident in it was compelled to adopt it.

9. It appears quite evident that letters were first introduced among the Hebrews in the times of David and Samuel.

8 BIBLICAL THEORIES. CHAP. I.

They are mentioned in the history of the exodus, but no circumstances connected with that history indicate their existence at that time, and the whole complexion of the history indicates that the events occurred previous to the use of letters, when the only expedient at hand, to preserve a knowledge of the past, was to clothe it with enigmas and allegories, and thus make it easily memorable as well as attractive.

10. No indications of letters appear in the book of Judges, but, on the contrary, every thing appears like the darkness and simplicity of a semi-barbarous age, without these lights of civilization. No recorder is mentioned under Saul, but David has both a ^2003, mazkir, recorder, and a "L&iD, sopher, scribe, and from this time we first have a connected and consistent train of events. Here commences a great epoch in Hebrew history. Up to this time it is principally allegorical, much of it distorted and extravagant, much of it dark and enigmatic. Now daylight is poured in on its darkness ; enigmas and allegories continue to occur, but they are the exception, not the general rule ; previously, allegories are the rule, and plain statements of events, the exception.

1 1 . The ascription of the Pentateuch to Moses is a Jewish fiction, analogous to that of attributing to him the unwritten traditions recorded in the Talmud ; and there is as good reason to believe that he is the author of the latter as of the former. There is no reason to believe that the Hebrews brought up the language of the Pentateuch from Egypt ; it was not the language of the Egyptians, but of the Canaanites, whose lands they seized. Instances have since occurred, in which a conquering nation has adopted the superior language of the vanquished, after coming to live among them. The Hebrews probably did the same. They left Egypt in 1491, and remained in Arabia 40 years, till 1451. They entered Canaan and commenced its conquest the same year. From this time to the establishment of the monarchy under Saul, 1095, according to the common computation, is 356 years

CHAP. I. BIBLICAL THEOKIES. 9

during which there is not a reliable tr^p of a letter. Joshua is indeed said (Josh. 24 : 26, 27) to have written his covenant with the nation, in favor of Jeva (Jehovah) worship, in the book of the law of Jehovah ; but then it is added, that he took a great stone to be a witness to the people on the subject, because it had heard all the words of Jehovah which he spoke to us. Writings are sometimes witnessed to add to their reliability ; but here the supposed writing is not referred to as a witness, but only the stone ; neither is the stone placed in any connection with the writing. Considered, therefore, in connection with this and other indications, it appears that the account of Joshua's writing is fictitious, and furnishes no evidence of the existence of letters in his time. The crossing of the Jordan (Josh. 4 : 20-24) was commemorated by a stone heap. The altar of witness erected by the sons of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh (Josh. 4 : 9-29) was a commemorative monument, that could not have been necessary if letters had existed in those times. At the institution of monarchy under Saul, the Hebrews had the language of the country ; but this does not prove that they left Egypt with it 356 years before. In the unsettled condition of those times a language would almost pass away by imperceptible and' unintentional changes in that length of time ; but if the Hebrews found in Canaan a language decidedly superior to that which they brought from Egypt, they may have taken special pains to learn it, and the more as it had been^riginally the language of Abraham.

12. The sojourn in Egypt is of indefinite duration; according to the common estimate, it continued from 1706 B. C. to 1491, = 215 years — a period which must have wrought great changes, in the language of Jacob's family and descendants, and coffliderable changes in the language of Palestine. It is impossible that the two should have been kept along together during that interval. But in the time of David and thenceforward they were essentially together ; I infer, there-

10 BIBLICAL THEORIES. CHAP. I.

fore, that, on their ^Piirn to Canaan, the Hebrews adopted purposely the language of Canaan; and that, when letters were invented by the Tyrians, then the most enterprising and commercial people of all the orientals, the Hebrews, being in friendly relations with them, immediately adopted this improvement, and set themselves about committing their oral traditions, those of history, allegory, and poetry, to writing. This would, of course, be done imperfectly at first, and subsequently improved, and centuries be required for the perfection of the new medium to such a degree as to have any chance of being handed down to all coming ages.

13. The first introduction of letters among the Hebrews, in the times of Samuel and David, is indicated by the great change that thence appears in the tone and complexion of history, and by the great improvements attained in the condition of the nation. History becomes sober, literal, exact, and full; before it was extravagant, distorted, allegorical, enigmatical, and fragmentary. Samuel is a reasonable character: Samson is a kind of Hercules, but a monster of strength and indiscretion, himself a greater riddle than any that he solved or proposed ; the Grecian Hercules is far his superior.

14. A language, like a tree, has a beginning in roots, from which it springs and shoots out into branches ; and a dead language is a tree embalmed and preserved from decay for the inspection of the curious in after ages. Such are the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages ; they are dead and taken up by the roots, and laid aside in the works of the old writers, but they do not decay ; the leaves are dry, but they are there ; the stem is dry, but that is there ; and tfiere are the branches and roots. Trees are estimated by thSr length and size ; languages by their duration, number and character of their words, constructions, etc. Trees have an average length, and languages an average duration and proportionable

CHAP. I. BIBLICAL THEORIES. 11

variations. The Greek and Latin languages passed through great changes in successive ages ; so also has the English : books of three hundred years ago are not generally intelligible, and have to be studied with a dictionary, like foreign works.

15. In the time of the authors of the New Testament, the Hebrew had become a dead language, and was succeeded by the Greek, a foreign importation, in the Greek cities, and elsewhere by the Chaldee and Syriac, a domestic growth, formed by gradual changes from the Hebrew, and embracing nearly all the Hebrew roots, with new terminations and other changes of structure. The Chaldee first appears in Jeremiah, and to a greater extent in the books of Daniel and Ezra, considerable portions of which are in that language. This has been supposed to be an importation from Babylon, because it appears in Daniel and Ezra, books that describe the times of the Babylonian exile, and events immediately subsequent to the return ; but this is a mistake ; these books were not written in the times they describe ; nor is there any proof that the Chaldee was the language of Babylon at this time ; it is next to certain that it was not : none of the recent discoveries find any traces of Chaldee in Babylonia at this period, nor does history know of any. I conclude, therefore, that the Chaldee has no existence, except as a lineal successor of the Hebrew, formed from it, and superseding it, as the English language of 1862 is formed from the English of 1500, and as later dialects in all ages and countries are formed from earlier ones.

16. (1.) The first period of Hebrew literature is from 1095 B. C. to 536 = 559 years. To this belong the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings, and the first book of Psalms.

(2.) The second is from 536 B. C. to336 = 200 years. To this belong the second and third books of Psalms, and the fifteen later prophets — Jonah, Joel, Amos, Hosea, Micah,

12 BIBLICAL THEOKIES. CHAP. I.

(3.) The third is from 336 B. C. to 37, = 299 years. To this belong the fourth and fifth books of Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. The entire period is 1058 years.

17. The extravagant views entertained by most Christians in respect to the antiquity of the Hebrew writings have contributed much to embarrass their interpretation, and to injurs the cause of practical Christianity. It is time that these delusions were dissipated, and that Jewish and Christian fables were abandoned for honest and well-sustained truth. Piety and virtue want no help from superstition ; they want truth, and on that alone they nourish and prosper. The imperfect success of Christianity hitherto is a providential rebuke from God for the imperfect appreciation of its principles, and for inappropriate methods of teaching and applying them. In connection with my translation of these books, I trust I shall show their modern origin with a degree of clearness that will be generally satisfactory. I here present the above rather to excite inquiry than expecting fully to satisfy it. The subject will be, if God please, more fully considered in a later portion of the work. The different periods of Hebrew literature exhibit traces of progress and change, and are of great importance in elucidating Jewish history. They cannot be neglected or greatly misjudged without confounding all critical inquiry, and plunging interpreters and scholars into delusions and absurdities without end.

Chapter II

Greek and Hebrew Jffermeneutics, or Book Interpretation, its Relation to the Past.

1. A science is a branch of knowledge arranged and systematized for the convenience both of learners and teachers, and for practical application to ulterior objects. None of the sciences are ends ; they are all means : no part or item of knowledge is an end ; every part and every item of it that is of any use, or of any value, is of use as a means to some end, and has a value proportionable to that end, and its own relation to the attainment of it. The sciences are the conditions of all possible arts ; they are also the conditions of other things, so that the arts, with all the blessings they afford, are only a portion of the benefits conditioned on the sciences.

2. Book interpretation is one of the sciences growing out of the use of written language, and has for its object the determination of the meaning of books. It is called in the schools hermeneutics, from the Grecian Hermes, who was the messenger of the gods, and interpreted their communications to men. I beg leave to propose this more intelligible and simple name of book interpretation, and to commend it to the attention of the people as not a science to be left for the learned only, but to be made a part of the common education of the human race. A knowledge of it is important in the interpretation of other books ; but in the interpretation of the Bible it is of the most absolute necessity ; and also in that of the classic Greek authors. The Hebrew and Greek ancient literatures are among the greatest treasures of Christendom, and are yet but imperfectly interpreted.

3. The invention of letters was a great step in the progress of the human race ; then came the Aramaean Hebrew written language in Palestine, the Greek in Greece and Asia Minor,

14 BIBLICAIi THEORIES. CHAP. II.

and the Latin in Italy, and other oriental and western languages. The Arabians contributed to the common stock the invention of figures, representing numbers by ten characters ; and by means of letters, written languages, and figures, themselves a species of written language, we have the sciences, and the liberal and higher arts, and all the uncounted and inestimable blessings of religious civilization. Written languages enable men of the same age to cooperate and help each other, not only in preserving, but in extending and advancing knowledge ; it also puts it into the power of each age to transmit its attainments to all succeeding ages. Till the invention of letters, the achievements of each generation mostly perished with it, and the same fruitless experiments were necessarily repeated from age to age. But with written language came a change, and the first introduction of writing gave an impulse to the human mind that invested it with almost supernatural energy. Hence the grandeur and sublimity of the Homeric poems among the Greeks, and the Pentateuch and earlier Prophets among the Hebrews. Their authors seize the traditionary creations and reminiscences of unlettered ages, and commit them to the lettered page, with an energy and force of intellect that seem more than human. But their stopping place is only the starting place of all subsequent thinking ; in the hurry and confusion, and amid the revolutions of ages, the precise chronological epoch of that starting place is left to be a matter of some doubt and uncertainty, both among the Greeks and Hebrews. Its precise position on the shores of the storm-lashed sea of the past, like the determination of the birth of Christ, is hard to be reached, and is not yet determined with precision.

4. After the invention of letters, the Hebrews wrote the books of the Bible, and have given them to mankind as a precious legacy to read and interpret ; and the Greeks wrote the vast variety of works which we have from them. Both are before us as documentary evidences of what has been,

CHAP. II. BIBLICAL THEORIES. 15

and signs and auguries of what is yet to be. Both these collections of literature extend back into an indefinite past, where they take their rise, like mighty rivers among the hills and mountains, and on the high table lands of time, amid eternal solitudes, over which the night of ages has closed, to know no morning. The land of the past is a far off country, which we can never visit ; but from that land these mighty rivers come down with a precious world of wealth, gems from the mountains, and gold from the mines, and sweep with their priceless stores by our feet ; if we will, they pour them into our arms and into our bosoms. Both are legitimate objects of study, both are rivers of life and love ; and trees of life, bearing all manner of precious fruits, skirt their banks. But of the two, the Hebrew literature takes us farther back, and deeper down into the mysteries of the universe. It is concerned mainly with a single subject, and contains the results of labors and observations of all past generations in that particular line, up to the time that its canon is closed.

5. The Hebrews give us whatever they deemed valuable from their fathers back to the first man, and the additions they had been able to make to the common stock. In one point of view it is not much ; it is all comprehended in a single volume, and bought for a few cents, and easily read through in a single year, without interrupting the ordinary labors of life. But in other points of view, it is very much ; more than language can express, or mind conceive. It is the ^ records of the race from its beginning in one of its most remarkable divisions. It contains waymarks far back in the past, in the land of shadows, once cast by living, breathing mortals, and details for our instruction the results of their labors and sufferings. It is the monument of past generations, and the letter of their instructions to us.

6. These documents have been sadly misunderstood, their facts overlooked and distorted, their soul- animating truths ignored, and their lessons of practical wisdom perverted for

16 BIBLICAL THEORIES. CHAP. II.

the support of pernicious errors and delusions. There is no proper agreement among men in regard to their teachings. Even good men, learned men, cautious and careful reasoners, depart widely from each other on these highways of the universe, and often scowl disdainfully on each other's most precious gatherings from these stores. Can we develop a science of the sacred books of the Hebrews ? Can we introduce into our judgments of them the same clearness and certainty which we have attained in the interpretation of the books of the Greeks ? Can Genesis be made as intelligible as the Iliad ? Can we understand Psalms and Job as well as we understand the hymns and tragedies of the Greeks ? Can we understand Canticles, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Daniel ? Can the fundamental principles of biblical interpretation and biblical science ever be settled and become undeniable ? I think they can, and that all good men should labor hopefully and diligently to accomplish this result. Something may be done in our times. Much has been done in the last fifty years ; in the last two hundred years very much ; but much remains to be done ; and the greatest single step to be taken in this matter, is to abandon the absurd method of interpreting the Bible by authority, either ancient or modern, ecclesiastical or individual, and to interpret it by the known laws of language. True meanings come from documents, and are not imposed on them. By violent interpretations, documents are made to mean any thing ; like a sufferer on the rack, they assent to any thing which is prescribed for them ; but unforced and unconstrained, they tell only what they mean, and deliver to patient inquirers secrets which violent interpreters have overlooked and silenced for ages.

7. Many commentaries and works on biblical interpretation are singularly unfortunate in the extent to which the element of authority is allowed to usurp the place of evidence ; it helps us little to decide between different possible meanings of a passage, to know that Presbyterians understand it

Chap. III. Biblical Theories. 17

one way and Episcopalians another. The anthority of Presbyterians may prevail with Presbyterians, and that of Episcopalians with Episcopalians ; but it makes no difference with the truth, who receives it or who rejects it ; neither is it determined by its receivers, but by its evidences. The history of interpretation takes account of authorities, and of denominational and traditional interpretations ; but interpretation itself asks for the view that is made certain by evidence, and to what extent certainty can be reached, and stops. Interpretation is the key of knowledge, and has vast stores yet to unlock in the Hebrew and Christian sacred Scriptures.

Chapter III

The Greek and Hebrew Languages, and their Relations to each other ; their earliest Works.

1. The origins of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages were all, previous to the invention and use of letters, in an unexplored antiquity. The Hebrew language is the parent stock from which the Greek and Latin are illustrious offshoots ; and, as often happens in the natural world, the offshoots were for a long time contemporaneous with the original tree, and far exceeded it in beauty, and in many o$ their fruits.

2. The relation of the Greek and Latin languages to the Hebrew, as the parent tree, is proved by the considerable number of Hebrew words which they have among their primitives, and by the relations of their pronoun, noun, and verb systems to those of the Hebrews. The ego, I, of the Greeks and Romans, is anochi of the Hebrews, confounded on the lips, or modified and abbreviated; the Greek and Latin su and tu, and English thou, are the Hebrew ata and at. Other obvious relations may be distinctly traced between the Greek and Latin pronouns and those of the Hebrews.

2*

18 BIBLICAL THEORIES. CHAP. III.

3. The Greek cases of nouns are an advance on the Hebrewmethods, which, after being used for ages, are finally abandoned, with the exception of the possessive case, as of no real necessity nor use. The conjugation of the Greek and Latin verbs are an advance on the Hebrew method, which is also abandoned for a substitute, by the use of auxiliary verbs. This too originated with the Greeks, and is likely never to be laid aside. The structure of the Greek and Latin moods and tenses is one of the prodigies of human art, greater than the Pyramids, and equally enduring. The Hebrew language has two distinctions of tense, which are extremely indefinite, and therefore imperfect. They are formed by a modification of the ground form of the verb by pronominal suffixes and prefixes. Actions past and finished have the suffix modification only ; those in the future and unfinished, which are partly in the future, have both a suffix modification to signify person, and a prefix modification, derived also from the pronoun, to signify time.

4. The Greeks made great improvements on this method, and introduced a complete system of tenses, most of which were adopted by the Romans, and are still preserved in modern languages. But there was some redundancy in the Greek tenses, which the Romans did not. copy, and which modern languages do not preserve. Its two aorists, indefinite past tenses, are abandoned, and its imperfect alone retained. Such are the laws of progress. Without design, and without concert, millions of individuals are working incessant changes on the structure of language, all tending to its higher perfection and usefulness. Many, not comprehending the beneficent operations of these changes, oppose and denounce them as injurious ; but on they go, steady as the march of time, and strong as Omnipotence. They are a part of the river of life, and of the river of divine love, and are speeding to their source.

5. The second great epoch in the history of these languages is the introduction of letters. Their alphabets are different,

CHAP. III. BIBLICAL THEORIES. 19

but have a common origin in the Hebrew. The Hebrew is the primitive stock alphabet, 'as its language is the primitive stock language ; and the Greek and Roman alphabets are offshoots from it. This appears from several facts : 1 . Greek traditions on the subject bring the earliest known letters of their alphabet from Palestine, and claim only additions and modifications for the Greeks. 2. Nearly all the Greek letters are modifications of the Hebrew, with improvements, first making them face in the opposite direction, to correspond with the western position of the Greeks, and their writing from left to right, and in some cases directly inverting them ; but in all cases simplifying and beautifying them.

6. The earliest works received from the Greeks after the invention of letters, are the Homeric poems, and the earliest from the Hebrews are the Pentateuch and earlier Prophets, consisting of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. Hesiod follows Homer among the Greeks, and gleans after him the vast field of the Greek past ; both find treasures of priceless value.

7. The first part of the Bible, from Genesis to the end of 2 Kings, is a single work of the time of Ezra, and perhaps from his pen ; but transcribes portions of many earlier works, all of which have perished. The style of the book is that, not of the book of Ezra, which is a later composition, but of the time of Ezra. Its divisions are arbitrary, as well as the names assigned them, and some of them injudicious. Genesis certainly is no proper title of the first book, and Numbers is a continuation of Exodus, which ought not to be separated from it.

8. The work goes back to the earliest times, apparently selecting from the then existing literature of the Hebrews, whatever was deemed valuable either in history or allegory. Its author is the Jewish Herodotus. Its allegories are historical, and many of them enigmatic. They are full of instruction and information, and wait to yield up invaluable