IMAGININGS

We assign to this class those objections which we regard as resting on purely fanciful grounds. Some of the objections urged against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch involve no unreasonable interpretations, nor are based on palpably incorrect representations; but some of the objections and arguments employed on that side are founded on unmitigated misrepresentations, or fanciful views and interpretations. We therefore call them imaginings. Some of these we will notice.

I. Reuss claims that the account of the dismissal and departure of Hagar and Ishmael asserts a self-evident impossibility, and that it is therefore palpably absurd. If he is correct in his representations, Moses did not write this account, for we are quite confident that he did not write nonsense. Our critic construes the account in question to mean that Hagar carried off on her shoulder her son Ishmael, her big boy of fourteen, who, in case of need, might have carried his poor mother.¹ After making this statement he expresses his astonishment by an exclamation-point enclosed in brackets. This is pure imagination. It is neither stated nor implied that Hagar carried Ishmael, but the very opposite. The account shows that Abraham gave bread, a bottle of water, and Ishmael to Hagar, and that he put the bottle of water on her shoulder, but not Ishmael.² This view is in accordance with Reuss's own translation, as follows: "Abraham prit du paiǹ et une outre remplie d'eau et donna cela à Hagar, en les mettant sur son epaule, ainsi que le garçon, et la renvoye"³ ("Abraham took bread and a skin filled with water and gave that to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away"). According to this rendering, it is not necessary to understand that Abraham put Ishmael, as well as the bread and water-skin, on Hagar' s shoulder. The French version reads, "He gave to her also the child."

2. A fanciful argument has been drawn from the military strength of the Israelites to prove the unhistorical character of the Pentateuch. It is claimed that it is not supposable that a nation embracing six hundred thousand able-bodied men would submit to cruel oppression and allow their new-born babes to be drowned without forcible resistance, as the Israelites are said to have done. Voltaire began this kind of argument, and has been followed by Reuss, Colenso, and others. This is another argument that owes all its plausibility and force to imagination. These critics imagine the six hundred thousand able-bodied men to have been brave warriors. They forget that slavery had had its natural effect upon them and had made them cowards. They were so unfit for war that the entrance into Canaan was necessarily postponed forty years, in order that the generation of cowards might die off, and that a generation that had not experienced the debasing effects of slavery might arise. It is related in the history that when the fugitive Israelites saw their late masters, well-trained warriors, advancing with their horses and chariots they became alarmed and cried to the Lord for help. This has been treated by some of the critics as a matter of reproach to the Israelites, or rather to the author of the history-, as if such conduct were incredible. But it was natural that when the fugitive slaves saw the embattled hosts of their former lords they should feel and act just as represented. Even if they were armed, they were without military organization, officers, and training. They were no better than a mob. They knew they were helpless, and acted accordingly. The critics, if they were disposed, might learn something from the course pursued by the vSlave population in the United States during the late Civil War, up to the time when the National Government began to furnish them with arms and officers. In number they were to the Israelites about as two to one. This impeachment of the historical accuracy of the Pentateuch on the ground that it is incredible that the Israelites at the time of the exodus were, as represented, timid and submissive, is one of the fanciful absurdities that have been perpetrated in the name of biblical criticism.

3. Another specimen of this kind of criticism is found in Reuss' s attacks on the personal history of Moses. He writes as follows: "Elle presénte des difficultés qui sont de nature à étonner ceux qui la lisent dans la supposition que c'est lui-mème qui a é-crit ses mémoires"⁴ ("It presents difficulties of a nature to astonish those who read it in the belief that he himself wrote his own memoirs"). Our critic endeavors to make out inconsistency and confusion by arguing as follows: (1) In one passage but one son of Moses is mentioned; in another, two sons are mentioned. (2) These two sons must have been infants at the time of Moses' return from Midian to Egypt, for one ass carried them and their mother; yet how could they still be infants, since Moses had been married forty years? (3) Moses, we are told, had married an Ethiopian woman; but who was she? was this a recent or a former marriage? were Zipporah and this Ethiopian woman the same person?⁵

These are specimens of the difficulties in the history of Moses which are claimed to prove that he did not write it. We reply as follows:

(1) The mention of one son does not imply that there were no others. When the birth of Moses is recorded, no allusion is made to other children in his father's family, though Miriam and Aaron were born before him. The marriage of Aniram and Jochebed is mentioned, and then it is stated that "the woman conceived, and bare a son," though she had already borne a daughter and a son.⁶ Why does not the critic claim inconsistency and confusion here? Carlyle states that Oliver Cromwell, son of Robert and Elizabeth Stewart Cromwell, was born April 25, 1599.⁷ In the coming ages, when some man with a very fine critical instinct, or with some favorite hypothesis to defend, reads this declaration, and then a little further on reads that Oliver was the fifth child of his parents, and again, further on, reads that they had ten children in all, and sees their names in a marginal note, he will perhaps exclaim: "What difficulty and contradiction have we here! This book was not written by Carlyle. We have here two authors and a redactor." The futility of Reuss's criticism is further seen from the fact that the language he cites has reference to the birth of the first-born of Moses. How else could the writer do than use the singular number, since it was not a case of twins?

(2) Reuss fails to show that the sons of Moses are represented as infants at the time of the return to Egypt. The fact that one of them had not been circumcised does not prove anything in regard to his age; for it was the unusual delay of the circumcision that produced the difficulty⁸ Nor does the statement that Moses set his wife and sons "upon an ass" prove that his sons were infants. Reuss gets the translation right, — " les fit monter l'ane " ("made them mount the ass"), — but quotes it incorrectly in his argumentation — ''un ane" (''an ass," or ''one ass"). Though the singular number is employed, there may have been more than one ass. In Hebrew, as in English, the singular is often employed to suggest the plural. Had Noah's ark but one window?⁹ Did Jacob's sons take each but one ass and one sack to transport corn from Egypt to Canaan?¹⁰ Did Simeon and Levi, in slaying the men of Shechem with the edge of the sword, use but one weapon?¹¹ We have such forms of speech in English. When cavalrymen leap into the saddle, do they all mount one horse? When soldiers in battle rush forward sword in hand, have they all but one hand and one sword? When they charge at the point of the bayonet, have the}^ but a single weapon? When Moses put his family on the ass, he did not necessarily put them all on one ass; or if there was but one ass in the case, it does not follow that he set them all on that one ass at the same time.

(3) After all, Gershom and Eliezer may have been small enough to ride with their mother on one ass. In combating this idea Reuss will have it that Moses was married and had a son born to him soon after he fled to Midian. This notion, however, is not in the record. The order of events, as there given, is as follows: Moses' flight to Midian, his dwelling there, his sitting by the well and watering Jethro's sheep, his dwelling with this man, his marriage to one of his daughters, the birth of Gershom.¹² All these events are crowded into the small space of eight verses. Other events, among them the birth of a second son, are also mentioned as occurring before the return to Egypt.¹³ How much time intervened between one of these events and another is unknown. Moses may have dwelt ten, twenty, or thirty years in Midian before he sat by the well. He may have dwelt several years with Jethro before he married Zipporah. It is possible that he may not have had a son until years after his marriage. For anything that is contained in the record, Gershom and Eliezer may have been born near the close of the residence in Midian. Esau and Jacob were born twenty years after Isaac's marriage. Isaac was born more than a quarter of a century after Abraham's marriage. From all these considerations it is inferred that the sons of Moses may have been very small boys at the time of the return to Egypt.

(4) The marriage of Moses with an Ethiopian (Cushite)¹⁴ woman is not inconsistent with anything else recorded concerning him. Zipporah may have died, and the Cushite may have been a second wife. Or Moses may have taken a second wife while Zipporah was still living, for polygamy by him is not more improbable than by Abraham and Jacob. Or Zipporah herself may have been the Cushite woman.

4. Another imaginary difficulty is brought forward by Reuss in regard to the size and weight of the tables of stone on which the decalogue was written. He thinks they must have been entirely too large and heavy for Moses to carry. He supposes that the six hundred and twenty Hebrew letters embraced in the decalogue would occupy at least a square meter and a half of surface, each letter occupying twenty-five square centimeters.¹⁵ According to this hypothesis and calculation, the six hundred and twenty letters of the Hebrew decalogue occupied more than sixteen square feet of surface, and each table must have been more than four feet long and two feet wide. Stone tables of such length and breadth, with corresponding thickness, would likely be too heavy for Moses to carry.¹⁵ Reuss calls attention to the fact that Moses was eighty years old ("un octogenaire" ), and reminds us that Sinai was a pretty high mountain. He forgets, or disbelieves, the statement that up to the time of Moses' death "his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated."¹⁶ But we are willing to admit that it certainly would be very difficult for Moses, however strong he might be, to carry two large slabs of stone from the top of Sinai down to the camp of the Israelites, and it would be still harder for him to carry them from the camp up the mountain's side¹⁷ Why did not our critic think of the last-mentioned difficulty?

But the hypothesis on which the above calculation is based is very fanciful and extravagant. Reuss supposes that twenty-five square centimeters were necessary for each letter, and twenty-five square centimeters are eight square inches and a fraction. Thus Reuss assigns over eight square inches to each letter, making it more than two and one-half inches long and wide. This is utterly unreasonable. Even the old so-called uncial letters were generally only an inch in length and breadth. But suppose that the letters employed in writing the decalogue occupied each the space of one square inch; then the whole surface occupied by them would be six hundred and twenty square inches, a little less than a surface twenty-five inches long and the same in width. Two tablets, then, each two feet and one inch long and one foot and one-half inch wide, would contain the six hundred and twenty letters of the decalogue. But there is an important fact which Reuss has overlooked or ignored, and that is that the tablets were written on both sides. Such is the express statement:" The tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written."¹⁸ All this explicitness and emphasis of declaration are lost on the critic who is intent on proving the Pentateuch historically untrue. In view of the fact that the tablets were written on both sides, we may reduce our tablets above mentioned to one-half their size, that is, to one foot and one-half inch in length and one foot and one-half inch in width. Tablets so diminutive in size would, of course, be of little thickness and weight. Thus the tablets on which the ten commandments were written need not have been much larger than a schoolboy's slate, though the imagination of the critic has magnified them into slabs as large as tombstones.

5. What Reuss says about the first journey of Jacob's sons to Egypt to buy food is a fine specimen of fanciful criticism. He will have it that, according to the account as found in Genesis, they went into Egypt each having but one sack, and that they returned to Canaan each one having only one sack of grain. He is also quite sure that, according to the account, but one of the asses was fed during the entire journey.¹⁹ The way such conclusions are reached is this: The writer mentions but one sack, therefore he meant there were no others; he refers to the feeding of but one of the asses, therefore he meant that all the rest went altogether without food. Such criticism is not surpassed by anything found in the biblical commentaries of Voltaire. Our famous critic of Strasburg might have drawn some other conclusions equally candid and reasonable. He might have affirmed that each man, according to the account, carried his one sack on his shoulder, and took his ass along only for company; for Joseph's order was, "Fill the men's sacks with food, as much as they can carry."²⁰ He might have claimed that the men, during the first journey to and from Egypt, ate no food at all; for, though mention is made of one of the asses being fed, there is no allusion to any of the men either eating or drinking. He might have claimed that Benjamin, at the second visit, in Joseph's house ate five dinners at one meal; for it is expressly stated that his mess was five times as much as that of any of his brethren, and it is not stated that he did not eat it all. It is wonderful what some of the learned critics can do by means of the argument c silentio.

6. Graf, too, has taken a hand in this imaginative criticism. The following is a specimen:'* Nach der Num., C. 2, 3, gegebenen Beschreibung soil die Stiftshütte in dei Mitte des Lagers stehen (vgl. Ex. 25:8; Ezra 37:26, 28), und die Eeviten zunächst, dann die zwölf Stämme rings um dieselbe symmetrisch je drei nach der einen der vier Himmelsgegenden sich lagern, und nach ähnlicher Anordnung soil auf dem Marsche das Heiligthum in der Mitte des Zuges gehen. Num. 10:11 ff; nach den anderu Erzählern dagegen steht die Stiftshütte ausserhalb des Lagers und die Bundeslade zieht dem Volke voran. Jahwe spricht mit IMose vom Deckel der im Allerheiligsten stehenden Bundeslade her Ex. 25:22; 30:6; 36; Num. 7:89. . . . Nach den andem Erzahlern tritt Jahwe in der Wolkensäule an den Eingang des Zeltes, um mit Mose zu reden."²¹ (" According to the description given, Num. chs. 2, 3, the tabernacle is to stand in the middle of the camp (comp. Ex. 25:8; Ezra 37. 26, 28), and the Levites next; then the twelve tribes to encamp round about it, in symmetrical order, always three toward one of the four regions of heaven; and, according to a like regulation, the sanctuary on the march is to go in the middle of the train, Num. 10:11 ff. According to the other narrators, however, the tabernacle stands outside of the camp, and the ark of the covenant goes before the people. Yah we speaks with Moses from the cover of the ark of the covenant standing in the most holy, Ex. 25:22; 30:6; 36; Num. 7:89. . . . According to the other narrators Yahwe entered into the cloud-pillar to speak with Moses.")

These claims of contradiction are put forward as proofs that the account of the tabernacle and the ark are not historical, but poetic and imaginative. The critic, however, himself in this case deals wholly in the imaginary and unreal. It is not recorded anywhere that the Lord spake to Moses through the cloudy pillar, and even if there had been such a record it would not be inconsistent with the declaration and the fact that God communed with Moses "from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony." The Almighty could communicate his will to Moses in more ways and places than one.

As for the representation of the tabernacle as being both within and without the camp, we remark: (1) That the tabernacle, or a tabernacle, is spoken of as being pitched without the camp at the time of the shameful affair of the golden calf.²² But this was clearly only a temporary arrangement, introduced on the occasion of Israel's great sin. (2) This tent was not the Mosaic tabernacle, for that had not yet been erected. (3) But even if this tent pitched by Moses without the camp had been the true Mosaic tabernacle, its outside position is never again mentioned after Israel's idolatry had been fully put away.

There is, therefore, nothing in this particular passage inconsistent with the uniform representation of the Mosaic tabernacle and ark in the Pentateuch as having their rightful and actual place within the camp of the Israelites.

7. Colenso, like some other critics, maintains that the sacred narrative represents the six hundred thousand footmen of the Israelites as being armed previously to their departure from Egypt. On this assumption several imaginary difficulties are suggested. Among other things it is asked why the Israelites, with arms in their hands, did not fight for their liberty and their children in Egypt. It is, however, a question whether the Israelites were really armed before they crossed the Red Sea. Our Authorized Version reads that "the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt."²³ But for the word "harnessed" the words "by five in a rank" are placed in the margin. But the Revised Version has the word "armed," and Colenso is very sure that this is the correct rendering.²⁴ This view, however, is not sustained by the best scholarship. Gesenius gives a different rendering. Reuss has it "marchant en bon ordre"²⁵ ("marching in good order"). Professor W. H. Green recognizes the fact that the original word is one ' ' whose meaning and derivation are exceedingly doubtful."²⁶

We do not care to discuss this point farther. When Reuss, the stepfather of analytic criticism, decides against translating the original word by "armed," the dogmatism of Colenso is unavailing.

But it is asked, Where, then, did the Israelites obtain the weapons with which they defeated the Amalekites about a month after crossing the Red Sea?²⁷ We answer that the Israelites, after coming out of Egypt, may have obtained supplies of arms from several sources:(1) From the drowned Egyptians. The statement that "Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore"²⁸ is very suggestive. Josephus may be correct in his statement that the day after the crossing "the Israelites collected the weapons of the Egyptians."²⁹ This may be only an inference of the Jewish author, but if so it is a very natural and proper one. (2) The Israelites may have manufactured weapons. In one month six hundred thousand men might manufacture all the weapons needed by those who went to meet the Amalekites; for those chosen to go on that expedition were perhaps no more than twelve thousand men, — one thousand from each tribe, — and hence arms would be needed only for that number. (3) After the defeat of the Amalekites there was of course an easy supply of weapons. In one, or in all, of these ways there was a possibility of the Israelites' obtaining arms.

8. Even Wellhausen furnishes some pretty good specimens of imaginative criticism. In denying the Mosaic origin of the decalogue, he says that the trustworthiness of the account in Exodus of its being written on two tables of stone and placed in the ark is impaired by the fact that it is recorded that Deuteronomy was written on twelve stones and deposited in the ark. The critic thinks that because this second account cannot be true therefore the first is also probably untrue. His words are, "Indessen auch vom Deuteronomium wird bezeugt, einerseits es sei auf zwölf Steinen eingeschrieben, andererseits es sei in die Lade gelegt worden, Deut. 31:26"³⁰ ("Yet also concerning Deuteronomy this testimony is given, that, on the one hand, it was written on twelve stones, and, on the other, deposited in the ark, Deut. 31:26"). In the passage thus cited there is not a word about Deuteronomy being written on twelve or any other number of stones. The declaration there is, that it was "the book of the law" — not a copy in stone, but a book copy of the law — that was placed in the ark. Nor is it stated anywhere in the Pentateuch that a stone copy of Deuteronomy was placed in the ark.

Again, Wellhausen affirms that we have two decalogues, quite different from one another, preserved to us in Exodus. His words are, "Indemzwei ganz verschiedene Dekaloge, Bxod. 20 und Exod. 34 überliefert werden"³¹ ("Two entirely different decalogues are given, Exodus 20 and Exodus 34). There are, indeed, two sets of tables mentioned in connection with these two chapters. But they are declared to be identical in their contents. "And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first; and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest."³² The identity of the contents of the first two and second two tables is also emphatically affirmed in Deuteronomy.³³

Thus Wellhausen, as well as other analytic critics, is sometimes indebted to his imagination for facts to support his theories. We do not, of course, say that all their reasoning, or their reasoning in general, is such as we have been dealing with in this chapter. There are some difficulties involved in the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and these the analytic critics employ with much skill. Many of their arguments are characterized by more or less plausibility and strength; but, on the other hand, much of their argumentation is founded on fancy and misrepresentation. We have thought proper to take some notice of arguments of this kind, as well as of those that are stronger and more respectable.

1) L'Histoire Sainte, Int., p. 96.

2) Gen. 21:14.

3) L'Histoire Sainte, Vol. I., p. 367.

4) L'Histoire Sainte, Vol. I., p. 82.

5) L'Histoire Sainte, Int., p. 8.3.

6) Ex. 2:1, 2.

7) Life and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Vol. I., p. 20.

8) Ex. 4:25.

9) Gen. 8:6.

10) Gen. 42:27.

11) Gen. 34:26.

12) Ex. 2:15-22.

13) Ex. 18:3.

14) Num. 12:1.

15) 15) "Ce texte se compose de 620 lettres. Avec Pécriture carrée actuelle, ce texte, en ne tenant au cun compte des marges et des interlignes (la séparation des mots n'étant pas d'usage) aurait demandé au moins un métre carré et denii de superficies, même en ne calculant pour chaque lettre que I'espace miniinede2ocni. carrés."— L'Histoire Sainte, Int., p. 66.

16) Deut. 34:7.

17) Ex. 34:4.

18) Ex. 32:15.

19) L'Histoire Sainte, Vol. I., p. 108.

20) Gen. 44:1.

21) Geschichlichen Bücher des Alien Testaments, pp. 64, 65.

22) Ex. 33:7.

23) Ex. 13:18.

24) Pentateuch and Book of Joshua, p. 98.

25) L'Histoire Sainte, Vol. II., p. 38.

26) Pentateuch Vindicated, p. 74.

27) Ex. 17:8-13.

28) Ex. 14:30.

29) Antiquities 2:16:6.

30) Prolegomena, p. 410.

31) Prolegomena, p. 411.

32) Ex. 34:1.

33) Deut. 10:2, 4.