Methodist Review (Volume 79)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1897. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... BOOK NOTICES. RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND BIBLICAL LITERATURE. The Veracity of the Hexateuch. A Defense of the Historic Character of the First Six Books of the Bible. By EUuuiL Colcoro Bartlett, D. D., LL.D., Ex-President of Dartmouth College. Ktiiio, pp. 404. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co. Price, cloth, 91.50. It is easy, says Dr. Bartlett, to deny the authorship of ancient documents. In illustration of this he instances, outside the realm of religious composition, the curious contention of the learned Father Hardouin, who died in 1729, that the plays of Terence, Virgil's JEneid, the Odes of Horace, and the histories of Livy and Tacitus were forgeries of the monks of the thirteenth century. Yet, while the verbal and verbose denial of ancient authorship is easy, the establishment of that denial is a severe labor. Mere tradition is reckoned sufficient, in the case of Terence, Virgil, and the rest, to prove the historicity of their records. Difficult as it would be, ' says Dr. Bartlett, to formulate a case in court for them, . . . they are frankly accepted on the basis of the descending traditions, in the absence of conflicting claims or indications, together with the conviction that the monks were incapable of the composition--although this last point could not be proved. But mere tradition, accompanied by a conviction regarding the possibilities of Old Testament authorship, is not the slender proof on which Dr. Bartlett seeks to establish his claim for the veracity of the Hexateuch. By so much as Moses is a more conspicuous factor than Terence or Tacitus in human regeneration and the restoration of society to its pristine ideals, to that degree this present defender of the writings of Moses recognizes our possession of all the evidence of their s...