Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

"If the priest's daughter be a widow or divorced, "and have no child, and is returned unto her "father's house as in her youth, she shall eat of "her father's meat:'

[ocr errors]

the subject, and This rule is ex

In Lev. xxi. 12.

12. Things that teach from things that teach from the end. plained in the following manner. it is commanded respecting the high priest, "Nei"ther shall he go out of the sanctuary." This might be supposed to mean that he was never to go out of the temple; but from the subject of the context it clearly signifies no more than that he is not to go out to defile himself with a dead body, even of any of his nearest relatives. In Lev. xviii. 6. it is commanded respecting marriage, "None of you shall approach to any that is near "of kin to him." Here all marriages between relatives would seem to be forbidden; but the end or conclusion of this law limits its application, by enumerating the various degrees of consanguinity and affinity, to which the prohibition was designed to extend.

13. When two texts contradict one another, and a third comes and weighs them both down. In Exod. xx. 22. "The Lord said unto Moses, "Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, "Ye have seen that I have talked with you from "heaven." In Deut. v. 4. Moses says, "The Lord "talked with you face to face in the mount, out of "the midst of the fire." These two passages are reconciled by a third: in Deut. iv. 36. Moses says, "Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, "that he might instruct thee: and upon earth he

"shewed thee his great fire, and thou heardest his "voice out of the midst of the fire."*

* Veter. Rabbin. in expon. Pentateuch. Modi Tredecim, a Philip. Aquin. Heb. Liter. Profess. Lutet. Paris. 1620. Raym. Mart. Pug. Fid. p. 63-65. Jewish Prayer Book, London, A. M. 5530. Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Prayer Book, London, A. M. 5570. Dr. Wotton's Miscel. Discourses, c. 3.

45

CHAP. IV.

Reasons for believing the Story of an Oral Law to be a Fiction.-The Mishna at variance with the Pentateuch, and favourable to Chicanery and Prevarication.— The Contents of the Gemara, frivolous and superstitious, impious aud blasphemous, absurd and fabulous.Apologies for the Talmud answered.-Difference of earlier and later Editions of the Talmud.

THE statements and quotations in the preceding chapter will leave the reader at no loss, to appreciate the reverence which the Jews profess for the Law of Moses. They regard the written law, no otherwise than as it is expounded, extended, or limited, by an oral law, which they pretend to have been given at the same time and by the same authority. But the remark which has been made respecting the narrative of Maimonides, may be applied to the accounts of other Jewish writers on this subject:-they are unsupported by any evidence whatever. Their having produced no evidence, justifies the suspicion that they had none to produce, and that the whole story is a fiction. A few considerations will shew it to be unworthy of the smallest credit.

The ancient and original record of Mosaic legislation is the Pentateuch:-that contains not the least allusion to an oral law, or any trace of its existence. The same may be affirmed of all the other books of the Old Testament. But if an oral law had really been given, is it probable that the

scripture, which notices with the utmost exactness things of far inferior moment, would have been entirely silent upon a fact of such vast importance? Surely it would somewhere have suggested, that, beside the written law, Moses had received another, which ought to be a subject of diligent study, though it was not allowed to be committed to writing: we should have found some exhortations to obey it, and some intimations of the danger of transgression. On the contrary, the scripture is not only silent in its favour, but furnishes evidence more than sufficient to justify its rejection as a fable.

The notion on which the whole traditional system is founded,-that when Moses was on mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights, God gave him the whole of the law, with explications and rules fully providing for every case that could arise,-is contradicted by various parts of the sacred history.

In the twenty fourth chapter of Leviticus, it is related, not long after Moses came down from the mount, that "the son of an Israelitish woman, "whose father was an Egyptian, blasphemed the "name of the Lord, and cursed."-This was a case not provided for by any law yet given; Moses considered himself not authorized to decide on the punishment to be inflicted; and therefore "they put him in ward, that the mind of the Lord

[ocr errors]

might be shewed them." Then follows, not only a sentence on this individual transgressor, but a general law for the punishment of the same crime in all future cases: "Whosoever curseth his God

"shall bear his sin: and he that blasphemeth the "Name of the Lord, as well the stranger as he "that is born in the land, shall be put to death." The next chapter resumes the account of the laws given in mount Sinai.

The book of Numbers contains several new commands, given on different occasions during the journeys of the Israelites through the wilderness; and concludes with the following declaration : "These are the commandments and the judgments "which the Lord commanded by the hand of "Moses unto the children of Israel, in the plains of Moab, by Jordan near Jericho." Does not this passage fully disprove the assertion, that the whole law was given on mount Sinai?

66

The book of Deuteronomy consists of little more than repetitions of certain precepts given before, commands supplementary to or explanatory of former ones, and others entirely new, with exhortations to observe the law in general. If oral explications of all the written commands had been previously given, could these written explications have been necessary; and if the whole law was given on Sinai forty years before, how can we account for the addition of these new precepts? That these new laws were not of small importance, will be evident even on a cursory review. The following are some of them. Respecting individuals guilty of idolatry: Deut. xiii. 6-11.-Respecting cities seduced to idolatry: vi. 12-18.Respecting tithes xiv. 23-29.-Against planting groves near God's altar: xvi. 21.-Respecting judicial decision in difficult cases: xvii. 8-13.

« EdellinenJatka »