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Show 474 TilE MONOGENISTS AND Judges arc familiar to po scssors of Cahen,221 De Wcitc,225 Munl~,226 Righcllini,227 or Palfrcy.228 Hitherto, as Dasnagc 229 remarks, owmg to superstitions of modern European origin upon tl1c exaggerated antiquity of their literature, the Jews" have uccn the librarians of God, and ours too:" nor arc they only bigoted Talmudists who still maintain, "that he who sins against Moses may be forgiven, but be that contracli ts the JJocto1·s deserves death." There arc l'l cnty of teachers extant who, without the faith or the IIcbraisrn of old Solomon Jarchi (Rase hi), would with him declare, that-" if a Rabbi should teach that the left hand is the right, and the right the left, we arc uound to believe him." 230 But, for tl1e purpose in hand, which is to show how Mr. Sharpe rc-n.rrang s the discrepant Book of Judges, it sufii<:cs to repeat the exhortation of St. Jeromc,-"Rclcge omncs ct Vetcris ct Novi Tcstamcnti libros, ct tantam annorum ropcri s dissonantiam ct numcrum intce Judam ct Israel, itl est, inter rcgnum utrumquc confusum, ut hujusce-modi hrorero qurnstionibus, non tam studiosi, quam otiosi hominis esse vidcatnr:" 231 not iorgotting either, how the father of Catholic biblical criticism, PJ.;HE SIMON do l'Oratoiro, eschews-" tho punctilios of chronologi ts; that contaih more vowels than consonants, and which it would be more incommodious to harmonize than the different clocks of a large city. * * Impossible to make an exact chronology through tho Books of Sacred Scripture such as they arc at this day." "Albeit," writes Munk,232 "it is impossible to present an historical ~ablcau of the epoch of tho Shophctim. rrho Book of Judg s, w]1ich 1s the only one we can consult about that epoch, is not a book of Idstory. Every thing in it is recounted in an unstiLchcd manner, and tho events succeed each other with rigorous sequence and without chronological orucr. It is a collection of detached traditions about tho times of tho Sltophetbn, composed probably upon ancient poems an~ upon P<!pular ].cgcnds that celebrated the glory of these heroes. Th1s c~llcctJOt~, whiCh dates from the first ages of tho monarchy, had for object, as 1t appears, to encourage tho now government to com- 112' La Bible, Traduction Nouvelle, "Schophotlm," vol. vii.; Pari~, 1846. 226 Crit. and Ilist. liltt·oduction to the Cation. Scrip. of tlte Old J'estammt Boston tra.nsl. Pnrkcr, 1813; ii. pp. 106-8. ' ' 2'lO Palwinc, Pa.ris, 1!!45; pp. 230-1, 441. :: Exomen .de Ia Religion Cltretienne et de la Religion J11ive, Paris, 8vo., 1834: iii. p. 560. m A~aderntcal Lectures 011 the Jewish Scriptures, Dostou, 8vo., 18•10; ii. pp. 208-35. 2110 Ills tory at1d Religion of the Jews, transl. Tnyl.•r, London, fol. 1708; pp. 844, 170. MACKAY, Progre88 of the l11tellut, London, 8vo., 1860; p. ]4. 2111 E~ist. ~d Vital.- RronAllO Sr1110N, liistoire Critique du Vieux Tcstametzt, Amsterdam, 4to., 1686; 1. pp. 88, 850, 204-8. 23 ~ Pa/CIIine, p. 231. TilE POLYGENISTS. 475 pleto tho work begun by Joshua, aud to show to tho people all tho advantages of her ditary royalty. For this purpose, it sufficed to show, by a series of examples, what had been tho disorders to which tho llobrows delivered themselves up, during the days of the republic; what had boon the evil consequences which the (loving) weakness of tbc Hebrews towards the Canaanites had caused, and how tho temporary power of one alone had always preserved them ii·om total ruin. One must not, therefore, think to establish with exactness the chronological order of facts and the epoch of each ,judge. Savants have given themselves, in this respect, useless trouble, and all their c:frorts have completely failed. It will su-tli.cc to say that tho ciphers which we find in the Book of Judges, and in the first book of Samuel, yield us, from the death of Joshua to tho commencement of tl1c reign of Sai.il, the sum total of 500 years; which would make, since tho exodc from Egypt, 565 years; whereas, tho first book of Kings counts but 480 years from tho going out of Egypt clown to the foundation of the Temple under Solomon. According to thi , one mu."t suppose [with Mr. Sharpe] that several of the Shophctlrn governed simultaneously in dif:tcrcnt countries. In the incertitude of the dates, and in the absence of historical sources, we must content ourselves by here giving a summary of tho traditions contained in tho Book of J uclgcs, to aO:ord a general tableau of the state of the llobrows during that period, without pretending to establish a chronological succession." Tltc g1·cat merit of Mr. Sharpe's restoration to accordance of tho di located fragments contained in Judges is its simplicity ; and simplicity, so far from being an index to a primeval stage of human intellect, is always an expression of modem philosophical science. "rro determine tho cbronoloO'y, we must have regard to the geography; and we shall sec that tho wars hero mentioned do not always belong to tho whole of tho Israelites;" that is, they often occnrl'cd simultaneously, and not, as gcnomlly supposed by the old cbronolog t·s, consecutively-different points of Palestine being ruled over by dificrcnt juugcs at tho same time. "Tho whole argument will be made more clear by tho following Chronological Table : |
