Critical History and Defence of the Old Testament Canon;

ifnnnE, ^.^C-l THE LIBRARY jL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/criticalhistorydOOstua CRITICAL HISTORY AND DEFENCE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. CRITICAL HISTORY AND DEFENCE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. BY MOSES STUART, PROFESSOR OF SACRED LITERATURE IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, ANDOVEll, MASSACHUSETTS. ©DilPli, Ujitlj ©ttastonal iSotes anU JJefrrrnffa, THE REV. PETER LORIMER, PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL LITERATURE IN THE ENGLISH PRESBYTERIAN COLLEGE, LONDON. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.; DUBLIN: JAMES m'gI.ASIIAN. MDCCCXLIX. EDINBUnGIi: PRINTED BY ANDREW JACK, NIDDRY STREET. "^5 PREFATORY NOTICE BY THE EDITOR. I CHEERFULLY undertook the task of superintending the present reprint in its passage through the press, under the conviction that Professor Stuart's work, in an improved form, and at a moderate price, would prove a seasonable and acceptable present to the theological readers and teachers of this country. It supplies, to a considerable extent, a long-felt desideratum, and though it is not of the nature of a complete Litrodnction to the Old Testament, but leaves the demand for such a work in our own language still unsupplied,—yet, as a general outline of the Critical History of the Ancient Canon, and of the argument upon which its Divine authority mainly rests, it will be found of excellent service, both to students of theology, and to general readers who are desirous of informing themselves, and coming to intelligent conclusions upon these interest- ing and important subjects. It is especially well fitted for use as a Text-Book in classes of Biblical literature in our higher schools and colleges. I have not always been able to accept the learned author's decisions upon points of doubt and difficulty; but I did not think it necessary, or consistent with good taste, to intrude, on all or even on many such occasions, my reasons for venturing to differ from the critical judgments of so eminent an authority. An author of his distinguished standing and services in the department of Biblical literature is entitled to be heard without interruption upon a subject with which the learned labours of a lifetime have made him perfectly familiar. It has. 20700-16 Yl PREFACE. therefore, been with a feeling of deep reluctance, that in one or two instances, I have felt myself obliged, by a regard^to the sacred interests of truth, in connection with questions of present practical moment, to enter a caveat against some of the views which the author has broached. But in the very few cases in which I have done this, I hope to have the reader's candid acknowledgment, that I have not done it without grave occasion, and that I would have been more blame-worthy for leaving it undone, than I am for doing it. I have also occasionally supplied a few additional references to the writings of other authors, when this appeared to be really desirable. In this I have had chiefly in view the advantage of theological students. To have multiplied such references to a great extent would have been very easy; but this would only have been to repeat what has already been adequately done in Kitto's Biblical Cyclo- pcBdia, in which, at the end of each of the articles treat- ing of the several books of Scripture, will be found a select body of references to the literature of each subject. A short Index has been appended to the volume, which, taken along with the Table of Contents, will be quite suf- ficient to facilitate the consultation of the work. A good many errors in the American edition have been corrected; and, on the whole, it is hoped that this valuable contribution to Biblical literature will be found, in its present shape, well adapted to the use of the British Churches ; and that it will prove useful in preparing the minds of many for times of renewed theological discussion upon the fundamental subjects here treated of,—times which, by many sure tokens in the religious firmament, seem to be rapidly approaching. THE EDITOR. En{;|,ISII I'llKSIUTKIUAN Coi.LKGi:, LoNDON, May ID, IJilf). CONTENTS. Page Remarks § 1. Introductory ..... 1 2. Definition of the word Canon .... 24 3. Commencement of the Canon .... .27 4. State of Literature and Instruction among the Hebrews . 62 .5. Continued History of the Canon—Books of known authors . 118 6. Continued History—Books anonymous . 125 7. Lost books of the Hebrews . .159 8. Manner of preserving the Sacred books . 171 9. Genuineness—General considerations . 188 10, Completion of the Canon . 194 divisions of the Canon ] 1 . Ancient .... 213 12. Sameness of the Jewish Canon ever since its completion . 223 13. General Results ...... 255 14. Canon of the Egyptian Jews .... 259 16. How were the Scriptures estimated by the Jews? . 262 16. Summary of testimony by Sirach, Philo, and Josephus . 271 17. Nature and importance of New Testament testimony . 273 18. Appeals by the New Testament to the Old . 278 • 19. Result . .296 20. Conclusion ....... 299 21. Remarks on doubts respecting some of the Old Testament books 301 22. Use of the Old Testament ..... 333 APPENDIX. No. I. Testimony of the Son of Sirach 367 II. „ of Philo Judaeus 370 III. „ of Josephus 371 IV. „ ofMelito . 372 CONTENTS. Page Vo.V. Testimony of Origen 373 VI. „ of the Council of Laodicea 376 VII. „ of Cyrill of Jerusalem 376 VIII. „ of Gregory Nazianzen 377 IX. of Athanasius . „ . : 379 X. „ of Synopsis of Scripture 381 XI. „ of Epiphanius . 382 XII. „ of the Council of Hippo 383 XIII. „ of the Council of Carthage 384 XIV. „ of Jerome 384 ; XV. of Hilary . „ 386 XVI. ,, of Rutinus 387 ERRATA. Page 21, note, for x.a)iavt\a., read xavoviâ. „ 27, last \me,for Pentateach, read Pentateuch. line „ 63, 18 from top,/or I'lJ^'i^, read I'lp'i?;^. line from bottom, '"^"^ „ 75, 4 for "^t^tT' "Î^tl?. line from „ 79, 21 top,/or pti^h' êati Hb^h. „ 79, line 2 of note,/or j-f^^, read pQ^. — T — T „ 229, Ime 7 from bottom, for -i-^, read '^5, line ., 254, 15 from top, /or fc^'î^j read ^^^2, CRITICAL HISTORY AND DEFENCE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. § 1. Introductory Remarks. The time has been, when few, if any, who admitted the Divine origin and authority of the Christian rehgion, deemed it consistent or decorous to deny the sacred authority of the Old Testa- ment Scriptures. But that time has passed away, and we have come to witness new developments of sceptical feelings, at which our ancestors would have stood astounded. I do not mean to aver, that there has not, for ages past, been a class of men in all Christian countries, who doubted the Divine authority of the Christian and Jewish religion, and of course the Divine origin and authority of the sacred books in general. But the professed reception of the Christian religion as Divine, with the admission that the New Testament contains at least a credible and authen- tic account of it; the admission, at the same time, that the Jew- ish religion had some proper and real claim to be considered as having been approved and established by God, while the Old Testament is regarded in the main as a work of sciolists and impostors, is a phenomenon that has rarely occurred, I believe, in any country, but which we of the present day are called upon, perhaps for the first time, to witness. Past experience and a priori reasoning from the nature of the case would probably have led most persons to conclude, that such a development would not take place on the part of any well-in- formed and consistent man; yet Mr Norton, in a work replete in many respects with learning and valuable matter—a work 2 § 1. INTRODUCTOUY REMAIiKS. wliicli he entitles Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels—has taken the unusual position which I have been describing. In a note appended to vol. ii. of this work, extending from p. xlviii. to p. cc, in which he has brought under review "the Jewish dispensation, the Pentateuch, and the other Books of the Old Tes- tament," he has developed his opinions at length on these subjects, and actually and earnestly laboured to show, that in order to maintain the Divine origin of the Jewish religion, as founded by JNloses, it becomes necessary to show that he did not write the Pentateuch; and in like manner, in order to show that the Jew- ish prophets and others who laboured to promote the observance of the Jewish religion, were the true disciples of a true religion, it becomes necessary to show that most of the Old Testament books are filled with incredible, or trivial, or superstitious nar- rations and notions, and that the best we can do, even with the prophets, is to select here and there a passage that accords with reason and sound judgment, to which we may give our assent as being worthy of the ancient dispensation, while the rest is to be placed under the same category as the fictions and extravagant accounts of all other nations, respecting their origin and their history in ages too remote to have been consigned to writing. It is not my design, in the present work, to review at length and controvert all the positions of Mr Norton. It will be seen, in the brief account that I shall give of them in the sequel, that a great proportion of them belong rather to the department of Christian theology^ specially of apologetic and polemic theology, than to the department of sacred literature.

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