ItAlrfINSON'S BAMPTON LECTURES.
THE challenge given to orthodox faith by the various representa- tives of religious or philosophical scepticism seems to have been fairly accepted by the two last preachers of the "eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, established for ever" in the University of Ox- ford, by John Bampton, Canon of Salisbury. Mr. Hansel has shown, or has endeavoured to show, the inadequacy of human reason for the solution of the problems which the metaphysical inquirer proposes and thus to checkmate the Atheist, the Pan- theist, and speculative Theist. Mr. Rawlinson succeeds Mr. Mansel. Quitting the cold and =sustaining tether of the Abso- lute, the present assailant of Rationalism takes his stand on the terra firma of Concrete Fact. Accordingly his "Lectures are an attempt to meet that latest phase of modern unbelief which, pro- fessing a reverence for the name and person of Christ and a real regard for the Scriptures . . . lower (sic) Christ, to a mere name, and empty (sic) the Scriptures of all their force and practical efficacy by denying the historical character of the Biblical nar- rative.
The author has long felt this to be a serious and growing evil. Eight or nine years almost exclusive study of Ancient History has served but to increase his conviction of the thorough truthfulness and faithful accuracy of the Historical Scriptures. He brings to the execution of his task an intimate knowledge of the whole course of recent cuneiform and to some extent of hieroglypical discovery ; this knowledge, however, as regards the ancient As- syrian' being "in most cases limited to an acquaintance with the substance, derived from frequent conversations with his gifted brother." In the first of the new Bampton Lectures Mr. w- Hugon notices the historical character of Christianity as con- trasted with other religions, recognizing its liability to be tried by new tests as historic science advances, as the story of Regal Rome has been tried, since the days of Pouilly and Beaufort, to whom the birth of Historical Criticism is referred. "The whole world of profane literature, under the guidance of Niebuhr, Ot- fried Muller, Bockh, and our best living historians, has been re- volutionized :" "a new antiquity has been raised out of theold ; " "and a firm and strong fabric has arisen out of the shattered debris of the fallen systems." The Records of past times' resumes our author, contained in the Old and New Testament, have not escaped the same searching ordeal. The new canons of his- torical criticism have been applied to the gospels and to the his- torical books of the Old Testament. A parallelism has been in- dicated between the sacred records and the early chronicles of most heathen nations; the miracles of the Bible have been. compared with the prodigies of Herodotus and Livy ; the artificial. chronology of Rome and Babylon was rediscovered in the Bible narrative ; the names of the Kings of Scripture have been ob- served to be so apposite that the monarchs supposed to have borne them were regarded as fictitious persons, like Numa and Theseus. At length the mythical view has predominated, which "leaves the substance of the narrative =assailed, and accepts the whole not indeed as true history, but as a.sacred. legend. This assault on the Old Testament, conducted "by clever and eloquent pens," and weakly resisted by here and there a single hesitating apolo- gist, was finally extended to the New Testament; "till at last, in the hands of Strauss, the whole came to be resolved into pure myth and legend." In opposition to the views thus sketched by our author, the Sacred Narrative is now examined on thepositive side. Mr. Rawlinson's object is "to meet the reasoning of the historical sceptics on their own ground," without, however, undertaking to consider and answer their minute and multitudinous cavils. Maintaining that for the great facts of revealed religion, "the historical evidence which we possess is of an authentic and satis- factory character," he proposes to "review this evidence in the light and by the laws of the modem historical criticism, so far as they seem to be established; conceiving their real effect to be to increase instead of diminishing the weight of the Christian evi- dences." These laws are pronounced to be fairly represented on their positive side in the compendious form of Four Canons. 1. The written statement of a contemporary, credible, and rightly observing witness, is to be accepted, as possessing the first degree of historical credibility. 2. A written statement, directly obtained by the communicator from the eye-witnesses of the re- corded fact, unless in itself very improbable possesses the second degree of historical credibility. 3. Oral tradition, if the event be of paramount importance and national notoriety, possesses the third, and a comparatively low degree of historical credibility. 4. The corroboration of the traditions of one race by those of • The Historical Evidences of the 41-uth of the Scripture Records stated anew. With Special Reference to the Doubts and Discoveries of Modern Times; in Eight Lectures, delivered in the *University Pulpit, at the Hampton Lecture for 1859. By George Bawlineon, M.A., late Fellow and Tutor of Exeter College. Published by Murray.
another, especially of a distant or hostile race, possesses the fourth degree of historical evidence, which though sometimes almost as weak as the lowest, may yet attain a vigour which, speaking generally, nearly approaches to the second. " To these canons may be added certain corollaries or dependent truths," which cover the whole remaining area of direct and indirect history, and em- brace the field of cumulative evidence. A fifth canon, the ration- alistic criterion of historic truth, which declares a sound concep- tion of history to be impossible, where the theory of the sequen- tial order of the universe is disregarded, and Interventional Agency asserted, the Bampton Lecturer necessarily rejects, for the Revelation which he defends is itself miraculous, Miraculous interposition, in his jn eat, " on fitting occasions may be as much a regular fixed an established rule of God's government as the working ordinarily by what are called natural laws." More- over " things in themselves cannot oppose any impediment to miracles, or do ought but obsequiously follow the Divine fiat, be it what it may." Neither can it be affirmed that all experience and analogy is against miracles, for " this is either to judge from our own narrow and limited experience," or if " we include that of others to draw a eonclusion directly in the teeth of our data : for many percons well worthy of our belief have declared that they have witnessed and wrought miracles."
Rejecting the "irrational prejudice" which a belief in the tin- broken uniformity of Divine operation implies, as unhistorical and =philosophical, for "the creation of the world was a miracle, our author in his second lecture proceeds at once to his critical investigation, not ascending but descending the great stream of time. He divides the Biblical history into five parts :-1. From the Creation to the death of Moses, comprised in the Pentateuch ; 2: From the death of Moses to the accession of Rehoboam, treated in Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the two Books of Samuel, and portions of Kings and Chronicles; 3. From the accession of Rehoboam to the captivity of Judah, contained in the remainder of Kings and Chronicles and parts of Isaiah, and other prophetical books ; 4'. From the captivity to the reform of Nehemiah, related in Daniel, Ezra, Esther, and Nehemiah, and illustrated by Haggai and Zechariah ; b. From the birth of Christ to the establishment of Christianity, recorded in the New Testament. The first four periods form the subject of as many lectures from the second VS the fifth. The fifth period is examined in the remaining three. The authorship of the Pentateuch is attributed, we are told, t6 Moses by the ancient, positive, and uniform tradition of the Jews, and this tradition, it is contended, is prima facie evidence of the fact. Tradition here means customary opinion ; its antiquity, its positiveness, and its uniformity have, if we err not, neither chro- nological, nor personal, nor local circumstance to distinguish them. To the unanimous witness of the Jews is added the testimony of a number of heathen authors, Hecatteus of Abdera, Manetho, Tacitus, Juvenal, Longinus, &c. ; the value of whose evidence is about 'equivalent to that of those writers in our own age who might intimate that all the "Odes of Anacreon" were really written by that poet. There are other arguments adduced in favour of the genuine- ness and authenticity of the Pentateuch, which the Rationalist historian may consider at his leisure. The narrative of Genesis, however, stands on a peculiar footing. While the four succeed- ing books are the "autobiography of a great man," this has, its in- spiration apart, only oral tradition for its basis, or perhaps docu- mentary material. The lecturer lays some stress on the general accordance between the Mosaic narrative of the Deluge in Genesis and that of Berosus conceiving that "this agreement is not the result of chance," but "that it is the harmony of truth." Simi- larly the cosmogony of Berosus is adduced with a view to establish the authenticity of that of Moses. No attempt is made to meet the geological difficulties of this cosmogony, notwithstanding the outspoken opinions of Dr. Arnold and the still more explicit as- sertion of Baden Powell, who tells us that irreconcilable is the contradiction between the whole view opened to us by geology and the narrative of creation in the Hebrew Scripture, whether as briefly delivered from Sinai or as expanded in Genesis. The phy- siological problem is also left unexplained, and in general it may be said that the constructive element in Mr. Rawlinson's " Apo- logy " is of the most vague, ineffective character; and that if he obtains a triumph over particular theories of particular opponents, he shoots wide of the mark as regards the less artificial inquirer, whose conclusion does not stand or fall with the hypothesis of Strauss or De Wette. The sacred books reviewed in the third lecture are allowed to be written "either by authors unknown or at best uncertain ; " that of Joshua, however, is maintained to be the production of an eye-witness, though the perplexing antago- nism of statements in that book to statements in the Books of Genesis and Judges are passed over in silence. Secular evident* is again adduced in favour of certain events recorded in the Scrip- tures, as the early greatness of Sidon, the wealth of Solomon, and the friendly intercourse of that prince and his immediate prede- cessor with Hiram ; the result of this portion of the inquiry being that the "Hebrew account of this time is entitled to be received as a true and authentic history."
The subject is pursued in the fourth lecture, the general con- cordance of divine with profane history being ostentatiously pointed out, while the numerical exaggerations and alleged mis- representations of the Books of Chronicles, for instance, are alto- gether unnoticed. The argument is carried over into the fifth lecture and fourth period of the Jewish history. The great object of the writer in this part of his work is to revive the authority of
tile' Book of Daniel; which even Arnold considered a fictitious prbduction. One great objection to its authenticity has, according to Mr. Rawlinson, s supposition, been removed. The Belshazzar of the Messianic Prophet has been identified, and in the Bil-shar-uzur of modern discovery we recognize the festive and fated monarch of the real or supposititious Daniel. Nor is this all. Bil-shar-uzur, the son of Nabonadius, was during the latter part of his reign associated by his father in the government and allowed the royal title; a fact which explains the otherwise unintelligible state- ment that Daniel should be the third rider in the kingdom. The three residuary lectures are dedicated to an examination of the New Testament history as a whole, the evidence being considered under the three heads of-1. Internal evidence ; 2. The evidence of adversaries ; and 3, The evidence of early Christian converts. We see nothing new, nothing original, nothing final in Mr. Raw- linson's representations. There is much interesting matter both in the lectures and in the notes, which are exceedingly copious and evince considerable erudition; but neither the treatment of the subject, nor the logical power, nor the philosophical talent of the author, is such as to induce conviction or inspire confidence.
The real significance of this volume, apart from its cuneiform and hieroglyphical information, the soundness of which only a privileged few are competent to maintain or deny, lies in its re- cognition of the existence and procedure of the Hiltorico-critical School in Theology; and in its attempt to refute the speculations of modern unbelief by the intended application of its own prin- ciples. It is less the actual performance than the assumed atti- tude which carries a meaning with it. When a challenge fairly given is fairly accepted, the battle which will ultimately issue in victory to the side that " hath its quarrel just," is at least rightly inaugurated. If the combatants at present do not close face to face in stand-up fight, there is yet hope that the pure love of Truth, whom they alike desire to serve, will lead them ere long to encounter nearer risks and engage in more stringent and deter- mined action.
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