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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
what the authors wrote , unconsciously transmitted to posterity an infallible criterion for determining the age of any particular book in which the name of David happens to occur . In applying this criterion to the prophetical books , it will of course be
necessary to exercise some degree of caution , because it can hardly be expected , after the numerous transcriptions which these books have undergone , that they should be entirely free from orthographical errors . But if we find the exceptions few , and those of such a nature as to admit of a rational and easy explanation , the rule must then be considered as established .
The prophetical books of the Old Testament are sixteen in number . Three of these ( Haggai , Zechariah , and Malachi , ) are acknowledged to have been written after the return of the Jews from Babylon , and the remaining thirteen are generally supposed to have been written either before or during the captivity . Of the three which are acknowledged to have been written after the return of the Jews from Babylon , Zechariah is the only one in which the name of David occurs . We meet with it six times in this book
and it is invariably written with the yod . In Isaiah and Jeremiah it is repeatedly found , but always without the yod . In Ezekiel xxxiv . 23 , it is written with the yod , but evidently by mistake , because that le'ter is omitted in the verse immediately following , and the same omission is made in other parts of the book . In Hosea iii . 5 , Amos vi . 5 and ix . 11 , the yod is
inserted in most printed editions ; but with regard to the passage in Hosea , it may be observed , that , in the celebrated Venice or Bomberg Bible , edited by Felix Pratensis , and published so early as the year 1518 , the yod is omitted ; and , though it is inserted in both the passages from Amos , in the former of these passages the name has the little circle ( o ) over it , to indicate that it is a false reading , and in the latter it is printed "in in the
margin . The result of this investigation , then , is quite as favourable as could have been anticipated or wished . Had Zechariah adopted the ancient mode of spelling the name of David ; or had the books of Isaiah , Jeremiah , Ezekiel , or any other prophet who is supposed to have written before the captivity , contained undoubted instances of the modern orthography , it must be admitted on all hands that the antiquity , and , consequently , the authenticity and
credibility of the prophetical writings , would have been in great jeopardy . But when the conclusion to which a fair application of this test leads , is found to correspond so exactly with that which had previously been deduced from totally different premises , the agreement must be acknowledged to furnish as strong a presumption in favour of the antiquity and genuineness of the books of the prophets as it is possible for human testimony , under any circumstances , to supply .
With regard to the particular question of authorship , it may be proper to observe , in this place , that , though no direct evidence can , at this distance of time , be adduced to prove that each individual book was written by the person whose name it now bears , and though no such evidence can in reason be expected , yet many circumstances concur to place this point beyond all
reasonable dispute , and to shew the utter improbability of the contrary supposition . No chain of evidence can be conceived more complete than that exhibited in the proofs already adduced of the existence of these books , and their universal reception among the Jews , from the fifth century after Christ till the time of Antiochus Epiphanes , about the middle of the second century
Untitled Article
660 Canonical Authority of the Boohs of the Prophets .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1827, page 660, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1800/page/28/
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