On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
often happen : indifferently to the good aud tbei ? a < L As I have not access to the work , I can only observe , from recollection , that Dr . W . enters mueh at large on the principles of the Divine government in the Jewish theocracy . Under
the Mosaic law , provision was made for the reconvenes of the good , and the punishment of the , wickec ^ an d historical facts prove ttjat virtue and vice were followed . by temporal rewards or privations . But in later periods , when men ' s minds were gradually opening- to ideas on a future
state of rewards and punishments , tins peculiarity of Providence was withdrawn , and difficulties on the subject must naturally have arisen in the minds of reflecting and pious Jews . Dr . W . supposes the book to have been written by Ezra , with these circumstances in view , and remarks , that
the number of indirect allusions to the Jewish laws and history , introduced ' m the narrative , prove it to be the production of a much later period than that of Moses .
Dr . Warburton's argument on the " grand question" may perhaps be controverted , but certainly , with respect to the age of the book , it is a remarkable fact , that it abounds with
ideas and expressions which present images of actions past , long subsequent to the age of the Jewish lawgiver . Your much respected correspondent
Mr . Butcher ' s remarks [ p . 11 ] on the introduction of the term Satan appear very conclusive . I cordially join with him in hoping that some of your contributors will endeavour to throw Eght oti this very interest ing" , £ hough > in some respects , difficult book . II . M . II .
Untitled Article
Exeter , Sir , February 7 , 1822 . WITH your leave , I will state why I cannot agree with my respected friend Mr . Butcher , [ p . 10 , ] "i his views of the book of Job : but
Hiust continue to rank that admirable Poem as the oldest portion ( at least » we except some fragments contained m the book of Genesis ) of the Bible . Its date lias been fixed by all critics cither very early or very late ; ail tttfree that there is no middle courseal » perceive that its language is not of
Untitled Article
the ^ ame kind with that the other books , and that the differenceis greater than can be accounted for from peculiarity of style and individual circumstances . This fact is differently applied by the opposite parties . On the one hand , we are told that " the many Chaldaisms , Syrias-ms and Arabisms , with which this book abounds , are a very certain mark of its being of
later date than most of the other books of the Old Testament . " * On the other , we find the peculiarity of the language attributed to its having been written in an age when the Mosaical Hebrew had not yet been distinctly separated from the Arabic , and in the country of Idumaea lying between Palestine and Arabia .
Certain it is , that the peculiarities of the book of Job , or any similar to them , do not occur in what are acknowledged to be the latest Hebrew writings , and it is , perhaps , not too much to affirm that the more the subject has been investigated , the more the profoundest scholars and acutest critics have been
led to adopt the last-mentioned explanation of a phenomenon which has deservedly engaged much attention . Some persons have imagined that they have observed in the poem allusions to the Jewish law , and even to a late period of the Jewish history ; but a
large proportion of the most careful and intelligent inquirers have been unable to discover any trace of these allusions , and I confess they appear to me fanciful and visionary in the extreme . With much more justice the want of all historical notices later
than the destruction , of Sodom , has been brought forward as an argument for the great antiquity of the book . And when we ad ; l to this the beautiful description of patriarchal manners , and the proof incidentally afforded that idolatry had not yet proceeded farther than paying homage to the heavenly bodies , one of its earliest stages , we
shall , I think , incline to the conclusion that the book of Job is the production of an age previous to the establish--merit of the Mosaic law . That Moses was the author seems to be mere conjecture , and to have been hastily believed , to . avoid acknowledging our entire ignorance . An exa-* Heath ' s Preface . See also WarburtonS Div . Leg .
Untitled Article
Mr . Hinck * on " the Auth or of the Book of Jvb . " 2 @ 5
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1822, page 205, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2511/page/13/
-