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easy matter to glean from the sacred pages a corrected notion of Jewish history : and the volumes of Josephus , though unquestionably of great value , impose a labour and a toil in their perusal , to which few , without a very urgent motive , are disposed to submit . To say nothing of his occasional misrepresentations , we must be allowed to think that his books are more serviceable for reference and authentication , than for popular reading .
There are other works , but they relate only to particular periods , or are dry and common-place abridgments of the historical books of the Old Testament , or of Josephus , and not worthy of distinct mention as compositions of general literature . We know of no work before the present , containing a complete history of the Jews from the very first times down to the present day , written with judgment and learning , and something more than a repetition , in different words , of what has been often so well narrated befote .
Mr . Mil man has supplied a great deficiency in our literature , and has executed his task with a liberality and rationality highly commendable , and hardly to be expected from an orthodox Oxford Professor at the present day . The task he undertook was a very delicate one ; but he has acquitted himself with much credit and with great service to the cause of revealed religion . Some of the most formidable objections of unbelievers are taken from the Old-Testament histories ; and if we do not adopt a liberal
principle of interpretation , they cannot easily be evaded . The upholders of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures , must often , if they are possessed of any degree of reflection at all , be involved in serious perplexities . Our author adopts the notions of Tiilotson and Warburton on the subject of inspiration , and applies them in a consistent and judicious way : and we trust that his authority will do much to enhance the cause of rational religion among those who have commonly ranked as its opponents . The application to
real instances of those principles of biblical interpretation which we think essential to the prosperity of revealed religion , is far more convincing than , abstract reasonings ; and we trust from the acceptance which we understand his work has met with among the members of his own church , that times of reformation are at hand . Consistent interpretation of the Scriptures is all we want : it is not the establishment of our peculiar religious sentiments that we desire , but the discovery of the truth ; and nothing is so well calculated
to help on this glorious work , as the relinquishment by our opponents of those narrow and confined principles of criticism to which they have long so strenuously adhered , and their acknowledgment of the justness of estimating the sense of what is written by a reference to > the character of the times when the events recorded took place , and of explaining obscure or difficult passages by others which are more intelligible . On these accounts , we hail Mr . Milman as a valuable auxiliary , and sincerely thank him for the ability and independence he has displayed .
He commences with Abraham , whose freedom from the idolatry in which the Chaldeeans were involved , he ascribes to his superior intelligence and powers of reflection : and he conceives that it was in reward of his piety that he received the promise that he should be the Father of a great people . He pursues the Bible history in a very perspicuous style , giving us occasionally his own comments and explanations . The cities of the plain he
supposes to have been destroyed by lightning communicating with the heaps of bitumen and sulphur which the soil on which they stood contained : and that Lot ' s wife , " lingering behind , was suffocated by the sulphureous vapours , and her body encrusted with the saline particles which filled the atmosphere . " The story of the pillar of salt , which Josephus saw , he discards
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The History of the Jews . 37 /
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vol . iv . 2 E
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1830, page 377, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2585/page/17/
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