The fruit of this additional study is the _Pentateuch and Book of Joshua
critically examined, in Three Parts_. Appearing just at the time when
the contest concerning the _Essays and Reviews_ was at fever-heat, the
Bishop's work added excitement to all the combatants.
Those who are intimately acquainted with the treatment of the Pentateuch
and Book of Joshua by the most unsparing of the German Rationalists will
at once see the resemblance between their views and those of Colenso.
His aim is to overthrow the historical character of the early Scriptural
history by exposing the contradictions and impossibilities contained
therein; and also to fix the real origin, age and authorship of the
so-called narratives of Moses and Joshua. "I have arrived at the
conviction," says he, "that the Pentateuch, as a whole, cannot possibly
have been written by Moses, or by any one acquainted personally with the
facts which it professes to describe, and, further, that the so-called
Mosaic narrative, by whomsoever written, and though imparting to us, as
I fully believe it does, revelations of the Divine will and character,
cannot be regarded as _historically true_.
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