... My reason for no longer
receiving the Pentateuch as historically true, is not that I find
insuperable difficulties with regard to the _miracles_ or supernatural
_revelations_ of Almighty God recorded in it, but solely that I cannot,
as a true man, consent any longer to shut my eyes to the absolute,
palpable self-contradictions of the narrative. The notion of miraculous
or supernatural interferences does not present to my own mind the
difficulties which it seems to present to some. I could believe and
receive the miracles of Scripture heartily, if only they were
authenticated by a veracious history; though, if that is not the case
with the Pentateuch, any miracles, which rest on such an unstable
support, must necessarily fall to the ground with it."[192]
In proof of this assumption the author selects a large number of
inexplicable portions from the narratives in question, and uses all the
resources of his talents and learning to prove them to be the fruit of
"error, infirmity, passion, and ignorance." Hezron and Hanuel, he avers,
were certainly born in the land of Canaan; the whole assembly of Israel
could not have gathered about the door of the tabernacle; all Israel
could not have been heard by Moses, for they numbered about two millions
of people, according to the assumption of the Biblical narrative.
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