“Not giving heed to Jewish fables.”—Tit. 1: 14.
“Neither give heed to fables.”—1 Tim. 1: 4.
“But refuse profane and old wives’ fables.”—1 Tim. 4: 7.
IT is impossible to understand modern Christian ecclesiasticism without
a careful study of ancient Judaism. It is reported that Jesus himself
said, “_Salvation is of the Jews._” The gospel was to be preached “to
the Jews first.” The common belief to-day is, that the Christian Church
represents the substance of what Judaism was the promise, and that the
New Testament contains the fulfilment and realization of what was
foreshadowed in the Old Testament.
All well-informed theologians understand that the Christian Church is
held to have had its origin in what is denominated the “call of
Abraham,” and that what is known in orthodox parlance as the “Abrahamic
covenant” lies at the foundation of the orthodox theory of grace and of
all other systems of doctrine falsely designated as evangelical. It is a
suggestive fact that while Christians hold that their religion is the
very quintessence and outcome of Judaism, they most cordially hate the
Jews, and the Jews in return, have a supreme contempt for Christians and
stoutly deny the relationship of parent and child.
Now that the descent of the Jews from the Chaldean Abram, whom they
affect to call their father, is discredited by all scholars who reject
the inspirational and infallible theory of the Old Testament, it is very
difficult to find out the real origin of this strange people. All modern
writers on Jews and Judaism admit that outside of the Old Testament
there is little or no history of the Jews down to the time of Alexander,
and that there is very little reliable history even in the collection of
books known as the Hebrew Scriptures. It cannot be doubted now that the
Pentateuch, improperly called the five books of Moses, was mostly
written after the return of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon,
about 538 b. c., and what is found in these books mainly corresponds
with the religion and literature of the Assyrians, and was learned
during their sojourn in that country, and not, as has ignorantly been
supposed, from the mythical Abram, the reputed immigrant from Ur of the
Chaldees. What is recorded in the Pentateuch, not being mentioned in
other Old-Testament writings, shows that such records had no existence
when those books were written, and therefore could have no recognition.
It will be shown hereafter that there is little or nothing in the
Pentateuch that is strictly original, much less strictly historical.
Indeed, the tales of the Old Testament generally were written for a
religious or patriotic purpose, with little regard for time, place, or
historical accuracy. Persons, real or mythical, are often used to
represent different tribes, while allegory is the rule rather than the
exception in what is ignorantly accepted as history. This is admitted by
many eminent Christian writers.
The word “Jew” first occurs in 2 Kings 16: 6 to denote the inhabitants
of Judea, but they should properly have been called “Judeans.” The very
name _Jew_ is probably mythological, derived from _Jeoud_, the name of
the only son of Saturn, though, like Abraham, he had several other sons.
It cannot be doubted that the stories of Saturn and Abraham are slightly
varied versions of the same fable.
The Jews never deserved to be called a _nation_, at least not until in
comparatively modern times. They were inclined from the first to mingle
with and intermarry with other peoples, and so became _mongrels_ at an
early period.
There was no race distinction, we are told, between the Canaanites,
Idumeans, and Israelites. Ishmael married an Egyptian woman, and so did
Joseph, the son of Jacob. Esau married a daughter of Ishmael, also two
other women, called daughters of Canaan, one a Hittite and the other a
Hivite. Judah and Simeon each married Canaanites. We read in Judges 3:
5, 6, “The children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and
Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites; and they took
their daughters to be their wives, and gave their [own] daughters to
their sons, and served their gods.”
In Ezekiel 16th it is written: “Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem,
Thy birth and thy nativity was in the land of Canaan; thy father was an
Amorite and thy mother an Hittite. Your mother was an Hittite and your
father an Amorite—thine elder sister, Samaria, and thy youngest sister,
Sodom.”
In Deut. 7: 7 the Jews are told, “The Lord did not set his love upon you
because ye were more in number than any other people, for ye were
_fewest_ of all people.” In Josh. 12: 24 they are reminded that it was
necessary to “send them hornets which drove them (the Canaanites) out
before you, even the two kings of the Amorites;” and in Ex. 23: 28, 29
it is said, “I will send hornets before thee which shall drive out the
Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before thee. I will not
drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become
desolate and the beasts of the field multiply against thee.” This does
not look as if the Jews were very numerous or valorous in the little
territory not much larger than the State of Connecticut.
Josephus makes certain notes to show that the Lacedemonians claimed
original kinship with the Jews, and some writers make the same claim for
the Afghans and several other peoples. Nothing is more certain, in my
judgment, than that the Jews are the most thoroughly _mongrel_ race upon
the face of the earth. That they have certain idiosyncrasies in common,
and even certain distinguishing _facial_ and other physical marks, can
easily be accounted for on other grounds than the assumption of unity of
race.
The common story of the origin of the Jews is certainly fabulous.
Major-General Forlong, of the British Army, says: “They were probably in
the beginning a wandering tribe of Bedouin Arabs who got possession of
the rocky parts of Palestine, which were never made better by their
presence. They are a comparatively modern people. The first notice of
Jews is possibly that of certain Shemitic rulers in the Aram paying
tribute about 850 b. c. to Vul-Nirari, the successor of Shalmaneser of
Syria; regarding which, however, much more is made by biblicists than
the simple record warrants. This is the case also where Champollion
affirms that mention is made on the Theban temples of the capture of
certain towns of the land we call Judæa, this being thought to prove the
existence of Jews. Similar assumption takes place in regard to the
hieratic papyri of the Leyden Museum, held to belong to the time of
Rameses II., an inscription read on the rocks of El-Hamamat, and the
discovery of some names like Chedorlaomer in the records of Babylonia;
but this is all the (so-called) evidence as to the existence of ancient
Jews which has been advanced; and the most is made of it in Dr. Birch’s
opening address on the _Progress of Biblical Archaeology_ at the
inauguration of the Archaeological Society. Of Jews we hear nothing
during all the Thothmik wars, unless they be included among the
phallic-worshipping Hermonites who were mentioned as inhabiting the
highlands of Syria. We have no real historical evidence of the persons
or kingdoms of David or Solomon, though we may grant the Jewish stories
_cum grano salis_, seeing how outrageously they have always exaggerated
in everything pertaining to their own glorification.
“The only logical conclusion justifiable when we give up the inspiration
theory is, that Arabs and Syro-Phœnicians were known to Assyrians and
Egyptians, and this none would deny. Indeed, we readily grant, with Dr.
Birch, that under the nineteenth and twentieth Egyptian dynasties the
influence of the Aramæan nations is distinctly marked; that not only by
blood and alliances had the Pharaohs been closely united with the
princes of Palestine and Syria, but that the language of the period
abounds in Semitic words quite different from the Egyptian, with which
they were embroidered and intermingled. Could it possibly be otherwise?
Is it not so to this day? Is a vast and rapidly-spawning Shemitic
continent like Arabia not to influence the narrow delta of a river
adjoining it or the wild highlands of Syria to the north? Of course
Arabs or Shemites were everywhere spread over Egypt, Syria, and
Phœnicia, as well as in their ancient seats of empire in Arabia, Irak
(Kaldia), and on the imperial mounds of Kalneh and Koyunjik; but not
necessarily as Jews. I cannot find that these last were anything more
than a peculiar religious sect of Arabs who settled down from their
pristine nomadic habits and obtained a _quasi_ government under petty
princes or sheiks, such as we have seen take place in the case of
numerous Arabian and Indian sects.
“Only about two hundred years or so after their return from Babylon did
the Jews seem to consolidate into a nation, and the collection and
translation of their old mythic records—deciphered with much difficulty
by the diligent librarians of Ptolemy Philadelphus from “old shreds and
scraps of leather”—no doubt materially aided in consolidating the people
and in welding them into what they became—clans proud of a sort of a
mythic history built up by Ezra and other men acquainted with Babylonian
records and popular cosmogonies.”
No efforts, say the leaders of the Biblical Archaeological Society, have
been able to find either amidst the numerous engravings on the rocks of
Arabia Petrea or Palestine, _any save Phœnician inscriptions_; not even
a record of the Syro-Hebrew character, which was once thought to be the
peculiar property of Hebrews. Most of those inscriptions hitherto
discovered do not date anterior to the Roman empire. Few, if _any_
monuments (of Jews) have been found in Palestine or the neighboring
countries of any useful antiquity save the Moabite Stone, and the value
of this last is all in favor of my previous arguments on these points.
At the pool of Siloam we have an “inscription in the Phœnician character
as old as the time of the Kings;... it is incised upon the walls of a
rock-chamber apparently dedicated to Baal, who is mentioned on it. So
that here, in a most holy place of this peculiar people, we find only
Phœnicians, and these worshipping the Sun-god of Fertility, as was
customary on every coast of Europe from unknown times down to the rise
of Christianity.”
The Biblical Archaeological Society and British Museum authorities tell
us frankly and clearly that no Hebrew square character can be proved to
exist till after the Babylonian captivity, and that, at all events, this
inscription of Siloam shows “that the curved or Phœnician character was
in use in Jerusalem itself under the Hebrew monarchy, as well as the
conterminous Phœnicia, Moabitis, and the more distant Assyria. No
monument, indeed,” continues Dr. Birch, “of greater antiquity inscribed
in the square character (Hebrew) has been found as yet _older than the
fifth century A. D._ [the small capitals are mine], and the coins of the
Maccabean princes, as well as those of the revolter Barcochab, are
impressed with _Samaritan_ characters. So that here we have the most
complete confirmation of all that I assert as to the mythical history of
a Judean people prior to a century or so b. c., and even then only under
such a government as Babylonian administrators had taught them to form
and the lax rule of the Seleukidæ, followed by intermittent Roman
government, permitted of.”
Another modern writer says: “Soon after the death of Alexander the Jews
first came into notice under Ptolemy I. of Egypt, and some of their
books were collected at the new-built city of Alexandria.”
Such was the insignificance of the Jews as a people that the historical
monuments preceding the time of Alexander the Great, who died 323 years
b. c., make not the slightest mention of any Jewish transaction. The
writings of Thales, Solon, Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Herodotus, and
Xenophon, all of whom visited remote countries, contain no mention of
the Jews whatever. Neither Homer nor Aristotle, the preceptor of
Alexander, makes any mention of them. The story of Josephus, that
Alexander visited Jerusalem, has been proved to be a fabrication.
Alexander’s historians say nothing about it. He did pass through the
coast of Palestine, and the only resistance he encountered was at Gaza,
which was garrisoned by Persians (Wyttenbach’s _Opuscula_, vol. ii. pp.
416, 421).
For half a century after its destruction, says Dr. Robinson, there is no
mention of Jerusalem in history; and even until the time of Constantine
its history presents little more than a blank (vol. i. pp. 367, 371).
General Forlong says: “The area of Judea and Samaria is, according to
the above authority, 140 X 40 = 5600 square miles, which I think is
certainly one-fourth too much, my own triangulation of it giving only
4500, or a figure of about 130 X 35. I will, however, concede the
allotment of 5600, but we must remember that, as a rule, the whole is a
dismal, rocky, arid region, with only intersecting valleys, watered by
springs and heavy rain from November to February inclusive, and having
scorching heats from April to September. Even the inhabitable portions
of the country could only support the very sparsest population, and I
speak after having marched over it and also a considerable portion of
the rest of the world. In India we should look upon it as a very poor
province; in some respects very like the hilly tracts of Mewar or
Odeypoor in Kajpootana, but in extent, population, and wealth it is less
than that small principality.
“The chief importance of Palestine in ancient history was due to its
lying on the high-road between the great kingdoms of Egypt, Babylon, and
Assyria, and as giving the Arabs a hiding- and abiding-place which
they—Jews included—could not obtain if they ventured out on the plains
south and east. The holes and fastnesses of the hills were their
safeguards, and, as they assure us, very much used indeed. The Jewish
strip is divided into Samaria as a centre, with Galilee north and Judea
south, giving to the two former eight-tenths, and the latter two-tenths;
that is, two tribes; 5600 X 2/10 so that the Judean area would be about
5600 X 8/10 = 20 square miles, against the 4480 of the latter; and the
population would be somewhat in this proportion, for the extreme
barrenness of all the country south and east of Jerusalem would be in
some degree made up for by this town being perhaps a little larger than
those in the north.
“We are thus prepared to state the population of the entire land in
terms of its area, as was done for the Judean capital, and with equally
startling results. The whole Turkish empire yields at present less than
twenty-four persons to the square mile, and in the wild and warring ages
we are here concerned with we may safely say that there were less than
twenty per square mile, of which half were females and one-third of the
other half children and feeble persons, unable to take the field whether
for war or agriculture. The result is disastrous to much biblical
matter, and far-reaching; upsetting the mighty armies of Joshua and the
Judges, no less than those of David and Solomon, who are thought for a
few short years to have united the tribes: nay, the stern facts of
figures destroy all the subsequently divided kings or petty chiefs who
lasted down to the sixth century or so b. c., and show us that Jews have
ever been insignificant in the extreme, especially when compared with
the great peoples who generally ruled them, and far and wide around
them.
“So that this paltry thirty thousand to forty thousand is the very most
which the twelve tribes could, and only for these few years, bring to
the front. In general, the tribes warred with one another and with their
neighbors, so that, for the purposes of foreign war, the Jewish race
represented only two or three tribes at a time, or, say, ten thousand
able men. Thus one tribe—as, for example, Judah—would have only from
three thousand to four thousand men in all, supposing every man left his
fields and home to fight, while Assyrian armies not unusually numbered
one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand men.”
In the above statistics also we have taken a greater area than I think
the tribes occupied. There is not a sign of a Jewish people till about
what is called their “Eastern Captivity,” and the Rev. Mr. Rodwell
writes in the _Trans. of the Biblical Archaeological Society_ that “_the
Hebrew of the Bible is no other than a dialectic variety of the
Canaanitish or Phœnician tongue expressed in the Chaldean character_,
not brought, as has been taught, by Abram himself from Ur of the
Chaldees, but adopted by the Israelites during their long captivities.”
“Could it possibly be otherwise when we look at the facts? The Jews were
a poor, ignorant, weak Arab tribe, living on the outskirts of a land
occupied for long ages previously by the most famous race of all
antiquity—a people from whom Greece, Rome, and Carthage alike borrowed
the ideas of their earliest art and architecture. Homer called this race
_Phens_ Poludaidaloi—‘artists of varied skill,’ and later Romans prized
them above all others for their constructive talent. Pliny, Seneca, and
Varro praise them in words which will never die; Jews said that David
solicited their skilled labor, and that Solomon’s temple, small and
simple though it was, could not be raised without their help; nay,
though Ezra says he had these ensamples before him, and had seen all the
fine buildings of Babylon, yet he too had to solicit their aid, else the
walls of the city of Jehovah and Zerub-babel’s second shrine could never
have been constructed. In all arts, trades, and manufactures this
extraordinary people excelled every ancient race, and from the very
earliest times down and into the Roman period. Is it surprising, then,
that their language and customs prevailed wherever their skilled aid was
required? that Africa in its writing was no less Punic—that is,
Phœnician—than Libyan, guided by these wondrous Pheni or “Tyrii
bilingues”? The history of Britain during some past generations as the
first great manufacturing country of modern times shows how
civilization, power, and progress must ever follow industry and
usefulness, and Phœnicians to a great extent in early days controlled
‘the sinews of war’ where this was their interest; but it too often
proved more profitable to deal in swords and helmets than in ‘Tyrian
purple’ and costly brocade stuffs. Manufacturers are not much given to
writing, and these Pheni have been so parsimonious in their vowels and
lavish and indifferent in the use of b’s, dfs, r’s, and s’s that few
philological students have attempted the translation of Phœnician
writings, though Phœnician, and not Hebrew, is what alone we find traces
of in Syria and Palestine.”
It has been substantially said by William Henry Burr, in a work not now
in the market, that “very erroneous ideas prevail in regard to the
magnitude of the nation and country of the Jews and their importance in
history. Most maps of ancient Palestine assign far too much territory to
that nation. They make the greatest length of the country from 160 to
175 miles, and its greatest breadth from 70 to 90, inclosing an area of
from 10,000 to 12,000 square miles—a little larger than the State of
Vermont. They not only include the entire Mediterranean coast for 160
miles, but a considerable mountain-tract on the north, above Dan, and a
portion of the desert on the south, below Beer-sheba, besides running
the eastern boundary out too far. Moreover, they lengthen the distances
in every direction. From Dan to Beersheba, the extreme northern and
southern towns, the distance on Mitchell’s map is 165 miles, and on
Colton’s, 150; but on a map accompanying _Biblical Researches in
Palestine_, by Edward Robinson, D. D., which is one of the most recent
and elaborate, and will doubtless be accepted as the best authority, the
distance is only 128 miles.
“Now, the Israelites were never able to drive out the Canaanites from
the choicest portion of the country—the Mediterranean coast—nor even
from most parts of the interior (Judges 1: 16-31; 1 Kings 9: 20, 21).
The Phœnicians, a powerful maritime people, occupied the northern
portion of the coast, and the Philistines the southern; between these
the Jebusites or some other people held control, so that the Israelites
were excluded from any part of the Mediterranean shore. The map of their
country must therefore undergo a reduction of a strip on the west at
least 10 miles wide by 160 long, or 1600 square miles. A further
reduction must be made of about 400 square miles for the Dead Sea and
Lake of Tiberias. This leaves at most 9000 square miles by Colton’s map.
But on this map the extreme length of the country is 175 miles, which is
47 miles too great: for the whole dominion of the Jews extended only
from Dan to Beersheba, which Dr. Robinson places only 128 miles apart.
We must therefore make a further reduction of an area about 47 by 60
miles, or 2800 square miles. Then we must take off a slice on the east,
at least 10 miles broad by 60 long, or 600 square miles. Thus we reduce
the area of Colton’s map from 11,000 square miles to 5600—a little less
than the State of Connecticut.
“But now, if we subtract from this what was wilderness and desert, and
also what was at no time inhabited and controlled by the Israelites, we
further reduce their habitable territory about one-half. The land of
Canaan being nearly all mountainous and bounded on the south and east by
a vast desert which encroached upon the borders of the country, a great
part of it was barren wilderness. Nor did but one-fifth of the
Israelites (two and a half tribes) occupy the country east of the
Jordan, which was almost equal in extent to that on the west, the proper
Land of Promise. The eastern half, therefore, must have been but thinly
populated by the two and a half tribes, who were only able to maintain a
precarious foothold against the bordering enemies. So, then, it is not
probable that the Israelites actually inhabited and governed at any time
à territory of more than 3000 square miles, or not much if any larger
than the little State of Delaware. At all events, it can hardly be
doubted that Delaware contains more good land than the whole country of
the Jews ever did.
“The promise to Abraham in Gen. 15: 18 is ‘from the river of Egypt to
the river Euphrates.’ But the Jewish possessions never reached the Nile
by 200 miles. In Ex. 33: 31 the promise is renewed, but the river of
Egypt is not named. The boundaries are ‘from the Red Sea to the Sea of
the Philistines (the Mediterranean), and from the desert to the river.’
By ‘the river’ was doubtless meant the Euphrates; and assuming that by
‘the desert’ was meant the eastern boundary (though Canaan was bounded
on the south also by the same great desert which reached to the Red
Sea), we have in this promise a territory 600 miles long by an average
of about 180 broad, making an area of about 100,000 square miles, or ten
times as much as the Jews ever could claim, and nearly one-half of it
uninhabitable. So, then, the promise was never fulfilled, for the
Israelites were confined to a very small central portion of their land
of promise, and whether they occupied 3000 or 12,000 square miles in the
period of their greatest power, the fact is not to be disputed that
their country was a very small one.
“Lamartine describes the journey from Bethany to Jericho as singularly
toilsome and melancholy—neither houses nor cultivation, mountains
without a shrub, immense rocks split by time, pinnacles tinged with
colors like those of an extinct volcano. ‘From the summit of these
hills, as far as the eye can reach, we see only black chains, conical or
broken peaks, a boundless labyrinth of passes rent through the
mountains, and those ravines lying in perfect and perpetual stillness,
without a stream, without a wild animal, without even a flower, the
relics of a convulsed land, with waves of stone’ (vol. ii., p. 146).”
But lest it may be thought that these dismal features are due to modern
degeneracy, let us take the testimony of an early Christian Father, St.
Jerome, who lived a long time in Bethlehem, four miles south of
Jerusalem. In the year 414 he wrote to Dardanus thus: “I beg of those
who assert that the Jewish people after coming out of Egypt took
possession of this country (which to us, by the passion and resurrection
of our Saviour, has become truly the land of promise), to show us what
this people possessed. Their whole dominions extended only from Dan to
Beersheba, hardly 160 Roman miles in length (147 geographical miles).
The Scriptures give no more to David and Solomon, except what they
acquired by alliance after conquest.... I am ashamed to say what is the
breadth of the land of promise, lest I should thereby give the pagans
occasion to blaspheme. It is but 47 miles (42 geographical miles) from
Joppa to our little town of Bethlehem, beyond which all is a frightful
desert” (vol. ii., p. 605).
Elsewhere he describes the country as the “refuse and rubbish of
nature.” He says that “from Jerusalem to Bethlehem there is nothing but
stones, and in the summer the inhabitants can scarcely get water to
drink.”
“In the year 1847, Lieut. Lynch of the U. S. Navy was sent to explore
the river Jordan and the Dead Sea. He and his party with great
difficulty crossed the country from Acre to the Lake of Tiberias, with
trucks drawn by camels. The only roads from time immemorial were
mule-paths. Frequent détours had to be made, and they were compelled
actually to make some portions of their road. Even then the last
declivity could not be overcome until all hands turned out and hauled
the boats and baggage down the steep places; and many times it seemed as
if, like the ancient herd of swine, they would all rush precipitately
into the sea. Over three days were required to make the journey, which
in a straight line would be only twenty-seven miles. For the first few
miles they passed over a pretty fertile plain, but this was the ancient
Phœnician country, which the Jews never conquered. The rest of the route
was mountainous and rocky, with not a tree visible nor a house outside
the little walled villages (pp. 135 to 152).
“The ancient Sea of Galilee has a prominent place in Jewish geography
and commerce, yet on this insignificant body of water, twelve miles long
by seven wide, all the commerce of the Jews was carried on, except when
they had the use of a port on the Red Sea.
“In a book entitled _The Holy Land, Syria_, etc., by David Roberts, R.
A. (London, 1855), the valley of the Jordan is thus described:
“‘A large portion of the valley of the Jordan has been from the earliest
time almost a desert. But in the northern part the great number of
rivulets which descend from the mountains on both sides produce in many
places a luxuriant growth of wild herbage. So too in the southern part,
where similar rivulets exist, as around Jericho, there is even an
exuberant fertility; but those rivulets seldom reach the Jordan and have
no effect on the middle of the Ghor. The mountains on each side are
rugged and desolate, the western cliffs overhanging the valley at an
elevation of 1000 or 1200 feet, while the eastern mountains fall back in
ranges of from 2000 to 2500 feet.’”
What was the size of ancient Jerusalem? We know pretty nearly what it is
now and how many inhabitants it contains. It is three-quarters of a mile
long by half a mile wide, and its population is not more than ,500
(_Biblical Researches_, vol i., p. 421), a large proportion of whom are
drawn thither by the renowned sanctity of the place. Dr. Robinson
measured the wall of the city, and found it to be only 12,978 feet in
circumference, or nearly two and a half miles (vol. i., p. 268).
“In a book entitled _An Essay on the Ancient Topography of Jerusalem_,
by James Fergusson (London, 1847), a diagram is given of the walls of
ancient and modern Jerusalem, from which it appears that the greatest
length of the city was at no time more than 6000 feet, or a little more
than a mile, and its greatest width about three-quarters of a mile;
while the real Jerusalem of old was but a little more than a quarter
that size.
“With these measurements Mr. Fergusson undertakes to estimate the
probable population of the ancient city, as follows:
“‘If we allow the inhabitants of the first-named cities fifty yards to
each individual, and that one-half of the new city was inhabited at the
rate of one person to each one hundred yards, this will give a permanent
population of 23,000 souls. If, on the other hand, we allow only
thirty-three yards to each of the old cities, and admit that the whole
of the new was as densely populated as London, or allowing one hundred
yards to each inhabitant, we obtain 37,000 souls for the whole; which I
do not think it at all probable that Jerusalem ever could have contained
as a permanent population.’ “‘In another part of the book (p. 47) he
says:
“If we were to trust Josephus, he would have us believe that Jerusalem
contained at one time, or could contain, two and a half or three
millions of souls, and that at the siege of Titus 1,100,000 perished by
famine and the sword, 97,000 were taken captive, and 40,000 allowed by
Titus to go free.
“In order to show the gross exaggeration of these numbers, he cites the
fact that the army of Titus did not exceed, altogether, 30,000, and that
Josephus himself enumerates the fighting-men of the city at 23,400,
which would give a population something under 100,000. But even this he
believes to be an exaggeration. For, says he,
“‘In all the sallies it cannot be discovered that at any time the Jews
could bring into the field 10,000 men, if so many.... Titus enclosed the
city with a line four and a half miles in extent, which, with his small
army, was so weak a disposition that a small body of the Jews could
easily have broken through it; but they never seem to have had numbers
sufficient to be able to attempt it.’
“The author guesses that the Jews might have mustered at the beginning
of the siege about 10,000 men, and that the city might have contained
altogether about 40,000 inhabitants, permanent and transient, in a space
which in no other city in the world could accommodate 30,000 souls. But
the wall of Agrippa was built, as the same author states, twelve or
thirteen years after the Crucifixion; hence prior to that time the area
of Jerusalem was only 756,000 yards, and it was capable of containing
only 23,000 inhabitants at most, but probably never did contain more
than 15,000.
“Allowing to Jerusalem, in the period of the greatest prosperity of the
Jews, a population of even 20,000, is it at all probable that the whole
country could have contained anything like even the lowest estimate to
be gathered from the Scripture record? In 1 Chron. 21: 5, 6 we read that
the number of ‘men that drew the sword of Israel and Judah amounted to
1,570,000, not counting the tribes of Levi and Benjamin. In 2 Sam. 24:
9, the number given at the same census is 1,300,000, and no omission is
mentioned. Assuming the larger number to be correct, and adding only
one-eighth for the two tribes of Levi and Benjamin, which may have been
the smallest, we have 1,766,000 fighting-men. This would give, at the
rate of one fighting-man to four inhabitants, a total population of over
7,000,000 souls. But if we adopt a more reasonable ratio, of one to six,
we have a population of over 10,500,000 souls. And then we omit the
aliens. These numbered 153,600 working-men only two years later (2
Chron. 2: 17), and the total alien population, therefore, must have been
about 500,000, which, added to the census, would make the total
population from 7,500,000 to 11,000,000, or more. Can any intelligent
man believe that a mountainous, barren country, no larger than
Connecticut, without commerce, without manufactures, without the
mechanical arts, without civilization, ever did or could subsist even
two millions of people? Much less can it be believed that it subsisted
‘seven nations greater and mightier than the Israelitish nation itself’
(Deut. 7: 1)—i e. not less than 14,000,000.
“That the Jews were a very barbarous people is undeniable. Slavery
necessarily makes a people barbarous. Not only were the Israelites a
nation of slaves, according to their own record, but after their entry
into Canaan they were six times reduced to bondage in their own land of
promise. During a period of 281 years they were in slavery 111 years.
“That the Jews were far behind their surrounding neighbors in
civilization is shown by the fact that in the first battle they fought
under their first king, Saul, they had in the whole army ‘neither sword
nor spear in the hand of any of the people,’ except Saul and Jonathan (1
Sam. 13:22). Nor was any ‘smith found throughout all the land of Israel’
(ver. 19), but ‘all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to
sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his
mattock’ (ver. 20.) This was 404 years after the Exodus and only 75
years prior to the building of Solomon’s temple. Their weapons of war
were those of the rudest savage.
“As another evidence of the barbarism of the Jews, when David resolved
to build a house for himself he had no native artisans, but had to send
to Hiram, king of Tyre, for masons and carpenters (2 Sam. 5: 11). Even
the wood itself had to be brought from Tyre, it would seem that even in
those days, as now, the mountains of Canaan were destitute of trees—a
sure sign of a sterile country. The wood of course had to be carried
overland. Wheel-carriages were unknown to the Israelites, except in the
form of chariots of iron used by their enemies, which prevented Judah,
even with the help of the Lord, from driving out the inhabitants of the
valleys (Judg. 1: 19). David captured 1000 chariots in about the
sixteenth year of his reign, of which he preserved only 100, disabling
all the horses (1 Ghron. 18: 3.) Prior to this event neither chariots
nor horses had been used by the Israelites, nor was much use made of
them by the subsequent kings. Oxen and asses were their beasts of
burden; camels were rare even long after Solomon’s reign. How, then, was
the wood brought from Tyre over the mountains, unless it was carried on
the backs of oxen or asses or dragged along the ground?”
That a considerable number of Jews at one time sojourned in Egypt is
highly probable. How they got there, and how they came to leave, is not
so certain. An eminent Egyptologist writes in a leading London journal:
“The presence of large numbers of Semites in ancient Egypt has always
been a puzzle to historians, and what first led to their migrating from
Mesopotamia to the land of the Pharaohs has never hitherto been made
clear. Quite recently, however, the British Museum has become possessed
of a number of cuneiform tablets which throw considerable light on the
subject. Early in the present year a number of these tablets were
offered for sale in Cairo. They had been dug up from the grave of a
royal scribe of Amenophis III. and IV. of the eighteenth dynasty, which
had given up its records, and not only records, but seals and papyri of
great historical and artistic value. Some went to the Boulak Museum,
some to Berlin, others to private persons, and eighty-one have found
their way to the British Museum. These last have now been arranged and
catalogued by Mr. Budge, the well-known Egyptologist, whose
investigations have brought to light a most interesting chapter in the
history of ancient Egypt. Not only do the tablets explain the historical
crux mentioned above, but they introduce us to the family life of the
early kings. They picture to us the splendors of the royal palaces; they
enable us to assist at the betrothal of the kings’ daughters and to
follow the kings to their hunting-grounds. Most of the tablets are
letters addressed to Amenophis III., and some are from Tushratta, king
of Mesopotamia.
“Amenophis III. was a mighty hunter, and once on a shooting-trip into
Mesopotamia after big game he, like a king in a fairy-tale, met and
loved Ti, the daughter of Tushratta. They were married in due time, and
Ti went down into Egypt with three hundred and seventeen of her
principal ladies. This brought a host of their Semitic countrymen along,
who found in Egypt a good field for their business capacities, and
gradually, like the modern Jews in Russia, got possession of the lands
and goods of their hosts. The influence of the Semitic queen is attested
by the very fact that this library of cuneiform tablets was preserved.
And under the feeble sovereigns who followed, her countrymen doubtless
held their own. But at last came the nineteenth dynasty and the Pharaoh
‘who knew not Joseph.’ Then they were set to brick-making and
pyramid-building, till the outbreak which led to the Red Sea triumph.
“Mr. Budge, of the British Museum, has translated three of the letters.
One is from Tushratta to Ameno-phis. After many complimentary
salutations, he proposes to his son-in-law that they should continue the
arrangement made by their fathers for pasturing doublehumped camels, and
in this way he leads up to the main purport of his epistle. He says that
Manie, his great-nephew, is ambitious to marry the daughter of the king
of Egypt, and he pleads that Manie might be allowed to go down to Egypt
to woo in person. The alliance would, he considers, be a bond of union
between the two countries, and he adds, as though by an after-thought,
that the gold which Amenophis appears to have asked for should be sent
for at once, together with ‘large gold jars, large gold plates, and
other articles made of gold.’ After this meaning interpolation he
returns to the marriage question, and proposes to act in the matter of
the dowry in the same way in which his grandfather acted, presumably on
a like occasion. He then enlarges on the wealth of his kingdom, where
‘gold is like dust which cannot be counted,’ and he adds an inventory of
presents which he is sending, articles of gold, inlay, and harness, and
thirty eunuchs.”
In speaking of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, Dr. Knappert
says: “According to the tradition preserved in Genesis, it was the
promotion of Jacob’s son, Joseph, to be viceroy of Egypt that brought
about the migration of the sons of Israel from Canaan to Goshen. The
story goes that this Joseph was sold as a slave by his brothers, and
after many changes of fortune received the viceregal office at Pharaoh’s
hands through his skill in interpreting dreams. Famine drives his
brothers, and afterward his father, to him, and the Egyptian prince
gives them the land of Goshen to live in. It is by imagining all this
that the legend tries to account for the fact that Israel passed some
time in Egypt. But we must look for the real explanation in a migration
of certain tribes which could not establish or maintain themselves in
Canaan, and were forced to move farther on.”
The author of the _Religion of Israel_ says: “The history of the
religion of Israel must start from the sojourn of the Israelites in
Egypt. Formerly it was usual to take a much earlier starting-point, and
to begin with a discussion of the religious ideas of the patriarchs. And
this was perfectly right so long as the accounts of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob were considered historical. But now that a strict investigation
has shown us that these stories are entirely unhistorical, of course we
have to begin the history later on.” The author of _The Spirit History
of Man_ says: “The Hebrews came out of Egypt and settled among the
Canaanites. They need not be traced beyond the Exodus; that is their
historical beginning. It was very easy to cover up this remote event by
the recital of mythical traditions, and to prefix to it an account of
their origin in which the gods (patriarchs) should figure as their
ancestors.”
But how about the Jewish exodus from Egypt? What was the real cause?
Whom shall we credit, the writer of the book called Exodus or other
writers? What follows differs very much from the Hebrew story.
Lysimachus relates that “a filthy disease broke out in Egypt, and the
oracle of Ammon, being consulted on the occasion, commanded the king to
purify the land by driving out the Jews (who were infected with leprosy,
etc.), who were hateful to the gods. The whole multitude of the people
were accordingly collected and driven out into the wilderness.”
Diodorus Siculus says: “In ancient times Egypt was afflicted with a
great plague, which was attributed to the anger of God on account of the
multitude of foreigners in Egypt, by whom the rites of the native
religion were neglected. The Egyptians accordingly drove them out. The
most notable of them went under Cadmus and Danaus to Greece, but the
greater number followed Moses, a wise and valiant leader, to Palestine.”
Tacitus, the Roman historian, says: “In this clash of opinions one point
seems to be universally admitted—a pestilential disease, disfiguring the
race of man and making the body an object of loathsome deformity,
spreading all over Egypt. Bocchoris, at that time the reigning monarch,
consulted the oracle of Jupiter Hammon, and received for answer that the
kingdom must be purified by exterminating the infected multitude, as a
race of men detested by the gods. After diligent search the wretched
sufferers were collected together, and in a wild and barren desert
abandoned to their misery. In that distress, while the vulgar herd was
sunk in deep despair, Moses, one of their number, reminded them that by
the wisdom of his counsels they had been already rescued out of
impending danger. Deserted as they were by men and gods, he told them
that if they did not repose their confidence in him as their chief by
divine commission they had no resource left. His offer was accepted.
Their march began, they knew not whither. Want of water was their chief
distress. Worn out with fatigue, they lay stretched on the bare earth,
heartbroken, ready to expire, when a troop of wild asses, returning from
pasture, went up the steep ascent of a rock covered with a grove of
trees. The verdure of the herbage round the place suggested the idea of
springs near at hand. Moses traced the steps of the animals, and
discovered a plentiful vein of water. By this relief the fainting
multitude was raised from despair.”
In a learned work on Egypt by Mr. William Oxley of England, published in
1884, the author writes: “Taking the records as we find them, if they
are real history, and as Palestine is contiguous to Egypt, we should
naturally expect to find some reference to the Israelites in the
Egyptian annals, but what does appear in regard to Palestine is
certainly not favorable to the assumption that it was the home of the
Israelites as a nation. I cull the following from such materials as are
at present within reach, partly taken from the _Records of the Past_:
“It has been generally acknowledged by Egyptian biblicists that ‘the
cruel bondage of the Israelites, culminated under the reign of Rameses
II., nineteenth dynasty, and that the Exodus took place under his
successor, Menephtah I., 1326 b. c., who was drowned in the Red Sea with
all his host in his attempt to bring the wanderers back again. But, as I
have already said, the tomb of this very king at Thebes contains an
inscription to the effect that he had lived to a good old age, and was a
child of good-fortune from his cradle to the grave. In the annals of
Rameses III., who reigned some fifty or sixty years after the Israelites
_ought to have been_ settled in their own land, many references are made
to the country in which they were located (according to biblical
accounts). The king goes to what is known to us as Palestine, Phœnicia,
and Syria to receive the annual tribute from the chiefs/ whom he calls
Khetas. In the enumeration of his conquests, extending from Egypt east
and northward, he enumerates thirty-eight tribes and peoples, and says:
‘I have smitten every land, and have taken every land in its extent.’ In
his reminder to the God Ptah of the benefits he had conferred on the
god, the king says: ‘I gave to thy temple from the store-houses of
Egypt, Tar-neter, and Kharu (i, e. Palestine and Syria) more numerous
offerings than the sand of the sea, as well as cattle and slaves’
(Syrians). He also built a temple to Ammon in the same country, to which
‘the nations of the Rutenna came and brought their tribute.’ Making full
allowance for the usual Egyptian flattery, the fact is clear that in the
time of this king the Israelites could not have been a settled and
distinct people; and the incident of their Exodus would have been too
fresh and recent to be passed over without some comment by this
vainglorious monarch.
“From a papyrus translated in the _Records of the Past_ (ii. 107),
entitled _Travels of an Egyptian_, who gives a full account of
Palestine, etc., it appears there was a fortress there which had been
built by Rameses II., and which was still belonging to Egypt. This would
be about 1350 B. C.; but not the slightest hint of any such people as
Israelites, although he tells us ‘he visited the country to get
information respecting the country, with the manners and customs of its
inhabitants.’
“The next is Rameses XII., some two hundred years after the Exodus, who
is the hero of the story of the possessed princess. He was in
Mesopotamia at the time when the chief of the Bakhten brought his
daughter, who afterward became queen of Egypt. ‘His Majesty was there
registering the annual tributes of all the princes of the countries,’
among whom he enumerates Tar-neter (Palestine), but no mention of
Israelites.
“I find no further trace until the time of Herodotus (about 420 B. c.);
and here we come on historical ground. This great historian travelled
through Egypt and Palestine in the reign of one of the kings of the
Persian dynasty, about forty or fifty years after the alleged return of
the Jews from their captivity in Babylon, and when the temple had been
built and the city fortified. He repeatedly alludes to the Phœnicians
and Syrians, whose country extended from the coast of the Levant down to
the Egyptian frontier, including the isthmus and Sinaitic Peninsula. He
says that Necho (about 670 b. c.) fought with the Syrians, and took a
large city, Cadytis; but he makes no mention of Jews nor yet of
Jerusalem. If they had been there, it is incredible that such a careful
and grasping historian should have explored the land without noticing
them in some way or other.
“The next is from a tablet erected to Alexander II. by Ptolemy, at that
time viceroy under the Persian king, but who soon after himself became
king of Egypt, 305 b. c. The inscription states that ‘Alexander marched
with an army of Ionians to the Syrians’ land, who were at war with him.
He penetrated its interior and took it at one stroke, and led their
princes, cavalry, ships, and works of art to Egypt.’
“Next follows the third Ptolemy, 238 b. c. (see the Decree of Canopus,
_Records of the Past_, viii., 81), who invaded the two lands of Asia,
and brought back to Egypt all the treasures which had been carried away
by Cambyses and his successors. He ‘imported corn from East Rutenna and
Kafatha’—i. e. from Syria and Phœnicia. It was the father of this king
who is credited with sending to Judea for the seventy-two men who
translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek; and yet neither of these
Ptolemaic kings makes mention of Judea, Jerusalem, or the Jews! The
inference is obvious: _they were not there._
“Many historiographers, when writing of Jewish annals, use the Ptolemaic
and other monumental and papyrian accounts as applying to the Jews, and
consequently use the term ‘Jews,’ but this is unwarrantable, inasmuch as
the accounts themselves speak of ‘Syrians, Phœnicians,’ etc., but _not_
of ‘Jews.’ According to the best cyclopædists, ‘there is little or
nothing known of the Jews or Jerusalem until the time of Christ;’ and
even then it is taken chiefly from Josephus, who, to my view, is
scarcely admissible as a chronographer of actual history. No mention is
made by the Ptolemies—say 250 or even less years b. c.—of the Jews of
Jerusalem, and as the Roman emperor Hadrian (from 117 to 138 A. D.) is
credited with changing the name of the city to _Ælia Capitolina_, it
could only have been known as Jerusalem for a few centuries at most. The
Arch of Titus in Rome is taken as conclusive proof that it was erected
to commemorate his victories over the rebellious Jews and the successful
siege of Jerusalem. But even this, I apprehend, is taken chiefly from
Josephus. When in Rome last year I closely inspected this arch,
expecting to find an inscription to this effect, but I was disappointed
at seeing only a Latin one over the arch, which reads (in English): ‘The
Senate and Roman People to the Divine Titus, (Son) of the divine
Vespasian,’ and another, by Pius VII., recording its restoration. It is
true, I saw the alto-reliefs on the inside of the arch, showing a table,
trumpets, and a seven-branched lamp; but these were used in many
temples, and would as well refer to the Syrian or Phœnician temples,
which undoubtedly existed at that time, and in the absence of direct
Roman testimony to the name of the city and people (of which I am
unaware), it cannot be accepted as indubitable evidence of its reference
to a city called and known to them as Jerusalem, and to a people known
to them as Jews. Unless this can be established, it only amounts to an
inference resting on Josephus.
“As the result of my researches, I place Jewish historians, so called,
upon the same footing as the Christian ecclesiastical ones, whose works,
while containing a base of more or less historical reference and truth,
are yet too much overweighted with unhistorical myths to be regarded as
genuine, sober history. To my view, the Jews were, at the period I am
referring to, in a not dissimilar position to the Druses of Lebanon of
the present day. As is well known to a certain class of writers who have
come in contact with them, they form a community held together not so
much by national ties as by semi-religious ones, which are based upon
Cabalistic and theurgic rites and ceremonies. Like what I conceive the
Jews to have been in the centuries preceding the Christian era, they are
an _order_ rather than a nation, the remains of systems which have
continued and survived from ancient times. In this light the Jewish
records are intelligible as writings veiled in allegory, treating of
their mystic lore, albeit expressed in verbiage that bears a literal
meaning upon its surface. I give this as the only solution that presents
itself of the mysterious problem under review.”
I now propose to state a few points from the Jewish writings themselves
(collated from Bishop Colenso) to show the fabulous character of the
history of this pretentious people.
The number of fighting-men who marched out of Egypt is nowhere estimated
at less than 600,000, and if this represented only one-fourth of the
population, the latter must have reached 3,000,000. If we cut this down
one-third, so as to be sure of our figures, we make it 2,000,000 souls.
The number of the children of Israel who went into Egypt was 70 (Ex. 1:
5). They sojourned in Egypt 215 years. It could not have been 430 years,
as would appear from Ex. 11:40. The marginal chronology makes the period
215 years, and there were only four generations to the Exodus—namely,
Levi, Kohath, Amram, and Moses (Ex. 6: 16, 18, 20). How could these
people have increased in 215 years from 70 souls so as to number 600,000
warriors? It would have required an average number of 46 children to
each father. The 12 sons of Jacob had between them only 53 sons. At this
rate of increase, in the fourth generation there would have been only
6311 males (provided they were all living at the time of the Exodus),
instead of 1,000,000. If we add the fifth generation, who would be
mostly children, the total number of males would not have exceeded
28,465.
All the first-born males from a month old and upward, of those that were
numbered, were 22,273 (Num. 3: 43). The lowest computation of the whole
number of the people at that time is 2,000,000. The number of males
would be 1,000,000. Dividing the latter number by the number of
first-born, gives 44, which would be the average number of boys in each
family, or about 88 children by each mother. Or, if where the first-born
were females, the males were not counted, the number of children by each
mother would be reduced to 44.
Dan in the first generation had but one son (Gen. 46: 23), and yet in
the fourth generation his descendants had increased to 62,700 warriors
(Num. 2: 26), or 64,400 (Num. 26: 43). Each of his sons and grandsons
must have had about 80 children of both sexes. On the other hand, the
Levites increased the number of “males from a month old and upward”
during the 38 years in the wilderness only from 22,000 to 23,000 (Num.
3: 39; 26: 62), and the tribe of Manasseh during the same time increased
from 32,200 (Num. 1: 35) to 52,700 (26: 34).
The whole population of Israel were instructed in one single day to keep
the passover, and actually did keep it (Ex. 12). At the first notice of
any such feast Jehovah said, “I will pass through the land of Egypt _this
night_.” The passover was to be killed “_at even_” on the same day that
Moses received the command.
The women were at the same time ordered to borrow jewels of their
neighbors, the Egyptians. After midnight of the same day the Israelites
received notice to start for the wilderness. No one was to go out of his
house till morning, when they were to take their hurried flight with
their cattle and herds. How could 2,000,000 people, scattered about over
a wide district, as they must have been with their cattle and herds,
have gotten ready and taken a simultaneous hurried flight at twelve
hours’ notice?
The Israelites, with their flocks and herds, reached the Red Sea, a
distance of from fifty to sixty miles over a sandy desert, in three
days! Marching fifty abreast, the able-bodied warriors alone would have
filled up the road for seven miles, and the whole multitude would have
made a column twenty-two miles long, so that the last of the body could
not have been started until the front had advanced that distance—more
than two days’ journey for such a mixed company. Then the sheep and
cattle must have formed another vast column, covering a much greater
tract of ground in proportion to their number. Upon what did these two
millions of sheep and oxen feed in the journey to the Red Sea over a
desert region, sandy, gravelly, and stony alternately? How did the
people manage with the sick and infirm, and especially with the seven
hundred and fifty births that must have taken place in the three days’
march?
Judah was forty-two years old when he went down with Jacob into Egypt,
being three years older than his brother Joseph, who was then
thirty-nine. For “Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before
Pharaoh” (Gen. 41: 46); and from that time nine years elapsed (seven of
plenty and two of famine) before Jacob came down into Egypt. Judah was
born in the fourth year of Jacob’s double marriage (Gen. 29: 35), being
the fourth of the seven children of Leah born in seven years; and Joseph
was born of Rachel in the seventh year (Gen. 30: 24, 26; 21: 41). In
these forty-two years of Judah’s life the following events are recorded
in Gen. 38:
He grows up, marries, and has three sons. His eldest son grows up,
marries, and dies. The second son marries his brother’s widow and dies.
The third son, after waiting to grow to maturity, declines to marry the
widow. The widow then deceives Judah himself, and bears him twins—Pharez
and Zarah. One of these twins grows up and has two sons—Hez-ron and
Hamul—bom to him before Jacob goes down into Egypt.
In Ex. 30:11-13, Jehovah commanded Moses to take a census of the
children of Israel, and in doing it to collect half a shekel of the
sanctuary as atonement-money. This expression “shekel of the sanctuary”
is put into the mouth of Jehovah six or seven months before the
tabernacle was made. In Ex. 38: 26 we read of such a tribute being paid,
but nothing is there said of any _census_ being taken, only that the
number of those who paid, from twenty years old and upward, was 603,550
men. In Num. 1: 1-46, more than six months after this occasion, an
account of an actual census is given, but no _atonment-money_ is
mentioned. If in the first instance a census was taken, but accidentally
omitted to be mentioned, and in the second instance the tribute was
paid, but accidentally omitted likewise, it was nevertheless surprising
that the number of adult males should have been identically the same
(603,550) on both occasions, six months apart.
Aaron and his two sons were the only priests during Aaron’s lifetime.
They had to make all the burnt-offerings on a single altar nine feet
square (Ex. 37: 1), besides attending to other priestly duties for
2,000,000 people. At the birth of every child both a burnt-offering and
a sin-offering had to be made. The number of births must be reckoned as
at least two hundred and fifty a day, for which consequently five
hundred sacrifices would have to be offered daily—an impossible duty to
be performed by three priests. For poor women pigeons were accepted
instead of lambs. If half of them offered pigeons, and only one instead
of two, it would have required 90,000 pigeons annually for this purpose
alone. Where did they get the pigeons? How could they have had them at
all under Sinai? There were thirteen cities where the presence of these
three priests was required (Josh. 21: 19). The three priests had to eat
a large portion of the bumt-offerings (Num. 18: 10) and all the
sin-offerings—two hundred and fifty pigeons a day—more than eighty for
each priest.
In keeping the second passover under Sinai, 150,000 lambs must have been
killed—i. e. one for each family (Ex. 12: 3, 4). The Levites slew them,
and the three priests had to sprinkle the blood from their hands (1
Chron. 30: 16; 35: 11). The killing had to be done “between two
evenings” (Ex. 12: 6), and the sprinkling had to be done in about two
hours. The killing must have been done in the court of the tabernacle
(Lev. 1: 3, 5; 17: 2-6). The area of the court could have held but 5000
people at most. Here the lambs had to be sacrificed at the rate of 1250
a minute, and each of the three priests had to sprinkle the blood of
more than 400 lambs every minute for two hours.
The number of warriors of the Israelites, as recorded at the Exodus, was
600,000 (Ex. 7: 37); subsequently it was 603,550 (Ex. 38: 25-28), and at
the end of their wanderings it was 601,730 (Num. 26: 51). But in 2
Chron. 13:3, Abijah, king of Judah, brings 0,000 men against Jeroboam,
king of Israel, with 0,000, and “there fell down slain of Israel 500,000
chosen men” (ver. 17). On another occasion, Pekah, king of Israel, slew
of Judah in one day, 120,000 valiant men (2 Chron. 28: 6.)
The Israelites at their Exodus were provided with tents (Ex. 16: 16), in
which they undoubtedly encamped and dwelt. They did not dwell in tents
in Egypt, but in “houses” with “doors,” “sideposts,” and “lintels.”
These tents must have been made either of hair or of skin (Ex. 26: 7,
14; 36: 14, 19)—most probably of the latter—and were therefore much
heavier than the modern canvas tents. At least 200,000 were required to
accommodate 2,000,000 people. Supposing they took these tents from
Egypt, how did they carry them in their hurried march to the Red Sea?
The people had burdens enough without them. They had to carry their
kneading-troughs with the dough unleavened, their clothes, their cooking
utensils, couches, infants, aged and infirm persons, and food enough for
at least a month’s use, or until manna was provided for them in the
wilderness, which was “on the fifteenth day of the second month after
their departure out of the land of Egypt” (Ex. 16:1). One of these
tents, with its poles, pegs, etc., would be a load for a single ox, so
that they would have needed 0.000 oxen to carry the tents. But oxen are
not usually trained to carry goods on their backs, and will not do so
without training. Then it is written:
“These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel” (Deut. 1: 1).
“And Moses called all Israel and said unto them” (Deut. 5:1).
“There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not
before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little
ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them” (Josh. 8: 35).
How was it possible to do this before at least
2,000,000 people? Could Moses or Joshua, as actual eye-witnesses, have
expressed themselves in such extravagant language? Surely not.
The camp of the Israelites must have been at least a mile and a half in
diameter. This would be allowing to each person on the average a space
three times the size of a coffin for a full-grown man. The ashes, offal,
and refuse of the sacrifices would therefore have to be carried by the
priest in person a distance of three-quarters of a mile “without the
camp, unto a clean place” (Lev. 4:11, 12.) There were only three
priests—namely, Aaron, Eleazar, and Ithamar—to do all this work for
2,000,000 people. All the wood and water would have to be brought into
this immense camp from the outside. Where could the supplies have been
got while the camp was under Sinai, in a desert, for nearly twelve
months together? How could so great a camp have been kept clean?
But how huge does the difficulty become if we take the more reasonable
dimensions of twelve miles square for this camp; that is, about the size
of London! Imagine at least half a million of men having to go out daily
a distance of six miles and back to the suburbs for the common
necessities of nature, as the law directed.
The Israelites undoubtedly had flocks and herds of cattle (Ex. 34: 3).
They sojourned nearly a year before Sinai, where there was no food for
cattle; and the wilderness in which they sojourned nearly forty years is
now and was then a desert (Deut. 32: 10; 8: 15). The cattle surely did
not subsist on manna!
Among other prodigies of valor, 12,000 Israelites are recorded in Num.
31 as slaying all the male Midianites, taking captive all the females
and children, siezing all their cattle and flocks, numbering 808,000
head, taking all their goods and burning all their cities, without the
loss of a single man. Then they killed all the women and children except
32,000 virgins, whom they kept for themselves. There would seem to have
been at least 80,000 females in the aggregate, of whom 48,000 were
killed, besides (say) 20,000 boys. The number of men slaughtered must
have been about 48,000. Each Israelite therefore must have killed 4 men
in battle, carried off 8 captive women and children, and driven home 67
head of cattle. And then after reaching home, as a pastime, by command
of Moses, he had to murder 6 of his captive women and children in cold
blood.
Now, I respectfully submit that, judging from the account of the Exodus
of the Jews, which they have written themselves, we cannot credit it.
The narrative is full of contradictions, and is so absurd and
incredible, and even impossible, that we must regard it as a _huge
myth_. There may have been an Exodus from Egypt, of which this account
is an exaggeration, but it bears so many evidences of the _fabulous_
that we cast it aside and are led to doubt whether the Jews were ever in
Egypt except as tramps and vagabonds, and to suspect that the whole
story is an _adapted_ history of some great exodus of some ancient
tribes written for a _purpose._
I think it has been shown that the Jews were not the people that they
have been supposed to be. They are a modern people in the world’s
history, antedated by many highly-civilized and powerful nations. They
are not descendants of Abram, as will be shown more fully hereafter, and
their population never reached the fabulous numbers that are given in
what is called their sacred history. Indeed, there is so much of the
_fabulous_ about them, so much of _false pretence_ that upon the very
face is impossible and incredible, that the wonder is that Christians
should ever have seriously thought of regarding them and their
institutions as the source and substance of what Christianity is. We
have no prejudice against the Jews. We cast no reflection upon the
so-called Hebrews of the present day. They are not responsible for their
ancestors, any more than Gladstone, Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer, and other
brainy Englishmen are responsible for the savagery and barbarism of
_their_ forefathers.
It has been our object in this chapter to show the _Munchausenish_
character of Jewish history, upon which the whole superstructure of
modern theology rests. If anybody is proud of his descent from such a
people, he is welcome to the glory.