The Doctors and the Pentateuch.
PROF. ROBERTSON SMITH, of Edinburg, has demonstrated to his own satisfaction that the Pentateuch was not inspired, that it is not authentic history, and that it was not written by Moses, but was the product of a later age; in short, that it is a fraud. Of course when this was affirmed by so eminent a man, many people accepted it as truth. But now comes Dr. Rufus B. Stebbins, President of the Unitarian Theological School at Meadville, Pa., and combats the above theory very earnestly and with much learning. He argues that the Pentateuch belongs to the Mosaic age, and traces references to it back from the time of Christ to that of Joshua. He shows that the peculiar words of the law were as familiar to the Israelites of the age immediately succeeding that of Joshua, as the language of the sermon on the mount is to modern preachers. He says: “The whole atmosphere of these books is fragrant with the incense which rose from the law; and the whole magnificent ritual of the nation is found imbedded in it. Our Pentateuch did exist in their day. It must have existed, or all historical evidence is false and worthless.”