50 



REV. A. H. FINN, ON THE 



The considerations here set forth are, I am fully aware, mere 

 outlines of a subject deserving much fuller and more thorough 

 treatment. Nor have I included some important considerations 

 advanced by other writers. For instance, no use has been 

 made of Mr. Craig Robinson's weighty argument for the antiquity 

 of the Pentateuch from the absence of all mention of Jerusalem, 

 of the title " the Lord of Hosts,'' and of the musical services 

 of the Temple ; nor of the argument from the Egyptian colouring 

 so ably urged by Prof. Naville and other experts, with which 

 I am not competent to deal ; nor of the arguments from the 

 Theology of the Pentateuch put forward by Prof. Orr and (as 

 regards Genesis) by the Rev. F. Watson. 



It is not for want of appreciation that I have refrained from 

 dwelling on these, but simply because I was unwilling merely 

 to borrow from the thoughts of others. 



Yet incomplete as the treatment of the subject has been, I 

 venture to submit that the arguments indicated are wider, 

 deeper, more surely founded on evidence than those advanced 

 for the disintegration of the Pentateuch. 



It will be to me a matter of deepest thankfulness if I have 

 been enabled to contribute a little to the vindication, against 

 modern theories, of the age-long belief that the five volumes 

 of the Torah constitute one single work, of real antiquity, and 

 due to the authority of Moses himself. 



Letters received by the Lecturer. 



The Lecturer read the following letters received by himself : — 



From the Dean of Ely, Rev. A. F. Kirkpatrick, D.D. : I am 

 much obliged to you for sending me your paper, and asking me to 

 criticise it. But " a few criticisms " would be quite useless ; and it 

 seems to me hardly worth while nowadays to discuss what is almost 

 universally accepted by scholars. I cannot imagine any student, 

 trained in literary and historic critical methods, questioning the com- 

 posite origin of the Pentateuch, if he approaches the subject from an 

 unprejudiced point of view, and apart from inherited prepossessions. 

 While there is much room for variety of opinion as regards details, 

 the main outlines of Pentateuchal criticism seem to me established 

 by complex and cumulative evidence. 



