MODERN BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP. 



237 



reign of " The Prince of Peace " the happy people may bo not 

 less shocked when they learn that we could ever have believed 

 in the Christianity of a Hedley Vicars, a Havelock, or a Gordon. 



With regard to the civil legislation of Moses, if one may 

 distinguish it from the religious, when compared with the famous 

 Laws of Khammurabi, codified five or six hundred years before the 

 time of Moses, and separated by a thousand years from the sup- 

 posed " J," " E " and " P " documents, there is no sufficient differ- 

 ence to call for any theory of evolution. The lex talionis is found 

 in both. Khammurabi, it is true, put a man to death for sheep- 

 stealing, and so did the English law of the eighteenth century, 

 while the Mosaic law more wisely and more humanely required 

 restitution and a fine — a principle which, if applied to-day, 

 would soon put a stop to pocket-picking and burglary ; and 

 there are other cases of greater humanity. But both sanctioned 

 polygamy, and both sanctioned divorce for causes other than 

 unfaithfulness. The reason given by our Lord for the latter 

 continuing up to His own time, — a reason ioT all defective 

 legislation — shows no evolution on the subject for nearly two 

 thousand years but a retrogression, — " For the hardness of your 

 heart he wrote you this precept, but from the beginning it was 

 not so." 



It is, however, in the religious legislation that the process is 

 supposed to have most effectively operated. The limits of 

 space prohibit a reference to more than the one outstanding 

 case supposed to afford conclusive evidence of religions evolu- 

 tion. I refer to the composition of the Book of Deuteronomy. 

 Though founded upon the contents of the Books of Exodus, 

 Leviticus and Numbers, it is considered to show a considerable 

 advance upon them. To account for it the discovery of " The 

 Book of the Law " by Hilkiah, the priest, in the days of King 

 Josiah, is fixed upon, although there is nothing whatever in 

 the narrative to show that the book found was the Book of 

 Deuteronomy, nothing else and nothing more. It is surmised 

 that there was a " Mosaic party " formed six hundred years 

 after Moses was dead, and that to strengthen their influence 

 the Book of Deuteronomy was forged. Kuenen says : '• Deuter- 

 onomy was written not for the sake of writing, but to change 

 the whole condition of the kingdom. The author and his 

 party cannot have made the execution of their programme 

 depend upon a lucky accident. If Hilkiah found the book in 

 the Temple, it was put there by the adherents of the Mosaic 

 tendency." Thus, a book devised to promote the pure and 

 reverent worship of God was a forgery, concocted by godly 



