CONCERNING THE COMPOSITION OF HOLY SCKIPTURE. 197 



perfectly familiar with these topographical details, with places which 

 still preserve their traditional names, with the distances between 

 them, and special events which are minutely described both in 

 Exodus and in Deuteronomy. It is inconceivable that any writer 

 other than one who, like Moses, was himself a witness of the events 

 recorded, could have written the narrative of the Exodus with the 

 acciu-ate topographical details which we are at this day in a position 

 to confirm or deny by personal investigation. Xow nearly all these 

 recorded localities can be identified, and have been identified at the 

 present day, I myself have visited the greater number ; and I can 

 speak with the utmost confidence of the accuracy of the details, and of 

 the manner in which the events recorded fit in with the conditions of 

 the topographical features. Could there l)e a more convincing proof 

 that the events recorded were written by one who was personally 

 present, and took a leading part in the events themselves 1 Moses 

 himself claims to be the atithor on the ground of his own personal 

 participation in the events, thotigh these may have been dictated to 

 an amanuensis. On all these grounds I claim for the history of the 

 Exodus the same amount of credit which is yielded to the events 

 recorded, say in Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great, or am' 

 similar work purporting to be a narrative of historical events. 



