275 
Reviews, whose disqualification for the task they have assumed 
must be manifest to all men ; but of eminent scholars like 
Geseuius, Ewald, and others, who, however high their attain- 
ments as Hebraists, are not sufficient to warrant our ranking 
them above the acknowledged authority of the Rabbinical 
teachers and learned Jews themselves. 
50. This may be illustrated by our understanding of a term 
which has been the subject of much criticism in the present 
day. It has been generally understood by Christian com - 
mentators of the first sentence in Scripture, “ In the beginning 
God created/’ &c., that from the peculiar construction of the 
Hebrew — a plural nominative governing a singular verb — we 
have a clear intimation of the doctrine of the Trinity. 
Modern criticism has been careful to deny this; and yet, if 
we refer to the learned Jews, who lived before the fuller 
revelation of Gospel light, we have a distinct intimation that 
such was the case. Take, for example, the teaching of Zohar, 
a work of the highest authority amongst the Jews, com- 
posed by Simeon bar Juchai in the century preceding the 
Christian era, which thus speaks on the doctrine of the 
Trinity : “ There are three Lights in God ; the ancient 
light, or Kadmon; the pure light, or Zach ; the purified light, 
or Mezuchzdth ; and These three make but one God.” 
Many other passages of a similar nature might be adduced 
from the writings of learned Jews, showing the difference 
between their teaching and the results of modern criticism 
respecting the Trinity. 
51. Further, as regards the Hebrew cosmogony, we cannot 
forget that it claims to be a revelation of the Divine Will, 
and as such it is impossible that there can be any conflict 
between what are really and truly the works and the word of 
to reconcile science and Scripture. Had lie read more on this subject, 
he would have known that ages before the science of geolog}' existed one of 
the earliest translations of the Bible was that by Paginus, a Dominican monk, 
born A.D. 1470, the profoundest Hebrew scholar of his age. And he, with 
Montanas Benedictus, who was appointed to revise this translation in the 
middle of the following century, renders the Hebrew rakia by the Latin 
expansion cm. So Bishop Colenso, in his attempt to decry our English version 
of the Bible, which speaks of the priest “ carrying forth the whole bullock 
without the camp,” &c. (Leviticus iv. 12), appears to be unaware that the 
Hebrew verb hotzia is of the Hiphhil form, and has a causative signification, 
meaning that “ the priest shall cause to carry forth,” or “ have carried out,” 
as Buxtorf, Gesenius, and all Hebraists teach. The English phrase “ I have 
carried my hay,” exactly expresses the meaning of what Moses wrote. If 
either of these opponents of Scripture had studied such a work as Origen's 
Answer to Celsus’ sceptical objections to the Mosaic cosmogony (see espe- 
cially lib. vi. c. 60, et seq.), I do not think they would have committed 
themselves in the way they have done. 
