12 - About Works of Science and Scientific Data...

About Works of Science and Scientific Data Which Confirm the Authenticity of the Pentateuch of Moses.

The defense of the sacred value of biblical criticism was worked out at the same time as the destructive, and in general, criticial theory reached its full development at the end of the 19th century. It is not possible for us at the present time to delve deeply into the vast scientific fields of philologi­cal and other research. We will point out only the previously mentioned work by the French biblical exegete F. Vigourue, which belongs to the same final years of the last century: A Guide to Reading and Studying the Bible, which went through a long series of printings in France and was translated into Russian. In it is given a bibliography of Western negative criticism and positive anti-criticism of the Old Testament before the twen­tieth century. The author sorts out all of the arguments advanced in his time by rationalistic criticism. He proves the authenticity of the Mosaic books by evidence contained in the Bible itself, by the parallel “Samaritan” Pentateuch discovered in modern times, by the evidence of Egyptian monuments, from which it is clear that the author of the Pentateuch was well acquainted with Egypt, even down to various trivial details, namely Egypt as it was under Ramses and even earlier, and finally, it is confirmed by an analysis of the language of the books themselves. In particular, F. Vigourue points out that there are no grounds for separating the Penta­teuch into two versions corresponding to the names of Yahweh and Elo-him, citing all of the passages where they are used apart and together, and he investigates the question of “discrepancies” in the Pentateuch, and of the possibility of later individual additions to the text to explain certain historical, geographical, and other names and indications. Since critical reviewers of the text of the Bible see great exaggeration in its description of the tabernacle (A. Kartashev speaks of its “fairy-tale splendor”), and also point out the exaggeration of numbers (in the census of the people, the number of sacrificial animals, the amount of gold and silver collected for decorating the tabernacle), and see in this proof of the later origin of biblical stories, we here provide some scientific information. From the article “Gold” by A. Miklashevsky (in the Brokhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary): “Judging from the results of excavations and archaeological research, gold was one of the first metals which mankind turned to its own use. Easily found and processed, it was from ancient times used in fashioning all sorts of objects. Excavations of extremely ancient burial mounds in Denmark have shown that arms and objects for domestic use were made principally of gold; only certain parts were of iron” (in one museum, for example, one can see the entire shaft of a spear made of gold, and only the spearhead of iron). Under “Mining” in Vol. XVII of the same work we read: “Mining had developed up to the year 3000 B.C. in Upper Egypt; it reached its height under the Ptolemies. According to the testimony of Strabo and Pliny, the Phoenicians (Phoeni­cia was a neighbor of Palestine) were able to smelt ores and organized the mining of gold and copper in Thrace (an area in what is now Greece), and around 1100 B.C., in southern Spain as well.” - Gold is always found in its natural state: in powdered form in sand or in the veins of quartz. For this reason it is comparatively easy to obtain. Let us add a note from the contemporary press: In Erevan (in Georgia), on the mound of Mestsamor, a very large metal-working center dating to 3000 years before our era was disclosed. Excavations on this mound began some years ago. Archaeolo­gists, astrophysicists and art historians worked together there. Besides smelting furnaces, foundry areas were found, approximately fourteen types of bronze workshops, and innumerable foundries carved in the basalt. Concerning the numbers and calculations in the Bible, in some cases it is very natural to consider the possibility of an incorrect reading by the copiers of the original text, and mistakes in copying, especially when the text was transferred from one type of writing to another. The cuneiform of Mesopotamia, the hieroglyphics of Egypt, the circular writing of the Phoenicians, and the square Aramaic script all had their peculiarities in rendering numbers, and this could have paved the way for unintentional mistakes. By way of comparison, for example, let us recall that in our writ­ten Church Slavonic, it is sufficient to add the symbol “¹” to the sign for one, a, and thus one becomes one thousand (Compare the Greek numerical system and Church Slavonic system which was bor­rowed from it in total: they are identical, but the numbers from 11 to 19, the tens, and the units are in reverse order; for example, the number fifteen is “ιέ” in Greek, but in Church Slavonic is ***“Ei”). The Babylonian cuneiform system of symbols is curious. “One wedge meant one, two wedges two, etc., up to ten, which was expressed by joining two wedges in an angle, “<“; twenty - two such angles, thirty - three, etc. One hundred was expressed by means of two wedges - a vertical and next to it a hori­zontal, “I-”; one thousand by the symbol often before the symbol of one hundred, “<|-”. An example of abbreviation: instead of writing the numeral 90 by means of nine signs (10 by 9), it was possible to write one special symbol in large calculations meaning 60, and with it three symbols for ten ("Babylonia,” an article by A. Lopukhin. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brokhaus and Efrori). This system was convenient; however, it was quite easy for a person not familiar with it to become lost in it! F. Vigourue cites several examples which support the possibility of the presence of mistakes in the contemporary text of the Bible, no matter how carefully throughout the history of the Bible the text was guarded after copies had been made from the only copy left after the Babylonian captiv­ity. Thus, according to the Hebrew text of II Chronicles, Solomon had 4000 pairs of horses (in the Slavonic version: mares; in the Russian: stal­lions); but according to III Kings, he had Matthew,000. According to I Kings, David demanded 700 Syrian horsemen, but according to 2 Chronicles, 7,000. II Chronicles says that Jehoiachim was eight years old when he ascended the throne, but IV Kings says eighteen (Vigourue, A Guide to Reading and Studying the Bible, Vol. I, p. 109). It is clear that these dis­parate calculations are a result of scribal errors of translation. The critics point out that the Hebrews wandering in the desert could not have had with them certain materials necessary for equipping them­selves. But there are grounds for suggesting that they could have obtained these materials by means of trade or purchase from passing caravans travelling from the East to Egypt. In such a way Joseph became a slave in Egypt, when he was sold by his brothers to the merchants of a caravan, as we read in Genesis: And they [the brethren] sat down to eat bread; and hav­ing lifted up their eyes they beheld, and lo, Ishmaelitish travellers came from Galaad, and their camels were heavily loaded with spices, and resin, and stacte; and they went to bring them to Egypt (Genesis 37:25).