Indirect Testimony of the Author.

The formal claim of authorship made in a document may often be confirmed, or thrown into doubt, by remarks incidentally made when the question of authorship is not in the author's mind. A large number of such remarks, confirming the formal claim which we have just considered, is found in the Book of Deuteronomy. They consist in incidental allusions to the fact that when the speeches and poems which make up the body of the work were composed, the speaker and his auditors had not yet crossed over into the promised land. There are none of these in the first discourse, for the evident reason that in it the speaker was reciting and commenting on past events. But in the twenty-seven chapters which begin with the sixth and end with the thirty-second, they are as numerous as the chapters. They are not expressed in a stereotyped formula, as if they had been inserted for effect. Once we have, "In the land which ye go over to possess it" (vi. 1). Three times we have, "When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land which he sware to thy fathers to give thee" (vi. 10; vii. 1; xi. 29); twice, "That thou mayest go in and possess the good land" (vi. 18; viii. 1); once, "Thou art to pass over Jordan this day" (ix. 1) ; once, "They shall go in and possess the land" (x. 11); three times, "The land which thou goest in to possess it" (xi. 10, 11; xxxii. 47); once, "When ye go over Jordan and dwell in the land" (xii. 10); three times, "When thou shalt come into the land" (xvii. 4; xviii. 9; xxvi. 1); four times, "The land which Jehovah giveth thee to possess it" (xix. 2; xxi. 1, 23; xxv. 19); twice, "On the day when ye pass over Jordan" (xxvii. 2, 4); once- "Jehovah thy God will go over before thee" (xxxi. 3); twice, "Joshua shall go over before thee" (xxxi. 3, 8); once, "The land which ye go over Jordan to possess it" (xxxi. 13); once, "When I shall have brought them into the land which I sware to their fathers" (xxxi. 20).  

Now, if Moses was the author of these several documents, as is so positively asserted, these forms of expression, and this frequent recurrence of them, are perfectly natural; and the reader will find, upon examination of them, that they are every one nicely fitted to the context in which it occurs, taking form in harmony therewith. The frequency of their occurrence is accounted for by the fact that the eastern slopes of the promised land were in full view of the multitude as thev listened to Moses, with nothing but the overflowing Jordan between it and them. In the earlier books, when there was a period of many years and a long desert journey between the people and the land of promise, the speeches of Moses are almost void of such allusions. There are only two in Exodus, unless some have escaped our search (xiii. 5, 11); only three in Leviticus (xiv. 34; xxiii. 10; xxv. 2); and only five in Numbers, three of the five occurring in remarks made on the plain of Moab, where the discourses of Deuteronomy were delivered (xv. 2, 18; xxxiii. 51; xxxiv. 2; xxxv. 10). Nothing could be more natural on the lips of Moses than the frequency of these expressions when standing in sight of the promised land, and the infrequency of them when far away.  

If, now, the Book of Deuteronomy, instead of being written by Moses, was composed seven centuries later, in the time of Manasseh, the only conceivable reason why it contains so many positive assertions of its Mosaic authorship, was to make its readers believe that Moses wrote it, the real author or authors knowing perfectly well that he did no such thing. And, on this hypothesis, the only motive for introducing these varied expressions in the speeches about a future entrance into the promised land, was to add a superfluity of false evidence of the same false representation. And when we consider the large number of these allusions, and the varied forms in which they are presented, we find in them not only a superfluity of lying, but an ingenuity in framing falsehoods which arc incredible because they surpass the cunning which any other spurious author has ever exhibited. No juggler ever displayed more cunning in devising his tricks of legerdemain.  

Furthermore, if the Books of Exodus, Leviticus and lumbers were written two hundred years later than Deuteronomy, the author or authors of these books had even more reason to employ deceptive devices in making their readers believe that Moses wrote them, in proportion as their distance from the days of Moses was greater. They bad also the example of the Deuteronomist to teach them skill in this line of deception. Why, then, did not they, while making speeches and putting them into the lips of Moses, insert in them a similar number and variety of allusions to the future entrance into Canaan? They insert enough of them to show that they were not ashamed of the device, but they fall far short of their exemplar in the number of them. Was it because they thought it might not appear natural for Moses to speak so often of crossing the Jordan while he was at a distance from it? If so, this explanation, without reflecting any credit on their honesty, only magnifies their devilish ingenuity.