Now that the descent of the Jews from the Chaldean Abram, whom they affect to call their father, is discredited by all scholars who reject the inspirational and infallible theory of the Old Testament, it is very difficult to find out the real origin of this strange people. All modern writers on Jews and Judaism admit that outside of the Old Testament there is little or no history of the Jews down to the time of Alexander, and that there is very little reliable history even in the collection of books known as the Hebrew Scriptures. It cannot be doubted now that the Pentateuch, improperly called the five books of Moses, was mostly written after the return of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon, about 538 b. c., and what is found in these books mainly corresponds with the religion and literature of the a.s.syrians, and was learned during their sojourn in that country, and not, as has ignorantly been supposed, from the mythical Abram, the reputed immigrant from Ur of the Chaldees. What is recorded in the Pentateuch, not being mentioned in other Old-Testament writings, shows that such records had no existence when those books were written, and therefore could have no recognition.

It will be shown hereafter that there is little or nothing in the Pentateuch that is strictly original, much less strictly historical.

Indeed, the tales of the Old Testament generally were written for a religious or patriotic purpose, with little regard for time, place, or historical accuracy. Persons, real or mythical, are often used to represent different tribes, while allegory is the rule rather than the exception in what is ignorantly accepted as history. This is admitted by many eminent Christian writers.

The word "Jew" first occurs in 2 Kings 16: 6 to denote the inhabitants of Judea, but they should properly have been called "Judeans." The very name _Jew_ is probably mythological, derived from _Jeoud_, the name of the only son of Saturn, though, like Abraham, he had several other sons.

It cannot be doubted that the stories of Saturn and Abraham are slightly varied versions of the same fable.

The Jews never deserved to be called a _nation_, at least not until in comparatively modern times. They were inclined from the first to mingle with and intermarry with other peoples, and so became _mongrels_ at an early period.

There was no race distinction, we are told, between the Canaanites, Idumeans, and Israelites. Ishmael married an Egyptian woman, and so did Joseph, the son of Jacob. Esau married a daughter of Ishmael, also two other women, called daughters of Canaan, one a Hitt.i.te and the other a Hivite. Judah and Simeon each married Canaanites. We read in Judges 3: 5, 6, "The children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hitt.i.tes, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites; and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their [own] daughters to their sons, and served their G.o.ds."

In Ezekiel 16th it is written: "Thus saith the Lord G.o.d unto Jerusalem, Thy birth and thy nativity was in the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite and thy mother an Hitt.i.te. Your mother was an Hitt.i.te and your father an Amorite-thine elder sister, Samaria, and thy youngest sister, Sodom."

In Deut. 7: 7 the Jews are told, "The Lord did not set his love upon you because ye were more in number than any other people, for ye were _fewest_ of all people." In Josh. 12: 24 they are reminded that it was necessary to "send them hornets which drove them (the Canaanites) out before you, even the two kings of the Amorites;" and in Ex. 23: 28, 29 it is said, "I will send hornets before thee which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hitt.i.te from before thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field multiply against thee." This does not look as if the Jews were very numerous or valorous in the little territory not much larger than the State of Connecticut.

Josephus makes certain notes to show that the Lacedemonians claimed original kinship with the Jews, and some writers make the same claim for the Afghans and several other peoples. Nothing is more certain, in my judgment, than that the Jews are the most thoroughly _mongrel_ race upon the face of the earth. That they have certain idiosyncrasies in common, and even certain distinguishing _facial_ and other physical marks, can easily be accounted for on other grounds than the a.s.sumption of unity of race.

The common story of the origin of the Jews is certainly fabulous.

Major-General Forlong, of the British Army, says: "They were probably in the beginning a wandering tribe of Bedouin Arabs who got possession of the rocky parts of Palestine, which were never made better by their presence. They are a comparatively modern people. The first notice of Jews is possibly that of certain Shemitic rulers in the Aram paying tribute about 850 b. c. to Vul-Nirari, the successor of Shalmaneser of Syria; regarding which, however, much more is made by biblicists than the simple record warrants. This is the case also where Champollion affirms that mention is made on the Theban temples of the capture of certain towns of the land we call Judaea, this being thought to prove the existence of Jews. Similar a.s.sumption takes place in regard to the hieratic papyri of the Leyden Museum, held to belong to the time of Rameses II., an inscription read on the rocks of El-Hamamat, and the discovery of some names like Chedorlaomer in the records of Babylonia; but this is all the (so-called) evidence as to the existence of ancient Jews which has been advanced; and the most is made of it in Dr. Birch's opening address on the _Progress of Biblical Archaeology_ at the inauguration of the Archaeological Society. Of Jews we hear nothing during all the Thothmik wars, unless they be included among the phallic-worshipping Hermonites who were mentioned as inhabiting the highlands of Syria. We have no real historical evidence of the persons or kingdoms of David or Solomon, though we may grant the Jewish stories _c.u.m grano salis_, seeing how outrageously they have always exaggerated in everything pertaining to their own glorification.

"The only logical conclusion justifiable when we give up the inspiration theory is, that Arabs and Syro-Phnicians were known to a.s.syrians and Egyptians, and this none would deny. Indeed, we readily grant, with Dr.

Birch, that under the nineteenth and twentieth Egyptian dynasties the influence of the Aramaean nations is distinctly marked; that not only by blood and alliances had the Pharaohs been closely united with the princes of Palestine and Syria, but that the language of the period abounds in Semitic words quite different from the Egyptian, with which they were embroidered and intermingled. Could it possibly be otherwise?

Is it not so to this day? Is a vast and rapidly-sp.a.w.ning Shemitic continent like Arabia not to influence the narrow delta of a river adjoining it or the wild highlands of Syria to the north? Of course Arabs or Shemites were everywhere spread over Egypt, Syria, and Phnicia, as well as in their ancient seats of empire in Arabia, Irak (Kaldia), and on the imperial mounds of Kalneh and Koyunjik; but not necessarily as Jews. I cannot find that these last were anything more than a peculiar religious sect of Arabs who settled down from their pristine nomadic habits and obtained a _quasi_ government under petty princes or sheiks, such as we have seen take place in the case of numerous Arabian and Indian sects.

"Only about two hundred years or so after their return from Babylon did the Jews seem to consolidate into a nation, and the collection and translation of their old mythic records-deciphered with much difficulty by the diligent librarians of Ptolemy Philadelphus from "old shreds and sc.r.a.ps of leather"-no doubt materially aided in consolidating the people and in welding them into what they became-clans proud of a sort of a mythic history built up by Ezra and other men acquainted with Babylonian records and popular cosmogonies."

No efforts, say the leaders of the Biblical Archaeological Society, have been able to find either amidst the numerous engravings on the rocks of Arabia Petrea or Palestine, _any save Phnician inscriptions_; not even a record of the Syro-Hebrew character, which was once thought to be the peculiar property of Hebrews. Most of those inscriptions. .h.i.therto discovered do not date anterior to the Roman empire. Few, if _any_ monuments (of Jews) have been found in Palestine or the neighboring countries of any useful antiquity save the Moabite Stone, and the value of this last is all in favor of my previous arguments on these points.

At the pool of Siloam we have an "inscription in the Phnician character as old as the time of the Kings;... it is incised upon the walls of a rock-chamber apparently dedicated to Baal, who is mentioned on it. So that here, in a most holy place of this peculiar people, we find only Phnicians, and these worshipping the Sun-G.o.d of Fertility, as was customary on every coast of Europe from unknown times down to the rise of Christianity."

The Biblical Archaeological Society and British Museum authorities tell us frankly and clearly that no Hebrew square character can be proved to exist till after the Babylonian captivity, and that, at all events, this inscription of Siloam shows "that the curved or Phnician character was in use in Jerusalem itself under the Hebrew monarchy, as well as the conterminous Phnicia, Moabitis, and the more distant a.s.syria. No monument, indeed," continues Dr. Birch, "of greater antiquity inscribed in the square character (Hebrew) has been found as yet _older than the fifth century A. D._ [the small capitals are mine], and the coins of the Maccabean princes, as well as those of the revolter Barcochab, are impressed with _Samaritan_ characters. So that here we have the most complete confirmation of all that I a.s.sert as to the mythical history of a Judean people prior to a century or so b. c., and even then only under such a government as Babylonian administrators had taught them to form and the lax rule of the Seleukidae, followed by intermittent Roman government, permitted of."

Another modern writer says: "Soon after the death of Alexander the Jews first came into notice under Ptolemy I. of Egypt, and some of their books were collected at the new-built city of Alexandria."

Such was the insignificance of the Jews as a people that the historical monuments preceding the time of Alexander the Great, who died 323 years b. c., make not the slightest mention of any Jewish transaction. The writings of Thales, Solon, Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Herodotus, and Xenophon, all of whom visited remote countries, contain no mention of the Jews whatever. Neither Homer nor Aristotle, the preceptor of Alexander, makes any mention of them. The story of Josephus, that Alexander visited Jerusalem, has been proved to be a fabrication.

Alexander's historians say nothing about it. He did pa.s.s through the coast of Palestine, and the only resistance he encountered was at Gaza, which was garrisoned by Persians (Wyttenbach's _Opuscula_, vol. ii. pp.

416, 421).

For half a century after its destruction, says Dr. Robinson, there is no mention of Jerusalem in history; and even until the time of Constantine its history presents little more than a blank (vol. i. pp. 367, 371).

General Forlong says: "The area of Judea and Samaria is, according to the above authority, 140 X 40 = 5600 square miles, which I think is certainly one-fourth too much, my own triangulation of it giving only 4500, or a figure of about 130 X 35. I will, however, concede the allotment of 5600, but we must remember that, as a rule, the whole is a dismal, rocky, arid region, with only intersecting valleys, watered by springs and heavy rain from November to February inclusive, and having scorching heats from April to September. Even the inhabitable portions of the country could only support the very spa.r.s.est population, and I speak after having marched over it and also a considerable portion of the rest of the world. In India we should look upon it as a very poor province; in some respects very like the hilly tracts of Mewar or Odeypoor in Kajpootana, but in extent, population, and wealth it is less than that small princ.i.p.ality.

"The chief importance of Palestine in ancient history was due to its lying on the high-road between the great kingdoms of Egypt, Babylon, and a.s.syria, and as giving the Arabs a hiding- and abiding-place which they-Jews included-could not obtain if they ventured out on the plains south and east. The holes and fastnesses of the hills were their safeguards, and, as they a.s.sure us, very much used indeed. The Jewish strip is divided into Samaria as a centre, with Galilee north and Judea south, giving to the two former eight-tenths, and the latter two-tenths; that is, two tribes; 5600 X 2/10 so that the Judean area would be about 5600 X 8/10 = 20 square miles, against the 4480 of the latter; and the population would be somewhat in this proportion, for the extreme barrenness of all the country south and east of Jerusalem would be in some degree made up for by this town being perhaps a little larger than those in the north.

"We are thus prepared to state the population of the entire land in terms of its area, as was done for the Judean capital, and with equally startling results. The whole Turkish empire yields at present less than twenty-four persons to the square mile, and in the wild and warring ages we are here concerned with we may safely say that there were less than twenty per square mile, of which half were females and one-third of the other half children and feeble persons, unable to take the field whether for war or agriculture. The result is disastrous to much biblical matter, and far-reaching; upsetting the mighty armies of Joshua and the Judges, no less than those of David and Solomon, who are thought for a few short years to have united the tribes: nay, the stern facts of figures destroy all the subsequently divided kings or petty chiefs who lasted down to the sixth century or so b. c., and show us that Jews have ever been insignificant in the extreme, especially when compared with the great peoples who generally ruled them, and far and wide around them.

"So that this paltry thirty thousand to forty thousand is the very most which the twelve tribes could, and only for these few years, bring to the front. In general, the tribes warred with one another and with their neighbors, so that, for the purposes of foreign war, the Jewish race represented only two or three tribes at a time, or, say, ten thousand able men. Thus one tribe-as, for example, Judah-would have only from three thousand to four thousand men in all, supposing every man left his fields and home to fight, while a.s.syrian armies not unusually numbered one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand men."

In the above statistics also we have taken a greater area than I think the tribes occupied. There is not a sign of a Jewish people till about what is called their "Eastern Captivity," and the Rev. Mr. Rodwell writes in the _Trans. of the Biblical Archaeological Society_ that "_the Hebrew of the Bible is no other than a dialectic variety of the Canaanitish or Phnician tongue expressed in the Chaldean character_, not brought, as has been taught, by Abram himself from Ur of the Chaldees, but adopted by the Israelites during their long captivities."

"Could it possibly be otherwise when we look at the facts? The Jews were a poor, ignorant, weak Arab tribe, living on the outskirts of a land occupied for long ages previously by the most famous race of all antiquity-a people from whom Greece, Rome, and Carthage alike borrowed the ideas of their earliest art and architecture. Homer called this race _Phens_ Poludaidaloi-'artists of varied skill,' and later Romans prized them above all others for their constructive talent. Pliny, Seneca, and Varro praise them in words which will never die; Jews said that David solicited their skilled labor, and that Solomon's temple, small and simple though it was, could not be raised without their help; nay, though Ezra says he had these ensamples before him, and had seen all the fine buildings of Babylon, yet he too had to solicit their aid, else the walls of the city of Jehovah and Zerub-babel's second shrine could never have been constructed. In all arts, trades, and manufactures this extraordinary people excelled every ancient race, and from the very earliest times down and into the Roman period. Is it surprising, then, that their language and customs prevailed wherever their skilled aid was required? that Africa in its writing was no less Punic-that is, Phnician-than Libyan, guided by these wondrous Pheni or "Tyrii bilingues"? The history of Britain during some past generations as the first great manufacturing country of modern times shows how civilization, power, and progress must ever follow industry and usefulness, and Phnicians to a great extent in early days controlled 'the sinews of war' where this was their interest; but it too often proved more profitable to deal in swords and helmets than in 'Tyrian purple' and costly brocade stuffs. Manufacturers are not much given to writing, and these Pheni have been so parsimonious in their vowels and lavish and indifferent in the use of b's, dfs, r's, and s's that few philological students have attempted the translation of Phnician writings, though Phnician, and not Hebrew, is what alone we find traces of in Syria and Palestine."

It has been substantially said by William Henry Burr, in a work not now in the market, that "very erroneous ideas prevail in regard to the magnitude of the nation and country of the Jews and their importance in history. Most maps of ancient Palestine a.s.sign far too much territory to that nation. They make the greatest length of the country from 160 to 175 miles, and its greatest breadth from 70 to 90, inclosing an area of from 10,000 to 12,000 square miles-a little larger than the State of Vermont. They not only include the entire Mediterranean coast for 160 miles, but a considerable mountain-tract on the north, above Dan, and a portion of the desert on the south, below Beer-sheba, besides running the eastern boundary out too far. Moreover, they lengthen the distances in every direction. From Dan to Beersheba, the extreme northern and southern towns, the distance on Mitch.e.l.l's map is 165 miles, and on Colton's, 150; but on a map accompanying _Biblical Researches in Palestine_, by Edward Robinson, D. D., which is one of the most recent and elaborate, and will doubtless be accepted as the best authority, the distance is only 128 miles.

"Now, the Israelites were never able to drive out the Canaanites from the choicest portion of the country-the Mediterranean coast-nor even from most parts of the interior (Judges 1: 16-31; 1 Kings 9: 20, 21).

The Phnicians, a powerful maritime people, occupied the northern portion of the coast, and the Philistines the southern; between these the Jebusites or some other people held control, so that the Israelites were excluded from any part of the Mediterranean sh.o.r.e. The map of their country must therefore undergo a reduction of a strip on the west at least 10 miles wide by 160 long, or 1600 square miles. A further reduction must be made of about 400 square miles for the Dead Sea and Lake of Tiberias. This leaves at most 9000 square miles by Colton's map.

But on this map the extreme length of the country is 175 miles, which is 47 miles too great: for the whole dominion of the Jews extended only from Dan to Beersheba, which Dr. Robinson places only 128 miles apart.

We must therefore make a further reduction of an area about 47 by 60 miles, or 2800 square miles. Then we must take off a slice on the east, at least 10 miles broad by 60 long, or 600 square miles. Thus we reduce the area of Colton's map from 11,000 square miles to 5600-a little less than the State of Connecticut.

"But now, if we subtract from this what was wilderness and desert, and also what was at no time inhabited and controlled by the Israelites, we further reduce their habitable territory about one-half. The land of Canaan being nearly all mountainous and bounded on the south and east by a vast desert which encroached upon the borders of the country, a great part of it was barren wilderness. Nor did but one-fifth of the Israelites (two and a half tribes) occupy the country east of the Jordan, which was almost equal in extent to that on the west, the proper Land of Promise. The eastern half, therefore, must have been but thinly populated by the two and a half tribes, who were only able to maintain a precarious foothold against the bordering enemies. So, then, it is not probable that the Israelites actually inhabited and governed at any time a territory of more than 3000 square miles, or not much if any larger than the little State of Delaware. At all events, it can hardly be doubted that Delaware contains more good land than the whole country of the Jews ever did.

"The promise to Abraham in Gen. 15: 18 is 'from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates.' But the Jewish possessions never reached the Nile by 200 miles. In Ex. 33: 31 the promise is renewed, but the river of Egypt is not named. The boundaries are 'from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines (the Mediterranean), and from the desert to the river.'

By 'the river' was doubtless meant the Euphrates; and a.s.suming that by 'the desert' was meant the eastern boundary (though Canaan was bounded on the south also by the same great desert which reached to the Red Sea), we have in this promise a territory 600 miles long by an average of about 180 broad, making an area of about 100,000 square miles, or ten times as much as the Jews ever could claim, and nearly one-half of it uninhabitable. So, then, the promise was never fulfilled, for the Israelites were confined to a very small central portion of their land of promise, and whether they occupied 3000 or 12,000 square miles in the period of their greatest power, the fact is not to be disputed that their country was a very small one.

"Lamartine describes the journey from Bethany to Jericho as singularly toilsome and melancholy-neither houses nor cultivation, mountains without a shrub, immense rocks split by time, pinnacles tinged with colors like those of an extinct volcano. 'From the summit of these hills, as far as the eye can reach, we see only black chains, conical or broken peaks, a boundless labyrinth of pa.s.ses rent through the mountains, and those ravines lying in perfect and perpetual stillness, without a stream, without a wild animal, without even a flower, the relics of a convulsed land, with waves of stone' (vol. ii., p. 146)."

But lest it may be thought that these dismal features are due to modern degeneracy, let us take the testimony of an early Christian Father, St.

Jerome, who lived a long time in Bethlehem, four miles south of Jerusalem. In the year 414 he wrote to Darda.n.u.s thus: "I beg of those who a.s.sert that the Jewish people after coming out of Egypt took possession of this country (which to us, by the pa.s.sion and resurrection of our Saviour, has become truly the land of promise), to show us what this people possessed. Their whole dominions extended only from Dan to Beersheba, hardly 160 Roman miles in length (147 geographical miles).

The Scriptures give no more to David and Solomon, except what they acquired by alliance after conquest.... I am ashamed to say what is the breadth of the land of promise, lest I should thereby give the pagans occasion to blaspheme. It is but 47 miles (42 geographical miles) from Joppa to our little town of Bethlehem, beyond which all is a frightful desert" (vol. ii., p. 605).

Elsewhere he describes the country as the "refuse and rubbish of nature." He says that "from Jerusalem to Bethlehem there is nothing but stones, and in the summer the inhabitants can scarcely get water to drink."

"In the year 1847, Lieut. Lynch of the U. S. Navy was sent to explore the river Jordan and the Dead Sea. He and his party with great difficulty crossed the country from Acre to the Lake of Tiberias, with trucks drawn by camels. The only roads from time immemorial were mule-paths. Frequent detours had to be made, and they were compelled actually to make some portions of their road. Even then the last declivity could not be overcome until all hands turned out and hauled the boats and baggage down the steep places; and many times it seemed as if, like the ancient herd of swine, they would all rush precipitately into the sea. Over three days were required to make the journey, which in a straight line would be only twenty-seven miles. For the first few miles they pa.s.sed over a pretty fertile plain, but this was the ancient Phnician country, which the Jews never conquered. The rest of the route was mountainous and rocky, with not a tree visible nor a house outside the little walled villages (pp. 135 to 152).

"The ancient Sea of Galilee has a prominent place in Jewish geography and commerce, yet on this insignificant body of water, twelve miles long by seven wide, all the commerce of the Jews was carried on, except when they had the use of a port on the Red Sea.

"In a book ent.i.tled _The Holy Land, Syria_, etc., by David Roberts, R.

A. (London, 1855), the valley of the Jordan is thus described:

"'A large portion of the valley of the Jordan has been from the earliest time almost a desert. But in the northern part the great number of rivulets which descend from the mountains on both sides produce in many places a luxuriant growth of wild herbage. So too in the southern part, where similar rivulets exist, as around Jericho, there is even an exuberant fertility; but those rivulets seldom reach the Jordan and have no effect on the middle of the Ghor. The mountains on each side are rugged and desolate, the western cliffs overhanging the valley at an elevation of 1000 or 1200 feet, while the eastern mountains fall back in ranges of from 2000 to 2500 feet.'"

What was the size of ancient Jerusalem? We know pretty nearly what it is now and how many inhabitants it contains. It is three-quarters of a mile long by half a mile wide, and its population is not more than ,500 (_Biblical Researches_, vol i., p. 421), a large proportion of whom are drawn thither by the renowned sanct.i.ty of the place. Dr. Robinson measured the wall of the city, and found it to be only 12,978 feet in circ.u.mference, or nearly two and a half miles (vol. i., p. 268).

"In a book ent.i.tled _An Essay on the Ancient Topography of Jerusalem_, by James Fergusson (London, 1847), a diagram is given of the walls of ancient and modern Jerusalem, from which it appears that the greatest length of the city was at no time more than 6000 feet, or a little more than a mile, and its greatest width about three-quarters of a mile; while the real Jerusalem of old was but a little more than a quarter that size.

"With these measurements Mr. Fergusson undertakes to estimate the probable population of the ancient city, as follows:

"'If we allow the inhabitants of the first-named cities fifty yards to each individual, and that one-half of the new city was inhabited at the rate of one person to each one hundred yards, this will give a permanent population of 23,000 souls. If, on the other hand, we allow only thirty-three yards to each of the old cities, and admit that the whole of the new was as densely populated as London, or allowing one hundred yards to each inhabitant, we obtain 37,000 souls for the whole; which I do not think it at all probable that Jerusalem ever could have contained as a permanent population.' "'In another part of the book (p. 47) he says:

"If we were to trust Josephus, he would have us believe that Jerusalem contained at one time, or could contain, two and a half or three millions of souls, and that at the siege of t.i.tus 1,100,000 perished by famine and the sword, 97,000 were taken captive, and 40,000 allowed by t.i.tus to go free.

"In order to show the gross exaggeration of these numbers, he cites the fact that the army of t.i.tus did not exceed, altogether, 30,000, and that Josephus himself enumerates the fighting-men of the city at 23,400, which would give a population something under 100,000. But even this he believes to be an exaggeration. For, says he,

"'In all the sallies it cannot be discovered that at any time the Jews could bring into the field 10,000 men, if so many.... t.i.tus enclosed the city with a line four and a half miles in extent, which, with his small army, was so weak a disposition that a small body of the Jews could easily have broken through it; but they never seem to have had numbers sufficient to be able to attempt it.'

"The author guesses that the Jews might have mustered at the beginning of the siege about 10,000 men, and that the city might have contained altogether about 40,000 inhabitants, permanent and transient, in a s.p.a.ce which in no other city in the world could accommodate 30,000 souls. But the wall of Agrippa was built, as the same author states, twelve or thirteen years after the Crucifixion; hence prior to that time the area of Jerusalem was only 756,000 yards, and it was capable of containing only 23,000 inhabitants at most, but probably never did contain more than 15,000.

"Allowing to Jerusalem, in the period of the greatest prosperity of the Jews, a population of even 20,000, is it at all probable that the whole country could have contained anything like even the lowest estimate to be gathered from the Scripture record? In 1 Chron. 21: 5, 6 we read that the number of 'men that drew the sword of Israel and Judah amounted to 1,570,000, not counting the tribes of Levi and Benjamin. In 2 Sam. 24: 9, the number given at the same census is 1,300,000, and no omission is mentioned. a.s.suming the larger number to be correct, and adding only one-eighth for the two tribes of Levi and Benjamin, which may have been the smallest, we have 1,766,000 fighting-men. This would give, at the rate of one fighting-man to four inhabitants, a total population of over 7,000,000 souls. But if we adopt a more reasonable ratio, of one to six, we have a population of over 10,500,000 souls. And then we omit the aliens. These numbered 153,600 working-men only two years later (2 Chron. 2: 17), and the total alien population, therefore, must have been about 500,000, which, added to the census, would make the total population from 7,500,000 to 11,000,000, or more. Can any intelligent man believe that a mountainous, barren country, no larger than Connecticut, without commerce, without manufactures, without the mechanical arts, without civilization, ever did or could subsist even two millions of people? Much less can it be believed that it subsisted 'seven nations greater and mightier than the Israelitish nation itself'

(Deut. 7: 1)-i e. not less than 14,000,000.

"That the Jews were a very barbarous people is undeniable. Slavery necessarily makes a people barbarous. Not only were the Israelites a nation of slaves, according to their own record, but after their entry into Canaan they were six times reduced to bondage in their own land of promise. During a period of 281 years they were in slavery 111 years.