s distance from the earth![129]

The existing population of the globe corresponds pretty well to the
natural increase of three pairs in forty centuries, which is something
near to the Bible chronology. The laws of population, then, inexorably
refuse the indefinite, or even the remote antiquity of mankind, and
vindicate Moses as a writer of truthful history.

The alleged anachronisms of the Pentateuch have been adduced as
testimony that it could not have been written till long after the time
of Moses. These alleged anachronisms are generally the insertion of a
modern name of a city instead of the ancient name, or an explanatory
addition which would not have been necessary in the days of Moses. Now
if all these cases could be proved, they would at most only show that
the scribes who copied the manuscripts in later ages had inserted these
explanatory changes or additions, under proper authority. Everybody's
common sense will tell him, that Moses did not narrate his own death in
the last chapter of Deuteronomy; but it is none the less true though
Joshua, or some other prophet, added that postscript.

But Hengstenberg has[130] examined these alleged anachronisms in detail,
and shown that the objectors allow themselves to interpolate into the
text a meaning of their own in order to show the inaccuracy of the
Bible. For instance, Genesis xii. 6, "The Canaanite was then in the
land," they maintain could only be written after the Canaanites had been
driven out. They interpolate _still_, which is not in the text. But they
entirely mistake the meaning of the passage, which refers to an earlier
statement of the same fact, chapter x. 15, to show that Abraham, the
heir of the promise, came as a stranger and a pilgrim to a land
preoccupied by a powerful people, who are again mentioned, chapter xiii.
7, for the purpose of showing how Lot and Abraham came to be so crowded
as to separate.

Another of the prominent instances is the name of the ancient city of
Hebron, which, in the book of Joshua, is said to have been anciently
called Kirjath-arba. But Numbers xiii. 22, which states that Hebron was
built seven years before Zoan in Egypt, and was the residence of Ahiman,
Sheshai, and Talmai, the sons of Anak, shows that the writer was well
acquainted with the history of the place, and Genesis xxxv. 27 shows
that Hebron was the first name, and that it had two other names added to
it, both after the time of Abraham, since Mamre was his con