lus, led him to a careful
reexamination of the Mosaic record.

The fruit of this additional study is the _Pentateuch and Book of Joshua
critically examined, in Three Parts_. Appearing just at the time when
the contest concerning the _Essays and Reviews_ was at fever-heat, the
Bishop's work added excitement to all the combatants.

Those who are intimately acquainted with the treatment of the Pentateuch
and Book of Joshua by the most unsparing of the German Rationalists will
at once see the resemblance between their views and those of Colenso.
His aim is to overthrow the historical character of the early Scriptural
history by exposing the contradictions and impossibilities contained
therein; and also to fix the real origin, age and authorship of the
so-called narratives of Moses and Joshua. "I have arrived at the
conviction," says he, "that the Pentateuch, as a whole, cannot possibly
have been written by Moses, or by any one acquainted personally with the
facts which it professes to describe, and, further, that the so-called
Mosaic narrative, by whomsoever written, and though imparting to us, as
I fully believe it does, revelations of the Divine will and character,
cannot be regarded as _historically true_.... My reason for no longer
receiving the Pentateuch as historically true, is not that I find
insuperable difficulties with regard to the _miracles_ or supernatural
_revelations_ of Almighty God recorded in it, but solely that I cannot,
as a true man, consent any longer to shut my eyes to the absolute,
palpable self-contradictions of the narrative. The notion of miraculous
or supernatural interferences does not present to my own mind the
difficulties which it seems to present to some. I could believe and
receive the miracles of Scripture heartily, if only they were
authenticated by a veracious history; though, if that is not the case
with the Pentateuch, any miracles, which rest on such an unstable
support, must necessarily fall to the ground with it."[192]

In proof of this assumption the author selects a large number of
inexplicable portions from the narratives in question, and uses all the
resources of his talents and learning to prove them to be the fruit of
"error, infirmity, passion, and ignorance." Hezron and Hanuel, he avers,
were certainly born in the land of Canaan; the whole assembly of Israel
could not have gathered about the door of the tabernacle; all Israel
could not have been heard by Moses, for they n