Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/368

 evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim." (Judges ii. 8-11.) Now, here the inspired writer says that Joshua and all that generation died, which expressly contradicts the rabbinic assertion that Joshua's elders lived to the time of Eli; and, further, he says, that the Israelites turned aside to idols: where was the Sanhedrin at that time? If it existed, why did it not stop the torrent of corruption, and punish the transgressors? And why was it necessary for God to raise up Judges to do the Sanhedrin's work? We do not once read of the Sanhedrin, or any other council, helping Israel. In the book of Judges, deliverance is ascribed solely to the judges whom God raised up. "When the Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge And it came to pass when the judge was dead, that they returned and corrupted themselves more than their fathers." (Ibid. 18, 19.) Indeed, that saying so often repeated in the book of Judges, "In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes," shows that there was no Sanhedrin either. If any council of the kind, armed with such despotic power, had existed, the children of Israel could not have done that which was right in their own eyes. Whether, then, we look at the Bible or at the rabbinic account, we have a period of more than two hundred years, during which there is no evidence at all either for the existence of the Sanhedrin or of the oral law. The chain of testimony, therefore, offered by the rabbies, is not complete; and is, moreover, unworthy of credit, as it contains a gross falsehood concerning the age to which Joshua's elders lived. A little more examination will show us that it contains more than one falsehood. After telling us that David received the oral law from Samuel and his council, it thus proceeds:—

"Ahijah the Shilonite was one of those who came out of Egypt, and a Levite, and he heard the oral law from Moses: but he was little in the days of Moses, and received the oral law from David and his council. And Elijah received from Ahijah the Shilonite and his council." Now, in the first place, this statement is very absurd. To suppose that one, who had heard the law from Moses, should at last receive it from David, is contrary to probability: but to assert that Ahijah was a little boy in the time of Moses, and that he lived until the reign of Solomon, that is, above five hundred years, is manifestly a falsehood, and, whether wilful or not, completely