TO THE

REV. WILLIAM FREMANTLE, M. A.,

RECTOR OF CLAYDON AND VICAR OF STEEPLE CLAYDON.

MY DEAR FREMANTLE,

AS the following pages owe their existence to the

perusal of the proof-sheets of your Sermon on The Crucifixion, preached at St Mary's, Oxford, last year, and to our conversations and correspondence on the subject of it, I feel bound in justice, no less than moved by inclination, to inscribe them to you. I was encouraged, moreover, to pursue my researches, by finding that you thought my original suggestions concerning Rhesa, and concerning the identity of Hananiah and Joanna, and of Hodaiah, Juda, and Abiud, and my proposed rectification of 1 Chron. iii. 21, 22, sufficiently probable to give them a place in your Appendix (pp. 33-36).

Subsequent reflection and study have greatly confirmed my own belief in the truth of those suggestions as regards the removal of Rhesa from the

MELA PASSIy or probable,

CLASS I Rither of the lines

ZAWERS to me irrele

7: SARÀS to one of the sch and the other

MAIN in conviction that

e Jsy, the one marking

adur David's son,

them powerfully affected the solution of the genealogical enquiry. After a vain attempt, therefore, to avoid them, I was forced to gird up the loins of my mind, and in spite of my consciousness of inadequate resources, to do my best, under the blessing of God, to solve them to my own satisfaction, and, if it might be, to that of my readers. I allude especially to the chapters on the second Cainan, on the Chronology of the period covered by the generations from Salmon to David, and on the chronology of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah.

In the progress of these enquiries I derived. much incidental and indirect support to the conjectural emendations of 1 Chron. above proposed, and the identification of names, because I became acquainted with abundant DEMONSTRATIONS of the imperfection of the Masoretic Hebrew text, especially as regards proper names and numbers. So that, whereas at first I felt doubtful whether it were lawful to propose the smallest correction of the text, I have now the fullest conviction that in such matters as names and numbers the text in many places absolutely requires correction. Dr Kennicott has made this so clear and so certain that I cannot conceive the possibility of any one doubting it after due enquiry.

b

The two points on which I have the least satisfaction, are the contradiction offered to the chronological statement of St Paul, concerning the duration of the rule of the Judges, and the considerable alteration suggested as to the arrangement of the facts recorded in the Book of Judges. I do not feel satisfied by the observations either of the Bishop of Cæsarea, or of Thomas Scott, that St Paul did make an erroneous statement, though it is merely on a matter of chronology, and cannot but suspect that the numbers may after all not be the Apostle's, but inserted by some other hand. And as regards the Book of Judges, it seems to me that much still remains to be done to place it and the Book of Joshua in perfect harmony with each other, and with that historical truth which they seem to bear witness to, but in a disjointed and somewhat confused manner. Whether this can be done without an inspired interpreter may be doubtful; but I trust that the attempt to approach such an end has nothing in it inconsistent with reverence and love for the inspired Scriptures, or that can give offence to the Church of God.

You at least, I well know, will read my book with indulgence and charity, and will join me in the hearty prayer that nothing in these pages may be