Egyptians_, may not have been added to the text in this way, is entirely submitted to the judgment of the learned. Connexion Book 5, vol. i., p. 341." 'The learned writer of this extract is more correct in his statement of the difficulty, than in its solution. It is a principle in criticism to consider a book as free from interpolation, until it is proved that interpolations have certainly been made. The charge of interpolation is brought against the books of the Old Testament for no other reason, than to reduce them into harmony with the preconceived opinion that they were written by the authors to whom they are commonly ascribed. In the present instance, there has been no interpolation. The compiler, relating the honours paid to the family of Jacob in Egypt, and endeavouring to harmonise them with the state of things in his own times, 1,000 years later, when the Egyptians, by their religious absurdities, had been made to entertain an enmity towards shepherds, has given us a description which, in this particular, is inconsistent with itself. In short, the Egyptians held shepherds in aversion in the fifth, but not in the fifteenth, century before the Christian era.' It is scarcely necessary to add to the above; but, if it were, it would be hard to reconcile there being an abomination with the eleventh verse of chap, xlvii., in which it is stated that Pharaoh gave these very people 'the best of the land, in the land of Rameses.' *Chapter xlviii., v. 22. Jacob's life contains no account of his wars with the Amorites; in fact, had it not been for these concluding words, I should have looked upon him as rather likely to gain victories by cozening and diplomatic swindling, than by his bow and sword. *Chapter 1., v. 10 and 11. These verses could not have been {47} written by Moses, because Atad was not _beyond_ but on _this_ side Jordan to him. Joseph did not cross the Jordan to bury his rather.