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Churchill On Moses
T he
Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill, "Moses", from the collection of essays
Thoughts and Adventures, first published November 1932; (London: Odhams,
1947 edition) pp.224-5:
"Books are written in many
languages upon the question of how much of this was due to Moses.
Devastating, inexorable modern study and criticism have proved that the
Pentateuch constitutes a body of narrative and doctrine which came into
being over at least the compass of several centuries. We reject, however,
with scorn all those learned and laboured myths that Moses was but a
legendary figure upon whom the priesthood and the people hung their
essential social, moral, and religious ordinances. We believe that the
most scientific view, the most up-to-date and rationalistic conception,
will find its fullest satisfaction in taking the Bible story literally,
and in identifying one of the greatest of human beings with the most
decisive leap forward ever discernible in the human story. We remain
unmoved by the tomes of Professor Gradgrind and Dr. Dryasdust. We may be
sure that all these things happened just as they are set out according to
Holy Writ. We may believe that they happened to people not so very
different from ourselves, and that the impressions those people received
were faithfully recorded and have been transmitted across the centuries
with far more accuracy than many of the telegraphed accounts we read of the
goings-on of today. In the words of a forgotten work of Mr. Gladstone, we
rest with assurance upon 'The impregnable rock of Holy Scripture.'"
"Let the men of science and
of learning expand their knowledge and probe with their researches every
detail of the records which have been preserved to us from these dim ages.
All they will do is to fortify the grand simplicity and essential accuracy
of the recorded truths which have lighted so far the pilgrimage of man."
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