Civ MOSES AND HIS RECENT CRITICS, EDITED BY^ Talbot W/ Chambers. NEW YORK : FUNK & WAGNALLS, 18 AND 20 AsTOR Place. 1889. Bntered, according to Act of Congress, ia tbeyear 1887, By FUNK & WAGNALLS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C FUNK & WAGNALLS, 18 and 20 Astor Place, NEW YORK CONTENTS. The Baptist, the Congregational, the Episcopalian, the Lu- theran, the Methodist, the Presbyterian (North and South), and the Reformed (Dutch) Churches are represented in the writers of these Essays. While all agree in their general view of the subject, yet each is responsible only for what he himself has written. I. Introductory Historical Sketch of Pentateuchal Criti- cism.— Dr. T. W. Chambers 5 II. The Hebrew Religion not a Natural Development. — Prof. Gardiner, of Theological Seminary, Middle- town, Conn 30 III. Analysis of the Codes.— Prof. Bissell, of Theologi- cal Seminary, Hartford 65 IV. Pentateuchal Analysis.— Prof. Green, of Princeton. 101 V. Testimony of the Pentateuch to Itself, Direct and In- direct.— Prof. ScHODDE, of Capital University , Ohio. 139 VI. Testimony of the Historical Books, save Chronicles. — Prof. Beecher, of Auburn Theological Seminary. . 173 VII. Testimony of the Books of Chronicles.— Prof. M. S. Terry, Illinois 211 VIII. Testimony of the Prophetical (and Poetical) Books. — Prof. Harman, of Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. 247 IX. Bearings of the New Hypothesis on Questions of Bib- lical Theology, Inspiration, and the authority of the Bible generally.— Prof. Dwinell, Pacific Theologi- cal Seminary, Oakland, Cal 277 X. Credulity or Faith, or the Difficulties of the New Hy- potheses.— Prop. Streibert, Gambler, O. . . 307 XI. Validity and Bearing of the Testimony of Christ and His Apostles.— Prof. Hemphill, of Columbia, S. C. 345 X. : A Reasonable Hypothesis of the Origin of the Penta- teuch.— Prof. Osgood, of Rochester Theological Seminary .... 377 SUMMARY OF THE ESSAY. 1. Introductory. 2. Ancient Opinion. 8. View of Dr. Astruc. 4. Tiie Same enlarged by Eichhorn. 5. The Fragmentary Theory— Geddes and Vater. 6. The Supplementary Theory— Bleek, Tuch. 7. Hupfield's Opposition. 8. Reactionary Works— Knobel and Keil. 9. Documentary Theory — Popper and Graf. 10. Its Constituent Elements. 11. Its Relation to History. 12. The Three Codes. 13. Their Differences from Each Other and from Their Surroundings. 14. The Question at Issue. 15. The Plan of this Series of Essays. 16. Resume of Objections to the Modern View of the Subject. 17. The Conservative View — What it Denies and what it Admits. AN HISTORICAL SKETCH. I. This essay claims to be nothing more than a sketch. It avoids details as far as possible, and seeks merely to indicate the main line along which scholars have proceeded in their investiga- tions into the origin and formation of the first portion of the Old Testament. The compilation has been made from various sources, and the lan- guage of others has been freely used wherever it seemed advisable. Even such a rapid outline may be useful to persons not familiar with the subject, in enabling them to follow with ease and intelligence the further discussions in the succeeding essays. The importance of the sub- ject cannot well be over estimated. The Scrip- tures are a complete whole, with a beginning, a middle and an end, the result being an historical revelation of the will of God and his relations to men. Its various parts are so closely interlocked together that none can be removed without seri- ous damage to the rest. Especially does this hold good of the early portions which in position re- semble the base of a pyramid. If this be taken away, what is left is a column floating in the air. The certitude oh which Christian faith rests is gone, and men are given over to a calculation of probabilities in reference to their most important interests. This is a sad change from the tone of assured and absolute conviction which character- 6 Pentateuchal Criticism. ized New Testament believers. They knew in whom they had believed, and were persuaded that they had not followed cunningly devised fables. It is well worth while therefore to con- sider whether there is any real ground for depart- ing from the steadfast belief of all past genera- tions in regard to the Mosaic record. 2. In the last chapter of Luke's gospel, our Lord, referring to the Old Testament, calls it, "the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms." The last of these stood for the poetical books in gen- eral, the second for the histories and prophecies from Joshua down, while the first was appropri- ated to the opening books of the volume, now generally known as the Pentateuch (the five-fold book), a name which it has borne ever since the time of Origen. This portion is referred to by Nehemiah (viii:i, 2, 3; ix:3; xiii:i) as the Law, or the Book of the Law, and as such it has been re- garded and styled by the Jews of all ages. Its division into separate books is as old as the Sep- tuagint version, but how much older cannot be determined. The historian Josephus in his work against Apion, speaking of the books which are justly believed to be divine, says that " five of them belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death " (i: 8). This opinion, with which every- thing in the New Testament is in accord, was accepted by Jews and Christians alike for many centuries. Discordant voices are not heard until after the Reformation save from a few obscure Pentateuchal Criticism. 7 heretics. But in the latter half of the 17th century the Mosaic authorship was boldly assailed by HOBBES in his Leviatha7i (chap, xxxiii), 1 561; by Peyrerius, who afterwards became a Romanist, in his book on the Pre- Adamites^ 1655 ; by the distinguished Spinoza in his Tracta. TJieoL-Polit. 1670; by the Roman Catholic Richard SiMON in his Critical History of the Old Testament , 1678, and by the Arminian, Clericus, in an anonymous work, Sentimens sur V Hist. Critique du V. T.y which, however, he afterwards retracted. But none of these attacks influenced public opinion in any notable degree. 3. Effective modern criticism begins with the work of Francis AsTRUC, Conjectures sur les Memoirs^ etc., which appeared in 1753. Astruc was the son of a Protestant minister, w^ho, however, on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, conformed to Rome. He studied medicine, attained emi- nence as a practitioner, and became professor of anatomy in the College of France, holding which position he died in 1766. In his work he first brought out fully and distinctly the fact which had previously arrested the attention of others, that there was a peculiar use of the divine names in Genesis, viz., that in some portions the name Elohini (God) was predominately used, and in others the name Jehovah (Lord). From this and other circumstances he concluded that the docu- ments employed by Moses in compiling the book consisted of two great memoirs and nine lesser ones. As the latter were little used the main Pentateuchal Criticism. records were the so-called Elohim and Jehovah documents. Astruc's analysis of Genesis has been criticised as mechanical and defective, but in its main features has been generally accepted. 4. The subject was taken up and carried still farther by J. G. EiCHHORN in his Introduction to the Old Testament, which appeared in 1780. He applied to the Scriptures what he called the Higher Criticism, which does not mean, as some- times has been supposed, something superior in nature and methods to other criticism, but simply that presupposing the precise text of any book and the exegesis of its language as already settled, it goes on to examine its integrity and author- ship, the mutual relation of its parts, and its lit- erary features as a whole. To Astruc's argument, founded upon the recurrence of the divine names, he added another based on differences of style. He arranged the first fifty-two chapters of the Pentateuch under two heads, each representing a different document, although in some rare cases other authorities had been used. Eichhorn, how- ever, as well as Astruc, held firmly to what was the well-nigh universal opinion of their day, that Moses, however various the materials he employed, was the real author of the Pentateuch, bating of course certain trifling editorial notes inserted here and there. 5. A new view was taken by Dr. Alexander Geddes, a Roman Catholic divine, who published in London in 1800 Critical Remarks on the He- brew Scriptures, in which he took the ground that Pentateuchal Criticism. 9 the Pentateuch is composed of a number of frag- ments which have neither a logical nor a chronolog- ical connection. Thus was started what is known as the Fragmentary Theory, which, of course, scouts the idea of any orderly or self-consistent progress running through the Five Books. This view was adopted by J. S. Vater, who advocated it with warmth in his Commentary upon the Pen- tateuch (1802-5). It was still further elaborated by A. T. HartMANN, who issued in 1831 his Historico-Critical Enquiries concerning the Forma- tion, etc., of the Books of Moses, He aimed to show by an elaborate argument that these books origi- nated in a number of comparatively insignificant, more or less mythical, post-Mosaic fragments, each of which formed the nucleus of a larger col- lection ; and that these were gradually brought together, and at length took on the shape and the arrangement of the present Pentateuch. But this theory is now almost universally abandoned, be- cause it fails to give any explanation of the pecu- liar fact that the Books reveal an undeniable unity of design and gradual course of orderly develop- ment. Such things do not and cannot spring up by chance. 6. This circumstance led to the invention of another theory, which has, with great propriety, received the name of Supplementary. This fully recognizes the existence of varied elements in the composition, and explains its unity of plan by holding that an original Elohim document has been worked up by a Jehovistic writer, through a 10 Pentateuchal Criticism. series of supplements gathered from various sources, into the shape which it now has. This view was, in substance, advocated by De Wette (1807), EwALi^ (1823), Gramberg (1828), Stah- ELiN (1830), Bleek (1830), TucH (1838). The last mentioned writer insisted that the whole Hexateuch — this term now came into use, be- cause the book of Joshua is so closely connected with the preceding books, and depends so entirely upon them for its historical position and character that it ought to be considered with them, and hence the five books became six — that the whole Hexateuch (except Deuteronomy), including the legislation, has at its basis an historical composi- tion in which God is named Elohim. Of this the Jehovist writer made the freest use, changing it or adding to it, according to his purpose. One great difficulty in the way of this theory was the baldness of the so-called original document, which, so far from being a continuous narrative, must rather have been a series of unrelated and unin- telligible fragments. A more serious objection lay in the fact that the original Elohistic docu- ment in a number of cases referred to or implied matters which were contained in the subsequent additions. The answer made in all these cases was that these were Jehovistic interpolations in the body of the Elohim document, or else frag- mentary details which that document originally contained. But obviously this was a mere eva- sion, for no solid argument can be drawn from difTerences if it be allowed that there were contin- Pentateuchal Criticism. 11 ual modifications made from time to time. It began very soon to be seen that the supplemen- tary theory did not rest upon a soHd basis. It overlooked or failed to account for important evidences of diversity. The conditions of the problem were not met by this theory nor even by the ingenious modification which Ewald after- wards elaborated, and which the elder Delitszch was accustomed to call ''the crystallizing hy- pothesis." 7. The most vigorous and successful of the as- sailants of the Supplementary theory was H UP- FIELD (1853), ^vho asserted that the document which had been assumed as the sole original was itself an obvious compilation, and that the sup- posed Jehovist editor was really no editor at all, but represented an original work. There were in fact three continuous historical compositions at the basis of the Pentateuch, two Elohistic and one Jehovistic. These three quite independent ac- counts a later editor combined into a continuous one, hesitating at no liberties with the text he had before him to accomplish his design. This view was in substance accepted by Schraader, Noldeke and Dillman. That is, they held to the existence of the three documents, although not placing them in the same order nor agreeing as to the period when they were issued, and sometimes one calling a certain portion Elohistic, while others call it Jehovistic. All agreed, however, in assign- ing the Pentateuch in its present form to a later 13 rENTATEUClIAL CRITICISM. date, to the time of David, or even some centu- ries after his day. 8. In 1 86 1 there appeared two reactionary- works. One was the concluding portion of KnOBEL's Commentary on the Pentateuch, in which he defended the Supplementary theory, holding that the Jehovist reviser of the original document used only two other sources (das RechtsbiicJi tind das KriegsbncJi), which, however, Kuhnen asserts to have had no existence save in his own imagi- nation. The other was Keil, who took the con- servative side and maintained the traditionary opinion as to the origin of the Hexateuch. But his work had little or no effect in stemming the tide of adventurous criticism. In the next year appeared Part I. of the work of Bishop COLENSO, styled TJie Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined, in which he endeavored to show that just those parts of the Hexateuch that contain the most precise details, and therefore have the air of authentic documents, are least con- sistent with the laws of • possibility. This work, which had but little influence in Britain or America, was eagerly translated and issued in Dutch by Prof. KuENEN of Leyden, who con- sidered it of the highest value, and appears to have received from it the strongest impulse in the devious path which at last has led him to the ab- solute denial of the supernatural and the negation of all real religion. In the subsequent parts of his work, Colenso coincided with other critics of his day in upholding the Supplementary theory^ Pentateuchal Criticism. 13 but in so doing he advanced nothing new or note- worthy. 9. In the same year (1862) appeared a small treatise by a learned Jew, Dr. Julius POPPER, which gave to the criticism of the Hexateuch a direction which it retains to the present day. Arguing from the divergencies by which the Sa- maritan and the Septuagint texts are distinguished from the Massoretic, he declared that the legisla- tion concerning the building of the tabernacle (Exodus XXXV : 11) and the consecration of the priests (Levit. viii: 10) did not take its present shape until long after the exile. Moreover, the original document, that ascribed to the first Elo- histic writer, was not of one piece, but the result of a lengthened revision {diaskeue) which received its finishing touch from the Scribes who succeeded Ezra. Some serious defects in style hindered Popper's work from receiving the attention which its boldness demanded, but before long its chief positions were set forth in a way that commanded a hearing. This was by K. H. Graf, who, in 1866, issued a monograph upon the Historical Books of the Old Testament, which Kuenen justly styles epoch-making. Graf was a pupil of the veteran Reuss, of Strasburg, who claims that for many years he had been orally teaching what his scholars now brought out with much parade of argument. In an earlier publication (1855) Graf had maintained that the tabernacle is simply a diminutive copy of Solomon's temple, all that is said about it in the middle books of the Pentateuch 14 Pentateuchal Criticism. being nothing but a post-exilian accretion. But in his principal work, 1 1 years later, he assigned this late origin to all the laws of the first Elohist, i. c, the great body of legislation found in Exo- dus, Leviticus and Numbers. The historical por- tion of this griindscJirift he still maintained to be the oldest part of the Pentateuch. But here, as Kuenen said, was the Achilles' heel of his theory. Hence RiEHM and others insisted that he had no right to separate the legislative from the historical portions, unless he renounced the leading principles of analysis as hitherto ap- plied. Graf then yielded, and announced his conviction that the whole of the first Elohist, his- tory as well as laws, is post-exilian. This view was afterwards elaborated with great force by Wellhausen, a man of brilliant genius and the master of a fascinating style, but apparently with- out any reverence for divine things, who pushed the analysis of the Hexateuch to the furthest possible point. lo. And thus the matter stands at the present time. According to the prevailing view, different documents were used in the Hexateuch. There was a first Elohist and a second, a first Jehovist and a second, a Deuteronomist, and one or more final redactors, and the form which the work now holds was not settled until after the exile. Or, to enter somewhat more into detail and state the main divisions as generally accepted, there was a narrative which, from the attention it pays to all ceremonial or sacrificial usages, is termed the Pentateuchal Criticism. 15 Priest-code, and is denoted by the letter P. An- other, from its affinity with the great prophets, is termed prophetical. This is not perfectly homo- geneous, and can in some places be separated into its component parts; hence it is denoted by the two letters J E, these being used separately when it is required to designate either portion apart from the other. These particular letters are chosen because the names " Jehovah " and " Elo- him " are used by preference (though not exclu- sively) in the two component parts respectively. The way in which these different documents were combined together is supposed to have been somewhat as follows : First, there were two inde- pendent narratives of the patriarchal and early history of Israel, J and E, covering largely the same ground ; these were afterwards combined by a redactor or compiler into the single whole which is denoted by J E. At a later date when P had been composed, another compiler came and united P with J E, thus giving rise to the first four books of the Pentateuch substantially as we have them. The fifth book was the work of a writer who, in- stinct with prophetic inspiration, took up laws which for the most part were ancient and recog- nized by the Israelites. These he threw into a new framework, emphasized the motives by which their observance should be dictated, and accom- modated the whole to the position of the legisla- tor Moses. It is stoutly denied that this can be set down as a " forgery," or that the author de- sired to win credit to himself by passing off as 16 Pentateuchal Criticism. Mosaic his own inventions. As Dr. Driver says, " his method does not differ from that of the chronicler, who, for instance, in I. Chronicles xxix, attributes to David a speech which the idi- oms employed in it show to be the author's own composition. It is an ideal Moses whose aspira- tions and aims he unfolds before us; and his con- ception is splendidly and worthily developed." There are minor differences in the views of differ- ent critics, but the foregoing represents pretty nearly what they hold in common. II. According to Wellhausen, there are obvi- ously three strata in the Hexateuch which can be assigned to their proper place in Hebrew annals. The turning point in the history of worship is found in the act of Josiah when he centralized the cultus'in Jerusalem. Up to that time there had been many local sanctuaries whose legiti- macy no one dreamed of disputing. Hezekiah had attempted to abolish these local shrines, but whatever success he met with was forgotten with- in a hundred years. Hence, we get three histori- cal periods, (i) that before Josiah, (2) the transi- tion period introduced by his reforms, and (3) the period after the exile. Now it is contended that when the contents of the Hexateuch are carefully analyzed they show a close conformity to these three ascertained stages of Hebrew development, and reveal themselves as so many phases in a liv- ing process by which at last Hebrew law and ritual came to assume the form which they now have, in B. C. 444, when the Priest-code was Pentateuciial Criticism. 17 published and put in force by Ezra, the Babylonian priest and scribe. The learned DiLLMAN, while agreeing as to the different documents which were combined to form the Pentateuch, by no means accepts the late date assigned to the Priest-code, but insists that the Levitical system, which he considers the oldest, be- longs to the ninth century, B. C. So far, there- fore, as concerns the relation of the Pentateuch to Hebrew history, he stands in decided opposition to the Wellhausen school. And he, in like man- ner, resists the tenet of Kuenen that the religious history of Israel is a purely natural development and in no wise the result of a revelation from God. 12. As has been said, the Documentary theory proceeds upon the characteristic differences in the portions which make up the Pentateuch. These differences relate to the language, the style, the religious conceptions, and the plan and method of narration. There are three codes which can be clearly discriminated from one another, (i) One is called the Book of the Covenant, and is con- tained in Exodus xx.-xxiv., of which chapter xxxiv. is a compendium. It is expressed in a brief, sententious way, and is in general of a judicial character. (2) Another is contained in Deuter- onomy xii.-xxvi., and was called by Eichhorn a people s code, because of its popular character. It was directed to a people already dwelling in the land of Canaan, and in it Moses comes forward as a prophet of Jehovah to exhort the people to 18 Pentateuchal Criticism. obey the laws made known to them. (3) The third is the Pricst-codc, consisting of the scattered legislation found in the middle books of the Pen- tateuch, in which the whole Levitical system is developed. It cannot well be denied that there exists ground for this classification ; and the dis- tinctions drawn are not imaginary, however they are to be explained. It is different, however, with the other claims that are made, viz., that these codes contradict each other ; that a discrepancy exists between them and the history and litera- ture of the nation prior to the exile, as appears by the silence of the different writers of history, poetry, prophecy and ethics as to many of the institutions mentioned, and by the fact that their precepts were often violated by holy men, the leaders of the people, without any rebuke ex- pressed or implied ; that a development in the religion of Israel can be traced from the conquest to the exile in three stages corresponding remark- ably to the variations between the three codes; that the books of kings represent the history of Israel from the point of view of the Deuterono- mic code, while the books of Chronicles represent it from the point of view of the Priest-code; and that the book of Ezekiel contains a detailed rep- resentation of institutions that seem intermediate between the Deuteronomic code and the Priest- code. 13. The differences of these codes from each other and from their surroundings may be stated more distinctly. (i) In the Priesthood. The Pentateuchal Criticism. 19 Covenant code omits priests; the Deuteronomic makes all the Levites priests; the Priest-code makes Aaron's sons the only priests and the Le- vites subordinate ministers. {2)lnt\iQAUars. The Covenant code commands their erection in all places where Jehovah records his name; the Deu- teronomic forbids to offer sacrifices, save ''in the place that Jehovah chooseth in one of thy tribes" ; the Priest-code directs them to be pre- sented at the door of the tent of meeting. (3) In the Sacrifices. These in the Covenant code are burnt offerings and peace offerings only; the Deuteronomic adds tithes, votive and free-will offerings; the Priest-code adds the sin and tres- pass offerings. So, in regard to the Purifications and the Feasts^ there is an increase of fullness and precision in the utterances of the second over the first, and of the third over the second. A similar discrepancy exists, it is claimed, between the Pentateuchal legislation and the history and literature of Israel prior to the exile. Thus, in the period of the Judges other altars besides the one at Shiloh were erected, and laymen, such as Joshua and Gideon, offered sacrifices, both of which were contrary to the Deuteronomic code and the Priest-code. Nor is mention made of the tithes, or of sin or trespass offerings, or of any of the purifications or the feasts peculiar to the Priest-code. In the time of Samuel a similar state of things existed. Sacrifices were offered at vari- ous places, instead of one only, and by various persons as well as priests. And for a long period 20 Pentateuchal Criticism. the Ark of the Covenant, remaining in the place where it was left after it had been returned by the Philistines, seems to have been wholly ne- glected. In the time of David it was taken to Zion, and the priesthood was fully organized; but the worship on the high places still continued, nor was it done away even when Solomon concen- trated the worship at Jerusalem. In like manner the literature of the nation makes no reference to the offerings, the purifications and the feasts of the Priest-code. The sin offering is not men- tioned till the days of Hezekiah, nor is it found anywhere in the Psalter, save in the fortieth Psalm. Nowhere in the pre-exilic history or writings is there evidence that the elaborate Sab- batical system was observed, or that the Day of Atonement, the culmination of the whole ritual, was kept according to the ordinance. Song and prophecy alike omit to refer to it. So, as has been said, the historical atmosphere of the books of Kings differs decidedly from that of the books of Chronicles, the former making frequent mention of matters belonging to one code, and the latter restricting its statements to things belonging to the other. It is contended, therefore, that as the codes are not recognized in their integrity in the literature and history of Israel, they did not exist at the early period claimed for them, but were simply the result of a very late de- velopment. Wellhausen puts this in an extreme form. According to him, when the temple was destroyed and the services interrupted, the Pentateuchal Criticism. 31 old practices were written down that they might not be lost. Thus in the exile the ritual became matter of teaching or Torah ; the first who took this step was the prophet and priest Ezekiel. "In the last part of his book he began the literary record of the customary ritual of the temple; other priests followed in his footsteps ; and so there arose during the captivity a school of men who wrote down and systematized what they had formerly practiced. When the temple was re- stored, this theoretic zeal still went on and pro- duced further developments in action and reac- tion with the actual practice of the new temple; the final result of the long-continued process was the Priest-code, which contains all the legal fea- tures of Mosaism." 14. Such now is the view entertained by the majority of the leading critics of Europe as to the constitution of the Pentateuch. On subordinate questions they differ with warmth, but on the main points are in substantial agreement. They are at one as to the age of Deuteronomy, which, they say, was not written by Moses, nor at any time near his age, but long afterward. So in regard to the relative age of the Elohistic document and the Jehovistic, they differ by a century or a half century ; but all alike put their origin at a period not earlier than 800 B. C. The same harmony obtains as to the Priest-code or Levitical law. That it was drawn up by Moses ihey unanimously deny. Some portions of it are, or possibly may be, as old as his time ; no one disputes this. But 33 Pextateuchal Criticism. the code, as a whole, was at least six centuries later, and the only question is whether it belongs to 800 B.C., as Dillman holds, or whether, as just stated, it was prepared after the captivity, and first announced to the people by Ezra, as Wellhausen and Kuenen affirm. Some eminent British scholars, such as the brilliant W. ROBERTSON Smith, and the learned Drs. T. K. Cheyne and S. R. Driver, professors in Oxford University, have given assent to these positions. The same may be said of the accomplished Prof. C. H. TOY of Harvard College, with whom it is said that some of the younger scholars of our own country are in sympathy. Nor is it to be denied that some of the advocates of these views consider them en- tirely consistent with the inspiration and canonical authority of the books of the Hexateuch, for, they say, no matter when or by whom these were set forth, they in every case retain the sanction given them in the New Testament, and are an authentic and sufficient guide for the belief of any into whose hands they may come. This may be true so far as concerns those who now maintain it, but certainly it will not hold generally. If it be openly proclaimed that we have no original data of early date, and that what profess or at least appear to be such are only the residuum of varying traditions which have been recast and edited at various times and by various hands until in the course of centuries they have reached their present form, men will certainly arrogate to themselves the right to sit in Pentateuchal Criticism. 23 judgment upon this residuum, analyze its contents and form their own conclusion as to its claims upon them. And if their confidence is shaken in the historic worth of the first portion of the Old Testament, it cannot remain very strong as to the rest. And, still further, if they feel that the New Testament pre-supposes and vouches for the early portions of the Old, as a true and trustworthy narrative, the conviction of a serious error here cannot but work disastrously upon the reverence they entertain for the entire volume of Scripture. 15. It is right, therefore, to examine whether these claims are well-founded. A high authority assures us that ''Great men are not always wise," and it may be that the theory which has obtained such wide acceptance among the learned does not really rest upon a solid foundation. Similar as- saults upon the New Testament have been made from time to time, and occasionally have seemed to carry all before them. Yet the result has vin- dicated the steadfast faith of the old father who once, at a time when the heavens were overhung with black, exclaimed, Nubecula est, transibit. The written word still stands, and will continue to stand as the days of heaven. In this confidence a series of essays has been planned, written by men belonging to different branches of the Evan- gelical church, designed to set forth in a simple but lucid way the reasons for a conservative view of Pentateuchal criticism. There is no intention to question the learning, theacuteness, or the good faith of the advocates of the modern view, or to 24 Pentatel'chal Criticism. deny that their investigations have borne good fruit in many \va}-s. Their patient analysis and minute comparison of the different parts of the Hebrew Scriptures have brought into prominence many circumstances which had been overlooked, and for this they are entitled to great credit. But sometimes they have been biassed by philosophi- cal theories, at others they have been in haste to construct a hypothesis, and so have reached con- clusions which it is impossible to accept. It may very well be that there are in the Hexateuch, as in other parts of the sacred volume, things which it is not easy to explain upon any view of the case. We are far from af^rming that we have exhaust- ed all knowledge or solved all mysteries. One can well afford to allow some matters to rest in the obscurity wherein they have always lain. Meanwhile it is a duty to resist firmly all solutions of critical and historical problems which cut knots instead of untying them, which take away some difficulties only to replace them by others that are greater, and which gain their end by means that unsettle the foundations of all faith. This is attempted in the essays that follow the present one, each writer taking up one of the various phases of the subject and treating it from his own point of view. 1 6. Meanwhile it may not be amiss to conclude this introductory paper with a brief compendious statement of the considerations which oppose a late date for the Pentateuch and the arguments in support of such a date, (i) The total lack of Pentateuchal Criticism. 35 external evidence in its favor. All that we know from sacred or secular sources is on the side of the traditionary view. (2) The acknowledged in- consistencies that remain. If the matter of the Hexateuch has been so often revised as the pre- vailing theory declares, how comes it to pass that so many seeming contradictions continue to be found, so many divergencies in tone, in spirit, in conception ? On the ordinary view these are to be expected, but by no means on the other. (3) It is vain to say that Moses was not cultivated enough to write the books attributed to him, for he was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, who, in his day, had, as we know, an abundant and varied literature. (4) There is no reason to dispute the existence of a priesthood in his day, since it is clear that there was a large priestly caste in Egypt, and it is in the last degree im- probable that a Hebrew priesthood should wait a thousand years, or even the half of that period, for a ritual. (5) The theory that denies every- thing but a few fragments to the Mosaic period, and relegates all psalms and proverbs to a post- exilian date, leaves a long period of history with- out any literature, and offers no basis for the splendid outburst of prophecy which illumined the eighth century before Christ. (6) The princi- ple that the non-observance of a law proves its non-existence is wholly fallacious. (7) The lan- guage of the Hexateuch is inconsistent with a late origiii. Its parts differ among themselves, but in nothing like the degree in which they differ from 36 Pentateuchal Criticism. the Hebrew of the Persian era. (8) The local allusions throughout ure to Egypt; how could this possibly be if these writings received their last reduction from persons all whose surround- ings were Palestinian or Babylonian ? (9) There are continual references to a life in the wilderness, a journeying through the desert; what could sug- gest these to men whose whole lives were passed in fertile and cultivated regions? (10) The doc- trinal contents of the Hexateuch, being simple and elementary, are in harmony with the tradi- tionaiy date and not the imaginary one. (i i) The modern theory abounds in license. Because King Josiah found ''the book of the law" in the temple, it is insisted, without the shadow of reason, that this book was Deuteronomy, which had just been written, and had been secreted in order that it might be found! Ezekiel's splendid idealization of the church of the future is, in defiance of all taste and judgment, converted from a magnificent symbolic prophecy into the prosaic outline of a new ritual then for the first time introduced ! (12) The Jewish Rabbis enumerate five things want- ing in the second temple which were found in the first (the Shekinah, the ark and mercy seat, the spirit of prophec}', the Urim and Thummim and the fire on the altar); but if these were inventions of Ezra and his associates, what possible motive did they have for constructing a style of worship which would only make more evident the bald- ness of their own services? (13) In some cases the theory rests upon the philosophical postulate Pentateuchal Criticism. 27 that religion in any case is only a natural develop- ment, the supernatural being impossible and in- credible ; this is certainly the view of Kuenen and Wellhausen, yet no man who holds it can possibly be a fair interpreter of Scripture. (14) These latter writers not only exclude the divine factors from the history of Israel, but assert the existence of fictions in that history, not merely in single, separate instances, hut passiiUy Avherever a patch was needed to give the story an air of authority. (15) The analysis of the documents is based often upon very subtle criteria, is frequently mechanical, and again makes assumptions that are purely conjectural ; hence there is serious difiiculty in accepting its conclusions when they are at war with the statements of the history itself. (16) The existence of different documents is no argu- ment against the Mosaic authorship, for the man of God may have compiled his first book from antecedent data, and in those that followed may have reduced into form what had previously been put in writing by others under his direction. Con- jecture is just as allowable in favor of Moses as it is against him. (17) So in regard to the book of Joshua, the natural complement of the Penta- teuch, there is nothing strained or unnatural in the opinion that some of the men trained under the guidance of the great law giver made this record. (18) The testimony of the New Testa- ment is clear and strong as to the Mosaic author- ship. Our Lord said (John v: 46) of Moses, 'Tie wrote of me," and in the next verse speaks of "his Pentateuchal Criticism. No principle of accommodation will explain this language. In Mark xii: 26 he asked, "Have ye not read in the book of Moses?" So the Apostle Peter said (Acts iii : 22), ''Moses in^ deed said: A prophet shall the Lord God raise up unto you." And the Apostle Paul cites the Pen- tateuch in the terms, ''It is written in the law of Moses," and again "Moses saith," and again "Moses describeth the righteousness that is of the Law" (I Cor. ix: 9; Rom. x: 19; x: 5). It does not seem possible to understand these references as meaning anything else than the accepted view of that age that Moses was the author of the books that bear his name. 17. It only remains to be said that the view which is maintained in these essays does not deny that the Pentateuch was edited after it left the hands of Moses by the insertion of slight notes, such as the statement (Gen. xxxvi.31) : "These are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned any king over the children of Israel." Nor does it deny that different docu. ments were used by Moses in composing the nar^ rative found in the book of Genesis, nor that he modified by divine direction the laws which he set forth, whenever a change of circumstances required such modification, nor that he brought about a fuller development of the system as a whole in the later books of the law. It is freely admitted that there is a real basis for many of the distinctions drawn between the Book of the Cov- enant, the Priest-code, and the Deuteronomic ut- Pentateuchal Criticism. 30 terances. But it is maintained that none of these when fairly considered are inconsistent with the Mosaic authorship of the work as a whole. There are indeed difficulties, as one would naturally ex- pect, in a work of such antiquity, so small in compass, yet covering so wide a field ; but these are much fewer and slicrhter than those which at- tend the theory that puts the composition of the Pentateuch from six hundred to a thousand years later than the date of the events and laws which it records. 30 AEGUMENT OF THE TRACT. The possibility of a Revelation is assumed, and tlie question is one of evidence. We do not look for de- monstrative but for probable evidence. The great feature of the Religion of Israel is its teaching of God. No other ancient religion furnished so high a concep- tion. For this there must be a cause, and human evolution is insufficient. Monotheism lies at the basis of this religion, and is its most ancient teaching. No date assignable to the sacred books can do away with this fact. The Religion of Israel was also unique in its teaching of the holiness of God. Objections to this statement considered. It is also peculiar in its view of the nature of sin, and of man's duty towards God. Its sacrifices are widely different from heathen sacrifices: (1) in having regard to the character of the offerer, and (2) in rejecting the notion of sacrifice as itself a compensation for sin. It based man's accept- ance with God upon faith; objections to this. Why was the ceremonial law given ? Two answers : (1) that of certain critics, which is shown to be insufficient and self-destructive; (2) that of St. Paul, w^hich is rea- sonable and in accordance with the facts. The im- probability that the priests should have devised the law. Sundry characteristics of the law. The Religion of Israel preparatory for Christianity; and Christianity tiie completion and fulfillment of the Religion of IsraeL The view of the Apostles, and of our Lord. WAS THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL A REVELATION OR A MERELY HUMAN DEVELOPMENT? BY PROF. GARDINKR. In considering this question, if we assume that the Creator cannot communicate with His crea- tures in any especial or unusual way, it is an- swered in advance ; there could have been no revelation, and the religion of Israel, like all others, must have been of merely human develop- ment. But if we admit that an Almighty and loving Father may seek to guide His children directly, when their own weakness and ignorance would miss the way, then the matter becomes simply a question of evidence. * It is not necessary to consider here the sup- position of a primeval revelation enjoyed alike by all the ancestors of the human race, some rays of which continued long to shine through the fogs of human tradition, brightened, perhaps, by fur- ther Divine inspiration. Our question has solely to do with the various religions as they appear on the stage of history. In looking at the question without prepossession on either side, we cannot ask for demonstrative proof, for this is impossible, one way or the other, from the nature of the subject. Our inquiry is * We need not here consider the assumption that, wheth- er there were a revelation or not, there can be no evi- dence of it appealing to the senses and the reason. See Max Miiller, " Hibbart Lectures on the Ori; Loct. IV., p. 174. 32 Pentateuchal Criticism. simply as to the balance of probability — whether, in view of all the facts in the case, it is more like- ly that the religion of Israel was developed by a merely human process, or that man was guided, at least in its main points, by Revelation from on high. While this principal question is, in a sense, independent of considerations of time, yet the period at which a certain religious knowledge was in the possession of Israel is, nevertheless, one of the facts in the case ; and while, on the one hand, if this were of purely human attainment, great stretches of time must be allowed for its acquisi- tion, on the other, if it were Divinely communi- cated, there is no presumption, outside of the fit- ness of things, against its having been given at any time when it seemed good to the Giver. What were the great and salient features of the religion of Israel as compared with other religions of the ancient world ? There can be but one an- swer in regard to its most prominent and charac- teristic point — its teaching of God. It taught in every variety of way, and Avith every possible emphasis, that there is one God only, from Whom all things proceed. Who is absolutely alone in His unutterable majesty, above and separate from His creation, yet ruling it according to His own holy will, and requiring from His creatures worship, obedience, love, and the imitation of His own holiness and purity. Whatever other features may present themselves in the Pentateuch, the Psalms, or the Prophets, at whatever time those may have been severally published, and whatever Origin of Israel's Religion. 33 may have been the conduct of the people, ob- viously, to every reader in every age, this is the one foundation of the religion of Israel as seen in its sacred books. In the other religions of antiquity, whatever may have been the truth originally possessed by them, we recognize no such all-pervading teach< ing. In several, perhaps in most of them, there are more or less clear indications of an original monothestic belief. But in all, this had been gross- ly corrupted before they appear in the records of history. In Egypt a certain monotheism may have been preserved as an esoteric doctrine of the priests, although the evidence is insufficient to show whether this was true monotheism or only pantheism ; but from the earliest historic times gross polytheism and idolatry was not only the re- ligion of the people, but emphatically sanctioned in their sacred literature. In China, the existence and unity of God seem to have been preserved as a sort of a far-off reminiscence, but the whole tendency Avas to leave the Almighty Father out of sight, and practically to make human ancestors the sole object of worship. In India, a refined in- tellectual pantheism, among the educated classes, had superseded polytheism, and polytheism itself had been explained by what is described in mod- ern terms as HcnotJicisin ; but the whole duty of man was made to center in himself, and his highest aspiration must be the Nirwana. In Baby- lonia, and thence in Assyria, we have but to com- pare the legends of the Creation, the Flood, etc.. 34 Pentateuchal Criticism. as given in Smith's " Chaldean Genesis," and in the " Records of the Past," with the simple story of the Pentateuch to see the utter contrast be- tween them. The one is saturated with the grossest polytheism ; the other is purely and severely monotheistic. The comparison need not be carried further ; for it is recognized that the religion of the Old Testament stands, in this respect, upon a different and far higher level than that of any other ancient nation. Nowhere else is there the same recognition at once of the unity of the Supreme Being, of His separation from and yet constant government over His cre- ation, and of the consequent relations of duty and love on the part of man towards Him. Single philosophers in various nations and at various times, as Confucius or Buddha, Zoroaster or Plato, in some of these points rose to higher and better conceptions than their contemporaries ; but con- fessedly, the religion proclaimed with authority to the whole people of Israel was immeasurably su- perior to that made known to any other ancient nation. For this fact there must be a cause. A theory proposed for acceptance is this : Some germs of this higher religion were handed down from very ancient times, here and there accepted and im- proved by the wiser and more spiritual among the people, gradually worked over by the enlightened prophets of Israel in the face of much opposition, and finally adopted by the people in the erroneous belief that such had been the faith of their fathers. Origin of Israel's Religion. 35 We need not stop to ask how it happened that, among this particular people, so obstinately given, like their cotemporaries, to polytheism and idol- atry, such a long succession of enlightened pro- phets, teaching as with one voice, should have arisen. The theory itself does not meet the facts. The tradition that the religion of Amos and Isaiah was, in all its essential features, the religion also of Abraham and Moses was deeply imbedded in all the literature of Israel, and, what is, perhaps, still more important, in all their " folk-lore." Assign what dates we please to the narratives of Genesis and Exodus, make even the reality-breathing stories of Abraham and Joseph and Moses mere legends and myths, if one can, there yet remains in these very legends and in every record by which we may look into the deepest convictions of the people, the conscious- ness that they were a nation chosen out of the whole earth by the Lord to receive certain revela- tions and promises from Him, bound to Him by peculiar ties, intended to fulfill certain purposes of His, and under the obligation of certain duties towards Him. How is this to be accounted for? There is a little, though only a very little, that can be compared with this among other nations ; but even that, such as it is, must be traced back to its roots in most ancient times. So it must be with Israel ; but as their history is followed back we come more and more upon times and upon habits of thought and life utterly inconsistent with the invention of such a religion. 86 Pentateuchal Criticism. Again, another difficulty with this theory is, that the essential basis of the religion of Israel is not one which admits of the sort of growth sup- posed. We might imagine a worship of the sepa- rate powers of nature gradually superseded by a recognition of the unity of nature, and so of one universal, underlying force, although historically such a process has tended rather to pantheism than to monotheism. But in Israel the first notes that are heard at all are of solitary supremacy. The fundamental utterance alike of command, of history, of popular song, through all the previous ages, is summed up in the words of Isaiah (xlii:8), *' I am the Lord . . . my glory will I not give to another." The ten commandments form the very gist and kernel of the Hebrew religion, and are acknowledged by all critics to be a part of its most ancient statutes. They belonged to Israel when just emerging from a servile condition and when bent upon having a golden calf for their god ; yet they open with the absolute and un- compromising command: *' I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt have none other gods but me." Around these commandments, as a nucleus and center, the whole religion of Israel is grouped, and they announce an absolute and exclusive monotheism, with a summary of the duty of man towards God and towards his fellows flowing from this fundamental truth. However debased the people may have been, however far they may have strayed away into polytheism and idolatry, there is no trace of any period when the authori- Origin of Israel's Religion. 37 tative utterance of their religion was otherwise than this. Is it more probable that such a religion, so strongly opposed to the natural bent of the Isra- elites, and requiring of them duties to which they were so averse, should have been developed by a merely natural process, and ultimately have been universally accepted, or that it should have been communicated to them from without? If there were any historic possibility that — after the time of Abraham — it could have been communicated to them by any other more enlightened nation, I suppose no one would hesitate to say that such communication was far more probable than that they should have evolved it for themselves ; but there was no such nation. Other nations were more powerful, more numerous, more wealthy, more advanced in the arts ; but in religion they stood on a lower plane. The only escape from the enormous difficulties of supposing such an evolution among the ancient Israelites is in the recognition of a revelation, and such revelation is entirely in accordance with the character of a lov- ing and almighty Father. It may not be objected that while a revelation is theoretically possible, it is yet so far removed from the ordinary dealings of Providence, as seen in the works of nature, that almost any degree of improbability is more likely, for this would be begging the question. What would be "the ordi- nary dealings of Providence " with a world of responsible beings, created by Himself, yet with- 38 Pentateuchal Criticism. out knowledge of Him or of their duty? The usual course of the physical phenomena not only gives no answer, but does not come at all in con- tact with this question. It must be met and an- swered on moral grounds. It is to be remembered that the Hebrew mono- theism was not merely a statute or a reiteration of many statutes; it is the very groundwork of the whole national life, the proposed reason of the nation's existence, incorporated into its whole history, at once the refrain of every professed Divine communication and the substratum of its whole symbolic worship. It is not a splendid philosophic conclusion sewed on to a practical worship of a different kind, and it is not a sur- mise of a dimly seen, underlying truth ; but it is of the very fibre out of which were woven all laws, and ordinances of worship, and duties, and providential dealings with their national life. So it is presented to us in their sacred books. It has been suggested that these books may have been written later, and merely reflect back into a remoter age the ideas of the time of their compila- tion. It is not necessary here to show that such a theory is contrary to the principles of literary criticism, and would require a skill in imitating the local coloring of the times and places where they profess to have been written far beyond the literary development of the Jewish, or of any other people. This is strong evidence, and the exceed- ingly few apparent marks of a later date, when not otherwise sufficiently explained, are easily Origin of Israel's Religion. 39 accounted for as originally glosses on these ancient documents. But there need be no concern here to defend the antic^uity of these books. Let them have been written when you will, they not merely express the monotheistic ideas of their writers, but they make monotheism the whole pivot of the history, the legislation, the poetry of the people. It is a literary and philosophic im- possibility that all this could have been purely imaginary. There must have been a basis, at least, of reality. And if so, the arguments above advanced point to a revelation as the most prob- able explanation of the phenomena. The religion of Israel did not stop with the bare assertion of the unity of God. It insisted equally upon His absolute holiness and His be- nevolence. Here it was still more widely sepa- rated from other religions of antiquity. What- ever religion has been of human devising has necessarily portrayed its deity according to hu- man conceptions ; and as far as any has been cor- rupted by human devices, so far also has its repre- sentation of the divine Being been degraded. Even among the Israelites themselves this was largely the case in the popular apprehension of God. Still further: whatever revelation is given to man, in order to have any value, must necessa- rily be conveyed in terms adapted to the com- prehension of the times when it is given. Hence the older revelations were, and must have been made in those anthropomorphic terms and forms which are now so often thoughtlessly objected 40 Pentateuchal Criticism. against them. If even now we can only speak of spiritual things in terms borrowed from the ob- jects of sense, how much more must this have been the case in the infancy of our race ? Never- theless, under and through all this anthropomor- phic vesture, there shines out an ideal of absolute holiness and benevolence — the former character- istic more clearly, the latter as far as it could be comprehended. Such ideas, in the degree and extent in which they appear in the Old Testa- ment, in all human experience were never else- where attained. Is it probable that the Israelites, of all people in the world, developed this concep- tion unaided ? It is alleged that even among them this concep- tion was very imperfect, that the sacred books attribute to God human passions and imperfec- tions unworthy of this ideal, and put into His mouth commands of savage cruelty and revenge.^'^ The simple answer to this allegation is, that it is not true. God did indeed allow slavery, while greatly mitigating its hardships. He suffered divorce and polygamy, while imposing many re- straints upon its license. He tolerated revenge, * It should be noticed that if these things were true, on the theory of the critics, all this was done by tiiose later and more enlightened prophets who compiled or worked over the earlier books of the Old Testament. And not only so, but they were able to divest themselves of the markedly less anthropomorphic language of their own day and speak, without betraying themselves, in the spiritual dialect of their ruder ancestors. All this seems inconceivable, but it is beside tiie present point. Origin of Israel's Religion. 41 and even required a penalty equal to the injury in judicial judgments. But in all these things the same Scriptures taught that this was suffered for the time because of the hardness of men's hearts. Man cannot be suddenly lifted from a very low to a high spiritual level. He must be raised little by little, as children are trained. Yet, at the same time,with this forbearance and gentle dealing with man's infirmities, God made known His true will with sufficient plainnesss. He did create man male and female in a single pair, and He did command, '' Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- self " (Lev. xix : i8). But it is further said, that men were *' raised up by the Spirit of the Lord " for the deliverance of Israel, like Ehud, Samson, and others, who did very strange and very wicked things. These men were raised up for a noble purpose, but in the execution of it they were guided by their own im- perfect light and erring judgment, and perhaps often swayed far more than they knew by human passion. But besides these, there were men ''after God's own heart," Avhom He loved and blessed, and yet who were guilty of very abominable crimes. " What," it is asked, " was the holiness which could bear with such things?" But is God to be held responsible for every ill-advised or even wrong act which a man may do who has set out with an earnest desire to serve Him? Do we now reduce our conception of the holiness of our heavenly Father to the level of the imperfect lives of those who profess to serve Him? Then 43 Pentateuchal Criticism. why should we do so in judging of those far away ages? It is the just rule of the divine govern- ment that a man's responsibility should be pro- portioned to his knowledge of the divine will. Now, take which you will of the heroes of old, and cut off the Bible at the point at which he lived, and then compare his religious knowledge with our own. But further, if any of the more extended stories of the Old Testament are care- fully examined, it will be found that men were made to suffer for their sins, though God might still love and bless the penitent sinner. There is really no difficulty in any of the things alleged when the story is read in the light of the times to which it belongs. The difficulties only become insoluble when the narratives and commands are supposed to have been written in a later and more enlightened age. But however these thing may be, and whatever difficulties may arise from the lives of the saints of old, or from things suffered or commanded in dealing with the hardness of men's hearts, every- where in the sacred books God Himself appears in unutterable and perfect holiness. No such conception of the divine Being as is given in the Hebrew Scriptures has ever been elsewhere at- tained. Plato did not rise so high. Is it likely that it was of merely human evolution? The teaching of the different religions about the relation of man towards God is really as strongly contrasted, but it is less easy to express I Origin of Israel's Religion. 43 it clearly in words. The spiritually-minded man in every age and in every land has had a deep consciousness of sin, not merely as the transgres- sion of a definite command, but as a moral offense against God. The expression of the Roman poet, Video meliora, proboqiie ; Deteriora sequor, embodies the experience of all men everywhere. We cannot therefore here make an absolute dis- tinction between Israel and other people. God has not left himself anywhere without witness. in the hearts and consciences of men. There were philosophers in Greece and Rome, perhaps also in India, in China, and in Egypt, and it may be, too, common people, of whom we have no record, led by their consciences into some realization of the true nature of sin. Nevertheless, in a broad view of the public and authoritative teachings of the different religions, it is easy to see that while the sacred books of the Hebrews regarded sin as a moral offense against an all-holy Being, in the prevailing view of other religions it was sim.ply a displeasure to powerful existences who might re- sent it by the infliction of injury and suffering. This distinction cannot, of course, be absolutely maintained ; for in the benighted and heathenish condition in which so large a part of Israel were sunk, it became necessary for their restraint to put prominently forward the power of God, and the danger of incurring His displeasure. Yet all will recognize that, on the whole, there was a dis- tinction, and an important distinction, of this kind 44 Pentateuchal Criticism. between the teaching . of the different reHgions, and that this led to widely different views of what constituted sin. The voice of conscience in man was never entirely stifled, and there were thoughtful men everywhere who recognized moral distinctions; but generally it was true among the heathen that sin was looked upon rather as a mere transgression of the laws of nature — a mistake, a folly — but with little of moral quality ; or else a displeasure to the magnified men, with the pas- sions and caprices of men, whom they worshiped as gods, and ill-advised, so far as it was likely to awaken their animosity. In contrast with all this, sin stands out in the Hebrew Scriptures as some- thing opposed to the will and character of One infi- nite in holiness and purity, and forever unchange- able in purpose. Between these extremes there was every variety of conception of sin, determined by the varying conception of God, and of man's relation to Him ; but as the Hebrew idea of God was higher than any other, so was its view of sin as a moral offense far deeper. It cannot be raid absolutely that such views were entirely incapable of human development, for some approach to the Hebrew idea is found among the deeper spiritual thinkers of other lands ; but nowhere else is it made the prominent and authoritative teaching of a religious system. In China filial duty in some degree supplies the place of duty to God, and in ancient Egypt the responsibility of man to the Judge of the dead was made veiy promi- nent ; but the point and essence of the responsi' Origin of Israel's Reliuion. 45 bility is in the fulfillment of our duties to our fel- low man. In both cases, beyond the merest ob- servance of ceremonial, there is no real requirement of a right disposition of the heart and the affec- tions towards God Himself. This is the hardest of all lessons for man to learn. He is ever ready to limit his duty by outward obligations, and to acknowledge sin only in the failure to observe them. Only in Israel is the first and greatest of all the commandments, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might" (Deut. vi ; 5); and nowhere else do we find failure in this authorita- tively recognized as a moral offense, as sin. Is it more probable that the sages of Israel worked out this deepest of all relations from their own understanding and embodied it in their earliest law, or that they were taught it from on high ? Closely related with the idea of sin was the practice of sacrifice. This practice, whencesoever derived, was substantially universal in the ancient world. Everywhere among men there was a con- sciousness of having offended the superior powers and an effort to propitiate them by sacrifice. The Hebrew sacrifices, however, are so distinguished from those of other nations in two points as to make them an essentially different institution, (i) Elsewhere sacrifice might be offered by any one, without regard to his character ; and (2) it was customary to increase the value of the offer- ing — even to the extent sometimes of providing human victims — in proportion to the magnitude 46 Pentateuchal Criticism. of the offense. The underlying idea, therefore, of these sacrifices, was the offering to the offended deity an equivalent for the offense — a quid pi'o quo, a compensation for the wrong done — so that no further penalty could justly be exacted. Hence there was very little of a moral character about the transaction. If the offerer had returned a sufficient compensation he was quit, and the mat- ter ended. It is no wonder that such men as Socrates sav/ the folly of such sacrifice. They knew the institution only in its perversion, and had no means of finding out its deeper and truer use. In Israel it was far otherwise. Sacrifices were allowed by the law only for ^' sins of ignor- ance " — rather of inadvertence, of carelessness, of being led away by temptation and passion ; for sins committed with a '' high hand," with a full knowl- edge of their wrongfulness and the defiance of a proud heart, no sacrifice was allowed (Num. xv : 30; Deut. xvii : 12). This fact alone gives a to- tally different character to sacrifice in the two cases, because it introduces a moral element, and makes their acceptance depend upon motive and character. The second point is, if possible, still more dis- tinctive. While the idea of sacrificial compensa- tion was carried out among the heathen by pro- portioning the number and value of the victims to the greatness of the offense, nothing of this kind was so much as allowed by the Hebrew law. The sin offering in every case must be the same, the she-goat — the commonest and cheapest of Origin of Israel's Religion. 47 the domestic animals.* Whole burnt offerings might be increased, and peace offerings, those feasts of communion with God, might be indefi- nitely multiplied ; but for the atoning sin-offering only and always the same simple victim. The lesson hereby taught is plain : sacrifices in them- selves had no compensatory value. There was no correlation between the animal victim and human sin ; " for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin" (Heb. X : 4). The value of sacrifices there- fore could be but symbolic. What the symbol- ism meant it might not be given to the ancient Israelite to know; but it must have been clear, even to him, that they had in themselves no in- herent efficacy for the forgiveness of sin. This is brought out still more clearly by the fact that they had an intrinsic ceremonial value. The '' unclean " were restored by them to their stand- ing in the theocratic community ; '' the ashes of the heifer" did '' sanctify to the purifying of the flesh." But only symbolically and in view of character did the sacrifices avail to the restora- tion of communion between the soul and God. Now, to suppose such a system of sacrifice, so unlike that of any other nation, so far reaching in its meaning, and yet so adapted to a spiritually debased people, keeping alive in them the sense * A difference in the victim was required in the case of a prince or of the high-priest b}^ reason of the conspicuous- ness of their offenses, and, correspondingly, a smaller offering in the case of extreme poverty ; hnt there was no variation in view of the greatness of the sin. 48 Pentateuchal Criticism. of sin and yet pointing to something better as the true atonement for sin — to suppose such a sys- tem to have been evolved by the philosphers of Judea and adopted by the Jews, seems by many degrees more improbable than that it was given them from on high. In the Hebrew religion the ground of man's acceptance with God was neither sacrifice nor ceremonial observance, though these were re- quired, but faith — a trust in God, bringing the whole heart and life into dependence upon Him and harmony with His will. This is set forth in the story of the heroes of old, and especially in that of the father of Israel. It is so prominent in the Psalms and in the teaching of the prophets that some have imagined it to be a doctrine in- vented by them, and that the ancient tales of the people Vv'ere written or at least worked over by them to illustrate and enforce their views. But it is difficult to suppose this unless a wholly im- aginary story has supplanted the historic facts, so deeply is this principle interwoven with the whole history of the people. In Heb. xi, it is pointed out that Judaism was at one with the Gospel in this matter, because from Abel down this had always been the one ground of man's acceptance with God. It is earnestly insisted upon by the prophets through a course of several centuries ; it appears abundantly in the Psalms and in the story of Job. Make all possible allowance for in- terpolation or embellishment, there yet must have been some basis of fact in Israel's history ; and Origin of Israel's Religion. 43 down at its very bottom, and reaching up into all its outgrowth, this principle is everywhere. Even in the Hves of the most unlovable of the Judges, in the stories of the most cruel wars, in the history of men of such guilty weakness as Jacob or Eli, and of such daring transgression as David or Jehu — everywhere the one redeeming feature which, if it did not overbalance yet mitigated the sin, and drew down some degree of blessing, was the prin- ciple of trust in God. This was not the mere feeling, common to all nations, that " the God of armies " must be on the side of the narrator's party, but was a reliance of the individual upon God and a readiness to accept and do His will, even against their own inclinations. Everywhere, from the oldest patriarchal story to the latest utter- ance of the sacred volume, there is one and the same teaching ; '' his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him ; but the just shall live by his faith '' — by his calm trust in God. The Gospel teaches that this is the essential principle of all true rel';;,ion ; but how did Israel know it ? Here and there the truth was more or less clearly seen by one and another of the sages of antiquity; in Israel it was the fundamental teaching by the most varied teachers during more than a millennium of most changing fortune. How were those rude ages and those rough men of action able to grasp that principle Avhich, even in our times, it has ever proved so difficult to keep alive in the hearts of men? It seems almost an insult to the understanding to ask whether 50 Pentateuchal Criticism, it could have been a merely human develop^ ment. It does not matter how Httle or how much the ordinary Hebrew may have recognized and acted upon this principle. It avails nothing to say that the men who illustrate it were remarkable and exceptional. We do not know how far this is true. When Elijah thought himself quite alone in fearing the true God, he was told, '' Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal" (i Kings xix : 1 8). It is always impossible for us to look into other men's hearts, doubly impossible to judge correctly of the inner motives of those separated from us by thousands of years. But this does not matter in the argument. The point is, that whether the people heard, or whether they fore- bore, this was the teaching of their religion. And there is no parallel to it elsewhere in the world. It may be objected that this must be a partial representation, since the religion of Israel was confessedly so largely ceremonial. But there was certainly no ceremonial law down to the time of Moses ; and if (which the objectors deny) it was given then, it could have been but slightly observed during the wanderings in the wilderness, since even its fundamental rite of circumcision was neglected during this whole period (Josh, v : 2-7) ; further, it must have been largely in abeyance during the troubled time of the Judges; and it certainly could not have been carried out dur- ing the separation of the ark and the taber- Origin of Israel's Religion. 51 nacle in the reigns of Saul and David. Thus its full observance only became possible after the building of Solomon's temple, leaving, at the most, but two centuries before the voice of the prophets begins clearly to exalt the inward disposition of the heart above the outward forms of the ritual. It is impossible, chronologically, that the cere- monial law could, for any great length of time, have obscured the higher teaching of faith ; and during this short period there were, on the one hand, some spiritual leaders, and on the part of the people continual opposition and revolt against the law. The general result, therefore, cannot have been very deeply affected in those early times by the ceremonial law ; and even the law itself, as has been seen in regard to the sacrifices and as is equally true in other points, was but a guard arranged to prevent apostasy from the prin- ciple of faith. The ceremonial law has formed the gist of re- cent controversies about the antiquity of the re- ligious system of the Israelites. " If," it is asked, " the fundamental principle of that system was so true and spiritual, how came it to be overlaid by a mass of detailed and often petty precepts, by a rigid and elaborate ritual, and by a sternly fixed priestly hierarchy ? '* Two answers have been given. One is that of St. Paul, that the law ''was added because of transgressions " (Gal. iii : 19), and that it " was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ " (id. 24) ; the 53 Pentateuchal Criticism. other, put forward by certain recent critics, is, that it was a gradual growth of ordinances under the influence of men who had usurped priestly power and functions. They maintain that while certain germs of it may have been handed down from very ancient times, it had its formal beginning about the reign of Josiah, and received its great development during the Babylonian captivity, es- pecially under the influence of the prophet-priest, Ezekiel, but did not take its final shape until the remnant of the people had returned and been settled again in their ancestral land. These critics are not disturbed by the many incongruities be- tween their theory and the facts of Scripture his- tory; for they regard much of the history as a more or less garbled narrative, compiled in the interest of the priestly class. Without here en- tering into the question of the reliability of the history, it is sufficient to say that while St. Paul's statement gives a clear and satisfactory view of the whole matter, an examination of the theory of the critics will show it to be improbable and self-destructive. In the first place, with what purpose in view could men have worked out such an elaborate system as the Levitical law ? There are many instances of arrogant hierarchical systems amon^ ancient nations, as well as in corrupt forms of Christianity ; but in all the system has ministered to the wealth or to the power of the priesthood by whom it is upheld. If men assert a human development for the law, they must find a sufifi- Origin of Israel's Religion. 53 cient human motive. Now, the fact stares us in the face, that at no period of history, until long after the captivity, were the priests of Israel either a wealthy or a powerful body. Undoubtedly the priest was always regarded as a sacred person, and the high-priest was a man of sufficient influ- ence to make the conquerors or suzerains of Judea take care to secure a person in this post devoted to their interests. But this does not meet the point ; what provision w^as made in the law itself for the power and emoluments of the priests? At the outset, it was not Aaron, but Moses who was chosen to be the leader and lawgiver of the people ; and Aaron, though high-priest, was in a wholly subordinate position. He and his descend- ants, and the whole tribe of Levi, were cut off from inheritance with their fellow tribes in the division of land, except mere cities of residence scattered among the other tribes. For their sup- port the tithes of the increase of the other tribes was assigned to the Levites, and from them in turn the priests were to receive their tithes and also certain portions of the sacrifices. This seems, at first sight, an ample provision, and to have given the Levites a larger income than their brethren. The Levites were only one tribe and were to receive a tenth of the increase of twelve tribes ; the priests were but a subdivision of one of the three great Levitical families, and they were to receive a tenth of the income of the whole. But how was the collection of these tithes to be enforced ? For this there was no 54 Pentateuciial Criticism. other provision whatever than the influence of moral obhgation. What would be the revenue of a modern state and the salaries of its officers if the payment of taxes rested only upon men's sense of duty? In truth, all the incidental notices of the Levites, down to the time of David, represent them as poor, and as easily tempted to sacrifice the purity of their religion for the merest sup- port, and they are spoken of in the law as objects for the charity of the people. In all the various notices of the great and wealthy men among the tribes of Israel, there is no single mention of a priest or a Levite among them. Of course, it occasionally happened that a priest rose to power, as any other man might. Among the Judges of Israel there was one, Eli, who was a high-priest, and another, Samuel, who was a Levite ; but nearly all the leaders and rulers of Israel, from Joshua down, were of other tribes. If, then, the Levitical law w^as devised by the priests, it was so devised in opposition to all experience of human nature, as to bring to themselves neither wealth nor power. They exerted a certain moral influ- ence, and sometimes were advisers of the kings, as e, g.y Abiathar was to David, under very peculiar circumstances ; yet even in this case the prophets Nathan and Gad appear to have had more influ- ence, and Abiathar was at last deposed altogether from the high-priesthood by Solomon. Peculiar circumstances gave Jehoiada great power over the youthful Joash, but when the old high-priest died his successors could not keep Joash from apostasy Origin of Israel's Religion. 55 (2 Chr. xxiv : 17, etc.), and it was not to the priests but to the prophet Zechariah that the fatal duty was entrusted of remonstrating with him for his sin {ib. 20, 22). When Ave come down to the times of the writing prophets, represented on the theory of the critics as teachers of a more spiritual religion which the priests were pervert- ing to ceremonialism, two of the greater of them, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and we know not how many of the minor, were themselves priests. Fur- ther, in all the charges brought against the priests for their sins, the acquisition of power is not men- tioned. On the return from the captivity, Ezra is prominent in the organization of the restored state ; but it is more in his capacity as a scribe, learned in the law, than as a priest, and even so, he is entirely subordinate to Nehemiah, the civil governor.* There was always, it is true, a sharp distinction between the functions of the priest and the lay- man, and the latter, however exalted in station, was never allowed, from the days of Korah to those of Uzzah, to intrude on the duties pecu- liarly reserved to the priesthood. This fact, quite unique among the nations, and very necessary for the preservation of the true religion, had no small effect in separating the priesthood from secular affairs and confining tliem to their proper duties. In the ritual of worship they were su- *It will be noted what a curious history this is to have been largely fabricated by the priests for tlieir own ag- prrandizement. 56 Pentateuciial Criticism. preme ; in the exposition of the law they were most famiHar with its details, and therefore its best interpreters ; they had also various functions of announcing the fast days, deciding questions of uncleanness, etc., so they were an important factor in the Commonwealth of Israel whenever much regard was paid to the law. But outside of these prescribed duties they never appear as men of special consideration. Certainly, if they de- vised the Levitical law they could not have done so for their own aggrandizement ; or if they did, history has recorded no more conspicuous failure. The theory, then, that the Levitical law was gradually developed by the priests for their own benefit, is plainly insufficient and not in accord- ance with the facts. Before taking up the other answer, given by St. Paul, a rapid glance must be taken at the prominent features of the law itself. Many of its precepts were simply intended to make Israel a peculiar people and prevent their too close mingling with men of other religions. Were these more likely to have been given at the outset, when there was no insuperable difficulty in their observance, or is it more probable that they grew up after Israel had been for centuries inextricably involved in the political struggles of her more powerful neighbors ? • A very large part of the detailed precepts of the law may be classed as educational — rules de- signed to train for a tim.e spiritual children until they should be able to receive the principles on which they rested. If we compare the principles Origin of Israel's Religion. 57 of morality and virtue as they are set forth in Christianity and in the various heathen reh'gions, it is evident that the training provided by the precepts of the Mosaic law was a preparation for the former and not for the latter. This relation of Judaism to Christianity is amply recognized by all the teachers of the latter, and it is historically abundantly evident that the Gospel arose out of Judaism, as it could not have arisen out of any form of heathenism. Can it be supposed that a system of legislation should have been gradually evolved, providing petty precepts for a narrow- minded nation and seeking to isolate them from all other people, and yet, as shown by the result, designed to prepare them for the broad principles of a world-wide religion in the future ? Many other interesting features of the Hebrew law must be wholly passed by — such as the value attached to human life, the separation of the civil and the ecclesiastical functions, the equality of every Israelite before the law, and especially the absence of any provision for fresh legislation until the coming of that Great Prophet to whom it looked forward. These, and many others, constituted peculiarities each of which adds weight to the general argument and increases the improbability that the system was of merely human evolution ; but they cannot here be treated. We may now turn to St. Paul's answer to the question, ''Wherefore then the law?" He had been maintaining that " the gospel was preached before unto Abraham," to which this question 58 Pentateuchal Criticism. came as an objection. He gives a two- fold reply: (i) '' It was added because of transgressions," and (2) '' It was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." The force of the first reason is plain, and the whole history of Israel is an illustration of it. The nation who could worship a golden calf in the shadow of Sinai, and commit themselves to the abominations of the Canaanites, and could again and again apostatize, surely needed some strin- gent law ''because of transgressions," lest the knowledge of God should altogether perish from the world. Hence, in view of the necessity of the case, there is no such incongruity of the %iw having been *' added " in old time to the teach- ing of faith as there would have been in its evo- lution at a later age among a people taught by the prophets for centuries. The other answer, that "it was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ," is involved in the whole preparatory office of the Hebrew religion, and is historically true. It did lead to Christ all that portion of the people who " looked for redemption," *' many myriads of the people," and " a great company of the priests." In view of such recognized facts, the answer of St. Paul seems more probable than the other. Such an answer by no means excludes from the law the. action of human thought and sagacity, nor progress in revelation in accordance with the needs of man ; but the point is, that through however much of human instrumentality, the Origin of Israel's Religion. 59 origin of the religion of Israel, in its essential fea- tures and purpose, was from above. Something has been said of the preparatory re- lation of Judaism to Christianity ; at least a glance must now be given to the completing relation of Christianity to Judaism. Doubtless there is im- portant truth in every religion which has held wide and long sway over the minds of men. St. Paul, on Mars Hill, wisely recognized fundamental truths in the Athenian belief. But the attitude of Christianity towards Judaism is very much more than this. Our Lord taught that He had come " to fulfill the law and the prophets," and on the road to Emmaus He expounded ''all things in the law and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning " Himself. St. Peter at Pentecost, St. James at the Council of Jerusalem, St. Paul be- fore Agrippa, all take the ground that Christianity was the foreseen and designed accomplishment of the ancient Scriptures. Throughout the New Testament, in every form of utterance, teaching, narrative, exhortation, argument, it is constantly reiterated by our Lord Himself, and by all those whom He commisioned, that the Gospel was the intended fulfillment and culmination of the law. Whether this ground was well taken or not, the whole position of the New Testament in this respect is indisputable. Now in this the New Testament speakers and writers were either right or wrong. If they were wrong — setting aside all question of inspiration — 60 "Pentateuchal Criticism. we have the astounding phenomenon that the best men of their race, in their spiritual apprehen- sion, carefully trained in, and earnestly attached to, the religion of their fathers, should have so utterly misunderstood its whole nature and purpose. It will not do to say that, being men of earnest spir- itual instincts, they accepted the new religion, and yet being still attached to the old, sought to find in it parallels and premonitions of the new; their Avhole attitude is different. The connection they find is not in external resemblances, far from it ; but in the depth of its underlying principles and in its own fundamental expectations. They had been trained in a religion of the narrowest na- tional exclusiveness ; they preached one of world- wide breadth and comprehensiveness. They had been taught a religion, on its surface at least and as expounded by their doctors, of outward cere- mony ; they proclaimed one of the purest spir- ituality. They had been accustomed to the gorgeous magnificence of the temple and its out- wardly sensuous worship ; they announced, as the acceptable service to God, the simplest worship " in spirit and in truth." They had been all edu- cated in the servitude of multitudinous precepts, and these they now declared were " a yoke which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear," and reannounced the old principle of faith as that which alone makes man acceptable to God. It were hard to conceive of a greater con- trast to the outward eye and to the superficial thought than was presented between the Judaism Origin of Israel's Religion. CI and the Christianity of apostolic days. So the unbelieving Jews regarded it, and persecuted to the death those who, they considered, had apos- tatized from the ancestral faith. Nevertheless, all the earlier promulgators of Christianity with one view steadfastly afifirmed that the religion was essentially the same, and that the Gospel was but the designed culmination of the law and the realization of the " new covenant " which the God of Israel had promised to make with His people. They started in their preaching from the syna- gogue, and the Old Testament was everywhere the foundation of their reasoning. Now, if all this was an entire error, in the men who made the mistake and in the circumstances under which it was made, it was one of the most wonderful illusions of history, and an illusion shared by substantially all believers in Christianity to the present day. It is a phenomenon without parallel and requires explanation. But if they were right, then the law and the Gospel must have proceeded from the same source, and that source could have been none other than divine. There remains one other point which is ap- proached with hesitation. To him who looks to our Lord as absolute truth and the Source of divine knowledge, it is not easy to speak of Him only in His human capacity, and to think of the bearing of His words simply as emanating from a sinless man. Yet this task must now be essayed ; for, of course, if His heavenly authority be admit- ted, our whole discussion has been settled in ad- 63 Pentateuchal Criticism. vance. Looking at Him then, only in His human character, what light does His life and teaching throw upon the origin of the religion in which He was born and trained? There is no room for question that He regarded it as divine, for He constantly asserts this, and while He recognizes no other authority upon earth, He always main- tains the divine authority of this. Two supposi- tions have been made to explain His position while denying that it was right. One, that He was so much under the influence of the preju- dices and habits of thought in which He had been trained, that He did not Himself see the falsity of their ground ; the other, that while He really saw this. He yet did not think it wise to put Himself in conflict with the prevailing opinions and prejudices of his countrymen. In regard to the former, the general sagacity of our Lord must be admitted. He had a deep spiritual insight, and thoroughly understood the needs of the human heart ; He was able so far to cast Himself loose from the past as to found that new religion of the future which is still only in the midst of its progress ; He was a man of deep reflection, to whose nature all shams and conven- tional deceptions were utterly abhorrent — a man who sought and taught only pure and absolute truth ; He was brought into contact with all the forms in which the religion of His day appeared, and He never failed to pierce and expose, as with an Ithuriel's spear, whatever in it was hollow and untrue. Of all who ever lived, He was the '' man Origin of Israel's Religion. 63 in advance of His time," who, unshackled by the past, belonged to the future; nay. He was the very embodiment of the future. The supposition that such an one was mistaken as to the essential character of the religion which He gave His life to complete and supersede, is simply incredible. We may set aside the theory of ignorance and prejudice in '^ Jesus of Nazareth " in this funda- mental matter of His whole life, as a supposi- tion which can have no standing in the court of reason. But wdiile He knew better, may He not have judged it wise so to adapt Himself to the preju- dices of His countrymen as to avoid stirring up needless opposition to His main work? Certainly his utterances do not have the air of accommoda- tion, but of positive and emphatic teaching. But not to insist on this, w^hat really were the opin- ions with which He came in contact? Neither the authorities nor the people seem to have been at all occupied with any question as to the origi- nal source of the law ; that was considered a settled point, the discusssion of which was not moved at all. The whole question in which they were interested w^as of the authority and binding force of those glosses and interpretations by which they had ''made the law of God of none effect." In the defense of these all their narrowness and party rancor was aroused, and to these our Lord showed no consideration or mercy. He thrust them aside, and taught that they were derogatory to His Father, and in contradiction to the law itself. In 64 Pentateuchal Criticism. the matter of the law, then, our Lord did not con- form to the prejudices of His countrymen, but from first to last set Himself and His teaching in absolute contradiction to them. It was this that roused their hatred and led, as He clearly fore- saw% to His condemnation as a malefactor and to His death upon the cross. His view, therefore, of the Mosaic law can be accounted for in neither of these ways. The re- cord of that view is in His almost every utterance. It appears in His devout submission to its require- ments as of divine authority; in His reference to its teachings as heavenly truth ; in His citation of its statutes as embodying the duty of man, and of its representations of the God of Israel as abso- lute truth. Even when He enlarges or modifies its precepts. He still shows that His teaching was the original intention of the law, temporarily changed for " the hardness of men's hearts." He stood firmly and fully upon the Old Testament in all His promulgation of the New. He ever recognized its authority as absolute and of God, while He admitted no other authority. To Him the '^ law, the prophets, and the Psalms " were sacred books, divinely given. He certainly was sufficiently well informed, and had a sufficiently deep insight and sagacity. Is it likely that there was a radical error on this fundamental point in Him who spake '' as never man spake " ? SUMMARY OF THE ESSAY. 1. Conclusions of Kuenen and others based on the alleged form and contents of the Pentateuch. 2. Claim made by the codes themselves as it respects their origin ; how it is to be regarded. 3. Bearings of the literary problem. 4. All the laws might have originated in the Mosaic period. 5. The three phases of the legislation sufficiently ac- counted for in the history. 6. Coloring of the laws, including linguistic peculiari- ties, no serious objection to their Mosaic origin. 7. The alleged disproportion between civil and relig- ious laws not actual. 8. The alleged contradictions in the matter of the several codes shown not to exist as respects (a) the place of worship ; (b) the religious festivals ; (6') the relation between the priests and Levites ; (d) the tithes of crops and cattle ; (e) the first- lings of cattle ; (/) the dwellings of priests and Levites ; (g) the age at which a Levite began his public service ; (h) the manumission of Hebrew servants. PENTATEUCH ANALYSIS— THE CODES. BT PROF. E. C. BISSELL, D.D. Critics of the school of Kuenen and Wellhausen divide the laws of the Pentateuch into three prin- cipal groups. * There is first what is known as the Book of the Covenant (Ex. xx : 23 — xxiii : 33) ; secondly, the laws of Deuteronomy (xii — xxvi) ; and third, the rest of the laws of Exodus — Numbers, f These three groups of laws they declare cannot belong to any one period of the world's history, much less to one so early as that of Moses. It is not denied that this is the uniform representa- tion of the Pentateuch itself; but it is said that it is one which is inherently improbable and does not harmonize with the form and contents of the * Excepting only Ex. xii: 21-27; xiii : Iff.; 3-10, 11-16; xxxiv : 10-27. See Kuenen, *' The Hexateuch," p. 52. fNo good reason is given for excluding the Decalogue (Ex. XX : 1-17) from the first group with which it is closely related, especially since it is regarded by the critics named as among the oldest portions of tiie Bible (Kuenen, ibid., p. 24), and as antedating all other Israelitish laws. The two are, in fact, as logically bound together as ever were text and sermon. And whoever wrote this part of Exodus clearly intended to have it understood that the so-called '* ten words," everywhere represented as lying at the basis of the covenant, and definitely named the "tables of the covenant," as the ark in which they were kept was called ''the ark of the covenant," formed an Bssential and inseparable part of the Book of the Covenant. See further the "Commentary" of Dillmann in loco; also "The Pentateuch " (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1885 ; pp. 294, 295). 68 Pentateuchal Criticism. work. " Our survey of the contents of the Hexa- teuch," says Kuenen, ^' has already shown us to what source the laws it contains are referred, and in what order they are communicated. Yahwe reveals them to Moses and Aaron, or after the death of the latter to Moses and Eleazer; a direction is often added as to the persons to whom Moses is to give them — whether the children of Israel or Aaron and his sons (Ex. xx: 22 ; xxi: i; xxv: 1,2; xxxi : 1 2, 13; Lev. vi : i , 2 ; xi : i ; xiii : i ; Numb, xxvi : i, etc., etc.). From Deuteronomy we learn how Moses acquitted himself of his task, for the ordinances which he there delivers to the people have been revealed to him beforehand by Yahwe (Deut. v : 3 1 ; vi : i)." And again : " On the face of the whole legisla- tion, of course, we read that the theatre is t/ie desert ; Israel is encamped there ; the settlement in Canaan is in the future. With regard to the laws in Ex. xxv, sqq. ; Lev. i, sqq. ; Numb, iv, sqq. ; xix., etc., this is elaborately shown to be the case by Bleek (" Einl.," p. 29, sqq., 4th ed.), but it is also applicable in the main to Ex. xxi — xxiii (see especially xxiii : 20, sqq}j, and to Deuteronomy. In other words, it is not only the superscriptions that assign the laws to Moses, and locate them in the desert, but the form of the legislation likewise accords with this determination of time and place. . . . The representation given in the Hexateuch of the legislative activity of Moses involves the essential unity of the Torn. . . . There can be no ques- tion, therefore, that if we place ourselves at the Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. CO point of view of the Hexateuch itself, we are jus- tified in regarding the ordinances of Exodus — Deuteronomy as the several parts of a single body of legislation, and comparing them with one an- other as such."* We have cited thus fully the exact words of this critic, italics included, that there may be no possibility of misunderstanding his position. He does not for a moment hesitate before the alternative, which he himself puts as follows: " Either the laws really came from Moses and the desert, or they are merely put into his mouth, and the desert and so forth belong to their literary form of presentment." f Just as little does he hesitate to adopt the latter hypothesis with all that it implies and demands. For this course he gives the following reasons, briefly stated : It is unlikely, he holds, that such a body of legislation could have originated in the limited period allowed — that is, during the first year after the exodus and the closing months of the fortieth year of the sojourn in the wilderness. Even if such a supposition were in itself admissible, it is said to be clear that it has no basis in fact, since, apart from their contents, these laws often com- pletely differ from one another in their form, even where the subjects are identical. They purport to have been made in the wilderness for a nomad people, and yet have a form adapting them to a people already settled in Canaan. Granting that Moses may have presupposed the *Kuenen, *' The Hexateuch," pp. 7, 18, 30, 24. \Ihid.,^. 20. 70 Pentateuchal Criticism. transition from the one state to the other, it is still very strange, Kuenen says, that he "should have made such an assumption tacitly, and so have left this great transition wholly unregu- lated."* Moreover, various subjects which, our critic declares, belonged entirely to the future, are dealt with, as he says, at length and down to the small- est details; while, in strange contrast with this minuteness of the legislation (in religious matters), stands its incompleteness as it respects the ''gov- ernment of the clans, the tribes and the whole people." '' When we put all this together," remarks Kuenen, " we cannot avoid the conclusion that the character of the legislation as a whole is in absolute contradiction with the setting in which the Hexateuch sets it."f Added to this, he holds that each of the several groups of laws has '' its own linguistic character, and is specially marked by special fixed formulae which constantly recur, while their absence from the other groups must at any rate seem strange, if we are to assign a common origin to them all." J So much, in general terms, is asserted respect- ing the form of the laws. Of still greater weight on this side of the discussion, it is alleged, are the facts respecting the contents. They are said not only to reveal important differences, but "irreconcilable contradictions." "This is especi- ally true," Kuenen thinks, "of Deuteronomy when * Kuenen, ♦* The Hexateuch," pp. 19, 22, 24. f ibid,, p 19. ti&id., p. 23. Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. 71 compared with the laws that stand between Exodus XXV and the end of Numbers, so that even if the relation in which Deuteronomy has been supposed to stand to the preceding books could be accept- ed as the true one, it could not in any way bridge over the kind of difference we actually find be- tween them.""^ As examples of Pentateuch laws answering to this description, Kuenen cites those on the follow- ing eight themes: The place of worship ; the relig- ious festivals; the priests and Levites; the tithes of crops and cattle; the firstlings of cattle; the dwelling-places of priests and Levites in the land of Canaan; the age at which Levites were to enter upon their duties; and the manumission of Israelitish slaves. In summing up, he says: ^'With- out anticipating the sequel of our inquiry, we may lay it down at once that most of the laws which are here brought under comparison answer to wholly different wants and were made in view of widely divergent circumstances, and accordingly must, in all probability, be separated from each other by a space, not of years, but of centuries." f Such, in the briefest terms, is the theory of Kuenen and (for substance) of his fellow critics respecting the origin of the Pentateuch laws, and such the line of reasoning by which it is supported. Both are based on the assumption that, to a certain extent — and here we are supposed to be shut up to the guidance of these men to say to what extent — the representations of the Bible * " The Hexateuch," p. 25. f Ibid., p. 25. 73 Pentateuchal Criticism. itself on the subject are fictitious — a kind of his- trionic costume which must be removed in order to reach the facts. The broad and palpable state- ments of the Pentateuch in the premises are fully recognized. It is not denied that the way it has of accounting for itself is fairly plausible; enough so, at least, to command the assent of Jews and Christians down to recent times. It is not denied, as we understand, that, allowing the presence of the supernatural agencies described in the Pentateuch, it could have originated in the way alleged. But it is denied that this is the most natural and reasonable way of accounting for the work; and, in fact, it can be so accounted for only by doing violence to the documents of which it is composed. Now, it is clear that, in this, as in every other discussion, a great deal depends on the point of view taken. What might seem unnatural and unreasonable to one person might appear quite natural and consistent to another who occupied a different point of view. Consequently, w^e can- not consent that the matter of the possibility of the superhuman origin of much of the Pentateuch literature shall be left out of account or become obscured. This is a claim that the Pentateuch makes for itself. It is made almost everywhere in connection with the name of Moses. It is only fair — '' scientific," indeed — that as an alleged fact it be duly weighed among the other elements that go to make up the final result. Holding, as we ourselves do, to the superhuman conception Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. 73 of Jesus Christ; believing that He wrought the wonderful works ascribed to Him in the Gospel, and that, after His crucifixion, death and burial, He rose from the dead, we find no necessity for eliminating homogeneous supernatural events from the preliminary history. But even with no such postulate of a superhuman Christ, and a New Testament history luminous with miracle, the claim which the Pentateuch makes for itself should be allowed to be a possible one in any candid discussion of the subject. And the thing that we have chiefly to consider is the justice of such a claim as compared with any hypothesis offered in its place. At the outset of our inquiries concerning the Pentateuch laws, then, we are confronted with the fundamental question whether the representa- tion they make that they come '4rom Moses and the desert " is probably genuine or belongs simply to their *' literary form of presentment," as it is alleged. It is certain that there is nothing in the substance of these laws to encourage a theory of deception. The moral plane on which they move is confessedly the highest. Not only is supreme loyalty to Jehovah demanded, but thoroughly upright dealing between man and man. Let there be noted, for example, under what strict rules judges and officers are put in the discharge of their functions (Deut. xvi : 1 8-20 ; xvii:8-i3); the requirement respecting those testifying in criminal suits (Deut. xvii : 6 ; xix : 15); the severe punishment visited upon false wit- 74 Pentateuchal Criticism. nesses (Deut. xix: 15-21), and the strenuous insistence on the use of correct weights and measures in business transactions (Deut. xxv: 13-16). It is too much to suppose, as the theory of Kuenen does, that persons introducing laws of this character would themselves flagrantly sin against them. It might be said, however, and is said, that in attaching the name of Moses to the Pentateuch laws there was no fraudulent intention whatever. It was merely a device, openly adopted, just as the Qoheleth of the Book of Ecclesiastes, under a thin and easily penetrable disguise, was represented to be Solomon, in order to heighten the effect of the work. It is by no means easy to accept such an explanation of the matter. It is an hypothesis which surely verges on the incredible to suppose that this could have been so, and no vestige of the fact have been discovered until our day. Besides, what purpose could possibly have been served in David's time or Ezra's time by ascribing a law then, as it is supposed, first re- quired by actual circumstances, and first promul- gated, to Moses, who lived centuries before in circumstances entirely diverse? The theme of the Book of Ecclesiastes and its treatment ac- cord, in the main, with the noni de plume of the writer. Solomon was a real king, and there is an accepted history of his times and of his personal habits and tastes. With Moses it is very different. He lived, as our critics allege, in a rough and cruel age. The Pentateuch Analysis— ^i'he Codes. 75 narrative we have of him is largely mythical. Few, if any, laws really came from his hand. No- body can have known this better than his com- patriots of the later day. How then could it have enhanced in any sense or degree the author- ity or worth of a law of theirs to put his name supposititiously upon it ? What, for example, should fit him, on the basis of such an estimate of him, to be an ideal legislator for the temple on Mount Moriah, with its complex and splendid ritual? The only thing which would render it either consistent or in the least probable that later legislators would thus refer laws of their own, whether surreptitiously or openly, to the hero of the exodus, would be a prevalent under- standing and admission that Moses himself was a divinely guided legislator and that, in its gen- eral features, the Biblical account of him and his times is true. But this is the exact thing that is called in question, although in so doing our critics fatally undermine their own most fundamental position. We have considered the matter from the point of view of common experience and common sense. It appears just as improbable when considered from that of literary criticism. The composition and arrangement of the Pentateuch laws is such that the unlikelihood of their origin in the way our critics fancy closely verges on the impossible. The three codes, it is believed, reflect not only three distinct and widely separated periods, but almost every intervening period. They are a 76 Pentateuchal Criticism. growth in thought, it is said, which began first to take on tangible written form about the time of the earher kings of Israel and reached its present completeness at the time of the exile, or, as Kuenen maintains, considerably later than that. During all this time priests and prophets, es- pecially the former, were making new laws sup- posed to be suitable to the exigences of their own periods, and, in order to give them currency, as- cribed them to Moses, or to Moses and Aaron, or to Moses and Eleazer, after the assumed death of Aaron. As a part of the illusion, Moses is made to say that all the commandments, institutions and judgments which he had to teach to Israel he received from Jehovah, on Mount Horeb, and on the " face of the whole legislation, we read that the theatre is the desert ; Israel is encamped there ; the settlement of Canaan is in the future." Can we fairly conceive of such a process of law- making as possible? It is kept up for a millen- nium, the sons doing as the fathers did in this re- spect for thirty generations. Every new statute coming into being is carefully and most ingeni- ously given the Mosaic stamp and the coloring of the desert. Or, if this was not done at the time the laws were made, it was done subsequently through the skillful retouching of later editorial hands. It might be asked. Why should it have been done at all, if not at first? If the help of Moses* name was needed, it was needed most when the laws were first promulgated. To attach it to them after they had once come to be known Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. 77 as the work of contemporaneous legislators would have been, one might suppose, an occasion of weakening, more than strengthening, their au- thority. But in the one way or the other this most anomalous method of legislating for a great people, it is afifirmed, went on for hundreds of years. No- body pretends to assert that there has ever ap- peared any evidence that the people of Israel themselves recognized, as such, the illusion with which they beguiled themselves. Every supposed legislator — there must have been scores of them — keeps himself as carefully out of sight as though he had never existed. The result of the whole is the Pentateuch, a literary composition equally a marvel of moral elevation and intellectual strength — a work that presents a body of laws making just claim to be essentially a unit in conception and teaching, and one that, placed at the beginning of the Bible, has left its indelible mark on every part of it. It is admitted that there are some se- rious difficulties involved in the common view of the origin and literary structure of the Penta- teuch ; there are surely none that call for such a stretch of credulity as this. But it is pronounced highly improbable that such a body of legislation could have originated in the limited period allowed, that is, during the first year after the exodus and the closing months of the fortieth year in the wilderness. Admitting the claim, however, that these laws were, to a large extent, supernaturally given, there need be 78 Pentateuchal Criticism. no improbability attaching to the matter. Even without this postulate, their origin in this limited time, all things considered, is much more credible than the alternative hypothesis. The Bible no- where states that every specific law arose de novo .at the period of the exodus. It is exceedingly probable that not a few of those found in the so- called Book of the Covenant represent, either in a written or unwritten form, previous customs of the people under their elders and judges. Israel went down into Egypt as a family under its pa- triarchal head. It dwelt in Goshen as a distinct, and for a long time, as it would appear, as a quasi independent, people. It cannot have been with- out laws of some sort during this time. What- ever laws they may have had they doubtless took back with them to Canaan. In principle, many of them we believe are found in chapters xxi — xxiii of Exodus. The terse, laconic form in which they appear is entirely in harmony with this sup- position ; and there is documentary confirmation of it. Before the giving of the law on Sinai Moses is represented as saying to Jethro, his father-in-law: ''The people come unto me to in- quire of God . . . and judge between a man and his neighbor, and I make them know the statutes of God, and his laws." * Apart from the Book of the Covenant there is the legislation respecting the tabernacle and its worship contained in Exodus — Numbers and the code cf Deuteronomy, A remarkable misappre- * Ex. xviii : 16 ; cf. vs. 30 ; Deut. iv : 5. Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. 79 hension seems to exist as to the amount of matter contained in these codes. Possibly the mistake arose from a sense of their unexampled influence upon the institutions of the civilized world. In this respect the Decalogue, which might be written on a five-cent piece, is a tremendous code. But, deep and wide as has been their effect, the actual words of the Pentateuch laws are compara- tively few. The first code covers about five pages, or a space of twenty by seven inches, in the Hebrew Bible. The laws of Deuteronomy, we are told, were inscribed on plastered stones after reaching Canaan. Had the character in which they were written been enlarged to five times their size as they now appear in the Hebrew, they could all have been written on a space eight feet by three and would then have required less room by one- half than was alloted to the famous Behistun in- scription of the Persian Darius.*'"^" Compare the amount of new or revised legislation called for in one of the United States in a single year with that of the whole Israelitish nation in a peculiar period of its history and during the space of forty years. Compare further with the same the changes that are often thought necessary in laws, made one year, by a legislature meeting the next or the second year after, under circumstances, to all appearance, quite similar, and one will be sur- prised not only at the condensed form but the * According to Bertheau, the laws of Exodus — Numbers contain four hundred and ninety precepts. See "Die Sieben Gruppen Mosaischer Gestze " {2)a8sim). 80 Pentateuchal Criticism. wonderful unity and consistency of the lav/s of the Pentateuch. It is said, however, that, as God-given, the same subject being under consideration, there should have been no change ; no Deuteronomy, for ex- ample, following so soon the Book of the Cov- enant and the code of Exodus — Numbers. Such a statement betrays a serious misunderstanding not only of what might be expected to be, but of what actually is the uniform method of the Bible. It adapts itself to the circumstances of men. Its declared aim is to be a stimulus, and not a dis- couragement. It was meant to have an educating influence as well as to offer a goal and standard of ultimate appeal. Had it not been so, there would have been no need of any Old Testament at all. The fully developed teachings of Christ and His apostles would have been given at once at the beginning of human history. As it is, we find many precepts and injunctions touching mat- ters civil, social and ecclesiastical which again and again change their form as the needs of the peo- ple for whom they are designed are changed. It is not surprising that they should change, even within the limits of a few months, when we consider the mighty crisis through which the children of Israel were passing at the time when the laws purport to have been given ; much less that the trying forty years of the wilderness so- journ should make more radical alterations neces- sary. Meanwhile, it is to be carefully noticed that there is also something unchanging in them; Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. 81 the ethical and spiritual element. The demand for supreme loyalty to Jehovah, for example, is made upon the ancient Hebrew in form and de- gree just as it is upon the modern Christian. An inflexible standard in certain things, combined with development and change in others that con- cern not the essence but the form, is in perfect harmony with the theory that the Bible is a su- pernatural revelation ; it is an inexplicable prob- lem to him who would explain it solely on the hypothesis of a natural development. Moreover, looking at the several Pentateuch codes as distinct collections, there was good and sufficient reason for the origin of each of them in the Mosiac period. How the first may have arisen has been already shown. The laws center- ing in the sanctuary, with its sacrifices and minis- try, had a no less direct historic occasion. When the people of Israel left Egypt, and for some time afterwards, there appeared no sign of a Levitical priesthood. It looked as though Jehovah in- tended to take as his priests the first-born of every family. By sparing them in Egypt he had made good his claim upon them. This seems, in fact, to be implied in the words addressed to Moses just before ihe giving of the Sinaitic law : "Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation." * Such a high calling, however, was contingent on Israel's obeying in the matter of the covenant. The subsequent sin with the golden calf was of * Exodus xix : 6. 8a Pentateuchal Criticism. the nature of a revolution. It radically changed the status of Israel. The covenant had been lit- erally broken, as it was symbolically when Moses dashed in pieces the tables of stone. A change of administration was therefore found to be wise. That it had been foreseen and provided for does not alter the facts. It consisted in designating the whole tribe of Levi for service at the sanc- tuary in place of the first-born of each family. Why this tribe in preference to another was chosen the history gives us distinct intimation.* And how definitely the idea of substitution ruled throughout — one tribe being accepted for all the first-born — appears in the fact that the exchange was made in detail, man for man, by actual count. As far as one tribe failed to cover the whole number of first-born it was made good by a con- tribution of money to the sanctuary.f Previous to the worship of the golden calf, the builds ing of the tabernacle and the consecration of Aaron and his sons had been enjoined. Subse- quent to it, the setting apart of the rest of the tribe of Levi for service at the sanctuary was le- galized, and all the laws respecting worship, the maintenance of priests and Levites, and the like, were promulgated. For details our limits allow no space. But it cannot be disputed that there was a highly fitting occasion in the exodus period for such a collec- tion of laws as the one found in the middle books of the Pentateuch. To take them out of their * Exodus xxxii : 26. f Numbers iii : 46-48. Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. 83 present historical setting, in which along with the narrative of the national revolt at Sinai and its alleged results are interwoven such incidents as that of the free-will offerings of the people for the tabernacle, the rebellion of Nadab and Abihu, the leprosy of Miriam, the diary of the journeyings of the camp from place to place, and scores of others, for any such reason as our critics give, appears to us rash and unjustifiable in the extreme. ^ The occasion for the Deuteronomic code as a product of this period is perhaps clearest of all. The representation is that the addresses in which it is included were spoken by Moses in the fields of Moab just before the crossing of the Jordan. The introductory address is a brief review of the experiences of the preceding forty years in the * Kuenen seems to think the journalistic and chronolog-ical arrangement of the Jaws a suspicious circumstance (" The Hexateuch," pp. 6-9). On the contrary, there could hardly have been a more significant mark of genuineness. If they arose as he holds, they would almost certainly have been more sj'^stematically arranged, those having no special de- pendence on Moses or his times being relegated to tliat period of thirty-eight years in the wilderness of which we ■ know so little. This, at least, is the method adopted by our critics. They do not venture to invent a historj' to suit the laws which they take out of their setting in the Pentateuch, but assign them dubiously to the exile or some other period of which we have no information that is pertinent. In the Pentateuch the only legislation as- signed to the wliole thirty-eight years of wandering are the miscellaneous laws found in Numbers xv, xviii, xix. Sporadic laws are everywhere connected with sporadic events, while the more important and numerous rest solidly on a basis of continuous history. 84 Pentateuchal Criticism. wilderness. The code itself has a hortatory, popular form, precisely such as the alleged circum- stances might lead us to expect. It is especially noticeable in three particulars : It does not refer in detail to the body of priestly legislation found in the middle books of the Pentateuch, but only cursorily, though sometimes directly, to some parts of it.* It has laws peculiar to itself, and, as can easily be shown, they are such as grow out of the altered circumstances of the people. It re- peats, enlarges, or otherwise modifies, as oc- casion seems to demand, the succinct precepts of the Book of the Covenant (Exodus xx : 23 — xxiii). Kuenen denies that the code of Deuteronomy takes cognizance of any antecedent one ; but in doing so he takes issue with nearly all of his asso- ciates, Wellhausen included, and is certainly in error. Now, in the very statement of these facts, suffi- cient ground for the existence of the third code is apparent. The others needed to be supplemented and modified in certain particulars by this, in order to fit them for a people like Israel at this Juncture. It is not sufficiently to the point, though in general quite true, for Kuenen to say that, inasmuch as the laws contained in Exodus — Numbers were themselves shaped for a settled people, cultivating the soil, there should have been no demand ior a?iy modification of them on enter- ing Canaan. It is literally true of the greater part *For examples See Dillmann ("Com.," Leipz., 1886), p. 605. Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. 85 of the Levitical priestly legislation of the middle books. It required and received no modification. There were other laws that were repeated, it would seem, for the mere sake of repetition and emphasis, as in the case of that concerning the de- struction of idols, the worship of Moloch, food as clean and unclean, mourning customs and the like ; but, on the other hand, there were some laws which, on the ground of altered circumstances or new experience, actually needed, as they appeared, to be revised to some extent. As it respects such laws, it would be disingenuous to afifirm that in their original form they assume to be final, or so to cover the future with their claim as to admit of no alteration.* But is not the very fact that so many of these laws are in form adapted to the settled life of Palestine, though purporting to be made in the wilderness, evidence in itself of their origin long after the time of Moses? So it is thought by Kuenen. If it had been Moses, he thinks, who made the laws, he would not have made so little of the transition from the wilderness to Canaan, recognizing it only '' tacitly," and leaving it alto- gether '' unregulated." The Pentateuch laws, however, were not made with sole and exclusive reference to the land of Canaan, not even the Le- vitical code. The camp, with the tabernacle as its nucleus, is everywhere recognized as the central feature of the national life. *Fora list of passages see p. 205 of " The Pentateuch ; Its Orig-in and Structure," etc. 86 Pentateuchal Criticism. Moreover, the code of Deuteronomy — especially the laws peculiar to it and those modified in it — is a tangible disproof of the intimation that Moses recognized but tacitly the transition from the wil- derness to Canaan, and left it unregulated. A principal object of the book was just this : to pre- pare the way for the transition. And it is only on the basis of his theory of the origin of Deuter- onomy, that is, by reasoning in a circle, that Kue- nen can make out the contrary, and not even thus. The entire Pentateuch history, from the beginning of the life of Abraham to the crossing of the Jor- dan, is marked, as by almost nothing else, by a steady outlook towards Canaan. It is for this reason that the prolonged Egyptian sojourn of the whole people is given less space in it than is as- signed to the life of Joseph. It is fully admitted that the laws of the Pentateuch w^ere largely made for an agricultural people. But it is a fact that has other bearings than those to which Kue- nen calls attention. It harmonizes perfectly and most significantly with the Biblical statement of their origin and purpose. Supposing, then, that the Pentateuch codes arose in this manner — that is, as described in detail in the Bible — there is nothing surprising in the fact that each has a peculiar linguistic character, and is marked by fixed /(?r;;/?//(^ not found in the other groups, though too much may easily be made of this fact. Comparing the code of Deuter- onomy with that of the middle books, for exam- ple, there are no differences of this sort that Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. 87 cannot be readily explained on the ground of the changed point of view of the legislator or other natural circumstances. The one is priestly legis- lation, the other is popular. The one is at the beginning of forty years of wandering, the other at its close. The one has immediately — though not ultimately — before it life in camp, the other hfe in Palestine. That Moses actually penned the whole Pentateuch no one holds. Under his general direction a number of hands may have been, and in all probability were, employed upon it. Accordingly, we find ourselves under no ne- cessity for harmonizing the style of the several parts, so that, for instance, the same name of God shall be everywhere used, the same method of designating the months, the same expression for capital punishment, and the like. Scarcely an instance is cited by Kuenen as showing diversity of style that has not its exception."^ Setting these aside, diversity of style in one and the same writer at different times and on different themes is too well recognized to be accepted as a decisive mark of diverse authorship in documents whose origin is in dispute. But it is said that, on the supposition of their common origin, there is found in the Pentateuch codes a disproportionate development of laws re. lating to the cultus, as compared with those relat- ing to civil matters. This would show, it is thought, a much longer period of development in the one than in the other. Did such a dispanty * '' The Hexateuch," p. 23. 88 Pentateuchal Criticism. actually exist, it must be conceded by all that had the laws relating to the cultus been faithfully executed there would have been little difficulty in other matters. A fortioi'i the one were in- cluded in the other. In ideal the government was a theocracy. And just as the second table of the Decalogue depends for its proper fulfill- ment on the true spiritual apprehension of the first, and obedience to it, so the Israelitish laws for the cultus had an immediate and most direct bearing on each man's duty as a neighbor and a citizen. But, as a matter of fact, there was no such lack of development in the social and civil institutions of Israel in the early period as is presupposed. Two of the three codes relate almost exclusively to such things. If there is less of detail in them than in the Levitical laws, it is simply because there was no need of detail. There is certainly no lack of general principles; and there is a suffi- cient number of examples under them to make their application plain. Abundant provision, for example, is made for righting all cases of alleged wrong, even to an appeal from a lower to a higher court ; for the organization of the army and meth- ods of conducting war; so, too, for a revenue by which the public institutions might be supported. The establishment of the kingdom is also fore- shadowed, and laws for it are conditionally given. ^ These laws do not in any respect fall below the * Deut. xvii : 8-13, 14-20 ; xx : 1-9 ; xxiv : 5. Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. 89 standard of the others, but are in complete har- mony with them. Such now are the alleged differences of the Penta- teuch codes as it respects their historic background. It will readily appear that the supposed want of agreement is apparent rather than real. So far is our examination from justifying the conclusion that the Pentateuch legislation is in "absolute contradiction with the setting in which the Hexa- teuch sets it," that we find it to be its most natural setting. Any other that is suggested bears no comparison with it, to say nothing of the imminent danger, in sacrificing the history to save the laws, that we may give a fatal blow to both. But, in addition to their form, the contents of the Pentateuch codes are cited in evidence that they originated in different periods. There are eight particulars especially adduced, in which they are said to show not only important discrep- ancies but " irreconcilable contradictions." The space allowed us permits simply the barest notice of the several points. The first relates to the place where Israel was to worship.* The assumption is that in the ear- liest code worship at a plurality of altars is per- mitted, that throughout the code of Deuteronomy such a practice is strictly prohibited, while in that of Leviticus centralization of worship is taken for granted as a thing of the past. On this assump- tion it is inferred that the three codes represent * With Ex. XX : 24 cf . Deut. xii and Lev. xvii, together with parallel passage. 90 Pextateuchal Criticism. three different phases and periods of legislation. This inference would be just if the assumption were correct. It is far enough from being so, ex- cept as it relates to Deuteronomy. Neither the law, Ex. XX : 24, nor any other in the Pentateuch, permits or countenances worship at a plurality of altars. The demand everywhere, though from the nature of the case with unequal emphasis, is for worship at one altar and one altar only. That the practice of Israel did not always conform to this law is freely conceded. The national history is a record of transgression in this respect. But that there is any conflict wdiatever in the precepts of the Pentateuch codes on the subject, or that there has been any valid evidence of it shown, is em- phatically denied.* There is an equal absence of proof that the code of the middle books presup- poses worship at one altar as a thing of the past. If there be any climax in them when compared together in this respect, it is found in Deuter- onomy. The historical fact of the rebellion of Korah, and the demand that every sacrifice should be brought to the ''tent of meeting" if one would remain a member of the Israelitish common- wealth, show that the matter of centralizing the worship was then in progress, and by no means a thing of the past.f The second point of supposed contradiction relates to the religious festivals of Israel.;}: It is * For a fuller treatment of the entire subject, the reader is referred to ''The Pentateucli," etc., pp. 85-247. t Lev. xvii : 8, 9 ; Numb, xvi : 8-11. X With Ex. xxui : 14-17 cf. Lev. xxiii, Deut. xvi : 1-17. Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. 91 held that while the first and third codes agree in recognizing three yearly occasions of this sort, the other, that of the middle books, represents the festivals as seven in number. This, it is thought, is evidence that the latter is the product of a much longer development. It is said that the absolute silence of two of the codes concerning the other four festivals, " and also — which is far more significant — concerning the day of atone- ment (cf. Lev. xvi), remains highly remarkable, and, indeed, on the supposition that the solemni- ties in question were known to the authors, inex- plicable."* On the contrary, there is nothing at all remarka- ble about it, much less inexplicable. The thing that is inexplicable is how this critic is able to assume that each of the codes must call up anew every law found in the others, supposing all to have originated in the same period, or be open to the charge of ignorance concerning them. It is an assumption on which he himself elsewhere promptly turns his back. For he admits that though the code, Ex. xx: 23 — xxiii, v/as in exist- ence when that of Deuteronomy was written, the latter makes no reference to it or account of it.f The three codes are acknowledged to have each a different scope. Tv/o of them are popular, while one of them is priestly. All of them mention the three pilgrimage feasts — that is, those which all male Israelites were required to attend. The two that do not definitely call attention to the day of *Kuenen, " The Hexateuch," p. 37. f Ibid., p. 34. 92 Pentateuchal Criticism. atonement in the coloring of their thought look towards it, and are in harmony with it. And this is all that could have been expected. To de- mand more is to demand what is unreasonable, and what there is no analogy of Scripture to justify. The third point of supposed contradiction among the several collections of laws in the Pen- tateuch concerns the priests and Levites.* While in one group (Ex. — Numb.) Aaron and his sons are recognized as the only lawful priests, the Le- vites being set apart for other and subordinate service, in Deuteronomy, it is alleged, it is quite otherwise. There, as it is claimed, priestly duties and prerogatives are assigned to the whole tribe of Levi ; the priests are called " Levitical priests — ' never " sons of Aaron ; " and, in general, the dis- tinction between priests and Levites wholly dis- appears, f It is admitted that in the book of Deuteronomy the functions of priests who formed a part of the tribe of Levi are sometimes, in a general way, ascribed to the tribe itself. It is admitted that, for some reason, most probably for tribal reasons — that is, to guard against the spirit of tribal jealousy likely to arise at this crisis when a new country was to be possessed and divided — the distinction between priests and Levites in this book is reduced to a minimum. But it is a seri- ous mistake to say that the distinction is effaced. In the very passage cited by Kuenen as showing it, important differences are clearly indicated.:]: * With Ex. xxviii, cf. Numb, iii, Deut. xviii : 1-8, and parallel passages. f Kuenen, ibid., pp. 27, 28. J Deut. xviii : 1-8. Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. 93 This is done in the first verse, where, after the expression the *' priests, the Levites" (margin of the revised version, '' priests and the Levites"), is added **the whole tribe of Levi." Such an addition would not have been expected if the book recognizes no distinction between the two classes. That, moreover, such distinction was actually designed here is proven by the context. In verses 3-5, where the maintenance of the priests is under consideration, they are spoken of apart from their tribal brethren, the Levites. Subse- quently (verses 6-8) the case is exactly reversed, the Levites being spoken of to the exclusion of the priests. A notable omission appears in Kuenen's work in what purports to be a citation of this passage. It is quoted as follows: "If the Levite {z. e., any Levite whatever) come out of one of your cities in all Israel where he sojourns as a stranger, and with undivided desire [the He- brew is given] betakes himself to the place wdiich Jahwe shall choose, then he shall serve in the name of Jahwe, his God, like all his brothers [Kuenen omits here the key words, "the Le- vites"] who stand there before the face of Jah- we."* It will be noted that the text does not say "like all his brothers," nor "like all his brothers, the priests," nor "like all his brothers, the priests, the Levites," but "like all his broth- ers, the Levites." The passage, accordingly, so * ** The Hexateuch," p. 28. 94 Pentateuchal Criticism. far from helping the hypothesis of Kuenen, when correctly quoted, offers a fatal objection to it. The next point adduced as showing conflicting statements in the Pentateuch codes relates to the tithes of crops and cattle.* According to the middle group of laws, these ("all the tithes") are to be given to the Levites, Avho, in their turn, sur- render a tenth to the priests. According to Deut- eronomy, it is said, the vegetable tithes, on the contrary, are set apart for sacrificial meals at the sanctuary. To these meals Levites, together with widows and orphans, are simply invited as guests.f True ; but in Deuteronomy a second tithe is meant in addition to the first; and on the supposition that Deuteronomy contains supplementary legis- lation it is perfectly in order. So the Jews have invariably understood the matter. Such was their understanding and practice when the book of Tobit was written, and in the time of our Lord.;]: Kuenen admits this understanding and practice of the Jews, but says that they were mistaken, and that their mistake arose from taking ''the Tora as a single whole." § This is certainly a strange admission. The Jews, from the time of Moses or thereabouts, taxing themselves ten per cent, more than they needed to do, simply because they misunderstood the bearing and requirements of their own laws! They have always under- stood that the law in Deuteronomy was meant to * With Lev. xxvii : 33-34. cf. Numb, xviii : 21-33, Deut. xiv: 23-29. ■ f Kuenen, "The Hexateuch," pp. 28. 29. X Tobit i : 7 ; Josephus, " Antiq.," iv : 8, 8. § '* The Hex- ateuch," p. 29. Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. 95 be supplementary to that of Leviticus and Num- bers, when, as a matter of fact, it contradicts and neutraHzes it ! The statement of such an hypothe- sis is its own refutation. The fifth particular in which the Pentateuch codes are supposed to antagonize one another relates to the firstlings of the cattle.* In the first two groups of laws they are assigned either to Jehovah or to his priests; in the third, that is, in Deuteronomy, they are devoted to popular sacri- ficial feasts at the sanctuary. There need be no suspicion of discrepancy here, any more than in the previous cases noted, unless it be assumed that these ancient laws appear in cxtenso, and that all their relations to one another were meant to be so recorded as to be perfectly clear to posterity as well as to those for whom they were immediately intended. Kuenen sees no conflict in the state- ment that in one set of passages the firstlings are demanded for Jehovah, and in another for Aaron and his sons.f He ought to find just as little in the representation of the people's code, as over against that of the priests, that the same firstlings assigned to Jehovah's priests for sacrifice and, in part, for food, are also spoken of as the sacrifices of Jehovah's people and, in part, their food. The point of connection, notwithstanding Kuenen's scornful denial, is probably found in the statement that the flesh of these sacrifices not brought upon the altar was to be the priest's, "as the wave *With Ex. xiii: 12-13, xxii : 30, xxxiv: 19,30, Numb, xviii : 15-18, cf. Deut. xv : 19-'23. f" The Hexateuch,*' p. 30. 96 Pentateuchal Criticism. breast and as the right thigh " was theirs.* It was theirs, not to do as they pleased with it, but under the conditions of a cojmnon sacred meal. In this meal the owner, it would seem, and his family were to share with the priest according to the latter's generosity. Nothing is taken back in Deuteronomy which is conceded in Numbers ; only a limitation appears later which, as we may sup- pose, was all the while tacitly understood. Another alleged discreprancy in the statement of the Pentateuch codes respects the dwelling places of priests and Levites.f It is thought to be inconsistent with the representation of Num- bers that in the final partition of the land forty- eight cities with their suburbs were to be assigned to the tribe of Levi, that Deuteronomy so often speaks of the members of this tribe as though they were sojourners in other cities, and that they are frequently classed with widows, orphans and strangers, as though dependent on the generosity of their brethren of the other tribes. It should be remembered, however, that the first code, in the nature of the case, simply sets a standard — gives the principle and norm of action. It would be wrong to suppose that it looked forward to an im- mediate and actual endowment of the tribe of Levi to this extent. The Levites not only were never the sole occupants and possessors of the cities finally assigned them (see Lev. xxv : 32), but it is clear that for a long time they were * Numb, xviii : 18. f See Numb, xxxv : 1-8 ; Deut. xviii: 6 ; Josh, xxi : 1-42. Cf. 1 Chronicles vi : 54-81. Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. 97 unable to occupy them at all. * It is equally a mistake to suppose that the prospective or ac- tual gift of these cities confined the Levites en- tirely to them, either at the beginning or at any other time. Their chief business was at the sanc- tuary ; but they had other occupations, as teach- ers, as assistants in the local courts, and the like. This would call them to a partially wandering life, especially as compared with the other tribes with their compact organization and fixed boundaries. There is no impropriety, therefore, in the language used in the book of Deuteronomy. On the other hand, how much out of place the legislation of the book of Numbers would be as having its origin at the time of the exile can be seen at a glance. At that time the priests greatly outnumbered the Le- vites, while in the apportionment of the cities only thirteen of the forty-eight were assigned to them. A further fact cited to show the diverse origin of the Pentateuch laws has to do with the age at which it is said the Levites entered upon their duties.f In this case it is not argued that one code is opposed to another, but that a single code is di- vided against itself. It is one statement in the book of Numbers against another in the same book. According to the earlier, the Levite was to enter on his service at the sanctuary at thirty years of age; according to the later, at twenty- five. But, suppose it was a slip of the pen of a scribe in the one passage, it would not be unex- * With Josh, xxi : 21, 24 cf. Judges i : 35. t See Numbers iv : 3, 23, 30, 35, 39, 43, 47 ; viii : 24. 98 Pentateuchal Criticism. ampled. The Septuagint seems to have thought so. It has altered the text in Numbers viii : 24 in order to bring that passage into harmony with the others, unless, indeed, as our critics are accus- tomed to say in some similar cases, it had a bet- ter text than that represented in our Hebrew Bibles. Or we might say that, the matter not being one of supreme importance, this is but an- other way of saying that the service was to begin between the years of twenty-five and thirty, ac- cording to circumstances. Or we might be even permitted to suppose, if necessary, that the law- giver purposely changed the law, finding that a larger number of persons was really required than would be supplied by the first arrangement- David is represented as numbering the Levites, as being fit for service, from twenty years of age.* In any case, it is too small a matter to be the basis of such important conclusions. It comes far short of having the significance of other matters bearing on the unity of the Pentateuch to Avhich attention has never been called. For example, in one passage only is *' strong drink " permitted to be used, in place of wine, with the daily burnt offering.f It is found in the document assigned by our critics to a period not earlier than the Exile. What is the meaning of the singular ex- ception? It is probably but one of many places where the Pentateuch laws carry upon them the stamp of the period to which they belong ; and it is all the more important that it is beyond the *I Chronicles xxiii : 37. f Numbei's xxviii : 7, Pentateuch Analysis— The Codes. 99 suspicion of being designed. It appears to mark a period when " strong drink " made from dates, or in some other way, was more convenient than wine — perhaps was the only available material for the drink offering apart from water — that is, the period of the exodus. Finally, the laws concerning the manumission of Hebrew servants is adduced as an illustra- tion of the conflict existing among the Pentateuch codes.* It does, in fact, illustrate considerable diversity in outward form, but also, and to quite a marked degree, true inward harmony. The statement which the Bible makes concerning the origin of the codes is sufficient to explain perfectly their outward diversity. And if they were not meant to supplement one another, and together present a complete rule, their contradictions are certainly of the baldest character. We should not only be unable to interpret them in harmony with one another as originating in the period of the exodus, but in any other period of Israelitish his- tory. The law of Deuteronomy is naturally fuller than that of the Book of the Covenant, and its amplifications perfectly accord with the represen- tation of its rise in the border lands of Canaan. In ordinary circumstances, a Hebrew servant was to be dismissed after six years. If he elected to remain longer, he could do so during the term of his natural life. In either case, however, the year of jubilee put an absolute limit to involuntary servitude. « Willi Ex. xxi : 1-6, Lev. xxv : 39-43, cf. Dcut. xv : 12-18. 100 Pentateuchal Criticism. If this is not the meaning of the laws, but they are to be looked upon as antagonistic to one another, then the latest form, which requires ser- vice, however trifling the original offense, and the servant willing or nilling, in all cases until death, or the year of jubilee, shows a development in barbarism and denationalization in the direction of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus — that is to say, in the estimation of our critics, between the time of Moses and Ezra — that neither they nor any one else would be inclined to admit. SUMMARY. The investigation necessarily minute. Critical symbols. The burden of proof on the critics. A sense not to be imposed on isolated paragraphs at variance with their context. Evasions by means of the Redactor and by minute subdivisions of the text. The portion to be discussed. Section first. Exodus 3 and 6 : 2ff. not duplicate narratives of the same event. The argument thence drawn for the divisive hypothesis illusive. Gaps and omissions in P's narrative. The argument from diction. Perplexity in separating J and E. Section second. Alleged criteria. The resulting division. Its bearing on the historical truth of the events. The criteria fallacious. Various length of the accounts of the plagues. Diction. The plague of blood. Progress not intermittent when the true scheme of the plagues is seen. The crit- ical hypothesis beset by insuperable difficulties. PENTATEUCHAL ANALYSIS. BY PROF. WILLIAM H. GREEN, D.D. In the limited space allowed in these essays it is impossible to undertake the full discussion of the critical division of the Pentateuch in all its length and breadth, to which such a multitude of volumes has been devoted, and upon which so many learned dissertations have been written. A treatment of this subject in general terms would be of no practical benefit. Critical partition is professedly based on the minute examination of paragraphs, words and phrases, and cannot be met by generalities, but only by a similarly minute in- vestigation, in which the arguments adduced in its favour can be rebutted in detail and the oppos- ing considerations, which show it to be unreason- able or impracticable, can likewise be exhibited. Such an investigation must from the nature of the case be tedious, and task the patience of the reader. But it is inevitable, if effective work is to be done, or any intelligent comprehension of the subject is to be gained ; for the region in which the discussion moves is the minutiae of diction, style, conception and the connection of paragraphs and sentences, which are only redeemed from their apparently petty character by the momentous con- sequences deduced from them or dependent on them. The work of the critic is the cross-examin- ation of witnesses, which busies itself with trivial circumstances aside from the leading features of 104 Pentateuchal Criticism. the testimony. But it is precisely by its coherence in these minor .and incidental matters, or by the lack of it, that .<:s credibility and value on the whole are to be tested. We do not object to the searching character of this critical investigation. Our only demand is that it should be fairly and honestly conducted. The Pentateuch, which to ordinary readers seems to be one continuous production, resolves itself upon close examination, we are told, into three or four treatises or documents giving every indication of distinct authorship, which must in the first instance have existed separately, but have been subsequently woven together. These are technically denoted by the symbols E (Elohist), J (Jahvist), D (Deuteronomist), P (Priestly Narrator). J and E were first combined by a Redactor (Rj), and the united work JE, after circulating for some time, was further enlarged by other Redactors, Rd and Rp, who added Deuteronomy and the Priestly Document. And thus by successive steps the work reached its present compass. An obvious remark at the outset is that the ex- istence of these documents and redactors is purely a matter of critical discovery. There is no evi- dence of their existence and no pretence of any apart from the critical tests which have deter- mined the analysis. All tradition and all histor- ical testimony as to the origin of the Pentateuch are against them. The burden of proof lies whol- ly upon the critics. And this proof should be clear and convincing in proportion to the gravity Pentateuchal Analysis. 105 and the revolutionary character of the conse- quences which it is proposed to base upon it. It is further obvious that the composite charac- ter of the Pentateuch, supposing this were estab- Hshed, would not justify the critics in attributing a different sense to the documents in their origi- nal form from that which the passages extracted from them are capable of having in their present connection, or in assuming a conflict between them which does not exist as they now stand. The critics have no right upon their own princi- ples to impeach needlessly and arbitrarily the in- tegrity and capacity of the Redactors. The Re- dactors by the hypothesis had the documents be- fore them separate and complete, with every op- portunity to ascertain their true meaning ; and it ought not to be assumed without clear proof that this has been obscured or falsified. Modern critics, who possess only the commingled and dislocated fragments that have been preserved to us, are far more likely to be mistaken. If new meanings may be imposed upon paragraphs or sentences in- compatible with their present context ; if variance may be created by expunging explanatory or har- monizing clauses ; if discrepancy may be inferred from a silence which is itself produced by first re- moving the very statements that are desiderated from the connection ; if what are narrated as dis- tinct events may be converted into irreconcileable accounts of the same transaction, the most closely connected composition can be rent asunder into discordant fragments. Such methods are sub- 106 Pentateuchal Criticism. versive of all just interpretation. The operator imposes his own ideas upon the text before him and draws conclusions which have no warrant but in the flights of his ow^n fancy. It should also be observed that the insertions, omissions and modifications attributed to the Re- dactors are merely ingenious methods of evading or explaining away phenomena at variance with the proper requirements of the hypothesis. Wher- ever it is assumed that the Redactor has altered the characteristic words or phrases of his sources, has modified their language or ideas or inserted expressions and views of his own, the meaning simply is that the facts do not correspond with the hypothesis. The proof relied upon to estab- lish the existence of these otherwise unknown documents is that they are uniformly character- ized by a certain diction, style and mode of thought. But inasmuch as they are not always so characterized, they must have been changed by the Redactors. This is building the hypothesis upon the hypothesis and supporting assumption by assumption. It is plain that every alleged in- terference of the Redactors Aveakens by so much the evidence on which the hypothesis itself re- poses. Another evasive expedient which naturally cre- ates distrust in critical processes as they are at present conducted, is the minute subdivision to which the Redactors are at times assumed to have resorted in piecing together their sources. It might with a show of reason be claimed that a Pentateuchal Analysis. 107 judgment can be formed of the authorship of con- siderable paragraphs and sections from their dic- tion and style. But that individual sentences and clauses can be referred with any certainty to their proper authors, or that a sensible compiler would have constructed his paragraphs like a piece of mosaic from bits and scraps culled alternately from different documents, or that any semblance of continuity could be given to paragraphs so framed, it is not easy to suppose. This simply amounts to a confession that the phenomena can- not be brought into harmony with the hypothesis by any less violent procedure. What the critics reckon to be criteria of distinct writers are found closely conjoined in sections which have every ap- pearance of proceeding from the same pen, but which under the requirements of the hypothesis must be torn to shreds. The present discussion will be limited to the first eleven chapters of Exodus, which together with chapters 12, 13, whose unity has been suf- ficiently treated elsewhere,'^ cover the entire abode of the children of Israel in Egypt. This is a por- tion quite long enough to test the hypothesis, and to exhibit its principles and methods, while it is as much as can be brought under review in the space at our command. And it is besides especially suit- ed to our purpose ; for the assumption of preexist- ing documents in Genesis does not stand in such obvious conflict with Mosaic authorsliip as the ex- tension of this hypothesis into the books that follow. ^ The Hebrew Feasts, ch. iii. and iv. 108 Pentateuchal Criticism. The section proposed for consideration may be divided into two parts: i. Chapter 1-7:7, the oppression of Israel in Egypt and the preparation of Moses to be a dehverer; 2. 7: 8-1 1 : 10, the plagues by which Pharaoh's obstinacy was broken and Israel released. In the first part the critics assign to P 1:1-7, ^3' H (except some words in verses 7, 14, and perhaps verse 6), 2 : 23/^-25, 6 : 2- It is alleged that chapter 3 and 6: 2ff. are paral- lel accounts of the same transaction. Everything is duplicated. God twice reveals to Moses his name Jehovah (3:13-15, 6:2,3), ^^'^^ twice an- nounces to him his purpose to deliver Israel and bring them to Canaan by his instrumentality i^y.J- 10, 6:6-8, 11), and upon Moses' pleading unfitness Aaron is twice associated with him (4: 10-16, 6: 30-7 : 2). The critical hypothesis, it is said, is here explicitly justified. These accounts must be from two different writers, 6 : 2ff. from P, and chapter 3 from E. This being in the intent of each writer according to the critics the first communication of the name Jehovah, neither of them could have employed this name in the antecedent portion of his narrative. All preceding passages that con- tain the name Jehovah, must accordingly be by a third writer, J, who had a different view of its ori- gin. A firm basis, it is contended, is thus laid for tracing the record to three distinct sources. But this is foisting a meaning upon these pas- sages which they plainly will not bear. It is in- consistent, I. v/ith the repeated occurrence of the Pentateuchal Analysis. 109 name Jehovah in the antecedent history, showing that the author of the Pentateuch in its present form, whether Moses, or if the critics please, the three Redactors (Rj, Rd and Rp), did not so under- stand them. 2. With chapter 3 itself. If the author meant that the name Jehovah was first revealed in 3:14, 15 and systematically abstained for that reason from using it before, he could not use it as he does in verses 2, 4, 7. The critics confess this and expunge Jehovah from these verses as an in- sertion by R, thus reconstructing the text in ac- cordance with their hypothesis. And how could a name previously unheard of assure the children of Israel that Moses had really been commissioned by the God of their fathers (3 : 13, 15)? 3. With the real meaning of 6 : 2ff ., which is not that Abra- ham, Isaac and Jacob had never heard the word Jehovah, but that they had had no such experience of what the name involved as was now to be granted to their descendants. God is known by his name Jehovah not by the utterance of the word but by an experience of what it denotes. It is so uniformly throughout the Scriptures, ^.^., Isa. 52:6. Jer. 9:24, 16:21, Ezek. 39:6, 7. God's not being known by the patriarchs by his name Jehovah is in evident contrast with the repeated declarations that Israel (6:7, 10:2), the Egyptians (7: 5, 14:4, 18), and Pharaoh (7: 17, 8: 10, 22, 9: 14, 29, comp. 5 : 2), should know that he was Jehovah. The support which the critics would draw for their hypothesis from Ex. iii. and vi.: 2, etc., thus collapses entirely. As these passages do not de- 110 Pentateuchal Criticism. clare the occasion of the first employment of the name Jehovah, there is no propriety in regarding them as distinct versions of the same event, and thus tracing them to separate writers ; nor in hold- ing that they present a different view of the ori- gin of the name Jehovah from those sections of Genesis which employ it from the earliest periods, and are in consequence referred to a third writer. That chapter iii. and chapter vi. relate different events is as plain as the history can make it. One took place at Horeb, the other in Egypt. They occurred at different times and at distinct stages in God's revelation to Moses; one when Moses was first commissioned, the other after he had, in pursuance of his commission, made a demand upon Pharaoh on the people's behalf which only re- sulted in increasing their burdens. That under these circumstances the Lord should renew his former assurances to Moses with increased empha- sis, that the people should lose the faith (6:9) which they had before (4:31), that Moses, who had distrusted his own qualifications at the begin- ning (4:10), should now be hopeless of success with Pharaoh (6:12), and that Aaron, who had been appointed to help him with the people (4: 16), should now be made his assistant before the king (7: 1,2), is perfectly natural and suggests no suspicion that the story is repeating itself. The narrative assigned to P is halting at every point from the want of those connecting or ex- planatory parts which have been sundered from it. The critics violate their own maxim that rep- Pentateuchal Analysis. Ill etitions give evidence of distinct writers by con- fessing that the enumeration of Jacob's family (Ex. 1 : 1-5) can only be an abridgment by P of his own fuller statement Gen. 46 : 8-27 ; and their multiplication (Ex. i : 7) had already been stated by him in almost identical terms (Gen. 47:27). From this he leaps quite unaccountably to their oppression by the Egyptians (verses 13, 14), who had so hospitably received them. This needs for its explanation the omitted verses 8-12, in which moreover " more and mightier " Clljyi ^"1 (verse 9) is a plain verbal allusion to '^ multiplied and waxed exceeding mighty" "IDK^^I inTl (verse 7), as is also ''multiply" (verses 10, 12), " multiplied and waxed very mighty" (verse 20). In fact verse 7 supplies the keynote of all that follows in the chapter, binding the whole indissolubly together. Verse 9 severed from it is quite unexplained in a writer who had spoken of the descent of Jacob's family into Egypt, but had said nothing of the great increase of his descendants. Verse 6, "And Joseph died," etc., plainly prepares the way for verse 8, the ''new king which knew not Joseph." The " mortar and brick" (verse 14) both allude to the building of treasure cities (verse 1 1), and to the brickmaking of 5:7, etc., which is associated Avith " burdens " (5 : 4, 5), as in i : 1 1, 14. These obvi- ous references by one writer to paragraphs as- signed to another are evaded by various feats of critical surgery which have no justification but the necessity created by the hypothesis. From the account of Egyptian oppression (i : 113 Pentateuchal Criticism. 13, 14) whose meagre baldness is due to its hav^ ing been rent from its proper place in the series of inflictions of growing severity (verses 1 1-22), P springs at once to 2:23^-25 with its mention of a covenant with Isaac, although none such is re- corded except by J (Gen. 26 : 2-5, 24) ; and thence to 6: 2, etc., where God suddenly speaks to Moses and shortly after (verse 13), to Moses and Aaron, as if they were well-known personages, though there had been no previous mention of their ex- istence. This incongruity, created by the removal of the very account (chapter 2, etc.,) here presup- posed, gives rise to new critical assumptions. Kuenen fancies that P had spoken before of Moses and Aaron in some passage which has not been preserved. Kayser gets rid of the allusion to Aaron by referring 6:13-30 to the Redactor. Dillmann declines to do this, but with a like view of finding the first mention of Aaron in 7:1 he transposes 6:30-7:5 before 6: 13 and places 7:6 immediately after it. Wellhausen undertakes to supply the missing mention of Moses and Aaron by the conjecture that the account of their ances- try (6:i6ff.) may originally have preceded 6:2, though the record of Aaron's wife and children (verse 23, etc.) is in his judgment inappropriate and a later addition. But the appositenessof the entire genealogy, every clause of which is in anal- ogy with those previously given, appears from the fact that it not only introduces Aaron and Moses, who are just entering upon the momentous task assigned them, but likewise Korah, Nadab, Abihu, Pentateuch AL Analysis. 113 Eleazar, Ithamar and Phinehas, who are to figure in the subsequent history. Noldeke confesses the suitableness of the table in general, but stumbles at the sons of Reuben and Simeon (verses 14, 15) as here uncalled for, and in his opinion an inter- polation. Jiilicher very properly replies that an interpolator would not have stopped with insert- ing these two names only, when there was equal reason for adding all the rest of Jacob's sons. In fact there is a suitableness in verses 14, 15 stand- ing where they do to indicate Levi's place as the third in age in his father's family. Jiilicher pro- poses to relieve the suddenness of the mention of Moses in 6:2 by transposing before it the entire genealogy with 6:13 as its title, which will thus connect directly with 2:25; although this would place ''Jehovah" in 6: 13 prior to what he con- siders the first revelation of this name in 6:2, 3. But after all this self-imposed trouble and these fruitless conjectures of the critics, it is difficult to see why the reasons, be what they may, which led the imaginary Redactor to give to this whole pas- sage its present position, may not have been equally influential with the original writer. This busy tinkering betokens merely a weak spot, which needs in some way to be covered up. It is urged that 6:2ff. would connect well with 2:23-25, to which its language contains manifest allusions — ''heard the groaning," "children of Is- rael," "remembered my covenant," "bondage," "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." But each of these passages connects perfectly with its present con- 114 Pentateuchal Criticism. text. And while there is an obvious and designed relationship between them, they need not on that account have been contiguous. On the other hand, it is perfectly plain that 2:23-25 is bound in the closest manner to the immediately follow- ing chapter, which must have proceeded from the same pen, and cannot possibly have been from a different writer and independently conceived, as the critics would have us suppose. God's appear- ance to Moses (chapter 3) and the message which he gives him flow directly from 2:23-25, which shapes the expressions used, e. g., the motive drawn from God's relation to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (3:6, 15), God saw, heard and knew (3:7), (precisely as 2 : 24, 25 where A. V. " looked upon " is in Heb. ''saw," and ''had respect unto" is in Heb. "knew"), the cry (np^H, 2:23 piJT) of the children of Israel came unto God (3 : 7, 9). In 6:6-8 the criteria of the different writers are sadly mixed ; " bondage," " stretched out arm," "judgments," which belong to P are combined with " burdens," " rid," " bring into the land," and God's swearing to give the land, of which lifting the hand is the significant gesture, elsewhere at- tributed to J or E. Among the phrases counted as P's are "of uncircumcised lips" (6:12, 30), which occurs nowhere else, and can therefore be no criterion of style; groaning (2:24, 6:5), and nowhere else in the Pentateuch; "Pharaoh king of Egypt" (6: II, 13, 27, 29), which is also found (Gen. 41 : 46) in J E ; God remembering (6 : 5), but also (Gen. 30: 22, Ex. 32 : 13) in JE ; " wonders " Pentateuchal Analysis. 115 (7:3), but also (4:21) in JE; ''armies" or hosts (6:26,7:4), but also (Gen. 21:22,32,26:26) in JE ; and though it does not chance to be applied to Israel, other expressions are used suggesting the same conception; "judgments" {6:6^ 7:4), and but twice elsewhere in the Pentateuch ; "bring forth my people, the children of Israel " (7 :4), as 3:10 E. But the most striking words and phrases of this passage are drawn from Gen. 17: i, 7, 8, which it reproduces almost completely, " appeared to Abra- ham," " God Almighty," " establish my covenant," " give the land of Canaan," " land of their pilgrim- age," " I w^ill be to you a God." And in almost every instance in which these same expressions are found elsewhere, they are directly and obvi- ously traceable to this one source. They cannot properly be urged, therefore, as characteristics of style. They simply show familiarity with the pas- sage upon which they are all alike based. The critics nevertheless use them as criteria ; and every passage that contains them is for that reason, wherever it is at all practicable, assigned to P. And yet " God Almighty " is confessedly found in J (Gen. 43: 14), and "Almighty" in Gen. 49:25. The phrase " establish a covenant " suggests its perpetuity. It is accordingly used only of God's covenants and chiefly of those with Noah and Abraham, when prominence was to be given to the idea of their permanence. The alternate phrase attributed to J, " make (Heb. cut) a cove- nant," is equally applicable to those of men, and 116 Pentateuchal Criticism. is used of a divine covenant only when the thought is directed to its ratification, especially if that was solemnized, as in Gen. 15: 18, Ex. 24:8, by sacrificial rites. Comp. Ps. 50:5. "Land of Canaan," according to Kayser, occurs in JE no less than fifteen times in the book of Genesis. " Pil- grimage " (or wherein he was a stranger) is found six times in Genesis, and is in every instance re- ferred to P. " I will be to you a God " is here associated with a phrase, '' I will take you to me for a people," which occurs nowhere else in P. The result so far as concerns the passages as- signed to P is this : The critics sunder a few verses from their present connection in which they fit perfectly well, and omitting the intervening sec- tions, they claim that these verses were originally continuous. But the omissions leave gaps unfilled and confuse events shown to be distinct by re- corded differences of place and circumstances, needlessly assuming discrepancies which are wholly created by these critical processes, and imputing incapacity or fraud to the Redactor or the author of the book in its present form. And that the characteristic diction which is the prin- cipal plea urged for this critical dissection is not such as to warrant it, appears from the occasional intermingling of the criteria of different docu- ments, from the fact that some of the alleged cri- teria are of so rare occurrence as to be no evi- dence of style ; that others exhibit conformity to sundry other paragraphs simply because all are alike drawn from one fundamental passage ; and Pentateuchal Analysis. 117 others still are not peculiar to P, but found in what is ascribed to J or E as well. After removing P's share of i : 1-7:7, the critics are not a little perplexed in their attempt to par- cel the remainder between J and E.* Kayser thinks it impossible to disentangle the two ac- counts without breaking the connection. Kuenen confesses that " here we cannot separate two dis- tinct documents and assign its share to each with confidence. The most we can hope for is to deter- mine whether it is E or J that lies at the basis of the narrative ; and sometimes even this is doubt- ful." Wellhausen gives to J i :8-io because of its resemblance to Gen. 11:6, 7, thus depriving the oppression i : 1 1, 12 in E of its motive; also verses 20^, 22, making this barbarous edict the very first expedient instead of a desperate resort after all other attempts had failed, and sundering it from * WELLHAUSEN. J. 1:6, 8-10, 206, 22; 2:ll-23a; 3:1-9, 16-20; 4:1-12, [13- 16], 18, 20a, 24-26, 27-31 ; 5:1-6:1. E. 1:11, 12, 15-20a, 21 ; 2:1-10; 3:10-15, 21, 22; 4:17, 19, 20b, 21-23. Modified by R. 3:4, 6, 9, 21, 22 ; 4:17, 27-30. DILLMANN. J. 2:15-23a ; 4:1-16, 19, 20a [22, 23 transposed from else- where], 24-29a, 30, 31a, c. E. Chapter 3 (verses 2*, 4*, 7*, 8* 17*, 22*) ; 4:17, 18, 206, 21,296,316; chapter 5 (verses 1*, 2*, 4*, 5* 6*, 9*, 10*, 116*, 13*, 14*, 15*, 19*, 20*, 21*-23*. Tlie verses marked with an asterisk have been modified by the Redactor. JULICHER. J. 2:23a ; 4:19, 20a, 24-26 ; 3:7, 8, 16-22 ; 4:1-12, 29, 306, 31 ; 5:3, 4, 6-21, 22, 23 ; 6:1. E. 1:8-12, 15-22; 2:1-21; 3:1-6, 9-14; 4:17, 18, 206; 5:1, 2,5. R. 1:20; 2:22, 25; 3:15; 4:13-16, 21-23, 27, 28, 30a. 118 Pentateuciial Criticism. E's account of Moses' infancy (2 : i-io), which pre- supposes it throughout. DiUmann, Schrader and Jiilicher avoid these incongruities by excluding J from chapter i altogether. That Moses' parents are spoken of indefinitely in 2 : 1 while the line of his descent is accurately traced in 6: 10 is no proof of diversity of authors, one of whom had more exact information than the other. The precise statement was purposely re- served for the supreme crisis in Moses' life, and the new period in Israel's history thus opened as the most fitting place for his genealogy in accord- ance with the plan of the Pentateuch. Well- hausen is alone in the attempt, which after all he confesses to be impracticable, to sunder 2 : i-io into two inconsistent stories, one of which knows nothing of an older sister of Moses, nor of his mother being engaged as nurse. Schrader fancies an inconsistency in the motive for Moses' flight (verse 14 and verse 15), and so assigns 2 : 1-14 to E and verses 15-23^ to J. DiU- mann admits that no such inconsistency exists, but retains the same division, thus connecting verses 11-14 with verses i-io, to which verse 11 evi- dently alludes. Wellhausen, on the other hand, connects them with verses i^-2T,a, and verse 15 is unintelligible without them. In fact both are right; verses 11-14 link the whole chapter to- gether, being alike firmly bound to what precedes and to what follows; and so Julicher confesses, who refers 2 : 1-22 to E, as the allusions in 18:3, 4 E to 2:15, 22 further require. But in giving Pentateuchal Analysis. 119 verse l^a to J, he severs it from verse 15, to which it manifestly alludes. While attributing the story of Moses' birth and infancy to E and his residence in Midian to J, the critics nevertheless confess that J and E must alike have recorded both. E must have had a section similar to that which is imputed to J, and J must have had one similar to that of E. So that after the narrative has been sundered in twain, it is straightway necessary to assume that each part originally had just such a complement as has been severed from it. In chapters 3-5 it is once more assumed that J and E had parallel accounts which have been in- terwoven in the most intricate manner. Dillmann derives chapters 3 and 5 from E, though with modifications from R in almost every verse. Wellhausen derives chapter 5 and 3:1-9, 16-20 from J and Julicher also from J nearly the whole of chapter 5 together with 3:7,8, 16-22. Dill- mann assigns 3:1 to J in distinction from 2:18 E, because the Reuel of the latter is in the former called Jethro. These verses are alike attributed to J by Wellhausen and to E by Julicher, on the assumption that the name Reuel was a subsequent addition, and in the opinion of Wellhausen Jethro likewise. But this interchange of names warrants no critical conclusions whatever, the simple ex- planation being that Reuel is his proper name, and Jethro, as Clericus long since observed, his ofificial designation ; so that there is no more mystery 120 Pentateuchal Criticism. in the case than in the substitution of " Pharaoh " for '' king of Egypt " (i : i8, 19). Wellhausen adrnits that 3 : 1-4: 17 creates the impression of '' a piece from one casting." The critics, however, insist that there is an incongruity implying diversity of authorship between 4: 19 (J) Moses' return to Egypt by immediate divine di- rection and verse 18 (E), his previous resolution to go with Jethro's permission. In verses 20a, 24-26 (J) he takes his family with him evidently intending to remain, whereas verse 18 (E) merely contemplates his going alone on a brief visit and chapter 18 (E) his wife and children remained with Jethro, where verse 2d, "after he had sent her back," is regarded as a harmonizing interpola- tion by R. In 4: 17, 20I? (E) "this rod" and "the signs" (with the article in Heb.) seem in their present connection to refer to verses 1-9 (J) ; but the rod was there used in only one sign, and then not as an instrument but as the object wrought upon. The conclusion is thence drawn that the allusion is not to verses 1-9, but to some narrative now lost in which a miraculous rod was given to Moses with directions regarding the signs to be wrought by it. Again the signs in verses 1-9 were to be exhibited before the people (verses i, 5), while verse 21 (E) speaks of "wonders before Pharaoh," and of his return to Egypt as yet fu- ture, whereas in verse 20a (J) he had already re- turned. Chapter 4:10-12, recording Moses' reluctance and God's promise to be with his mouth, is assign- Pentateuchal Analysis. 131 ed to J. With this Wellhausen and Jiilicher regard the appointment of Aaron to be his spokesman as incompatible; they therefore eject verses 13-16 as a later addition, notwithstanding the identical phrases, " O, my Lord " (verses 10, 13) and the co- incidences in verses 12, 15. Consistency then obliges them to trace verses 27, 28 to Rj, and to attribute to the same source the insertion of Aaron's name in verses 29-31 (J,) so as to make it appear that in J's original account it was Moses who spake to the people and performed the signs. Dillmann sets all this aside by pointing out that verses 13-16 do not annul but confirm verse 12. God promises to be with Moses' mouth as well as with Aaron's, and Aaron is associated with Moses, not substituted for him. There is consequently no discrepancy and no need of assuming an inter- polation, whether of these verses or of verses 27, 28, or an unauthorized insertion of Aaron's name. But as Dillmann imputes 3: 18 to E (contrary to Wellh. and J til.), and thence infers that E speaks of the elders and J of Aaron, verses 29-3 1 are sliced accordingly. Parts of verses 29, 31 are assigned to E, viz., '' he gathered all the elders of the chil- dren of Israel ; . . . and they heard that Jehovah had visited the children of Israel and that he had looked upon their affliction;" and the remainder to J. From all which it appears how easy it is for a critic to manipulate or sunder the text in ac- cordance with a preconceived theory, be that what it may. The discrepancies alleged in this chapter are so 133 Pentateuchal Criticism. manifestly of the critics' own making that it seems a needless waste of words to refute them. After Moses had been commissioned to deliver Israel, 3: 1-4: 17, he obtained Jethro's permission to re- turn to Eg}'pt, ver. 18. Whereupon the Lord con- firms his resolution by the encouraging informa- tion of the death of those who sought his life, ver. 19. This had been before communicated to the reader, 2 ; 23^ And its length would have precluded compliance here. Even Hengstenberg (1. c. p. i6o) must admit this. He supposes that ''the spiritual leaders had the right of deciding those portions which, as the ker- nel of the whole, should be read as the law book in the narrow sense of the word, and that in the nature of the case the majority of these sections would be taken from Deuteronomy." Of course this is merely a flimsy makeshift. We do not then think that we have any direct testimony of the Pentateuch to prove that Moses himself wrote or caused to be written the whole of the five books. He is declared to be the writer of portions of Ex- odus and Numbers, and of the legal portion and pos- sibly the whole of Deuteronomy. Whether he also wrote the rest of the Pentateuch, or larger por- tions thereof, is not directly stated. Our sources of information simply furnish no definite evidence on this point. As regards the literary author of the book of Genesis the sources are also silent. In- direct evidence, however, make two things sure: First, the author is the same as the writer of the following books. Externally and internally Gen- 148 Pentateuchal Criticism. esis is the foundation of these books. It is un- necessary to dwell on this since it is acknowl- edged by both conservative and advanced scholar- ship. Secondly, the author was a man well ac- quainted with Egyptian affairs, a feature that becomes more evident as we advance into Exodus. § 3. It is deeply significant, over against the somewhat scant and disappointing testimony in reference to the writer of the Pentateuch, when we ask for the evidences as to the person who Avas chosen of God to promulgate these revela- tions, that the testimony is simply overwhelm- ing. Moses may or may not have written these books, yet the contents of the last four, at least in their great bulk, claim to have been given by God to Moses. Bleek (Introduction to the O. T. § 1 1)" correctly says : " On this point there can be no doubt that the laws as we find them in these books all claim to be Mosaic in origin." Many passages testify to this, of which the following are the principal ones : Ex. iii, iv, sqq. ; Ex. xv ; Ex. XX ; Ex. xxxiv ; Ex. xxv, sqq. ; Ex. xxxi ; Ex. xxxiv sq. ; Lev. i : i ; iv : I ; vi : i, 12, 17 ; vii : 22, 28 ; viii : I ; (x : 8) ; xi : i ; xii : i ; xiii : i ; xiv : i, 33 ; xv : I ; xvi : i ; xvii : i ; xviii : i ; xix : i (xix : 37); XX : i ; xxi : i, 16; xxii : I, 17, 26; xxiii : I, 23, 26, 33 ; xxiv : I ; xxv : i (xxvi : 3) ; xxvii : I, 34 (a general summary); Num. i : i; ii:i; iii : 5, 40 (42); iv : i, 17, 21, 40; v : i, 5, 11 ; vi:i,22; vii:4, 11; viii: 1,5, 23; ix:i,23; x:i; xi : 16, 23, 25 ; xii : 5 sqq., 1 1, 14; xiii : 2 ; xiv : 20 (39); XV : I, 17, 35 ; xvi : 20; xvii : i, 10; xviii : i, Pentateuchal Testimony, 149 8 (20), 25 ; xix : I ; xx : 7, 12, 23; xxv : 10, 16; xxvi : I, 52 ; xxvii : 6, 12, 18 ; xxviii : i ; xxx : i ; xxxi : I, 25 ; xxxii : 10 ; xxxiii : 50 ; xxxiv : i, 16 ; XXXV : I ; xxxvi : 13 (a general summary); Deut. i : I (title of whole book). But of course it would be unfair to conclude, even from this mass of evi- dence, that Moses must be regarded as the medi- um through whom Jehovah revealed every word and syllable that we have then in our present Pentateuch. From these statements alone we have, for instance, no right to claim that the book of Genesis is his work. That book directly states that certain of the patriarchs were in constant communion with God, and received from him commands and promises. But who it was that preserved these commands and promises and col- lected and arranged them in their present form in Genesis is nowhere stated in so many words. If Moses did this or caused it to be done we must base our acceptance of this thesis on indirect and not on direct evidence. Again, it is seen by a reference to the list above that Moses is nowhere declared to be the recipient of the whole Penta- teuch as such, but, as was the case in the passages which spoke of Moses writing parts of the law, of certain parts or portions of the live books. And here the question in each case arises, whether the testimony to the Mosaic source that heads each section covers all the ground, until the same declaration is made of a new section. In a num- ber, probably in many instances, this is doubtless the intention ; in other cases this is not so certain. 150 Pentateuchal Criticism. and in some quite doubtful. The limitation and extent of such warrants are not clear in every case. But so much is certain beyond a doubt, that these claims, repeated sometimes in a single chap- ter two and three times, fully justify the assertion that the great bulk and mass of the Pentateuch, from that period on when Moses first was called to his mission, Ex. iii : 2 sqq., both the legal portion and also the historical narratives, claim to be the revelation of Jehovah given to his servant Moses. This of course still leaves open the critical and literary question as to whether into this Mosaic bulk or mass foreign elements were introduced then or later, and also the historical question as to the time and manner in which these Mosaic rev- elations were written, collected, or received their present shape, and the changes, if any, which they may have undergone in this process. But the central and most important fact remains fixed and firm, that the direct evidences of the Penta- teuch are overwhelming in vindicating to the great lawgiver of Israel, the reception of the great bulk of the last four books of the Pentateuch. These books claim in essence and substance to be Mosaic. So far the direct testimony of the Pen- tateuch itself, cautiously used, justifies us in going; and naturally this testimony does not exclude the Mosaic character also of the rest of these books or of the whole Pentateuch. There simply is no direct internal testimony on the problem in this wide range. If it can be proved in this range at all, the testimony must be drawn from other sources. Pentateuchal Testimony. 151 § 4. The indirect evidence on this point is also abundant. We will be able to give it only in a few of its leading features. The Pentateuch con- tains a large number of laws and narrates numer- ous events which can be understood only from the historical background of the sojourn and journey of the children of Israel through the desert under the leadership of Moses. From the standpoint of the advanced critics these laws and events are glaring anachronisms, and could be explained only as bold fraiidcs picB. Bleek, in his Intro- duction, § 12, has emphasized the importance of this argument, and he is correct in saying that " it would be difficult to overthrow it." Among these laws that by their very character and surround- ings indirectly testify to a Mosaic source is the whole group with which the book of Leviticus begins, extending to chapter vii, cf. particularly 4, 12 and 21, where it is commanded that certain portions of the sacrifices shall be carried " forth without the camp." This shows that the whole law to which these verses belong was given in the desert. Again, in i : 5, 7, 1 1 ; ii : 2, 10; iii : 2, 5, 13; vi: 2,7, 9; xi: 13, 18; vii: 10, 31, 33» 34, Aaron and his sons are mentioned as the priests who shall perform these sacrifices ; which again points to the Mosaic era. The law of the great day of atone- ment given in Lev. xvi. is based on a similar his- torical status. Cf. vv. 10, 21,22, 26-28. The same is the case in Lev. chaps, xiii and xiv, con- taining the law on leprosy. Cf. xiii: 46; xiv: 2, 3, 8 (33-53). In the ninth chapter of Numbers 152 Pentateuchal Criticism. we have the same indirect evidence. These com- mands can be understood only as having been given when Israel lived in tents, and when Aaron and his son Eleazar were their priests. Cf. vv. 3, 4, 7, 9, 14. Good evidence in this respect is furnished also by Lev. xvii. Cf. vv. 3, 4, 5, 6, 9. This chapter would be meaningless if given any later date. Indeed the whole section from Lev. c. xi to c. xvi presupposes the desert journey of Israel as its historical background. Then there are other laws which, if not in their own character indicative of the Mosaic age, yet in the occasion which caused their promulgation connect with that age and can be rationally and reasonably understood only from this point of view. Thus the law on the great day of atone- ment (Lev. xvi) is based upon the historical events recorded in Lev. x: i sqq., in which the death of Aaron's two sons, Nabad and Abihu, is recorded. Cf. Lev. xvi: i. Then the whole section, Ex. XXV to xxxi, in which the command concerning the erection of the tabernacle and the account of this erection are given in detail, are intelligible only from a Mosaic era. The wonderful hand- springs made by some modern critics who regard this description as an ex post facto concern and as an imaginary picture transferred into the Mo- saic age after the model of Solomon's temple, are interesting psychologically and theologically, but are based on eisegesis and not on exegesis. This inversion of history cannot possibly be recon- ciled with the office and work of the priest there Pentateuchal Testimony. 153 described. Cf. xxvii : 21 ; xxviii : 4, 12, 41, 43; xxix: 4, 5 ; xxx : 7, 10, 19, 30. In Num. x : 1-8, in which the method of caUing together the congre- gation is described, we have again the Mosaic age presupposed. The same is true of Num. i : i sqq., with its statistics ; also ch. ii, containing the de- scription of the arrangernent of the people's camp in the wilderness ; as also ch. iv, with its regula- tions concerning the services of the Levites in the camp. It is further highly probable that the Mosaic age is the historical background of the three songs found in Num. xxi. Negatively applied, this^ indirect evidence argues also that in many other cases, where it cannot positively be shown that the laws or the history proceed from the premises of a Mosaic age, they contain no evidences to the contrary. As far as indirect evidence is con- cerned their testimony at most is non-committal. (Cf. also Bleek, Introduction, § 1 1-17.) The direct and the indirect evidence of the Pentateuch con- cerning itself may then be summed up in the fol- lowing proposition: Directly it is claimed that the great bulk of the last four books of the Pentateuch are Mosaic in the sense that they are revelations of God to Moses, and portions of ihem are Mosaic in the sense that Moses himself wrote these or caused them to be written. Indirectly the testi- mony points to the author of the last four books as also the author of the first, as also that a large number of the laws and much of the history in these four books presuppose the Mosaic age. Whether these conclusions are applicable to the 154 Pentateuchal Criticism. whole and entire Pentateuch or not, or whether these five books contain also direct or indirect evi- dence of post-Mosaic elements can be discussed only later, after it has been determined what the internal character of these books is. § 5. What is the testimony of the Pentateuch con- cerning itself, both in regard to the substance and matter it brings, as also in regard to the books as a literary composition? In regard to the first point the evidence is overwhelming that these five books claim to be a revelation and the history of a revelation. In nearly all the passages which have been cited in a previous paragraph to prove that Moses was the medium through whom these laws were promulgated, there is found also the statement that he received them from the Lord — in other words, that they were a revelation from Jehovah. The scheme and underlying principles of Pentateuchal revelation and history are quite simple and certainly plain from the abundance of repetitions and reiterations in the pages of the work. The Pentateuch proceeds from the premises that the fall of man has seriously interfered with God's plans for man's welfare, and that God's ■providential guidance of man is specially directed toward his restoration and re-establishment. The efforts to effect this end through mankind as a class, through man's sins, prove to be abortive. God accordingly chooses from among the peoples of the earth one family, that of Abraham, and later one nation, that of the descendants of Abra- ham, and enters into a special covenant with them Pentateuchal Testimony. 155 in order to accomplish his great ends in mankind. He purposes to prepare man for salvation just as he prepares salvation for man, and when the full- ness of time should have come, then the kingdom of God would be consummated among the children of men. The relation of Jehovah to Israel and his special guidance of their destinies was thus primarily to be an educational process, a steady and constant growth toward certain ends. Two features are thus prominent in this process — first, the children of Israel are under the special guid- ance and direction of God, so that in their histori- cal development factors and agencies could be ex- pected to be operative which were not to be found in the history of any other peoples ; and, secondly, as this special guidance of God had a special aim in view, a special ideal to attain, the means and measures adopted to attain this aim and to realize this ideal must look to the future as well as the present. The very nature of the theocratic charac- ter of Israel's history demands that laws, command- ments and injunctions should be given which re- ferred to such important future stages of Israel's development, which they must pass through in order to attain the ultimate object which was the aim of their national existence. These principles have an important bearing on the proper under- standing of the Pentateuchal problem. They first show that in the nature of the case the historical development and the religion of Israel must be one that is stii generis. The whole Pentateuch goes out from this supposition. Any historical 156 Pentateuchal Criticism. scheme that finds in Israel's development only the same factors, the same agencies, the same forces that are found in the histories of other Oriental nations, runs counter to the very basal idea of the whole Pentateuchal development. When there- fore Kuenen, in his De Godsdienst, p. 5 sqq., says that he proceeds from the standpoint that Israel's religion is the same in kind with the religions of other peoples, he and his ideas of Israel's history directly contradict the central thought of the Pentateuch. The other principle is equally im- portant. It is the quasi-prophetic element in Israel's law. It signifies not only that in case a law in the Pentateuch does not find its application in the Mosaic period, that eo ipso this law does not argue a post-Mosaic origin (although it may be such for other reasons), but it shows also that the principle which consciously or unconsciously un- derlies so much of modern Old Testament research, namely, that these laws grew out of the history of Israel and that none were made until the exigen- cies of the times demanded them, is fundament- ally incorrect. To a great measure the Mosaic codes form an ideal scheme the realization of which shall be a matter of future times. This is evident from direct testimony whenever directions are given for the time when Israel shall possess Canaan. Lev. cc. 15 and 16 are instructive in this regard and may serve as an example. Here cer- tain regulations are made for the treatment of leprosy during the stay in the desert, to which are at once joined others that are to be put into Pentateuch AL Testimony. 157 force when Palestine shall be theirs. The appli- cation of the false principle in this regard to the subjects of Old Testament Isagogics, is bad enough, but its use in biblical theology is ten times worse. These statements will make it plain also why the measure to which the law was put into force at any certain period of Israel's history is not a fair or correct index of the number of laws that had then official recognition. The Christian Church, with its many divisions, corre- sponds but poorly to the present day to the ideals of Christian brotherhood in the New Testament. The actual status of a people is never up to the ideals aimed at by the laws of the land. The argumcnttmi ex silcntio is at best a negative argu- rnent, and alone and unsupported allows of no positive conclusions. The finding of Deuter- onomy in the days of Josiah, even on the suppo- sition of its earlier acceptance as divine and as authority, is no more an historical anomaly than we would have a right to consider Luther's redis- covery of the central doctrine of Christianity — jus- tification by faith alone — in the days of the Refor- mation. The principles maintained in this para- graph so far are based upon the whole Pentateuch as such, rather than upon single passages only. The writer has treated the subject in extenso in the Bibliothcca Sacra, July, 1885. But the Pentateuch claims to be not only a revelation but also the history of a revelation. That some of its contents is history not even the most radical critics deny. The fact that no two 153 Pentateuchal Criticism. can agree as to where history ends and myth be- gins is in itself evidence that it nowhere makes this distinction itself, but if any part or portion of it is pronounced unhistoric, it must be done for other reasons. Wellhausen {Prolegomena) ac- cepts as historical the story of Israel in Egypt ; Stade {Geschichte Israels) sneers contemptuously at such credulity. The Pentateuch itself nowhere gives any hint that what it says of the patriarchs and the early records of mankind is in the slight- est degree less historically true than are its ac- counts of Moses, the Egyptian period, the journey in the desert, and the capture of the land west of the Jordan. Of course positively there is no thetical statement to this effect in the Pentateuch. The matters there recorded are recorded simply as facts, without any apologetic undercurrent of thought looking to any skepticism in this matter. The indirect evidence on this point is extensive and has been variously formulated and classified. We draw attention to only two features. The first is the absolute agreement with all that is known of Egyptian history and civilization — an argument that has recently been remarkably strengthened through the discoveries of M. Naville of some Exo- dus cities in Lower Egypt. Cf. on the whole mat- ter the two books of Professor Eber's '' Egypten 7uid die FiXnf Bucher Moses!' and " Durch Gosen zum Sinaiy Another noteworthy feature point- ing to the historical character of these books is the naturalness with which their national heroes are portrayed. Their faults and failures as well Pentateuchal Testimony. 159 as their virtues are plainly recorded, and these arc faults which appear such not only to us, but also to those who recorded them. § 6. Concerning the Pentateuch as a literary work there is but little direct testimony. But that the author did not simply mechanically record revelations directly given, but based at least part of his w^ork on other literary documents, is plainly enough stated. In Num. xxi : 14, a " Book of the Wars of the Lord " is expressly quoted. The book of Genesis and everything that the author could not know himself as an eye and ear witness could be historically accurate only if the statements are based on older and reliable records. Even if the dogmatic teachings of Genesis concerning the creation, the fall, the covenant, etc., are the direct revelation from God, they were not such in Moses* day, but had been given and were known to the patriarchs. When the Pentateuch was written, they too doubtless existed recorded in writing, from which a knowledge of them w^as drawn. The same is doubtless true, as far as the writing is con- cerned, of what is simply history, chronology, genealogies, etc. The inspiration of the Penta- teuch certainly does not consist in this, that the author received all this information from the Holy Spirit as something entirely unknown to him be- fore, but rather in directing him to make the cor- rect use of the means of information at his com- mand. This method in the composition of a bib- lical book is well illustrated by the parallel cases of Kings and Chronicles, where the sources of in- 160 Pentateuchal Criticism. formation are given with great frequency. From considerations of this kind it would seem that a " documentary theory " of some sort, at least in reference to the book of Genesis, would not only be allowable but even a necessity. Whether the documentary theory as is now generally accepted even by those in Europe who are regarded as con- servative scholars, such as Delitzsch, Strack, v. Orelli, and many others, is the correct one is quite another question. As this subject has been assigned as the special topic for another essay in this series, it is not to be discussed here. But a few words, in so far as our special subject is con- cerned, in regard to this matter may not be out of place. The danger in the documentary theory does not lie in itper se. In itself it is a literary and critical and not a theological question. It is simply the question whether in the Pentateuch as now constituted we have indications pointing to its being a compilation from various documents and sources. In itself the question has nothing to do with the problem of Mosaic authorship or divine character of the contents of the Pentateuch. It must be decided on its own merits. The great evil of modern Pentateuchal criticism does not lie in the analysis into documents, but in the erection upon this analysis of a superstructure of pseudo- history and religion that runs directly counter to the revealed and historic character of the Penta- teuch. But as little as this analysis justifies such a building of hay and stubble, just so little does the abuse of this theory by advanced critics justify Pentateuchal Testimony. IGl conservative men in refusing to accept what the evidences seem sufficient to warrant. Even when in such an array of reasons as DiHmann gives at the close of his commentary of the Hexateuch (p. 593 sqq.) in favor of an analysis, we discard as worthless and unworthy such groundless ones as the many imagined contradictions, conflicting accounts, etc., there yet remains in the pages of the Pentateuch sufficient evidences, philological and material, to make it probable that as at pres- ent shaped the five books are a compilation from a number of sources. Nor need such an explana- tion of the literary character conflict in any way with the essentially Mosaic origin of the Penta- teuch — i.e., Mosaic not in the sense that every word of it was written by the lawgiver, but in the sense that the laws were promulgated through him. It becomes then an historical question as to the manner in which these laws were first written down and afterward united into one code. The problem is not unlike that would be if in some way our four Gospels had been united into one account of the life and work of Christ. All that is necessary in the purely literary study of the Pentateuch is not to go any further than the facts in the case justify us in doing. No genuine scholar should be ashamed to answer 7ion liquet when facts tell him to stop. § 7. Now we will be prepared to discuss the question whether the Pentateuch contains any- thing that is post-Mosaic. This has been the rock of offense in the Pentateuch from the beginning, 163 Pentateuchal Criticism. and the first doubts concerning the traditional views of the church and synagogue proceeded from the claim that these books contained a large number of anachronisms which could not be ex- plained or understood if Moses had written them. These have been formulated and catalogued in various ways, and not always in perfect agreement as to their number and character. The principal ones can be found mentioned in almost any critical work on the Old Testament (cf. Bleek, Introduc- tion, § i8 sqq. ; Keil, Introduction, § 25 sqq. ; Hengstenberg, Beitrdge, III. 179-345 — the fullest discussion from the conservative standpoint ; Dillmann, Commentary on Num., Deut., Joshua- p. 594 sqq. — the most compact and solid discus- sion from the other side). A number of these claims are groundless because they proceed from a false conception of the character of the Mosaic legislation. This is notably the case in regard to the law given to regulate the conduct of kings in Deut. xvii. That kings should at one time in the history of Israel be set up over those people was designed of God. This was one of the promises expressly given to the patriarchs (Gen. xvii : 6). If in giving the law which should control the his- torical development of the people under the cove, nant which he had made with them, Jehovah gave a law also on that one point which from the beginning was intended to be an important factor in this de- velopment, it is incorrect to say that such a law could proceed only from a time when the evils against which it was to operate actually existed. Pentateuchal Testimony. 163 Such a method of argument is essentially the same, and outwardly also not dissimilar to that which makes all predictions vaticinia post eventum. Other passages claimed as post-Mosaic are not such, or at least need not be such, for other rea- sons. Thus is the case, e.g., in Gen. xii : 6 ; xiii : 7, where the Canaanites seem to be spoken of as a people who formerly existed in Palestine, but who no longer existed when these words were written. This interpretation is possible but not necessary. The verse can be understood from a Mosaic stand- point when we suppose that it was given by the lawgiver to his contemporaries as explanatory of the actions of the patriarchs, and to enable them to understand the historical surroundings of the time and place. Again, the expression *' beyond the Jordan," used so often, especially in Deuter- onomy, of the East Jordan land, does not compel the belief that these books were written on the west side of that river. ^^ Eber ha Jordan'' is the technical and geographical name for the East Jordan country. It was such doubtless in the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (cf. Hebrews from the same root), and as such was incorporated into the Hebrew language and used in that sense by the Israelites in Egypt, and brought back with them as a fixed fact of their language. That in the use of this term the etymology was no longer thought of can surprise no one who knows that every language under the sun can furnish hundreds of similar cases. Again the Dan in Gen. xiv : 14 is not certainly the Dan in Josh, xix : 47 ; Jud. 164 Pentateuchal Criticism. xviii : 29. There may have been two Dans, as there were two Kanas and probably two Bethsaidas. At any rate these and similar passages furnish at best only possible but no certain grounds for ac- cepting post-Mosaic elements in the present Pen- tateuch. But to deny entirely that such elements do actually exist would be going too far in the other direction. Some facts in the Pentateuch are too decided on this point. We do not think that any judicious scholar would claim the last chapter of Deuteronomy as Mosaic, at least not from v. 5 on, in which the death of the lawgiver is recorded. This part was evidently added by a later hand, and from v. 10 it would seem to have been written some considerable time after Moses' death. It will be noticed here that it is nowhere stated ex- pressly, or ex professo, that we here have a differ- ent author from the one who wrote the preceding chapters. The reason why we must accept this is because internal evidence point to post-Mosaic date. The canon or rule then for discovering such elements that may not be Mosaic must be the in- ternal testimony. This is of course not meant in the sense that this is post-Mosaic simply because it refers to things later than his day. Many of the laws given to Moses do the same, and in the nature of the theocracy and the Old Testament covenant such laws were necessary. But it runs counter to all healthy ideas of prophecy to think that historical events should be predicted and then recorded as past. Prediction is indeed one Pentateuchal Testimony. 165 of the constituent elements of prophecy, but it is always given as prediction, and its divine source and character are expressly indicated by this very characteristic. These verses are post-Mosaic sim- ply because they record not prophecy but post- Mosaic history. But it is difficult to see, in case such non- Mosaic verses were added to the end of the Mo- saic legislation, not as an appendix but as a con- stituent part of the whole and as its formal close, why such elements may not have been introduced elsewhere also. Of course the existence of these non-Mosaic verses at the end of the Pentateuch does not prove the existence of verses of the same kind elsewhere. For all that, every jot and tittle of the rest of the Pentateuch might be Mo- saic. All that it proves is, that the addition of non-Mosaic elements was not an impossibility. If such elements have been introduced elsewhere their presence must be detected in the same way in which they were detected in Deut. xxxiv. We have already seen that of the passages which are generally quoted as indicative of a post- Mosaic origin many are at best of doubtful value. They do not furnish conclusive evidence. We are, however, unable to claim this for all passages. There are a number of passages which seem to the writer can be explained only on the supposition that they were written in a period later than Moses. We mention here two examples. In Gen. xii : 8 ; xxviiiiiQ; xxxv:i5, a certain place is called Bethel, and in one of these passages, xxviii : 166 Pentateuchal Criticism. 19, it is identified as the earlier Luz. But accord- ing to Josh, xviii : 13, Luz was then still the name of that place. Bethel became its name only later. The explanation usually given to set aside this anachronism (cf. Hengstenberg, Beitrdge,l\l. 200 sqq.), which distinguishes between a city and a district of Bethel, has no ground whatever in the statements of the Pentateuch or of Joshua. A second example is Gen. xxxvi : 31 sqq., in which a list of kings of Edom is given "before there reigned any king over the children of Israel." Gen. xvii : 6, in which kings are promised for Israel, cannot furnish a sound basis for making this a quasi-prophetic passage. It is in nowise a parallel case with the kings, law in Deuteronomy. It is an historical passage and presupposes the ex- istence of kings in Israel. The existence of these and similar passages in the Pentateuch would seem to prove, notwithstanding that for the great mass and bulk of the contents a Mosaic origin is claimed, and the claim is supported by further reasons, that the collecting of these Mo- saic revelations and the final editing was not ac- complished until a later day. § 8. What is the value of this evidence of the Pentateuch concerning itself? The testimony of a witness is measured by the amount of credence given to his words. Apodictically no historical point can be proved. It is regarded as certain and sure only in the degree as its evidence is considered reliable. The same is the case with regard to the Pentateuch. What divides scholars in this de- Pentateuchal Testimony. 167 partment into such antagonistic camps is not the exegesis of this or that passage, but the "standpoint" of the investigators. The conser- vative scholar accepts the authority of the Penta- teuch over against canons and laws drawn from philosophical speculations. The advanced critic, on the basis of his ideas concerning the nature of religion in general and revelation drawn from extra-biblical sources, regards his deductions as better testimony than the simple statements of the Pentateuch, and accordingly interprets the words of the Pentateuch in accordance with his philosophy. It is for this reason that he finds mythology in Genesis where others find history. In the nature of the case no historical fact can be proved with mathematical certainty. It is only a question of a greater or less degree of probability. Internal and external evidence must combine to determine this degree of probability. It is for this reason that we have more confidence in Thucydides than in Herodotus. For the conser- vative scholar the conviction that the Pentateuch is an inspired work is a ground for believing its statements concerning itself. This conviction of inspiration he gains not by logical reasoning or historical criticism, but as a testiinojmun spiritu^ sayicti. He who would by logic or criticism prove the divine character and inspiration of Scrip- ture has not only an Herculean task, but an im- possible task before him. Logic and criticism can be only subsidiary aids in showing that the ob- jections made to the claims of inspiration are 168 Pentateuchal Criticism. groundless. Another reason for accepting this self-testimony of the Pentateuch is its acceptance as Mosaic and divine by Christ and the New Tes- tament. A conservative scholar is convinced that this authority is a better ground for belief than his own theories and hypotheses, in case these should clash with the former. But in all these cases care must be taken to know exactly what these authorities testify to. Thus, e.g., the ques- tion as to the extent of the New Testament testi- mony and what it exactly means is one differently answered by men equally anxious to heed this testimony. Men are sometimes mistaken in their estimate of scriptural testimony. In the days before the Reformation the church universal was convinced of the canonicity of the Apocrypha. The Protestant church, by the exercise of its rights of higher criticism, rejected these books. The learned men of that day were convinced that the Bible taught the Ptolemaic system. A closer view in the light of new facts showed them that they were mistaken. A matter of prime necessity is then to determine exactly what the evidence of our witnesses is, and that evidence must be then ac- cepted by the conservative and Christian scholar. This does not mean that this evidence will always be a confirmation of the traditional views on mat- ters of historical and literary criticism. The old is not necessarily true because it is old ; the new not necessarily false because it is new. In each case a conscientious and searching, a rigid but rev- erential examination of the facts must determine Pentateuchal TestimOxNy. 169-171 the matter. And of such an examination the Bible need have no fear, whose claims are injured only by dishonest and unfair, not by honest and fair criticism. Magna est Veritas et praevalebit. TESTIMONY OF THE HISTORICAL BOOKS, SAVE CHRONICLES. BY PROFESSOR WILLIS J. BEKCHKR. INTRODUCTORY. Description of the Books. These books are, first, the Book of Joshua, recording the events that directly followed the death of Moses ; second, the Books of Judges, Ruth, and First and Second Samuel, continuing the history till the accession of Solomon ; third, the Books of Kings, carrying it forward to the middle of the seventy years of ex- ile ; and fourth, the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, with or without Daniel and Esther, treating of the times yet later. These books cover in some shape the whole time from the alleged writing of the Pentateuch in the times of Moses to the close of the events described in the Old Testament. They contain, however, properly speaking, not the his- tory of Israel for this period, but rather the history of a certain line of providential dealings with Is- rael. For interpreting their silences, especially, this distinction is very important. Most of them bear pretty distinct marks of hav- ing been prepared in part by the process of tran- scribing selections from previously existing records. Whatever differences of opinion there may be as to their date and authorship, no one would dispute that they approach more nearly to the character of 174 Pentateuchal Criticism. records contemporaneous with the events record- ed than do the Books of Chronicles — that other bibhcal work of history treating of the same times. It would also be admitted that in some instances they are farther from being contemporaneous records than are the dated prophetic books. If there is at any point a conflict of testimony be- tween the books, these considerations have weight in deciding which witness is to be preferred ; they also have weight as showing that what may at first seem to be a conflict of evidence should not be too hastily interpreted in that way ; statements made from different points of view may differ without being contradictory. Kinds of Evidence fotind in these Books. The evidence to be obtained from these books concern- ing the Pentateuch is of several different sorts. It consists partly in the books themselves, regarded as mere facts, and partly in the testimony given by the books. Whether one regard them as trust- worthy, untrustworthy, or of doubtful trustworthi- ness, it is at least a fact that the books exist ; that they have a certain linguistic character as com- pared with one another, with the Pentateuch, with other Hebrew writings; that they mention institu- tions and events capable of being compared, as matters of historical sequence, with those men- tioned in the Pentateuch ; that they contain state- ments, citations, silences, concerning the Penta- teuch and its contents. These varied phenomena are existing facts, no matter what estimate one puts upon the books that contain them. They Historical Books, save Chronicles. 175 constitute evidence of one sort, while the state- ments directly made in the books concerning the Pentateuch are evidence of another sort. Apart from the question of inspiration the evidence from the phenomena is of higher validity than the testimony, provided one were sure of correctly interpreting the phenomena ; for we are more certain of what we see than of what some one tells us. But it is also true that there are often dif- ferent ways of accounting for the same phenom- ena; that evidence of this kind often lacks in explicitness more than enough to balance its ad- vantages in point of directness. It follows from this as a fixed logical rule, and one of great im- portance in the case in hand, that among equally consistent interpretations of the phenomena con tained in a writing, that interpretation is to be preferred which agrees with the declarations made in the writing. By a cross-division the evidence from these books assumes at least three different forms : First, some portions of the phenomena they present and the testimony they give bear directly on Pen- tateuchal questions ; secondly, they present a cer- tain cast of Israelitish history, and an account of Israelitish institutions, culture and religious ideas, for some hundreds of years following the times when Moses is alleged to have written the Penta- teuch, and what they say on these points must needs be either consistent or inconsistent with the alleged fact that Moses established the Penta- teuchal institutions and described them in writing; 176 Pentateuchal Criticism. thirdly, these books either confirm or weaken the evidence found in the Books of Chronicles on the one hand and in the poetical and prophetic books on the other. Restrictions of the Present Treatment. There is a certain advantage in treating this group of his- torical books by themselves as a source of evi- dence concerning the Pentateuch, for we may thus obtain a rapid view of the whole line of historical argument ; but this treatment if regarded as other than merely preliminary has also great disadvan- tages. It rules out most of those forms of the evidence that depend on the comparing of these books with the Books of Chronicles and of the prophets ; the part so ruled out is certainly not the less important half of the evidence. Further, much of the evidence exists in the form of small items and slight probabilities, and could only be made available by long processes of induction entirely beyond the range of the space allotted to the present treatment. Let it be under- stood, then, that in presenting the testimony of the historical books, save Chronicles, we are pre- senting only selections from the whole body of the evidence that might be gathered in this field ; the effort will be made to render the parts presented fairly representative of the whole. THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. There is no dispute that the book of Joshua in its present form substantially presupposes the Penta- teuch in its present form. The scholars who hold Historical Books, save Chronicles. 177 that the Pentateuch was made by one or more re- dactors from three or more previous redactions of previously existing writings are pretty well agreed that Joshua is a part of the same literary work, made by the same redactors from the same previous sources We need not cite instances to prove that Joshua presupposes the Pentateuch, but only to call attention to this and illustrate it so as to en- sure its being understood. For this it is enough to take such instances as are at hand, with little attempt at classification and none at exhaustive- ness. Certain Phenomena in the Book of Joshua. Not noticing as yet the direct statements which the Book of Joshua makes concerning the written law of Moses, notice the way in which it uses the term law. The word occurs nine times in Joshua, al- ways denoting written divine requirement or reve- lation. But it denotes this with three different degrees of comprehension. In i. 7, 8 ; viii. 31 ; xxii. 5 ; xxiii. 6, it describes the whole of a cer- tain body of legislation given by Moses, large enough for the government of the nation. Prob- ably " the book of the law," viii. 34, 35, read at a national gathering after the solemnities of the altar at Ebal, was the same, cf. Dent. xxxi. 10-12. But " the copy of the law," viii. 32, written (not on polished stone but) on the plaster of the altar, and therefore not very finely written, and '' all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse," apparently read as a part of the service of the oc- casion, viii. 34, can hardly have been more than a 178 Pentateuchal Criticism. short section (or short sections) of the whole body of legislation elsewhere in Joshua called the law. Further, in xxiv. 26, " the book of the law of God" is said to have additions made to it by Joshua ; the law is not here regarded as a closed canon from the death of Moses, but as a canon begun by Moses and to be continued by his suc- cessors. This is analogous to what we find in the New Testament and later. No proof need be cited that by the law the New Testament men often mean the Pentateuch as distinguished from the rest of the Old Testament, but they also apply the term to a wider range of writings, presumptively to the whole Old Testament, John x. 34; xv. 25 ; xii. 34; I Cor. xiv. 21 ; Rom. iii. 10-19, and some- times, possibly, to short sections of the writings they held to be sacred, e.o-. Rom. vii. 2, 3. This difference of use is important and has not been sufficiently noticed. It is not true that the writers of the Old or the New Testament apply the term the law exclusively to a large body of writings attrib- uted to Moses, but it is true that they never ap- ply the term to any large body of writings except such as may include the sacred writings attributed to Moses. In addition to its use of the term law, the con- tents of the Book of Joshua, both the facts stated and the words used in stating them presuppose large portions of the contents of the Pentateuch. The parts thus presupposed come alike from the alleged prophetic, deuteronomic and priestly parts Historical Books, save Chronicles. 17d of the Pentateuch. The advocates of the current school of Pentateuchal analysis affirm that the first chapter of Joshua is taken mainly from the work of the Deuteronomists, that the following chapters come mostly from the Jehovist and the earlier Elohist, but with a good many sentences and parts of sentences from the later Elohists ; that larger sections of the work of the later Elohists and of the Elohistic redactors are found further on in the book ; that the whole book is made up in this way. If they make out their point there is no escaping from the conclusion that the Book of Joshua presupposes all the parts of the Pentateuch, as their analysis defines the parts, and this conclusion certainly follows from the passages they cite, whether these passages prove their analysis to be correct or not.* Merely from the phenomena found in this book, therefore, it is evident that the Pentateuch was written earlier than Joshua. If any one holds that the Pentateuch was put together after the exile, this very fact is evidence to him that the * No one can read Josh. 1. or xxiii. , looking up the references to Deuteronomy, without seeing how dependent Joshua here is on Deuteronomy. Further, Joshua presupposes the other books through Deuteronomy, e.g. Josh. xiv. 6-13; Deut. i. 23-38; Nimi. xiii., xiv. Josh. i. 13, 14; iv. 12 ; xxii. 2-6 ; Deut. iii. 12-20 ; Num. xxxii. Josh. viii. 31 ; Deut. xxvii. 5-7; Ex. xx. 24, 25. Josh, xx.; Deut. xix. ; Num. XXXV. 6-34. Still further, Joshua directly presup- poses the earlier books : Josh, xxiii. 13 ; Num. xxxiii. 55. Josh. xxiv. 32 ; Gen. xxxiii. 19 ; 1. 24-26 ; Ex. xiii. 19. Josh. xxiv. 2-4, 14, 15; Gen. xii., etc. Josh. xvii. 3, 4; Num. xxvii., and many other instances. 180 Pentateuchal Criticism. Book of Joshua was ^y^tten yet later; but apart from this there is no weighty reason for assigning to Joshua a date much later than the latest events mentioned in it. The closing verses of Joshua with the account of the capture and naming of Dan (xix. 47, cf. Jud. xviii.) show that the book was not written in its present form till some time after the death of Joshua, yet these events are said to have occurred within the lifetime of Phin- ehas, the grandnephew of Moses, who was himself associated with Moses in public affairs, Judges XX. 1, 28 ; Num. xxv. 7, 1 1 ; Ps. cvi. 30; Num. xxxi. 6; Josh. xxii. 13, 30, 31, 32 ; xxiv. 33. The Direct Testimony of the Book. Turning from the phenomena presented in the Book of Joshua to the testimony given by the book, we find this very explicit, not only to the effect that the written law of Moses was in existence before the Book of Joshua was written, but to the effect that it was in existence before the death of Moses ; that it was formally handed over by Moses to Joshua ; that Joshua received and used it; that it was present when the Ebal altar was built, and was afterward read to the people. That the Book of Joshua recognizes the popular legislation of Deuteronomy as included in the written law to which it testifies would probably not be called in question ; what else it thus recognizes might be a matter of dispute, for the testimony is not explicit on this point. But what has been said above con- cerning the phenomena of the Book of Joshua shows that its writer (or writers) testify to the Historical Books, save Chronicles. 181 existence in the times of Joshua of large parts of the present contents of Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers, whether they included these in what they call the Book of the Law or not. It cannot be necessary to argue this in detail. Many defenders of the traditional view hold that in the circumstances we must regard the testimony of the Book of Joshua to the law as applying to the entire Pentateuch ; this presumption could not well be denied by one who holds that the Book of Joshua is the closing part of the work of redac- tors who constructed Joshua mainly out of the closing sections of the documents they had used in constructing the Pentateuch. Not to insist, however, on giving to the testi- mony this extent of meaning, it is at least clear that the Book of Joshua testifies to the existence in Joshua's time of -a considerable body of sacred writings, produced under the influence of Moses and Joshua, and in great part, at least, by these two men themselves, and very largely if not entirely identifiable with our present Pentateuch. The validity of this testimony does not depend altogether on the question when the Book of Joshua was written. No matter when written, it testifies as alleged. In this the argument from the testimony differs from the argument from the phenomena of the book. Positively the only way to meet the testimony is that in which it is actually met by the ablest of the attacking critics, namely, by asserting that it is either false or else, while true in its own propef 182 Pentateuchal Criticism. character, is yet fiction and not history. This is the same view as is held by the same men in regard to the testimony of the Pentateuch it- self; it is sufficiently met by what Professor Bissell says on pages 71-77 of this volume. EZRA AND NEHEMIAH. These books contain the latest records of con- secutive history in the Old Testament, and are the latest written or among the latest written of its books. Much of the narrative parts of them is written in the first person, indicating that Ezra himself either wrote the Book of Ezra or wrote memoirs from which some later writer compiled the book, and that Nehemiah did the same for the book of Nehemiah. There is no reason for dating either book later than about 375 B.C., or later than the probable lifetime of Nehemiah.* * It is now very generally held that the Book of Nehe- miah mentions events much later than Nehemiah's time, thus showing that the book was either written or annotated by a later hand than his. But this view is based on a confused notion of the chronology. Nehemiah's return to Artaxerxes after he had been twelve years governor In Jerusalem, occurred the thirty-second j^ear of Artaxerxes, B.C. 433, Neh. xiii. 6 ; v. 14. Later, perhaps one year later, he again came to Judea as governor. This is commonly and perhaps correctly assumed to have been B. c. 432. But many current arguments concerning the book tacitl3^ assume that Nehe- miah's career closed at about this time. There is no proof that this was the case, and no probability of it. The narra- tive certainly makes the impression that Nehemiah was a very young man when he first went up to Jerusalem, the twentieth of Artaxerxes, and was therefore still a young Historical Books, save Chronicles. 183 Evidence frojn the PJienomena presented in Ezra and NehemiaJi. No one doubts that the authors of these books as they now stand had before them the Pentateuch, or most of it at least, in substantially its present form. The traditional view teaches this as a matter of course, and the various anti-traditional opinions represent that the times of Ezra and Nehemiah were the times when the priest-code parts of the Hexateuch were being produced, and when the different parts were being combined into their present form. Those of them who hold that portions of this work were man wlien, thirteen years later, be came to Jerusalem the second time. He may iiave lived tliere as long- as fifty or sixty 3'ears after that without being' extraordinarily long- lived. No event mentioned in the Book of Nehemiah can be proved to be later than the enrollment of priests and Levites, xii. 10, 11, 22, 23. This is dated in general terms as "in thedaysof Eliashib, Joiada, Johanan, and Jaddua," the high priests, and contains the name of Jaddua, who, by death, ceased to be high priest about the time of the death of Alexander the Great, say B.C. 324. This date is limited by two specifications : the enrollment was "upon the kingdom of Darius," and was "up to the days of Johanan the son of Eliashib." This last specification conclusively shows that the enrollment of Jaddua was no^ later than the date of his succeeding Johanan, and was probably earlier than that. It follows that the Darius in whose reign this enrollment was begun cannot have been Codomanus, as he is now currently said to have been, but must have been just the man one would naturally suppose, namely, the immediate successor of Artaxerxes Longi. manus. The enrollment was not completed till some time in the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, but may easily have been completed within the lifetime of Nehemiah. 184 Pentateuchal Criticism. done later than the writing of the Book of Nehe- miah would not regard this later work as requiring much change in the work previously done, save in the way of mere addition. In the Hebrew and Aramaic of these two books, the word law, denoting divine law, occurs about thirty times ; the places may be found by a concordance ; the more important instances we shall soon have occasion to notice. To these should be added Ezra iii. 4; vi. 18 ; Neh. viii. 5, 15 ; xiii. I, which mention the written divine law without using the word law. In most of these instances the law is a single written book, Neh. viii. i, 3, etc. ; there is no instance in which it can be proved that these books use the term law to include anything not written, though the argument would not be materially affected if we should interpret such passages as Neh. ix. 13, 26 as denoting divine requirement in general. It would not be easy to prove that the terms " law," *''book of the law," " book of Moses," as used in Ezra and Nehemiah, are convertible with the term Pentateuch. Indeed the book of Moses of Ezra vi. 18 seems to have been a book that included regulations for the courses and divisions of the priests and Levites ; no such matters are found in the Pentateuch, and such matters are found in i Chron. xxiv.-xxvi. This may perhaps indicate that the author of Ezra, like the men of the New Testament and of Joshua, sometimes thought of the divine written law as including a series of writings additional to those with which Historical Books, save Chronicles. 185 Moses began the series.* But while this is true, it is also true that their book of the law certainly included most of the contents of our present Pen- tateuch, apparently in the order in which the Penta- teuch contains them. It included these, no matter what else it included. It is also certain that the Pentateuchal legislation, including very promi- nently the priest-code legislation, was in the minds of these men the especially prominent part of the book of the law. If this were disputed, a large portion of the two books might be put in evidence to prove it, including, for example, Ezra iii. 3-6 ; Neh. ix. 6-23 ; x. 29-39. Considered merely as phenomena and not as testimony, these things are conclusive proof of the existence of the Pentateuch as a whole, in its present order, before Ezra and Nehemiah were written. But this branch of the evidence reaches farther. These two books, in common with Chronicles, Daniel, Esther, Haggai, Zech. i.-viii., Malachi, all professedly and indisputably post- exilic, have a literary character of their own. They differ linguistically from the books written between the times of David and those of the exile, and * Parallel to this is the use of the term law in the Aramaic of Dan. vl. 4-10. The enemies of Daniel proposed to entrap him through his fidelity to the law of his God. But the conduct for which they accused him was praying three times a day, and praying toward Jerusalem. These points are not mentioned at all in tlie Pentateuch. In this par- ticular instance the law of his God was either something contained in the other Old Testament books, outside the Pentateuch, or something distinct from the Scriptures. 186 Pentateuchal Criticism. both these groups again differ from the Hexa- teuchal writings. On the supposition that half the Hexateuch was written and the whole of it edited during the generations in which the books of Ezra and Nehemiah were written, the several parts of it ought to be marked with the literary- peculiarities of the times. It is inconceivable that the men of these generations had the philological and literary skill for avoiding this. It is here impossible to do more with this argument than barely state a meager outline, without instances. Three general facts probably would be admitted by all who have studied the matter — first, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah have certain very marked linguistic affinities with the various parts of the Hexateuch, differing in this from the pre- exilic prophets and historical books ; secondly, in a yet wider range of instances these books are free from peculiarities found in the Hexateuch, and notably from a large class of peculiarities which are most naturally explained as belonging to an earlier stage of the language ; thirdly, in certain important classes of instances the phenomena in the post-exilic books that distinguish them from the pre-exilic are conspicuously absent from the Hexateuch, and among these many phenomena that naturally belong to a later stage of the language. These statements, of course, are correct only in a very general sense ; the details would vary at different points. The position of the anti- traditional criticism seems to be that the phenom- ena of the first of these three classes proves that Historical Books, save Chronicles. 187 much of the Pentateuchal work was done by the men of the same Hteraiy generations that produced Ezra and Nehemiah, while the phenomena of the second and third classes are to be accounted for by saying that these writers, like their prede- cessors, from Uzziah's time onward, did their torah-writing in antique style, this being, like the location of the giving of the torah in the desert, a part of the literary form of what they wrote. If this explanation be true, the literary aptitude of these men was something marvelous beyond all experience. The more natural explanation is that the writers of Ezra and Nehemiah were close students of the Hexateuch, so that their hterary style was affected thereby; but that also the Hebrew of the different parts of the Hexateuch is really the ancient Hebrew it seems to be, as that of Ezra and Nehemiah is the modern Hebrew it seems to be. If this argument favors the ancient date of the Pentateuch, it also favors the ancient date of the Book of Joshua. Further, if any one will read Ezra and Nehemiah through, noting how persist- ently they connect later events, even up to their own times, with the facts of early history they mention, and will then notice how prevalent this practice is in the other biblical writings, he will find in this a pretty strong reason for dating the Book of Joshua not much later than the latest events it mentions. Whatever thus tends to estab- lish an early date for Joshua has weight for proving the yet earlier date of the Pentateuch. 188 Pentateuchal Criticism. TJie Direct Testimony of the Books of Ezra and NeJieiniaJi. Two facts here especially attract our attention. The first is the prominent mention of Ezra as the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, Ezra vii. 6, 10, II, 12, 21, 25 ; Neh. viii. 1,2,4,5, 9, 13 ; xii. 26, 36. An examination of these pas- sages will make clear the fact that Ezra, in Baby- lonia, for a long time before he came to Jerusalem, had been engaged in study and literary work upon the written law. Probably he was not alone in this. There is an element of fable in the vast body of Jewish and Christian tradition that attributes work on the Scriptures to him and Nehemiah * and their contemporaries ; but accord- ing to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah this scripture work itself is fact and not fable. Without admitting that the scribes of the times of Ezra and Nehemiah did the kind of work on the law that the anti-traditional critics assign to them, we may be perfectly certain that they worked diligently and extensively on the law. This is one fact distinctly testified to by these books. The other is that the book of the law was not a work which v/as then coming into existence, but was an ancient work which had been in * It is often very conflderitly asserted that tradition attributes nothing- of tiiis kind to Neliemiah ; this is a mis- take; the traditions make Neliemiah very prominent among the men of the great synagogue, attribute to him the collection of a librarj'^ for the uses of scripture study, 2 Mac. ii. 13, and also, either directly or indirectly, the closing of tlie Old Testament canon, Baba Batra, fol. 14a. Historical Books, save Chronicles. 189 existence from the days of Moses. They call this law the law of Moses and the book of Moses, Ezra iii. 2; Neh. viii. I ; ix. 13, 14; x. 29, etc. They represent that the distinction of priests and Levites, those between the various sacrifices, and other ceremonial distinctions and ordinances, were already ancient in the times of Zerubbabel, eighty years before Ezra came up to Jerusalem, Ezra i. 5 ; ii. 70; iii. 2-7, etc. They date the legislation from the times of Moses, Neh. i. 7-9 ; viii. 14, 15 ; xiii. I, 2. They say that Israel in the times of Moses was already disobedient to the commands thus given, Neh. ix. 16-18. They testify that this law was in existence, and was alternately obeyed and disobeyed, from the times of the conquest under Joshua, Neh. ix. 25-34. How far this testimony applies to the whole Pentateuch, and how far it is possible to restrict some of it to some parts of the Pentateuch only, is a question to which we can now give no time. In view of the evidence already presented, the presumption is against a restrictive interpretation. To keep well within limits, however, the main difference between the testimony of these two books and that of Joshua consists in their being more explicit in regard to certain parti of the priest-code legislation. They testify not merely to the existence of this legislation, but to its being a part of the contents of the book of the law. Beyond this, these two books testify, like the Book of Joshua, to the existence, from the times of Moses and Joshua, of a considerable body of 190 Pentateuchal Criticism. sacred writings, produced under the influence of Moses, and in great part at least by Moses him- self, and having very largely if not entirely the same contents with our present Pentateuch. Alleged Co7it7'ary Testimony. But it is urged that these books also testify that certain observ- ances required by the ceremonial law are men- tioned as novelties in Nehemiah's time, and that this is positive evidence against the previous existence of these parts of the ceremonial law. One instance of this kind is that in Neh. viii. 14-18, especially ver. 17 : "And all the congreg-ation of them that were come again out of the captivity made bootlis, and dwelt in the booths ; for since the days of Jeshua the son of Nun, unto that day had not the children of Israel done so." But if any one will read this in the Hebrew he will observe that the emphasis is accumulated on the word " so." The statement is not that the Israelites had never till this occasion used the booths, but that they had never so used them as on this occasion. With this emphasis, the verse distinctly implies that the use of booths had been in existence from Joshua's time, instead of imply- ing the contrary. Similarly it is alleged that in Neh. x. 32 : "Also we made ordinances for us to charge ourselves yearly with the third part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God," we have the origin of what was afterward incor- porated into the ceremonial law as the half-shekel tax for the sanctuary, Ex. xxx. 13-16; xxxviii. Historical Books, save Chronicles. 191 25-28. It is therefore inferred that these parts of Exodus are of yet later date than the times of Nehe- miah, and of the redaction of most of the Penta- teuch, and also that we have here an instance of the incorporation of a late custom into the legislation attributed to Moses. But the tax of Exodus is a half-shekel, paid but once and used for a building fund ; that of Nehemiah is a third of a shekel, paid annually, used for perishable supplies. The tax of Nehemiah is far from identical with that of Moses ; it is rather mentioned, like the lot for the wood offering, ver. 34, etc., as something added to the ancient Mosaic requirements. These and similar instances, therefore, instead of proving that the Pentateuchal laws were in Nehemiah's time still in the process of formation, prove something entirely different. In the times of Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah there was a body of ceremonial laws not contained in the Pentateuch, and additions were made to this as occasion required. Instances of this are the third- shekel tax, the wood-offering, the special arrange- ments for reading the law, Neh. viii., the courses of the priests and Levites, Ezra vi. 18, the singing ritual, Neh. xii. 35, 36 and several other places, and in the main the arrangements in which the nethinim, the gatekeepers and other temple serv^- ants were concerned. These men speak of some of these arrangements as ancient, attributing them to David or others ; for some of them they them- selves take the responsibility. Had they been engaged at the time in creating the Pentateuchal 193 Pentateuchal Criticism. legislation, they would certainly have incorporated these laws into it instead of leaving them outside. This strongly confirms their direct testimony to the effect that the Pentateuchal laws were then an ancient and closed code. Silences. Finally, we have in these books the same phenomena that are sometimes so strenu- ously insisted upon in the case of the historical books that are earlier, namely, the recognition of certain Pentateuchal institutions, coupled with silence in regard to others, and with the mention of a body of institutions that are clearly non- Pentateuchal. Facts already examined prove this to be the case. Nobody would claim that these facts have the least weight to show the non- existence of the Pentateuch in the time Avhen Nehemiah was written ; men should be careful how they claim that precisely similar facts have great weight to show the non-existence of the Pentateuch in the times when the Books of Samuel, for example, were written. THE BOOKS OF KINGS. Tradition attributes these to the prophet Je- remiah. The latest event they record is dated in the first year of Evil-Merodach, king of Babylon, about sixty-five years after Jeremiah began to prophesy, in the thirteenth year of Josiah, 2 Ki. xxv. 27 ; Jer. xxv. 3, i. What- ever Jeremiah himself may have had to do with them, there is no reason to doubt that they were completed in his times, or that they were Historical Books, save Chronicles. 193 largely made up by the process of transcribing from older works. A hundred years or more later the Books of Chronicles were made by similar processes, transcribing with editorial changes parts of the contents of Kings and Samuel, either from these books themselves or from other sources, and adding other materials. Much of the testimony of the Books of Kings to the Pentateuch is found in the sections that are duplicated in Chronicles and should properly be treated there rather than here. Other parts of it have value only as they interpret the fuller statements made by the prophets. The present treatment is restricted by these considerations. The Direct Testimojty of the Books of Kings, I. Instances connected with Josiah's reform : ** Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, 1 have found tiie book of the law in the house of Jehovah ; and Hilkiah gave the book unto Shaphan, and he read it," 2 Ki. xxii. 8. ** Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath given me a book ; and Shaphan read it before the king ; . . .as the king heard the words of the book of the law, he rent his clothes," 10, 11. ** Inquire ye of Jehovah for me . . . concerning the words of this book that hath been found . . . because our fathers obeyed not the words of this book, to do according to everything written in it," 13. **Thus saith Jehovah, I am about to bring in evil ... all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read," 16. ** He read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of Jehovah. . . . To establish the words of this covenant which are written in this book," xxiii. 2, 3. 194 i:'ENTATEUCHAL CRITICISM. "The king commanded, . . . Make ye a passover to Jehovah your God, according- to what is written in this book of the covenant. For there had not been made the like of this passover, from the days of the judges who judged Israel, and all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah ; but in the eighteenth year of the king Josiah this passover was made to Jehovah in Jerusalem," 21-23. "Josiah consumed," the sorcerers, etc. "In order to establish the words of the law that were written in tlie book which Hilkiah the priest found. . . . And like him was there no king before him, who turned imto Jehovah with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength, according to all the law of Moses, and after him there arose none like him," 24, 25. 2. Other relatively late instances : Manasseh "put the graven image of the Asherah that he made into the house concerning which Jehovah said unto David and unto Solomon his son, ... if only they will observe to do according to all which I have commanded them, and to all the law which Moses my servant com- manded them," 2 Ki. xxi. 7, 8. "And Jehovah testified with Israel and with Judah, by the hand of every prophet of his, every seer, saying, . . . observe j^e my commandments, my statutes, according to all the law which I have commanded j'our fathers, and which I have sent unto you by the hand of my servants the prophets," 2 Ki. xvii. 13. " And they are not doing according to their statutes and according to their judgments, and according to the law, and according to the commandment which Jehovah com- manded the sons of Jacob, whose name he made Is- rael," 34. " And the statutes and the judgments and the law and the commandment which he wrote for you, ye shall observe to do forever," 37. "And the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Take ye thither one of the priests whom ye brought into exile from there, that they may go and dwell there, and niaj' teach Historical Books, save Chronicles. 195 them law, the usages of the God of the land. And one of the priests went in, . . . and was teaching- tlieni hiw, Jiow they should fear Jehovah," 27, 28. The word here trans- lated, " Teach them law," is the hiphil verb of the stem from which tlie noun torah comes. *' Tlie king of Ass3n-ia carried Israel into exile to Assyria . . . because tliey did not obey the voice of Jehovah their God, and transgressed his covenant, all which Moses the servant of Jehovah had commanded," xviii. 12. Hezekiah " removed the high places, and brake in pieces the statues, and cut down the Asherah, and brake up the brazen serpent that Moses made, because until those days, the sons of Isi-ael were burning incense to it," xviii. 4. ** He clave to Jehovah, he turned not aside from after him, and kept his commandments which Jehovah com- manded Moses," 6, 3. Relatively earlier instances : Amaziah '* smote his servants who had smitten the king his father ; and the sons of the smitei*s he slew not, accord- ing to what is written in the book of the law of Moses, that which Jehovah commanded, saying, Fathers shall not be put to death for sons, and sons shall not be put to death for fathers, but a man shall be put to death for his own sin," 2 Ki. xiv. 6. The citation is verbal, though not quite exact, from Deut. xxiv. 16. ** And Jehoash did the right in the eyes of Jehovah all his days, as Jehoiada the priest had taught him law," xii. 2 (3). Here the verb in the hiphil. *' And Jehu observed not to walk in the law of Jehovah," X. 31. David's charge to Solomon : ** And keep the ordinances of Jehovah thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, according to what is written in the law of Moses," 1 Ki. ii. 3. Solomon's language at dedication of temple : '* For thou thyself hast separated them to thee for an inheritance from all the peoples of the earth, accoi-ding as thou spakest by the hand of Moses thy servant, when thou broughtest out our fathers from Egypt, O Lord Jehovah," viii. 53. 196 Pentateuchal Criticism. "Blessed be Jehovah who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all which he spake ; not one word has fallen, of all his good word which he spake by the hand of Moses his servant. May Jehovah our God be with us, according as he has been with our fathers," 56, 57. "There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stones, which Moses placed there in Horeb, the covenant of Jehovah, which he made with the sons of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt," 9. This testimony is certainly very full and explicit to the effect that during every period of the his- tory recorded in the Books of Kings, Israel was in possession[of the written book of the law of Moses; that this written law included a large body of statutes, judgments, commandments and testi- monies ; that it had been in existence as the recognized legislation of Israel, sometimes obeyed and sometimes slighted, during the times of the Judges, of David and Solomon, and after Solomon in both the northern and southern kingdoms — that is, at every period from the days when Moses is said to have lived. The Books of Kings are less explicit in regard to the extent of this written law. If any one will read the above passages with their contexts he will see that great emphasis is placed on matters that are now contained in the Deuteronomic legis- lation. That this is true of the account given of the times of Josiah has been abundantly noticed ; it is alleged as a reason why we should believe that the Deuteronomic code originated at that time. But the Books of Kings testify that these matters were emphasized in the days of Amaziah Historical Books, save Chronicles. 197 and of Solomon just as sharply as in the times of Josiah ; it is not merely that the writers of the books so emphasize them, but that they say that Amaziah and Solomon emphasized them, and that all the kings of the northern kingdom were bound to do the same, and that Samaria fell because they failed of doing it. If the Books of Kings are to be believed, there can be no doubt that the legis- lative contents of Deuteronomy were in the Mosaic writings of which they speak, from the times of Moses himself. This holds true, whether the '' book of the covenant" of Josiah's time was the same with the '^ book of the law," or was only a section of that book ; whether Josiah's book of the law was the Deuteronomic law-book, or was the whole body of Mosaic writings, or was the Mosaic writings supplemented by those of suc- ceeding prophets ; whether the copy then found was the only one in existence (this is the traditional opinion, but is very improbable), or whether the attention it attracted was owing to its being a special copy. It does not follow from this that the Mosaic law-book mentioned by the Books of Kings con- tained nothing but the Deuteronomic legislation ; much less does it follow that no other Mosaic writings than Deuteronomy were in existence in those times. On the supposition that the writers of Kings knew of the priestly legislation, and regarded it as a part of the written law of Moses, it is yet not surprising that they should chiefly have in mind the Deuteronomic legislation rather 193 Pentateuchal Criticism. than that of the priest-code ; they were writing the history of the kings and of the people, and not that of the priests. ' The usage of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Joshua would lead us to infer that the term law, as used in the Books of Kings, commonly includes a large body of sacred writings besides Deuteronomy, and notably most or all the contents of the Pentateuch. This remains true, even if it is also true that in some passages (2 Ki. xvii. 13 e.g.) the term law, instead of denoting a book, is merely a general description of messages brought from Jehovah by the prophets; for the prophets regarded Moses as a prophet, and the messages he brought from Jehovah as a part of the aggregate of prophetic torah. The inference that the writers of Kings recognized other parts of the Pentateuch than Deuteronomy as Mosaic writings is confirmed by the details given in the parallel passages in Chronicles. Certain Phenomena in the Books of Kings. The absence from Kings of the abundant ceremonial details given in Chronicles is sometimes alleged, as an argument from silence, in proof that the ceremonial laws were not in actual existence when the Books of Kings were written. Yet no one would claim that this silence is absolute. Those who use this argument would admit the existence in Kings of a large number of references to matters now recorded in those parts of the Pentateuch which they regard as of later date than Kings. They would account for these partly as interpolations, and partly as traces of usages then existing, which Historical Books, save Chronicles. 199 were afterward incorporated into the written law. As this is an essay and not a volume, we have no space for instances, though many scores of instances might be gathered from the forty-seven chapters of these two little books. Take for example the Levitical terms used in the account of Elijah's sacrifice at Carmel, "cut in pieces," i Ki. xviii. 22, 23 ; "dress the bullock," 23, 25, etc.; "the going up of the Minhhah,'' 29, 36 ; or take the various dis- tinctions of sacrifices and the account of the disposal of the tabernacle and its vessels in the early part of Solomon's reign, i Ki. i. 39 ; ii. 28, 29 ; viii. 1-9, etc. If one assumes that parts of the Pentateuch were written later than the Books of Kings, and on the strength of that assumption counts all the passages that interfere with it as interpolations, he will of course not feel the force of this evidence ; but antecedent to such manipu- lation, these books by many instances confirm the inference drawn from Ezra and Nehemiah, instead of presenting a silence contradicting that inference. The confirmatory instances are too many and too marked to be otherwise explained. But it is alleged that customs described in the Books of Kings are inconsistent with the idea that the. Deuteronomic law was in existence before Josiah's time, or the priest-code until later. Prob- ably the strongest instance alleged is to the effect that Elijah's many altars, i Ki. xviii. 30 ; xix. 10, 14, are in contradiction with the Deuteronomic law of a central sanctuary. This will best be met later in connection with similar instances mentioned in the earlier books. 200 Pentateuchal Criticism. In fine, the Books of Kings testify to precisely the same proposition to which we have already found the other books testifying. There is simply no way to meet the testimony but by alleging it to be either false or unhistorical. The fictional hypothesis can be made to apply to a part of this testimony as to that of the other witnesses. This hypothesis is like a rubber band : it can be stretched almost indefinitely, but the more you stretch it the thinner it becomes. Improbable as it is when applied to the Pentateuchal narratives and the books of Joshua and Ezra and Nehemiah, it is yet more improbable when applied to the rest of the biblical history. But in dealing with the Books of Kings the choice of the anti-traditional critics lies between this and direct charges of interpolation or of positive falsehood. THE BOOKS OF JUDGES, RUTH, AND FIRST AND SECOND SAMUEL. Here is the stronghold of the advocates of the late origin of the Pentateuch. If the testimony we have been examining be true, then the Penta- teuchal writings and institutions were in existence throughout the period treated of in Judges, Ruth, and Samuel ; but it is alleged that these books contain no traces of them, and further, that the condition of things they actually depict is such as to render it incredible that the contents of our present Mosaic writings had then ever been heard of. As these conclusions are based mainly not on the testimony of the writers, but on certain Historical Books, save Chronicles. 201 phenomena in the writings that offer themselves directly to our observation, they are alleged to be more credible than the testimony of the other books, and to be a sufficient refutation of that testimony. This being the condition of the argument, we do not need to show that these books conclusively prove the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch ; we do not even need to show that a strong probable case in its favor can be made out from them ; yet further, we do not even need to do as much as to prove that their evidence is neutral — no more against our proposition than for it ; if we can merely show that their evidence is not strongly enough against our proposition to be decisive, that is all that can be required. If the case made out by our opponents from these books is anything less than this, the body of evidence we have been examining is sufficient to prove our proposition ; all the phenomena presented in these earlier books must be interpreted by it, and have no weight at all against it. Defenders of the traditional view need not feel called upon to maintain that the Mosaic system as a whole was in continual and complete opera- tion from Joshua to the middle years of David's reign ; on the supposition that the Mosaic regula- tions were in existence, their consistent observance was impossible in such circumstances as Israel was in during much of the reigns of the judges and of Saul. It is further evident that some of the positive usages of this period differed more or less 202 PinNTATETTCHAL CRITICISM. from those described in the Pentateuch; the £-oel of the Book of Ruth, for example, while his functions are in part those of the £^oel of Leviticus and Numbers, is yet in some respects quite dif- ferent from the latter. On the other hand, those who attack the traditional view admit that many institutions mentioned in the priest-code and the earlier parts of the Pentateuch appear, in some shape, in the times of the judges and early kings; from their point of view nothing can be more natural than this. We have here, they say, the rudimentary institutions that afterward ripened into the regulations of the written law. It is one of the customary allegations of the advocates of the late date of the Pentateuch that the prophets of Jehovah did not become literary men till about the times of Amos, somewhere about 800 B.C. If this were true it would have weight to show that the beginnings of the written law belong to that period ; but it is contradicted by all the testimony that ascribes writing to the times of Moses, and it is emphatically contradicted by the Books of Judges and Samuel, i Sam. x. 25 ; xxi. 13; 2 Sam. i. 18; viii. 16, 17; Jud. v. 14; viii. 14, etc. It is one of the often repeated assertions in regard to these books that they never so much as mention the torah. They use the noun torah, however, in 2 Sam. vii. 19, and the cognate verb in the same sense with the noun, Jud. xiii. 8; I Sam. xii. 23. It is said that they never quote from the earlier Historical Books, save Chronicles. 203 books. It is true that they never use long for- mulas of quotation like those used in Kings and Chronicles and sometimes in the New Testament ; but what seem to be verbal citations from various parts of the Pentateuch are very common in them. In the following example, for instance, from Jud. xi. 17-19, the parts enclosed in single commas are verbally from the account in Num. xx., xxi., while nearly every statement of Jephthah, Jud. xi. 14-27, comes from Numbers. There are slight changes in some of the verbal citations. ** * And sent' Israel ' messengers unto the king- of Edom,' to say, Met me pass, pray, through thy land.' And the king of Edom did not hearken ; . . . and Israel dwelt in Kadesh. And he M-ent into the wilderness, 'a^ndwent around the land of Edom,' and the land of Moab, and entered from the rising of the sun to tiie land of Moab, * and they encamped across Arnon,' and entered not within the border of Moab, * for Arnon is the border of Moab.* 'And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon the king of the Amorite,' king of Heshbon ; and Israel said to him, *Let us pass through thy land.' " It is difficult to explain this in any other way than by saying that Jephthah possessed and quoted the history as now found in Numbers. Or study Jud. ii. 1-3 : "And the angel of Jehovah came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, [Thus said Jehovah toyou], 'I will bring you up from Egypt,' and *I have brought you into the land which I sware to your fathers,' and I have said, I will 'not break my covenant with you' * forever,' and as for you, * ye shall not make a covenant with the inhabitants of this land ... Ye shall break down their altars.' And * ye have not hearkened to my voice.' What is this that ye have done? Now also I say, I will not 'expel 204 Pentateuchal Criticism. them from before you ; ' ' and they shall be to you for [tliorns in j^our] sides,' 'while their gods shall be to you for a snare.' " This speech of the angel consists of nine cita- tions from different parts of the Hexateuch, mostly the phrases that are often repeated there. To recognize the form of the citations is to clear up the obscurity of the passage. On the face of It this looks like a very distinct recognition of such passages as Ex. Hi. 17; Deut.vl.io; Lev.xxvl.44; Gen. xvil. 7; Ex. xxxlv. 12, 13; Deut. xxvili. 62 ; Ex. xxIII. 28; Num. xxxIII. 55 ; Ex. xxlil. 33. Similar instances are to be found in 2 Sam. vii. I, 12,24; in I Sam. vili. 3, 5, and indeed in very many places in these books. And if instances of this kind be accepted as establishing the fact that these books presuppose parts of the Hexateuchal writings, then the numerous places where they mention the previous history and the Penta- teuchal institutions may all be adduced as showing the extent to which their evidence covers the books we have. For example, they presuppose the policy of exterminating the Canaanites, Judges i. 28, etc. ; the history of the various Israelite tribes, and of the settlement under Joshua ; the coming out of Egypt and the accom- panying miracles, Jud. vi. 8-10; x. 1 1 ; xix. 30. I Sam. iv. 8, etc. ; the descent into Egypt, I Sam. xii. 8 ; the accounts of Esau, Moab, Ammon, Rachel, Leah, Pharez, Tamar, etc., Jud. xi. 17-20; Ruth iv. 11, 12-18 ; the biography of Moses and Aaron, i Sam. xii. 8, etc. ; the wars Historical Books, save Chronicles. 205 of Moses and Joshua, Jud. x. ii, etc. ; the history of Amalek, i Sam. xv., especially verses 2, 3, cf. Deut. XXV. 17-19; Ex. xvii. ; Hobab and the Kenites, i Sam. xv. 6 ; Jud. i. 16; iv. 1 1 ; cf. Num. X. 29, etc. ; functions of the gocl^ 2 Sam. xiv. 1 1 ; iii. 27 ; Ruth iv. ; Nazirite peculiarities, Jud. xiii. 5; I Sam. i. 11; the prohibition of foreign gods, i Sam. vii. 3, etc. ; usages respecting ceremonial cleanness, uncleanness, and holiness, 1 Sam. XX. 26 ; xxi. 5 ; religious laws against the eating of blood, I Sam. xiv. 32-34 ; against witch- craft, XV. 23 ; xxviii., etc. ; the priestly character of the Levites, Jud. xvii., etc. ; that the ark should be carried by men, and moved in no other way^ 2 Sam. vi. 13 and context. The Shiloh sanctuary meets the Pentateuchal requirements in the fol. lowing particulars, and perhaps in others : {a) The tabernacle was there, i Sam. ii. 22 ; {b) the ark was the centre of its sacredness ; (<:) it was served by priests descended from Aaron, ii. 28 ; {d') the only attendant mentioned is the Levite, Samuel ; (r) it was for '' all Israel," ii. 14 (the Hebrew), 22, 24, 28 ; iii. 20, etc. ; (/) it had its annual festival (whether more than one the narrative does not say), to which Israelites came up, i. 3, 7, 9,21 ; ii. 19, etc. ; (^) the festival had sacrifices peculiar to it, 1. 3, 21, etc.; (//) its solemnities consisted partly in the fact that they ate and drank in Shiloh, i. 7, 9. The altar service described in these books presents the following points of agreement with the Pentateuch, and the list is far from exhaustive : {a) the existence of rigid ceremonial laws which 306 Pentateuchal Criticism. it was a sin to neglect, i Sam. ii. 29; xiii. 11-13 ; 2 Sam. vi. 7, etc. ; {b) the high priest's ephod, 1 Sam. ii. 28 ; xiv. 3 ; xxi. 9 ; xxiii. 6 ; {c) the shewbread, xxi. 6 ; {d) the distinction between sacrifices for certain seasons and special sacrifices, i. 21 ; (r) the recognition of sacrifices in connec- tion with vows, i. 21 ; (/) the distinction of burnt offerings, peace offerings, etc., x. 8 ; xiii. 9 ; 2 Sam. vi. 18, etc. ; {g) the technical terms, "■ make atonement," " sacrifice," " minhhah," i Sam. iii. 14, Heb. ; (//) the burning of the fat on the altar, ii. 15; (z) the offering of meal and wine along with an animal victim, i. 24 ; (7) the irregularities of Eli's sons, ii. 13-17, which consisted partly in the use made of the " flesh-hook," an instrument unknown to the Pentateuch, and partly in the priest's claiming his fee before the fat was burned, contrary to Lev. vii. 29-34. Throughout these books such instances abound. Certainly they mention as many particulars in the Levitical laws as could be expected, on the supposition that these laws then existed, and their silence in regard to other particulars can hardly be regarded as significant. But it is alleged that in the instances given and in many other instances these books mention, sometimes with expressed or implied approval, usages differing from those of the Pentateuchal law. For instance, it is alleged that the sanctuary at Shiloh was (not the tabernacle, but) a temple, with doorposts, doors, and sleeping apartments ; but the sanctuary might be a temple and yet have Historical Books, save Chronicles. 207 the tabernacle within its precincts, with no roof over the ark save its curtains, i Sam. ii. 22 ; 2 Sam. vii. 6. It is alleged that in several of the accounts of sacrifices no priest was present ; the correct statement would be that the presence of a priest is not mentioned ; there is no proof in these cases that a properly qualified Levitical priest was not present, or that even Samuel ever performed a distinctive priestly act. It is al- leged that the word " minhhah," i Sam. ii. 17, 29; iii. 14; xxvi. 19, means "offering" rather than " meal offering ; " that not the high priest only, but also the other priests, and even Samuel and David, wore ephods, xxii. 18 ; ii. 18 ; 2 Sam. vi. 14; that Hannah offered an ephah of '' meal " with three bulls, instead of three-tenths of an ephah of "fine flour" for each bull, i Sam. i. 24; that the Pentateuch provides for no drawing of water and no burnt offering of a sucking lamb, such as are described in i Sam. vii. 6, 9. If we were shut up to the preternatural rigidity of interpretation which Christian tradition, in its zeal to magnify the contrasting liberty of the gospel, has sometimes insisted upon as belonging to the old covenant, some of these points might be difficult to explain ; but with a natural common-sense interpretation, reasonable explanations of them all are easy to find. More difficult to dispose of, on the traditional understanding of the history of David, are such facts as the priesthood of David's sons, 2 Sam. viii. 18, and David's attempt to move the ark on a 208 Pentateuchal Criticism. new cart, 2 Sam. vi. My own opinion is that the revival of ceremonial Mosaism under David began after the completion of his conquests, and of course after his sin and repentance (see i Chron. xiii. 5, and notes in The Old Testaine^it Student for Oct. 1887, pp. 61-65), ai^d that these events are to be explained like the similar shortcomings of the times of Saul. Chief among these points of difficulty is the alleged fact that Israel, in the times of the Judges and of David, and later, in the times of Elijah, was sacrificing at various places, and not at one central altar only, as required by the law in Deut. xii. But there is no proof that some of these altars, Saul's altar, for example, i Sam. xiv. 35, or Gideon's shrine at Ophrah, were re- garded as legal. Again, there is no proof that the sacrifices at Ramah and Bethlehem, i Sam. ix. 12, 13 ; XX. 6, and others like them, were any- thing else than private sacrificial feasts, such as are explicitly provided for in the law, Deut. xii. 15, 21. Again, it cannot be proved that such sacrifices as those of I Sam. vi. 14, 15; vii. 7 ; x. 8 ; 2 Sam. vi. 13, were not, within the meaning of the law, sacrifices at the central sanctuaiy. Finally, the law of Deut. xii. is conditioned on the existence of " the place " that Jehovah should choose, and of " rest " from Israel's enemies round about ; it is the often reiterated testimony of these books that these conditions were but imperfectly in existence during the period from Joshua to David. In such conditions, as in the conditions in which Elijah lived, the law was in abeyance. Historical Books, save Chronicles. 209 Evidently these books contain no proof of the non-existence of the Mosaic writings strong enough to overcome the testimony of the other books. On the contrary, they confirm that testi- mony. OUTLINE OF THE ESSAY. 1. The Obvious Design of the Books of Chronicles. 2. Their Testimony Touching the Mosaic Legislation and the Levitical Institutions in Direct Conflict with the Recent Critical Theories of the Penta- teuch. 3. Their Testimony Rejected and Pronounced Untrust- worthy by Critics. 4. Questions of Language, Numbers, Genealogies, and Religious Opinions. 5. Reproduction of Addresses and Hymns. 6. Alleged Self-contradiction. 7. Alleged Discrepancies. (a) 2 Chron. i. 3-6. (6) 2 Chron. ii. 2-15. (c) Wellhausen's Treatment of 1 Chron. x. and xi. 8. Alleged Improper Omissions of Facts. 9. Additions Alleged to be Unhistorical. (a) A(!C0unts of Miraculous Events. (5) List of Warriors in 1 Chron. xii. (c) Additions Concerning Rehoboam, Shishak, and Zerah. (c?) Manasseh's Captivity and Repentance. (e) Prominence of the Levites in the History. (/) David's Plans and Preparations for the Temple. 10. Untrustworthy Character of Chronicles Not Proven. CHRONICLES AND THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION. BY PROF. MILTON S, TERRY, D.D., GARRETT BIBLICAL INSTITUTE, EVANSTON, ILL. I. The Books of Chronicles were obviously de- signed to furnish the Jewish people a record of their national history from its beginning to the time of their return from the Babylonian exile. They are prefaced by a collection of genealogies, but the more detailed narrative begins with the reign of David, under whom Jerusalem became the chosen seat of the national government and worship. The author refers to seventeen docu- mentary sources, consisting of historical annals, prophetical monographs and commentaries on the same, and dwells at length on those acts of David and Solomon which tended to centralize the wor- ship of Israel. He lived some time after the Babylonian exile, was probably a priest, and aimed to enhance in the minds of his readers the theo- cratic calling of the Jewish people and the sacred character of their institutions. A work of this kind would have been naturally prompted by the circumstances of the Jews after the rebuilding of the temple and the organization of the returned exiles at Jerusalem. Indeed it could hardly have been otherwise among a people of any liter- ary activity than that a number and variety of 214 Pentateuchal Criticism. such historical narratives should have been pro- duced, and those which obtained greatest cur- rency and commanded most respect would sur- vive, while the less important and useful would fall into neglect and at length be lost. So, too, the sources from which such historical narratives are compiled may be so far superseded by a com- prehensive, convenient, and well-arranged work as to be of no further practical value and perish from sheer neglect. What care ninety-nine out of a hundred readers of Gibbon's ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire " for the sources whence he drew? 2. In the recent criticism of the Pentateuch it has been seen that the Books of Chronicles are irreconcilably adverse to the theory which denies the Mosaic origin of the Levitical legislation, and finds it in the time of the Babylonian exile and later. There is no possible way for critics who adopt this theory to escape the opposing testimony of the writer of Chronicles except by destroying his credibility. For his testimony to the antiquity of the Aaronic priesthood and the existence of the Levitical laws during the period of monarchy is not limited to a few incidental allusions, or to exceptional passages which may be rejected as interpolations of a later hand. It is interwoven with his entire narrative, and cannot be separated without destroying the whole. He has mani- festly taken much pains to compile an accurate genealogy of the great families of the tribe of Levi (i Chron. vi.). He everywhere recognizes Chronicles and Mosaic Legislation. 215 the sons of Aaron as consecrated for the services of the altar and the holy places, and speaks of this arrangement as an ordinance of Moses (vi. 49; xxiii. 13; xxiv. 19; 2 Chron. xxvi. 18; XXXV. 14). The priests and Levites had their dwellings among the other tribes (i Chron. vi.), and after the secession of the northern provinces they flocked in large numbers to Jerusalem as to an asylum (2 Chron. xi. 13, 14; xiii. 9-12). The Levites figure prominently in carrying the ark, and are regarded as the only proper persons for that work (i Chron. xv). Uzziah was smitten with leprosy for presumptuously attempting to offer incense, which only the anointed priests might do (2 Chron. xxvi. 16-19). In I Chron. xxiii.-xxvi. we have a detailed account of the thorough organization and classification of the priests and Levites under the direction of David. Solomon is represented as carrying out these Levitical customs according to the ordinances of his father David and according to the commandment of Moses (2 Chron. viii. 12-16). Under Jehoshaphat the Levites and the priests were appointed to de- cide matters of controversy among the people, and the high priest was over them in all matters per- taining to the service of Jehovah (2 Chron. xxi. 8-1 1). It was the high priest Jehoiada who, with the captains and Levites, restored Joash to the throne (2 Chron. xxiii.), and during his reign observed certain laws " that Moses the servant of God laid upon Israel in the wilderness" (2 Chron. xxiv. 9). The great reforms effected under Hezekiah and 316 Pentateuchal Criticism. Josiah were also due to the diligence and faith- fulness of the priests and Levites. These various testimonies of the existence and thorough organi- zation of the Levitical priests, taken almost at random from different sections of Chronicles, show beyond controversy that to the writer's mind the Aaronic priesthood was no late development of the time of his nation's exile. It was an institution old as the days of Moses, and the royal hand of David had secured a more systematic arrangement of its orders and classes. 3. It is accordingly evident that the testimony of Chronicles is overwhelming against the new development theory of the Levitical legislation. The only question over these post-exilian records is one of credibility. Has the compiler furnished us a trustworthy narrative of facts? To this question a considerable number of critics answer, No. Colenso,* following Gramberg,t ac- cuses the Chronicler of intentional and system- atic working over the older records so as to make them serve the interests of the priests and Levites. He charges him with willful departures from the truth of history, and does not hesitate to set aside, as unworthy of credit, any statements which stand opposed to his own theories of Jew- * Lectures on the Pentateuch and the Moabite Stone. London, 1873. f Die Chronik nach ihrem geschichthchen Character, und ihrer Glaubwiirdigkeit neu geprtift. Halle, 1823. Chronicles and Mosaic Legislation. 217 ish history. But Graf,"^ Kuenen,t Wellhausen,:j: and others of the more recent critics, while regard- ing the book as unhistorical, and even in parts purely fictitious, hold that the author should not be charged with intentional forgery or conscious falsifying of history, but that he was so far under the influence of the spirit of the age in which he lived that he read the ideas and customs of his own times into the older history of his nation. His production, accordingly, is of the nature of a pious fraud, but so fully in harmony with the notions of the time that no one would then have regarded it as improper or untruthful. Our desire is to know whether these records are true or false. It is no ground of reasonable com- plaint that an annalist like the writer of Chron- icles adopted some special phase or conception of his nation's history, and selected and grouped his subject-matter accordingly. So long as he ad- hered to his plan, perverted no truth, and made no misrepresentations, we are bound in all honesty and honor to allow him his own chosen method of handling his theme. But if he has deliberately coined fictitious genealogies, and pretended to cite a dozen or more written sources when his only authorities were our present books of Samuel and Kings ; if he has willfully written down as * Die geschichtlichea Bucher cles Alten Testaments. Leipzig, 1866. t The Religion of Israel. London. 3 vols. 1882-3. X Prolegomena to the History of Israel. Edinburgh, 1885. 218 Pentateuchal Criticism. sober and solemn fact what never had existence except in his own fancy, then he deserves expos- ure and severest condemnation. The essentially- bad character of such a fraud forbids our calling it " pious ;" it was rather " desperately wicked." 4. The limits of this essay will not permit a de- tailed examination of all the points at which the Chronicler is said to be in error. We must there- fore confine ourselves to the more serious allega- tions, and if we find that they are insufficient to disparage the credibility of these post-exilian books we may be sure that the smaller difficulties are capable of reasonable explanation. We ac- cordingly pass over such questions of minor im- portance as those of linguistic peculiarities and orthography. Nor is it necessary here to examine the charge of a uniform exaggeration of numbers, for the same difficulty meets us in the Books of Samuel and Kings, and there are instances in which the Chronicler has the smaller and more probable number (comp. I Chron. xi. 1 1 with 2 Sam. xxiii. 8 ; i Chron. xxi. 12 with 2 Sam. xxiv. 13, and 2 Chron. ix. 25 with i Kings v. 26). The genealogies are a field for endless speculation and confusion, but no fair critic will permit questions so complex to prejudice him against our author, It appears from Ezra ii. 62 and Neh. vii. 64 that great effort was made after the exile to trace cor- rectly the genealogy of the people, and some were unable to prove their tribal lineage. To affirm that the Chronicler has invented his lists of names is the most absurd of all hypotheses. We know Chronicles and Mosaic Legislation. 219 that there are many ways in which family and tribe registers might have been reckoned, and numerous apparent discrepancies might be very easily reconciled were we in possession of all the data which the original compiler had before him. Similar difficulties exist in all ancient documents of this sort, and the genealogies of Chronicles will afford no good ground of suspecting the trust- worthiness of the author, providing the more seri- ous complaints against him are set aside. Nor need we linger over such unreasonable arguments as that the writer has introduced his religious opinions and observations in connection with cer- tain parts of his narrative. For why should he not ? In what way does it disparage his account of Saul's death to observe that he perished on account of his disobedience, and his asking counsel of a sorceress? The author of i Samuel abundantly teaches the same thing. And when the Chronicler says that Satan moved David to number Israel (i Chron. xxi. i), or gives a peculiar reason for Solomon's removing his Egyptian wife ''out of the city of David" (2 Chron. viii. 11), or observes that Ahaziah's destruction Avas a judg- ment of God (2 Chron. xxii. 7), we fail to see that such observations conflict in the least with the credibility of his narrative touching the acts of David, Solomon, or Ahaziah. Our critics extol Samuel and Kings as superior historical records in comparison with Chronicles, but why should not the notion that Saul was possessed by an evil spirit (i Sam. xvi. 14; xviii. 10), and that a false 230 Pentateuchal Criticism. spirit went forth from the presence of Jehovah to fill the mouths of Ahab's prophets with lies (i Kings xxii. 19-23), disparage these books also, and oblige us to reject their testimony? 5. The Chronicler has been severely- criticised for attributing to David and others addresses which bear evidences of being his own compo- sition, and for putting into the mouths of the Levites of David's time a psalm (i Chron. xvi. 8-36) which is composed of portions of three psalms (xcvi. ; cv. 1-15; cvi. i, 47, 48) from the fourth book of the Hebrew Psalter. On questions of this kind we simply appeal to the common cus- tom of the biblical writers, who seem not to have aimed at literal transcription of such matters, but rather reproduced in their own style and language the substance of thought. Other historical books besides Chronicles have abundance of illustra- tions. One has but to compare the correspond- ence between Solomon and Hiram as given in I Kings v., 2 Chron. ii., and Josephus' "Antiqui- ties," viii. 2, 6, to see with what freedom Jewish writers reported matters of this kind. The psalm of I Chron. xvi. is most naturally explained as a free reproduction out of familiar songs, by the writer himself, of what was sung on the occasion of bringing the ark into Jerusalem. The psalms which were sung on such an important occasion would be likely to become widely known, and often modified by the hand of poetical redactors. In like manner such an address as that of David in I Chron. xxix. would be reported with even Chronicles and Mosaic Legislation. 231 greater freedom than the letters of Solomon and Hiram, or the speech of Rabshakeh in 2 Kings xviii. 19 ff. 6. Of the self-contradictions alleged against our author, the most notable is that of 2 Chron. XXXV. 18 as compared with xxx. 26, In the thir- tieth chapter we have an account of a remarkable passover in the reign of Hezekiah, and at verse 26 it is said that "there was great joy in Jerusalem; for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel there was not the like in Jeru- salem." But in chapter xxxv. we have the de- scription of another passover, under Josiah, of which it is written (ver. 18) : ''There was no pass- over like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet ; neither did any of the kings of Israel keep such a passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel that were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem." Many a careful and critical reader might go re- peatedly over these passages and their entire con- nection, and wonder how any one could insist on finding a self-contradiction therein. It is sufficient to observe: (i) In neither passage is it stated that no passover had been observed since the days of Samuel. (2) If, under Hezekiah, there were held a passover more notable than any since the time of Solomon, it does not follow that Josiah, a generation later, might not have held another in many respects more remarkable than that of Hezekiah. (3) If, however, the Chronicler were 223 Pentateuchal Criticism. mistaken in his judgment that no such passover had occurred before, it would not be sufficient ground to challenge his record of the acts of Hezekiah and Josiah. The events of their time and the institutions and customs of that period as related by this writer cannot fairly be called into question even if it be admitted that the ex- pression of such opinions is a fault. 7. We pass to examine some of the more serious allegations of irreconcilable discrepancy between parallel narratives of Samuel and Kings. One of these is 2 Chron. i. 3-6 as compared with i Kings iii. 4. 1 Kings iii. 4: ** And the king went to Gibeon to sacri- fice til ere ; for that was the great higli place : a thousand burnt offerings did Solomon offer upon that altar." 2 Chron. i. 3-6 : *' So Solomon, and all the congregation with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon ; for there was the tent of meeting of God, which Moses the servant of the Lord had made in the wilderness. But the ark of God had David brought up from Kiriath-jearim to the place that David had prepared for it ; for be had pitched a tent for it at Jerusalem. Moreover the brasea altar, that Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made was tiiere before the tabernacle of the Lord : and Solomon and the congregation sought unto it. And Sol- omon went up tliitiier to tlie brasen altar before the Lord, which was at the tent of meeting, and offered a thousand burnt offerings upon it." In analyzing these different statements we ob- serve : (r) That both affirm Gibeon to have been a notable high place, to which Solomon went up to sacrifice, and offered a thousand burnt offerings upon its altar. (2) Chronicles adds that all the congregation accompanied the king to Gibeon. Chronicles and Mosaic Legislation. 233 (3) Chronicles adds that David had conveyed the ark into Jerusalem, and put it in a tent which he had there prepared for it. This same fact is also afifirmed in 2 Sam. vi. 17. (4) Chronicles adds further that the tent which Moses made in the wilderness, and the brasen altar made by Bezalel (comp. Exod. XXXV. 30; xxxviii. i, 2), were at that time at Gibeon. This last statement troubles the negative critics. *' It is altogether improbable," says De Wette, " that the Mosaic tent, even if it were yet in ex- istence, would have been brought to the high place of Gibeon, and separated from the ark which had been set up at Jerusalem."* To others, how- ever, it seems no more improbable than that the ark should have been left for twenty years in the house of Abinadab at Kiriath-jearim, and not taken back to its place in Shiloh. The probabil- ities in such a case will be likely to shape them- selves according to a critic's desire. The common and very reasonable supposition, supported by I Sam. xxi. 1-9; xxii. 18, 19, and these statements in Chronicles (comp. i Chron. xvi. 39 ; xxi. 29), that the tabernacle had been removed from Shiloh to Nob, and from thence to Gibeon, is rejected by De Wette and others of his school of thought, but evidently for no better reason than that it does not accord with their own theories of Israelitish history. But it is doubted whether the old Mo- *Lehrbuchderhist.-krit. Einleitung-, p. 373. Ed.Schrader, Berlin, 1869. 224 Pentateuchal Criticism. saic tent were yet existing. There were, accord- ing to I Kings vi. i four hundred and eighty years between the Exodus and the building of the tem- ple. Was it possible for such a tabernacle and its sacred vessels to endure four centuries? Those who have admired the tapestries of Raphael, now nearly four hundred years old, and like to remain as many centuries more, will have no doubt as to the possibilities in this case ; and if an ordinary table used by Luther is still preserved in a sound and enduring condition, it is certainly quite pos- sible that an altar of acacia wood, overlaid with brass, might have lasted five hundred years. But the more recent critics reject all accounts of the Mosaic tabernacle which represent it as the place of sacrifice. With them it is a fiction of post- exilian writers, and modeled after the plan of Solomon's temple. All the account of boards and curtains and holy vessels, detailed with such fullness in Exodus xxv.-xxvii., is the invention of some priestly writer, who desired to show a Mosaic oricrin for the elaborate cultus of later times. Of course critics who have gone to this extreme can- not accept such statements as are found in 2 Chron. i. 3-5, and they accordingly set these troublesome passages aside by pronouncing the author untrust- worthy. To others, however, the straightforward, simple statements of the Chronicler are very much more credible than the hypothesis of these critics. The construction of a tent by Moses, with furniture and arrangements like that described in Exodus Chronicles and Mosaic Legislation. 225 XXV. ff., is no more difficult to conceive than that Ezekiel in exile planned the elaborate structure described in the closing chapters of his prophecy. That all the principal parts of such a tabernacle might have been preserved until the time of Solo- mon is undeniable. Structures less substantial have remained for a longer period. Add to these considerations, which sufficiently answer the pos- sibilities and probabilities of the case, the fact that in the Books of Judges and Samuel we have posi- tive testimony of the existence of a building cor- responding in all essentials with ^' the tent of meet- ing" mentioned in Chronicles. Thus in Judges xviii. 31 we read of the house of God which was in Shiloh, and according to chapter xxi. 19 there was ^' a feast of Jehovah from year to )'ear " in that place. In the first two chapters of I Samuel we find that pious Israelites were wont to go up annually to sacrifice at the house of Jehovah at Shiloh. There abode the high priest and his sons, descendants of Aaron, to whom God revealed himself in Egypt, and "chose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up unto mine altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me " (i Sam. ii. 28). After the capture of the ark by the Philistines, and its consequent separation from the house of God at Shiloh (i Sam. iv., v.), the worship of Israel became greatly demoralized. David attempted a thorough reorganization, but it was not fully accomplished until the time of Solomon. In view of all these things we submit that there is no good ground for impeaching the 226 Pentateuchal Criticism. testimony of Chronicles respecting the tabernacle and worship at Gibeon. Another example of discrepancy between Chron- icles and the older books is thus represented by Graf: ** The account of the negotiations between Solomon and Hiram in reference to the building- of the temple (2 Chron. ii. 2-15) is only a free working over of the narrative of 1 Kings V. 15-25 (Eng. ver. 1-10), with divers inaccurate and arbitrary additions, and with reminiscences out of other places. For the sake of enumerating in one list all the costly materials to be used for the temple and its ves- sels, and having at the same time in mind the description of the tabernacle (Exod. xxv. ff.), the author represents the Tyrian artist Hiram as skillful, not only in working all sorts of metals, but also for weaving, carving wood, etc. (verse 13, Eng. ver. 14); but according to 1 Kings vii. 14 and his works as enumerated in 2 Chron. iv. 11-16, he was only a worker in brass. So, too, in naming all species of costly wood which was to be used in the temple, he lets the sandal wood (algum trees) come from Lebanon (ver. 7 (8)). It is in keeping with such inaccuracy when, through a slip of memory, which has needlessly occasioned exposi- tors too much troublesome and artificial effort at harmoniz- ing, he makes Hiram the son of a woman of Dan (ver. 13 (14)), whereas according to 1 Kings vii. 14 he was the son of a widow of Naphtali. As he, however, in his statement had Exod, xxxi. 2 ff., xxxv. 30 ff. in mind, he here thought of Oholiab of the tribe of Dan (Exod. xxxi. 6, xxxv. 34), for evidently at verse 13 (Eng. ver. 14) the passage in Exod. xxxv. 34, 35 was floating before him.* That the compiler of Chronicles has freely worked over numerous sources of information, the Books of Kings included, is simply what we may *Die geschichtlichen Biicher des Alt. Test., p. 127. Leipzig, 1866. Chronicles anj> Mosaic Legislation. 227 reasonably suppose every annalist would do, and what this writer manifestly assumes to do when he repeatedly refers us to his authorities. A free handling of documentary sources need not be a false handling. But when our author is charged "with many inaccurate and arbitrary additions," and with working up an erroneous description by means of confused reminiscences of other persons and events belonging to an entirely different period, we demand that the evidence for such a grave attack be something besides capricious fancies. Let the candid reader weigh Graf's speci- fications and note how utterly they fail to sustain his serious charge. I. The Chronicler must, forsooth, be untrust- worthy because he represents Hiram as competent to work in stone and wood and woven fabrics as well as in metals, whereas in Kings he is spoken of as only a worker in brass. May it not be equally reasonable to believe that the author of Kings is here at fault, and has not done justice to Hiram in failing to mention that he could work in other material besides brass ? Observe that neither the Chronicler nor the author of Kings essays to write a history of the life and works of the artist Hiram of Tyre. He is mentioned incidentally as the famous workman employed in the building of the temple. Suppose two modern writers describe briefly, in a sketch of the IMiddle Ages, the build- ing of St. Peter's at Rome. One mentions the architect, Michael Angelo, as famous for his works in marble, but says nothing about his skill in paint- 228 Pentateuchal Criticism. ing, or his working for sixteen months on a bronze statue of JuHus, or his appointment to rebuild an ancient bridge across the Tiber ; while the other, writinp; some time after, makes mention also of these and other works of the great artist. Must the later writer therefore be adjudged guilty of arbitrary and unauthorized additions? Our critic observes that in chapter iv. 11-16 the Chronicler himself mentions only works in metal. If, there- fore, the Chronicler failed to realize that he had contradicted himself, or was chargeable with an irreconcilable discrepancy in his own narrative, it is only a captious criticism that finds here an evidence of error. It is certainly probable that one who was skillful in working all that is men- tioned in I Kings vii. 14 ff. and 2 Chron. iv. 1 1 ff. was also competent to w^ork in other material than metal. 2. But how could the artist's mother be " a woman of the daughters of Dan" and also " a widow Avoman of the tribe of Naphtali ? " Two very reasonable answers have often been given to this question. She may have been a native of the famous city Dan, which was in the tribe territory of Naphtali, and not very far from Tyre ; or, what is perhaps a better view, she may have been by birth of the tribe of Dan and by marriage and the loss of her husband a widow of the tribe of Naph- tali. Either of these suppositions touching the mother of so distinguished a person as the archi- tect of Solomon's temple seems immeasurably more commendable than that the writer con- Chronicles and Mosaic Legislation. 229 founded him with " OhoHab, the son of Ahisa- mach, of the tribe of Dan " (Exod. xxxv. 34). It is as easy to believe that he could confound him with Hiram, king of Tyre. 3. The bringing of sandal wood or algum trees *' out of Lebanon," which is usually regarded as an inaccuracy, need not be exalted into a grave offense against truthfulness when it is remembered that Hiram's navy brought this wood, as well as gold and precious stones, from Ophir (i Kings X. II ; 2 Chron. ix. 10). If Hiram had carried on no commerce with Ophir, and none of its sandal wood came to the Phoenician ports, there would have been more ground to complain of the state- ment in question. But if this wood were first brought into Hiram's ports, and conveyed thence along with the cedar and cypress of Lebanon to Joppa, it would have been most natural to mention it as the Chronicler has done. If some one as skillful as our modern critics had of old called the Chronicler's attention to this inaccuracy he would probably have considered it of too little impor- tance to change. Wellhausen thinks that Graf has not improved upon De Wette's adverse criticism of the Books of Chronicles. He holds that the great task of such criticism " is not to collect the details of evidence, but so to shape the superabundant ma- terial as to convey a right total impression." * * Prolegomena to the Hist, of Israel, p. 172. Edinburgh, 1885. 230 Pentateuchal Criticism. This singular principle of criticism, as practically illustrated by the work of Wellhausen himself, means that the critic must not cautiously and soberly inquire, first, if there be any irreconcilable discrepancy between Chronicles and the older books, but must so " shape " the points in ques- tion as always to put the Chronicler in a bad light. This, of course, enables him to transform even the slightest differences of statement and all abridg- ments of old narratives into deliberate and trans- parent mutilations of the original records. That we do not misrepresent or overstate the matter we will show by quoting at length the very first example which Wellhausen sets for shaping ma- terial so as to convey a right impression: "After Jehovah had slain Saul (so begins the narrative of Chronicles) he turned the kingdom unto David, the son of Jesse. All Israel gathered themselves unto David to Hebron, and anointed him king over Israel, according to the word of Jehovah by Samuel (1 Chron. x. 1 ; xi. 3). How simply and smoothly, and wholly without human intervention, according to this version, did the thing come to pass ! Quite otherwise is it in the narrative of the Book of Samuel. This also indeed has the statement of Chron- icles word for word, but it has something over and above which gives quite a different aspect to the matter. Here David, on the lowest step to the throne, is the guerilla leader in the wilderness of Judah, who is finally compelled by Saul's persecutions to pass over to the Philistine terri- tory, there, under the protection of the enemies of his nation, carrying on his freebooter life. After the battle of Gilboa he avails himself of the dissolution of the kingdom to set up a separate principality in the south as a vassal of the Philistines ; he is not chosen, but comes with a follow- ing six hundred strong and offers himself to tlie elders of Judah, whom he has already at an earlier period laid under Chronicles and Mosaic Legislation. 201 oblig-ations to liini by various favors and gifts. In tlie mean time Saul's cousin Abner takes over wliat of the king-- dom there is, not for himself, but for the legitimate heir Ishbaal; from Gilead, whither the government had been transferred after the great catastrophe, he gradually re- conquers the territory west of the Jordan, and is scheming how to recover also the lost Judah. Tims it comes to pro- tracted struggles between Abner and David, in which fortune is most on the side of the latter, yet he does not leave the defensive or gain the sovereignty over Israel. That falls into his hands rather by treachery. Abner him- self, indignant at the ingratitude of his royal nephew, offers the crown to liis rival, and enters into negotiations with him about it ; but as he immediately afterward falls a victim to blood revenge, nothing comes of the matter until Ishbaal is privily murdered in his sleep by two of his captains ; then at last the elders of Israel come to Hebron, and David becomes king in succession to Saul. What a length of time these affairs demand, how natural in their develop- ment, how many human elements mingle in their course — cunning, and treachery, and battle, and murder ! Chron- icles indeed knows them all well enough, as is clear from incidental expressions in chaps, xi. and xii., but they are passed over in silence. Immediately after his predecessor's death the son of Jesse is freely chosen by all Israel to be king, according to the word of Jehovah by Samuel. The sequence of x. 13, 14, xi. 1, does not admit of being under- stood in any other way, nor is it in point of fact otherwise understood, for it has actually been successful, at least to this extent that the kingship of Israel has virtually dropped out of traditional Bible history; after Saul came David is what is said. We have before us a deliberate and in its motives a very transparent mutilation of the origmal nar- rative, as preserved for us in the Book of Samuel." * The unlearned reader, who has not been trained to " shape " the biblical narratives after this * Ibid. pp. 172, 173. 233 Pentateuchal Criticism. fashion, will be amazed at this example of the higher criticism. He would probably never before have imagined, even from the brief narrative in i Chron. x. and xi., that Jehovah slew Saul and turned over the kingdom to David, " wholly without human intervention." He would probably never have supposed that the Chronicler himself ex- pected to be so understood. But being so informed he would naturally revert to such statements in the Book of Samuel as that where Saul is told : " Jehovah hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbor of thine that is better than thou" (i Sam. xv. 28). He would also remember that according to the account in 2 Samuel ii. David did not '* offer him- self to the elders of Judah," nor force himself upon them on the ground of former favors, nor menace them with a shov/ of six hundred warriors, but was directed by Jevohah himself to go up unto Hebron. Thither the men of Judah came to him to make him their king as voluntarily as did all the other tribes at a later time (v. i), and there is nothing in the older records anywhere to warrant the statement that he was " not chosen." All these representations of the matter are the product of the critic's power to '' shape " the con- tents of old records, and if some do not see things in the same way they must be classed w^ith " critics who are unencumbered either by prejudice or by knowledge of the subject " (Wellh. Proleg. Hist., p. 271). These must learn that all passages in Samuel or Kings which breathe the theocratic Chronicles and Mosaic Legislation. 233 spirit of the Chronicler are accretions of later times. The passages above cited from the Books of Samuel which teach as positively as Chronicles that Jehovah rejected Saul and elevated David to the throne are ruled out as redactions of pro- phetical scribes, who aimed to shape the old tra- ditions and narratives into harmony with their notions of what ought to have been. A consequence of the Chronicler's deliberate and transparent mutilation of original narratives is, " that the kingship of Ishbaal has virtually dropped out of traditional Bible history." Such a ^' suc- cessful" distortion of history doubtless would de- serve severe condemnation were it not, perhaps, unfair to demand of this annalist that he should detail everything he knew. He has deliberately ''passed over in silence" David's lament for Saul and Jonathan, his kindness to Mephibosheth, his adultery and blood-guiltiness in the matter of Uriah, Nathan's parable, Absalom's rebellion, the defeated counsel of Ahithopel, and his consequent exasperation and suicide — all these and many other events, which simple-minded readers will be surprised to learn, have ''virtually dropped out of traditional Bible history." So far from having fallen out, they are among the most familiar things of Bible story, and it may be doubted if an abridged sketch of them by the Chronicler would have added one whit to their currency. " Chron- icles knows them all well enough," we are told, as appears from incidental expressions, " but they are passed over in silence ;" hence we are called 234 Pentateuchal Criticism. upon to believe, as the only upright conclusion, that the compiler has deliberately mutilated his sources of information with some motive to mis- lead his readers. With a criticism which, in order '' to convey a right total impression," shapes its material after this method the unsophisticated reader will find it hardly practicable to grapple. He needs per- haps no great amount of learning and logical acumen to perceive that this critic creates difficul- ties where there are none, perverts the import of the most simple and transparent narrative, and arbitrarily rejects any passage, wherever found, which conflicts with his theory of Israel's history. Surely one may be pardoned for suggesting that such a shaping of the material of history exhibits habits and motives for the mutilation of ancient narratives as transparent and as questionable as any to be found in Chronicles. 8. It is common for the negative critics to cen- sure the writer of Chronicles for omitting from his narrative facts discreditable to David and other honored kings. No mention is made of David's adultery, and the death of Uriah, and Absalom's rebellion, and Hezekiah's subserviency to Sen- nacherib, and his robbing the temple to meet the demands of the Assyrian king, and other things of similar character. These omissions are indeed noticeable, and doubtless one reason for them is that the writer did not take pleasure in recalling them or giving them any additional notoriety. With a feeling which we need not pronounce Chronicles and Mosaic Legislation. 235 blameworthy he preferred to pass them over in silence. So a Protestant historian of the Refor- mation, whose object was not to chronicle every detail of place and person might truthfully extol the work of John Calvin and give him a very large place in his narratives, without the slightest allusion to the matter of Servetus. Such an omis- sion would be no discredit to his head or his heart. Our author had his scope and plan, which did not include all the events of his people's history. To assume that he was not at liberty to choose one side or aspect of that history, select and group his facts accordingly, and omit from his record not only what did not comport with his plan but what his soul took no delight in, is to deny one of the most obvious rights of an author. To assume further that such omissions forfeit our confidence in the truthfulness of what he does record, is to erect a principle of criticism which cannot long commend itself to thoughtful men. 9. More serious is the charge that our author has deliberately recorded as facts numerous mat- ters which are destitute of historical or credible foundation. It is strenuously alleged that in order to promote the interests of the Levitical priest- hood he has perverted the statements of older narratives, and even interpolated mythical stories. So far as Chronicles contains accounts of the supernatural or the mythical, it is sufficient for our present discussion to compare them with sim- ilar elements in Samuel and Kings. We make no attempt here to maintain the possibility or the 236 Pentateuchal Criticism. probability of the biblical miracles. We simply affirm that if the miraculous events recorded in Chronicles are a valid reason for impeaching the testimony of these books on matters not miracu- lous, then it follows, a fortiori, that there is no valid ground for accepting any of the narratives of the older books, for every faithful reader knows that Samuel and Kings contain a vastly greater number of miraculous tales than Chronicles. But our critics without exception pronounce the former more trustworthy than the latter. To many stu- dents of this criticism there appears at this point a capricious inconsistency. The Chronicler is dis- paraged for his record of the marvelous destruc- tion of Moab and Ammon (2 Chron. xx.), and of Jehovah's answer by fire from heaven upon the sacrifices of David and Solomon (i Chron. xxi. 26; 2 Chron. vii. i), and these are the examples of the mythical commonly complained of in this writer. Why not then reject Samuel and Kings with even heavier condemnation for such stories as God's word to Eli by a little child (i Sam. iii.), and the plagues which the ark brought to the Philistines and their idol (v.), and Samuel calling the thunder from the sky (vii.), and his communication with Saul through the witch of Endor (xxviii.), Jeho- vah's march before David in the tops of the mul- berry trees (2 Sam. v. 24), and all the marvelous acts of Elijah and Elisha narrated in the Books of Kings? It does not help the matter to say that all these miraculous stories are indeed rejected by the critics. If we concede that they were all in- Chronicles and MosxVic Leqislation. 237 serted by the prophetical redactor of these older books, they nevertheless formed a part of the record, as they now do, when the Chronicler com- piled his narrative. Why then disparage the lat- ter and commend the former? For aught that fair criticism can demonstrate, the Chronicler had at command and used as trustworthy sources as any of the authors or redactors of Samuel and Kings. A noteworthy addition of Chronicles is the list of warriors " who came to David to Ziklag while he yet kept himself close because of Saul the son of Kish " (i Chron. xii. 1-22). What rational ex- planation can be given for introducing, without documentary authority, such a piece as this? And how unworthy of an ingenuous critic, in view of the contents of this document, to imply (as does Wellhausen in his '' shaping materials so as to convey a right total impression," see above), that the Chronicler tried to conceal the fact that David was for a long time an outlaw and freebooter, driven to resort to the Philistines on account of the persecution of the son of Kish? No docu- ment embodied in the Books of Samuel or Kings bears better internal evidence of genuine antiquity than this twelfth chapter of First Chronicles, and nothing but the most reprehensible partisan plead- ing could reject its statements because they are not extant in any other written form. In the doc- ument contained in verses 23-40 of this same chapter, which furnishes a detailed enumeration of the "all Israel " mentioned in chap. xi. i, there 238 Pentateuchal Criticism. appears no good ground to question the substan- tial correctness of the somewhat surprising num- bers given. It would indeed excite more sus- picion, as Zockler observes (Lange, Com. in loco), if the military strength of the tribes had been more exactly proportioned to data found in the Book of Numbers. With as little show of reason can one contro- vert what the Chronicler has added by way of supplement to Rehoboam's history, or respecting the number and nationality of Shishak's forces, or Abijah's war with Jeroboam. The defeat of Zerah the Ethiopian by Asa accords with all we know of the times, places and parties referred to. That such an Ethiopian warrior advanced into Judah to recapture cities which Asa had been fortifying (2 Chron. xiv. 6, comp. xi. 8), and was checked and driven backward by the Jewish forces, is far more probable than that the Chronicler would have inserted such a statement if it had no foun- dation in credible history. Jehoshaphat's victory over Moab and Ammon receives incidental con- firmation in the prophecy of Joel (iii. 11-14; Hebrew text iv. i-ii). The narrative of Manasseh's captivity, deporta- tion to Babylon, restoration and reforms, has been most defiantly pronounced unhistorical. For why should not Kings record such a remarkable fact? How could Jeremiah have spoken as he does in his chap. xv. 4 if Manasseh had repented and de- stroyed the idolatrous altars which he had pre. viously erected ? Why is not the king of Assyria Chronicles and Mosaic Legislation. 239 named, and, most absurd of all, why should the king of Assyria take Manasseh to Babylon ? Ques- tions like these were formerly put with an air of confident triumph by adverse critics, And the en- tire story was rejected as blunderingly apocryphal. But how utterly overwhelming the answer to much of this when Esarhaddon's inscription was de- ciphered and published to the world ! In this the son of Sennacherib declares, among other things : ** I assembled twenty-two kings of the land of Syria, and of the seacoast and the islands, all of them, and I passed them in review. I assembled the kings of Syria and of nations beyond the sea : Baal, king of Tyre ; Manasseh, king of Judah ; Kadumukh, king of Edom ; Mitzuri, king of Moab," etc.* It ap- pears also that Esarhaddon builded a palace and actually reigned in Babylon for many years, a fact not known of any other Assyrian king.f Ptolemy's canon names him in its list of Babylonian kings. But so far as the Book of Kings affords us any knowledge, it does not appear that any king of Assyria disturbed Judah or the neighboring states during the entire period of Manasseh's long reign. We ask our critics in turn why the author of Kings has failed to make the slightest allusion to such an important fact as the *' assembling " of Manasseh along with other captive kings before Esarhaddon? Surely the Assyrian inscription puts that fact beyond any reasonable doubt. Pitiable * Records of the Past, vol. iii. pp. 107, 120. f Smith's Diet, of the Bible, art. Esarhaddon', Raw- linson, Hist. Evidejices, etc., p. 122; Herod., vol. i. p. 483. 240 Pentateuchal Criticism. is Wellhausen's attempt to disparage the bearing' of the inscription on the question here at issue {Proleg. p. 207). It needed no mention of chains or deportation, or what was done with the thrones of Judah and Tyre and Edom and Moab, to con- firm the substantial accuracy of the Chronicler. The silence of Kings touching Manasseh's res- toration, and the reforms attributed to him in Chronicles, no more discredits these statements than it does the fact of his capture by the forces of Esarhaddon. If we accept the latter it would be arbitrary and capricious to reject the former. The remarkable confirmation by the monuments of what before seemed so inexplicable goes far to put an estoppel on all assumptions based upon the silence of any biblical writer. That such a man as Manasseh should have been suddenly humbled by captivity, and upon restoration to his capital should have done the things ascribed to him in 2 Chron. xxxiii. 14-16, is in itself by no means improbable. These things might all have taken place in so short a time and have accom- plished so little in checking the prevailing idolatry of the age, and withal have amounted to so little in changing the general character and effect of Manasseh's reign, that the writer of Kings had reason to pass them over in silence."^ But that which more than anything else stands * For other considerations in favor of the credibility of Manasseh's captivity and conversion, in reply to Graf's hypercriticism, see Gerlach's article in the Studien und Kritiken of 1861, page 503 fif. Chronicles and Mosaic Legislation. 241 in the way of the new critics is the prominence which the Chronicler gives to the Levites. They figure notably in the bringing of the ark into Jerusalem ; they are numbered and classified by David and arranged into twenty-four houses of Levites (i Chron. xxiii.), twenty-four courses of priests (chap, xxiv.), and as many classes of singers (chap. XXV.). The porters were also arranged in several divisions according to the gates (chap, xxvi.), and there was a similar organization of the military and civil officers of the realm (chap, xxvii.). David is also said to have collected a great abundance of material, including various spoils amassed from the time of Samuel (chap. xxvi. 20-28), which was set apart for the house of Jehovah, and he enjoined Solomon his son to build the temple, showing that he himself had been restrained from so doing, and in an assembly of the chief men of the kingdom he submitted plans for the building, and said many things befitting such an occasion (chap, xxviii.-xxix.). All sorts of objections to these statements have been raised and most explicit denials have been made ; yet there they stand, so simple and reason- able in themselves and without any essential con- flict with other written accounts that it is evident to every unbiased student that nothing but the exigencies of a preconceived hypothesis of Israel's history leads to their rejection. For consider a moment the method of Well- hausen in so shaping the account of the bringing of the ark into Jerusalem as to convey a certain 243 Pentateuchal Criticism. '' total impression." In 2 Sam. vi. we are told that David gathered a vast host of the Israelites to bring up the ark from the house of Abinadab, where it had remained for many years (comp. I Sam. vii. i, 2). The offense of Uzzah occa- sioned its being carried aside and left in the house of Obed-edom three months, ''and Jehovah blessed Obed-edom and all his house. And it was told King David, saying, Jehovah hath blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God. And David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the city of David with joy. And it was so, that when they that bare the ark of Jehovah had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling " (2 Sam. vi. 11-13). Thus briefly the author of Samuel tells the story, but the reader must carefully peruse i Chron. xiii., xv. and xvi. to see how much more fully the Chron- icler records the details of this joyful event. But observe now what an impression these variations make on Wellhausen : ** Chronicles tells that Jehovah blessed the house of Obed-edom (xiii. 14), but mentions no consequent result ; again the cause is given without the effect. Another explanation is substituted ; David perceived that the dis- aster connected with the removal of the ark was due to the fact of its not having been carried by the Levites in accord- ance with tiie law ; the Levites accordingly were made to bear it and no harm ensued (xv. 2, 13-15). This is in com- plete and manifest contradiction to the older narrative, and as Chronicles (chap, xiii.) copies that narrative it also (jontradicts itself (xiii. 10), and that all the more strikingly as by the addition in xiii. 2 it represents the accompanying Chronicles and MosArc Legislation. 343 clerg-y as tacitly approving the carrying- of the ark on the ox-cart."* The only trouble, however, with this critic is the presence of these "clergy." He thinks the author of Chronicles "cannot allow anything to happen without Levites." He, on the contrary, cannot allow anything to happen with them. But we opine that the careful reader, who is not anx- ious to secure the "total impression" aimed at by this negative critic, will discover no contradic- tions in the narratives. He will remember that, according to the writer of Samuel, when the Phi- listines returned the ark to Israel, the Levites were present and took it down from the cart (i Sam. vi. 15); and why might not the same "clergy" have tacitly approved the moving of it into Jeru- salem by the same method? After the disaster by the way, how perfectly reasonable that they should have approved another method ? The sac- rifices mentioned in 2 Sam. vi. 13 as well as those in I Sam. vi. 15 most naturally presuppose some kind of officiating priests, and as the Levites are mentioned in the one instance, we may without any contradiction or inconsistency suppose that they were present and officiated in the other. There is no " complete and manifest contradic- tion " anywhere except with the theory of the critics. As for the Chronicler's account of David's ex- tensive preparations for the temple, his organizing of the priests and Levites, and giving plans and * Proleg. to the Hist, of Israel, p. 176. 244 Pentateuchal Criticism. counsels to Solomon touching the building of the temple, all these things, if not explicitly men- tioned, are in the main implied in the older nar- ratives of Samuel and Kings. According to I Sam. vii. David proposed to build a magnificent temple but was forbidden by the word, of the Lord through Nathan. He was assured, however, that his son should build the house of God, and perpetuate his kingdom forever. He was a skillful musician, a thorough organizer, and consummate chieftain and general, and brought shields of gold which he captured in war to Jerusalem. Solo- mon's classification of officers was in its general form an inheritance received from his father David (comp. 2 Sam. viii. 15-18 with i Kings iv. and the corresponding lists in i Chron. xxvi., xxvii.), and David's charge to Solomon in i Kings ii. is sim- ilar to that more fully given in i Chron. xxviii. and xxix. The latter supplements but in no way contradicts the former. In view of the above facts as recorded in the older narratives we submit : (i) That after the profound impression made upon David by the word of God through Nathan, it would have been strange if he had not interested himself in provisions and plans for the future tem- ple. His setting apart the accumulated spoils of his kingdom for this purpose is more than prob- able. (2) It is highly improbable that along with such counsels as, according to i Kings ii., David in his old age gave his son and successor, he failed ever to speak to him and his princes of plans for that house of God which the word of prophecy Chronicles and Mosaic Legislation. 245 had assured him his son would build. (3) In view of David's military genius and when the captains of his army subordinate to Joab were so thor- oughly organized as the census conducted by them implies (2 Sam. xxiv.), it is not probable that the ministers of the sanctuary, subordinate to Zadok and Ahimelech, were left without classification and arrangement. There being therefore no improbability in what the Chronicler has added to the older narratives, we are not at liberty to reject his statements. Most of his additions touching David's provisions for the temple and organization of the Levites are implied in the older records. 10. We have now briefly reviewed a fair num- ber and variety of the weightiest objections which have been urged against the credibility of the Books of Chronicles. Like similar arguments against the Gospel records, they either rest upon false assumptions or else arise from unwarranted inferences. Too often they- have been magnified and falsely colored by such a "shaping" of the material as we have seen illustrated by Well- hausen. But there is no reason in the world why these old post-exilian records should be thus dis- credited except the exigencies of a critical theory which is seen to fall to pieces before the facts v/hich they relate. TESTIMONY OF THE PROPHETICAL AND POETICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT TO THE PENTATEUCH. BY PReF. HENRY M. HARMAN, D.D. In this paper we shall adduce the passages in these Books that refer either directly or indirectly to the Pentateuch itself or to its institutions, and discuss them as fully as our limits will allow. We shall first take up the Prophetic Books, beginning with the latest, Malachi. The date of the ministry of this prophet is about B. C. 440, as is manifest from internal evi- dence, eighteen years after Ezra came up to Jeru- salem from Babylon, so that whatever references Malachi makes to the Mosaic law must be to our present Pentateuch. In i. 7, 12-14 he censures the offering of polluted sacrifices and blind and maimed animals, with reference to Lev. xxii. 22 and Deut. xv. 21. He upbraids them for not paying tithes (iii. 8-10), in reference to the law in Lev. xxvii. 30; Num. xviii. 21, and to Deut. xxvi. 12. In ii. 1-9 he addresses the priests, and declares : " My covenant was with him [Levi] of life and peace . . . but ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi." Here the covenant with Aaron is called the covenant with Levi, the tribal head, in which there is a reference to Exodus xxix. 9 : " And the priest's office shall be theirs [Aaron and his sons'] for a perpetual statute," and 248 Pentateuchal Criticism. to other passages in the Middle Books of the Pen- tateuch. The language of Malachi is similar to that of Deut. xxxiii. 8, 9, where what belongs to Aaron is attributed to Levi. But the most important passage is Mai. iv. 4 : " Remember ye the law [Torah] of Moses my ser- vant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, the statutes and judgments." In Lev. xxvi. 46 it is stated : " These are the statutes and judgments and laws which the Lord made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses." Sinai seems to have been a prominent peak in the range of Horeb. This legislation embraced all the laws which are found in Exodus and Leviticus, and perhaps also in the first part of Numbers, as the departure of the Israelites from the wilderness does not occur until we reach Num. x. 13. A large part of Num- bers is historical, and Deuteronomy is largely a repetition and reinforcement of previous laws, so that the legislation at Horeb or Sinai was the first and chief legislation. But undoubtedly Malachi refers to the whole Torah or law, and declares it was given to Moses from God. He does not say that Moses wrote the law, though there can be no reasonable doubt that he believed that Moses did, but that the law came from Moses. But according to the new critical school, only a small portion of the laws of the Pentateuch at most can have origi- nated with Moses, and a very large part is the work of Ezra, a contemporary of Malachi, so that laws and regulations introduced in his own age, the Prophetical and Poetical Books. 249 prophet and teacher believed, came from Moses ! Or did Malachi act in collusion with the priests to palm upon the people a new code? Certainly not, for he rebukes the priests. Haggai, who prophesied about B. C. 520, when the Jews were rebuilding the temple, refers to the present Pentateuchal law in the following language : " Ask now the priests concerning the law \ToraJi\, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy ? And the priest answered and said, No. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be un- clean ? And the priest answered and said, It shall be unclean " (ii. 11-13). The 12th verse refers to Lev. vi. 2^^ where it is stated, *' Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof [the sin offering] shall be holy." The question proposed is. Does the skirt containing the holy flesh render holy whatever it touches, just as the holy flesh does? Which is answered in the negative. The 13th verse refers to Num xix. 11: ''He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean," and also to verse 22 : '' Whatsoever the unclean person touch- eth shall be unclean." In chap. ii. 17 there is a clear reference to Deut. xxviii. 22. In the first passage the prophetic curse is, " He will smite thee with blasting and with mildew," and in the second is its fulfillment : " I smote you with blasting and with mildew." In both passages in the Hebrew the verb to " smite " and the two nouns " blast- 250 Pentateuchal Criticism. ing " and ''mildew" are the same. In i. i, 12, 14; ii. 2, 4, mention is made of Joshua the high priest^ who is always associated with the governor Zerubbabel. In ZecJiariaJi, who prophesied at the same time as Haggai, we find references to the feast of taber- nacles (xiv. 16, 18, 19), according to the law in Lev. xxiii. 34, 43, and Deut. xvi. 13. Joshua tJie high priest is mentioned in iii. 1,8; vi. 11; and in iii. 5 the mitre upon the high priest's head is designated according to the arrangement in Exod. xxxix. 28 ; Lev. viii. 9. It is evident, then, that the high priesthood was not the contrivance of Ezra. In Zech. iv. 2 we have a reference to the golden candlestick with its seven branches, ac- cording to the arrangement in Exod. xxv. 37. Ezekiel, who lived and prophesied in Chaldea during the first part of the Babylonian captivity, makes many references to the Mosaic laws, and even to some of those very laws which the new school of critics contend that Ezra or the prophet himself wrote. In iv. 14 he declares : '' From my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth." Here he refers to the precepts in the Pentateuch: the "torn" in Ex. xxii. 31 ; "that which dieth of itself " in Lev. xvii. 15;" the abominable thing" in Deut. xiv. 3. That is, he had observed these prohibitions from about B. C. 575, when he was but a child. In v. 6, 7 the Israelites are repre- sented as violating the judgments and statutes of Prophetical and Poetical Books. 251 God — words found in the Pentateuch to express the Almighty's commands. In vii. 26 he refers to the Mosaic law : '' But the law [Torah] shall per- ish from the priest." In xi. 12 God declares: *' Ye have not walked in my statutes, neither exe- cuted my judgments." Also in verse 20 we have "statutes" and ''ordinances." In chapter xvi. 38-40, God says : '' I will judge thee as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged . . . they shall stone thee with stones." In Lev. xx. 10 it is declared that the adulteress shall be put to death, but the manner is not prescribed. If, there- fore, the passage in Leviticus is later than the one in Ezekiel, it is strange that the kind of death is left indefinite. In Deut. xxii. 21, 24, unchaste maidens in certain cases are to be stoned to death. In xviii. 6, it is said respecting the righteous man : " He hath not come near to a menstruous woman [in reference to Lev. xviii. 19] ; hath restored to the debtor his pledge . . . hath not given forth upon usury [verses 7, 8, with reference to Exod. xxii. 25, 26, etc.] . . . hath walked in my stat- utes, and hath kept my judgments to deal truly." In XX. 10-15 God makes the following declara- tion : " Wherefore I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness. And I gave them my statutes and showed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them. Moreover, also I gave them my sabbaths . . . the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my 252 Pentateuchal Criticism. judgments . . . then I said I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness to consume them. But I wrought for my name's sake that I should not be polluted before the heathen in whose sight I brought them out. Yet also I lifted up my hand unto them in the wilderness, that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, flowing with milk and honey." This very important declaration was made in the seventh year of Jehoiachin's captivity, about B. C. 593, about five years before the destruction of the first temple and about one hundred and thirty- five years before Ezra came to Jerusalem from Babylon. The passage affirms that God gave statutes and judgments to the Israelites in the desert, and it makes palpable references to the history of the Israelites as found in the Middle Books of the Pentateuch. The phrase, '' which, if a man do, he shall even live in them," is the language of Lev. xviii. 5. The oath that the children of Israel should not enter the land of Canaan, but be consumed in the wilderness, refers to Numbers xiv. 23, 28, 29. Again in xx. 23 : "I lifted up mine hand unto them also in the wilderness that, I would scatter them among the heathen, and dis- perse them through the countries." This refers both to Lev. xxvi. 33 and Deut. xxviii. 64. For in the first or these passages zarah, scatter, is used, and hephits, disperse, in the second. In verse 42 the declaration, " Into the country for which I lifted up mine hand to give it to your fathers," there is a Prophetical and Poetical Books. 253 reference to Gen. xv. i8 ; xvii. 8 ; xxvi. 3 ; xxviii. 13. *' Her priests have violated my law and have pro- faned mine holy things. They have put no differ- ence between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sab- baths " (xxii. 26). Here the prophet refers to the Torah (law) of Moses, doubtless, and to the pre- cepts found in Lev. xxii., which treats of things profane and holy, unclean and clean. '' She poured it [the blood] upon the ground " (xxiv. 7), with reference to the precept in Lev. xvii. 13, where it is enjoined to pour out the blood and cover it with dust. In the command to Ezekiel not to exhibit signs of grief, the head is not to be uncovered and the lip is not to be covered (with hair) (xxiv. 17-23), with reference to Lev. x. 6; xiii. 45. In xxviii. 13 ; xxxi. 9, reference is made to the garden of Eden. In xxxiii. 15 the restora- tion of the pledge is mentioned with reference to the precepts in the Pentateuch. In xxxvi. 27, God's " statutes and judgments " are referred to, doubtless those of the Pentateuch. In verse 38 the "solemn feasts " of Jerusalem are mentioned, evidently those found in the Pentateuch. In the rebuke of the children of Israel, the prophet de- clares that they have brought strangers into the sanctuary of God " to pollute it, even my house, when ye offer my bread [the name of sacrifice in Leviticus], fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant because of all your abomina- tions. And ye have not kept the charge of mine 254 Pentateuchal Criticism. holy things" (xliv. 6-8) (about B. C. 574). In these passages the reference is to Lev. xxi. 6-8 ; iii. 16; xvii. 11, where the bread of God and the fat and blood of sacrifice are mentioned. These sacrifices are declared by Ezekiel to be of divine appointment. In Ezekiel's description of the qualifications and duties of the future priests (xliv. 15-31) we find a repetition for the most part of the regula- tions of the Middle Books of the Pentateuch, which proves Ezekiel's acquaintance with them. In some matters, however, Ezekiel departs from the regulations of the Pentateuch. Nor is this at all strange in an ideal state of the future, in which the Levites have a tract of land nearly fifty miles by twenty (xlviii. 13): Issachar bordering on Simeon (verse 25) and Gad on Zebulon. The city has twelve gates. All these descriptions are contrary to the geographical relation of the tribes^ and in contradiction of the number of gates Jerusalem had. There are other descriptions of a similar unreal character. Can any one suppose that Ezekiel was ignorant of the geography and topography of Palestine? If, then, some of his regulations are different from those of the Penta- teuch, does that prove his ignorance of them ? Certainly the returning exiles never dreamed of fashioning their commonwealth after the idealistic plan of Ezekiel. The Prophet Jeremiah, whose ministry extends from B. C. 629 to 589, makes many references to a system of laws manifestly written correspond- Prophetical and Poetical Books. 255 ing to those of our Pentateuch. In ii. 8 the prophet says : " The priests said not, Where is the Lord ? and they that handle the law [Torah] knew me not." In iii. 8 : ''I had put her [adulterous Israel] away and given her a bill of divorcement," is a reference to Deut. xxiv. 3, where a man, under given circumstances, may give his wife a bill of divorcement and dismiss her. *' I beheld the earth, and lo, it was with- out form and void " (Thohu vavohu, iv. 23), v/hich is the language of Gen. i. 3, and shows that the prophet had before him the EloJiistic account of creation, and proves the falsity of the theory of Graf and others that this part of the Pentateuch was written after the Captivity. For it is easy to see, by a reference to the context in Jeremiah, that he uses the passage in an accom- modated sense, and that it is not original with him. '' How do ye say we are wise, and the law \ToraJi\ of the Lord is with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he it ; the pen of the scribes [sophcrim^ copiers of the law] is in vain " (viii. 8). However this passage be translated or explained, the reference to a written law of Jehovah is evident. " They have forsaken my law [Torah] which I set before them " (ix. 13). '* Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant which I commanded your fathers in the day I brought them forth out of- the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, say- ing, Obey my voice, and do them according to all which I command you . . . that I may per- 256 Pentateuchal Criticism. form the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey." Here Jeremiah declares that God gave commandments to the children of Israel when he brought them out of Egypt. He thereupon commands them from God: ^* Hear ye the words of this covenant and do them " (xi. 3-6), clearly showing that he regarded the Pentateuch of his day — at least its commands — as having originated in the desert during the forty years' wandering. Jehovah's oath to the patriarchs, referred to by Jeremiah, is found in our present Pentateuch. In XV. 10 the prophet declares : " I have neither lent on usury, nor have men lent to me on usury," in reference to the various precepts in the Penta- teuch upon this subject. They shall not ^' cut themselves nor make themselves bald for them " (xvi. 6), in reference to the precept in Lev. xix. 28; Deut. xiv. I. ''They have forsaken me and have not kept my law \ToraJi\ " (xvi. 11). '' For the law \_Torah'] shall not perish from the priest" (xviii. 18). In xxxi. 5 it is said : ''The planters shall plant vineyards and profane them," which refers to Lev. xix. 23, where it is enjoined that when the Israelites plant any kind of fruit trees they shall not eat any of the fruit for three years. Hence, to profane a vineyard is to eat of its fruit. In xxxi. 31-33 God declares that he will make a new covenant with the house of Israel different from the one he made with them when he brought them up out of Eg>^pt ; that this new covenant he will write upon their hearts, which shows that Prophetical and Poetical Books. 357 the first covenant was written upon something else. In xxxii. 8, Hanameel. the son of Jerenaiah's uncle, addresses the prophet respecting a field in Anathoth : '' The right of inheritance is thine, buy it for thyself." This passage refers to Lev. XXV. 25. " If thy brother be waxen poor and hath sold away a part of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold." In xxxiv. 13, 14, God declares that in the day he brought the Israelites out of Egypt he made a covenant with them, saying, " At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother a Hebrew who hath been sold unto thee ; and when he hath served thee six years thou shalt let him go free from thee." This law is found in Exod. xxi. 2; Deut. XV. 12. It is declared, as we have seen, that this law was enacted when the Israel- ites came out of Egypt. In the following pas- sages there is reference evidently to the Mosaic law : " Neither have they feared nor walked in my law, nor in my statutes that I set before you and before your fathers." '' Nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies " xliv. 10,23). "A fire and a flame . . . shall devour the corner of Moab and the corner of the head of the tumultuous ones" (xlviii. 45). Ge- senius"^" rightly regards this passage as an imitation of Num. xxiv. 17: ''A sceptre shall rise out of Israel and shall smite the corners of Moab." * Heb. Lex. XV^ , and Com. Sam. Pent. 258 Pentateuchal Criticism. But notwithstanding the references in Jeremiah to the Mosaic legislations in the desert, it has been contended by some critics that he did not believe in the divine origin of the sacrificial sys- tem of the Pentateuch. The proof text is the following: ''Add your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices and eat )^e flesh. For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices, but this thing I commanded them, saying. Hearken unto my voice, and I will be your God and ye shall be my people" (vii. 21-23). It can be clearly shown that this language does not necessarily mean that God absolutely said nothing and gave no commandment about burnt-offerings and sacri- fices. In Gen. xlv. 8 Joseph in Egypt tells his brethren : " Ye did not send me hither, but God." But according to Gen. xxxvii. 28 Joseph's brethren sold him to the Ishmaelites who were going into Egypt. Of course the meaning is that Divine Providence had arranged his coming into Egypt. In the same manner, in Exod. xvi. 8, Moses says to the Israelites, '' Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord ;" yet in the second verse of this very chapter it is said, *' The whole congregation murmured against Moses and Aaron." Similar is the language of I Sam. viii. 7, where God says to Samuel when the Israelites demanded a king, '' They have not re- jected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them." But in fact they Prophetical and Poetical Books. 259 had rejected Samuel. A similar passage is also found in 2 Chron.xx. 15. There are passages also in the New Testament of a similar nature. The Apostle Paul declares that " Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel " (i Cor. i. 17). We might infer from this not only that Paul never baptized, but also that in his judgment baptism is not a Christian ordinance. But he himself tells us that he baptized several persons (i Cor. i. 14- 16). Again, in i Cor. ii. 2 he says, '' I determined not to know any thing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified," which cannot be taken in an absolute sense, nor can the language of Christ, *'In secret have I said nothing" (John xviii. 20). The passage in chapter vii. of Jeremiah, under discussion, shows in the most striking manner the superiority of obedience to the divine commands to sacrifices and burnt offerings, and the utter worthlessness, and even hatefulness, of these forms, when those who offer are polluted by crime. In the ninth verse of this chapter the prophet asks, '' Will ye steal, murder, and com- mit adultery, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not ; and come and stand before me in this house?" Also in vi. 20 it is said: " Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifice sweet unto me." It is in the same spirit that Samuel reproves Saul : *' Hath the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to 260 Pentateuchal Criticism. hearken than the fat of rams." Similar is Hosea: " For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice." This might seem an absolute rejection of sacrifice ; but the second clause of the verse weakens its force: " And the knowledge of God more than burnt of- ferings " (vi. 6). But further, it is difficult to believe that Jere- miah did not regard as Mosaic the sacrificial and priestly system of the Pentateuch. The follow- ing passages seem to make this matter clear : " For thussaith the Lord . . . neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat offerings, and to do sacrifice continually" (Jer. xxxiii. 17, 18); and, " Thus saith the Lord. If ye can break my cove- nant of the day, and my covenant of the night . . . then may also my covenant be broken with David "... and my covenant " lait/i the Le- vites the priests^ my ministers'' (xxxiii. 20, 21). But further, it is acknowledged by our new criti- cal school that Deuteronomy was already in ex- istence in the time of Jeremiah, and there can be no doubt that it was recognized by him who was among the priests. Now sacrifices and burnt of- ferings are clearly enjoined in Deuteronomy. Again, in Exodus xx. 24-26, standing in close connection with the giving of the lav/ from Sinai, we find directions respecting the sacrifices they shall make to God. This passage is manifestly the oldest precept upon sacrifice, as it leaves in definite the place where it is to be offered. In Exodus xxii. 20 it is said, '' He that sacri- Prophetical and Poetical Books. 261 ficeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed ; " and in Exodus xxiii. 1 8 it is enjoined, '' Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread." Now our skeptical critics acknowledge that Exodus xxi.- xxiii. is the first legislation. Lastly, it seems utterly incredible from the nature of the case that Moses should have said nothing about sacrifice. In Zephaniah^ who flourished about B. C. 625, there is a reference to the Pentateuch in the fol- lowing words: "Her [Jerusalem's] priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law {Toralf^ " (iii. 4). In Habakkuk, about B. C. 625, the Pentateuch is referred to as follows : '*■ The law [ ToraJi\ is tor- pid"(i.4.) In Nahiun, about B. C. 630, we find the follow- ing: " O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows "(i. 15). This language implies the di- vine institution of the Jewish feasts, and probably refers to the regulations of the Pentateuch re- specting vows. The prophet Micah, who prophesied in Judah B. C. 750-725, has several references to the Pen- tateuch. In V. 6 Assyria is coupled with the land of Nimrod in reference to Gen. x. 8-12 ; and in vi. 5, ''O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gil- gal," there is a reference to Numbers xxii-xxv. i. *' He hath showed thee, O man, what is good. 263 Pentateuchal Criticism. and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God " (vi. 8). This passage seems to be based upon Deut. x. 12, ''And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul." The prophet Isaiah, who flourished in Judah B. C. 758-705, makes various references to the Book of the Law, and to institutions of the Pen- tateuch. In i. 11-14, we find named ''sacri- fices," "burnt offerings," "new moons," "sab- baths," " the calling of assemblies," and " ap- pointed feasts." It is true that the Almighty de- clares that these services displease him, and on this ground our skeptical critics argue that sacri- fices were not a divine institution. But they for- get that their logic proves that the Sabbath also is not a divine institution, which certainly proves too much and therefore proves nothing. God de- clares that he will not hear their prayers : their hands are full of blood. This last clause explains the rejection of the sacrifices and the outward services of the Jews. In iii. 9 the prophet refers evidently to the Pentateuchal history : " They declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not." "And the Lord will create over the whole habita- tion of Mount Zion, and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night " (iv. 5). Here the refer- ence is to " the pillar of a cloud " that guided the Prophetical and Poetical Books. 263 Israelites by da}% and to " the pillar of fire" by night, in their journeys through the desert (Exod. xiii. 2i), and which also rested upon the taber- nacle (Ex. xl. 38). It is clear from the nature of the case that the passages in the Pentateuch are the original. '' They have cast away the law \ToraJL\ of the Lord of hosts " (v. 24). " Bind up the testimony, seal the law \Tora]i\ among my disciples " (viii. 16). '' To the law [ ToraJi\ and to the testimony" (viii. 20). In these three pas- sages the reference is doubtless to the Mosaic law. Again, in reference doubtless to the Penta- teuch, '' They have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant " (xxiv. 5). '* In that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book" (xxix. 18) ; that is, as Gese- nius understands it, '' the Book of the Law."* We have also, *' children that will not hear the law of Jehovah " (xxx. 9). '' Ye shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept " (xxx. 29). Gesenius very properly understands by this feast, the Passover, \ '^ Seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read" (xxxiv. 16). The reference here is to Isaiah's prophecies as forming, it would seem, a part of a collection of sacred writings. *' Thy first father hath sinned " (xliii. 27), in ref- erence to Gen. iii. 6. In 1. i a " bill of divorce " is mentioned, in reference to Deut. xxiv. i. In li. 2 Abraham and Sarah are named, and in verse 10 there is a reference to the miraculous passage *Heb. Lex. Sub. n?D. fHeb. Lex. Sub. Jn. 264 Pentateuchal Criticism. through the Red Sea. *' For as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth," etc. (Hv. 9,) refers to Gen. ix. 11, which is EloJiistic. Hosea, who prophesied chiefly among the ten tribes (B. C. 785-725), makes various references to the Pentateuch. The comparison of the children of Israel to a woman who leaves her husband and goes after other men is a favorite simile with Hosea to set forth the apostasy of Israel from the true God and their devotion to idolatrous worship. For example : '^ The land hath commit- ted great whoredom, departing from the Lord " (i. 2) ; and '' They have gone a whoring from under their God" (iv. 12). The simile is obvi- ously based on the language of the Pentateuch. In Ex. xxxiv. 15 it is said, ''Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods." Quite similar is Deut. xxxi. 16. ''I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths and all her solemn feasts" (ii. 11), which manifestly refers to the in- stitutions of the Pentateuch. In iv. 6, it is said, "Thou hast forgotten the law [Torah'] of thy God " (iv. 6). In v. 10 mention is made of '' them that remove the bound," in reference to Deut. xix. 14; xxvii. 17. '' They have transgressed my covenant and trespassed against my law " (viii. i). "Their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners : all that eat thereof shall be pol- Prophetical and Poetical Books. 265 luted " (ix. 4). This seems to refer to Deut. xxvi. 14. " But they went to Baal-peor, and separated themselves unto that shame ; and their abomina- tions were according as they loved " (ix. 10). The context shows that the prophet refers to what Israel did in the Exodus, and the reference is clear to Numbers xxv., in which there is a de- scription of the conduct of Israel, " who joined himself to Baal-peor," and of the calamities that overtook the people, and a statement of the prom- ise to Phinehas of an everlasting priesthood. The school of Wellhausen puts this chapter in Num- bers into the Codex of the priests, which, accord- ing to their theory, was written about the time of Ezra. Could any refutation of this be clearer than Hosea's reference to this very chapter? In xi. 8 mention is made of the destruction of Ad- mah and Zeboim, in reference to Gen. xiv. 8 ; xix. 25. " He [Jacob] took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God : yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed : he wept and made supplication unto him : he found him in Bethel and there he spoke with us" (xii. 3, 4). The reference is to Gen. xxv. 26; xxxii. 24-30; xxviii. 11-20. The second of these passages is Elohistic, which shows that this part of Genesis was already in existence. In xii. 9 the prophet refers to the feast of " Tabernacles." This refers to Lev. xxiii. 42, 43, in which alone the dwelling in booths is enjoined. "And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Jacob served for a wife, and for a 266 Pentateuchal Criticism. wife he kept sheep" (xii. 12), with reference to Gen. xxix.-xxx. But the most important passage is the follow- ing: '' I wrote for him [Ephraim] multitudes [nu- merous precepts] of my law [Torah]. What a strarige thing were they counted T' Kathabh, to write, is in the future tense (now generally called imperfect), but were counted, nechshabhu, is perfect. But the future (or imperfect) is often used for the past, of which we have examples in this prophet. " I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them and decked herself with earrings" (ii. 13). In this passage, " burned incense " is in X\\q future, hiphil, and '' decked " is the fUure bav-conversive. ''And I have re- deemed them, and they have spoken falsehood against me " (vii. 13). Here, " have redeemed " in the Hebrew is the future tense. ''They have sacrificed flesh for the sacrifices of mine offer- ings, and have eaten it " (viii. 13). " Have sacri- ficed " is in the future in the Hebrew. They sac- rificed unto Baalim and burnt incense to graven images " (xi, 2). " Sacrificed " and " burnt in- cense " are both in the future in the original. " I drew them with the cords of a man " (xi. 4). " Drew," in the original, is in the future. Prof. W. R. Smith translates the passage as follows: " Though I wrote to him my Torah in ten thou- sand precepts, they would be esteemed as a strange thing."* But this translation is inadmissible, for * *' The O. Test, in the Jewish Church," p. 297. Prophetical and Poetical Books. 207 there is no particle of condition or contingency in the Hebrew text — nothing to indicate a supposi- tion. Such a method of translating the bibhcal Hebrew has no parallel in any other instance, and nothing but the requirement of a preconceived theory could induce any one to think of such a version. If the prophet had expressed a mere supposition he would have employed the particle ivi, if, althoiighy before the verb " wrote," just as in Isaiah i. i8: "Though [/;;/] your sins be as scarlet . . . though [ii/i] they be red like crimson," etc., and in Isaiah x. 22. Or possibly the prophet might have used gam kiy even if, as in viii. lo: " Even if ^gdui ki\ they hire among the nations, now will I gather them." The rendering '^multitudes" of my law is that of Gesenius, and not " ten thousand." The singular robJi occurs in Levit. XXV. 1 6, and is to be rendered multitude. The Septuagint, the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, the Peshito Syriac and the Vulgate, have either "multitude" or " multitudes" of my law. Besides, Prof. Smith's translation does not make good sense. For since Ephraim is already a transgressor of the divine laws, how would he be more likely to observe teit thousand precepts ? Would they not have overwhelmed him? The version " I wrote" is that of both the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel and of the Peshito Syriac. De Wette translates the passage: "I am writing out for him many of my laws ; how strange they have been considered," But at the foot of the page he gives also " I wrote," as an alternate ren- 268 Pentateuchal Criticism. dering. Pusey translates it '' I write," in the sense that the law was written in the past but is still in force in the present."^ Prof. Smend remarks on the passage in Hosea: '' The words of Hosea in the eighth century [B. C] prove that there were many written laws among the Ephraimites, which were contained in one book or more, and although neglected, they were known to everybody, and in the judgment of the prophet they could claim obedience from all, as they seemed to possess as much authority as if they had been written by Jehovah himself."f Hosea thus refutes Kuenen, who says, in the eighth century B. C. but few laws were ascribed to Moses and carried back to the sojourn in the desert of Sinai. J For we may ask, Who but Moses gave these laws to the Ephraimites ? The prophet Amos, who prophesied chiefly in the kingdom of Israel about B. C. 795, refers to various institutions of the Pentateuch and to a body of laws : '* They have despised the law [Tora/i] of the Lord, and have not kept his com- mandments " (ii. 4). ^' To profane my holy name '' (ii. 7). The exact words of Lev. xx. 3 : " Led you forty years through the wilderness " (verse 10), the exact time of the Pentateuch. " I raised *Prof. Smith infers, from the fact that tlie law was for- g,otten, it could not have been written. In Hosea viii. 14, it is said, ''Israel hath forgotten his Maker." Why, then, could he not have forgotten a tvritten law ? t "Moses apud Prophetas," pp. 13, 14, Halis, 1875. X " Religion of Israel," vol. i. p. 139. Prophetical and Poetical Books. 2G9 up ... of your young men for Nazarites . . . but ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink " (ii. II, 12). The institution of the Nazarites is found in Numbers vi. 2-21. Abstinence from wine was a requirement of the Nazarite. *'You only have I known of all the families of the earth " (iii. 2), in reference to Exodus xix. 5 ; Deut. vii. 6; x. 15. '' Bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years " (iv. 4). Here the reference is to the morning sacrifice enjoined in Ex. xxix. 39 ; Num. xxviii. 4, and to the tithes to be brought at the end of every three years, as commanded only in Deut. xiv. 28; xxvi. 1 2. Even if the passage be translated " every three days," in bitter irony, still the reference will be to Deuteronomy. " Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving ■with leaven . . . and publish the freewill offer- ings" (iv. 5). This refers to Lev. vii. 13; xxiii. 17, in respect to thanksgiving, and to Lev. xxii. 18,21, in regard to freewill offerings. '* I have smitten you with blasting and mildew " (iv. 9), which are threatened in Deut. xxviii. 22, of which the passage in Amos is the exact language. '* As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah" (iv. 11), in reference to Gen. xix. 24. " I hate, I despise your feasts, and delight not in your assemblies. Though ye offer to me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them, and the thank offerings of fatlings I will not regard " (v. 21, 22). Here we have a reference to the sacri- ficial institutions of the Pentateuch. In viii. 5 the festival of the '' new moon " is mentioned (in 870 Pentateuchal Criticism. reference to Num. xxix. 6), and also " the sab- bath ; " and in verse lo occurs ''your feasts." But the following important passage in Amos v. 25, 26 remains to be considered : '' Did ye bring unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? Yea, ye also bore the tent of your king, even Chiun your idol, the star of your god, which ye made for yourselves." The passage cannot mean that the Israelites of- fered no sacrifices during their sojourn in the desert, nor does it seem to mean that they were not offered to Jehovah, but rather that the Israel- ites combined with this service the idolatrous worship of Saturn, whose image and the model of whose tabernacle they carried with them. The knowledge of the Pentateuch which Amos dis- plays is remarkable, as he had received no train- ing in the schools of the prophets, but was simply " a herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit." The prophet /oe/, who it seems flourished about 870 B. C, makes several references to the institu- tions of the Pentateuch. " The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord ; the priests, the Lord's ministers, mourn," (i. 9). ''Blow the trumpet, call a solemn as- sembly, gather the people, sanctify the congrega- tion ... let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say. Spare thy people, O Lord" (ii. 15- 17. It is clear that Joel recognizes the divine au- thority of the priests, and certainly approves of their services. " The meat offering ( minchaJi) " Prophetical and Poetical Books. 271 and " the drink offering {nesek) " are the same words as in the Pentateuch. " The caUing of the assembly" was to be made *'by blowing trum- pets" (Num. X. 2, 3). In ii. 3 reference is made to the luxuriant foliage of the " garden of Eden." We have seen in Joel ii. 15-17, that the temple is the place for religious worship. In iii. 17 he says: ''Jehovah dwells in Zion." Amos also says, '' Jehovah shall utter his voice from Jerusa- lem " (i. 2). Micah says, *' The Lord from his holy temple " (i. 2). " The Lord of hosts dwelleth in Mount Zion" (Isaiah viii. 18). ''Shall worship Jehovah in the holy mount at Jerusalem " (xxvii. 13). The calf worship and the idolatry in general are condemned by the prophets (Hosea ii. 5-13 ; iv. 13 ; X. 8, 15 ; xiii. 2 ; Amos iii. 14 ; Micah i. 7). THE TESTIMONY OF THE POETICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT TO THE PENTATEUCH. We begin with the Book of Psalms, and first of all w^e must consider the question of their date. The new critical school is not disposed to concede any psalms to David, but would place all our Psalter after the exile. Seventy-three psalms are attributed to David in the Hebrew text, and sixty-eight of these are assigned to him in the Septuagint. Are all these superscriptions false } The Greek version of the Psalms was made about 200 B. C. To the translators the superscriptions were in many cases obscure. Would this have been the case if the Psalms had been written in the time of the second ttva^X^} Did not the ob- scurity arise on account of the musical arrange- 272 Pentateuchal Criticism. ments of the Jirsf temple being no longer in exist, ence ? Gesenius remarks on the inscription to the chief musician^ that it '' is wholly wanting in all the psalms of a later age, composed after the de- struction of the temple and its worship."* Fifty- five psalms have this inscription. The language of most of the psalms does not indicate the post- exilian period. Only two have certain references to the captivity. That David was the author of Psalms is stated in 2 Sam. xxiii. i, where he is called ''the sweet psalmist of Israel" (Heb. sweet in songs). In Amos vi. 5 it is said that David was the inventor of musical instruments. According to 1 Chron. xv. 16-27, David instituted a service of musical instruments and song. This is indirectly confirmed by the prophet Amos, who, after having spoken of the offerings and sacrifices of Israel as being unacceptable to God, adds: "■ Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs, for I will not hear the melody of thy viols " (v. 23). Here it is clear that song or psalm service was a part of the religious exercises of the ten tribes about B. C. 800. Was not this song-ser- vice derived from that established in the Jewish temple in the time of Solomon? If the songs sung were not chiefly those of David, whose were they? In 2 Chron. xxix. 30 it is said, *' Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praises unto the Lord with the words of David ajid of Asaph the seer.'' In spite of all this direct and indirect testimony to David's having * Heb. Lex. Prophetical and Poetical Books. 273 written psalms, are we to believe that our Psalter contains none of them? Let us then consider what testimony is afforded to the Pentateuch, first of all, by the Davidic Psalms. We begin with Psalm xviii. The super- scription attributes this psalm to David, and states under what circumstances it was written. 2 Sam. chap. xxii. contains this psalm with but little va- riation, and attributes it to David. De Wette, the great rationalistic critic, acknowledges this psalm as undoubtedly belonging to David. Hitzig and Schrader, rationalistic critics, and the free- thinking Ewald, concede it to him. What is its testimony? David says (21, 22), '' I have kept the ways of Jehovah, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me." " Judgments " and " statutes " is the language of the Pentateuch. The code of laws to which Da- vid refers is doubtless that of the Pentateuch. Verse 31 most probably refers to Deut. xxxii. 31. Psalm xix. is ascribed to David and is directed to the chief musician. Hitzig and Ewald concede it to David. In this psalm mention is made of "the law [Torak] of Jehovah," ''the testimony of Jehovah," and "the statutes of Jehovah." It is most natural to understand this language of the written law of Moses. Psalm xxv., attributed to David by the superscription, refers to God's "covenant" and "testimonies" (10). In Psalm xli. 7, after speaking of sacrifices named in the law, the Psalmist says : " I come with the volume of 274 Pentateuchal Criticism. the book prescribed unto me " (the rendering of Gesenius). The volume here named Gesenius supposes to be that of the law, and it is difficult to refer it to anything else. The super- scription attributes this psalm to David, and it is directed to the chief singer. Psalm Ixviii. is as- cribed to David and directed to the chief singer. Verses 7 and 8 refer to the Exodus of the Israel- ites and to the trembling of Mount Sinai. Psalm ciii., ascribed to David, says: *' He made known his ways unto Moses " (7), and speaks of God's " covenant " and '' precepts." Psalm cv., as far as verse 15, according to i Chron. xvi. 7, was deliv- ered by David into the hand of Asaph and his brethren. This psalm gives the history of the Is- raelites from Abraham until their settlement in Canaan, and some of the facts are thrown into a poetical form. In Psalm xv., conceded by De Wette, Hitzig and Bleek to be David's, refer- ence is made to the Mosaic law : '' He that putteth not out his money to usury." Twelve psalms are attributed to Asaph. The most of these, especially Psalm Ixxviii., we would ascribe to the Asaph of David's age. This psalm recites the history of Israel from the sojourn in Egypt to the reign of David. Had it been written at a later period than the reign of Solomon, it is not likely that it would have ended with the adminis- tration of David. Still less can we suppose that it was written after the captivity. In this psalm the Hebrew history of the Pentateuch is closely followed. Verse 5 refers to the command to Prophetical and Poetical Books. 275 teach the law and the testimony to the children of the Israelites, found only in Deut. iv. 9 ; vi. 7 ; xi. 19. In Psalm Ixxvi., ascribed to Asaph, and which must have been written before the captiv- ity, reference is made in verses 16-20 to the pas- sage of the Red Sea and to the leadership of Moses and Aaron. Psalm Ixxxix. is ascribed to Ethan the Ezrahite, who is named in i Kings iv. 31 as a wise man, apparently a contemporary of David and Solomon, and in i Chron. xv. 19 ap- pears as a singer in the time of David. This psalm bears strong internal evidence of having been written in the time of David, during the re- bellion of Absalom. In verses 30, 31 reference is made to the 'Maw" {ToraJi), ** judgments," ''statutes," and "commandments" of God, con- tained in the Pentateuch, doubtless. Psalms cxix. and others refer to the divine law, but as we can- not fix their age we make no use of them. The Book of Proverbs belonging to Solomon, with the exception of xxix., xxx., contains some references to the precepts of the Pentateuch. " Let not mercy and truth forsake thee ; bind them about thy neck'' (iii. 3). Again: ^' Bind them upon thy fingers'' (vii. 3), with reference to Deut. vi. 8 ; xi. 18; Ex. xiii. 9. "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction ; for whom the Lord loveth he cor- recteth, even as a father the son in whom he de- lighteth" (iii. 11, 12), which appears to be based on Deut. viii. 5. " A false balance is abomination to the Lord " (xi. i), in reference to Deut. xxv. 376 Pentateuchal Criticism, 13-16. " It is not good to accept the person of the wicked to overthrow the righteous in judg- ment " (xviii. 5), probably refers to Lev. xix. 15 and Deut. xvi. 19. " Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set " (xxii. 28) refers to Deut. xix. 14. *' He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance " (xxviii. 8) refers to the Mosaic precepts forbidding interest. '''■ He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack " (xxviii. 27) seems based on Deut. xv. 7-10. ^'Add thou not unto his [God's] words " (xxx. 6), from Deut. iv. 2 ; xii. 32. Agur's prayer is probably based on Deut. viii. 8-17. The Lamentations of Jeremiah, written soon after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchad- nezzar, contains several references to institutions found in the Pentateuch. In i. 4 the ** solemn feasts " of Zion are named ; and in i. 7 the " sab- baths." " The heathen entered into her sanc- tuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation" (i. 10). This refers to Deut. xxiii. 3, where it is enjoined that " an Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord," and shows that Jeremiah acknowledged Deuteronomy as of divine authority. In ii. 6, " the solemn feasts " and '' sabbaths " are said to be forgotten. " The law [Tora/i] is no more" (ii. 9). " Her Nazarites were purer than snow " (iv. 7). This implies the existence of the order of the Nazarites described in Numbers vi. 1-8. In iv. 6 reference is made to the sudden overthrow of Sodom. SYNOPSIS. Truth the supreme test. The Higher Criticism reasons on a low plane. It is a higher plane to consider its effects, if carried out on the practical estimate of the Bible. Primary Higher Criticism : its destructive character and unscientific method. Secondary Higher Criticism : more plausible and dangerous, but less consistent and logical. This principalis'' concerns us. Its effects : 1. It develops distrust of Scripture. 2. A critical spirit. 3. Slights the principle of authorship. 4. Destroj^s the realism of Scrip- tural history. 5. Gives no satisfactory account of the origin of the religion and history of Israel. 6. Discredits the revelation of God by an historical process. 7. Rejects the natural order of the development of religion. 8. Dis- honors the prophets. 9. Discredits Christ and the writers of the New Testament. 10. Makes biblical theology un- satisfactory and worthless ; and 11. Impeaches the whole doctrine of inspiration, and gives us a spent Bible. THE HIGHER CRITICISM AND A SPENT BIBLE. BY ISRAEL E. DWINELL. The fundamental question in reference to the Higher Criticism is, of course, the question of its truth. Closely following this is the question of its influence on the practical value and uses of the Bible. If it is true, the Christian world can be asked to look on and see their former estimate of the Bible suffer martyrdom for the Truth's sake ; for whatever else v/e believe about the Bible, we believe it supremely loyal to truth. But the Higher Criticism does not make out a clear case before the tribunal of truth. It reaches no cer- tainties. It appeals to subjective considerations. Its field lies in the realm of probabilities. It car- ries philosophy as the lamp by which to find facts, by which, also, to estimate the facts thus found, and by which finally to arrange them in a system. It reasons on a low plane — the plane of personal insight and judgment — in the midst of numberless subtle and equivocal data, trying to reconstruct the order of history and religious development thousands of years ago. Its processes are not cer- tainties, but guesses. Hence it is reasoning on a higher plane, though not the highest, when we consider the effects of its application on the esti- mate of the Bible. If the Higher Criticism is accepted as true, and its results admitted, the 280 Pentateuchal Criticism. Bible becomes a spent book. The mysterious constructive power pervading it and making it like a living organism is gone, and the divine forces steal out of it. It ceases to speak with authority. No one finds in it more than he carries to it. Its divineness is the echo of the divineness that con- fronts it. God speaks on the page only what he had previously spoken in consciousness. It is the object of this discussion to trace some of these effects. Higher Criticism is of two kinds : the Primary and the Secondary. The Primary assumes that the religion of Israel is simply one of the world religions. It is a natu- ral development of the religious nature of man. All its forms and contents are to be accounted for as the outcome of the natural peculiarities and circumstances of the Hebrew race, as the esthetic culture of Greece and the civil organization and the legal system of Rome are to be accounted for in that way. The extraordinary elements which have gathered about its story, all the supernatural and miraculous elements, are regarded as later imaginings thrown back on the early facts. It is taken for granted that the first thing to be done by the Higher Critic is to go through the religious literature and reduce to a natural human level all these mythological additions and fables. The next thing, as the sacred narrative has evidently been arranged to set forth this supernaturalism, is to pull apart the imaginary historical setting in which it is presented, decide what is fact and what is The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 281 fabrication ; and the last thing, having thrown away the fabricated portions, is to rearrange what is left in the proper historical order of a natural development of the religious life. This natural law of the unfolding of religion is made supreme, and when the knowledge of it is gained everything must bend to it. State- ments that stand in its way are brushed aside. This law is not considered subjective. It is claimed that it exists outwardly in the religions of the world. But the knowledge of it is subjec- tive ; and strange to say, the Primary Higher Critic, in studying the religions of the world to ascertain what this law is, omits the facts of the highest and most fully delineated religion till he has decided on the law, and then he takes that law as the light by which to study the facts. Having found the law — possibly merely a subjective law — everything he encounters in the sacred narrative inconsistent with it he rejects or readjusts and re- colors; everything favorable he accepts, empha- sizes, and magnifies as a supreme attestation of his theory. He does all this imperially and with- out hesitation, because he carries in his bosom an internal eye that is anointed with the insight of a seer and that discerns the law of religious growth. It is evident that the effect of this kind of criti- cism must be fatal to the authority or any high worth of the Hebrew Scriptures. It tells us beforehand, if God is found in them in any spe- cial way, if miracle or revelation is found in them, it is going to read them out. We cannot expect 382 Pentateuchal Criticism. Wellhausen or Kuenen or Stade to absorb the Hebrew history, digest it, and then resecrete it with God active in it or with any special inspira- tion, or real divine revelation or supernatural interposition of any sort in it, any more than we could expect a yew tree to throw its roots around the grave of Shakespeare or Milton and then se- crete from its branches a *' Hamlet " or *' Paradise Lost." No one ought to be surprised at the results of this kind of Higher Criticism. But while the results are not surprising, we have a right to complain of the one-sided and unscientific manner of reaching them. The method is contrary to the method of science. Science aims to ascertain the facts first — the facts in their own intrinsic quality, not as colored and interpreted by preconception and theory — and then draws from them a general- ization to cover them exactly, excluding none, cramping none, and admitting nothing but the facts and their implications. But these Higher Critics separate themselves, at the start, from the method of science by refusing to notice the alleged facts of supernaturalism at all, except on the basis of naturalism. They go into the in- quiry with an unscientific assumption. They make the facts out of a theory, and then arrange the facts to sustain the theory, going round and round in an endless circle. The Secondary Higher Criticism aims to pre- serve the supernatural element and the substan- tial integrity of the historical facts while it re- arranges them. It regards the religion of Israel The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 283 as a special development, begun, endowed, and guided by God, and the literature in which this development is recorded as exceptional in origin and worth among all the religious writings of the world. It labors, however, under some peculiar disadvantages. True, its results are not so dam- aging. It leaves a Bible with a record of super- natural facts. It gives a religion the footprints of which are not purely naturalistic, but the gracious march of God on the earth for the salva- tion of men. But it is not so unequivocal, self- consistent, and sharply and transparently logical in its processes. It plays fast and loose with de- structiv^e criticism, and fast and loose with con- servative criticism. It shows respect for the sacred narrative, and disrespect for it. It honors the Bible, and dishonors it. It culls scriptural facts, reassorts them, and throws them around in new and strange combinations. At one time it adopts the method of the Primary Higher Criti- cism ; at another it flinches from its conclusions. Its position at every point is that of weakness, never certain of its standing, for it has no sure fixed principles on w^hich to rest. Critics of this school believe in the divine call and training of Israel, in revelation and miracle, in the substantial truth of the supernatural facts, but do not believe that the events occurred in the order in which they are put together in the He- brew literature. They accept the theory of the unchronological stratification of the records, and set themselves to the task of rearranging them. 284 Pentateuciial Cuiticism. Microscopic scrutiny . detects, they think, the seams of the unhistoric stratification, and also the mystic hints and signs intelHgible to those of esoteric discernment which hint the origin and age of the respective composite parts. Gifted with such insight, what, they ask, can they do but redistribute the contents in the order of their sup- posed occurrence, putting the Priestly Code, the Levitical law, the Book of Deuteronomy, after the earlier prophets, some time perhaps in the age of Josiah, cutting up the historical books, and stringing the excerpts along the centuries to suit their analysis? It is this Secondary Higher Criticism that prin- cipally concerns us. It is this that most invades our Protestant churches. The Primary kind does not imperil them directly. It is too radical, too destructive, too transparent. But the Secondary falls in with a passion of the times, the love of novelty, which is as much a trait of the Christian world now as it was of Athens in the time of the Apostle Paul. Many restless good men are uncon- sciously caught and borne on by this tendency. They find their mission in trying to readjust Chris- tianity to new theories before the theories are proved. They make haste to put themselves on the side of the readjustment before there is a call to readjust anything, finding themselves, as they think joyfully, in the van of leadership, and abreast of the best minds of the age. With such men a new theory is believed on half the evidence on which an old one is maintained. Surrounded The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 285 by this restless, curious spirit of the age, stimu- lated by it, imagining that the new things are likely to be the coming faiths, and moved, as they imagine, by a love of truth, many such persoils have taken up this stratification theory, and are now reading and interpreting the Bible in that way, holding on to the old and taking up the new at the same time, but doing both with weak and illogical grasp. Before considering in detail the influence of this modified Higher Criticism on the estimate of the Bible, we wish to state that we freely concede that there are occasional passages of a later origin that have been brought into the text. They are of the nature of appended notes or single changed words, introduced by copyists to make the narra- tive more intelligible to their later age, and do not indicate the late origin of the main body of the writing itself in which they are found. It is much more in keeping with the historical spirit to sup- pose that occasional glosses would find their way in this manner into the narrative, than to believe that these exceptional passages only have the true chronological color, and all the other portions, constituting almost the entire narrative, have a false historical color. For the former explanation concedes honesty in the authors and what is natu- ral in the copyists, while the latter admits of only a grain of honesty in the exceptional sentences and phrases, while the larger portion is a fabrica- tion, a supposition, which is as unhistorical as it is morallv inadmissible. 2SG Pentateuchal Criticism. What, then, is the effect of the SecondaryHighef Criticism on the estimate of the Bible ? I. It develops a spirit of distrust of Scripture. It gives out that events did not occur in the his- torical order in which they are recorded. It stamps the narrative as an irregular and confused stratifi- cation. Later redactors have taken previous doc- uments and put them promiscuously together with an unhistorical location and coloring of their own in connection with more or less new matter. The moment this criticism invests the Bible, like the smokefish it surrounds the book and the whole region with a cloud of murkiness. If the critics could penetrate this cloudy region with the clear light of definite and fixed principles, recognized and admitted by all, and could restratify the his- tory so as to leave an unmistakable historical record, and give us at last a Bible in the new form that would be unquestionable in the order of events, the distrust might soon be over. But they have no common principles of readjustment. Each critic has his own principles and his own method of applying them. No one but the illu- minated seers themselves can reproduce the ancient history, and no one of them does it five years in succession in the same way. For all others destitute of this illumination, each readjuster pulls apart the Bible and does not put it together again. He destroys faith ; he does not restore it. He breaks down confidence in the book; he does not build it up. The process of reconstruction has begun, and where shall it end ? Who has The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 287 the authoritative reconstructing eye and voice? Who can tell us absolutely, Here is your Bible? No one. The principle of reconstruction is the principle of suspicion, and under the principle of suspicion the Bible drifts down, down, to general historical distrust. 2. It creates a critical spirit. The mind is put to questioning whether this or that is genuine, in its right place, and is historical. The writings are treated as the work of historical jugglers, now throwing late events back into the mold of the past to make them seem ancient history, and now setting forth actual occurrences so as to make them appear in the womb of futurity and pass for prophecy. The wits of the reader must be sharp to catch the truth under these various metamor- phoses. This critical spirit is no mood in which to de- rive practical benefit from the Bible. As a drill for the intellectual faculties, as a stimulus for the investigation of ancient literature, manners, and civilization generally, it may be useful. But it stands in the way of receiving spiritual help. Moreover, it interferes with what may be called the structural appreciation of the sacred writings. As we find them, each, with all its diversities of parts, rises before us in a kind of architectural unity. But this critical spirit dissolves the fabric. Suppose one were to go into St. Peter's, and in- stead of studying it as it is, taking in its grandeur and being lifted up by its esthetic appeals, should set himself about resolving it into its historical 288 Pentateuchal Criticism. elements and rearranging them in the order of their construction, assigning the different parts to their respective architects — this to Bramonte, that to Raphael, that to San Gallo, that to Michael Angelo, that to Vignola, that to Carlo Maderno, and that to Bernini — would not this analytical spirit make it impossible for him to ap- preciate the structure as it stands, and lead him to descend from the plane of art to historical pedantry and finesse? So if we are looking al- ways for seams, transpositions, and unhistorical narratives in the Scriptures, we cannot take in the separate parts in their proper structural rela- tion, and the whole fabric falls into a mass of disjecta membra. 3. This brings us to another point. Our critics fail to recognize the proper influence of author- ship. The sacred books have each something about them that distinguishes them from all other writings. There is something in the origin and contents of each that makes it peculiar, giving it a unique character and right to have influence and authority among men. It was written to live, and it lives. This comes largely from the pecul- iar impact of authorship. This differentiates it from the other books, and imparts an intrinsic value to it apart from the source of the material. The writer may have taken it from previous docu- ments, traditions, divine revelations, his own in- spired thinking, or natural reasoning ; no matter, once having it, and having put it in form, the book becomes a constructive whole, with the The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 289 genius of his peculiar authorship running through it. Shakespeare may have taken from Boccaccio material for his Midsunivicr NigJifs Dream, Cym- bcline, and AlVs Well that Ends Well, and from Cinthio material for his Othello ; but these bor- rowed elements were transfigured and taken up into new meaning by the transcendent insight and genius of the poet, and are no longer to be viewed in their old form, but in the present set- ting and significance. In like manner, whatever elements the writers of the Bible found to their hand underwent a change when they were taken up by them and put into their writings, and they are to be estimated by us in their transfigured form. Some of the books, like Isaiah and most of the other prophets, do not purport to be a single treatise, but a collection of treatises, arranged without regard to chronology. But this does not prove diversity of authorship in such cases, any more than a collection of the writings of Emer- son, with their heterogeneous philosophies and theologies, proves diversity of authorship. In the course of time, indeed, the original text has been marred here and there by excrescences, interpolations, foreign additions — the explanations or glosses of copyists or editors, who had no method of adding foot-notes, like modern editors, but introduced them into the text. These are to be critically detected and bracketed. But when this is done, and the extraneous matterisdeducted, the remainder, the great body of the book, is to 290 Pentateuchal Criticism. be taken as having the quaHty of true scriptural authorship. And we must remember there is no other Hterature in the world the separate parts of which have more evidence of being the products of the pecuhar afflatus which marks the individu- ahty of authorship. Each comes forth from its own creative heat. They have made the impres- sion on the world of being the outcome of high sovereign production. Patched - up literatures, encyclopediac compilations, conglomerate writ- ings, stratified productions, not having the force and glow of genuine authorship, are not the books which the world will not willingly let die. No matter wdiat men in the nineteenth century, with microscopic eyes, may say, twenty centuries, thirty centuries have said, *' These books have on them, individually and separately, the stamp of a pecul- iar creative origin. So we have honored them and loved them, and handed them over to the coming centuries." Whenever men approach such books, each with the genius and quality of extraordinary author- ship diffused through it, they should do it with reverence, and discuss them accordingly. It is not seemly to begin pulling apart and dissecting to find the sources of the material, in order to form their estimate of them from that. They may engage in this analysis for curious reasons, as mat- ters of literary or scholastic knowledge, but not to judge of the work as a creative whole. Suppose there were primitive documents or later redac- tions, the real author, wherever we find him, is the The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 291 one whose work is sacred, and is to be studied as a literary whole. The Minerva of Phidias on the Acropolis of Athens had various substances en- tering into its construction — marble, ivory, gold — and very likely Phidias may have employed special artisans of these different materials in bringing them into form to suit the sublime ideal. But they were all dominated by him and brought under his plan ; and when the statue was finished, all these subordinate parts were to be studied as organic portions of the one artistic whole, and with reference to the esthetic end. To do otherwise would be to descend to base trifling. But this trifling is precisely what the higher critics are do- ing with the sacred books. They ignore them as literary finalities. They dishonor the principle of authorship. They sink the writer's ideal pur- pose beneath trifling questions relating to the sources of the material. They pay no attention to the peculiar power which has taken possession of all the material, from whatever source de- rived, and fused it into one living whole, and sent it, a lighi and a power, down the ages. And they have gone to delving amid the seams and stratifi- cations, and looking at the parts with cold, ana- lytic eyes, dropping down from the creative realm and purpose of the book into another realm foreign and hostile to it — that of atomic criticism based on subjective demands. 4. It robs the world of the realism of a large section of ancient history. The history of Israel has hitherto been considered the most definite. 293 Pentateuchal Criticism. lifelike, and helpful of all the ancient histories. Through that the Christian world has had one avenue through which it could gaze back into the remote past and see what was actually there — the movements of men, the throes and passions of civilization, and the underlying principles and forces of history. The true inwardness of the rise, progress, and fall of empire was there apparent. From no other pages did such light and help pour into the sympathetic student. We may not understand the process, but divine forces and in- spirations come out of the depth of those Old Testament records and quicken and raise the quality of modern life. But the effect of this criticism is to smite the historical casket, and scatter these fine celestial values. The facts themselves, from being the most real and solid, become questionable, as if we should awake some day and find the pyramids after all only banks of fog. History of Israel there is none, but bits of history, like fragments of glass in a kaleidoscope, and each critic turns the kaleidoscope and makes the combinations to suit himself. In like manner historical persons, which have hitherto been a marked feature in biblical his- tory, cease to be quite real, and become ideal creations, or are colored and made uncertain by myths. Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, to say nothing of Noah, Enoch, and Adam, are no longer substantial persons, but pass among fabulous beings, like those of the prehistoric ages of The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 293 Greece and Rome. Those grand characters who have stood in sharp-cut and soHd individuality, like the obelisks on the banks of the Nile, un- touched by the ravages of the centuries, glide out of the regions of light and skulk as ghosts in bewildering darkness. This historical loss is irreparable. A little while ago we were in a world of facts ; suddenly we find ourselves gazing into a region where nothing is certain, where shadows are chasing shadows, and where the region itself, through which they uncertainly and tumultuously come and go with annoying iilusiveness, has few landmarks from which to take our reckoning. 5. It is unsatisfactory in its explanation of the origin of the religion and history of Israel. It admits certain outcomes from the Mosaic period, but denies the biblical account, and substitutes a different and unauthenticated version of its own. It intercepts the current of history after it has emerged from what it considers the doubtful period of Moses, Joshua, Judges, and the Kings, when Israel has already strongly marked features and fixed traits — the indelible stamp of centuries of training. At this point — say four and a half or five centuries before Christ — it finds, unmis- takably, a central place of worship, a priestly code, a detailed Levitical ritual — the identical religious system that has ever since been clearly known. At the very moment of this emergence, the people are possessed of a most unique and remarkable religious literature. They are clinging 294 Pei.'tateuchal Criticism. to this literature, and this hterature is cHnging to them. The two are united and attached as no other people and their literature have ever been united, and as apparently they could be only after centuries of mutual interaction. This literature gives an account of the origin and early history of this strange people, and of the peculiar religious system which they have brought with them. No other account of the origin of the people or the religion is extant. The literature has all the marks of genuineness, and of having been from its origin a part of the life of the nation. It is this account of origins which our critics set aside. They impeach the most vital, the most influential, the most intertwining literature of the whole ancient world. The very literature that comes forth throbbing with the proofs of genuine- ness, having a nation clinging to it, and staking their all on it — this, they say, is an afterthought, a later composition. And in place of the origins given by this literature, they give a theory of their own, not drawn from historical facts but philo- sophical conjectures. They take this historical movement, which emerges full grown from dim antiquity, with all the marks of a vital movement, decapitate it, give us the headless trunk, proceed ,to supply the place of the removed head with one of their own manufacture, and then to galvanize the result into a temporary semblance of life. They destroy a natural account to substitute an artificial one. Hence, under this criticism, notwithstanding The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 295 our eagerness to understand the real genesis of this peculiar people and literature — the two inter- locked — we are baffled. We find the centralized worship in the later times, and see and touch the very foundation stones of Solomon's temple, the sign of a centralized worship in the earlier times ; but we are told we must not believe that the na- tion in the time of Solomon had a divine summons to worship in one place. We see in operation the detailed ritual regulating the services of the priests and the Levites ; but we must not accept the account given in the Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy as indicating their origin. We have the feast of the Passover, kept in grateful com- memoration of a great historic event ; and we may believe everything about it but the history under it. We come upon a people peculiarly trained, and holding to the training apparatus with unex- ampled tenacity ; but we must regard this ap- paratus as a late invention, and hold that the na- tion did not march out of the remote past with it. We find Israel believing in a covenant between them and Jehovah, of mercy and protection on God's side, and of service, moral and ceremonial, on theirs ; but the very foundation tablet of this covenant, engraven in stone " with the finger of God," admitted to date back to the age of Moses — the so-called Ten Commandments — we are asked to modify and reshape, without a particle of his- torical or textual evidence, to make them '' terse " and " symmetrical," and have them suit the private opinions and forecast theories of the critics. 296 Pentateuchal Criticism. Moreover, we find Israel with a knowledge of Jehovah as the only supreme, holy, self-existent God ; but we are not to accept the accounts which inform us how he was made known to them and differentiated from the gods of the surrounding nations. The frequent exhibition of idolatry in those ancient days we are not to regard as lapses from a higher knowledge, but natural incidents in the great struggle up from polytheism, and from regarding Jehovah at first as merely a national god on a level with the Baalim, We see the full faith in Jehovah ; but we must discredit the scriptural story of its origin, and rely on the wits of the critics to invent a better one. In fact, the whole region of origins — even the most central and fundamental portions of it, the parts to which the largest concessions of being historical are made — is plastic, and the critics mold it and play with it and put it in new and fantastic shapes as they please. We have the outcomes — solid, massive, immovable, very pyramids themselves — but we are asked to believe that under them there is no known foundation of historical truth. 6. It throws discredit on the revelation of God by an historical process. It is admitted by all theists that no inconsiderable part of the knowl- edge of God in the world has come through his connection with the ongoings of history. God early interposed in the flow of events, enabhng men to mark his presence and the meaning of that presence. In this way he gradually intro- duced himself to human thought and faith. Thus The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 297 by breaking in upon their life in an unusual man- ner and showing by acts and words, ''This is I," and asserting himself historically, he at length developed a conscious relation between him and the Hebrew race, degraded and blinded as they had been. The historical method of introducing a revela- tion seems necessary, for the innate God-sense, however much w^e may make of that, the demands of the moral nature, the manifestations of God in the natural world, any theophanies or miraculous voices, or any revelations put in book form — no one of these testimonies of God, or all combined, short of God himself entering into current events with the thrill and emphasis of the tramp of divinity, would be sufficient to establish a posi- tive practical faith and knowledge of God on the earth. In some manner it w^as needful that the Almighty come into the march of events as their master, and as the protector and helper and ruler of men. In this direction lies the wondrous power of the Incarnation. This is conceded. And it is conceded that whatever the history of the Hebrew stock was before the age of the prophets, God had in some way traveled down the successive stages of that history, revealing himself in connection with it, till in the time of the prophets these seers had a tolerably distinct and accurate knowledge of him as the one true, holy, and merciful God. Here was a remarkable revelation of God by means of some historical process. The critics admit this, and then step in 298 Pentateuchal Criticism. and throw dust on the history which gives the successive stages and epochs of the process. They put out the ancient evidences disclosing the pro- cedure. But this is not all. The sacred history, which they thus becloud and impeach, was a ve- hicle not only to deliver the knowledge of God to the Hebrews, but to transmit that knowledge down to our day. Men now learn much about the character and government of God in relation to nations and individuals by studying these his- torical proceedings. The history is radiant still with divine light. Revelations of God are yet streaming off from it. But the Higher Criticism comes up to it and puts out or darkens, one after another, these sacred lights. What we have taken to be history, it tells us, is not history at all. It is the romancing of later writers. The historical fabric is dissolved, and the revelations of God dependent on it logically disappear. If the his- torical setting is unreal, then all the self-disclos- ures of God in that way are unreal, and all this knowledge is illusory. We can no longer go to the Old Testament and see a transparency reveal- ing the principles of God's government for all time, and hence learn the real nature and character of God as related to states, and the permanency and inexorableness of the law that it is only as a people obey and honor him that they can have his favor and prosper. This theistic knowledge, the most practical and realistic we have aside from the Incarnation, shrivels and disappears in its source. If it is said the world has this know!- The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 299 edge now and we need not fear losing it, we must remember the fearful tendency in human nature to fall from high spiritual conceptions. We can- not have one of the sources of the knowledge of God, especially one so important as this, taken away without inexpressible damage. The world needs still this radiation from Old Testament his- tory, and whoever impairs its volume or brightness by degrading the history arrests a source of moral hfe to mankind. 7. It rejects the natural order of the develop- ment of religion and substitutes an order based on superficial and mechanical considerations. In considering the development of religion we should have reference to the elements which char- acterize it as a religion. We are to look at it in its approaches to a spiritual system, rather than at its movements in respect to form and organ- ization. There are, doubtless, two lines of prog- ress, one toward spirituality — that is, in the re- ligion itself, and one toward form and organiza- tion — a mere appurtenance to the religion proper ; and we might follow the course of the religious system along either one of these lines of progress. But it is evident that the important line is that which traces it as a religion, the actual spiritual life that enters men's hearts. This is the order recorded in the Old Testament. God revealed himself to Abraham and his children, and took them into a conscious covenant relation with him- self. The revelation and the service required were at first simple and primitive. Up to this 300 Pentateuchal Criticism. point the religion was a family religion. In the time of Moses the religion, while it addressed itself to the nation, degraded and sensuous by long bondage, received far deeper and richer theistic and ethical elements, and at the same time took on a complex ritualism adapted to their training. The prophets introduced a great advance in the practical emphasis laid on the moral and spiritual elements. The real religious light, both theistic and ethical, which shines from the teachings of these men, whose mission was to represent God to the people, proclaim righteousness, and de- nounce immorality and formalism, was in lustre about midway between the morning of the Hexa- teuch and the midday splendor of the age of Christ and the apostles. If the dawn was in the time of Abraham, the morning in the age of Moses, and the noon in the days of Christ, the intermediate forenoon was in the period of the prophets. John Stuart Mill saw this, and says : *' Whoever can divest himself of the habit of read- ing the Bible as if it were one book, which until lately was equally inveterate in Christians and in unbelievers, sees with admiration the vast inter- val between the morality and religion of the Pen- tateuch, or even of the historical books, and the morality and religion of the prophecies, a dis- tance as wide as between these and the Gospels " C Rep. Govt."). Now this is the kind of progress actually re- corded in the sacred books ; and this, I say, is the natural order. This is the order of the religious The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 301 life of a child, as well as of the race in its child- hood. As in the patriarchal age, so the first religious instruction of a child is a few simple positive references to God. Then, as in the time of Moses, there is instruction in forms and ob- servances. After these, in maturer years, as in the age of the prophets, comes emphasis on the ethical 'and spiritual elements. And lastly, as in the time of Christ, supreme attention is paid to the vital principles and spirit of the gospel. The Bible record is the record of this true order of progress in religion. It brings out clearly the divine movement from what was dogmatic, out- ward ; then formal, ritualistic, legal ; then ethical, conscientious, to what was at last a true, vital, spiritual religion, of the final type. The reconstructors fail to recognize this prog- ress in the religion itself, and fix their eye on the movement toward manifestation. They seem to think that the only way in which we are to view the development of the religion of Israel is in reference to form and organization. Taking this superficial and mechanical view, they reason that the first thing in giving this religion to the world was for some parties to have it in their hearts ; and as there was, confessedly, great interest in forms and organization subsequent to the early prophets, they assume that the religion in men's hearts to be expressed in that way was then a fresh thing. This is their order: first, the priestly and Levitical faith, then the priestly and Levitical ceremonial ; first, the belief in a central place of 302 Pentateuchal Criticism. worship and in the , sacrifices there, then the details of the law regulating them. Things must be in this order, because they are looking at ex- ternals, and they are governed by theories, not by the extant records. To maintain this view, the whole scriptural account must be recast. The statements incon- sistent with it must be thrown out, and the rest recombined and recolored. These men are mighty in the Scriptures. They speak much of redactors. They themselves are heroic redactors. No one of whom they write in the age of Ezra could have equaled them in throwing around the sacred writings with a free and unscrupulous hand. And all this they do to save themselves from the necessity of believing that the priestly and Le- vitical law could have been given by Moses, and remained comparatively inoperative during the period of degeneracy that followed the occupation of Palestine till the time of the kings and the preaching of the prophets. To them it is easier to suppose that in a dark, besotted, immoral, idolatrous age — such as all regard the age pre- ceding the prophets to have been — a monotheistic, ethical, and comparatively spiritual religion could spring up naturally almost, and come bounding into view without, so far as we know, human or divine father, than to suppose that God helped Moses to the details of the religious system, and that portions of it remained centuries before the nation was in a condition to give them more than a partial application. They are ready to believe The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 303 this great moral miracle — the genesis of the re- ligion of the prophets from Canaanite surroundings and uncertain divine revelations, without the full rich Mosaic antecedents recorded in Scripture — rather than set aside their superficial theory of the progress of religion, and adopt the account which reveals the natural order of development in the religion itself. 8. It reflects dishonor on the propJicts. Osten- sibly it makes much of them. They were the light-bearers who leaped forth from the dark ages, preceding with torches blazing with celestial flame. They uttered words that ring of righteous- ness and justice. They denounced all hypocrisy and hollow sacrifices. They stood before kings and priests and people in the name of Jehovah. They were the earthly head of a theocracy that demanded righteousness. They were the incarna- tion of ethics. All this is admitted. Yet, accord- ing to the critics, it was under the outburst of re- ligious light which came through them, under the inspiration and impulse of their leadership and in their age, that the great redactions of the ma- terials of sacred literature and the present formu- lation of the ceremonial law took place. Some even hint that Jeremiah winked at it, and Ezekiel himself took a hand in it. The men who were the most earnest for righteousness of any the world has ever seen, who left a literature compact and crystalline of conscience next to the Moral Law itself, whose writings reflect still the voice of God through the ages like the perpetual thunder- 804 Pentateuchal Criticism. ings of Mt. Sinai — these men to stand by and be silent when the stupendous fabrication of history takes place ! They to be spectators when the whole Levitical legislation is devised, written out, and skillfully intertwined with a fabricated history of the preceding period, and the whole successfully imposed on the nation and succeeding ages, and not a lisp of remonstrance or sign of disapproval from their righteous lips ! The possibility of the success of such an imposition is itself sufficiently incredible. A new religion virtually, with vast and complicated details, claiming to have been, vitally and historically, interwoven with the life of the people for ages, coming suddenly into sight and put in writing, and the writing ever after held in unquestioning reverence as genuine and authori- tative history, as if reciting the actual occurrences of the past! There is no legerdemain like that elsewhere. But to suppose that all this could go on under the eye of the prophets, these preachers of righteousness, these bearers of the ethical light of the world ! If such deception were to be palmed off on the world, the critics have selected the most improbable age and the most unnatural spectators for its success — the period of the de- termined, fearless, ethical prophets, the relentless, fiery preachers of righteousness. 9. It discredits Christ and the writers of the New Testament in their estimate of the Penta- teuch and the Old Testament history. Whenever they speak of them they refer to them in terms of undoubting confidence and reverence. It is The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 305 impossible that they could have held any such view of them as that held by these reconstruc- tors. No one can doubt that such an attempted reconstruction in their day would have been held by them as sacrilege. If we accept this modern theory we part company with all the scriptural writers. A history which Christ and the apostles represent as reality to them becomes romance to us. 10. It makes biblical theology unsatisfactory and unprofitable. Biblical theology is religious doctrine in its historical position, with the color, tone, quality of its historical setting. The doc- trine must be seen in the lights and shades that play around it in its own age and under the con- ception of the individual writers. Hence, if there is any uncertainty about the genuineness and truth of the writings or the period of the writ- ings, the basis of the study drops out. It is im- possible, in that case, to put the true historical estimate on them and be certain that we are viewing them in their historical surroundings. If there are a half dozen Isaiahs, or only two for that matter, a first and a second ; and if the first is a definite historical person, occupying a fixed position and writing a known portion of the book, then there may be an analysis and gathering up of his teachings in relation to the state of religion and the condition of the world at that time, and so a biblical theology of that treatise. But if the remainder of the so-called Book of Isaiah is a compend from many writers scattered all along 306 Pentateuchal Criticism. from the time of Hezeklah till after the exile, oi is the production of a single second Isaiah of un- known age and surroundings, it is impossible to fit its teachings into the complex historical move- ment of any one age, and so have them deliver to us a true biblical theology. What is true of the Book of Isaiah is true of the other books into which the new criticism introduces miscellaneous authors. Take the Pentateuch. Shall the new critic, looking toward biblical theology, start with the Pentateuch as it is? That would give a kind of biblical theology of the final redactors, whoever they may be, no one knows, and of their age, whatever that may be, no one knows. A pretty unsatisfactory result ! Or shall he start with the first results of Higher Criticism — the analysis of the books into their objective elements — and give us a biblical theology of each one of these elements? We have by this time a lively medley — biblical theologies running into each other in grotesque confusion, and varying interminably with the critics. But this is not the end. The Higher Critics detect more than one redactor in the same book — redactor beyond redactor in separate and independent lines; and each of the blind series is to be biblically theologized, and have his contri- bution separately noted and put in a book ! We have under these circumstances, instead of one biblical theology of each book, endless biblical theologettes, each based on an excerpt of the book, having no fixed and determinate boundaries, The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 307 belonging to an uncertain age and author, and separated from the rest by the infalHbihty of the critic. So the promising, robust, manly, modern science of biblical theology goes off in invisible spray and nothingness. The materials with which it has to do, under the touch of the Higher Criti- cism, are tremulous and fugitive, and no science can be built up on them. II. The bearing of this criticism on the doc- trine of inspiration also should not be over- looked. The only inspiration possible under this theory is of a very equivocal order, morally and spiritually ; for it is an inspiration that does not keep the sacred writers from making up a pre- tended framework of history in which to set their characters and instructions. It does not interfere with their asserting things to be facts which never took place. It does not stand in the way of con- sciously antedating and representing things as having occurred centuries before which really oc- curred later, or of deliberately writing after the events had taken place, and giving the writing the form of prediction and passing it off as prophecy. It does not stay the sacred authors from writing out of their own intuitions or experience or thoughts and reasonings, and claiming that these teachings came directly from God. A kind of in- spiration which admits of all these duplicities and falsities must be accepted as true if this criticism is admitted. Surely inspiration drops down to a low and ignominious plane on this theory ! No 308 Pentateuchal Criticism. wonder there is a cry all over the world from those who follow the critics that the doctrine of inspiration must be recast ! Yes, down-cast. Yet these men are in great perplexity. The Scriptures — these very Scriptures — have been a transcendent power in the world. They have spoken with authority, and dominated states and generations and ages, and their power is not gone. The critics see this, and desire to have them retain their power while they undermine it. They ac- cordingly say many generous and beautiful things upon the subject of inspiration. The writings which are its product are, they say, the exquisite bloom and fragrance of the Hebrew stock, diviner than anything that blossomed on the Grecian stem, or the Roman or Anglo-Saxon, even in a Shakespeare. There is a genius for religion as there is a genius for the beautiful, a genius for au- ganization, a genius for military affairs, a genius for practical life ; and the Hebrew had the genius to produce a religious literature for the world. The divine currents flowing in this naturalistic stock, specially breathed upon also, it may be from heaven, shaped and modified in their flow by circumstances and experience, decide the quality and form of inspiration. This is an attempt to hold up the Scriptures in the air while the support on which they rest is taken away — to lift them by rhetoric and pull them down by logic. It is evident that nothing sharply and divinely authoritative can be left in them. They drop down in kind of writing to the The Higher Criticism and a Spent Bible. 309 level of the productions of saints whose produc- tions do not happen to be put in the canon. So not only is a large part of the history (the histori- cal characters and the central facts of the life of Israel) swept away, but also the very power by which a revelation in language and a direct au- thoritative message from God to mankind can be produced. All are gone. We are left bankrupt of a veritable Bible, and of the power by which such a Bible could be handed over to mankind. OUTLINE OF THE ESSAY. 1. The Analysis of Documents. Its Criteria and Method of Applying Them. Argument from Material Differences. Illustrated by Gen. xiv. 2. The Age and Mutual Relations of the Documents. The Theory as to J and E, Relations and Age. The Composition and Age of D. The Theory of the Age and Origin of P. 8. The Work of the Redactor. The Production of D J E. Its Combination with P. The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 313 THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE NEW HYPOTHESIS. BY PROF. JACOB STREIBERT, A.M., THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF THE DIOCESE OF OHIO, GAMBIER, O. In attempting to set forth the difficulties which beset the latest theory concerning the Pentateuch, a theory based upon a complicated literary prob- lem, involving a complete reconstruction of the religious history of Israel, and affecting directly or indirectly the interpretation of almost every book in the Old Testament, it is obvious that the writer must in some way limit himself so as to keep within the bounds proposed in this series of papers. We shall therefore confine our considera- tions to the difficulties involved in the statement of the hypothesis and in the evidence on which it rests, leaving it to others to show the nature of the consequences flowing from it and the difficul- ties of various kinds to which it leads. It is not our object in this essay to establish the traditional view of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. We may indeed be quite prepared to give up this view because of the difficulties it involves, but for this reason to adopt another theory with- out considering the perplexities into which it may lead us, would certainly be irrational. Nor does it devolve upon us to propose a more satisfactory theory than the one under consideration, or to show that this is possible. We desire simply to 314 Pentateuchal Criticism. call attention to the jnore important objections which may properly be made to this theory as formulated by its most distinguished advocates, Wellhausen and Kuenen. I. TJic Analysis of Dociuncnts. — The state- ment that the Pentateuch in its present form is not the work of one author, but a compilation of several independent writings, has become almost axiomatic in the judgment of modern critics, and it must be admitted that this view offers a simple and natural explanation of certain phenomena, meeting us very clearly in Genesis, and to some extent at least in the later books. To contend that there is no occasion for such a theory, no reasonable ground for applying a critical analysis to the Pentateuch, is simply to close one's eyes to patent facts. The time for justifying this analysis on a priori grounds has long since passed by. At the same time, however, we must insist that the principles on which it is conducted shall be fair and just, that its criteria shall be simple, clear, objective and applied to all parts alike. We must demand that all the facts presented in this literary problem shall be fairly and fully recog- nized, and above all, that the desire to prove a theory shall not be permitted to obscure any evi- dence to the contrary. The right to this demand is fully grounded in the tremendous issues in- volved. We are not dealing with a simple liter- ary question the decision of which affects nothing beyond itself, but with a matter standing in the most vital relation to the whole Old Testament, The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 315 to the interpretation of its history, its prophecy, its poetry, and its law. Now, does the document analysis on which the theory under consideration is built meet these demands? Does it commend itself as fair and unbiased ? We believe not. We regard it as open to objections so serious and weighty that one may well be pardoned for with- holding his assent to any theory based upon it. Granting, for the sake of argument, that the Pentateuch is a compilation, what are the criteria made use of for separating it into its component parts ? First of all, peculiarities of language aiid style. The starting point of the analysis, as is well known, is the variation in the use of the names Yahwe and Elohim throughout the book of Genesis. This was for many years considered the only trustworthy clue. Yet critics are to-day unanimous in the opinion that there are two en- tirely distinct documents characterized as Elo- histic, and that one of them is moreover so closely combined and commingled with the Yahwistic document that it is often impossible to separate the two, and quite as impossible to determine their relation to one another as regards age and mode of combination. At the same time, while the fact may not in the end prove of vital impor- tance, it should not be forgotten that not only in the Pentateuch but in other parts of the Old Tes- tament as well, we find the same peculiar inter- change of the divine names. Before finally con- cluding that this is a proof of different authorship in the Pentateuch, the critics should show us that, 316 Pentateuchal Criticism. wherever else found, the same conclusion may and must be drawn. We may, in passing, call attention to the fact that in more than one in- stance the critics assume that the final redactor, a copyist, or some one else, willfully or accidentally altered the name Elohim to Yahwe in the text, e.g. Gen. xvii. i; xxi. i. The argument would certainly be stronger if it involved no such ques- tionable expedients. We are hereby naturally led to inquire on what grounds the critics justify this assumption. The answer is that the several documents are distin- guished by other linguistic peculiarities as well as by differences of style and manner of treatment. A great deal is made of the argument from style, and often with good reason ; but it must also be said that it becomes almost absurd when applied to small paragraphs, or even verses and parts of verses, in a legal document or simple narrative. To argue from long and connected sections which afford some opportunity for observing the writer's style, the structure of his sentences and the habit of his mind, to others in which these same char- acteristics reappear, is one thing ; to pretend to be able to judge of the authorship of single and often isolated sentences or parts of sentences on any such grounds, a totally different matter. The latter is subjective criticism of the first water, and to what empty conclusions such criticism will lead has been shown over and over again in the case of almost every book of the Old Testament. But the favorite criterion by which critics are The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 017 led in their analysis is tJie use of particular words and expressions. This is nearly always their main reliance ; and certainly when one looks at the lists of words said to be characteristic each of some particular writer, the impression that they have proved their point is strong. But let us look at the other side. How are these lists made up? and may all the words which they contain fairly be called characteristic ? In a certain passage called Elohistic, for instance, is found a certain number of less frequently used words, nouns and verbs. Many of these, let us say, are used in other Elohistic sections, but do not occur in any which are Yahwistic. It would be manifestly illogical to conclude without further consideration that such words are characteristic of the Elohim document, and on the strength of this to claim that all passages in which one or more of these words appear belong to this document. One writer may have a fondness for certain expressions, but may not another writer also use them occa- sionally ? One writer uses certain technical words, or words so intimately connected with the idea they express that they are the inevitable embodi- ment of that idea; another in all his known writings happens to have no occasion to use them shall we then conclude that a section of narrative or laws whose origin is in question, and in which this technical word occurs must be assigned to the first writer and may not belong to the second ? Again, is it reasonable to argue from words which occur but a few times at best that all passages in S18 Pentateuchal Criticism. which they appear belong to one and the same writer? It seems to us that a candid examination of the Hsts of characteristic words must not only lead to the exclusion of many as in no sense characteristic, but also convince one that they afford a criterion which must be very cautiously applied. When in one series of connected pas- sages indeed we find one word used, and in another series another and synonymous word to express the same idea, the conclusion that we have in this case a characteristic phrase by which the authorship of otherwise doubtful sections may be determined, would probably be drawn by all. Unfortunately, however, the number of such cri- teria is very small. If we look into the way in which these linguis- tic peculiarities are applied for the purposes of the analysis and notice the results to which they lead, our distrust of them is increased. Very fre- quently they are so confused and intermingled that the same passage is assigned by one critic to one document, by another to a different one, by a third to the redactor or compiler. Again, after having come to a conclusion in regard to the ori- gin of a passage and assigned it to a certain doc- ument, the critic is frequently met by a word or phrase that is called characteristic of a different document ; but he is not long embarrassed : he simply calls the word an insertion or interpolation for which the redactor is probably responsible. And what shall be said of the dissection of a per- fectly simple and connected narrative into frag- The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 319 merits said to be taken from two or three docu- ments and chaotically mixed together, because certain words found in it are called peculiar to those documents ? It would appear more critical, not to say rational, to infer that these words are not characteristic at all and therefore have no evi- dential value whatever as regards the question of authorship. As a matter of fact the argument from the use of words is largely based on the sup- position that an author in Hebrew could hardly express a thought in more than one form ; that the language was so stiff and stereotyped that modi- fications, synonyms, were almost out of the ques- tion. But to exclude the possibility, at least, that an author may vary occasionally the expressions he uses by such an unwarranted assumption as this, not at all borne out by the facts of the case, seems hardly scientific. However, if the critics are correct in this view it would appear that such stereotyped forms of speech must cease to be in any sense characteristic, and may therefore be expected in one document as well as in another, whenever the occasion for their use arises. The analysis of documents is also guided by alleged differences and contradictions between their respective contents, whether narratives or laws. The argument is perfectly legitimate and often of great force. There are difficulties, which it is the duty of criticism to explain, not merely to explain away. But a criticism which for the sake of a theory multiplies and exaggerates difficulties, and refuses to accept a simple and natural explanation 330 Pentateuchal Criticism. whenever it may be found, can hardly expect to command the confidence of sober scholars who are more concerned about the truth than about any theory. It is no injustice, at any rate to many supporters of the latest hypothesis, to say that they are open to this charge. Formal dif- ferences are put before us as material ; failures to mention or at least hint at some acquaintance with related facts elsewhere recorded are made equal to denials or contradictions ; and this is done not occasionally but in nearly every chapter. It is safe to assert that the writings of almost any author, subjected to a similar criticism, would develop the same kind of divergences, especially if any statement tending to remove or explain such divergence be attributed to the harmonizing efforts of a compiler. In support of what has been said thus far, it might suffice to refer to the fourth essay in this series, where ample illustrations of the difficulties involved in the analysis will be found ; but by way of additional evidence, let us notice the ap- plication of current critical processes to a single chapter, taken quite at random, of the Book of Genesis, the 14th. We are told by Kuenen and Dillmann that this chapter is derived from a differ- ent source from those which precede and follow. On what evidence? Because it does not contain the least hint of the wickedness of the men of Sodom, and because, conversely, the author of ch. xviii. and xix. knows nothing whatever of the conquest of the five cities nor of the rescue of The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 321 their Inhabitants by Abraham. It is also distin- guished from the other chapters by marked Hn- guistic pecuHarities, and forms part of the general history of nations, unlike other narratives about Abraham. To what author, then, shall it be as- signed? Dillmann thinks that, since in other re- spects than those alluded to it agrees with other portions of Genesis in language, and also contains references to other sections as well as explanatory glosses, it must be regarded as a very old story which has been incorporated by one of the three narrators, J, E or P. Elohim, in v. i8, would point to E or P, and since this section does not agree with P's ordinary mode of describing such things, nor with the language peculiar to P, there- fore it is to be assigned to E. Yahwe, in v. 22, is probably an interpolation. The redactor, how- ever, added to the original form of the story such explanatory remarks as are found in vv. 2, 3, 7, etc., and worked into it vv. 17-20, which can only have been wTitten by a member of the kingdom of Judah, whereas E belonged to the northern kingdom. Kuenen, on the other hand, calls this a fragment of a post-exilic version of Abraham's life worked in by the redactor, and asserts cate- gorically that it does not belong to J E, from which it differs in point of form, besides being ex- cluded by ch. xviii. sq. Neither can it be taken from P, although containing some of P's charac- teristic words, for it falls outside the scope of that work and is written in a wholly different style.* * Cf. Dillmann, Genesis, 4te Aufl., pp. 218, sq.; Kuenen, Hexateuch, pp. 143, 324. 823 Pentateuchal Criticism. Can this soberly be called scientific criticism? Can the conclusions drawn from the results of such analysis commend themselves as even plau- sible? It seems to us, in view of all these facts, that very much yet remains to be done in estab- lishing and making secure the very foundation of this and any similar theory, in freeing the analysis of documents from its defects, inconsistencies and uncertainties by an unbiassed and rational treat- ment of all the facts. We are by no means satis- fied to build largely or confidently on such uncer- tain, shifting ground. 2. Ao;-e and Mutual Relations of the Documents. ■ — After having analyzed the books of the Penta- teuch and determined the contents of the four great documents supposed to be merged in one, the critics have attempted to ascertain the prob- able age of each and the mode of their combina- tion. Not many years ago the almost unanimous opinion of German scholars was to the effect that Deuteronomy marked the chronological as well as the for-mal close of the legislation, while the docu- ment designated now as P was the earliest of the four, dating probably from the age of Solomon, though incorporating more ancient fragments. In the new hypothesis all this is radically changed. Deuteronomy is still indeed assigned to the time of Josiah, but the large part of the Pentateuch in- cluded in P is said to be mainly post-exilic. As to the relations of J and E, while there is gen- eral agreement that they originated in the eighth or ninth century B. C, critics differ widely as to The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 323 their comparative age and the mode of their com- bination. Wellhausen thinks he has found evi- dence showing their independent origin and grad- ual modification, each passing through three editions or recensions, which he distinguishes as J' J^ J^ and E^ E^ E^ and being afterward united by a third writer. Kuenen, while also regarding J as older than E, holds that the latter was writ- ten by an author acquainted with and building on J, that both passed through distinctively Judean editions, and were finally united about the begin- ning of the sixth century. But many others re- gard E as older than J, some holding to their independence, some insisting that E was one of the main authorities used by the writer of J. Evidently, therefore, the attempt to establish the relations between these two documents has not yet been successful, and what we are told con- cerning the process which made them one only confirms our hesitation to accept the conclusions of the critics. Kuenen acknowledges the highly intricate nature of this process, at times scrupu- lously conservative in regard to the documents, sometimes harmonizing, sometimes independent and free.^" Imagine two documents covering the same ground, written by men of similar training and habits of mind, then combined by a redactor who performs his work in the manner just indi- cated, and would not any unprejudiced thinker conclude as a practical certainty that the attempt to separate the elements so inconsistently and * Hexateuch, p. 161. 324 Pentateuchal Criticism. arbitrarily mingled , together must end in fail- ure? Further, as to their age, Kuenen says,* " The chief consideration that forbids us to assign a higher antiquity [than the ninth century] to the * prophetic ' narratives is based on their contents. The sagas about the patriarchs, the exodus and the conquest, presuppose the unity of the people (which only came into existence with and by means of the monarchy) as a long-accomplished fact which had come to dominate the whole conception of the past completely." The proposition that the twelve tribes, with a common ancestor, a common language, religion and country, were not one peo- ple, and had no consciousness of such unity until after the establishment of the monarchy, is one we are by no means prepared to accept without some proof. National unity of such a character as to make the origin of the *' sagas " alluded to entirely possible existed just as really, to say the least, before the time of Saul as after the time of Rehoboam. The lack of an organized central government controlling all the tribes cannot out- weigh the much more important elements of unity existing at least from the time of the exodus, common ancestry, language and religion, espe- cially when they looked back to two men who in the past were guides and leaders of all alike, Moses and Joshua. To make the unwarranted assumption of a lack of unity among the tribes the chief argument in favor of assigning J E to * Hexateuch, oor p. 'i-ZK:, The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. "325 the ninth century does not give one a favorable impression of the strength of the position which the critics maintain. Coming next in the order of time is the docu- ment designated D^ i.e.^ the larger portion of Deuteronomy. Before passing on to the question of its age, we may remark that the divergent theories as to the original form of this document can only add to our distrust of current critical methods. On the ground of formal and material differences Wellhausen assigns the code of laws in ch. xii.-xxvi. and the hortatory introduction in ch. v.-xi. to different authors, while Kuenen regards them as the work of the same author, though not written at the same time, the code having been first produced, and then the introduc- tion. Both, however, agree in ascribing all the remainder of the book, except ch. «sxxviii. and a few verses elsewhere, to a later writer. Dill- mann, on the other hand, with many others, not only holds ch. v.-xxvi. to have been the work of one author, consecutively written, but also as- signs to the same writer ch. i.-iv. and xxvii.- xxxi., denying the existence of some of the alleged difificulties and peculiarities, accounting for others by laying them to the charge of the redactor. When, on critical grounds, such diverse views are admissible, and that, too, in regard to a book whose characteristics of language and style are so clearly marked as those of Deuteronomy, we can- not help concluding that the method is wrong or the criteria very insufficient. Even granting that, 326 Pentateuchal Criticism. in this instance, such differences among the critics may not be very important, Ave cannot but wonder at their arising at all, since the critics work on the same principles and with the same criteria. As to the age of D^ though it may expose one to the contempt of the critical school to make the confession, we are compelled to say that what seems to them almost self-evident and axiomatic, that this document, namely, originated in or just before the time of Josiah, presents to us one of the most serious difficulties which the hypothesis involves. Without sharing in the feeling of those who would call the work a forgery if by any author except Moses, we are yet very reluctant to accept a theory based upon the assumption that not only in form but in substance the book cannot be much older than the reign of Josiah. For if the writer, whatever his date, was trying to impose upon the people new laws and require- ments, and to win for them respect and obedience by falsely representing them as Mosaic, then the book is, in the fullest sense of the words, an im- position and a fraud. Before coming to such a conclusion we shall insist upon subjecting the evidence brought in its support to the very closest scrutiny. . Of this evidence the story of Josiah's reforma- tion related in 2 Kings xxii. is without doubt the most important. But surely an argument whose first step is to discredit the trustworthiness of the historian upon whose narrative it proceeds to build, ought not to come upon one with convincing force. The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 327 The whole story, in its express statements no less than in all it implies, is totally opposed to the theory based upon it. Kuenen acknowledges (Hexateuch, p. 214) that the fact of the discovery of the book, with its promulgation, *' does not in itself prove that it was also composed about the same time. But," he goes on to say, " the evi- dence derived from the literature of Israel, both before and after Josiah's reformation, makes it extremely probable that this was the case, and the probability is raised almost to a certainty by a minute consideration of the contents of the deu- teronomic legislation." As to the first point, t/t^ evidence of the litera- tjire, it may be replied that the absence of allu- sions to Deuteronomy before the time of Josiah is quite as well accounted for by the loss and ne- glect of the book for no one knows how many years, a fact testified to by the writer of the book of Kings, as by the unsupported hypothesis that it was not in existence. At the same time we are by no means convinced that the literature which preceded Josiah shows no trace of the influence of Deuteronomy. Aside from verbal reminiscences, what proof have the critics to offer, except their theory, that Deuteronomy presupposes Hosea? May we not with at least as much force urge that this prophet's whole spirit and teaching can be best understood on the supposition of his famil- iarity with deuteronomic ideas ? In regard to this argumentiwi e silentio so frequently resorted to by the critics, it has been well said by Prof. C. A. 328 Pentateuchal Criticism. Briggs* that it needs to be guarded from misuse. *' Before one could conclude from the silence of the Scriptures as to the Pentateuch, that it was not in existence, one would have to prove that it could not exist without being known. This is difficult to prove." The narrative of the author of 2 Kings, which we see not the slightest reason for distrusting, explicitly records the fact that Deuteronomy had long been neglected and for- gotten in some remote or unused chamber of the temple. An examination of the contents of the deutero- nomic legislation seems to us very far from making it almost certain that it originated about the time of Josiah. What possible significance at that period can be found for the laws about extermi- nating the Canaanites (xx. 16-18) and Amalekites (xxv. 17-19) against the destruction of trees in the siege of a city (xx. 19-20), concerning the conquest of cities and their subsequent treatment (xx. 10- 15)? The time when such directions were appli- cable had long since passed by. Is it conceivable that there was no law concerning the choice of a king until a short time before the kingdom ceased ? How shall we explain the attitude of the book toward surrounding nations on this theory of its origin? Deuteronomy speaks kindly of Egypt (xxiii. 7, 8), but the feeling shown by Jeremiah (ii. 18, 36) was of a totally different kind, and it was in battle with Pharaoh-Necho that Josiah met his death. Deuteronomy is friendly to Edom but * Journal Soc. Bibl. Lit. and Exeg. 1883, p. 20. The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 839 hostile to Moab and Ammon (xxii. 7, 3-6) ; com- pare with this Jeremiah's utterances about the same nations (xHx. 17, 18 ; xlviii. 47 ; xHx. 6). The answer commonly made to all this evidence is that old laws were embodied in the Deuterono- mic legislation, that ancient codes were made the basis of the new. How much is implied in this statement ? Prof. Driver has spoken of Deuter- onomy as ** the prophetic reproduction and ex- pansion of an earlier legislation." Dillmann, defining the limits of this expansion, speaks of the writer's " conviction that in the statutes and ordinances which his book puts into the mouth of Moses he is simply restoring for the new times the authority of the old Mosaic law, and through his * Torah ' is developing the very spirit of the Mo- saic institution. He could not have made this claim," Dillmann continues, " if he had not been conscious of having drawn the material of his * statutes and ordinances' from the oldest codes, even then regarded as Mosaic, and the High Priest Hilkiah, without doubt a man skilled in the law, would not have acknowledged the sepher Jiattorah of D as book of Moses had he not been of the same conviction. We of to-day have no reason to cast doubt upon this judgment of his and his contemporaries " (Comm. Num. Deut. u. Jos. p. 614 sq.). To the theory presented in this form we should take few, if any, exceptions if the evi- dence of the composition of Deuteronomy in ihe seventh century were to prove convincing; for it is after all of slight importance to us when or by 380 Pentateuchal Criticism. whom the book was written, if it be what it everywhere claims to be, a setting forth of the law of Moses. But not many, we imagine, of recent critics hold this view. Kuenen's whole contention is that the very spirit of Deuteronomy is of Josiah's time, based on the prophetic teach- ing which preceded it and only by this made possible. Hence only few laws, and they of minor importance, can be admitted as ancient ; in all essential matters the code is new, its laws concern- ing unity of worship, feasts, ritual, priesthood — all are characteristic of Josiah's time and unknown to former days. Not only does this view require us to ask an explanation of the insertion of those meaningless, antiquated laws alluded to above, it also necessitates the conclusion that the book is a fraud, a forgery, and leaves us before the dilemma of regarding the High Priest Hilkiah either as a conniver at this trick upon king and people, or else as a dupe. That he was neither the one nor the other the narrative as well as the inherent proba- bilities of the case seem to make almost certain. In regard to the evidence supposed to be found in the contents of the book in favor of its late origiii, it can hardly be called altogether convinc- ing. The most important argument is unques- tionably based on the many allusions which Deu- teronomy contains to the one sanctuary of Yahwe. According to the critics, not only does this book presuppose the existence of the temple at Jerusa- lem (though it generally speaks of '' the place which Yahw6 shall choose "), but there is no proof, The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 331 we are told, that there was any thought of such concentration of worship at Jerusalem in the times before Josiah. But, instead of saying with Kuenen* that '' Deuteronomy presupposes Heze- kiah's partial reformation (2 Kings, xviii. 4), for the incomplete and partially defeated practice usually precedes the theory, and not vice versa,'' we regard it as quite as scientific and much more reasonable to maintain with Strackf the " indubi- table right to find in Hezekiah's attempt a recog- nition of the requirement of a central sanctuary, and therewith a recognition of the deuteronomic law." Kuenen refers also to the warninfi in Deut. xvii. 3 against worshiping '' the host of heaven/* as evidence of its origin in the seventh century, since the prophets before Jeremiah and Zephaniah never allude to this form of idolatry. " The author of Kings," he says (p. 218), ''tells us that it was introduced by Manasseh and abolished by Josiah (2 Kings, xxi, 3, 5 ; xxiii. 4, 5). This ar- gument would be conclusive as to the date of the Deuteronomic law, were it not that this same author attributes this form of idolatry to the ten tribes also (2 Kings xvii. 16)." Does Kuenen al- low this evidence of the worship, at least in the northern kingdom of the host of heaven long be- fore Josiah's time, to affect his conclusion? Not at all. *' We can attach no value to this state- ment " is his remark, the reason being that it is *' found in a general survey of a long-vanished *Hexateuch, p. 218. f Herzog-Plitt, Real-Encycl., Art. "Pentateuch." 332 Pentateuchal Criticism. past, 'which is characterized by anything but pre- cision, and is not supported by the evidence of Amos and Hosea"(p. 218). Whether this is a satisfactory method of deahng with an historian or not may be safely left to any candid person's judgment. Kleinert* calls attention to the fact that, as regards worship of the sun and moon, Baal and Astarte, worshiped by the Hebrews even in the time of the- Judges, are confessedly personifications of these heavenly bodies in the ancient Syro-Canaanitish cultus, while, on the other hand, Deuteronomy never once alludes to the worship of '^ the queen of heaven," which was, if we may judge from Jeremiah's polemic (vii. 18 ; xliv. 17 ff.), the prevalent form of idolatry in Jo- siah's time. It seems to us, therefore, that the date assigned to Deuteronomy in this theory is not yet satis- factorily established, although even that might be conceded without involving the conclusion that, in substance, it may not belong to a much earlier period than that of Josiah. It is also obvious that conclusions based upon this date, which is yet an open question, cannot be held as well es- tablished, but must be regarded as involving a very large element of uncertainty. In regard to the priestly elements of the Penta- teuch, commonly designated as PC or P, and con- sisting, so far as laws are concerned, chiefly of ritual legislation, the claim is put forward that they are subsequent to Deuteronomy, to Ezekiel, * Deuteron., p. 108. The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 33o and even to the exile. We find serious difficul- ties in the way of accepting this statement, although the evidence to substantiate it is brought from many sides, and is often very striking and plausible. In the first place, Kuenen's statement," that " a written regulation of the cultus did not exist in the pre-Deuteronomic times," is so inherently im- probable that we may be pardoned for requesting some clear and definite proof. That the Israelites should have had a priestly order from the earliest times, as the history of the Judges clearly shows they did, without any written regulations of the cultus until the sixth or seventh century, will hardly strike any one as a self-evident truth. Their sojourn in Egypt, not to mention anything else, must have given them a decided impulse in this direction — an impulse which a people so open to such influences as the Israelites could hardly have escaped following. The statement just quoted is based, in the first instance, on the argument from silence. " The existence of P before the Babylonish captivity," says Kuenen (p. 273), " is excluded by the evi- dence of the Israelitish literature." Here again, to make the argument valid, it would have to be shown that this document could not exist without being known and referred to ; but where shall proof of this be found? When we remember that it is a priestly work, according to the critics, dealing, so far as its laws go, almost exclusively * Hexateuch, p. 273. 334 Pentateuchal Criticism. with ritual matters, the possibiHty that such a code of laws, Avith its accompanying historical frame- work, might exist for an indefinite period without becoming familiar in its written form to any not immediately interested, is at once manifest. In the nature of the case, the prophets would con- cern themselves but little with such matters,while their denunciations of the priests as utterly cor- rupted and given to idolatry do not lead one to suppose that the latter could themselves have been very scrupulous in the observance of their laws (cf. Is. xxviii. 7 ff. ; Mic. iii. 1 1 ; Zeph. iii. 4 ; Jer. xxiii. 1 1 ; ii. 8 ; v. 31, etc.). But even though the Israelitish literature before the captivity betrays no familiarity with ritual laws such as are found in P, may it be said that it also knows nothing of their existence ? Quite the contrary. Hosea (viii. 12) refers to an extensive body of written laws as well known in his time, and the context would incline one to regard this legislation as covering matters of ritual and sacri- fice no less than general ethical and religious duties to which Kuenen rather dogmatically seems to confine it (p. 272). Nor is Hosea alone in testi- fying to the existence of written laws touching ritual. Passages like Jer. xviii. 18 and Zeph. iii. 4 most decidedly point in the same direction. We further confess ourselves unable to recon- cile Kuenen's admission^^ that '' the priestly tora was naturally concerned, in the first instance, with the worship of Yahwe (2 Kings xvii. 27, 28)," with *Hexateuch,p. 272. The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 835 the assertion on the following page that a written regv\a.tion 0/ ^/i^ cii/^ us did not exist in the pre- Deuteronomic times. His attempt to make a distinction between laws which " define the duties of the Israelite toward Yahwe and his sanctuary" and those which '' regulate the worship of Yahwe," of such a character that the former would natu- rally be committed to writing and the latter care- fully excluded from a code, seems to us absolutely uncalled for and unwarranted, unless it be by the exigencies of a theory. He contends (pp. 176, 177) that although the prophets share the general be- lief that sacrifice is an essential element of true worship, they insist upon its uselessness when not accompanied by the observance of Yahwe's moral demands, and do this in a way which would have been impossible had the cultus been enjoined by positive commands in a written and recognized code of laws. But on the one hand such entire dependence on ceremonial observances is itself almost if not quite unaccountable, except on the supposition that these observances were distinctly enjoined, especially when it is borne in mind that since the time of Samuel there had lived among the people prophetic teachers whose influence, often very decided, had been thrown in the op- posite direction, and who insisted on genuine obedience to Yahwe's moral law. On the other hand, it seems to us very far from self-evident that *' the polemic of the prophets against the religion of their contemporaries would necessarily have differed in form had they known and recognized a 3^3 Pentateuchal Criticism. ritual legislation." As an expression of opinion coming from an able critic the statement deserves consideration, but it is at best only an impression made upon the critic, and cannot offset the posi- tive evidence we possess of a pre-deuteronomic ritual legislation. For the very book upon whose silence so much stress is laid by the supporters of this theory affords ample proof that the theory is without foundation, at least as regards the date of the ritual legislation. It should be borne in mind at the outset that Deuteronomy is a law-book designed especially for the people, and therefore it need not surprise us if very few direct allusions to ritual affairs be found in it. Kuenen admits, however, that it '' can hardly have been committed to writing with- out the assistance of priests of Yahw^ " (p. 272), and says also, *' In xiv. 3-21 he [the Deuterono- mist] even incorporates a priestly tora on clean and unclean animals into his b©ok of law " (p. 273). The admission is a most important one, in itself as well as in what it implies. We see that the priests cannot have been strangers to the idea of a written law concerning affairs under their immediate and exclusive control. They must have been guided not simply by unwritten traditions, but by posi- tive statutes. For surely no one imagines that this was the only priestly tora committed to writing before the time of Deuteronomy. Does it not rather imply the existence of at least a series of laws, not only on the distinction of clean and un- clean generally, but presumably also on purifica- The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 337 tions of various kinds and other related matters — in a word, just such a series as is found in Lev. xi.-xiv. ? One is practically convinced of this on comparing Deut. xiv. 3-21 with Lev. xi. 1-43; for the former may with good reason be called a mere repetition of the latter, though with omissions and modifications.* A consideration of the proba- bilities of the case will lead one to this conclusion as much simpler and more natural than the idea of Kuenen and others that Leviticus gives merely an expansion of the briefer deuteronomic law ; the shorter of two statements is quite as likely to be an abstract or summary of the longer as to stand in the opposite relation to it. Again, when we read in Deut. xviii. 2, *' the Lord is their inheritance, as he hath said unto them," and ask what statement to this effect con- cerning the tribe of Levi the writer had in mind, the margin refers us to Num. xviii. 20 ; and the conclusion that this reference is correct, that here, as elsewhere, the phrase, " as he said," is mark of a quotation from some written source, seems to us not only easy but almost inevitable. So in ch. xxiv. 8 the Deuteronomist is very plainly referring to a law touching the plague of leprosy — a law which we find written in Lev. xiii. and xiv. It has been well said by Delitzsch f that " in every instance where Deuteronomy is content with gen- * Cf. Dillmann, Comm. Exod. u. Lev. p. 480 sq. ; Bissell, "The Pentateuch," etc., p. 173 sq. f Pent. Krit. Stud, ix., quoted by Strack, Herzog--Plitt, RE, Ai't. "Pent." b38 Pentateuchal Criticism. eral. broadly-drawn directions which, in being appHed, require specification or completion, we must conclude that more special statutes were already in existence, which it has in mind and to which it points." While such allusions may not be numerous, they are sufficient to show that there must have been in existence before the deutero- nomic law a ritual legislation of no small extent. Equally serious objections present themselves tothetheorythat Ezekiel preceded the legislation of P, and indeed gave the first impulse toward a written regulation of the cultus. It is claimed that Eiekiel occupies a position between the earlier legislation of the Book of the Covenant and Deuteronomy on the one hand, and that of the middle books of the Pentateuch on the other. This can be said only by taking no account of the important points in which his regulations break the connection between the two legislations rather than make it. If Ezekiel cannot have been ac- quainted with P for the reason that he would not in that case have ventured to depart from its re- quirements, we may ask in turn how it came about that those who followed him ventured to modify what he had laid down as God's law, made known to him by special revelation. As regards the priesthood, Ezekiel does not mention the high priest, but to conclude that therefore this office originated after the exile would imply the rejec- tion of ample testimony in the historical books to the existence of a high priest from the time of the Judges onward. The assertion that Ezekiel The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 339 prepared the way for the distinction between priests and Levites by his degradation of all but the sons of Zadok from exercising priestly func- tions, not only ignores the testimony of Deut. xviii. 3, 6, where this distinction is implicitly con- tained, not only fails to explain the reason why the priests so greatly outnumbered the Levites among the exiles returning with Zerubbabel, but also leaves a chasm not readily bridged' between Ezekiel's limitation of the priesthood to the sons of Zadok and the supposed later expansion of his law which recognizes all the sons of Aaron as priests. A comparison between Ezekiel and P with a view to linguistic peculiarities points quite as strongly in the direction of his dependence on the latter as to the contrary. Indeed the whole theory that Ezekiel was the originator of ritual legislation has to face not only the difficulty of accounting for the failure of any attempt even to carry out his laws, but also the even greater diffi- culty of explaining how it came about that all the later laws v/ere attributed not to Ezekiel but to Moses. In view of these facts it seems to us that the theory of the post-exilic origin of the great bulk of the Mosaic legislation involves difficulties of the most serious kind. That much greater atten- tion was paid to matters of ritual after the captiv- ity than before is unquestionably true, and hence references to them in the later literature are natu- rally more frequent ; but that all the history and especially all the ritual law assigned to P should 340 Pentateuchal Criticism. have originated among the exiles in Babylonia, while their temple and city lay in ruins, is not even remotely probable ; and that this work should have been foisted upon the people by Ezra and Nehemiah as Mosaic is simply incredible. 3. The Work of tJie Redactor. — Having pointed out some of the difficulties which beset the new hypothesis in its analysis of documents and deter- mination of their respective ages and relations, it remains for us to notice briefly the process by which the several documents are supposed to have been welded together. As Kuenen is, to our knowledge, the only critic who has given a con- nected statement of this process, we shall base our remarks upon what he has to offer. Atten- tion has already been called to the extraordinary w^ay in which the redactor to whom we owe the union of J and E performed his work. No expla- nation, however, has been offered for his strange inconsistency, although it is obvious, and indeed conceded by the critics, that the result offers an exceedingly difficult literary problem. We ven- ture the assertion that it is not likely ever to be solved, for its initial difficulty is greatly increased by the work of another redactor, who, not con- tent with simply inserting Deuteronomy in the document before him, modified and changed J E in various Avays, so that, according to Kuenen, his hand may be clearly traced. At the same time this redactor is said to have subjected Deuteronomy to a similar process of revision, although the original D had already suffered serious modifications at the The Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 341 hands of former editors or revisers. Must not the attempt to analyze a document that has really passed through so many changes be regarded as simply a piece of guess-work, in which a precon- ceived theory is practically the sole guide? The wide divergences among critics as to the process of redaction which resulted in D J E prove that the evidences on which they rely are largely sub- jective. But thus far the work of compilation is only half done. During the exile, which saw the amal- gamation of J E and D, another work was begun among the priests in Babylon — a work of exactly the same scope, covering the same ground, from the creation to the conquest of Canaan, and like the first, in combining with extended narrative a considerable body of laws. The priestly author builds upon J E throughout, selecting the main facts of the narratives and stripping them of any- thing that seems unsuitable from his own point of view.* This work, enlarged by the addition of other priestly toroth, older and younger than it- self, was brought to Judea by Ezra in 458 B. C, where the deuteronomic-prophetic sacred history had been, for nearly a century at least, recognized and revered as an authority in all matters of his- tory and law. But the new work departed notably from the old. '' As long as the two retained their independence they challenged mutual comparison, and the great difference between them could not but be observed. If this difference were regarded * Hexateuch, p. 299. 343 ^Pentateuchal Criticism. as amounting to contradiction, then the prestige of the two works alike must suffer under it, and the authority of the more recently introduced legislation specially must be shaken. There was but one means of averting this danger, viz., to weld together these independent but related works into a single whole, which might then claim, with- out fear of challenge, the place which Judaism as- signed to the documents of Yahwe's revelation to the fathers. It is therefore highly probable that the Sopherim lost no time, and that before the end of the fifth century they had produced the Hexateuch."* But is it at all probable that Ezra and Nehemiah could have been successful in the attempt to im- pose upon the people a new code of laws contain- ing so much, according to this theory, that had never been heard of before, when D J E was in full force among them as God's law given to them by the hand of Moses? And how would the mingling of the two documents, so different in spirit and contents, help to blind any one's eyes to this difference or give any support to the claim of the new work to equal authority with the old? As to the nature of this redaction, we are toldf that it '* assumes the form of a continuous dias- keue or diorthosis, and the redactor becomes a collective body headed by the scribe, who united the two works spoken of above into a single whole, but also including the whole series of his more or * Hexateuch, p. 315. t lb. p. 314; cf. pp. 270, 303, 313. TuE Difficulties of the New Hypothesis. 343 less independent followers. It is only in excep- tional cases, however, that the original redactor can be distinguished with certainty." The ab- stract possibility of such a scheme cannot be denied ; but w^hat evidence is there of its truth ? The resort to a series of redactors strikes one as an obvious but hardly plausible solution of ac- knowledged difficulties. What one redactor could not do and maintain his consistency must be the work of a different redactor. As we follow Kuenen in his detailed account of the redaction (pp. 323 sqq.), and see how he makes R rearrange, alter, omit, and make additions to the materials before him ; as we notice the devices to which R must resort in order to bring harmony out of discord, while yet leaving the divergences and contradictions so manifest that the critics can readily follow his steps ; as our eyes are dazzled by the kaleidoscopic effects he produces through jumbling together verses, clauses, and even single words from his different sources, freely mingled with comments of his own, the conviction forces itself upon us that the whole scheme is altogther too artificial to be within the bounds of proba- bility, not to say possibility. A statement of Kuenen's theory of the redaction — the best and most complete yet offered by upholders of the new hypothesis — seems to us its own sufficient refutation. We do not oppose the attempt to analyze the Pentateuch ; we acknowledge the distinctions drawn between the several codes of laws ; we 344 Pentateuchal Criticism. recognize clear traces of a composite character here and there in the history, we admit the possi- bihty of late additions, some of which may even date from post-exilic times. But a theory which not only deals with all these elements in the un- satisfactory way here indicated, but in addition would make the Pentateuch largely a tissue of fictions and perversions of history, deny the cred- ibility or trustworthiness of every statement in the books of Samuel and Kings which does not fall in with it, and call Chronicles a string of in- ventions not worthy a serious examination — a theory which for the sake of consistency must deny not only all law and history to Moses, but also all psalms to David and all proverbs to Solo- mon — such a theory seems to us not only to offer no satisfactory solution of the problem of the Pen- tateuch, but to make many more difificulties than it removes. THE VALIDITY AND BEARING OF THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. BY REV. C. R. HEMPHILL, COLUMBIA, S. C. The topic assigned me in this collection of essays on the Pentateuchal question is the valid- ity and bearing of the testimony of Christ and his apostles on the origin and authorship of the Pentateuch. To those who regard with reverence and receive with humility the teachings of Jesus and those who were inspired with his Spirit, testi- mony of this character will be of surpassing value in the controversies that traverse the broad field of Old Testament history, documents and institu- tions. Critical processes have their rightful place, and critical results are not to be despised, but I take it that the Lord Jesus and his apostles are of higher authority and sounder judgment than even the most acute and learned critics. It is matter of common knowledge that the majority of recognized experts in Biblical criticism reject the belief, traditional among Jews and Christians alike, that the Pentateuch is the production of Moses. Equally familiar to all is it that this traditional belief is generally supposed to have been the belief and the teaching of Jesus and his inspired disciples. In this state of case it becomes us, while vindicating the supremacy of Christ and the apostles, to be cautious in our induction and 34() Pentateuch AL Criticism, careful in our interpretation lest a false issue be raised, and antagonism be created where none rightly exists. The history of theological con- troversy is often painful reading, because of the many instances in which a traditional accident of the truth has been mistaken for an integral ele- ment of the truth itself. Failing to distinguish things that differ, good men have sometimes ventured the Scriptures and Christianity upon a human tradition that comes in time to be proved no part of the divine teaching. In the variety, ex- tent, and importance of the questions that emerge in the comparatively modern science of Biblical criticism there is danger that conservative scholars may repeat blunders of this kind, where, if any- where, a blunder is worse than a crime. Admon- ished by^such mistakes, it shall be my endeavor to free myself from bias or prejudice and be will- ing to follow whithersoever the truth may lead. Clearly, this study is purely exegetical in char- acter, and must be prosecuted under the acknowl- edged canons of interpretation. And as the essay is intended for popular reading, I shall not be blamed for adopting a simple method, and for re- lying on principles of reasoning that are none the less scientific for being familiar and easy of appli- cation. I assume, of course, that the New Testament sets down the real opinions and records accurately the teaching of our Lord and his apostles. I assume, further, that the Pentateuch as we now have it existed in the same form in the times of The Validity of the Testimony of Christ. 347 the New Testament, an assumption, I may add, the truth of which is admitted by all parties to the controversy respecting its origin. The inquiry I have set out to make is best pur- sued along two distinct and yet related lines of investigation. In the one shall be traced the testimony of Jesus and the Apostles in its bearing on the historic character of the Pentateuch and by implication on its origin. In the other their language is to be submitted to critical analysis and interpretation wherever they have seemed to speak more or less definitely on the specific sub- ject of the origin and authorship of the book. I. The books of Moses, though marked by a certain unity, are constituted of distinct elements. History, legislation, poetry and prophecy combine to form this fundamental constitution of the life and religion of the Jews. Its narratives stretch back to the beginnings of our world and of our race, and cover hundreds of years. Through all this history runs the supernatural, and many of the narratives abound in miraculous stories. The poetry, the prophecy and the laws are inseparably associated by the book with the historical situa- tion and incidents it describes, and, in conse- quence, the veracity of the history and the divine origin of the prophecy and the laws are dependent on each other. What, then, have the apostles to say in regard to the claims of these narratives to be veritable history? Peter and Paul may speak for the whole college. 348 Pentateuchal Criticism. In his epistles Peter makes quotation of several incidents: 1. The story of Noah and the flood: "In the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water." i Pet. iii. 20 ; cf. 2 Pet. ii. 5. 2. The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha : '' And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow . . . ; And delivered just Lot." 2 Pet. ii. 6, 7. 3. The story of Abraham and Sarah, i Pet. iii. 6. 4. The story of Balaam. 2 Pet. ii. 15, 16. Paul is fond of using the facts of the Pentateuch history, not only in illustration, but often in proof of his doctrines. His writings abound in citations from these old narratives : 1. The story of the creation of man and woman : "For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." i Tim. ii. 13, 14. " For the man is not of the woman ; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman ; but the woman for the man." i Cor. xi. 8, 9. 2. The history of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob : " What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found ? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath where- of to glory ; but not before God. For what saith the Scripture ? Abraham believed God, and it The Validity of the Testimony of Christ. 349 was counted unto him for righteousness. . . . And he received the sign of circumcision." Ro- mans iv. 1-3, II. See also, in Romans ix. 7-13 and Galatians iv. 22-31, references to Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Esau, the facts being cited as recorded in Genesis. 3. The story of the Exodus : ^' Moreover, breth- ren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all bap- tized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat ; and did all drink the same spiritual drink ; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them ; and that Rock w^as Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased ; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, even as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them : as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer." i Cor. x. i-io; cf. Acts xiii. 17, 18. See also reference to writing of the ten com- mandments on stone, Moses' descent from the 350 Pentateuchal Criticism. Mount with shining face, and his veiHng his face. 2 Cor. iii. 7-13. Assuming that Paul was the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, we have before us a treatise whose very basis of argument is the his- toric character and veracity of the Pentateuch. Specific reference is made to Abraham, Melchise- dec, Moses, Aaron, the Exodus, the forty years wandering, the construction of the tabernacle by Moses, the giving of the law, and many of the special laws relating to the priesthood and ritual. The eleventh chapter cites as history the narratives that tell of Abel and his sacrifice ; Enoch and his translation ; Abraham and his call, and God's covenant with him ; Sarah and the birth of Isaac; the offering of Isaac; Isaac's blessing Jacob and Esau ; Jacob blessing his sons; Joseph giving commandment concerning his bones; the birth of Moses, his exposure, rescue and adop- tion by Pharaoh's daughter ; his casting in his lot with his people ; his leading them out of Egypt ; his institution of the passover ; the passage of the Red Sea, and the destruction of the Egyptians. To the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews these marvellous narratives are true records of events that actually occurred. The Lord Jesus was familiar with the history of Israel and their religion, and uses it for his pur- pose as occasion required. He refers: I. To the story of creation. " Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and The Validity of the Testimony of Christ. 351 said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?" Matt. xix. 4, 5. 2. To the story of Noah and the flood. *' But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drink- ing, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Matt. xxiv. 37-39, 3. Tothestory of Sodom and Gomorrha. '* Like- wise also as it was in the days of Lot ; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded ; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. . . . Remember Lot's wife." Luke xvii. 28, 29, 32, 4. To the story of the calling of Moses. " Have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?" Mark xii. 26. See also references to the brazen serpent, John iii. 14; to the manna, John vi. 32 ; to several laws attributed by Christ to Moses, e.g., law for purification of a leper. Matt, viii. 4; honoring father and mother, Mark vii. 10; circumcision, John vii. 22, 23 ; law of divorce. Matt. xix. 8. Striking and impressive as these citations are, even when taken out of their context, the full 353 Pentateuchal Criticism. force they legitimately carry can only be received when they have the advantage of the original cir- cumstances in which they were written or spoken. Turn, for example, to the thirteenth chapter of the Acts, and observe that Paul, addressing an audience of Jews in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia, who firmly believed that the history of the Penta- teuch was true in all its parts, places the facts of the Exodus and the wilderness wandering in the same category with those historic facts that lie at the very basis of Christianity — the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It is clear to a demon- stration that our Lord and the apostles relied upon the historic veracity of the Pentateuch nar- ratives, and affirmed that the events and incidents that they embody, whether ordinary or extra- ordinary, took place at the time and in the manner described. But what bearing, my readers are ready to ask, has the historical character of the Pentateuch on its origin and authorship? Are not these separate and altogether independent questions ? I am well aware that it is often asserted that these questions do not involve each other. Let us inquire how far this is true. It must be admitted that if the Pentateuch be historical in any adequate sense of the term, its own explicit or implicit claims as to origin and authorship must be accepted. A book whose dis- tinct claims as to its own authorship and date have been overturned may still contain some his- torical facts, but it cannot be regarded as a vera- The Validity of the Testimony of Christ. 353 cious history in the sense in which our Lord and the apostles certify the full and accurate his- torical character of the Pentateuch. Does, then, the book itself make any affirmation as to its origin and authorship ? That it does seems clear from three considerations : 1. There is the positive statement in two docu- ments that they were written by Moses. These are the list of the journeys of the children of Israel in the thirty-third chapter of the Book of Numbers, and the book of the covenant, which includes at least Exodus xx. 22-xxiii. In two other passages, Exod. xviii. 14 and xxxiv. 27, God commands Moses to write. 2. The reading of the middle books, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, shows that the writer claims to record numerous incidents in the history of Israel. The laws are set in this framework of history, and in many instances associated with minute description of the place and time. The name and work of Moses, what he said and did, make up much of the narrative. Moreover, in al- most every chapter we meet with statements like these : " The Lord said unto Moses," ** The Lord spake unto Moses," " Thus did Moses ; according to all that the Lord had commanded him so did he." If these and like phrases represent what really occurred, if the whole setting of these laws, and the progress of events be as described in these books, then it is beyond question that all but the merest fraction of the contents of the middle books must have originated with Moses. If it be true 354 Pentateuchal Criticism. that he was the originator of those laws which profess to have been given by him, and which, by the way, the critic? are most confident are of later date, few will care to discuss the quite secondary question of authorship. The most natural sup- position, however, is that they were written by Moses. 3. The book of Deuteronomy makes undeniable claims to Mosaic origin and authorship. *' It would surprise one unacquainted with the subject to know how large a portion of the book is put directly into the mouth of the lawgiver, and is represented to be spoken by him. By actual enumeration of verses it makes fifteen-sixteenths of the whole matter. Out of nearly a thousand verses there are but about sixty that are not in the form of direct address, that is, that do not purport to be the word-for-word utterances of Moses himself." Human language cannot be in- vented in which the writer of a book could afifirm anything with more positiveness than does the writer of Deuteronomy that its matter originated with Moses at a certain time and under given cir- cumstances. It is a mere war of words to discuss whether Moses was the author of this book if it be admitted that he was the originator of its con- tents. If the book be historical ; if, in other phrase, it speak the truth, no ingenuity can avoid the conclusion that it claims to be Mosaic in origin, and, therefore, to all intents and purposes. Mosaic in authorship. But this is not all, for the book itself contains The Validity of the Testimony of Christ. 3f.5 the direct assertion of its authorship by Moses: '' And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests." Deut. xxxi. 9. *' And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying. Take this book of the law, and put it in [at] the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God that it ma}^ be there for a witness against thee." Deut. xxxi. 24-26. These passages must relate to the book of Deu- teronomy at least, and there is reason to believe that they include the whole of the five books. At any rate there is here the positive assertion that Moses produced the contents of this book, and wrote them down, and then deposited the book as God had commanded him. These are either statements of fact, or they are not. If not, then we have the Lord Jesus and the apostles subscribing to the historical character of a book that relates in the most circumstantial manner events that never took place, and that lays claim to a date and an origin that are altogether false. If, however, these statements be true, it fixes the authorship of this the closing book of the whole. Taking this in connection with the claims of the middle books we have the definite affirmation of these four books that they are from Moses. If this be granted, I suppose there will be no dis- position to deny that Genesis has the same origin. There is another aspect of the relation of the 356 Pentateuchal Criticism. historical character of the Pentateuch to its origin and authorship to which I would invite special attention. It is that most of the arguments against the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch assert or imply that the historical narratives are more or less fictitious. How few critics there are who deny Mosaic authorship and maintain, in any true sense, the veracity of the history. This, I believe, is no accident, but a logical necessity. And if we look into the arguments of these critics it will appear that they have little force except on the assumption that these narratives are not to be re- ceived as history. And the class of facts that are set aside as unhistorical are principally those that involve the supernatural factor. I ask the reader to recall that it is precisely this class of facts that are most frequently cited as historical by our Lord and his apostles. Every argument, there- fore, against the Mosaic origin and authorship of the Pentateuch that derives its force from the denial of the veracity of the book as a whole or in any of its parts must be discredited by him who submits himself to the teaching of the Lord Jesus and the apostles. And so true is it that this hos- tile criticism is bound up with the unhistorical character of the Pentateuch that I am persuaded that the critic who believes that it is historical in the sense and to the extent accepted by our Saviour and the apostles will have little argu- ment and less motive for denying its origin and authorship to Moses. I have now completed the first line of investi- The Validity of the Testimony of Christ. 357 gation along which I proposed to move, and have reached the conclusion : {a) that the historical character of the Pentateuch and the Mosaic origin and authorship are involved in each other; {b) that Jesus and the apostles certify the historical character of the book; and {c) that, therefore, they certify its Mosaic origin and authorship. The fact, moreover, is signalized, that the hostile criticism commonly rejects or ignores the full and true historic veracity of the Pentateuch, and thereby comes into fatal collision with our Lord and his apostles. II. The second line of investigation is con- cerned with the more direct assertions and im- plications of the language of our Lord and his apostles. We shall find them frequently referring to Moses, and speaking of the law, the law of Moses, the book of Moses, and his writings. Some, at least, of these expressions are in them- selves indeterminate so far as mere etymological analysis goes. How are you to know what is meant by '' the law of Moses " and what constitute " his writings".'* These terms clearly had some defi- nite meaning among the contemporaries of Christ, and it is this meaning we must suppose to have been in the minds of Christ and the apostles. It is a first principle of all interpretation that a writer or speaker is to be understood to use words and phrases in the sense in which they are used by their contemporaries, unless there be in the context or in positive statement another and 353 Pentateuchal Criticism. a different meaning indicated. It becomes, there- fore, of prime importance to know in what sense and with what implications these words and phrases were used in New Testament times. I shall proceed to show that the contemporaries of Christ and the apostles understood by them : {a) That Moses was the name of an historic person whose history and achievements were fa- miliar to them, and not simply a convenient des- ignation of a system of legislation. {b) That Moses was a great lawgiver. {c) That Moses was an author, and that Moses the author was identical with Moses the lawgiver. {d) That Moses was the author of the Penta- teuch, which went by the name of *' the law," ''the law of Moses," ''the book of Moses," " Moses' writings." The evidence to make good these propositions is ample and accessible, while not a piece of testi- mony can be produced to the contrary. The pages of Josephus, the historian of the Jews, yield abundant testimony for our purpose. Born in Jerusalem about 38 A.D., of priestly descent, carefully educated, an adherent of the Pharisees, but acquainted with the tenets of all the Jewish sects, a patriot and officer in the Jewish army, and closing his career in literary labors at Rome, we have in Josephus a thoroughly competent witness and a trustworthy exponent of the current views of the Palestinian Jews. The passage in his po- lemic against Apion is familiar to my readers : " For we have not an innumerable multitude of books The Validity of the Testimony of Christ. 359 among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another, but only twenty-two books, which con- tain the records of all the past times, which are justly believed to be divine ; and of them five be- long to Moses, w^hich contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death." C' Against Apion," Bk. I. §8). In the last section of his preface to the "Anti- quities of the Jews " he refers to the position of Moses in relation to Jewish history : ''But because almost all our constitution depends on the wisdom of Moses, our legislator, I cannot avoid saying some- what concerning him beforehand. . . . The reader is therefore to know that Moses deemed it exceeding necessary that he who w^ould conduct his own life w^ell, and give laws to others, in the first place should consider the divine nature." In tracing the history from the creation onward Jo- sephus repeatedly quotes what Moses says and does, following the narratives of the Pentateuch, and giving the details of the birth of Moses, his exposure and rescue, his training and education as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, his call to deliver Israel, and the miraculous events that accompa- nied the Exodus. The full force of the impression can only be felt by the reading of Josephus him- self, but I will cite an additional passage, which, with those already given, seems sufficient to es- tablish the propositions I set out to prove by this witness: " The writings left by Moses have so great a force that even those who hate us do con- fess that he who established this settlement was 360 Pentateuchal Criticism. God, and that it was by the means of Moses and his virtue " {'' Antiq.," Bk. III., ehap. xv., §2). From the representative of the Palestinian tra- dition I turn to one who may justly be regarded as the representative of the tradition and belief of the Jews of the Dispersion. This is the volumi- nous author and philosopher, Philo. Born in Alexandria about 20 B.C., of an influential and wealthy family, and probably of priestly descent, Philo used his many advantages of position and leisure to acquaint himself with Jewish theology and Greek culture, and aspired to be the mediator between them. It is well known that in many respects the Jews of the Dispersion had modified the views of the Palestinian Jews. It becomes interesting to inquire whether, in this important question of the relation of Moses to their history and religion, they had departed from the doctrine of Palestine. To show from the works of Philo that there was no departure in this regard, and to justify the afiflrmations I have made respecting contemporary opinions of Moses and the Penta- teuch, is an easy matter. For example, in his **Life of Moses," section viii., p. 83, Vol. III.: " Now what has been here said is quite suflRcient for the abundant praise of Moses as a lawgiver. But there is another more extensive praise which his own holy writings themselves contain, and it is to them that we must now turn for the purpose of exhibiting the virtue of him who compiled them." *' Now, these writings of Moses may be divided The Validity of the Testimony of Christ. 361 into several parts ; one of which is the historical part, another is occupied with commands and prohibitions. . . ." In closing the life of Moses, and after attributing to him the prophetic description of his death and the mourning that followed, he closes with these words : " Such was the life and such was the death of the king and lawgiver, and high priest and pro- phet, Moses, as it is recorded in the sacred Script- ures." Philo begins his treatise on '^ Rewards and Pun- ishments " with these words : ** We find, then, that in the sacred oracles delivered by the prophet Moses, there are three separate characters : for a portion of them relates to the creation of the world, a portion is historical, and the third por- tion is legislative. Now the creation of the world is related throughout with exceeding beauty, and in a manner admirably suited to the dignity of God, taking its beginning in the account of the creation of the heaven, and ending with that of the formation of man. . . . '' The historical part is a record of the lives of different wicked and virtuous men, and of the re- wards and honors and punishments set apart for each class in each generation. *' The legislative part is subdivided into two sections, one of which has a more general object proposed to it, laying down accordingly a few general, comprehensive laws : the other part con sists of special and particular ordinances.""^ * Works, Vol, III., pp. 45G, 457. Bohn's translation. 362 Pextateuchal Criticism. Within the New Testament we have expres- sions of beHef from otliers than our Lord and His apostles, and the inspired writers, which con- stitute a factor of value in deciding what were the current views on the subject under discussion. The sacred writings were well known, as was the division into the Law and the Prophets, and the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms. It is evident, and is universally admitted, that in this two-fold or three-fold division the law was the designa- tion of our Pentateuch. As respects the relation of Moses to this law or Pentateuch, all the allu- sions and references we find in the New Testa- ment go to establish what has been supported by Philo and Josephus. Philip, for example, be- fore called as an apostle, " findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write." John i. 45. When the Pharisees were endeavor- ing to entrap Christ on the points in dispute con- cerning the law of divorce, " They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away ? " Matt. xix. 7. Compare John viii. 5, ix. 28,29; Acts xv. 5. The Sadducees used language of like import when they came to him and put their question about the resurrection, saying, ^' Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed to his brother." Matt. xxii. 24. To get at a glance the general view of the Jews as a people read this extract from Luke's account The Validity of the Testimony of Christ. 363 of the attack on Stephen : " Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blas- phemous words against Moses, and against God. And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him^ and brought him to the council. And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law; for we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses de- livered us." Acts vi. 11-14. Compare Stephen's speech which follows, and John i. 17, Acts xv. i, xxi. 21-28. It is needless to weary the reader with further citations. It is enough to say that Rabbinic and early Christian tradition, and the scant allusions in Latin and Greek writers support the propositions I have affirmed. If there were need, the best and most recent authorities could be cited to sustain this view, while none can be produced for the assump- tion that such was not the current belief of the time of Christ. To quote only one writer, when I might quote many. Rev. Dr. Toy, in his introduction to his " Quotations in the New Testament," p. xxix. says: ''As to the critical opinions of the New Testament writers, there is no reason to doubt that they were those of the Jews of the time (nearly what is now known as the Christian tradi- tional view). According to the Talmud the Pen- 364 Pentateuchal Criticism. tateuch was written by Moses (except the eight last verses, which were added by Joshua). . . . This, in general, was doubtless the received opin- ion in the first century, and must have been held by the New Testament writers. Nobody then doubted that Moses wrote the Pentateuch." The last trace of doubt should fade away in the light of the reflection that the cunning and relentless opponents of Christ never raised this question with Him. Jesus had enemies, able, acute, alert and unscrupulous, who would have seized on any opportunity to bring him into collision with any prevailing and popular national or religious idea. We see them setting traps for him by their ques- tions, and endeavoring to compel him to commit himself to some one of the religious and political parties of the day. We know that on the vexed question of the lawfulness of paying tribute to Caesar they made the effort to range him on one side or the other, and thereby bring him into antagonism with Rome or with the feelings of the populace. The Sadducees set their trap with the doctrine of the resurrection. The Pharisees pro- pounded points of dispute between different schools of their own party on the law of divorce and the order of the commandments. And we know that the purposes of these enemies were at last achieved by exciting the populace against Jesus. It is as plain as can be that if any differ- ence of opinion had existed respecting Moses and his relation to the history and religion of the Jews, and the origin and authorship of the Penta- The Validity of the Testimony of Christ. 365 teuch, these ingenious enemies would not have forgotten to frame a question on the subject for Christ to answer. But they ask no question of the kind, and while they charge him with hostil- ity to Moses, they never so much as hint at what would have been the most damaging accusation of all, and never even insinuate the charge on which they could have inflamed against Him the deepest national and religious sentiments of the people. I have been at pains to establish that such were the universally accepted beliefs, for the reason that they constitute the criterion by which to measure the contents of the language of our Lord and the apostles. We are obliged by every principle of interpretation to maintain that they, aware of these opinions and beliefs in their hear- ers and readers, used the same language in the same sense, and with the same general implica- tions, unless they intimate the contrary, The apostle Paul will fitly represent all the apostles, and this is the way in which he speaks : *' For Moses writeth that the man that doeth the righteousness which is of the law shall live thereby," (R. V.) Rom. x : 5. " First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people." Rom. x. 19. " For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that tread- eth out the corn." i Cor. ix. 9. '' For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the 366 Pentateuchal Criticism. blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scar- let wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people." Heb. ix. 19. " He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses." Heb. x. 28 ; cf. Heb. vii. 14 and 2 Cor. iii. 15. When Paul speaks of Moses saying, Moses writing, Moses speaking, the law of Moses, the book, who can avoid the conclusion that Paul held with everybody of his time that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch? There is no lack of citations from the Gospels that put before us our Lord's method of handling this subject : "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Luke xvi. 29, 31. " These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concern- ing me." Luke xxiv : 44. *' The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat." Matt, xxiii. 2. " Offer the gift that Moses commanded." Matt. viii. 4. *' Moses said, " Honor thy father and thy mother." Mark vii. 10. " For this cause hath Moses given you circum- cision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers). . . . If a man receives circumcision on the The Validity of the Testimony of Christ. 367 Sabbath, that the law of Moses may not be broken." John vii. 22, 23. '* And the Pharisees came to him and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him. And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you ? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them. For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept." Mark X. 2-5. *' And there come unto him Sadduces, which say that there is no resurrection ; and they asked him, saying. Master, Moses wrote unto us. . . ." *' But as touching the dead," replies Jesus, '^ that they are raised : have ye not read in the book of Moses, in the place concerning the bush, how God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"? (R. V.) Mark xii. 19, 26; cf. Matt, xxii. 23-32 ; Luke xx. 27-38. Special pleading may evade the natural and legitimate conclusions from these words, but special pleading is not interpretation. When our Lord speaks of Moses, Moses saying, Moses com- manding, Moses giving, Moses writing, Moses' seat, the law, the law of Moses, the book of Moses, we must suppose that he was not simply employing conventional modes of expression, but that he used these words and phrases in the sense in which he well knew they were received by his audience. 368 Pentateuchal Criticism. I invite special attention to a passage of signal importance preserved for us by the Apostle John in his Memorials of the Saviour. A vigorous con- troversy between Jesus and the Jews had grown out of his healing a man on the Sabbath day at the pool of Bethesda. Both parties relied on the Hebrew Scriptures, and particularly on Moses and his teachings. Jesus challenges them to search their Scriptures, and asserting for himself a pecu- liar relation to Moses and his venerable writings, summons the great law-giver as the chief witness in his behalf, and lodges against his opponents the charge of disbelieving the writings of the one on whom they had set their hope and whose cham- pions they assumed to be. Before the mind of Jesus was the fundamental question of the rela- tion of Moses and the religion he inculcated to the prevalent religious doctrines and practices of the Jews, as well as to Himself and the religious position and claims he was maintaining. We hav.e a right to believe that our Lord on such an occasion measures his words, and that his argument moves not on the plane of merely con- victing his adversaries of an inconsistency, but is, in all its compass, a deliverance of the truth as it was imbedded in his consciousness. From this point of view, then, let us construe these words of our Lord : *' Think not that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, on whom ye have set your hope. For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe me ; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his The Validity of the Testimony of Christ. 369 writings, how shall ye believe my words?" John V. 45-47. Beyond a doubt Jesus here affirms that Moses was a historical person, not merely a name for a book or a system, and that this Moses wrote of him.* It is equally clear that what Moses had written of Jesus was asserted by him to be accessible to his hearers in certain writings of Moses. The only point of difficulty with them or with us in understanding Jesus would lie in ascertaining what these writings of Moses are. The phrase, *' his writings," is in itself indefinite, and there is nothing in the context to determine what are the writings of Moses. No one can for a moment suppose that our Lord would lay so grave an in- dictment and leave his adversaries in ignorance of its basis. We must, therefore, conclude that he and his auditors had a definite sense attached to the indefinite phrase. This sense has already been shown to be the Pentateuch. The ^' writ- ings of Moses " were identical with the collection that still carries that title, and when the Saviour startled his opponents with the charge of disbe- lieving the writings of Moses there was not a man that heard him whose mind was in the least doubt what writings were in question. But a few moments before he had bidden them search the Scriptures, literally, "the writings." They well knew that he referred not to any or all *' the * The reader of the Greek will observe that "he" and "his "are BO expressod as to emphasize the personality of Moses, and that ** writings" is also contrasted with " words." S70 Pentateuchal Criticism. writings" to be found among themselves or other peoples, but to a specific collection which, from their peculiar character, passed current under the name of " the writings." They were accordingly by his own usage compelled to interpret him here as adopting the current limitations of a similar indefinite phrase, and to suppose Him to refer to what all the Jews called the writings of Moses, namely, the Pentateuch. Support is found for this in an exposition of our Lord's meaning when he affirms that Moses wrote of him. A brief, comprehensive, and sober interpreta- tion of the passage is given by Dr. Schaff in his edition of the Lange Commentary: " Moses wrote of Christ, as the seed of the woman that shall bruise the serpent's head (Gen. iii.), as the seed of Abraham by which all the nations of the earth shall be blessed (Gen. xii. ff.), as the Shiloh unto whom shall be the gathering of the people (Gen. xlix.), as the Star out of Jacob, and the scepter that shall rise out of Israel (Numb. xxiv. 17), as the great Prophet whom God will raise up, and unto whom the Jews should hearken (Deut. xviii.). Moreover, the moral law of Moses, by revealing the holy will of God and setting up a standard of human right- eousness in conformity with that will, awakens a knowledge of sin and guilt (Rom. iii. 20 ; vii. 7), and thus serves as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Gal. iii. 24). Finally, the ritual law and all the ceremonies of Mosaic worship were typical The Validity of the Testimony ob^ Christ. oTl of the Christian dispensation (Col. ii. 17), as the heahng serpent in the wilderness pointed to Christ on the cross (Numb. xxi. 9; John iii. 14). This is a most important testimony, from the unerring mouth of Christ, to the Messianic character and aim of the whole Mosaic dispensation, and to the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch." If this exposition be just, our Lord must have had in mind the body of writings known as the writings of Moses. Should a doubt remain, it should be removed by the reflection that unless by "his writings" our Lord intended to name the Pentateuch there was to those who heard him no method of deter- mining his meaning. If we give up the doctrine that Moses wrote the Pentateuch we are abso- lutely unable to discover what are the writings of Moses to which Jesus appealed. It is a notorious fact that while there is more or less agreement on the part of the critics in their general analysis of the Pentateuch, there is no approach to unanimity in the proportion ascribed to the date and author- ship of Moses. This proportion ranges from zero through varying degrees, according to the fancy or preconceived notions or criteria of the critic. Denying, then, that our Lord referred the Jews to the Pentateuch, and the wJiole Pentateuch, when he spoke of their disbelief of the writings of Moses, we are compelled to say that he based a most solemn indictment against their most sacred beliefs and their religious life upon their great leader's writings, ot which, like his sep- ulchre, " no man knoweth unto this day." 372 Pentateuchal Criticism. It is plain, therefore, that the writings of Moses were intended by Jesus to mean the Pentateuch. Substituting this term in the passage under con- sideration it reads in this way: Think not that I will accuse you to the Father : there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, on whom you have set your hope. If ye believed Moses ye would be- lieve me ; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, the Pentateuch, how will ye be- lieve my words ? " The only other interpretation that seems pos- sible is to suppose that our Saviour has in mind certain special utterances of Moses to be found in the Pentateuch ; such, for example, as the Mes- sianic predictions to be found in Genesis and else- where, and particularly the prediction of the great prophet in Deuteronomy. His meaning, then, would be : Moses wrote these predictions con- cerning me : these constitute his writings. Inas- much as ye do not receive me as the Messiah in regard to whom Moses wrote these passages, ye disbelieve his writings, and therefore disbelieve Moses. On this it may be remarked : 1. How were the Jews to know that he was re- ferring to these passages ? 2. These Messianic predictions are found in parts of the Pentateuch most generally denied to Moses. If the methods of the critics have led them to deny in these instances what Christ ascribes to Moses, we may well be cautious in accepting their results elsewhere. 3. These passages are part and parcel of a body The Validity of the Testimony of Christ. 37.T of writings universally attributed at the time to Moses. If Christ affirms these passages as Mo- saic, he must be held, by all the principles of literary criticism, to affirm the whole book from which they are taken as of the same authorship, unless he bar the inference by a distinct state- ment or otherwise. To deny this principle is to deny one of the most common and conclusive modes of tracing writings and books to their authors. Even on this interpretation, then, our Lord must have affirmed the Mosaic authorship, not of one or more passages simply, but of the whole Pentateuch. I have now completed the second line of inves- tigation that was proposed at the outset, and have reached the conclusion that a fair and legiti- mate interpretation of the language used by our Lord and the Apostles commits them to holding and teaching the current view of their time on the authorship of the Pentateuch. This conclusion is further supported by three considerations : I. By its consistency with the general posture of our Lord and the Apostles toward the Old Testament religion and its sacred documents. Jesus furnishes us a summary statement in his own words : '* Think not that I am come to de- stroy the law, or the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." Matt. v. 17. The Apostles are justly represented in Paul, when, in his defense before Agrippa, he vehe- mently denies the charge that he was an opponent 374 Pentateuch AL Criticism. of the Jewish rehgion, and states his position in this form : '^ Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come." Acts xxvi. 22. Beyond a doubt, in the estimation of Jesus and his Apostles the religion of the Old Testament was supernatural in its origin, and its documents were inspired and authoritative. Equally beyond controversy is the assertion that to their minds the Old Testament was incomplete, and the New Testament its complement : the Old a prophecy — not simply in specific predictions, but in its his- tory and institutions — and the New its fulfilment: the Old Testament creating longings and expec- tations of a Messiah and a Messianic kingdom, and the New placing over against these the per- son and works of Jesus and the kingdom he preached. The bond, therefore, between the Old and the New is not one of mere historic succes- sion, but is organic. It needs no proof to justify the statement that if Jesus and the Apostles at- tributed the Mosaic writings to the age and authorship of Moses, they would be in harmony with their attitude toward the religion and his- tory of Israel. It is very doubtful whether any other view of the relation of Moses to Israel and these writings can be adjusted to the New Testa- ment. 2. This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that all parties within and without the early The Validity of the Testimony of Christ. 375 church understood Christ and the Apostles to hold the common view of their day on the matter now before us. The struggle between Judaism and Christianity was long and bitter, and was carried on within the bosom of the church itself with such earnestness as to endanger the very life and prosperity of the church. Moses was the rallying-cry of the Jewish opponents of Christian- ity and of the Judaizing Christians. Yet not a whisper is heard, even against Paul, the most ''advanced thinker" of them all, that he, or his Lord, or any of the preachers of the Gospel, questioned the Mosaic authorship of the writings whose meaning was most in dispute. It is clear, therefore, that our interpretation has the sanc- tion of all the contemporaries of Christ and his acknowledged representatives. 3. This conclusion finds support in the difficul- ties that emerge on giving up this interpretation. One of these difficulties is that we shall then be at a loss to discover what was the opinion or teaching of Christ and the Apostles regarding Moses and his place in the history and religion of the Jews. If we explain away, by a minimizing exegesis, or by the supposition of ignorance or accommodation on their part, the utterances they make respecting Moses, the law of Moses, the writings of Moses, and similar expressions, then by the same methods and principles we may ex- plain away all the contents of their language, and can deny that they make any affirmations what- ever in regard to what is by common consent the 376 Pentateuchal Criticism. great problem of Israel's religion. It appears to the present writer that unless Christ and the Apostles affirm the authorship of the Pentateuch in the passages quoted from them, they affirm little or nothing upon the historic character and achievements of the man who, by the confession of all, is the central and dominant figure in Israel's history, and the accredited source of her religious doctrines and worship. To make such a conclu- sion as this consist Avith any just insight into the religion of Israel on the part of Jesus, not to speak of his honesty as a teacher or his Divinity, would be no easy task. These considerations conspire to create confidence in the legitimacy of the process by which the passages under review have been interpreted, and confirm the writer in the conviction that Christ and his Apostles have delivered a definite and to him decisive judgment on the burning question of Biblical criticism. This judgment, reached by two distinct lines of study, is in favor of the traditional view in its substantial claims. Without attempting to sum up the argument, the writer submits to the can- dor of his readers this humble contribution on a most vital theme. SUMMARY. 1. Chaldea, Egypt, Syria, before 1300 B.C., according to the agreements of their scientific historians. 2. The naturalness and accuracy in the Pentateuch's narrative of beliefs, customs and geography, seal its date contemporaneous with the events de- scribed, and limit its authorship to one master hand. Howard Osgood. Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 379 A REASONABLE HYPOTHESIS OF THE ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. BY HOWARD OSGOOD, PROFESSOR IN ROCHESTER THEOL. SEMINARY. A reasonable hypothesis of the origin of the Pentateuch must be one which most closely agrees with all the known facts. Any hypothesis that contradicts or does not agree with plain facts in its sphere is untenable. If the results of mere philology in one department are contradicted by the undeniable facts of history, the philology needs revision. I shall treat only the secular side of the Pen- tateuch question, on the broadest plane of history. So far as this paper is concerned the Pentateuch is an ancient Hebrew work, and an answer is sought to the queries. When was this work written ? Was it the composition of one or of many hands? Professor Maspero some years ago wrote, ''In less than 30 years a new world of unknown lan- guages and peoples has been opened for study ; thirty centuries of history have come forth from the tombs and reappeared in the full light of day."^ The literature, w^hich these studies and discoveries have evoked, represents more scholars than those who write on the Pentateuch contro- versy. They are the peers in every respect of the German or Dutch or English leaders of the school of criticism, which denies that the Pentateuch is history. These historians of Chaldea, Egypt, 380 Pentateuchal Criticism. Syria, have the advantage over the critics of a single theme, that they base their results not on one book but on hundreds of monuments of stone, clay, inscribed statues, engraved seals, bas-reliefs inscribed and that describe themselves, paintings that illustrate the text and are further explained by the text, papyri of different ages, containing the same text with the variations of copyists. These historians breathe a larger, freer air than most critics, for they are compelled to take into account comparative ethnology, geography, and religion ; to become familiar with the language, art, government, national and social life and com- merce of the peoples whose history they study. And when we gather, as we shall in this paper, the proved results of these scientific investigators, we breathe a larger air than is to be found in the apologetical works of those critics who have a narrow theory to defend. The opponents of the Pentateuch as history claim a keener sight than other persons concern- ing questions of 3,000 years ago ; but they fail to see, or if they see, they fail to consider that " 3,000 years ago " when brought into plain sight before them and all men now. Except a few notices in Kuenen's " Religion of Israel," and Wellhausen's characteristic " God-forsaken dreariness of certain modern Egyptologists," one searches in vain in their writings for any real appreciation of the utter revolution that has taken place in ancient history by reason of the startling resurrection of long buried nations. These opponents postulate as Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 381 ''the universal, or at least the common rule, that religion begins with fetichism, then develops into polytheism," etc. ; but that theory is now simple tradition, eaten of worms, and is as dead as Herod. They rest their theory on the assumption that polytheism preceded monotheism : a pure tradi- tional assumption and nothing more, when fully one half of the scientific archaeologists believe they can prove the contrary. The last four books of the Pentateuch describe in a Semitic language the fortunes of a Semitic people in Egypt or near Egypt, during 40 years somewhere from 1 500-1 300 B.C. The first book of the Pentateuch professes to give a short sketch of the history of the world, and then a longer his- tory of the immediate ancestors of these Semites in Chaldea, in Syria and in Egypt. Those who assert that the Pentateuch was a compilation made many centuries after 1300 B.C. make the following assumptions: i. That Egypt and Syria were at a relatively low stage of civiliz- ation, as to literature, art, commerce, knowledge of surrounding countries before and at the time of the Exodus, /. c, before 1300 B. C. 2. That Syria was aloof from the great tides of the world's life, literature and commerce. 3. That '* ethical mo- notheism" was "the creation" of the Hebrew prophets during and after the eighth century B.C. Let us look at these lands that we may under- stand their relations. Let any one take a good map of Western Asia (Kiepert) and he will see that the rich lands of the Mesopotamian empires 383 Pentateuchal Criticism. extended from the western boundary of the pres- ent Persia to the Euphrates. Between the Eu- phrates and Syria extends the great desert, its apex nearly on a line with the northern (Asia Minor) coast of the Mediterranean. The eastern coast of the Mediterranean, about 450 miles from North to South, is Syria (including Palestine), a narrow strip of about 100 miles wide, between the sea and the desert. The northeastern point of Syria joins the main crossing point of the Euph- rates to the Mesopotamian lands, while its south- western point touches the eastern boundary of Egypt. By the conformation of the earth Syria is the unavoidable route of migration and com- merce between Chaldea and Egypt. The remains of numerous ancient cities, a dense population, and the witness of all history have marked this course as the line of travel. Some have supposed a line of commerce from Chaldea to Egypt through the Arabian peninsula ; but while practicable for a few men and animals together during a small part of the year, that course is no shorter than the northern, and it is far more difficult, owing to the terrible, waterless itefuds, the shifting sands of the deserts of Central and Western Arabia. The nar- row strip of rich and varied country at the east of the Mediterranean, Syria, was '' the natural intermedi- ary between the two original centers of culture, Babylon and Egypt. Here the influences of East and West crossed each other and intermingled."^ " For both Egypt and the East Syria formed a natural thoroughfare in time of war for the forces Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 383 of the contending powers, in time of peace for the trading caravans which carried on the interchange of African and Asiatic merchandise." ^ History. '' The Semitic inhabitants of the re- gion of the Tigris and Euphrates meet us at their very first appearance in history as a settled people, possessed of a high degree of civilization." ^ '^ Long before the time when the Jews and the Greeks tell us of the ancient empires of Asia, Lower Chaldea was the center of a powerful civiliza- tion."^ " However incredible it may appear that in an age so far off a Semitic rule — for that Sargon and Naram-sin were Semites cannot be denied — stretched from Elam to the coasts of the Mediter- ranean and the borders of Egypt until the time of Cyrus, there is no sufficient ground for doubting this most astounding fact." ^ Professor Revillout, after spreading before us the many dealings of the firm Ilani-irba, Ubarsin and Mikraatsin of Warka (22CX) B.C.), and of Sininana, the banker of Warka, says : " All this shows us among the Chaldeans of Warka in the 23d century B.C. a fully developed commercial spirit, an understanding of the princi- ples of political economy which hardly had its analogue among all ancient peoples, except at a later period in the same land in the relatively modern legislation of the Babylon of Nebuchad- nezzar, and perhaps also at Tyre and Carthage, among that great people the Phoenicians.""^ Literature. " It appears that at an early period in Babylonian history a great literary development took place, and numerous works were produced 384 Pentateuchal Criticism. which embodied the prevailing myths, reh'gion, and science of the day ; Avritten, many of them, in a noble style of poetr}% and appealing to the strong- est feelings of the people on one side, or registering the highest efforts of their science on the other. These texts became the standards of Babylon- ian literature, and later generations were con- tent to copy them instead of composing new works for themseh^es. Clay, the material on which they were written, was everywhere abun- dant, copies w^ere multiplied, and the veneration in which the texts were held, fixed and stereo- typed their style. Even the language in which they were written remained the language of litera- ture up to the period of the Persian conquest. Thus it happens that texts of Rim-agu, Sar- gon, and Khammuragas, who lived at least a thousand years before Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus, are composed in the same language as the texts of these later kings, there being no sensible difference in the style to match the long interval between them." ^ Art. *'What must have been the culture of the society which has given us works so far ad- vanced as those of the artists of Agade! For the engraved stones of this locality and this epoch sus- tain a comparison in every respect with the most re- nowned w orks ; and we must recognize their full merit after the most leisurely examination of their smallest details under the magnifying glass." ^ Religion. ''The Semitic Babylonians, as well as the other Semites, originally revered one super- Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 385 ior god, whom they named simply ' Lord * (Baal, Balu) ; then simply *God' (ilu, el), and conceived him as dwelling in light ; hence they regarded the sun as his chiefest symbol. * * This service of the sun and stars, altogether different from the polytheistic worships of other nations, on one side, spiritualized to the monotheism which meets us in the Old Testament before Abraham and is per- fected under the prophets, on the other side, mingled, especially by the Babylonians, with Sumerian polytheism, brought forth the result which we find elaborated as the religion of the state in North Babylonia about 1900 B. C." ''^ The Semites of Babylonia before 1300 B. C. were a highly cultivated people, of great commer- cial spirit, with an art that was never surpassed in Babylonia, with a large literature, with laws fully developed, fond of archives and possessing those which went back many centuries ; in religion, partly monotheistic and partly polytheistic, with an elaborate system of priesthood and temples; and among this people great rulers and conquerors had arisen, who had before 2000 B. C. extended their conquest to the Mediterranean coasts. Let us now turn to Egypt before 1300 B. C. History. — '' It is certain that at least 3000 years before Christ there was in Egypt a powerful and elaborately organized monarchy, enjoying a material civilization, in many respects not inferior to that of Europe in the last century. Centuries must have elapsed before such a civilization be- came possible. Of a state of barbarism, or even of 386 Pentateuchal Criticism. patriarchal life anterior to the monumental period, there is no historical vestige. The earliest monu- ments which have been discovered present to us the very same fully developed civilization and the same religion as the later monuments." ^^ ''Its religion was established. It possessed its lan- guage and written characters. Art under the 4th and 5th dynasties attained a height never sur- passed by following dynasties. It had, moreover, a complicated administration — the result of efforts pursued through long years. There were civil grades and religious grades, bishops as well as prefects. Registration of land was maintained. The king had his court, and a whole world of officials, powerfully and wisely organized, gravi- tated around him. Literature was held in honor, and books of morals were composed, some of which have come even to us."^^ ''When the Egyptian nation enters upon the scene of the world's history it is already full grown. Like Pallas Athena from the head of Jupiter, it issues from the night of past ages fully equipped into the light."^^ "At that time [about 3000 B. C], long before our usual ideas of the development of na- tions, there is found a people highly instructed in all the arts of peace ; a state completely organ- ized ; a hierarchy firmly founded, minutely divided and organized even in the smallest external mat- ters ; an universally diffused system of writing and the common use of papyrus ; in short a civiliza- tion which, in all essential points, had already at- tained its full maturity, and onl}' by sharp inves- HyPOTHES'S OF THE ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 387 tigation c.7n the farther development in some di- rections be discovered." '^ Art. — '' Egypt, as she appears to us in her first creations, ah-eady possesses an art so advanced that it seems the end rather than the beginning of a long development. The bas-reliefs and statues U'hich have been found in the tombs and pyramids of Meidoum, of Sakkarah and of Gizch, are per- haps the masterpieces of Egyptian sculpture, and, as Ampere says, " the pyramid of Cheops is of all human monuments the oldest, the simplest and the greatest." ^^ '' When we go back to the beginning of Egyp- tian civilization we are surprised to find ourselves in the presence of works of art more and more complete, which following ages did not develop." ^^ " The Egyptians seem to have commenced where other people left off. The more ancient their works the more beautiful they are." ^^ '' Every artistic production of those days [4th dynasty] in picture, writing, or sculpture, bears the stamp of the highest perfection of art."^^ ''The art of Egypt is art in the noblest sense of the word." -"^ Art under the i8th and 19th dynasties. ''The sixteenth century B. C, the age of Thothmes and his successors, presents itself to us as the most perfect bloom of old Egyptian art, equally grand in its conception of the whole, and full of taste and refinement in the execution of the several parts." ^'^ Literature. — " In one of the tombs of Gizch a high officer of the first period of the sixth dynasty 388 Pentateuchal Criticism. takes the title of '^Governor of the House of Books." This simple mention, occurring incidentally be- tween two more exalted titles, suffices (where others are wanting) to show us the extraordinary development of Egyptian civilization at that time. Not only was there already a literature, but this literature was sufificiently large to fill libraries, and its importance was so great that one of the court officers was specially designated for the keeping of the royal library." '' This library must have been composed of religious works, of chapters of the Book of the Dead, copied from the authentic texts kept in the temples : of scientific treatises on geometry, medicine, and astronomy ; of histor- ical works containing the sayings and deeds of the ancient kings, the number of the years of their lives and the exact length of their reigns; of manuals of philosophy and of practical ethics." ^^ "There was formed an aristocracy of the edu- cated, of scribes, in whose hands was the whole farther development of the land." ^^ '' For a scribe of talent the way was open to the highest honors in the cities of Pharaoh." ^^ " The Egyptians were fond of annals, the documents which were con- nected with high antiquity. They studied their own origin and that of the human race ; they ven- erated the past." ^^ '' We know certainly that literary instruction was the first condition exacted of a civil or military officer. One must have the title of scribe to obtain the lowest office in the administration or in the army. Knowledge led on to all." ^ "Intellectual life was developed in its Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 389 full compass ; they strov^c after moral elevation ; schools were established in the country, and wis- dom, divine and human, was taught in the colleges of the holy servants of the gods."^^ *' The schools and places of instruction were united with the temples, and all who wished to obtain office and honor must have received their education from the priests." ^^ " There were great schools of learning which were in close connection with the temples and presided over by priests ; in which, as appears, there were held examinations of the ability and knowledge of the scholars." ^^ " The most important part of Egyptian intellec- tual culture was the historical spirit which was active and manifest from the first in the learned priesthood." ^ *' To what nation then can we ascribe * historic sense ' if we deny it to the one that wrote in the form of chronicles and epics the names and deeds of their kings on the walls of their temples and graves, that they might be read and praised by their latest posterity ; who covered their dwellings and caves, yea, even their tools with hieroglyphics, in order that the name of the possessor might live among men ! "^^ Religion. As to the religion of Egypt many centuries before 1 300 B.C., the learned are divided in opinion. About one-half believe that mono- theism was its basis ; the other half believe that polytheism was its basis. Those who teach that monotheism was the basis are Brugsch, Chabas, Grebaut, Lauth, Mariette, Pierret, Renouf, Robiou, de Rouge, Tiele. On the other side are Ebers, 390 Pentateuchal Criticism, Erman, Lenormant, Lieblein, Maspero, Meyer, Reinisch, Wiedemann. Mariette says, " At the summit of the Egyptian Pantheon there soared a god, unique, immortal, uncreated, invisible, and hidden in the inacces- sible depths of his essence; he is the creator of heaven and earth ; he has made all that exists and nothing has been made without him ; he is the god reserved for him who is initiated into the sanctuary. But Egypt did not know how, or was unwilling to stop at this sublime height. She considered the world, its formation, the principles wdiich govern it, man and his destiny on the earth, as an immense drama. The supreme being is the unique actor in it. Everything procee,ds from him, and everything returns to him. Yet he has agents who are his attributes personified, and who become as many gods under visible forms, inferior gods, limited in their sphere, though partaking of all his characteristics." ^^ Brugsch says : " God, freed from all names and forms, was, according to the quoted examples and testimonies, no unknown or dark conception of the Egyptians, for, from Pyramid times to that of the Greeks and Romans, he, in a thousand ways, is the presupposition to the various forms of their mythology. God is the pure source from which, in the deep obscurity of earliest ages, the great stream of mythical histories received its flow, which in the course of time, like the Nile, branched out into broad arms and canals." " The inscriptions which speak clearly of the nature of this one god. Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 391 or the original spirit, ascribe to him a scries of attributes worthy of the ahnighty creator of heaven and earth." ^2 -piele says '' That there existed a full conviction of the unity of the deity, even when he is called by various names, is proved by collective names such as Ra-haremchu- chepra, and other similar ones. This is, at least in Egypt, no new doctrine resulting from later theological speculations. It is found occurring on the very oldest monuments." ^^ And de Rouge says: ''The unity of a supreme, self-existent being, his eternity, omnipotence, and eternal generation in god ; the creation of the world and of all living beings attributed to this supreme god ; the immortality of the soul, completed by the doctrine of rewards and penalties ; such is the sublime and abiding substance, which, in spite of all deviations and mythological embellishment, should assure to the belief of the ancient Egyp- tians an honorable rank among the religions of antiquity." ''^* Other scientific archaeologists and historians make similar af^rmations of Egyptian belief during ages anterior to 2000 B. C, or the time of Abraham. But when we turn to the eighteenth and nine- teenth dynasties, all Egyptologists are in accord that monotheism was believed and was even estab- lished as the religion of the state for a short period during the eighteenth dynasty. '' The develop- ment progressed quickly and surely, so that certain schools and classes of the people, under the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, could ac- 892 Pentateuchal Criticism. knowledge pure monotheism. It is thus from this period the doctrine of one god originates, and it is to the religion of this period that the characteristic applies, that Le Page Renouf quotes, after de Rouge, ' God, one, sole and only ; no others with him. He is the only being, living in truth. Thou art one, and millions of beings pro- ceed from thee. He has made everything, and he alone has not been made. The clearest, the simplest, the most precise conception.' "^^ ** The priests in Heliopolis, at about the same time, or, more correctly, a little earlier, had raised them- selves to adopt the doctrine of a monotheistic god, which they called Khepera, i. e. : the god who is, who exists ; a name that has the same derivation and meaning in the Egyptian language as Jahwe has in the Hebrew." ^^ ** When mono- theism was reached, the highest step in the con- ception of the deity was arrived at." ^ '* One only god, w^ho begets himself and is the source of his own being, who is called the double god, at once his own father and son,^ * meets us plainly in the theological writings of the ancient Egyptians; indeed, so densely overcrowded and overshad- owed by the innumerable and varied forms of the abundant world of gods of the Nile valley that his existence is with difficulty grasped and recog- nized by outsiders." ^^ Ethics. The Egyptians, from the earliest times, possessed a highly developed code of morals, and they believed that this morality was the teaching of their deity, the only ground of their accep- Hypotfiesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 393 tance with him hereafter. Tide gives us a very good summary of the views of Egyptologists : ''A moral life, a life of holiness and beneficence, was conceived of as being a matter of solemn obligation towards the deity himself. To become like god Osiris, a benefactor, a good being, per secuted but justified, judged but pronounced innocent, was looked upon as the ideal of every pious man, and as the condition on which alone eternal life could be obtained and the means by which it could be continued." ^^ Renouf says: '' The recognized Egyptian code of morality was a very noble and refined one. ' None of the Christian virtues,' Chabas says, ' is forgotten in it: piety, charity, gentleness, self-command in word and action, chastity, the protection of the weak, benevolence towards the humble, deference to superiors, respect for property in its minutest details, ^ ^ all is expressed there, and in extremely good language.'" ^^ Maspero says: ** That they might merit this blessed destiny [/. e.: to be united with and dwell with God for- ever], the Egyptians had compiled a code of practical morality, the articles of which occur more or less developed on the monuments of all epochs, but the most complete version forms the 125th chapter of the Book of the Dead."^^ An Egyptian work on morals, written long be- fore 1300 B. C, says: ** Do not intimidate men, or God will likewise contend with thee. If aii}-- one wishes to live by that means he (God) will take the bread out of his mouth ; if anyone wishes 394 Pentateuchal Criticism. to enrich himself (by that means), he (God) says, I shall take to myself these riches ; if any one wishes to strike down others, he (God) will end by bringing him to nought. That none should intimidate men, this is the will of God."^^ ''If thou art a wise man train a son who will be pleasing to God." ^^ The Book of the Dead, chapter 125, tells us of the deceased Avho " is reconciled to God by his love (or charity). He has given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked." ^^ Ani says : " Give thyself to God. Keep thyself for God continually; and may to-morrow be like to-day. Let thine eye regard the deeds of God ; it is he who smites the smitten." ^^ Surely here is morality proceeding from God as its source, and imperative on man because it is the will of God. This religion was taught and symbolized in temples unparalleled in any other land or age for grandeur, for extent, for riches, and for gor- geous ritual. ^' It is difficult to get even an ap- proximate conception of the immense range of these buildings, of the truly enormous amount of work and wealth which was thus expended in the service of the gods."^^ " These riches, increasing from generation to generation, had made the chief priest almost as important a personage as the Pharaoh. One might, with show of reason, say that for him and him alone the Egyptians had undertaken the conquest of Asia."^^ ''The rev- enues of the temples were exceedingly large, and were divided into ordinary and extraordinary. Hypothesis op the Origin of the Pentateuch. 395 To the ordinary revenue belonged, i, the rent of real estate belonging to the temples, which covered one-third of the land of Egypt ; this rent flowed entire into the treasuries of the temples, as temple property was free from tax ; 2, a cer- tain proportion of the tribute from subject coun- tries ; 3, food, /. c. : cattle, grain and wine, which the country must deliver to the temples ; 4, the fees for the conduct of worship, but above all for the very costly funeral ceremonies. To the extra- ordinary belonged the voluntary gifts from the king and the people, which were very important ; I mention, for example, only the custom, almost a law, that in times of war, before the regiments took the field, large offerings and gifts must be brought to the gods to implore their blessing for the favorable termination of the war, and when the victorious army returned home the chief part of the spoil was brought to the gods as a thank- offering." '' The priests could attend to their sacred calling without any anxiety for their sup- port. Their chief duties were the conduct of worship and study of the sacred writings. The priests also formed the first class in the state, and the highest hereditary nobility of the king- dom." ^^ Egypt before 1300 B. C, then, according to the multitude of her scholarly historians, possessed a high state of civilization ; her art was more perfect than ever afterwards, her literature was lar^re, abundant, accessible ; education Avas the prime requirement for advancement in any department. 396 Pextateuchal Criticism. The belief of a large number was in monotheism, and their deity expressed his will in a morality of very pure order, and Egypt was covered with richly endowed and splendid temples, served by a host of priests in an elaborate ritual. We now turn to the narrow strip of land, Syria, between the Mediterranean and the great desert, the only practical route of land commerce between Egypt and Western Asia, and to this land before 1300 B. C. The condition of this land, its people, and commerce before 1300 B. C, has been most ably described by Maspero in the Revue des Etudes JuiveSy Avril-Juin, 1887, and his state- ments are corroborated by other eminent his- torians. Between Syria and Egypt there had been active intercourse from the earliest ages. *' The two countries were so near to each other, they had so many products and valuables to exchange, that the course of commerce and of reciprocal invasions began in the time of the first dynasties." ^^ Egypt during the i8th dynasty held under its suzerainty all the Syrian coast. The numerous small states could band together to resist some common en- emy, but were defeated by the superior cohesion and drill of the Egyptian army. ^' The country was covered with innumerable fortresses''^^ be- longing to the native kings. *' Ascalon, Dapur, Merom, Kadesh, were surrounded by strong walls, generally built of stone and flanked with towers." '^'' *' Egyptian garrisons permanently established at Raphia, Gaza, perhaps at Megiddo, guarded the Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 397 most important strategic roads." ^^ '' Gaza, Ascalon, Gerar, Gezer, Lydda, Ono, Joppa, Megiddo, were then in existence. Damascus then commanded the desert ; Kadesh, the holy, ruled the Orontes valley ; the Phoenician cities. Acre, Tyre, Sidon, Gebel, Simyra, Arad, were rich and populous. Carchemish, Aleppo, Batnae, are often men- tioned."^^ '' Through all the gaps of history we obtain the idea of a numerous, restless, rich popu- lation.""*® "Fleets filled with the products of Egypt sailed away to ports of Syria, and Phoeni- cian squadrons came up the Nile to unload at Tanis and the cities of the Delta, perhaps at Mem- phis. There was a perpetual coming and going. The products of Central Asia, of Northern Eu- rope, amber and tin, passed from hand to hand till they reached the bazaars of the Syrian cities, and from these were sent to Egypt. The land of Canaan was like a vast emporium where Africa met Europe and Asia. Rich in its soil, it added to its riches by the skillfulness of its artisans and the daring of its sailors. We can thus understand how it could bear the regular robberies committed on it for centuries by Egypt." ^® *' Material civil- ization seems to have been nearly equal all over the land."^® "There was hardly anything which the Egypt of this time [i8th and 19th dynasty] had not obtained from Syria. What this means will appear when we reflect that Egypt itself then possessed a developed industry; the culture of the Syrians must therefore have been very highly advanced to have obtained such a conquest. S98 Pentateuchal Criticism. Among other things were imported ships, wagons, arms, walking-sticks, musical instruments, drinking vessels, various liquors, among them beer and wine, bread, incense, fish, horses and cattle." '^^ "Silver, white gold, gold, also slaves and horses, large and small cattle, grain, oil, wine, lumber, ivory, copper, iron and other metals, unusual beasts, as bears and elephants, as well as wagons, harness, and all kinds of furniture, especially costly vases, were annually delivered by the chiefs and carried to Egypt." ^^ Besides holding strategic points, we have the records of 24 campaigns by the Egyptian army in Syria during the i8th and 19th dynasties ; ^*^ and to cement more firmly their hold on the land, and as a testimony of the equality of the great Syrian kings with the Pharaohs, Thothmes III. of the i8th and Rameses II. of the 19th dynasty married Syrian princesses. ^^ ''An active culture had early been developed in Syria." ^^ " The people of the towns were very industrious, they made weapons and artistic furniture, they understood, like the Egyptians, the art of smelting metals and of mak- ing glass, At all times the Syrians were cele- brated for their weaving of beautiful garments and of carpets." ^^ A multitude of Egyptians were in Syria on public or private business, and there were also colonies of Egyptian vassals there. Egyptian temples owned towns and lands in Syria. The roads between Egypt and Syria were sup- plied with wells and protected by forts well gar- risoned. Between Egypt and Syria couriers with Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 899 state documents were constantly passing, and these couriers were generally, as their names prove, of Semitic race.^^ There is a still further proof of the influence of Syria on its conquerors, the Egyptians, in the large and permanent Semitising of the Egyptian language. " In the literature the influence of Syria meets us everywhere. It became the fashion in elegant Egyptian to use Canaanite words ; in some writings they are as numerous as French words in German books of the last century."^* ''Thebans of the i8th and following dynasties taught the dialects of the Canaanites to their chil- dren, and this education prepared them either for official service or for commerce in other lands." ^^ In the maxims of Ani it is said " The negro is taught to speak the language of the Egyptians, of the Syrians, and of all foreign countries." ^^ Syria, then, before 1300 B. C, had reached the same stage of civilization as Egypt, and in manu- factures and commerce had exceeded Egypt. It was densely populated, rich, and the emporium of the world's commerce. Its Semitic language ap- peared to the educated scribe of Egypt so refined that he adorned his pages with its expressions and taught that language to his children that they might profit by it at home or abroad. In Chaldea, Syria, Egypt before 1 300 B. C. we are assured that there was a high state of civiliza- tion, art near perfection, literature of large extent and numerous libraries, wide exchange of com- merce, a highly developed system of laws, a strong 400 Pentateuchal Criticism. trace of monotheism in Chaldea, and monotheism united with a high morality in Egypt. Whether the Pentateuch is history or fiction, is there any improbability that just such a work was composed about 1300 B. C, when both history and fiction^ were ardently pursued in the midst of the civiliza- tion, religion, literature, art, commerce, which all scientific historians tell us then existed in Egypt, Syria and Chaldea ? The civilized world of Egypt and Syria had then reached its acme of prosperity. All agree that the Pentateuch, as we have it, is a book of undy- ing hope, of comprehensive plans for the future, which it paints in the most brilliant colors. Is it more rational to suppose it was written at such an age as this, or in the age of the Persian conquest, when the bloody hand of the foreigner had sacked Chaldea, sheared Syria as with a sharp razor, strangled Egypt, and smitten them all again and again into the dust ? The Pentateuch is written in the simplest style possible, but is veined with what all, but the Kuenen-Wellhausen school, have regarded as ex- quisite poetry. The 49th ch. of Genesis, the 15th of Exodus, the 32d and 33d of Deuteronomy are poems of pure and lofty flight, matching the purity and simplicity of the prose. Brugsch says these poems correspond to the Egyptian. ** As Moses, after the overthrow of Pharaoh and his host in the Sea of Reeds, sang a fervent hymn of praise to the Lord, to exalt the wondrous might and streng^th of the Eternal God, so, three centuries Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 401 before the wise legislator of the Jewish people, did the now nameless seer of Amon uplift his voice to sing praise, after his own fashion, to his god and to his king."^^ ''Throughout the poem [Pentaur's] the peculiar cast of thought of the Egyptian poet shines out continually in all its fulness, and confirms our opinion that the Mosaic language exhibits to us an exact counterpart of the Egyptian mode of speech." ^^ Is it more rational to suppose this prose and this poetry were written in the golden age of Asiatic and Egyptian literature, or in the age when there was nothing in all Asia or Egypt bear- ing the slightest resemblance to it? If there was any work like the Pentateuch in prose or poetr)', in plan and hope, in Asia or Egypt at the time of the Babylonian and Persian conquest, no historian has told of it, no spade has unearthed it. Then death reigned over the literature of Chaldea and Syria and Egypt ; their art was a machine-like copying the ancient masterpieces, commerce with difificulty dragged along- its wounded body, and, as to religion, Maspero tersely puts it, " Chaldean magic conquered the world at the very time when Chaldea breathed its last sigh."^'^ But we are asked to believe that a great work, the Pentateuch, whose "single parts are so arranged and united, joining each other with the harmony of music, that they form a connected and progressive whole," was composed by a band of selfish priests, in the midst of this death of literature, and art, and com- merce, and religion, surrounded by the spectres of 403 Pentateuchal Criticism. a crapulous magic. It will require more than tomes of strong assertion to give a glimmer of probability to such a theory, for it is contrary to all historical facts. The central theory, without which all is lost, of those critics who place the composition of the Pentateuch many centuries after 1300 B. C. is that there was a gradual religious evolution in Israel, which they can trace, and which finally resulted in " Ethical monotheism," which was the "creation" of the Israelite prophets not earlier than the eighth century B. C.,and this "creation " was an entirely novel appearance in the world. This " Ethical monotheism " is explained as the worship of one God in " heartfelt trust and moral earnestness," not as " the intellectual conviction of God's unity and moral attributes."^' But we have shown by a few quotations, out of many more at hand, that this sort of monotheism was widely known and even established as a state religion in Egypt before 1300 B. C, that is, 700 years before its assumed " creation " by the He- brew prophets. From the dawn of Egyptian his- tory a strict code of morality is referred to the deity as its author, and acceptance with him here and hereafter is made dependent on conformity to this code. History does not show us the evo- lution of religion in Chaldea or in Egypt ; like their art, its infancy lies beyond the horizon of history, for when we first meet their religion it is fully developed.^^ Science requires proof by visi- ble specimens. Until the prehistoric specimens Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 408 of the ev^olution of religion are shown us, it is useless to dream in a priori assumptions. The center post of this theory, then, is built on pure assumption, against the abundant testimony of monuments and history. But the monotheism of the Pentateuch is as fully corroborated by the monotheism of Egypt as its prose and poetry by the prose and poetry of early Egypt and Chaldea. Another theory is that the ritual laws in the Pentateuch were a gradual evolution from a low nature worship, to be easily traced from about looo to 450 B. C. Large and minute as are the ritual laws of the Pentateuch they are paralleled by the elaborate ritual, the superior position of the priest, and provisions for the support of the priests and worship in Egypt for long centuries before 1300 B. C. Established religion with richly endowed temples, a multitudinous priest- hood, and elaborate ritual, meets us in the first records of Chaldean and Egyptian history, and later ages in these lands are constantly appeal- ing to the ancient laws and customs in these respects. The ritual laws of the Pentateuch bear a closer resemblance to the ritual of Chal- dean and Egyptian religion before 1300 B. C. than afterwards. One cannot fail to notice how the chief criterion for the division of documents in the Pentateuch dissolves at the touch of the Egyptian monuments. From Astruc to the present time it has been accepted by a school of critics as proved that 404 Pentateuchal Criticism. " Elohim " and "Jehovah" are certain marks of a difference in authorship. But the Egyptians used precisely the same names for the deity, and, besides these, called the same deity by a great variety of names. To carry this assumed mark of division of authorship into Egyptian docu- ments would be ridiculous beyond words. Pro- fessor Dillmann, of one wing of the same school, accuses the Graf-Kuenen wing of first imagining, a priori, a gradual religious evolution in Israel, and then, on this basis, endeavoring to determine the sequence of documents combined in the Hexateuch. Professor Kuenen®* replies that Dillmann does the precisely same thing ; and that if one is not to accept the history as given in the Old Testament, it is impossible to follow any other method. Both these critics are here in exact accord with the facts respecting each other. If we are not to accept the history as given in the Old Testament, with all the corroboration of it by the monuments, we must enter the land of dreams, and one dream in history is as valid as another. The Pentateuch is crowded with minute details of customs, of geography, of private relations, all given in the easy flow of narrative, and everywhere showing an intimate knowledge of Chaldea, Syria, and Egypt. Closely as these lands were connected by commerce, yet they differed in customs and in geography, as Germany, France and Spain differ. An accurate statement of the beliefs, customs, geography, of a country is one of the rarest Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 405 attainments of the best of historians now, even when treating of his own or times near his own. When an ancient narrative is found severely- accurate in its woof of customs and geography, historical students know that it is one of the strongest possible proofs of contemporaneous- ness. Now Egyptologists and Assyriologists find and use the close parallels between the Egyptian and Chaldean customs and geography and the Pentateuch statements of them. Lenormant says: The narrative of the Exodus " bears unmistak- able marks of historical truth and agrees most happily with the state of things at the time of Merenptah."^^ Meyer says: "The narrative of the Exodus of the Hebrews rests upon certain knowledge of the region of Succoth and its border fortresses." *^^ Wiedemann says : " The descriptions of the relations of both lands (Egypt and Syria) are very minute. In all these places we find a sure knowledge of Egyptian affairs as well in geographical points as in the description of private relations." '^'^ Ebers says: '' This nar- rative [Gen. 12; 10 ff.] is real Egyptian. "^^ For a hundred years it has been a commonplace with a certain line of critics to deny all historical accuracy to Gen. 14, the account of Elamite (Chaldean) supremacy over the Syrian Sodom and Gomorrah. Every successive critic of that school from Astruc to Wellhausen has slain his man of straw. Now Assyriology rises up with its undeniable numerous monuments to declare just 406 Pentateuchal Criticism. that chapter true to life. ^^ The tenth chapter of Genesis has been wrought over and over in the interest of denial by some critics, but Lepsius, approaching it from the side of archaeology says: *' Where we find, as in this list of nations, on the whole so correct a knowledge of peoples and their languages which we can still in large part decide upon, we must also in particulars concede great Aveight to its statements."'^ And Pinches says : ** Though the beginnings of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires are lost in obscurity, and no records exist, among the people themselves, ac- counting for their origin, yet the account given in the Bible agrees so well with what is known from the records, that there can be no reasonable doubt that in it there is a true history of the rise of those two nations, which were in after time to wield the power of the then known world. This Biblical account, borne out and amplified as it is by the late discoveries, forms one of the most interesting and instructive links of the history of the human race and its progress in civilization.""^ So long as the hosts of Egyptian and Chaldean monuments corroborate the Pentateuch state- ment of customs, so long as the very ground of Chaldea, Syria and Egypt proves the exactness of the Pentateuch's minute geography, the date of the Pentateuch cannot be moved by any sound historical reason. By the universal canon of historical criticism these minutiae stamp its date indelibly upon it. They are facts that never yet have been successfully forged, because it is simply Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 407 beyond the power of man to impose them upon others. Some critics suppose the Pentateuch is a com- pilation of myths, and oral traditions encased in a history manufactured for a selfish purpose by priests during the Babylonian and Persian con- quests, 700 — 900 years after the events described. Defiant of accuracy in all other respects, these compilers, we are told, in their age when accuracy was not a virtue, made careful study of the cus- toms and geography of the far off times they embellished with their manufactured history. Can any calm brain accept such a theory in the face of the facts? No wonder Wellhausen sees " God-forsaken dreariness " in the accounts of the scientific historians of Egypt. If the date of the Pentateuch is embedded in its accurate statements of public customs, private relations and geography, the further query is, Was it the work of one or of many writers? If w^e sup- pose one writer of superior ability, of thorough education, of great opportunity for learning the customs and geography of the peoples and lands described, we are in accord with the canons of historical criticism. If we suppose two writers of the same date equally eminent in all these points, we have one of the rarest coincidences in all history. If we suppose, with some critics, twenty and more'^ writers and editors none of whom ever make an error in the customs and geography of an age, 700 — 900 years before their time, we suppose against the canons of historical 408 Pentateuchal Criticism. criticism, a more astounding miracle than any reported in the Bible. A theory, to account for the origin of a book, which can be sustained only by astounding miracles by self-seeking men is by that fact out of court in sound historical criticism. If minute accuracy is the criterion, then historical criticism assures us that it is due to one master hand. I conclude therefore that historical criticism on the broadest lines, guided by the numerous monuments as interpreted by the most able inves- tigators of the present day, must place the com- position of the Pentateuch contemporaneous with the events of the last four books, and must ascribe its composition to one master hand. Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 409 NOTES. In these notes the contractions are — A == Ancient, ancienne, or alt. Ae = Aegypten, Aeg-yptische. E = Egypt, Egyptian, Egypte, Egyptien. G = Geschichte. H = History, histoire, historique. K = Kouyunjik. M = Monuments. R = Religion. The works referred to are the last editions, and the numbers are those of the page. With the exception of de Rouge, Rituel Fiuieraire, 1860, none of the works are twentj''-five years old, and two-thirds have been published within ten years. 1. H. A.,712. 2. Meyer, G. d. a. Ae., 227. 3. Socin, Encycl. Brit. "Palestine," 174. 4. Hommel, Babyl. u. Assyr., 262. 5. Menant, Recherches sur laGlyptiqueOrientale, t. i., 4. 6. Tiele, Babyl. Assyr. G., Il3f. 7. Obligations en Droit E. Sur le Droit d.l. Chal- deeetc, 275-327. Also, Oppert et Menant, Doc. Jurid. etc., 5. Oppert, Grande Encycl. " Baby I one." Pinches Guide to K. Gallery, 7. SayceHibbertLect, 18f. 8. Smith, Chaldean Ac- count of Genesis, 17. Also, Menant, Bibliotheque de Ninive, 30, 93, 121. Sayce, Herodotos, 368f. *' HibbertLect.29f. Boscawen, Brit. Mus. Lect. "Chaldean Li- braries," 140f. 9. Menant, Recherches etc., t. 1., 257f. 410 Pentateuchal Criticism. Also, Horn m el, Semit. Volker, 212-233. PeiTot and Chipiez, H. of Art in Chaldea. V. ii, 251fT. Heuzey, Revue Archeol. 1882, 277; 1886, 198, 306; 1887, 258f. de Sarzec, Decouvertes en Chaldee, 48, 64f. Pinches, Guide to K. Gallery, 7, 40. Pinches, Trans. Socj', Bibl. Archly, v. 8, 351. Sayce, A. Empires, 163f. 10. Hommel, Bab. u. Assyr. 265. Also, Schrader, Jabrb. f. Prot. Theol. 1875, 123. Delitzsch, Wo lag d. Paradies, 164f. Boscawen, "Sheol." Sayce, HibbertLect., 19. Menant, Bibl. d. Ninive, 112. Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, ch. 5. Lenormant, Prem. Civil- isations, t. 2, 84ff. 11. Renouf, R. of E. 81f. 12. Mariette, Gallerie d. I'E. 27. 13. Tiele, H. of E. R. 6. 14. Lepsius, Brockhaus Lex. ''Ae." 254. Also, Naville, Litterature d. I'a. E. 8. Lenormant, H. A. t. ii, 97, t. iii, 36. Lefebure, E. A. 29. Maspero, H. A. 99f. On XVIIIth and XlXth Dyn. Mariette, Aper(;u d. I'H. etc., 35. Lenormant, H. A. t. ii, 190. Maspero, Genre Episto- laire, 43f. Maspero, H. A. 228f, Naville, Ae. Todten- buch, Einleitung, 25. Lauth, Ae. Vorzeit, 281. 15. Perrot and Chipiez, H. of Art in A. E. v. ii, 404, also v. i, 89, 189. 214, 283. 16. Soldi, L'Art E. 31. 17. Blanc, Voyage d. 1. Haute E., 308f. 18. Brugsch, H. of E. v. i,96. 19. Brugsch, H. of E. v. 1, 204. Also, Maspero, Miss. Archeol. Fr. au Caire, 1885, 241. Maspero, Archeol. of E, 170, 203f. Wiedemann, Ae. G. 56, 59. Fergusson, H. of Archi- tecture v. 1, 62, 92, 106, 132. Flinders-Petrie, Pyra- mids ** of Gizeh, 176, 213. Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuch. 411 Mariette, Gallerie d. I'E. A. 27. Ebers, Ae. v. ii, 52-56. Lenormant, H. A. t. ii, 80, 96, 134f. Renouf, R. of E. 68. Rhone, L'E. a Petites Journees, 69, 87. «0. Bru£:sch,H. E. v. 1. 481, v.^ii. 37. Also, Mariette, M. of Upper E. 148ff. Tiele, E. R. 146, 170. Fergusson, H. Archi- tect. V. 1, 118f. Ebers, Ae. v. ii, 305fT. Meyer, G. d. a. Aeg. 118, 124. Maspero, H. A. 205. de Rouge, Notice d. M. * * au Louvre, 20. Blanc, Voyage d. 1. Haute E. 219f. 21. Maspero, H. A. 69-79. 22. Meyer, G. Aeg. 56. 23. Brugsch, H. E. 66. 24. Naville, Litt. d. la. E. lOf. Also, de Rouge, Origine E. d. I'Alphabet Phenicien, 103ff. de Rouge, Notice d. M. 4. de Rouge, M. * * aux six prem. Dyn. 43. Erman, Ae. 59. Chabas, Aiitiquites H. 9. Lenormant, H. A. t. ii, 68. Tiele, E. R. 21 ff. 25. Maspero, Genre ]fep. 25. 26. Brugsch, H. E. v. 1. 200. 27. Wiedemann, Ae. G. 42. 28. ** Ae. G. 62. Also, Maspero, Genre fip. 25f, 48. Erman, Ae. 722f. Lenormant, H. A. t. ii, 127. Renouf, E. R. 78. Naville, Litt. d. Fa. E. lOf. Virey, Papyrus Prisse, 8f. Chabas, Maximes du Scribe Ani, 215ff. 29. Lepsius, Brockhaus, Lex. "Ae." 252. 30. Ebers, Ae. u. d. B. Mosis, IX. 31. Notice d. principaux M. 19f. 32. R. u. Mythologie d. a. Ae. 90r. 33. E. R. 82. 34. de Rouge, Etude sur 1. Rituel Funeraire, 8. Also, Robiou, Croyances d. I'E. etc. 1-11. Chabas, Calendrier d. Jours, 107. Chabas, Antiq. H. 150. Pierret, Pantheon E. ivf. Renouf, E. R. 92, 103, 251 f. Lauth, Ae. Vorzeit, 39f. 41: Pentateuchal Criticism. Grebaut, Hymne a Am- mon-Ra, 97fT. 35. Lieblein, E. R. 18-21. 36. Ebers, Durch Gosen, 541. Also, Reinisch, Ursprung * * d. Ae. Priestei-tums, 29. Maspero, H. A. 28f, 278. Lenorraant, H. A. t. iii, 224. Wiedemann, Ae. G. 46. El-man, Ae. 354ff. Meyer, G. d. a. Ae. 249. Tiele, E. R. 146. 37. E. R. 230. 38. R. of E. 72, 79. 39. H. A. 38. 40. Virey, Pap. Prisse, 40f, 51. 41. Pierret, Livre d. Morts, 377. 42. Cliabas, Max. d. * * Ani 217. 43. Meyer, G. d. a. Ae. 252. 44. Maspero, H. A. p. 208f. 45. Reiniscli, Ursprung" * * Ae.Priestertums, 32f. Also, Erman, Ae. 403ff. Chabas, Recherches * * d. 1. xixe Dyn. Records of the Past, v. vi, 21ff. V. viii, 5ff. Ebers, Ae. * * Mosis, 343 fT. Pierret, Ae. Zeitschrift, 1879, 137. Lemm, Ritual d. Am- mondienstes, 2ff. Mariette, M. Upper E. 5ff. Mariette, Abydos, pt. 1, 34-76. Maspero, Archaeology, 152. 46. Revue d. Etudes Juives, Avril-Juin, 1887. 47. Maspero, Archaeology, 27. 48. Erman, Ae. 681. 49. Meyer, G. d. a. Ae., 242. 50. " '* " 240f. 283ft'. 51. Wiedemann, Ae. G. 349. 52. Meyer, G. d. a. Ae. 227f. 240-248, 298f. 53. Erman, Ae. 709. Also, Brugsch, H. E. v. i, 236ff, 336ff, 386tt-, 402flf. V. ii, 131. Maspero, Genre Ep. 43. H. A. 190ff. Palestine Expl. Fund Quarterly, 1876, 56-72; 1884, 4-15, 57-61. Ebers, Durch Gosen, 87, 234, 528. Leiblein, Handel u. Scliiffahrt, 38ff. Tiele, E. R. 146. 54. Meyer, G. Ae. 298. 55. Maspero, Rev. Etudes Juives. 56. p. 219. 57. Naville, Litt. * * 6. 7. Also, Hypothesis of the Origin of the Pentateuc 413 Brugsch, H. E. v. ii, 137. Lenormant, H. A. t. ii, 130. Tiele, E. R. 146. Maspero, Contes Popu- laires, Introduction. 58. Brugsch, H. E. v. i, 412. 59. " "V. ii, 55. 60. H. A. 676. 61. Kuenen, Prophets, 585, 589. 62. de Rouge, Conference sur la Religion, 13. Lefebure, My the Osi- rien, 5. Pierret, Pantheon E. ivf. Renouf, E. R. 91. 63. Numeri * * Josua, 597. 64. Theol. Tijdschrift, 1888, 34. Also, Revue d. I'H. d. R. 1888, 113. 65. H. A. t. ii, 293. 66. G. Ae. 297. 67. Ae. G. 99. 68. Ae. * * Mosis. 262. 69. Honiniel, Babyl. u. As- syr. 9. 150, 161f. Brown, Assyriologj", 51f. 70. Nubische Graniniatik, xcivf. 71. Guide to K. Gallery, 3. 72. Wellhausen, makes out 22 autliors and edi- tors; Kuenen maker out 18 at least. DATE DUE ^^^SfitiA.^ "'^f^SK M. gcti** *W CAYUOND ^niNTEOINU.S.A