H.A. Johnston MoeeF and the Pentateuch ^ 'may 5 1959 OSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. JOHNSTON. #?!!!!% * JAN 6 1909 * MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH, A POPULAR STATKMKXT OF THE TIIROPJ OF THE SO-CALLED HKJIIER CRITK'ISM, TOGETHER WITH SOME OF THE REASON'S FOR NOT AC- CEPTIN<; THF^I %ev. Howard Agnew Johnston, Ph.D. Pastor of the Fo>ty-/irst Street Presbyterian Church, Chicago. CINCINNATI, O.: Elm Street Printing Co., Nos. 176 and 178 Elm St. C" O N TENT S. Chapter. Page. I. Introductory 5 II. so.MK Leading Critics, and What We Might Expect of Them 11 III. The Development op the Theory and the Disagreement of the Critics Among Themselves 17 IV. The Main Argumemts Presented by the Critics Against the Mosaic Author- ship, WITH Answers to the Same, . . 2G V. Thk Main Arguments in Favor of the Mosaic Authorship, 35 VI. Recent Corroborative Discoveries from the Monuments, 4:> VII. The Book of Genesis *. 52 V^III. The Book of Exodus, 58 IX. The Book of Leviticus 64 X. The Book of Numbers, 70 XI. The Book of Deuteronomy, 78 XII. The Book op Joshua and the Term "Hexateuch," 8G XIII. A Word About Alleged Errors and Ex- isting Discrepancies, 93 XIV. Christ and the Critics, lOO XV. Concluding Remarks Ill PUBLISHERS' NOTE. The contents of this vohime appeared in a series of articles in the Herald and Presbyter. In answer to many requests, tliey are presented to the public in this permanent form, with appro- priate changes in the introductory chapter. The original form will explain a variety of features that are left unchanged. By arrangement the chapters are brief a.n<^ concise, rather than com- prehensive. I.-INTRODUCTORY. The writer of this little book ia the pastor of a large congregation of busy people. Fre- quent inquiries from some of these people have been made concerning the theories of the higher criticism. The fact has developed that the publications which present the sub- ject are of a technical character, and intended mainly for specialists. And so it has seemed to the writer that many Bible students who have no access to the sources of special in- formation would be glad to have a popular statement of the theories and methods of higher criticism, especially if they should be accompanied by the reasons which lead the great majority of Christians to reject the con- clusions reached and the methods applied, 8uch a statement is proposed in this volume. A glance at the table of contents will reveal the purpose to set forth the historic setting of the movement, and its salient features. It has Moses mid the Peritaieuch. been impossible to do more than state briefly, the views for and against the theory, but it is hoped that this brevity will not be at the ex- pense of fairness and clearness. It will be noted that according to the scope of the plan a general consideration of the sub- ject will be followed by a particular exam- ination of the problems that arise in each book. This will at once simplify and clarify the work, for each book has problems peculiar to itself, especially in the case of Genesis and Deuteronomy. Exodus has a striking unity, though Leviticus and Numbers are closely bound to it. At the start we shall present a few biographical items which will make it clear why some of the most famous of the critics have revealed such avidity in attempt- ing to destroy the Christian's confidence in the word of God. We may not impugn the sincerity of the evangelical Christian who fol- lows in the wake of the critics who are avowed Unitarians and Agnostics; but as we note the views of these leaders who repudiate miracle and prophecy and inspiration itself, we can not but feel that it is time for evangelical Christians to stand out against them. The Introdiictor)' best way to do this is not to dismiss the sub- ject by calling them heretics; but to present fairly their views and show wherein they fail of a legitimate claim upon the adherence of the Christian. The simple fact is that the higher criticism is not only dangerous and destructive, but it is also unscientific. Exact science makes a two- fold demand. It makes necessary the cutting of the bridge of tradition. No less imperative is the obligation which it lays upon the care- ful student to refuse to bridge over theories which lack demonstration, however fascinating and popular. True science suffers in both of these directions. The progressive unfolding of new phases of the truth is crippled in part because some people cling with unreasonable and unreasoning prejudice to traditional views which clearly ascertained facts have proven untenable. No doubt, one reason for this is the rash, unscientific haste with which the champions of new theories put them forth as worthy of acceptance, when they are far from demonstration. If the student desires to in- vestigate some samples of colossal conjecture and astounding assumption, let him study Moses and the Pentaicuch. some of the theories of the higher criticism. Some of those theories, as, for instance, the number of editings which the Pentateuch has undergone, are absolutely without a shadow of conclusive evidence. We are told the world's greatest scholars are advocates and supporters of the higher criticism. But what makes a great scholar? Not inventive ingenuity in theorizing; not keen analytical power of itself. If these lack a steadfast level-headedness and fidelity to facts, a prime element in scholarship is miss- ing. It is true that the race has witnessed more than one mighty intellect burn out in dreaming about some scheme of philosophy or criticism which has never helped us one inch toward the truth. One who toils through much of the marvelously painstaking labors of many of these gifted men can not but think of Longfellow's description in "Hyperion" of much of the German philosophy. He said it reminded him of a pleasant street in one of our American towns, where it, at first, was wide and attractive, lined with beautiful trees; but which ran out into the country, losing its importance, until at last it dwindled into a Introdiiciory. squirrel track and ran up a tree. We will prize scholarship by what it gives us at the last. Just as capable and scholarly men re- pudiate the essential teachings of the higher criticism as are found among their advocates. It could not be otherwise with their theories assailable at every point. It is time tor conservative Christian scholar- ship to speak with less apologetic tone in de- fense of the substantial Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. The higher criticism has been given a hearing, but has failed signally to es- tablish the destructive views which it has striven to propagate. This failure is becoming more apparent in the light of recent monu- mental discoveries. This vast field of modern science has been ignored by the critics to their hurt. Our plan includes some account of these findings and their testimony against the funda- mental assumption of higher criticism. In the course of this presentation, constant ref- erence will be given to the authorities cited on both sides, so that one so desiring can follow up the subject to ih^ extent of his inclination. The writer is of those who desire full place for the truth, no matter what preconceived no- lo Moses and tJie Pc7iiateiich. tion may be set aside; but who refuse to set aside accepted views until fair demonstration demands it. Let us "prove all things," and 'hold fast that which is good." II.— Some Leading Critics and Wliat We Might Expect of Them. Much light is thrown upon the significance of the higher criticism when we consider the theological views jn general of the leading critics. It is impossible to cut between a man's general attitude toward the word of God and his critical theories. We can not fail to see that a rationalist who rejects miracle, prophecy and inspiration, would bring a purely naturalistic theory to an ex- amination of the Scriptures. The historic fact is that the conspicuous leaders among the critics have been rationalists, and a delicate sensitiveness to the truth can not be divested of the feeling that their theories are the prod- uct, not so much of an honest seeking for the truth, as of a desire to destroy the evangelical faith by the constraint involved in the claim of scientific scholarship. In proof ol this we have the following state- ment concerning Dr. Abraham Kuenen in the (11 ) Moses and tlie Pentateuch. Jewish Quarterly Review: "It was an at- tempt of singular boldness and vigor to shake the tradition of Christian piety free from every trace of supernaturalism and implied exclusiveness. It involved the absolute sur render of the orthodox dogmatics, of the authority of the Scriptures, of the divine character of the Church as an external insti- tution, and, of course, it based the claims of Jesus of Nazareth to our affection and grati- tude solely upon what history could show that he, as a man, had been and had done for men."— T^^cA;s^eac2, Jewish Quarterly Review, July, 1892. And this is exactly what we would expect of a Jewish scholar. We may not question his convictions as sincere, as we may not question the honesty of any Unitarian's convictions. But no more can the evangelical Christian expect to find a common ground with such men ,for reverent criticism of the word of God. A list of higher critics is given us by Dr. Charles A. Briggs in an appendix to his book on "The Bible, the Church and the Reason." This list contains 147 names; seventeen of this number are Jews and five are Unitarians. Some Leadiih:^ Criiics. 13 Thirty, at least, of the whole number do not believe in the supernatural in the Bible at all, while many more hold decidedly loose ideas of inspiration. Canon Driver defines in- spiration as "spiritual insight," and nothing more. Now, it is true that these rationalibt and rationalistic men are the leaders of the higher criticism. It is equally true that of the hundred or more followers of these lead- ers, those who have gone to any length in adopting the critical views have betrayed in their writings clear tendencies to rationalism. It is also true that the students of these critics betray a tendency toward naturalistic grounds in their opinions touching related lines of thought. More than once the writer has verified this fact in conversation with men from the class-room of German and American teachers. When, therefore, the critics parade the names of Tuch, Knobel, De Wette, Bohlen, Bleek, Ewald, Delitzsch, Graf, Kuenen, Well- hausen, Dillman and others, we can not con- sent to be carried away by such a flourish of trumpets, for the work which we have in hand is not a matter to be determined for evangel- 14 Moses atid tJie Penfaieuch. ical Christendom by any number of brilliant intellects. Dr. Brio;g9 mentions Ernest Renan in his list of critics. Had he not restricted his list, he might also have mentioned Francois Voltaire, as he also advocated the very same views concerning; the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. When we think of the subtle infidelity of Renan, in his inefi'ective endeavor to stab to the heart the evangelical faith, we are startled indeed to have Dr. Briggs tell us that evangelical scholarship must yield to a class of men with whom Ernest Renan is in accord in the cardi- nal points of their destructive criticism. Is it not time to call a halt along this line? Of course, it is not asserted that because a man is an infidel or a rationalist, he may not be an honest student of history or of liter- ature, from his standpoint. But the difficulty is with his standpoint. It is nothing less than absurd to expect a man who denies the possibility of the miracles recorded in the Old Testament, and who denies the possibility of an inspiration by which men were led to predict future events, to enter upon a study of the Old Testament history So"ie Leading Critics. i 5 and literature without being destructive of the very found ationri oi" faith in the Bible as the word of God. But just such men are the leaders of this critical development. It need not be argued here that evangelical Christians can not expect light from such sources, nor need it be argued that we must guard the more earnestly against the subtle encroach- ments which the enemies of what we believe to be the saving truth of God would fain make upon our faith. It is not to be denied that the critics have a following among evangelical scholars. But it is to be noted that those who are at all en- thusiastic in their adherence to the critical methods clearly betray naturalistic tenden- cies in their writings. Over against these are to be mentioned some of the strongest men in the realm of modern scholarship. Among them are Hengstenberg, Haeverinck, Keil, Sayce, Green, DeWitt, Osgood, Bissell and W. J. Beecher. These men stand for the divine character of the Bible as against the theory of its human production. They stand for the substantial Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. They are scholars of equal 1 6 Moses and the Pentateuch. ability in discerning a fair demonstration of any theory touching the Old Testament writings with any of the critics. They are open to the truth, ready to be convinced by any reasonable demonstration; but entirely unwilling to shut their eyes to the insuperable barriers that thus far stand in the way of the unscientific processes of the critics. It is further true that there are some men counted as critics who, to say the least, are half-hearted supporters of the analysis. Prof. W. R. Harper is continually confessing difficulties that arise upon which the critics can throw no light. In view of these facts it will not be sur prising to find the theories of the critics, which we shall now proceed to consider, of such character as they are. Nor will we be surprised that so many reject these theories, as we note the reason for not accepting them. Evangelical scholars meet the critics at every point, showing the weakness and insufficiency of their views. III.— The Development of the Theory and the Disagreement of the Critics . Among Themselves. Prior to the last century, the substantial Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch was con- ceded by almost the unanimous voice of He- brew and Christian scholarship. The excep- tions were inconspicuous, and occurred main- ly in the second century. Epiphanius tells us an obscure party of Nazarenes considered the present Pentateuch as spurious The Gnostic Ptolemaeus ascribed only a portion of the work to Moses. The Clementine Homilies suggest that because the account of the death ot Moses occurs at the end of the work, Moses did not write any of it. Attempts have been made by the critics to show that Jerome in the fourth century, and Aben Ezra in the twelfth century, discredited the Mosaic authorship. But this can not fairly be done. Jerome sim- ply says he does not object to the idea of a post-exilian revision, and Aben Ezra does (17) Mosfs and the Pentateuch. nothing more than intimate that subsequent interpolations had crept into the original text. In the year 1651, the English deist, Thomas Hobbes, published his "Leviathan," in which he assailed the Mosaic authorship. The idea waa taken up by the deistic philosophers of the latter half of the seventeenth century, notably Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke, both of whom were practical atheists, while the latter's immorality is known to history. About the same time, Spinoza in Holland, and Richard Simon in France, advocated the same view with variations. Both of these men were Jews of a most pronounced rationalistic type of thought. Spinoza's philosophy was de- nounced in his day as systematic atheism. David Hume, the English skeptic, was his ad- miring pupil. Spinoza abhorred the traditional theology, and did all in his power to rational- ize the interpretation of the Old Testament. The names of Vitringa and Laclerc should also be mentioned, as they gave some impetus to the theory at the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth. In the early half of the last century, Dr. Herman Samuel Reimarus, of Hamburg, The Development of the Theory. 19 elaborated the theory at 8)me length. Profes- sor Pdeiderer, of Berlin, says of him: "Reim- aru8, the author of the 'Wolfenbuttel Frag- ments,' by the publication of which Lessing threw German theology into a ferment, occu- pies the same position as the English deists, and indeed owed much to their influence." At the same time the man who was dominat- ing the popular thought of France was Vol- taire. The extent of his influence upon all classes is simply amazing to us of to-day. Spinoza and the English deists were his de- light. Of the latter he said: "Many of these have advanced so far as to doubt whether Moses ever existed." Such are the actual hot- beds of rationalism in which the seeds of mod- ern higher criticism had root. Professor Os- good clearly puts the attitude of these men to- ward the Bible, as denying that it was in any sense from God or a revelation of religion; that it was anything else than a "growth and compilation, in accordance with the ordinary lawti, and subject to the ordinary errors of the human mind." If we should be accused of unfair prejudice in these statements, we need but to refer to the following extract from 20 Moses and the Pentateuch. Kuenen, in his work on the Prophets: "So long as we derive a separate part of Israel's religious life directly from God, and allow the supernatural or immediate revelation to inter- vene in even one single point, so long also our view of the whole continues to be incorrect. It is the supposition of a natural development alone which accounts for all the phenomena." Could the fruit be any more like the seed? It simply means that radical higher criticism would destroy utterly the divine character of the Bible. In the year 1753, Dr. Jean Astruc, an emi- nent Belgian physician, published a book at Brussels, entitled "Conjectures About the Original Memoirs which Moses Used m Com- posing the Book of Genesis." In this treatise Astruc suggested that Mosee compiled the Book of Genesis largely from pre-existing ma- terials This he thought apparent, because of the way the two names for God — Elohim and Jehovah — were used. Most Bible students not familiar with the Hebrew are aware that there are diflPerent names of God used in the text, two ot them much more than the rest. They are El, or Elohim, translated God in the The Development of the Theory. 21 English, and Javeh, vocalized in our text into Jehovah. There are sections in Genesis where now one, now another, of these terms is used, and to such an extent as to suggest that the sections were written by different men, one of whom at least was familiar with but one of these words. Astruc conjectured that Moses had used twelve pre-existing documents, two principal ones and ten others. Professor Eich- horn pruned off some of Astruc's conjectures and confined his theory to the advocacy of two documents. Some of his contemporaries, as Illgen and Gramberg, advocated three docu- ments But this documentary hypothesis was quite too conservative for some of the critics. In 1815 Dr. Johann Severin Vater gave out the more startling theory that the Pentateuch con- sisted merely of a number of fragments strung together without order or design. He sup- posed a collection of laws made at the time of David and Solomon to have been the foundation of the whole; that this was the lost book found in the days of Josiah, its fragments being in- corporated into the Book of Deuteronomy. The rest of the Pentateuch consists of frag- 22 Moses and the Pentateuch. ments of tradition, history and law collected into form between the reign of Josiah and the Babylonian exile. Dr. A. T. Hartmann was in accord with Vater's theory. But this fra^ ment-hypothesis has been almost universally abandoned by later critics. Even DeWette, who held to it for a time, has relinquished it for the earlier documentary hypothesis to which modern critics have returned. Most of these assert that there are evidences of at least four original documents These are said to be (1) an earlier Elohistic document, known as the priest code, and indicated by the letter P; (2) the Jehovistic document, indicated by the letter J; (3) a later Elohistic document, indi- cated by the letter E. Theories vary about the fourth element; some claim to detect an earlier writer in J, known as J^. Besides, credit is given to editors, redactors and glosses. In the next chapter we shall enter upon a more detailed statement of the general argu- ment for these theories, and afterwards we shall consider more specifically each separate book in turn The very important discrimina- tion to be made here touches the fact that the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, while it The Dcvelopmefit of the Theory. 23 makes impossible the assumed later compi- lation, does not make impossible the use of pre-existing materials by Moses himself, nor an arrangement of the whole in its present form at a later date. The critics would blot out Moses, but give us no one in his place. They announce that the various authors are unknown. The fact is, thes^ authors come out of the theory. The book is divided up into sections, and the theory demands authors for the same, and lo! P. and J. and E. spring Minerva-like from the Jovian brain of the critics. But no such artificial dissection will win final recognition, simply because the character of Moses can not be efiaced from the Pentateuch. It breathes that potent spirit of living contemporaneous history which de- fies the ex post facto explanation of the critics. Not only so, but the theory is met by stubborn facts at almost every point, as will appear in our further treatment of the case. The critics have largely vitiated their own attempts to make a case by their disagree- ments among themselves. Not only is the analysis in general marked by frequently re- curring inconsistencies, but the diflferent views 24 Moses and the Pentateuch. and sharp contentions of the critics lead many to ask, -with Dr. Green, which one we may ac- cept as authority. In the account of the de- velopment of the theory this fact of diflFerence in view has appeared. But as the detailed study of the text is taken up, the reader is be- wildered by finding one critic positively assign- ing a given passage to P., while another as positively assigns it to J. Kuenen actually as- serts that there have been fifteen redactors, editing and re-editing the work. All this, we are told, is the result of the most exact scien- tific processes. Then, behold! Wellhausen comes after Kuenen with nineteen redactors, and departs from Kuenen because his position was 'poly theism and monotheismtogether." We have charged the higher criticism with being unscientific. Certainly no demonstrable science would ever plunge the student into such a labyrinth of hopeless contradictions and fanci- ful conjectures. Every one desiring to see the most valuable presentation of the theory in all its startling and almost incredible character should by all means examine the work of Prof. E, C. Bissell entitled "Genesis Printed in Col- ors." By selecting a special color to repre- The Development of the Theory. 25 sent each assumed document, and various col- ors to indicate glosses and the work of re.- dactors, Dr. Bissell presents to the mind through the eye the result of the analysis as adopted by Kautzch and Socin. An exceed- ingly valuable introduction precedes the work. If a copy of this book could be placed in the hands of every unprejudiced Bible student, the hopeless doom of higher criticism would be settled within sisty days. IV.— The Main Arguments Presented by the Critics against the Mosaic Authorship, with Answers to the Same. Before entering upon the statement of these arguments, the fact should be emphasized that the claim for the Mosaic authorship does not preclude the use by Moses of pre existent ma- terials. Probably no one would question the probability of such use. The institutions of the Sabbath and circumcision existed before the time of Moses. The events chronicled in the Book of Crenesis antedate the time of Moses We shall see later on that the monu- ments furnish conclusive evidence of the exist ence of such materials as would be available- in part for the work which Moses was com- manded to accomplish. Some of the critics concede parts of the Pentateuch to the hand of Moses, especially the laws in Deuteronomy. But the critics deny that the substantial con- tents of the Pentateuch are to be credited to him. Dr. Briggs reiterated in his defense the (26) The Main Arguvients. 27 following statement from his inaugural: "It may be regarded as the certain result of the 8cienc3e of the higher criticism that Moses did notwrite the Pentateuch. . . . The great mass of the Old Testament was written by authors whose names or connection with iheir writ- ings are lost in oblivion." Tn proof of this the critics rest mainly upon the following ar- guments: 1. It is asserted that the structure of the narrative betrays a composite character. The earlier theories suggested this concerning Genesis alone, as in the "conjectures" of Aetruc, but now it is urged that the Elohistic and Jehovistic writings can be traced through the whole book. To prove this point it is urged (1) that there are irreconcilably^ differ- ences in the two parts of the narrative which describe the same event. An instance is the twofold account of the creation in Gen. i. 2, 3, and ii 4-25 Others are the accounts of the flood, the story of the exodus, the number of the feasts, the sending of the quails and the murmuring for water. (2) The fact is also urged in proof of composite authorship that the same account is repeated, as in the com- 2$ iVIoses and the Pentaicuch. mand for the national festivals (Exod. xvii. 1-7, and xxxiv. 23-26), as also in the penal statutes for the violations of the marriage laws (Lev. xviii. xx). '3) It is claimed fur- ther that the Elohist has a range of simpler ideas than the Jehovist, who is more elaborate in vocabulary and style. (4) Moreover, it is claimed that these writers have certain favor- ite expressions and pet phrases which distin- guish them For instance, they tell us the Elohist will say to give or estahlish a cove- nant, while the Jehovist will say to cut a covenant The Jehovist also has credited to him grammatical peculiarities, as the use of the infinitive absolute for the sake of empha- sis. (5) The claim is also made that Exod, vi. 2 indicates that the name Jehovah was not revealed until the time of Moses. How this could be urged against the Mosaic authorship does not appear. In answer to the above assertions, it may be said (1) that the unity, of the Pentateuch as a whole is too palpable to be denied, but the critics say this is not because its present form came mainly from one author, but be cause some later writer worked up the vari- The Main Ari^^wncnts. 29 0U9 parts into this unity. The fact is, how- ever, that only the most arbitrary suppositions and inexplicable gaps make it possible to call the narrative a reconstruction of fragments. This fact vrill be more fully elaborated in con- sidering the Book of Genesis in chapter vii. Moreover, the critics are in hopeless disagree- ment as to what exactly constitutes each orig- inal part. As to the time of the literary genius who gave us the present form, Stahelin fixes it at the time of !;^aul; DeWette, Knobel and Bleek at the time of Josiah; Kuenen at the end of the seventh century B. C. ; Ewald before the destruction of Jerusalem; Hart- mann, Bohlen and Wellhausen after the exile. They each tell us they reach these conclusions by strictly scientific processes. (2) As to the alleged contradictions, without exception they may be easily explained by the exercise of ordinary common sense. As a rule the items are clearly supplementary, and not contradic- tory. (3) The repetitions mentioned have dis- tinct features. Lev. xviii. commands family purity. Chapter xx. contains some of the same commands under an elaboration of the Decalogue. In any case, to assert a funda- Moses and the PentaicucJi. mental composite authorship because of these infrequent repetitions is quite without war- rant. (4) As to the linguistic peculiarities, Keil says in the first volume of his introduc- tion: "We everywhere discover a difference in the conception which is demanded by the sense and context of the individual passages, or else the peculiar words ascribed to the one auihor are really not unknown to the other, or they occur in a few solitary places, and therefore are not entitled te be considered characteristic." (5) The notion that the name Jehovah was not known before Moses sug- gests a failure to have noted it in utterances of the patriarchs, as in Gen. iv. 1, v. 29; ix. 26; xiv. 22; xx. 4, etc. 2. It is asserted that the contents of the books are unhistorical in character. (1) A few years ago it was argued quite confidently that the Egyptology of the Pentateuch was so full of errors as to have made it impossible for Motes to have written it. Bohlen espe- cially urged this view. It may be briefly stated that a dead and buried Egypt, of which Herodotus never knew, has uncovered her sepulchres and risen up to refute every single The Main Argiiinents. 31 charg;e of the critics. We have the testimony of Rawlinson, in his Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament, "that in the entire Mosaic description of ancient Egypt there is not a single feature which is out of harmony with what we know of the Egypt of this remote period from other sources."^ (2) A second specification under this charge asserts the in- accurate character of much of the geograph- ical, chronological and arithmetical state- ments. It is true that in the realm of fig- ures, both in dates and numbers, it is difficult to find exact harmony. This fact, however, does not make against any particular author. Keasonable explanations are given for almost every point. As to the geography, the re- markable fact stands that the list of camping- places given in Num. xxxiii., and said to con- tain errors, is conceded by the critics to be one of the indubitable Mosaic fragments. (3) One other charge is made against the historic reliability of the book, which does not stop at the point of authorship. Kuenen says the record of miracles and certain other incidents are simply mythological legends. This, of course, denies divine inspiration, and we need ^2 .Moses and the Penia tenth. not here do more than state it to the evan- gelical reader. 3. The critics tell us that the literature of a people must have a natural development; that the Hebrews, at the exodus, were a race of slaves, and that the Pentateuch could not have been the production of that age. This theory is in accord with the naturalistic atti- tude which they bring to the study of the book. The very facts mentioned point to Moses as the only possible author of the book, for he was a prince in the palace and learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. More important, however, is the testimony of the monuments in proof of the literary activity among the Semitic peoples previous to the time of Moses. The critics assume a literary renaissance of the restoration, yet Gesenius declares Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther and Chron- icles to be inferior literary work. The theory here simply goes down before facts. 4. It is urged that the resemblance of the language of the Pentateuch to that of later books argues for its later authorship. Espe- cially is this resemblance urged between Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. In our chapter The Main AfgiDnenis. 33 on Deuteronomy we shall considei* thn re- semblance. In fi^eneral it may be said that JeTemiah shows great familiarity with the other books of the Pentateuch, as well as with Deuteronomy. Further, it may be said that whatever resemblance may be noticed is off- set by a decided diversity, not only in con- tents, but in literary style. It may be said just here that a little patient study of the text reveals such a constant reference to the Pen- tateuch in almost every succeeding book of the Old Testament as to prove its earlier ex- istence according to the generally accepted rules of scientific literary criticism. 5. The critics assert there are traces of a later date, indicating the age in which the author lived. (1) Passages which seem to prei-uppose the occupation of the land, as Gen. xxxvi 31. This statement is said to indicate the :ime of the monarchy, but it must be re- membered that in Gen. xxxv. 11, kings are promised to Israel, and this is but a statement of developments previous to that anticipated time. (2) Passages which seem to imply the Palestinian standpoint of the author, as Gen. xii, 8. (3) Passages which explain archaic 34 Moses and the Pentateuch. usages and terms by those of a later origin, as Gen. xiv. 2, "Bela, which is Zoar." It need only be said that the later names were known in the time of Moses. (4) Citations from documents of recognized antiquity, as Num. xxi. 14, where reference is made to the Book of the Wars of Jehovah. But it is simply an assumption to say this book was of recognized antiquity Nothing prevents its having been contemporaneous, so far as the record is con- cerned. (5) Passages which contain the formula "unto this day," as Gen. xix. 37. None of the instances require an explanation beyond the fact that the phrase partakes of the nature of a proverbial expression designed to represent an event or transaction as of permanent character. In short, no theory of the critics against the substantial Mosaic au thorship has any ground for a fair demonstra- tion. All of them are open to strong legit- imate objection and some of them are met with clear refutation. V. — The Main Arguments in Favor of the Mosaic Authorship. The reader of these articles will realize that we are attempting to make a reasonably adequate statement of views in defense of which volumes have been written. Brevity here is at the risk of obscurity, but it is hoped that any one especially interested will enter upon a more extended investigation of the subject. We can but indicate the salient points on either side of the controversy. Un- der the topic for this chapter there are sev- eral lin68 of argument. 1. On its face the Pentateuch carries a clear presumption in favor of the Mosaic au-' thorship. There is the direct testimony of the Book to this effect in Ex. xvii. 14 and xxiv. 3-7; Xum. xxxiii. 1, 2; Deut. xvii. 18, 19, a remarkable passage ; mention of written bless- ings and curses in Deut. xxviii. and xxx , xxvii. 1-13. and most notable of all, Deut. xxxi. 9-13; xxiv. 27. Add to this the warning (35) 36 Moses and the Pc7iiateuch. against adding to or taking from what Moses commanded, Deut. iv. 2; xii. 32 Note also Num. xxxvi. 13 and Lev. xxv. 1; xxvi 46; xxvii. 34. Almost on entering the wilderness the Hebrew lawgiver received a divine order to write in the Book. On reaching Sinai he is discovered again writing in the Book of the Covenant. As the wanderings in the wilderness were nearing their termination, he is stated to have prepared a written record of the halting-places in the march. And just before he dies he is once more writing "this book of the law." If ever there was d, prima- facie inference, it is here to the eflFect that Moses was the substantial author of the Pen- tateuch. 2. It was possible for Moses to have written it. A few years ago some of the critics urged that there were no Semitic writers prior to 1,000 B.C. Of course, all that is now given up — for we shall see in the next chapter that the monuments have proved not only the knowledge of the art of writing in the time of Moses, but the existence of records at the time of Abraham, giving accounts of primitive history, which seem to have been handed The Main Arguments. 37 down from the earliest times. As to the ma- teiial found in Exodus and Deuteronomy in- clusive, it must have been available for Moses as for no one else. It is further true that the Mosaic authorship will account for the accu- rate and minute details which everywhere ap- pear in a knowledge of Egypt and the desert life. 3. The Mosaic authorship is necessary to an adequate explanation of the historic de- velopment of the national life of the Hebrews. Suddenly these people took their place among the settled nations and entered upon that conspicuous and unique racial development which has continued even to this day. While there were acknowledged affinities in some points with contiguous nations, it must be ad mitted that their whole system was sharply separated by the grandeur of its religious monotheism, and by its complex social and civil organization, from that of all other na- tions. Their code of laws was so penetrating as to impress its indelible peculiarities upon the race, and to endow it with a potency and perpetuity of national life, in the face of ter- rific counter influences, to which history fur- 38 Moses a7id the Pentateuch. nishes no parallel. Such an effect demands a cause; and that cause is the living system known as Mosaism. As the New Testament Church is inconceivable without the incarna- tion of Christ and the apostolic Gospels, so the Old Testament Church is inconceivable without a Sinaitic revelation and a Mosaic Pentateuch. 4. It is simply incredible that some "great Unknown" should have foisted upon the peo- ple of Israel at any date later than Moses this book which was credited to him by the people. Dr. Bleek admits that in the time of Christ it was the universal belief that Moses was the author of the entire Penta- teuch. Josephus says: "All our constitution depends on Moses our legislator. For we have not an innumerable multitude of books, disagreeing from and contradicting one an- other (as the Greeks have), but only twenty- two books, which contain the records of all past times, which are justly claimed to be di vine, and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the tradition of the origin of mankind until his death." Philo says: "We find that in the sacred oracles delivered The Main Arguments. 39 by the prophet Moses, there are three kinds of characters; for a portion of them relates to the creation of the world a portion is his- torical, and a third portion is legislative." These testimonies reflect the accepted view of all Jews. Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Palestinian and Alexandrian Jews all are agreed on this point. To suppose that such a view would be universal if the Pentateuch had been given to the people at any time after the division of the monarchy, is to charge the Jew- ish people with a lack of intelligence and a weakness of credulity utterly unworthy of their history. The critics would have us be lieve the imagined Unknown first borrowed the name of Moses because of its superlative prestige, and then proceeded to re-enact the legislation of Moses in a broader and more spiritual manner, and with true prophetic in- spiration. That is to say, they would have us believe tha*; a greater than Moses arose in Israel, but sank out of sight without ever being recognized by his contemporaries, yet giving to his race the most important literary production in all their history, though his name has not a whisper of connection with it. 40 Moses and the Poitateuch. , . The credulity of the critics may be equal to this, but not many will be their followers. 5. A side light is thrown upon the subject by the existence of a Samaritan Pentateuch. Most scholars do not attribute much import- ance to this fact, and yet when all thje circum- stances are considered, the fact is not without significance and importance. The [Samari- tans accepted no other books of the Hebrew Scriptures except the Pentateuch. Knowing their hostility to the Jews of the restoration, it is utterly incredible that they would have accepted the Pentateuch had it been a post- exilian production. Unquestionably they be- lieved that it was from Moses, and their ac- ceptance of it points clearly to an established recognition of the Mosaic authorship of the book as it is, previous to the rupture of the kingdom. But such evidence simply points to the existence of the book from the time of Moses. 6. The remaining Old Testament Scriptures, which are among the older productions, bear witness to the previous existence of the Pen- tateuch by striking references to passages in the same. Often there are verbal coincidences The Alain Arguments. 41 of expression so accurate as to indicate a written antecedent rather than oral tradi- tion. Hengstenberg, in his work on the "Au- thenticity of the Pentateuch," has rendered most valuable service to the student along this line. The Book of Joshua is so full of these references that the critics have been com pelled to declare that it also was written at the later date which they give to-the Penta- teuch. We shall discuss this further in Chap- ter XII. In the Book of Judges the refusal of Gideon to receive the crown of Israel in- dicates a knowledge of the Mosaic law upon the subject. The same may be said with ref erence to Samuel's unwillingness to elect a king. The critics argue that Israel did not have all of the law in that early day in the land, on the ground that the records show so many violations of it. But Bleek himself, in his introduction, is candid enough to admit that the fact that the laws were not observed is not sufficient proof that they did not exist. In the earlier prophets, Isaiah, Micah, Amos, Hosea, there are continual references to the Pentateuch. It is also true that the Hebrew l^salter, whenever compiled, is a "precious 42 Moses a?id the Pentateuch. fruit of the religious life of Israel under the law, and requires for its understanding just such a national history and ecclesiastical sys- tem as are presented in the Pentateuchal books." 7. Our Lord Jesus Christ expressly certified the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. In Chapter XIV. we shall consider more fully this fact. Suffice it now to say that while the critics would turn aside this whole matter by saying that Christ and the apostles accommo- dated themselves to the popular beliefs of their time, the subject is quite incapable of beino; thus summarily dismissed. Until recent years Christ's word was final authority in the Evangelical Christian Church, and to most of the members of that Church the word of the Son of God still stands as the ultimate deci- sive utterance of infallible truth. VI. — Recent Corroborative Discoveries From the Monuments. "One by one," says Professor Sayce, of Ox- ford, "the narratives of the Old Testament upon -which the oversubtle analysis of modern criticism had cast suspicion and doubt are being vindicated by the progress of Oriental research." It should be said, moreover, that the critics have largely ignored this realm of scientific research. All along they have based one of their strongest arguments on the as- sumption that both the Israelites themselves and the populations by whom they were sur rounded were ignorant of the art of writing books at the time of the conquest of Canaan and during the age of the judges. They sup- posed the literary period of Israel to have be- gun with Samuel. The oldest inscription yet discovered in the Phoenician alphabet is fixed at the time of the Moabite king Mesha, the contemporary of Ahab. The critics asked why no older inscriptions had been found, if (4-.) 44 Moses and the Pentateuch. the art of writing had been known centuries earlier. Within recent years the archasologist has given the answer. True, the earlier lit- erature was not inscribed upon papyrus or written in forms of the Phoenician alphabet. It was entrusted to more enduring tablets of clay, while the language and script in whijh it has been preserved were both disused in the Palestine of a later day. A single blow of the excavator's pick has shattered some of the most ingenious conclusions of the critics. Adhering to our* plan of brief statements, we can only touch upon this fascinating sub- ject. Every Bible student should be watch- ing eagerly the result of the explorations which are being pushed in Egypt, Assyria and Palestine. The more familiar account of the Akkadian record of the flood is given by Professor Bissell, in his edition of Genesis, previously mentioned. This account is strik- ingly in accord with that in Genesis, espe- cially in certain points attacked by the critics, as in the matter of a second announcement. Authorities agree that the date of the origi- nals of this record is about 2000 B. C, or five hundred years before Moses. The Babylonian Rcceyit Corroborative Discoveries. 45 record is in the form of a simple continuous narrative which follows the biblical order. Thus the theory of the critics that the account in Genesis . is made up of two fragmentary parts, and that it could not have been written in its present form by Moses, is set aside by the fact of its existence previous to Moses. To confirm the fact that Moses was familiar with this account, we have more recent dis coveries from the monuments which are of re- markable character in demonetrating great literary activity in Bible lands previous to the time of Moses. In the year 1887-8 a number of cuneiform tablets were taken from the ruins of a city of ancient Egypt, the site of which is now known as Tel el-Amarna. They consist of letters and dispatches sent to the Egyptian court by the kings of Babylonia, Assyria and Syria, and the Egyptian governors and vassal princes in the subject province of Palestine. They are written in the script and language of Babylonia, which was at that time the com- mon language of diplomacy, and it proves that there must have been a very general literary activity and some educational system to have 46 Moses and the Pentateuch. mastered the complicated writing of Baby- lonia all through the East, The most inter- esting of the letters from Palestine are from a certain Ebed-Tob, the governor of Jerusalem. He was not governor by appointment of the king of Egypt, but an ally who paid tribute. He speaks of "the city of the mountain of Salim." The word "Uru" signified city, so that Urusalim is the city of Salim, identical with Jerusalem This Ebed-Tob speaks of him- self as being a "priest of the most high God." We turn to Gen. xiv. and read the account of Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, and identify this description with that of the tablets, which thus carry us back to the time of Abraham. Not only so, but the "written bricks" confirm the account, in that same chapter of Genesis, of the incursion of Chedorlaomer, a Babylonian prince. But the most remarkable coincidence in the history of this work occurred in the year 1892. Among the letters of the Tel el-Amarna tablets are two that were written by governors of the city of Laohish, one of whom was Zimrida. One of the letters from the king of Jerusalem conveys the information that Zimrida was Recent Corroborative Discoveries. 47 murdered at Lachish by the servants of the Eoryptian king. In 1890 Dr. Flinders Petrie was excavating in Southern Palestine, at a lofty mound known as Tel el Hesy. From various indications he suspected that he had identified this very city of Lachish. In 1892 the work was continued by Mr. Bliss, ot Beirut. Not only did he fully identify the ancient Amorite city, but he found tablets ex- actly like those of Tel el-Amarna, and upon them this very name of Zimrida occurs twice. Scarcely have the letters from upper Egypt been translated, when their counterparts in Southern Palestine come to the light, and the two parts of a correspondence which took place before the Exodus are joined together. It is but the beginning, for Mr. Bliss is just at the entrance of the ancient archive cham- ber of the governor's palace. The result of this recent discovery is con- clusive evidence that the land of Canaan was inhabited by people who were by no means the unlettered tribes imagined by the critics. One of their cities was named Kirjath Sepher, which means "the city of books," and indi- cates libiaries in Canaan as there were in 48 Moses and the Pentateuch. Babylonia. In the song of Deborah and Barak we read, in' Judges v. 14, that "out of Zebuion came down they that handle the pen of the ready writer." This was clearly the Hebrew, but some other meaning was put into it, in the supposition that there were no ready writers. But the original text is now most clearly vindicated. Moreover, the tablets show that Canaan before the exodus was the great highway between the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern centers of commerce. Canaan paid to Egypt an annual land tax, which was assessed according to surveys of the Egyptian Government. The enlightened and warlike Amorites and Hittites were there, and many of the cities mentioned in the Scriptures are also mentioned on the tablets. Professor Mas- pero says: "The land of Canaan was a vast emporium where Africa met Europe and Af ia " Professor Erman says: "There was hardly anything which the Egypt of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasty had not obtained from Syria. The culture ot the Syrians must therefore have been very highly advanced to have obtained such a conquest." With all this information let it be remem- Recent Corroborative Discovej'ies. 49 bered that the conquest by Israel was only partial even until the time of David. We are told in the first chapter of Judges that "the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem, but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day." We also read that Manasseh and Ephraim failed to dislodge the inhabitants of some six cities, while Zebu- Ion, Asher, Naphtali and Dan failed to make their conquest complete. We know also how Israel grew into intimate relations with the people of the land, and whatever else they received of hurttul influences, we can not doubt that they must have felt the touch of their intellectual development and literary ac- tivity. Such was the literary atmosphere which pervaded the time when Moses wrote the Pentateuch. The increasing evidence from the monuments indicates that it was the golden age of literature in the history of the ancient East. Thus one of the strongest as- sumptions of the critics against the Mosaic authorship is completely annihilated. We can not dismiss this brief mention with- out noting that the monuments have corrob- 5o Jl/osrs and tJie Pcnta'ciicJi' orated the Pentateuch in other ways, nota- bly in confirming the accuracy of historic ref erences. In May, 1890, Dr. Brugsch Bey wrote an article on "Joseph in Egypt" in the Deutsche Rundschau. It was suggested by the discovery in the previous year of a stone at Luxor by Wilbour, which stone mentions the seven years of want, and the attempt ot one Chit het to banish the calamity. Brugsch testifies to the historical correctness of the story as given in Genesis, identifying many names and places. He says the evidence is so conclusive that you could believe the wri- ter of the story of Joseph "read his state- ments concerning the afi'airs of ancient Egypt from the very monuments themselves." An- other instance is the discovery of Ur of Chal- dees. The Bible student had long been told to find Ur at Oorfah six hundred miles away, entirely beyond the land of Chaldea. But the Bible still taught that Ur was in Chaldea. It was overlooked because modern students for- got that the Persian Gulf has been filled up by the Euphrates through the centuries, and the ancient city which was on its coast is far inland. For years they looked in the wrong Recent Corroborative Discoi'eries. 51 place, but the discoveries by Lenormant and Smith have identified Mugheir as the site of (he home of Tereh and Abraham. The as- sumptions of the scholars, based on insuffi- cient conjectures, were wrong. The state- ments of Scripture, based upon the facts, were accurate and correct. Thus does every new item of actual history confirm the reliability of the infallible record of Scripture. VII.— The Book of Genesis. So far as the Bible is concerned, the his- tory of man, his creation and development, is linked with the story of his redemption. "The light of nature and the works of creation and providence are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of his will which is necessary unto salvation.". Therefore we have the revelation of that divine will and the record of God's dealings with men in connec- tion with the bestowment of this saving truth. The purpose to accomplish this result at once explains the fact that all matters external are only touched upon as they bear some relation to the history of man's redemption, and also explains th« marvelous 'consent o al the parts," from Genesis to Revelation. Jus so, also, this purpose explains the character of the Pentateuch, and is the key to its unity of design and construction. The great subject of the Pentateuch is the establishment of the Hebrew theocracy. Its central point is the (52) The Book of Genesis. 53 giving of the law at Sinai. All that goes be- fore leads up to this, and that which comes after recounts the way in which Israel was schooled in that law until Canaan was reached. The design of the Book of Genesis is there- fore made apparent. It is intended to reveal the unfolding of the divine plan up to the time of the exodus. The charge of composite au- thorship has been made against Genesis as against no other book. The Elohist and Je- hovist are certainly here, according to the critics, if nowhere else. But the coherency of the record, from first to last, is most marked. The plan of procedure is seen in the recurrence of the formula: "These are the generations." Ten times we have this ex- pression, holding us to a special line of de- scent, according to the divine selection. A glance at the following table will show the significance of this plan : i. 1-ii. 3 General account of the creation. ii. 4-iv. 26.. .The generations of the heavens and the oarth. V. 1-vi. 8 The generations of Adam. vi. 9-ix.29 " " " Noah. X. 1-xi. 9 The generations of the sons of Noah. xi. 10-2G The generations of Shem. 54 Moses and the Pentaieuch. xi. 27-xxv. 11 The generations of Tereh. XXV. 12-18 " " " Ishmael. XXV. 19-xxxv. 29 " " " Isaac. xxxvi. 1-xxxvii. 1 " " " Esau. xxxvii. 2-1. 26 " " " Jacob. . By a brief analysis of this table we discover some instructive facts. The initial chapter gives a general account of the creation. The critics would find the contents of the second chapter to be another contradictory account of the creation. But evidently this is not the purpose of the chapter. Its thought is that out of all this creation we have to do with man. That much of the general account which bears upon the need of a man to till the ground already covered with herb and plant is repeated, and a more special account of man's creation follows. From Adam Noah the main purpose is to show how the institution of salvation was made necessary by the fall and corruption of the race. In the tenth chapter the writer pauses to give that remarkable ethnological register of the fam- ilies of men "after their tongues, in their countries and in their nations." Then we come to Tereh, and note that the name of Abraham does not appear in our table. It is The Book of Genesis. 5 5 a remarkable omission. Had that table been prepared at a period long after Moses, ic is morally certain that the name of Abraham would have been there. But the laws of lit- erary criticism point to this unexpected feat- ure as the surer evidence of authenticity. Note, further, how Ishmael is dismissed with six verses, for Isaac is in the chosen line of descent; and then how but one chapter is de- voted to Esau, while Jacob and his family are considered as the seed of the coming nation. As you study this plan you will see how it draws you irresistibly to the time of Moses as the standpoint from which it was written. "Whatever historic materials or patriarchal records may have been used, the fact becomes clear that this book was written to fit into the account of the exodus and that it looked forward from the time that Canaan was promised to Abraham, past the thralldom of Egypt, to the time of Israel's settlement in the land. In former chapters we have seen that the Akkadian account of the flood demon- strates the existence of a plain continuous story previous to the time of Moses. We also have the testimony of Dr. Bruor«ch Bey to the 56 Moses and tJie Pentateiich. unbroken continuity of the story of Joseph. To turn from all these evidences of coherency and unity to the theory of the critics, with their analysis as presented in Dr. Bissell's edition of Genesis in colors, is to appreciate his quotation from Prof. James Robertson, who says the crying need of the time "is of a criticism that shall start by admitting that the writer possessed ordinary intelligence and knows fairly well what he is writing about." The charge that Genesis has in it much un- historical matter should receive some atten- tion One ground for this charge is the as- sumption that the cosmogony of the book is marked, like the traditions of all nations, with mythical statements. Touching the account of the creation, the reader is referred to a re- cent publi.;ation by Prof. James D Dana, of Yale University, entitled "Genesis and Sci- ence," in which he tells us that the conclu- sions on the last page of science are in such marvelous harmony with the statements on the first page of Genesis as to convince him that no man could have written them without having been divinely inspired. Touchirg the points which arise in connection with the ac- TIic Book of Genesis. 57 count of the flood, the reader is referred to Prof. J. W. Dawson's recent book on ' Modern Science in Bible Lands," in which this emi- nent Christian scientist successfully repels at- tacks against the unscientific character of biblical statements when they are fairly un derstood. We have previously noted the complete vindication of the historic accuracy of the Egyptology of Genesis. Modern ethnol- ogists are amazed at the profound research revealed in the tenth chapter, whose contents are verified by every established fact of an- cient history. Modern linguists are finding, as Prof Max Mueller says, "the elements of the three mother tongues as they existed be- fore their first separation," in the Sumerian writings unearthed in the ruins of Birs Nim- rod, the traditional tower of Babel Thus along many lines the student of Genesis finds reassuring evidence that the Word of God will keep abreast of all advancing thought, and under all the fires of whatever sort will shine with the unfading luster of the eternal truth VIII. -The Book of Exodus. In the Book of Exodus we touch the life of Moses. Naturally, we would expect to find in it a certain infusion of that peculiar evidence of personal knowledge which gives a living character to contemporaneous history. And this we do find. One of the most notable of all the commentaries on Exodus is that of Dr. Kalisch. He viewed Exodus as "formiDg the center of the divine revelation." and conse- quently as being "the most important volume which the human race possesses." As Dr. Kalisch brings the intimate familiarity of Jewish scholarship to the text, it is very sug- gestive to have him assert, as against the Jew- ish and Christian critics, that "we see the completest harmony in all parts of Exodus; we consider it as a perfect whole, pervaded throughout by one spirit and the same lead- ing ideas." The critics are on the ground, but the student who attempts to follow them with (58) The Book of Exodus. 59 profit is in despair. At times they virtually repudiate their own theories. For instance, Knobel, DeWette and others assign Ex. i. 15- 22 to the Jehovist, whereas the word Jehovah does not occur in the passage, while Elohim occurs three times. Then, chapters xxv. and xxviii. are ascribed to the Elohist, whereas Elohim is not found in them, and Jehovah oc- curs five times. Chapter iii. is called Elohis- tic, though Jehovah occurs twenty times and Elohim but seven. There is something hope- less about this. Another etjle of analysis is given us by Professor Driver, in his discussion of the Decalogue. He is considering the like- ness of the text to that of Deuteronomy, and says: "It is an old and probable supposition that in its original form the Decalogue con- sisted merely of the Commandments them- selves, and that the explanatory comments ap- pended in certain cases were only added sud- sequently." For instance, the original Sec- ond Commandment would be: "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image." Professor Driver discusses the problem, and considers the probability that the appended comments were added atter Deuteronomy was written. 6o Moses and tJic Pcntaieuch. He concludes thus: "On the whole, therefore, the more probable view appears to be that these clauses are in their original place in Exodus." On one page we are told this added comment is improbable, and on the very next page. we are told it is probable. The Book of Exodus reveals the clear pur- pose to show how Israel multiplied in Egypt until the time of Moses, to give an aocount of the circumstances in which the Israelites quitted Egypt, and to describe the giviug of the law, together with the way the people en- tered upon the institutional life which cen- tered about the tabernacle service. The nar- rative flows on without a break. There are some gaps, but because of the simnle fact that nothing occurred which called for a pla"e in the record. The critics object to this unity om the ground that the narrative has a decidedly sectional character. It- is true that we have several sections which seem to be complete in themselves, and this is ju8t what we might ex- pect from a narrator who wrote the account of one act or scene in the drama at intervals as opportunity afforded. While these sections appear upon analysis, they betray no dis- The Book of Exodus. 61 j 'in ted character, but preserve a continuous harmony. If, however, this arrangement had been made by a literary redactor of a later age, he would probably have omitted some of ihe repetitions and covered up the sectional points. The very character of the work indi- cates tha"; we have it in its original form. The critics further object to the Mosaic authorship of Exodus because Moses is spoken of in the third person, and because once or twice there are expressions compli- mentary to Moses, which they say he would not have written about himself. As to the first point, it is historic that Xenophon and Caesar, in writing histories of which they were the heroes, both speak of themselves in the third person. But the important fact is that sneaking of one's self in the third person was common in Egypt at that time. Kings had their victories recorded thus, and peo- ple wrote their own epitaphs beforehand in the third person. What more need be said? As to the mention of a praiseful fact, as in xi. 3, we may say the wonder is that there is not more of it. The reference is, in fa .t, decid edly modest, and in addition the whole book 62 Aloses and the Pentateuch. strikingly reveald a deep spirit of humility and sense of unworthiness in Moses. We have some important facts of a positive character which the Book of Exodus con- tributes. Canon Cook, in his appendix to Ex- odus in the Speaker's Commentary, has elab- orately treated of the frequent occurrence in the book of Egyptian words and phrases. From thirty to forty such words occur in the first sixteen chapters. The writer shows evi- ci ent familiarity with the Egyptian language. Not only so, but he reveals an intimate ac- quaintance with the climate, customs and products of Egypt, such as implies a long res- idence there. It takes years to possess ac- curate knowledge of habits, usages, religious ideas, etc. Moreover, every year is adding evidence to the correctness of Exodus in this respect. Of equal importance is the fact that this same writer reveals an equally perfect familiarity with the Sinaitic peninsula, with its vegetable and animal products, and its nat- ural phenomena. That part of the book which refers to the sojourn is pervaded by a local coloring, an atmosphere of the desert, which has always made itself felt by every traveler who has explored that region. Ihe Book of Exodus. di^ This double character of the writer's knowledge of Egypt and the Sinaitic penin- sula points to Moses, and to no one else, as the writer. It is simply inconceivable that some later writer should reveal these character- istics. He would never have appreciated the significance of Egyptian words in his narra- tive. If some later imaginary writer had lived in Egypt, it is too much to ask us to imagine him traveling the Sinaitic peninsula, infested, as it is to this day, with murderous bandits. There was no time between the ex- odus and the reign of Solomon when an Is- raelite would have been at all likely to possess such familiarity. But why need we argue further? The book, from first to last, reveals the living touch of the great leader of Israel. Moreover, it is Exodus which specifically men- tions the fact that Moses was writing these things in a book: xvii. 14 and xxiv. 4. Both external and internal evidence are in har- mony in pointing to Moses as the only man who fills all the requirements essential to the authorship of this book. IX.— The Book of Leviticus. The Book of Leviticus forms the center and heart of the five books of Moses. It contains the greater part of the Sinaitic legislation, from the time of the erection of the tabernacle, commonly termed the Levitical code. The integrity of the book is generally admitted Many critics who favor different documents in other parts of the Pentateuch, ascribe thid part mainly to one vs^riter, the Elohist. Others, hovs^ever, bring their dissecting-knife here as elsewhere. Only one passage in the text might intimate a later date, namely, xviii, 28. But the context shows nothing unnatural in the tone of anticipation which is here pre- sented. The expected possession of the prom- ised land gives meaning to the whole history. In the midst of the legislation we have a historical section, comprising chapters viii.-x., recounting the consecration of Aaron and his sons before the congregation. Some of the critics say this section is mythical because it (64) The Book of Lev it ii us 65 records a miracle. Others say it \iz,i torged in order to support the authority of the sacer- dotal caste. To such extremities are they driven to disprove it as contemporaneous history. It is absurd to suppose that one forging an interpolation to exalt the priest- hood of a later day, would have pictured the priests who figured in the narrative as re- ceiving the punishment of death because of their gins. The book is full of traces of the Mosaic period. In the earlier chapters, when the priests are mentioned, Aaron and his sons are named. The tabernacle is the sanctuary and no other place of worship is anywhere men- tioned. The Israelites are always described as a congregation under the cjmmand of the elders of the congregation. Everything has reference to life in a camp, and that camp in command of Moses. This is illustrated by the fact that the law touching the slaughter (A the sacrifice in chapter xvii., which was for the camp, was amended in Deut. xii., in view of the permanent settlement in Canaan. Almost every line touches the age of Moses. Yet the critics would have us believe that 66 Aloses and the Feniateuch. these laws gradually came into the life and customs of Israel through long years of de- velopment. Such a slow growth would not reveal these distinctive historic settings which identify the receiving of the laws at the hand of Moses. Moreover, Pome of the laws clearly fiad their explanation in certain Egyptian customs against which the Israelites are warned and commanded. This is specifically stated in chapter xviii., where reference is also made to Canaan. In the chapter on the recent dis- coveries from the monuments, we pre sented the conclusive evidence that a man like Moses would know much of the general character of Canaan as well as Egypt. More- over, Israel is taught that it is because of their sins against God that the Canaanites are to be exterminated. Hence the significance of laws which take meaning in view of Egypt on one side and Canaan on the other, k particular instance of familiarity with Egypt is the hint at the Egyptian custom of marriage with sis- ters, a custOQi which stands alone among the prevailing habits of antiquity. Herodotus and Diodorus tell of other abominations among the Egyptians prohibited in this section. The Book of Leviticus. 67 Another set of laws point to a pre-Canaanite origin, namely, those in chapter xxv., which refer to the Sabbatical year and the yea.r of jubilee. It seems that this law was never ob- served until after the captivity. We learn from '1 Chron. xxxvi. 21 that the years of the cap- tivity betokened the purpose of God to honor the law which Israel had broken. After the captivity the law was religiously kept, as was the law touching idolatry. But it is perfectly apparent that such a law could not have been promulgated at any time between the settle- ment of the land and the captivity. Every- thing in the atmosphere of the life of Israel makes against such a possibility. The law is a part of that ideal state which was so fully elaborated by Moses when he" was delineating the divine portrait for the chosen people. It is just such passages which are the basis of the authority for u (iterances of the prophets in condemnation of Israel's departure from the known laws of Jehovah. The previous existence of the law is necessary for an ade- quate explanation of the later history of its observance. Israel recognized one of their crying sins, in punishment for which they suf- 6S Moses and the Pentateuch . fered captivity, to be the f\ulure to keep this law. But there is no time at which the law could have been ^iven, in the light of the his- tory, except at the time of Moses. We have touched here a fact of far-reach- ing importance. The whole Book ot Leviti- cus is marked by a prophetical character. Its elaborate ritual is saturated with a spiritual significance. It was a shadow whereof the substance is Christ and his kingdom. No one can study the Epistle to the Hebrews without realizing this fact, and realizing also that the man Moses, and no one else, was the chosen servant of the God of Israel, through whom this ceremonial system was given to the peo- ple. The reference is as clearly t:) the his toric Moses as to'the historic Abraham or the historic Christ. We read in Heb. iii. 5, 6 (R. V): "Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken; but Christ as a son, over his house." It was a delicate thing to intimate even to Christian Jews that Christ was worthy of greater honor than Moses. They venerated him almost to idolatry as their deliverer, leader, lawgiver The Book of Leviticus. 69 and advocate with God. The inspired writer of the Hebrews means to say that Christ is the Moses of the New Testament. Moses, with his marvelous gifts, was raised up and trained and called of God for his specific life work. The law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The institu- tions of Moses were the scaffolding, those of Christ the finished fabric of religious truth. The utterances of the prophets assume the pre-existence of the laws. They do not inti- mate a slow building of fragments of legisla- tion irto a code that found its compact form after most of the life of Israel had been spent. Instead of this, the Book of Leviticus breathes a constant spirit of prophetic anticipation of Israel's future development into greatness as these laws of God are honored and obeyed. X.— The Book of Numbers. The special problems which the critics have discovered in the Book of Numbers are numer- ous. As you study the criticisms, however, vou realize that many of them are not really directed against the authenticity of the book 80 much as against its credibility. Certainly some of them are efforts to disprove its divine inspiration. As in other sections of the Pen tateuch, they draw the line at every point where the narrative recognizes divine inter- vention. For instance, DeWette says it is quite unnatural to suppose that Moses would have been willing to spend forty years in wan- derings when he was so near to Canaan, and he takes offense at the statement that this wandering was a punishment for Israel's dis obedience. Such rationalistic, destrirctive views are by no means infrequent among the critics. In view of this, it is disheartening to have our modern followers of the critics, who are still counted evangelical, constantly quot (70) The Book of Numbers. 7 1 ing these destructive rationalist? from page to page as among the authorities whom we are to follow. It will be possible, in the limit fixed for these chapters, only to mention the special points of discussion in this book. There is a gap of thirty-seven years in the record, in which we have no mention of the doings of Israel, excep^^^ing the account of the rebellion of Koi*ah and his coadjutors. Some critics say this proves that Israel did not remain forty years in the wilderness, while others say it proves that the record is incomplete. But we have already noted, in chapter vii., that it is the manifest design of the sacred narrative to record only the events which touch the de- velopment of the plan of redemption Hence the record passes over in silence the time in which the people destined to die are being supplanted by the next generation. They have no more place in the record. The critics have also made much of the several events which the record crowds into the fortieth year. Their diffi^.ulty rises out of the assump- tion that each event mentioned was finished before the next took place; but evidently noth- Moses and the Pen fate itch. ing prevents some of them from going on sim- ultaneously, in which case the difficulty quickly disappears. The critics have made savage attacks upon the statistics ia this book, the number of fight- ing mea, the number of the congregition and the number of the first born. We refer the reader to Keil or Kurtz if it be desired to see how every difficulty that has been imagined may be fairly solved. We are further told that the marching of such a vast host of peo- ple could not have been accomplished as the record intimates. Of course, even th^ critics will not deny that Israel did actually travel from Egypt to Canaan, and that they must have marched in some fashion The account of the use of the silver trumpets and the actual plans for order ani regularity all point to just the modes of movement recorded. Then ob- jections are made to the account of the set- ting apart of the tribe of Levi as betraying the marks of fiction But the clear refutation of this charge is in the undeniable fact that the cities of the Levites, whose distribution is mentioned in chapter xxxv., were actuary oc- cupied by that tribe from the beginning The The Book of Numbers. 73 critics claim a contradiction between iv. 2, 3 and viii. 24, referring to the proper age of Levites for duty. A moment's examination shows that the first refers to carrying the tab- ernacle, and the second to performing sacred functions in the tabernacle. The heavier task required an age of thirty years; the lighter duties simply required a certain ma turity of twenty five years. The episode of Balaam has naturally re- ceived considerable attention. It is true it has a distinct character. It is also true that the^e three chapters might be dropped out and the record would seem to be complete, just at that point, without the account of Ba- laam. To the critics ^this is all-sufficient ground for declaring it of a later and different source. But if the episode occurred then and there, the history is not complete without it. Moreover, while the record from chapter xxi. to XXV. would seem unbroken, if the interven- ing section was dropped, still we would be at a loss to understanl the references to Balaam in chapter xxxi , unless we had this record. As to how Moses secored the material, we find in chapter xxxi. that Balaam was slain 74 Moses and the Pentateuch. among the Midianites and his effects cap- tured. It is by DO means an unnatural suppo pition that in this way Moses came into pos session of the facts, without having a special revelation. Very naturally the style and lit- erary finish would be different when the writer turned from journalistic annals to such atheme, which must have thrilled his soul with its vision of the guidance of Israel's God. It must not be overlooked that the nations par- ticularly mentioned in Balaam's prophecy be- long to the Mosaic period. The Kenites later disappear entirely. Reference to Agag in xxiv. 7 does not, as claimed, necessarily point to the time of Saul, because it is proved to have been the standing title of the Amalekite princes, as Pharoah among Egyptians, or Cae- sar among Romans. We must now refer to the positive evidences of Mosaic authorship. The minute touches here and there point to a writer who had lived through it all, as in xi. 5. Some of the pas- sages clearly belong to the Mosaic age Bleek cdnced s chapters i ii iii. iv. xix,, and parts of vi. X xxi and xxxiii. Ewald agrees largely with thisi, and adds par^s of x. and xx., frankly The Book of Numbers. 75 admitting that "at a much later period they could not have been attempted." Concerning the camping-stations in xxxiii , there is almost unanimous consent in attributing it to Moses As to the songs in xxi., Bleek, in his Introduc- tion, says: "It is so absolutely against all probability tha*: they should be the produc- tion of a later age that DeWette ha'^ acknowl- edged them to be of the age of Moses. If we tiad here songs which do not contain any ref ereace at all to the circumstances of a later time, but are, on the contrary, full of features of individuality which are not otherwise in- telligible, and are without meaning except in reference to circumstances in the time of Moseg, it becomes highly probable that thoy were not only composed in the Mosaic age, but that they were then written down, and have come down to us from thence." We also have in this book the evidence of intimate acquaint ance with Egypt, as xiii. 22. A striking in- stance of the^e Mosaic traces is found in the reference to the boundary of the land The men don of the Arnon as the boundary be tween Moab and the Amorites indicates a record written while the Israelitish army was 76 Moses and the Pentateuch, still on the south bank of the river. Then the fact that the boundaries mentioned in xxxiv. do not exactly correspond with the land ac tually occupied clearly points to this chapter as written before the entrance into Canaan, for no later writer, after Israel failed to occupy all the land, would ascribe to them land which they did not possess. The subject of possible interpolations at a later date is naturally 8ugf];ested in this study, for several instances are asserted to be found in Numbers. The idea that Moses wrote the Pentateuch verbatim as we have it is not to be defended, and, of course, need not be. It is reasonably certain that he used materials which were at hand, and it is also reasonable to suppose that occasionally interpolations have found their way into the text in later years. The burden of evidence indicates that the Old Testament oanon received its perma- nent form during the Persian period in the years extending from Ezra to Nehemiah. The transmission of the Mosaic writings for a thousand years by copyists in the schools of the prophets and elsewhere, would, not un- naturally, involve occasional marginal com- The Book of Xumbtrs. 77 nients by the copyists, which comments would gradually creep into the body of the text. There were inspired men whom we may be- lieve to have been moved at times to make 8uoh additions In chapter xii. 3, we have an - instance in point. In chapter xv., verse 32 indicates that the incident mentioned was recorded after the wilderness journey, quire likely by Joshua who also probably wrote the account of the death of Moses at the close of Deuteronomy. (Jjsh. xxiv. 26 ) All such in- terpolations do not impeach the Mosaic au- thorship, and are entirely consistent with the belief that the whole was guarded by the Holy Spirit. XI.— The Book of Deuteronomy. , The application of the name Deuteronomy to the fifth book of the Pentateuch is some- what misleading, as it is apt to suggest that we have here either a second code of laws or a recapitulation of laws already given, where- as it is rather^ summary of the most salient features of Jehovah's dealings with Israel and th9 comtnandments whose observance was of supreme importance when they were settled in the promised land. Miny parts of the law already given are not mentioned, and few new laws are given. It U the personal and eth- ical rather than the pDlitical and official as- pect of the law that is dwelt upon. In fact, the book c:)nsi3ts ot a series of sermons, hav- ing historical and legislative features, but be- iog especially hortatory and revealing the sub- jective spirit of the author. This latter fea- ture is in contrast to the previous books, in which the objective element prevails. The admonitions, appeals and warnings of Moses (78) TJie Book of Deutctonomy. 79 are enforced bj constant references to the his- tory and law of which thej knew and pos- sessed the records. The book closes with soaie account of the last days of Moses' li^e. We noted in Chapter V. that this book has more direct references to Mosaic authorship than t^e other four. But the critica say it is quite impossible to believe that Moses could be the author, because there is such a marked difference of style from that found in the frag- ments which they concede to be Mosaic, and because we have here many of the same grounds for objection which they make against the Mosaic authorship of most of the Penta- teuch in any part of it. When we ask the critics how we can set aside the direct testi- mony of the book itself, they are ready with the answer. It is the only answer possible to them, and it reveals their desperate determi- nation to push their theory against all oids. They boldly tell us that the author of this book perpetrated a deliberate forgery, and assumed the name of Moses to give a color of coneist- enoy to his work. Of course they do this with soft words and tell us that notions of literary property were not very strict at that early 8o Moses and the Pentateuch. day, and that such fictions were common among conscientious men. But we ask the name of this forger who foisted his fraud upon Israel at some later date, and we are tdld it was the prophet Jer- emiah I Think of this man of God, this preacher of righteousness, being accused of writing this book himself, or conniving with his cousin Hilkiah, and giving it forth as the book of the law found in the temple, accused of deliberately lending himself to falsehood and practicing an imposition upon the people in the name of God! This reproach which the critics cast upon the character of Jere- miah should bring shame to their cheeks and hot indignation from the heart of every lover of God's word. It is true that the writings of Jeremiah are marked by numerous and strik- ing resemblances to passages in Deuteronomy, As a priest, Jeremiah would be occupied from his jouth in the study of the law, and, when called to admonish Israel, nothing could have been more natural than to draw largely from these discourses of Moses. There are fre- quent quotations in Jeremiah from other books of the Pentateuch. Moreover, it must be The Book of Deuteronomy. 8 r noted that the agreements between Deuteron- omy and Jeremiah are not so many as their differences, both in peculiarities of words and. in much of the sentiment. A part of this invention of the critics in- volves the notion that the book of the law which Bilkiah found in the temple during the reign of Josiah was not the entire Penta'euch, but simply Deuteronomy. But it is also called the book of the covenant, which identifies it with Exodus. The reasons given by the crit- ics for their theory are quiie insufficient. They say if the \^ji had existed before this time, it is inconceivable that it should have been lost as the record intimates. But the deplorable idolatry that prevailed during the reigQs of Manasseh and Amon, extending through half a century, is all-sufficient expla,- nation of the fact that the Pentateuch was neglected and ignored and actually unknown, except in the ranks of the few faithful of the class of Jeremiah. Then they say the whole book could not have been read through in one day. But it is an assumption to assert that it was all read in one day. Last of all, the critics say that it is suspicious to have the 82 Moses and the Fcniateiich. book foun i j ast at the lime when it was needed to assist the plans of the reformers, and that this coincidence points to the inference that the reformers made the book to suit the occasion I It is amazing beyond credence! Divine prov- idence counts for nothing The religious en- thusiasm and revival that marked Josiah s reign are not sufficient explanation for them. A time must be found for the later authorship of Deuteronomy, or the theory of the critics will fail, and Jeremiah must be loaded with this charge of imposture, while his character as a prophet is impugned For if he could de- clare as from Moses what was his own, why should he not declare as from God what was simply his own? The critics who are anxious to minimize predictive prophecy will thick this a very small matter; but it will not be so regarded by all who believe the prophet to be the medium of communication between God and man. One of the fundamental errors of the ration- alistic critics is in urging that the non-execu- tion of a law proves that it did not exist. The critics seem to have forgotten the dark ages of Europe previous to the Reformation Their argument would prove that the New Testa- Tfie Book of DcH.'en fioiny. 8 ment did not exist in ittj present form, until Luther found a copy of it in a monastery library. Certainly the New ToFtameiit was largely forgotten and unknown, though it had been in existence more than a thousand years. The arguments of the critics would ^.Tove Luther the author of the epistles to the Gala- tians and the Ramans, But the non observ- ance of the teachings of Christ fails to prove their non-existence. We are too near to them for that. The critics are dogmatic about the Old Testament, though they build largely on conjectures. There were rationalistic critics who tried to disprove the historic authentic- ity of the New Testament Gospels, but they could not explain the figure of the apobtle Paul going up and down the coasts of the Med- iterranean founding churches and filling them with a faith that lifted heathenism off its hinges, and turned the faces of Christian na- tions yet unbDrn toward the light .Just so the historic figure of Moses moves through the at- mosphere of Old Testament history. It is a ^on-iistent living portrait that could never have been patched together by hap hazard hands. That portrait is possible only when painted from life. 84 Moses_ and the Pentateuch . The critics also assert that Deuteronomy contains several passages which point to a later origin. As in the preceding book^, these passages permit of reasonable explana tions. For instance, it is urged that the ex pression "beyond the Jordan" plainly indi- cates that the writer was on the west bank of the river. But this expression was the actual term given to that territory, and it could have been used just as Cassar could write of Trans- alpine Gaul without being south of the Alps. Moreover, in a few instances there might have been interpolations. We should note a few of the positive evi- dences of the Mosaic authorship of Deuteron omy. The aspect and attitude of the writer, both retrospective and prospective, are those of one in the position of Moses at the time im- mediately before the entrance of the Israel- ites into Canaan. There is not a hint of Je- rusalem, or the temple, or the later life in the land. The principal foes are the Canaanites, who disappear from the record in the time of the judges. The vivid reminiscences of Egypt and experiences there as of recent oc- currence point to Moses. Such a statement as that in chapter iv. 3, 4, is intelligible only as The Book of Deuteronomy. 85 8poken to those who witnessed the incident mentioned. Moreover, we have fre([uent ref- erences in the earlier prophets. Those found in Amos and Rosea are especially significant because they were prophets of Israel rather than of Judah; for this fact indicates that the ten tribes recognized and reverenced the Pen- tateuch before the separation. But evidently it could not have attained to universal accept- ance had it not been by long usage already es- tablished. In the Book of Kings we have ref- erences which prove that the book was known in the kingdom of Israel from the time of its establishment. Hengstenberg calls attention to the important fact that "the entire action and operation of the prophets in the kingdom of Israel is an inexplicable riddle it we do not assume the public recognition of the Penta- teuch in this kingdom as its basis." He pro- ceeds to show how the prophets, though very annoying to the kings at times, were ever rec- ognized as having a certain authority, which can only be explained by the existence of the laws on which they grounded their censures of kings and people, standing as messengers of Jehovah and preachers of righteousness. XII.— The Book of Joshua and the Term "Hexateuch." The Jews were accustomed to separate the Book of Joshua from the Pentateuch. The five books of Moses composed what they called the law. Joshua was grouped with Judges, Samuel and the Kings, composing the books known as the "Former Prophets." Evidenily this division has its primary explanation in the fact that Moses was identified in the Jew- ish mind with the Pentateuch The fact that the contents of Joshua had a close connection with the preceding record wa? no doubt fully recognized by the people, but more conspicuous than this relationship was the fact that the age of Moses staads out as peculiarly the age of the authoritative establishment of the people under the divine institutions received at the hand of their great lawgiver. Considered from another point of view, the Book of Josh la miy properly be grouped with the Pentateuch, rather than the succeeding records. As a ( 86 ) The Book of Joshua. 87 portion of the history, it fills out the account of ths sefctlement in the promised land, and if added to the five preceding books would make a group of six. It is because of this mode of grouping that we have the term "Hexateuch," the six books composing what is frequently called the Book of Origins. As might be expected, the Book of Joshua abounds in references to the law of Moses and to the instructions which he gave to Joshua as his divinely appointed successor in the work of completing the conquest and 8efctlem=> utterly unworthy of the Son of God, whose claim to be the supreme teacher of God's truth to men would be well- nigh farcical were such ignorance ^os^ible. This vicious theory involves not only the in- tellectual furnishinff, but the moral nature of Christ. The argument assumes that he was actually in error when professing to teach truth. As Canon Liddon tays: "Our Lord quotes Deuteronomy as a work of the highest authority on the subject of man's relations and duties to God Yet we are assured that Christ and the Critics. 107 in point of fact this book wa? rothing better than a pious forgery of the age of Jeremiah, if indeed it was not a work of that prophet, in which he employed the name and authority of Moses as a restraint upon the increasing poly- theism of the later years of King Josiah. . . . If Deuteronomy is indeed a forgery, Jesus Christ was not merely ignorant of a fact of literary history. His moral perceptions were at fault. Before us is no mere question as to whether Chriat's knowledge was or was not limited; the question is, whether as a matter of fact he taught or implied the truth of that whi:.h is not true, and which a finer moral sense than his might have seen to be false. The que3tion is plainly whether he was a trustworthy teacher of religious no less than of historical truth. We have words of his own which prove how truly he made the ac- ceptance of the lower portions of his teaching a preliminary to belief in the higher. 'If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heav- enly things?' How indeed? If, when he sets the seal of his authority upon the writings of Moses as a whole, and upon the most mirac- io8 Moses and the Pentateuch. ulous incidents which they relate in detail, he is really only the uneducated Jew who igno- rantly repeats and reflects the prejudice of a barbarous age, how shall we be sure that when he reveals the character of God, or the precepts of the new life, or the reality and na- ture of the endless world, he is really trust- worthy, as an authority to whom we are pre- pared to cling in life and in death?" This keen and forcible statement reveals the fatal extreme to which the logic of the theory of the critics must go. Kuenen is more de- structive still. In his work on the Prophets he says: "The exegesis of the writers of the New Testament can not stand before the tri- bunal of science. We must either cast aside as worthless our dearly bought scientific method, or must forever cease to acknowledge the authority of the New Testament in the domain of the exegesis of the Old." That means, according to Kuenen, that we have no Christ and no Bible if we go the full length of the higher criticism. Those of us, however, who know of God's salvation in Christ will prefer to "cast aside as worthless" much of the product of the higher criticism and tarn CJirisi and tJic Critics. 109 to Je8U3 Christ as our infallible guide As Dr. Lampe says: "He made it very clear, not only that he had a most minute and partic- ular knowledge of all the events embedded in the Old Testament, and was perfectly familiar with the very spirit which actuated such men a^ Abriham, Noah, Moses, David and Isaiah — he was himself the subject of the Old Testament theophanies; commissioned the prophets to teach his truth in preparation for his coming and the confirmation of the gospel. They all taught and wrote by his Spirit, and it was a part of his mission to this world to fulfill every jot and tittle of all that was written in both the law and the prophets. It is impos- sible to believe that he did not know the time and the manner of producing the Old Testa- ment books, all of which are so vitally con- nected with his mission." The issue is vital and fundamental. We must choose between Christ and the critics. Do these modern critics understand the Scriptures better than Christ underistood them? Think of a theory that brings us to such a (juestion as this! Canon Liddon aa- swers it in these words: "The man who sin 1 1 o Moses and the Pentateucli. cerely believes that Jesus Christ is God, will not doubt that his every word standeth sure, and that whatever has been sealed and sane tioned by hi>j supreme authority is iudepend- ent of, and unassailable by, the fallible judg- ment of his creatures concerniDg it." XV.— Concluding Remarks. The reader of the foregoing chapters will not fail to realize that in attempting to pre- sent in 80 brief a statement an intelligent idea of the viewj which are urged for and against the thearie? of the higher criticism, the writer has been comp-^Ued to omit much that might have been added. The purpose has not been to treat the subject comprehensively, and therefore only conspicuous features have been considered. The study of the individual books is intended to bring out the strikiug points, and in most cases the instances selected are among the most prominent about which there is contention. In accord with this principle, the Pentateuch has been selected, rather than other portions of the Old Testament, becaus'j its problem is the most important. A few re- marks should be added in this concluding chapter. Constant discrimination should be made be- tween the legitimate methods of literary ( ni ) Jfoses ani the Pentateuch. criticism and the unwarranted assumptions tha*; mark the distinctive departures of much of the hiorher criticism Dr. Brigcrs says of such men ag Drs. Green, Bissell and Osgood "They use the tools of criticism." This is true in that they are masters in the realm of the accepted laws of criticism which all students recogaize, and of which the company of higher critics has no monopoly. But when Dr. Briggs says, "These three Americans have not yet won a single scholarly victory or checked for an instant the advance of criticism in Ameri- ca," he simply expresses his own opinion. Many will not agree with him, It is just be- cause these and other leaders of the evangel ical scholarship have faithfully defended the Scriptures against the assaults of many of the critics that the failure of the higher criticism is becoming apparent and a reaction is setting in against it, both abroad and in this country. The critics lay tha flittering unction to their souls that they are finding fjllowers among men who, in reality, repudiate their claims. They mistake the toleration which would secure liberty of scholarship to all who h jld to the essentials of faith in Jesus Concluding Remarks. 113 Christ for an endorsement of their views. Dr. Henry Van Dyke, in a recent sermon on "Tae Bible As It Is," gives expression to this spirit of toleration, but says: "As yet I have seen no good reason for thinking that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch, although there are certain portions of it which he could hardly have written, for example the account of his own death and buriil; and the prophe- cies of Isaiah seem to me to be well enough accounted for by the supposition of a single author with two different styles. These opin- ions may be due to ignorance; but many of the conclusions of the higher criticism present themselves to such literary judgment as I pos- sess, in the same aspect of inconclusive dog- matism as the theories of those who WDuld persuade us that the poems of Homer were written by another man of the same name, and that Francis Bacon was the author of Shakespeare's plays." Nothing could be more apt than the expression 'inconclusive dogma- tism" to describe so much of the assumption of the critics. In science it is necessary to demonstration that when a law is believed to be established 114 . Moses and the Pentateuch. by a sufficiently wide induction, the process should be reversed, and the law being assuDOied true, must be applied to known facts to see if the results correspond to observation. This was Newton's method. But the so-called scientific laws of the critics have utterly failed to stand this test. These methods applied to historians like M>tley or Macaulay would fail to assign the various portions of their histjry to sources from which they have avowedly obtained them. No more would those meth- ods assign to Shakespeare and his contem- poraries the various portions of the works known to have been written by them in com- mon, as the play of Henry VIII. The laws of higher criticism would make it quite impos- sible for James Russell Lowell to have written all that we know came from his pen. What could be more diverse in style, thought and lan- guage than 'The Biglow Papers' and "The Vi sion of Sir Launfal"? Yet they are from the same man, in spite of the fact that the laws of the higher criticism go to pieces on this rock. But if they fail in the case of authors whose work we know, and who wrote in our own language, how can they expect us to accept Concluding Remark. them when applied to writings centuries old, when a thousand helps to a perfect explana- tion of all the facts have irrevocably perished ? E-pecially are we deterred from this in the case of the Holy Scriptures when the critics assume to assure us of instances of literary fiction and deception, about which they can only be guessing. In fact, the growing reac- tion against these extreme critical assump tions is simply the expression of the demand of true science. Just here we touch a vital consideration. It arises in view of the claims of the evangelical adherents of this criticism. They are grieved because their orthodoxy is suspected. They claim to adopt the principles of the higher criticism without accepting the destructive conclusions of the extreme rationalists. They count themselves misunderstood by many. It is unfortunate to have Guch misapprehension in any quarter. No lover of the truth desires to misjudge any man. The reason why the evangelical critics do not escape suspicion is, however, not far to see. They do not draw clean-cut lines between themselves and the rationalists They quote all classes of critics 1 1 6 Moses and the Pentateuch. 01 the same page and make no distinction. They go part way and betray tendencies, which to many seem threatening More serious is the fact that some of them are decidedly near- er to the rationalists than they were five or ten years ago. The drift seems to be in that direction. Moreover, the extreme critics de- nounce the half-way men as holding an unten- able place. It must follow that many will look with suspicion and fear upon the movement, especially as the evangelicals have made un- necessary and unscientific concessions to the extremists. If any one is to blame, it must mainly be the critics themselves. Meantime, Bible students should bring not only the purpose t(5 demand demonstration rather ' than assumption from the specialists, but also to bring open minds ready to receive any fair conclusion which safe scholarship may present. As has been said, literary crit- icism is not to be ignored. It has done mar-- velous things during this century in advancing a true knowledge of the Scriptures. The fol lowing statement from the writer's honored and revered teacher, the late Dr. L. J. Evans, is to the point: "I do not claim that all move- Cofhiii(ii?ig Remarks. ment has been progreBs, or that every 'find' has been a gain. I am well aware that in biblical science, as in every science, there are rash speculations, unproved hypotheses, wild and dangerous vagaries. Some corners of the field are full of will-o'-the-wisps, illusive, un- substantial, unsafe, gleaming, I fear, with a light that is not from heaven. I have nothing %o say in behalf of a bald agnostic, materialistic naturalism, or of an arbitrary, capricious rationalism, which, with a priori dogmatism, denies the supernatural, belittles or expunges sin and salvation, eliminates out of history God's revelation of himself, evaporates out of the Bible its pneumatic inspiration, chops up its contents into lifeless fragments, and sweeps away book after book into the abyss of legend and myth. But, on the other hand, there are conclusions in this field whieh all whose judg- ment is worth anything are agreed in regard- ing as substantially established. We must reckon with these facts. We must take them into the account. We must assign them their true value." This graphic description of much of the higher crit cism only confirms what has been stated in the foregoing chapters. As to ii8 Moses and the Pentateuch. the number of "established conclusions," all will not agree, but as to the necessity of faith- ful and scholarly consideration of all claims, none will question. This spirit of fair inquiry the writer has de- sired to reveal in this brief statement ot the subject from the standpoint of one who, while according recognition to the legitimate claims of criti;3ism, is convinced that the higher crit- ics have failed to eliminate Moses from the Pentateuch, The reader will note that this has been the point of contention. We do not doubt that Moses used materials which were at his hand, and therefore critical analysis ha3 grounds for noting different sources. Moreover, we have not objected to occasional interpolations or to a later editorial arrange- ment of the whole. But our aim has been to show that the critics can not maintain their position in denying to Moses the supreme place in the substantial authorship of the book. "We believe it to be fairly proved that the substance of the Pentateuch must have been in existence from the time of Moses, and that much of it points to Moses as its author, as to no one else. The internal evidence of Concludijig Remarks. 1 1 9 the Pentateuch itself, the constant references of later Scriptures, the institutional \\{% of lerael, the corrobora';ion8 of the monumentt\ and the clear teaching of Christ and his apostles, all unite in making a cumulative ar- gument, which results in conclusive demonstra- tion of the substantial Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. It is the writer's prayerful hope that this monograph may serve to stimulate somewhat the already increasing study of the word of God. There are those who love it with every fiber of every heart string, and who are ready to devote their lives to the end that it may be known and read to the uttermost part of the earth, as the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation. It has been subjected to the fiery tes'S of the crucible, bui, like the burning bush which Moses saw, it can not be ooLsumed, because Jehovah is in the midst of it. The. divine life is its living spirit. "The words that I speak unto you," said Christ, ' they are spirit and they are life." The light of a blessed immortality shines from its pages upon the way everlasting. The knowledge of it shall one day fill the earth as the waters Moses and iJic PcntateiicJi. cover the sea. The glory of it shall be told when the hosts of the redeemed "sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb." PHOTOMOUNT PAMPHLET BINDER /•^ Monuf actured by GAYLORD BROS. Inc. Syracuse, N. Y. Stockton, Col If. BS1225.4 .J72 Moses and the Pentateuch : a popular ''[■'""fo" Theological Semmary-Speer Library 1 1012 00040 2661 •'T- X ■f^^ *<