text:
THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF
THE PENTATEUCH
WILLIAM HENRY GREEN, D.D., LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL AND OLD TESTAMENT LITERATURE IN PRINCETON
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
published by Charles Scribner's Sons.
THE Higher Criticism has been of late so associated
with extravagant theorizing, and with insidious attacks
upon the genuineness and credibility of the books of the
Bible that the very term has become an offence to seri-
ous minds. It has come to be considered one of the
most dangerous forms of infidelity, and in its very nature
hostile to revealed truth. And it must be confessed that
in the hands of those who are unfriendly to supernatural
religion it has proved a potent weapon in the interest of
unbelief. Nor has the use made of it by those who,
while claiming to be evangelical critics, accept and de-
fend the revolutionary conclusions of the antisupernatur-
alists, tended to remove the discredit into which it has
fallen.
This is not the fault of the Higher Criticism in its
genuine sense, however, but of its perversion. Prop-
erly speaking it is an inquiry into the origin and char-
acter of the writings to which it is applied. It seeks to
ascertain by all available means the authors by whom,
the time at which, the circumstances under which, and
the design with which they were produced. Such inves-
tigations, rightly conducted, must prove a most important
aid to the understanding and just appreciation of the
writings in question.
The books of the Bible have nothing to fear from such
investigations, however searching and thorough, and how-
ever fearlessly pursued. They can only result in estab-
lishing more firmly the truth of the claims, which the
xx PREFACE
Bible makes for itself, in every particular. The Bible
stands upon a rock from which it can never be dislodged.
The genuineness and historical truth of the Books of
Moses have been strenuously impugned in the name of
the Higher Criticism. It has been claimed as one of its
most certain results, scientifically established, that they
have been falsely ascribed to Moses, and were in reality
produced at a much later period. It is affirmed that the
history is by no means reliable and merely records the
uncertain and variant traditions of a post-Mosaic age;
and that the laws are not those of Moses, but the growth
of centuries after his time. All this is demonstrably
based on false and sophistical reasoning, which rests on
unfounded assumptions and employs weak and inconclu-
sive arguments.
It is the purpose of this volume to show, as briefly and
compactly as possible, that the faith of all past ages in
respect to the Pentateuch has not been mistaken. It is
what it claims to be, and what it has always been be-
lieved to be. In the first chapter it is exhibited in its
relation to the Old Testament as a whole, of which it is
not only the initial portion, but the basis or foundation
upon which the entire superstructure reposes; or rather,
it contains the germs from which all that follows was
developed. In the second, the plan and contents of the
Pentateuch are unfolded. It has one theme, which is
consistently adhered to, and which is treated with or-
derly arrangement and upon a carefully considered plan
suggestive of a single author. In the third it is shown
by a variety of arguments, both external and internal,
that this author was Moses. The various forms of oppo-
sition to this conclusion are then outlined and separately
considered. First, the weakness of the earlier objections
from anachronisms and inconsistencies is shown. In the
fourth chapter the divisive hypotheses, which have in
PREFACE xxi
succession been maintained in opposition to the unity of
the Pentateuch, are reviewed and shown to be baseless,
and the arguments urged in their support are refuted.
In the fifth chapter the genuineness of the laws is de-
fended against the development hypothesis. And in the
sixth and last chapter these hypotheses are shown to be
radically unbiblical. They are hostile alike to the truth
of the Pentateuch and to the supernatural revelation
which it contains.
PRINCETON, N. J. August 1, 1895.
I Page
THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS STRUCTURE, 1
The Old Testament addressed in the first instance to Israel
and in the language of that people ; the New Testament to
all mankind and in the language of the civilized world. The
former composed by many writers in the course of a thousand
years, 1; not an aggregate of detached productions, but pos-
sessed of an organic structure, 2; of which each book is a
constituent element, 3, with its special function. The three-
fold division of the Hebrew Bible, 4, resting on the official
position of the writers, 5. The Lamentations an apparent ex-
ception, 6. Two methods of investigating organic structure,
7. First, trace from the beginning. The Pentateuch, histor-
ical, poetical, 8, and prophetical books, 9. Second, survey
from the end, viz., Christ; advantages of this method, 10.
Predictive periods, negative and positive; division of the Old
Testament thence resulting, 11-13. Two modes of division
compared, 14. General relation of the three principal sec-
tions, 15-17.
THE PLAN AND CONTENTS OF THE PENTATEUCH, 18
Names of the books of Moses, origin of the fivefold divis-
ion, 18. Theme of the Pentateuch; two parts, historical and
legal, 19; preliminary portion, 20; its negative and positive
aim, 21. Creation to the Flood, primeval holiness and the
fall; salvation and perdition; segregation, 22; divine insti-
tutions. The Flood to Abraham, 23. Call of Abraham. Two
stages in the development of Israel. The family; Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, 24. The nation; negative and positive prepa-
ration for the exodus; the march to Sinai. The legislation;
at Sinai 25, in the wilderness of Paran, in the plains of Moab,
26-28; one theme, definite plan, continuous history, 29, sug-
gestive of a single writer. Tabular view, 30.
xxiv CONTENTS
III Page
MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH, 31
Importance of the Pentateuch, 31. Mosaic authorship as
related to credibility. (1) Traditional opinion among the
Jews; testimony of the New Testament, 32, not mere accom-
modation to prevailing sentiment. (2) Testimony of the Old
Testament, 33-35. (3) Declarations of the Pentateuch ; the
Book of the Covenant; the Priest code; the Deuteronomic
code, 36; two historical passages ascribed to Moses, which
imply much more, 37, 38; intimate relation of the history to
the legislation. (4) The language of the laws points to the
Mosaic period, 39, 40; indicates that they were written then.
Moses's farewell addresses, song and blessing, 41. The laws
could not be forged; locality of these enactments. (5) The Pen-
tateuch alluded to or its existence implied in the subsequent
books of the Bible, 42. (6) Known and its authority admitted
in the kingdom of the ten tribes, 43; no valid argument from
the Samaritan Pentateuch, 44; proof from the history of the
schism and the books of the prophets. (7) Elementary char-
acter of its teachings. (8) Egyptian words and allusions, 45.
Assaults in four distinct lines, 46. The earliest objections;
ancient heretics; Jerome misinterpreted; Isaac ben Jasos
Aben Ezra, 47; Peyrerius; Spinoza; Hobbes; Richard
simon, 48; Le Clere; answered by Witsius and Carpzov, 49.
The alleged anachronisms and other objections of no account,
50, 51. Note: Testimony of Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 52; 2
Samuel, Kings, 53; Joel, Isaiah, 54; Micah, Jeremiah, 55;
Psalms. Allusions in Hosea and Amos to the facts of the
Pentateuch, 56; to its laws, 57; coincidences of thought or
expression, 58.
THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH, 59
Meaning of unity, 59; illustration from Bancroft; the
Gospels, 60. The Document Hypothesis; Vitringa, 61; As-
true, Eichhorn, Gramberg, 62. (1) Elohim and Jehovah, 63.
(2) Each class of sections continuous. (3) Parallel passages,
64. (4) Diversity of diction and ideas, 65, 66. At first con-
fined to Genesis; not conflict with Mosaic authorship until
extended to the entire Pentateuch, 67; even then not neces-
CONTENTS xxv
sarily, unless the documents are post-Mosaic Ex. vi. 3, 68. Jehovist
suspected of anachronisms, inaccuracies, and contradictions, 69;
inferred from parallel passages, 70. Fragment Hypothesis, Vater,
Hartmann, 71; supported by similar arguments, 72; the Document
Hypothesis reacting against itself, 73; titles and subscriptions, 74. But
(1) The extensive literature assumed. (2) The continuity and orderly
arrangement of the Pentateuch, 75. (3) The numerous cross-ref-
erences. Refuted by Ewald and F. H. Ranke. Supplement Hypothesis,
Bleek, Tuch, Stdhelin, De Wette, Knobel, 76, 77. This accounts for
certain evidences of unity but not for others. Inconsistent relation of
the Jehovist to the Elohist, 78, 79; attempted explanations destructive
of the hypothesis, 80. Refuted by Kurtz, Drechsler, Havernick, Keil,
Hengstenberg, Welte. Crystallization Hypothesis of Ewald, 81, 82.
Modified Document Hypothesis of Hupfeld; Ilgen, Boehmer,
Schrader, 82, 83. But (1) The second Elohist destroys the continuity of
the first. (2) The first Elohist almost ceases soon after Gen. xx. where
the second begins, 84. (3) Intricate blending of Jehovist and second
Elohist. (4) First Elohist alleged to be clearly distinguishable; without
force as an argument, 85. (5) Capricious and inconsistent conduct
attributed to the redactor, 86; undermines the hypothesis. Bur-
densome complexity inevitable, 87. Critical symbols. The grounds of
literary partition considered, 88. I. The divine names; their alternation
not coincident with successive sections, 89; this fundamental criterion
annulled by unsettling the text, 90. Elohim in J sections; Jehovah in P
and E sections, 91. Examples given, 92-98. Ex. vi. 2, 3, 99.
Misinterpretation corrected, 100. Not written with an antiquarian
design; neither was the patriarchal history, 101. Gen. iv. 26.
Signification and usage of Elohim and Jehovah, 102, 103.
Hengstenberg's theory, 103, 104. That of Kurtz, 105. Liberty in the
use of the divine names. II. Continuity of sections, 106. But (1)
numerous chasms and abrupt transitions, 107. (2) Bridged by scattered
clauses. (3) Apparent connection factitious, 108. (4) Interrelation of
documents. (5) Inconsistency of critics. III. Parallel passages. But (1)
Often not real parallels, 109. (2) Repetition accounted for 110. (3)
Summary statement followed by particulars, 111. (4) Alleged
doublets, 112. IV. Diversity of diction and ideas. But (1) Reasoning in
a circle, 113. (2) Proofs factitious, 114. (3) Synonyms, 115. (4)
Criteria conflict. (5) An indeterminate equation, 116. (6) Growing
complexity, 117.
xxvi CONTENTS
Arguments insufficient, 118. Partition of the parables of the
Prodigal Son, 119-122, and the Good Samaritan, 122-124.
Romans Dissected; additional incongruities, 125, 126; mar-
vellous perspicacity of the critics, 126, 127 , critical assault
upon Cicero's orations and other classical productions, 127
and 128, 129 note; Prologue of Faust, 130; agreement of
critics, 130, 131; Partition Hypothesis a failure, but the labor
spent upon it not altogether fruitless, 132, 133.
GENUINENESS OF THE LAWS, 134
Critical revolution, 134; diversities of literary critics, two
points of agreement, 135; Development Hypothesis, 136, 137
its fallacy, 138; dates assigned to the several codes, 139, 140;
Graf. 140; Kuenen, Wellhausen. 141; works for and against,
nuts 111-143; Supplement Hypothesis overthrown, 142, 143;
Scriptural statements vindicated, 141. 146; no discrepancy be-
tween the codes, 147-149; alleged violations of the law, 150,
in respect to the place of sacrifice and the priesthood, 151,
152; Ignorance of the law, 153; the laws of Charlemagne,
154; Deuteronomy, the Priest Code, 155; incongruities of
the hypothesis, 156.
THE BEARING OF THE DIVISIVE CRITICISM ON THE CREDIBIL-
ITY OF THE PENTATEUCH AND ON SUPERNATURAL RELIG-
ION, 157
Partition Hypotheses elaborated in the interest of unbelief,
157; credibility undermined; not a question of inerrancy,
but of the trustworthiness of the history, 158; facts only
elicited by a critical process; incompleteness of the docu-
ments ; work of the redactors, 159, 160; effect upon the
truthfulness of the Pentateuch, 161, 162; the real issue; un-
friendly to revealed religion, 163; in both the Old and the
New Testament, 164; the religion of the Bible based on his-
torical facts; revelations, predictions, and miracles discred-
ited by the authors of these hypotheses, 165, 166; Mosaic or
contemporary authorship denied, 167; falsity of the docu-
ments assumed, 168; they represent discordant traditions;
Scripture cannot be broken ; criticism largely subjective, 169;
CONTENTS xxvii
errors of redactors, 170; no limit to partition, 171; deism,
rationalism, divisive criticism ; literary attractions of the
Bible, 172; the supernatural eliminated, 173; deism, 174;
iationahstic exegeds, 174, 175; method of higher criticism
most plausible and effective, 176; hazardous experiment of
the so-called evangelical critics, 177.
THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS STRUCTURE
THE Old Testament is the volume of God's written
revelation prior to the advent of Christ. Its complement
is the New Testament, which is God's written revelation
since the advent of Christ. The former being immedi-
ately addressed to the people of Israel was written in the
language of that people, and hence for the most part in
Hebrew, a few chapters in Daniel and Ezra and a verse in
Jeremiah being in the Jewish Aramean,1 when the lan-
guage was in its transition state. This earlier dispensa-
tion, which for a temporary purpose was restricted to a
single people and a limited territory, was, however, pre-
paratory to the dispensation of the fulness of times, in
which God's word was to be carried everywhere and
preached to every creature. Accordingly the New Testa-
ment was written in Greek, which was then the language
of the civilized world.
The Old Testament was composed by many distinct
writers, at many different times and in many separate
portions, through a period of more than a thousand years
from Moses to Malachi. It is not, however, aan aggre-
1 Jer. x. 11; Dan. ii. 4-vii. 28; Ezra iv. 7--vi. 18, vii. 12--26 are in
Aramean.
2 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH
gate of detached productions without order or method
as the seemingly casual circumstances connected with the
origin of its several parts might tempt some to imagine.
Nor, on the other hand, are the additions made from time
to time of a uniform pattern, as though the separate value
of each new revelation consisted merely in the fact that
an increment was thereby made to the body of divine
truth previously imparted. Upon the lowest view that
can possibly be taken of this volume, if it were simply
the record of the successive stages of the development of
the Hebrew mind, it might be expected to possess an
organic structure and to exhibit a gradually unfolding
scheme, as art, philosophy, and literature among every
people have each its characteristics and laws, which gov-
ern its progress and determine the measure and direction
of its growth. But rightly viewed as the word of God,
communicated to men for his own wise and holy ends, it
may with still greater confidence be assumed that the
order and symmetry which characterize all the works of
the Most High, will be visible here likewise; that the
divine skill and intelligence will be conspicuous in the
method as well as in the matter of his disclosures; and
that these will be found to be possessed of a structural
arrangement in which all the parts are wisely disposed,
and stand in clearly defined mutual relations.
The Old Testament is a product of the Spirit of God,
wrought out through the instrumentality of many human
agents, who were all inspired by him, directed by him,
and adapted by him to the accomplishment of his own
fixed end. Here is that unity in multiplicity, that single-
ness of aim with diversity of operations, that binding to-
gether of separate activities under one superior and con-
trolling influence, which guides all to the accomplishment
of a predetermined purpose, and allots to each its par-
ticular function in reference to it, which is the very con-
THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS STRUCTURE 3
ception of a well-arranged organism. There is a divine
reason why every part is what it is and where it is; why
God spake unto, the fathers at precisely those sundry
times and in just those divers portions, in which he
actually revealed his will. And though this may not in
every instance be ascertainable by us, yet careful and
reverent study will disclose it not only in its general out-
lines, but also in a multitude of its minor details; and
will show that the transpositions and alterations, which
have been proposed as improvements, are dislocations
and disfigurements, which mar and deface the well-pro-
portioned whole.
In looking for the evidences of an organic structure in
the Scriptures, according to which all its parts are dis-
posed in harmonious unity, and each part stands in a
definite and intelligible relation to every other, as well as
to the grand design of the whole, it will be necessary to
group and classify the particulars, or the student will lose
himself in the multiplicity of details, and never rise to
any clear conception of the whole. Every fact, every
institution every person, every doctrine, every utterance
of the Bible has its place and its function in the general
plan. And the evidence of the correctness of any scheme
proposed as the plan of the Scriptures will lie mainly in
its harmonizing throughout with all these details, giving
a rational and satisfactory account of the purpose and
design of each and assigning to all their just place and
relations. But if one were to occupy himself with these
details in the first instance, he would be distracted and
confused by their multitude, without the possibility of
arriving thus at any clear or satisfactory result.
The first important aid in the process of grouping or
classification is afforded by the separate books of which
the Scriptures are composed. These are not arbitrary or
fortuitous divisions of the sacred text but their form,
dimensions, and contents have been divinely determined.
Each represents the special task allotted to one partic-
ular organ of the Holy Spirit, either the entire function
assigned to him in the general plan, or, in the case where
the same inspired penman wrote more than one book
of different characters and belonging to different classes,
his function in one given sphere or direction. Thus the
books of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Malachi exhibit to us that
part in the plan of divine revelation which each of those
distinguished servants of God was commissioned to per-
form. The book of Psalms represents the task allotted
to David and the other inspired writers of song in the
instruction and edification of the people of God. The
books of Moses may be said to have led the way in
every branch of sacred composition, in history (Genesis),
in legislation (Leviticus), in oratorical and prophetic
discourse (Deuteronomy), in poetry (Ex. xv., Dt. xxxii.,
xxxiii.), and they severally set forth what he was en-
gaged to accomplish in each of these different directions.
The books of Scripture thus having each an individual
character and this stamped with divine authority as an
element of fitness for their particular place and function,
must be regarded as organic parts of the whole.
The next step in our inquiry is to classify and arrange
the books themselves. Every distribution is not a true
classification, as a mechanical division of an animal body
is not a dissection, and every classification will not ex-
hibit the organic structure of which we are in quest.
The books of the Bible may be variously divided with
respect to matters merely extraneous and contingent,
and which stand in no relation to the true principle of
its construction.
Thus, for example, the current division of the Hebrew
Bible is into three parts, the Law, the Prophets, and
the K'thubhim or Hagiographa. This distribution rests
upon the official standing of the writers. The writings
of Moses, the great lawgiver and mediator of God's cove-
nant with Israel, whose position in the theocracy was
altogether unique, stand first. Then follow the writings
of the prophets, that is to say, of those invested with the
prophetical office. Some of these writings, the so-called
former prophets--Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings--
are historical; the others are prophetical, viz., those de-
nominated the latter prophets--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
and the twelve minor prophets so called, not as though
of inferior authority, but solely because of the brevity of
their books. Their position in this second division of
the canon is due not to the nature of their contents but
to the fact that their writers were prophets in the strict
and official sense. Last of all those books occupy the
third place which were written by inspired men who
were not in the technical or official sense prophets.
Thus the writings of David and Solomon, though inspired
as truly as those of the prophets, are assigned to the
third division of the canon, because their authors were
not prophets but kings. So, too, the book of Daniel be-
longs in this third division, because its author, though
possessing the gift of prophecy in an eminent degree, and
uttering prophecies of the most remarkable character,
and hence called a prophet, Mat. xxiv. 15, in the same
general sense as David is in Acts ii. 30, nevertheless did
not exercise the prophetic office. He was not engaged in
laboring with the people for their spiritual good as his
contemporary and fellow-captive Ezekiel. He had an
entirely different office to perform on their behalf in the
distinguished position which he occupied at the court of
Babylon and then of Persia. The books of Chronicles
cover the same period of the history as 2 Samuel and
Kings, but the assignment of the former to the third
division, and of the latter to the second, assures us that
Samuel and Kings were written by prophets, while the
author of Chronicles, though writing under the guidance
and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was not officially a
prophet.
As classified in our present Hebrew Bibles, which
follow the order given in the Talmud, this principle of
arrangement is in one instance obviously departed from;
the Lamentations of Jeremiah stands in the Hagiogra-
pha, though as the production of a prophet it ought to
be included in the second division of the canon, and
there is good reason to believe that this was its original
position. Two modes of enumerating the sacred books
were in familiar use in ancient times, as appears from
the catalogues which have been preserved to us. The
two books of Samuel were uniformly counted one: so
the two books of Kings and the two of Chronicles: so
also Ezra and Nehemiah: so likewise the Minor Proph-
ets were counted one book. Then, according to one
mode of enumeration, Ruth was attached to Judges as
forming together one book, and Lamentations was re-
garded as a part of the book of Jeremiah: thus the en-
tire number of the books of the Old Testament was
twenty-two. In the other mode Ruth and Lamentations
were reckoned separate books, and the total was twenty-
four. Now the earliest enumerations that we have from
Jewish or Christian sources are by Josephus1 and Ori-
gen, who both give the number as twenty-two: and as
this is the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet,
while twenty-four is the number in the Greek alphabet,
the former may naturally be supposed to have been
adopted by the Jews in the first instance. From this it
would appear that Lamentations was originally annexed
1 Josephus adopts a classification of his own suited to his immediate
purpose, but doubtless preserves the total number current among his
countrymen.
to the book of Jeremiah and of course placed in the
same division of the canon. Subsequently, for liturgical
or other purposes, Ruth and Lamentations were re-
moved to the third division of the canon and included
among the five small books now classed together as Me-
gilloth or Rolls, which follow immediately after Psalms,
Proverbs, and Job.
There are two methods by which we can proceed in
investigating the organic structure of the Old Testament.
We must take our departure either from the beginning
or the end. These are the two points from which all the
lines of progress diverge, or in which they meet in every
development or growth. All that which properly be-
longs to it throughout its entire course is unfolded from
the one and is gathered up in the other. Thus the seed
may be taken, in which the whole plant is already in-
volved in its undeveloped state, and its growth may be
traced from this its initial point by observing how roots,
and stem, and leaves, and flowers, and fruit proceed
from it by regular progression. Or the process may be re-
versed and the whole be surveyed from its consummation.
The plant is for the sake of the fruit; every part has its
special function to perform toward its production, and
the organic structure is understood when the office of
each particular portion in relation to the end of the
whole becomes known.
In making trial of the first of the methods just sug-
gested, the Old Testament may be contemplated under
its most obvious aspect of a course of training to which
Israel was subjected for a series of ages. So regarding
it there will be little difficulty in fixing upon the law of
Moses as the starting-point of this grand development.
God chose Israel from among the nations of the earth to
be his own peculiar people, to train them up for himself
by immediate communications of his will, and by manifes-
tations of his presence and power in the midst of them.
And as the first step in this process, first not only in the
order of time but of rational arrangement, and the foun-
dation of the whole, he entered into special and formal
covenant with them at Sinai, and gave them a divine
constitution and laws containing the undeveloped seeds
and germs of all that he designed to accomplish in them
and for them. The first division of the Old Testament
consequently is the Pentateuch, which contains this law
with its historical introduction.
The next step was to engage the people in the observ-
ance of the law thus given to them. The constitution
which they had received was set in operation and al-
lowed to work out its legitimate fruits among them and
upon them. The law of God thus shaped the history of
Israel: while the history added confirmation and enlarge-
ment to the law by the experience which it afforded of
its workings and of the providential sanctions which at-
tended it and by the modifications which were from time
to time introduced as occasion demanded. The histori-
call books thus constitute the second division of the Old
Testament, whose office it is to record the providential
application and expansion of the law.
A third step in this divine training was to have the
law as originally given and as providentially expanded,
wrought not only into the outward practice of the people
or their national life, as shown in the historical books,
but into their inward individual life and their intellect-
ual convictions. This is the function of the poetical
books, which are occupied with devout meditations or
earnest reflections upon the law of God, his works and
his providence, and the reproduction of the law in the
heart and life. These form accordingly the third divis-
ion of the Old Testament.
The law has thus been set to work upon the national
life of the people of Israel in the course of their history,
and is in addition coming to be wrought more and more
into their individual life and experience by devout medi-
tation and careful reflection. But that this outward and
inward development, though conducted in the one case
under immediate divine superintendence, and in the
other under the inspiration of the Divine Spirit, might
not fail of its appointed end, there was need that this end
should be held up to view and that the minds of the peo-
ple should be constantly directed forward to it. With
this view the prophets were raised up to reiterate, un-
fold, and apply the law in its true spiritual meaning, to
correct abuses and misapprehensions, to recall a trans-
gressing people to fidelity to their covenant God, and to
expand to the full dimensions of the glorious future the
germs and seeds of a better era which their covenant
relation to Jehovah contained. They furnish thus what
may be called an objective expansion of the law, and
their writings form the fourth and last division of the
Old Testament.
If, then, the structure of the Old Testament has been
read aright, as estimated from the point of its beginning
and its gradual development from that onward, it con-
sists of four parts,1 viz.:
1. The Pentateuch or law of Moses, the basis of the
whole.
2. Its providential expansion and application to the
national life in the historical books.
3. Its subjective expansion and appropriation to in-
dividual life in the poetical books.
4. Its objective expansion and enforcement in the
prophetical books.
The other mode above suggested of investigating the
1 This is substantially the same as Oehler's division first proposed in
his Prolegomena zur Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1845, pp. 87-91.
10 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH
structure of the Old Testament requires us to survey it
from its end, which is Christ, for whose coming and sal-
vation it is a preparation. This brings everything into,
review under a somewhat different aspect. It will yield
substantially the same division that has already been ar-
rived at by the contrary process, and thus lends it addi-
tional confirmation, since it serves to show that this is
not a fanciful or arbitrary partition but one grounded in
the nature of the sacred volume. At the same time it is
attended with three striking and important advantages.
1. The historical, poetical, and prophetical books,
which have hitherto been considered as separate lines of
development, springing it is true from a common root,
yet pursuing each its own independent course, are by this
second method exhibited in that close relationship and
interdependence which really subsists between them, and
in their convergence to one common centre and end.
2. It makes Christ the prominent figure, and adjusts
every part of the Old Testament in its true relation to
him. He thus becomes in the classification and struct-
ural arrangement, what he is in actual fact, the end of
the whole, the controlling, forming principle of all, so that
the meaning of every part is to be estimated from its re-
lation to him and is only then apprehended as it should
be when that relation becomes known.
3. This will give unity to the study of the entire Script-
ures. Everything in the Old Testament tends to Christ
and is to be estimated from him. Everything in the
New Testament unfolds from Christ and is like-wise to be
estimated from him. In fact this method pursued in other
fields will give unity and consistency to all knowledge
by making Christ the sum and centre of the whole, of
whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things.
In the first method the Old Testament was regarded
simply as a divine scheme of training. It must now be
THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS STRUCTURE 11
regarded as a scheme of training directed to one definite
end, the coming of Christ.
It is to be noted that the Old Testament, though pre-
paratory for Christ and predictive of him everywhere, is
not predictive of him in the same manner nor in equal
measure throughout. Types and prophecies are accumu-
lated at particular epochs in great numbers and of a strik-
ing character. And then, as if in order that these lessons
might be fully learned before the attention was diverted
by the impartation of others, an interval is allowed to
elapse in which predictions, whether implicit or explicit,
are comparatively few and unimportant. Then another
brilliant epoch follows succeeded by a fresh decline; pe-
riods they may be called of activity and of repose, of in-
struction on the part of God followed by periods of com-
prehension and appropriation on the part of the people.
These periods of marked predictive character are never
mere repetitions of those which preceded them. Each
has its own distinctive nature and quality. It emphasizes
particular aspects and gives prominence to certain char-
acteristics of the coming Redeemer and the ultimate
salvation; but others are necessarily neglected altogether
or left in comparative obscurity, and if these are to be
brought distinctly to view, a new period is necessary to
represent them. Thus one period serves as the comple-
ment of another, and all must be combined in order
to gain a complete notion of the preparation for Christ
effected by the Old Testament, or of that exhibition of
Messiah and his work which it was deemed requisite to
make prior to his appearing.
It is further to be observed that Christ and the coming
salvation are predicted negatively as well as positively.
While the good things of the present point forward to
the higher good in anticipation, evils endured or foretold,
and imperfections in existing forms of good, suggest the
12 THE HIGHER CRITICISM of THE PENTATETJC
blissful future by way of contrast; they awaken to a
sense of wants, deficiencies, and needs which points for-
ward to a time when they shall be supplied. The cove-
nant relation of the people to God creates an ideal which
though far from being realized as yet must some time
find a complete realization. The almighty and all holy
God who has made them his people will yet make them
to be in character and destiny what the people of Jeho-
vah ought to be. Now since each predictive period ex-
presses just the resultant of the particular types and
prophecies embraced within it, its character is determined
by the predominant character of these types and proph-
ecies. If these are predominantly of a negative descrip-
tion, the period viewed as a whole is negatively predic-
tive. If they are prevailingly positive, they constitute a
prevailingly positive period.
If now the sacred history be considered from the call
of Abraham to the close of the Old Testament, it will be
perceived that it spontaneously divides itself into a se-
ries of periods alternately negative and positive. There
is first a period in which a want is developed in the ex-
perience of those whom God is thus training, and is
brought distinctly to their consciousness. Then follows
a period devoted to its supply. Then comes a new want
and a fresh supply, and so on.
The patriarchal, for example, is a negative period. Its
characteristic is its wants, its patient, longing expecta-
tion of a numerous seed and the possession of the land
of Canaan, which are actually supplied in the time of
Moses and Joshua, which is therefore the corresponding
positive period.
The period of the Judges, again, possesses a negative
character. The bonds which knit the nation together
were too, feeble and too easily dissolved. This was not
the fault of their divine constitution. Had the people
been faithful to their covenant God, their invisible but
almighty sovereign and protector, their union would
have been perfect, and as against all foreign foes they
would have been invincible. But when the generation
which had beheld the mighty works wrought under the
leadership of Moses and Joshua had passed away, the in-
visible lost its hold upon a carnally minded people, and
"every man did that which was right in his own eyes."
They relapsed from the worship of God and obedience to
his law, and were in turn forsaken by him. Hence their
weakness, their civil dissensions tending to anarchy and
their repeated subjugation by surrounding enemies con-
vincing them of the need of a stronger union under a
visible head, a king to go before them. This was sup-
plied in David and Solomon, who mark the correspond-
ing positive period.
Then follows another negative period embracing the
schism, the decline of the divided kingdoms, their over-
throw and the captivity, with its corresponding positive,
the restoration.
If the marked and prominent features of the history
now recited be regarded, and if each negative be com-
bined with the positive which forms its appropriate com-
plement, there will result three great predictive or pre-
paratory periods, viz.
1. From the call of Abraham to the death of Joshua.
2. To the death of Solomon.
3. To the close of the Old Testament.
All that precedes the call of Abraham is purely pre-
liminary to it, and is to be classed with the first period
as its introduction or explanatory antecedent.
If these divisions of the history be transferred to the
Old Testament whose structure is the subject of inquiry,
it will be resolved into the following portions, viz.
1. The Pentateuch and Joshua.
2. The recorded history as far as the death of Solo-
mon, and the sacred writings belonging to this period.
These are, principally, the Psalms of David and the Prov-
erbs of Solomon, the great exemplars of devotional lyr-
ics and of aphoristic or sententious verse, which gave
tone and character to all the subsequent poetry of the
Bible. The latter may accordingly be properly grouped
with them as their legitimate expansion or appropriate
complement. These echoes continue to be heard in the
following period of the history, but as the keynote was
struck in this, all the poetical books may be classed to-
gether here as in a sense the product of this period.
3. The rest of the historical books of the Old Testa-
ment, together with the prophetical books.
This triple division, though based on an entirely dis-
tinct principle and reached by a totally different route, is
yet closely allied to the quadruple division previously
made, with only divergence enough to show that the
partition is not mechanical but organic, and hence no
absolute severance is possible. The historical books are
here partitioned relatively to the other classes of books,
exhibiting a symmetrical division of three periods of di-
vinely guided history, and at the close of each an imme-
diate divine revelation, for which the history furnishes
the preliminary training, and, in a measure, the theme.
The history recorded by Moses and consummated by
Joshua has as its complement the law given at Sinai and
in the wilderness. The further history to the death of
Solomon formed a preparation for the poetical books.
The subsequent history prepares the way for the proph-
ets, who are in like manner gathered about its concluding
stages.
There is besides just difference enough between the
two modes of division to reveal the unity of the whole
Old Testament, and that books separated under one as-
pect are yet united under another. Thus Joshua, accord-
ing to one method of division and one mode of conceiving
of it, continues and completes the history of the Penta-
teuch; the other method sees in it the opening of a new
development. There is a sense, therefore, in which it
is entirely legitimate to combine the Pentateuch and
Joshua as together forming a Hexateuch. The promises
made to the patriarchs, the exodus from Egypt, and the
march through the wilderness contemplate the settlement
in Canaan recorded by Joshua, and are incomplete with-
out it. And yet in the sense in which it is currently
employed by modern critics, as though the Pentateuch
and the book of Joshua constituted one continuous liter-
ary production, the term. Hexateuch is a misnomer. They
are distinct works by distinct writers; and the func-
tion of Joshua was quite distinct from that of Moses.
Joshua, as is expressly noted at every step of his course,
simply did the bidding of Moses. The book of the law
was complete, and was placed in his hands at the outset
as the guide of his official life. The period of legislation
ended with the death of Moses; obedience to the law
already given was the requirement for the time that fol-
lowed. Again the reign of Solomon may be viewed un-
der a double aspect. It is the sequel to that of David,
carrying the kingdom of Israel to a still higher pitch of
prosperity and renown; and yet in Kings it is put at the
opening of a new book, since it may likewise be viewed
under another aspect as containing the seeds of the dis-
solution that followed.
As to the general relation of these three divisions of
the Old Testament there may be observed:
1. A correspondence between the first and the follow-
ing divisions. The Pentateuch and Joshua fulfil their
course successively in two distinct though related
spheres. They contain, first, a record of individual
experience and individual training in the lives of the
patriarchs; and secondly, the national experience and
training of Israel under Moses and Joshua. These
spheres repeat themselves, the former in the second
grand division of the Old Testament, the latter in the
third. The histories of the second division are pre-
dominantly the record of individual experience, and
its poetry is individual in its character. Judges and
Samuel are simply a series of historical biographies;
Judges, of the distinguished men raised up from time to
time to deliver the people out of the hands of their op-
pressors; Samuel, of the three leading characters by
whom the affairs of the people were shaped in that im-
portant period of transition, Samuel, Saul, and David.
Ruth is a biographical sketch from private life. The
poetical books not only unfold the divinely guided re-
flections of individual minds or the inward struggles of
individual souls, but their lessons, whether devotional
or Messianic, are chiefly based on the personal experi-
ence of David and Solomon, or of other men of God.
The third division of the Old Testament, on the other
hand, resembles the closing portion of the first in being
national. Its histories--Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and
Nehemiah--concern the nation at large, and the same may
be said to a certain extent even of Esther. The commu-
nications of the prophets now given are God's messages
to the people, and their form and character are condi-
tioned by the state and prospects of the nation.
2. The number of organs employed in their communi-
cation increases with each successive division. In the
first there are but two inspired writers, Moses and the
author of the book of Joshua, whether Joshua himself or
another. In the second the historians were distinct from
the poets, the latter consisting of David, Solomon, and
other sacred singers, together with the author of the
book of Job, In the third we find the greatest number
of inspired writers, together with the most elaborate ar-
ticulation and hence an advance in organic structure.
3. There is a progress in the style of instruction
adopted in each successive division. The first is purely
typical. The few prophecies which are scattered
through it are lost in the general mass. The second di-
vision is of a mixed character, but types predominate.
We here meet not a simple record of typical facts and
institutions without remark or explanation, as in the
Pentateuch and Joshua; but in the poetical books types
are singled out and dwelt upon, and made the basis of
predictions respecting Christ. The third division is also
of a mixed character, but prophecies so predominate that
the types are almost lost sight of in the comparison.
4. These divisions severally render prominent the
three great theocratic offices which were combined in the
Redeemer. The first by its law, the central institution
of which is sacrifice, and which impresses a sacerdotal
organization upon the people, points to Jesus as priest.
The second, which revolves about the kingdom, is prog-
nostic of Jesus as king, although the erection of Solo-
non's temple and the new stability and splendor given
to the ritual show that the priesthood is not forgotten.
In the third, the prophets rise to prominence, and the
people themselves, dispersed among the nations to be the
teachers of the world, take on a prophetic character typ-
ifying Jesus as a prophet. While nevertheless the re-
building of the temple by Zerubbabel, and the prophetic
description of its ideal reconstruction by Ezekiel, point
still to his priesthood, and the monarchs of Babylon and
Persia, aspiring to universal empire, dimly foreshadow
his kingdom.
THE PLAN AND CONTENTS OF THE PENTATEUCH
The books of Moses are in the Scriptures called "the
law," Josh. i. 7; "the law of Moses," I Kin. ii. 3; "the
book of the law," Josh. viii. 34; "the book of the law
of Moses," Josh. viii. 31; "the book of the law of God,"
Josh. xxiv. 26, or "of the LORD," 2 Chron. xvii. 9, on ac-
count of their predominantly legislative character. They
are collectively called the Pentateuch, from pe<nte, five, and
teu?xoj, originally signifying an implement, but used by
the Alexandrian critics in the sense of a book, hence a
work consisting of five books. This division into five
books is spoken of by Josephus and Philo, and in all
probability is at least as old as the Septuagint version.
Its introduction has by some (Leusden, Havernick, Len-
gerke) been attributed to the Greek translators. Others
regard it as of earlier date (Michaelis), and perhaps as
old as the law itself (Bertholdt, Keil), for the reasons
1. That this is a natural division determined by the
plan of the work. Genesis, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy
are each complete in itself; and this being so, the five-
fold division follows as a matter of course.
2. The division of the Psalms into five books, as found
in the Hebrew Bible, is probably patterned after the
Pentateuch, and is most likely as old as the constitution
of the canon.
The names of these five books are in the Hebrew Bible
taken from the first words of each. Those current among
ourselves, and adopted in most versions of the Old Tes-
tament, are taken from the old Greek translators.
PLAN AND CONTENTS OF THE PENTATEUCH 19
The Pentateuch has one theme, which is consistently
pursued from first to last, viz., the theocracy in Israel,
or the establishment of Israel to be the people of God.
It consists of two parts, viz.
1. Historical, Gen. i.--Ex. xix., tracing the successive
steps by which Israel was brought into being as a na-
tion chosen to be the peculiar people of God.
2. Legal, recording the divine constitution granted to
them, by which they were formally organized as God's
people and brought into special relation to him. The
law begins with the ten commandments, uttered by God's
own voice from the smoking summit of Sinai, in Ex. xx.,
and extends to the close of Deuteronomy. The scraps of
history which are found in this second main division are
not only insignificant in bulk compared with the legisla-
tion which it contains, but they are subordinated to it as
detailing the circumstances or occasions on which the
laws were given, and likewise allied with it as constitut-
ing part of the training by which Israel was schooled into
their proper relation to God. Of these two main sections
of the Pentateuch the first, or historical portion, is not
only precedent to, but preparatory for, the second or legal
portion; the production and segregation of the people of
Israel being effected with the direct view of their being
organized as the people of God.
It will be plain from a general survey of these two
main sections, into which the Pentateuch is divided, that
everything in it bears directly upon its theme as already
stated; and the more minute and detailed the examina-
tion of its contents, the more evident this will become.
The first of these two great sections, or the historical
portion, is clearly subdivided by the call of Abraham. It
was at that point that the production and segregation
of the covenant people, strictly speaking, commenced.
From the creation of the world to the call of Abraham,
which is embraced in the first eleven chapters of Gene-
sis, the history is purely preliminary. It is directed to
the negative end of demonstrating the necessity of such
a segregation. From the call of Abraham to the law
given at Mount Sinai, that is to say, from Gen. xii. to
Ex. xix., the history is directed to the positive end of
the production and segregation of the covenant people.
The preliminary portion of the history is once more
divided by the flood; the first five chapters of Genesis
being occupied with the antediluvian period and the next
six with an account of the deluge and the postdiluvian
period. Each of these preliminary periods is marked
by the formation of a universal covenant between God
and the two successive progenitors and heads of the hu-
man race, Adam and Noah, which stand in marked con-
trast with the particular or limited covenant made with
Abraham, the progenitor of the chosen race, at the begin-
ning of the following or patriarchal period. The failure
of both those primeval covenants to preserve religion
among men, and to guard the race from degeneracy and
open apostasy, established the necessity of a new ex-
pedient, the segregation of a chosen race, among whom
religion might be fostered in seclusion from other na-
tions, until it could gain strength enough to contend
with evil on the arena of the world and overcome it, in-
stead of being overcome by it. The covenant with Adam
was broken by his fall, and the race became more and
more corrupt from age to age, until the LORD determined
to put a sudden end to its enormous wickedness, and de-
stroyed the world by the flood. Noah, who was alone
spared with his household, became the head of a new
race with whom God entered into covenant afresh; but
the impious attempt at Babel is suggestive of the ungod-
liness and corruption which once more overspread the
earth, and it became apparent, if the true service of God
was to be maintained in the world, it must be by initiat-
ing a new process. Hence the call of Abraham to be the
father of a new people, which should be kept separate
from other nations and be the peculiar people of the
LORD.
These two preliminary periods furnish thus the justi-
fication of the theocracy in Israel by demonstrating the
insufficiency of preceding methods, and the consequent
necessity of selecting a special people to be the LORD'S
people. But besides this negative purpose, which the
writer had in view in recording this primeval portion of
the history, he had also the positive design of paving the
way for the account to be subsequently given of the
chosen people, by exhibiting and inculcating certain
ideas, which are involved in the notion of a covenant
people, and of describing certain preliminary steps al-
ready taken in the direction of selecting such a people.
The idea of the people of God involves, when con-
templated under its negative aspect, (1) segregation from
the rest of mankind; and this segregation is not purely
formal and local, but is represented (2) both in their in-
ward character, suggesting the contrast of holiness to sin,
and (3) in their outward destiny, suggesting the contrast
of salvation to perdition. The same idea of the people
of God contemplated under its positive aspect involves
(4) direct relation to God or covenant with him, the ob-
servance of his laws and of the institutions which he im-
posed or established. Something is effected in relation
to each of these four particulars in each of these prelimi-
nary periods, and thus much, at least, accomplished in the
direction of the theocracy which was afterward to be in-
stituted.
Genesis begins with a narrative of the creation, because
in this the sacred history has its root. And this not only
because an account of the formation of the world might
fatly precede an account of what was transacted in it,
but chiefly because the sacred history is essentially a his-
tory of redemption, and this being a process of recovery,
a scheme initiated for the purpose of restoring man and
the world to their original condition, necessarily presup-
poses a knowledge of what that original condition was.
Hence the regular and emphatic repetition, after each
work was performed, in Gen. i., of the statement, and
God saw that it was good; "and at the close of all, God
saw everything that he had made; and behold it was
very good." Hence, too, the declaration made and re-
peated at the creation of man, that he was made in God's
image. The idea of primitive holiness thus set forth is
further illustrated, by contrast, in the tree of the knowl-
edge of good and evil, which stood in the midst of the gar-
den, and was made the test of obedience, and especially in
man's transgression and disobedience which rendered
redemption necessary. The contrast of salvation and
perdition is suggested by paradise and the tree of life on
the one hand, and by the curse pronounced upon man
and his expulsion from Eden in consequence of the fall
upon the other; by Cain's being driven out from the
presence of the LORD, and by Enoch, who walked with
God and was not, for God took him. The idea of seg-
regation is suggested by the promise respecting the seed
of the woman and the seed of the serpent, by which the
family of man is divided into two opposite and hostile
classes, who maintain a perpetual strife, until the serpent
and his seed are finally crushed; a strife which culmi-
nates in the personal conflict between Christ and Satan,
and the victory of the former, in which all his people
share. These hostile parties find their first representa-
tives in the family of Adam himself--in Cain, who was of
the evil one, and his righteous brother, Abel; and after
Abel's murder Seth was raised up in his stead. These
are perpetuated in their descendants, those of Seth being
called the sons of God, those of Cain the sons and
daughters of men. In conformity with the plan, which
the writer steadfastly pursues throughout, of tracing the
divergent lines of descent before dismissing them from
further consideration in the history, and proceeding with
the account of the chosen line itself, he first gives an ac-
count of the descendants of Cain, whose growing degen-
eracy is exhibited in Lamech, of the seventh generation
(Gen. iv. 17-24), before narrating the birth of Seth (Gen.
iv. 25, 26) and tracing the line of the pious race through
him to Noah, ch. v. By this excision of the apostate line
of Cain that narrowing process is begun, which was finally
to issue in the limitation to Abraham and his seed. And
in the fourth and last place, the divine institutions now
established as germs of the future law, were the weekly
Sabbath (G en. ii. 3), and the rite of sacrifice (Gen. iv. 3, 4).
In the next period the same rites were perpetuated,
with a more specific mention of the distinction of clean
and unclean animals (Gen. vii. 8), and the prohibition
of eating blood (Gen. ix. 4), which were already involved
in the institution of sacrifice and the annexing of the
penalty of death to the crime of murder (Gen. ix. 6); and
the same ideas received a new sanction and enforcement.
The character of those who belong to God is repre-
sented in righteous Noah, as contrasted with the Un-
godly world; their destiny, in the salvation of the former
and the perdition of the latter. Segregation is carried
one term farther by the promise belonging to this period,
which declares that while Japheth shall be enlarged and
Canaan made a servant God shall dwell in the tents
of Shem. And here, according to his usual method, al-
ready adverted to, the writer first presents a view of the
descendants of all Noah's sons, which were dispersed
over the face of the earth (Gen. x.), prior to tracing the
24 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PETNTATEUCH
chosen line in the seed of Shem, to Terah, the father of
Abraham (Gen. xi, 10-26). He thus exhibits the rela-
tionship of the chosen race to the rest of mankind, while
singling them out and sundering them from it.
Everything in these opening chapters thus bears di-
rectly on his grand theme, to which he at once proceeds
by stating the call of Abraham (Gen. xii.), and going on
to trace those providential events which issued in the
production of a great nation descended from him.
The preparation of the people of Israel, who were to
be made the covenant people of God, is traced in two
successive stages: first, the family, in the remainder of
the book of Genesis (Gen. ch. xii.-l.), secondly, the nation
(Ex. i.-xix.).
The first of these sections embraces the histories of
the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God made
choice of Abraham to be the father of his own peculiar
people, and covenanted with him as well as with Isaac
and Jacob severally to be their God, promising to them-
(1) numerous seed, (2) the possession of the land of
Canaan, and (3) that a blessing should come through
them upon all mankind. During this period the work
of segregation and elimination previously begun was car-
ried steadily forward to its final term. The line had al-
ready been narrowed down to the family of Terah in the
preceding chapter. Abraham is now called to leave his
father's house (Gen. xii.), his nephew Lot accompanying
him, who is soon, however, separated from him (ch. xiii.),
and his descendants traced (xix. 37, 38). Then in Abra-
ham's own family Ishmael is sent away from his house
(ch. xxi.), and the divergent lines of descent from Keturah
and from Ishmael are traced (ch. xxv.), before proceeding
with the direct line through Isaac (xxv. 19). Then in
Isaac's family the divergent line of Esau is traced (ch.
xxxvi.), before proceeding with the direct line of Jacob
(xxxvii. 2), the father of the twelve tribes, after which no
further elimination is necessary.
The history of this sacred family and God's gracious
leadings in Canaan are first detailed, and then the provi-
dential steps are recorded by which they were taken down
into Egypt, where they were to be unfolded to a great na-
tion. One important stage of preparation for the theocracy
in Israel is now finished: the family period is at an end,
the national period is about to begin. Genesis here ac-
cordingly breaks off with the death of Jacob and of Joseph.
Exodus opens with a succinct statement of the im-
mense and rapid multiplication of the children of Israel,
effecting the transition from a family to a nation (Ex. i.
1-7), and then proceeds at once to detail the preparations
for the exodus (i. 8-ch. xiii.), and the exodus itself (ch.
xiv.-xix.). There is first described the negative prepara-
tion in the hard bondage imposed on the people by the
king of Egypt, making them sigh for deliverance (i. 8-22).
The positive preparation follows, first of an instrument
to lead the people out of Egypt in the person of Moses
(ch. ii.-vi.); second, the breaking their bonds and setting
them free by the plagues sent on Egypt (ch. vii.-xiii).
The way being thus prepared, the people are led out of
Egypt, attended by marvellous displays of God's power
and grace, which conducted them through the Red Sea
and attended them on their march to Sinai (ch. xiv.-xix.).
Israel is now ready to be organized as the people of
God. The history is accordingly succeeded by the
legislation of the Pentateuch. This legislation consists
of three parts, corresponding to three periods of very un-
equal length into which the abode in the wilderness may
be divided, and three distinct localities severally oc-
cupied by the people in these periods respectively.
1. The legislation at Mount Sinai during the year that
they encamped there.
2. That given in the period of wandering in the wil-
derness of Paran, which occupied the greater part of the
forty years.
3. That given to Israel in the plains of Moab, on the
east of Jordan, when they had almost reached the prom-
ised land.
At Sinai God first proclaims the law of the ten com-
mandments (Ex. xx.), and then gives a series of ordi-
nances (ch. xxi.-xxiii.) as the basis of his covenant with
Israel, which is then formally ratified (ch. xxiv.). The
way is thus prepared for God to take up his abode in
Israel. Accordingly directions, are at once given for the
preparation of the tabernacle as God's dwelling-place,
with its furniture, and for the appointment of priests to
serve in it, with a description of the vestments which
they should wear, and the rites by which they should be
consecrated (ch. xxv.-xxxi.). The execution of these
directions was postponed in consequence of the breach
of the covenant by the sin of the golden calf and the re-
newal of the covenant which this had rendered necessary
(ch. xxxii.-xxxiv.). And then Exodus is brought to a
termination by the account of the actual construction and
setting up of the tabernacle and God's taking up his
abode in it (ch. xxxv.-xl.).
The LORD having thus formally entered into covenant
with Israel, and fixed his residence in the midst of them,
next gives them his laws. These are mainly contained
in the book of Leviticus. There is first the law respect-
ing the various kinds of sacrifices to be offered at the
tabernacle now erected (Lev. i.-vii.), then the consecra-
tion of Aaron and his sons by whom they were to be
offered, together with the criminal conduct and death of
two of his sons, Nadab and Abihu (ch. viii.-x.); then the
law respecting clean and unclean meats and various kinds
of purifications (ch. xi.-xv.), and the series is wound up
by the services of the day of atonement, effecting the
highest expiation known to the Mosaic ritual (ch. xvi.).
These are followed by ordinances of a more miscellane-
ous character relating to the people (ch. xvii.-xx.), and
the priests (ch. xxi., xxii.), the various festivals (ch.
xxiii.), the sabbatical year and year of jubilee (ch. xxv.);
and the whole is concluded by the blessing pronounced
on obedience and the curse which would attend upon
transgression (ch. xxvi.), with which the book is brought
to a formal close (xxvi. 46). A supplementary chapter
(xxvii.) is added at the end respecting vows.
Numbers begins with the arrangements of the camp and
preparations for departure from Sinai (Num. i.-x.). The
people are numbered (ch. i.), the order of encampment
and march settled (ch. ii.), and duties assigned to the sev-
eral families of the Levites in transporting the tabernacle
(ch. iii., iv.). Then, after some special ceremonial regu-
lations (ch. v., vi.), follow the offerings at the dedication
of the tabernacle, including oxen and wagons for its
transportation (ch. vii.); the Levites are consecrated for
their appointed work (ch. viii.), and as the final act be-
fore removal the passover was celebrated (ch. ix.), and
signal trumpets prepared (ch. x.). Then comes the actual
march from Sinai, with the occurrences upon the journey
to Kadesh, on the southern border of the land, where
they are condemned to wander forty years in the wilder-
ness on account of the rebellious refusal to enter Ca-
naan (ch. xi.-xiv.). Some incidents belonging to the
period of the wandering and laws then given are re-
corded (ch. xv.-xix.). The assembling of the people
again at Kadesh in the first month of the fortieth year,
the sin of Moses and Aaron, which excluded them from
the promised land, and the march to the plains of Moab,
opposite Jericho, with the transactions there until the
eleventh month of that year, including the conquest of
28 THE HIGHER, CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH
the territory east of the Jordan occupy the remainder of
the book (ch. xx.-xxxvi.).
Deuteronomy contains the last addresses of Moses to
the people in the plains of Moab, delivered in the eleventh
month of the fortieth year of Israel's wanderings, in
which he endeavors to engage them to the faithful ob-
servance of the law now given. The first of these ad-
dresses (Deut. i.-iv. 40) reviews some of the leading events
of the march through the wilderness as arguments for a
steadfast adherence to the LORD'S service. Then after se-
lecting three cities of refuge on the east side of the Jor-
dan (iv. 41-43), he proceeds in his second address with a
declaration of the law, first in general terms, reciting the
ten commandments with earnest admonitions of fidelity
to the LORD (ch. v.-xi.), then entering more into detail in
the inculcation, of the various ordinances and enactments
(ch. xii.-xxvi.). This law of Deuteronomy thus set before
the people for their guidance is properly denominated
the people's code as distinguished from the ritual law in
Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, which is denominated
the priests' code, being intended particularly for the
guidance of the priests in all matters connected with the
ceremonial. The latter develops in detail under symbolic
forms the privileges and duties springing out of the cove-
nant relation of the people to Jehovah in their access to
him and the services of his worship. The former is a
development of the covenant code (Ex. xx.-xxiii.), with
such modifications as were suggested by the experience
of the last forty years, and especially by their approach-
ing entrance into the land of Canaan. His third address
sets solemnly before the people in two sections (ch.
xxvii., xxviii., and ch. xxix., xxx.), the blessing consequent
upon obedience and the curse that will certainly follow
transgression.
Provision is then made both for the publication and
safe-keeping of the law, by delivering it to the custody of
the priests, who are directed to publish it in the audience
of the people every seven years, and to keep it safely in
the side of the ark (ch. xxxi.); next follow Moses's ad-
monitory song (ch. xxxii.), his last blessing to the tribes
(ch. xxxiii.), and his death (ch. xxxiv.).
The Pentateuch accordingly has, as appears from this
brief survey, one theme from first to last to which all
that it contains relates. This is throughout treated
upon one definite plan, which is steadfastly adhered to.
And it contains a continuous, unbroken history from the
creation to the death of Moses, without any chasms or
interruptions. The only chasms which have been al-
leged are merely apparent, not real, and grow out of the
nature of the theme and the rigor with which it is
adhered to. It has been said that while the lives of the
patriarchs are given in minute detail a large portion of
the four hundred and thirty years during which the chil-
dren of Israel dwelt in Egypt is passed over in silence;
and that of a large part of the forty years' wandering in
the wilderness nothing is recorded. But the fact is, that
these offered little that fell within the plan of the writer.
The long residence in Egypt contributed nothing to the
establishment of the theocracy in Israel, but the develop-
ment of the chosen seed from a family to a nation. This
is stated in a few verses, and it is all that it was neces-
sary to record. So with the period of judicial abandon-
ment in the wilderness: it was not the purpose of the
writer to relate everything that happened, but only what
contributed to the establishment of God's kingdom in
Israel; and the chief fact of importance was the dying
out of the old generation and the growing up of a new
one in their stead.
The unity of theme and unity of plan now exhibited
creates a presumption that these books are, as they have
been traditionally believed to be the product of a single
writer; and the presumption thus afforded must stand
unless satisfactory proof can be brought to the contrary.
SCHEME OF THE PENTATEUCH.
Preliminary, Antediluvian, Gen. i.-v.
Gen. i.-xi. , Noachic, Gen. vi-xi.
History, |The family, Gen. xii. 1.
Gen. i.- |(Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.)
Ex. xix |
Preparatory, | |Transition from family, Ex. 1. 1-7.
Gem xii,- | |
Ex. xix. | | Negative.
|The nation, |Preparation for Oppression, 1. 8-22.
|Ex. i.-xix |the exodus, i. Positive.
|8-xiii. The instrument, Mo-
ses, ii.-vi.
The plagues, vii.-xiii.
Exodus and march to Sinai, xiv.-xix.
|From giving law to setting, up tabernacle.
|At Sinai, Ex. xx.- | Ex. xx.-xl.
| Num. x.10. |Ordinances at Sinai, Lev. i.-xxvii.
| |Preparations for departure, Num. i. 1-x. 10.
| From Sinai to Kadesh, x. 11-xiv.
Legislation Is- | In Paran, Num. x. Forty years' wandering, xv.-xix.
rael in wilder-| 11-xxi. Kadesh to plains of Moab, in fortieth year,
ness, Ex. xx.- | xx.-xxxvi.
Deut. xxxiv. |
| |Moses's first address (history), i.-iv. 40.
| | General, v.-xi.
|In plains of Moab, |Moses's second address
| | (law), Special,
|Dt. 1.-xxxiv. | xxvi.
|Moses's third address (blessing and curve),
| xxvii.-xxx.
Conclusion, xxxi. xxxiv.
MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH
IF the Pentateuch is what it claims to be, it is of the
greatest interest and value. It professes to record the
origin of the world and of the human race, a primitive
state of innocence from which man fell by yielding to temp-
tation, the history of the earliest ages, the relationship
subsisting between the different nations of mankind, and
particularly the selection of Abraham and his descend-
ants to be the chosen people of God, the depositaries of
divine revelation, in whose line the Son of God should in
due time become incarnate as the Saviour of the world.
It further contains an account of the providential events
accompanying the development of the seed of Abra-
ham from a family to a nation, their exodus from Egypt,
and the civil and religious institutions under which they
were organized in the prospect of their entry into, and
occupation of, the land of Canaan. The contents of the
Pentateuch stand thus in intimate relation to the prob-
lems of physical and ethnological science, to history and
archeology and religious faith. All the subsequent rev-
elations of the Bible and the gospel of Jesus Christ it-
self, rest upon the foundation of what is contained in the
Pentateuch as they either presuppose or directly affirm
its truth.
It is a question of primary importance, therefore, both
in itself and in its consequences, whether the Pentateuch
is a veritable, trustworthy record, or is a heterogeneous
mass of legend and fable from which only a modicum of
truth can be doubtfully and with difficulty elicited. Can
32 THE HIGHER CRITICISM 0F THE PENTATEUCH
we lay it at the basis of our investigations, and implicitly
trust its representations, or must we admit that its un-
supported word can only be received with caution, and
that of itself it carries but little weight? In the settle-
ment of this matter a consideration of no small conse-
quence is that of the authorship of the Pentateuch. Its
credibility is, of course, not absolutely dependent upon
its Mosaic authorship. It might be all true, though it
were written by another than Moses and after his time.
But if it was written by Moses, then the history of the
Mosaic age was recorded by a contemporary and eye-
witness, one who was himself a participant and a leader
in the scenes which he relates, and the legislator from
whom the enactments proceeded; and it must be con-
fessed that there is in this fact the highest possible guar-
anty of the accuracy and truthfulness of the whole. It
is to the discussion of this point that the present chapter
is devoted: Is the Pentateuch the work of Moses?
1. It is universally conceded that this was the tradi-
tional opinion among the Jews. To this the New Testa-
ment bears the most abundant and explicit testimony.
The Pentateuch is by our Lord called "the book of
Moses" (Mark xii. 26); when it is read and preached
the apostles say that Moses is read (2 Cor. iii. 15) and
preached (Acts xv. 21). The Pentateuch and the books
of the prophets, which were read in the worship of the
synagogue, are called both by our Lord (Luke xvi. 29,
31) and the evangelists (Luke xxiv. 27), "Moses and
the prophets," or "the law of Moses and the prophets"
(Luke xxiv. 44; Acts xxviii. 23). Of the injunctions of the
Pentateuch not only do the Jews say, when addressing
our Lord, "Moses commanded (John viii. 5), but our
Lord repeatedly uses the same form of speech (Mat. viii.
4; xix. 7, 8; Mark i. 44; x. 3; Luke v. 14), as testi-
fied by three of the evangelists. Of the law in general
MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH 33
he says, "Moses gave the law" (John vii. 19), and the
evangelist echoes "the law was given by Moses" (John
i. 17). And that Moses was not only the author of the
law, but committed its precepts to writing, is affirmed by
the Jews (Mark xii. 19), and also by our Lord (Mark x.
5), who further speaks of him as writing predictions re-
specting himself (John v. 46, 47), and also traces a nar-
rative in the Pentateuchal history to him (Mark xii. 26).
It has been said that our Lord here speaks not author-
itatively but by accommodation to the prevailing senti-
ment of the Jews; and that it was not his purpose to
settle questions in Biblical Criticism. But the fact re-
mains that he, in varied forms of speech, explicitly con-
firms the current belief that Moses wrote the books
ascribed to him. For those who reverently accept him
as an infallible teacher this settles the question. The
only alternative is to assume that he was not above the
liability to err; in other words, to adopt what has been
called the kenotic view of his sacred person, that he com-
pletely emptied himself of his divine nature in his incar-
nation, and during his abode on earth was subject to all
the limitations of ordinary men. Such a lowering of
view respecting the incarnate person of our Lord may
logically affect the acceptance of his instructions in other
matters. He himself says (John iii. 12), "If I have
told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye
believe if I tell you of heavenly things?"
2. That the Pentateuch was the production of Moses,
and the laws which it contains were the laws of Moses,
was the firm faith of Israel from the beginning, and is
clearly reflected in every part of the Old Testament, as
we have already seen to be the case in the New Testa-
ment. The final injunction of the last of the prophets
(Mal. iv. 4) is, "Remember ye the law of Moses my ser-
vant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Is-
rael, with the statutes and judgments." The regulations
adopted by the Jews returned from captivity were not
recent enactments of their leaders, but the old Mosaic in-
stitutions restored. Thus (Ezra iii, 2) they built the
altar and established the ritual "as it is written in the
law of Moses." After the new temple was finished they
set priests and Levites to their respective service, "as it
is written in the book of Moses" (Ezra vi. 18). When
subsequently Ezra led up a fresh colony from Babylon,
he is characterized as "a ready scribe in the law of
Moses" (Ezra vii. 6). At a formal assembly of the people
held for the purpose, "the book of the law of Moses
was read and explained to them day by day (Neh. viii.
1, 18). Allusions are made to the injunctions of the
Pentateuch in general or in particular as the law which
God gave to Moses (Neh. i. 7, 8; viii. 14; ix. 14; x. 29),
as written in the law (vs. 34, 36), or contained in the
book of Moses (Neh. xiii. 1).
In the Captivity Daniel (ix. 11, 13) refers to matters
contained in the Pentateuch as "written in the law of
Moses." After the long defection of Manasseh and
Amon the neglected "book of the law of the LORD by
Moses" (2 Kin. xxii. 8; xxiii. 25; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14
xxxv. 6, 12) was found in the temple, and the reformation
of Josiah was in obedience to its instructions. The pass-
over of Hezekiah was observed according to the pre-
scriptions of "the law of Moses" (2 Chron. xxx. 16), and
in general Hezekiah is commended for having kept the
"commandments which the LORD commanded Moses" (2
Kin. xviii. 6). The ten tribes were carried away captive
because they "transgressed " what "Moses commanded"
(2 Kin. xviii. 12) king Amaziah did (2 Kin. xiv. 6; 2
Chron. xxv. 4) " as it is written in the book of the law of
Moses," Deut. xxiv. 16 being here quoted in exact
terms., The high-priest Jehoiada directed the ritual as
it is written in the law of Moses" (2 Chron. xxiii 18),
while appointing the singing as it was ordained by
David; a discrimination which shows that there was no
such legal fiction, as it has sometimes been contended,
by which laws in general, even though recent, were at-
tributed to Moses. David charged Solomon (1 Kin. ii.
3; 1 Chron. xxii. 13) to keep what "is written in the law
of Moses," and a like charge was addressed by the LORD
to David himself (2 Kin. xxi. 7, 13; 2 Chron, xxxiii. 8).
Solomon appointed the ritual in his temple in accordance
with "the commandment of Moses" (2 Chron. viii. 13
1 Chron. vi. 49). When the ark was taken by David to
on it was borne "as Moses commanded" (1 Chron. xv.
15; cf. 2 Sam. vi. 13). Certain of the Canaanites were
left in the land in the time of Joshua, "to prove Israel
by them, to know whether they would hearken unto the
commandments of the LORD, which he commanded their
fathers by the hand of Moses" (Judg. iii. 4). Joshua was
directed "to do according to all the law which Moses
commanded, and was told that "the book of the law
should not depart out of his mouth" (Josh. i. 7, 8). And
in repeated instances it is noted with what exactness he
followed the directions given by Moses.
It is to be presumed, at least until the contrary is
shown, that "the law" and "the book of the law" have
the same sense throughout as in the New Testament, as
also in Josephus and in the prologue to the book of
Sirach or Ecclesiasticus, where they are undeniably
identical with the Pentateuch. The testimonies which
have been reviewed show that this was from the first at-
tributed to Moses. At the least it is plain that the sacred
historians of the Old Testament without exception, knew
of a body of laws which were universally obligatory and
were believed to be the laws of Moses, and which answer
in every particular to the laws of the Pentateuch.
3. Let us next inquire what the Pentateuch says of
itself. It may be roughly divided for our present pur-
pose into its two main sections: (1) Genesis and Exo-
dus historical; (2) Ex. xx.-Deuteronomy, mainly
legal. The legal portion consists of three distinct bodies
of law, each of which has its own peculiar character and
occasion. The first is denominated the Book of the
Covenant and embraces Ex. xx.-xxiii., the ten command-
ments with the accompanying judgments or ordinances,
which were the stipulations of the covenant then for-
mally ratified between the LORD and the people. This
Moses is expressly said (Ex. xxiv. 4), to have written
and read in the audience of the people, who promised
obedience, whereupon the covenant was concluded with
appropriate sacrificial rites.
By this solemn transaction Israel became the LORD'S
covenant people, and he in consequence established his
dwelling in the midst of them and there received their
worship. This gave occasion to the second body of laws,
the so-called Priest Code, relating to the sanctuary and
the ritual. This is contained in the rest of Exodus
(xxv.-xl.), with the exception of three chapters (xxxii.-
xxxiv.) relating to the sin of the golden calf, the whole
of Leviticus, and the regulations found in the book of
Numbers, where they are intermingled with the history,
which suggests the occasion of the laws and supplies the
connecting links. This Priest Code is expressly declared
in all its parts to have been directly communicated by
the LORD to Moses, in part on the summit of Mount
Sinai during his forty days' abode there, in part while
Israel lay encamped at the base of the mountain, and in
part during their subsequent wanderings in the wilderness.
The third body of law is known as the Deuteronomic
Code, and embraces the legal portion of the book of
Deuteronomy, which was delivered by Moses to the peo-
ple in the plains of Moab, in immediate prospect of
Canaan, in the eleventh month of the fortieth year of
their wanderings in the wilderness. This Moses is ex-
pressly said to have written and to have committed to
the custody of the Levites, who bore the ark of the cove-
nant (Deut. xxxi. 9, 24-26).1
The entire law, therefore, in explicit and positive
terms, claims to be Mosaic. The book of the Covenant
and the Deuteronomic law are expressly affirmed to have
been written by Moses. The Priest Code, or the ritual
law, was given by the LORD to Moses, and by him to
Aaron and his sons, though Moses is not in so many
words said to have written it.
Turning now from the laws of the Pentateuch to its
narratives we find two passages expressly attributed to
the pen of Moses. After the victory over Amalek at
Rephidim, the LORD said unto Moses (Ex. xvii. 14),
"Write this for a memorial in a book." The fact that
1"This law," the words of which Moses is said to have written in a
book until they were finished, cannot be restricted with Robertson
Smith to Dent. xii.-xxvi., as is evident from iv. 44, nor even with
Dillmann to v.-xxvi., as appears from i. 5; xxviii. 58, 61; xxix.
20, 27. It is doubtful whether it can even be limited to Deut. i.-xxxi.
In favor of the old opinion, that it embraced in addition the preceding
books of the Pentateuch, may be urged that Deuteronomy itself recog-
nizes a prior legislation of Moses binding upon Israel (iv. 5, 14; xxix.
1; xvii. 9-11; xxiv. 8 ; xxvii. 26, which affirms as "words of this
law" the antecedent curses (vs. 15-25), some of which are based on laws
peculiar to Leviticus); and the book of the law of Moses, by which
Joshua was guided (Josh. i. 7, 8), must have been quite extensive. Comp.
Josh. i. 3-5a, and Deut. xi. 24, 25; Josh. i. 5b, 6, and Dent. xxxi. 6,
7; Josh. i. 12-15, and Num. xxxii.; Josh. v, 2-8, and Ex. xii. 48;
Josh. v. 10, 11, and Lev. xxiii. 5, 7, 11, 14; Josh. viii. 30, 31, and
Dent. xxvii; Josh. viii. 34,.and Deut. xxviii.; Josh. xiv. 1-3a, and
Num. xxxiv. 13-18; Josh. xiv. 6-14, and Num. xiv. 24; Josh. xvii.
3, 4, and Num. xxvii. 6, 7; Josh. xx.. and Num. xxxv. 10 sqq.; Josh.
xx. 7, and Dent. iv. 43; Josh. xxi., and Num. xxxv. 1-8; Josh, xxii.
1-4, and Num. xxxii.; Josh. xxii. 5, and Deut. x. 12, 13.
38 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENNTATEUCH
such an injunction was given to Moses in this particular
instance seems to imply that he was the proper person
to place on record whatever was memorable and worthy
of preservation in the events of the time. And it may
perhaps be involved in the language used that Moses
had already begun, or at least contemplated, the prepara-
tion of a connected narrative, to which reference is here
made, since in the original the direction is not as in the
English version, "write in a book," but "in the book."
No stress is here laid, however, upon this form of ex-
pression for two reasons: (1) The article is indicated
not by the letters of the text, but by the Massoretic
points, which though in all probability correct, are not
the immediate work of the sacred writer. (2) The arti-
cle may, as in Num. v. 23, simply denote the book
which would be required for writing.
Again, in Num. xxxiii. 2, a list of the various stations
of the children of Israel in their marches or their wan-
derings in the wilderness is ascribed to Moses, who is
said to have written their goings out according to their
journeys by the commandment of the LORD.
This is the more remarkable and important, because
this list is irreconcilable with any of the divisive theories
which undertake to parcel the text of the Pentateuch
among different writers. It traverses all the so-called
documents, and is incapable of being referred to any
one; and no assumptions of interpolations or of manip-
ulation by the redactor can relieve the embarrassment
into which the advocates of critical partition are thrown
by this chapter. There is no escape from the conclusion
that the author of this list of stations was the author of
the entire Pentateuchal narrative from the departure out
of Egypt to the arrival at the plains of Moab.
1 See Hebraica viii., pp. 237-239; Presbyterian and Reformed Review,
April, 1894, pp., 281-284.
No explicit statements are made in the Pentateuch it-
self in regard to any other paragraphs of the history than
these two. But it is obvious from the whole plan and con-
stitution of the Pentateuch that the history and the leg-
islation are alike integral parts of one complete work.
Genesis and the opening chapters of Exodus are plainly
preliminary to the legislation that follows. The histori-
cal chapters of Numbers constitute the framework in
which the laws are set, binding them all together and
exhibiting the occasion of each separate enactment. If
the legislation in its present form is, as it claims to be,
Mosaic then beyond all controversy the preparatory
and connecting history must be Mosaic likewise. If
the laws, as we now have them came from Moses by
inevitable sequence the history was shaped by the same
hand, and the entire Pentateuch history as well as
legislation, must be what it has already been seen all
after ages steadfastly regarded it, the production of
4. The style in which the laws of the Pentateuch are
framed, and the terms in which they are drawn up, cor-
respond with the claim which they make for themselves,
and which all subsequent ages make for them, that they
are of Mosaic origin. Their language points unmistak-
ably to the sojourn in the wilderness prior to the occu-
pation of Canaan as the time when they were produced.
The people are forbidden alike to do after the doings of
the land of Egypt, wherein they had dwelt, or those of
the land of Canaan, whither God was bringing them (Lev.
xviii. 3). They are reminded (Deut. xii. 9) that they had
not yet come to the rest and the inheritance which the
LORD their God was giving them. The standing desig-
nation of Canaan is the land which the LORD giveth thee
to possess it (Dent. xv. 4, 7). The laws look forward to
the time when thou art come into the land, etc., and
shalt possess it" (Deut. xvii. 14; Lev. xiv. 34, etc.); or
"when the LORD hath cut off these nations and thou suc-
ceedest them, and dwellest in their cities" (Deut. xix. 1),
as the period when they are to go into full operation
(Deut. xii. 1, 8, 9). The place of sacrifice is not where
Jehovah has fixed his habitation, but "the place which
Jehovah shall choose to place his name there" (Deut.
xii. 5, etc.). Israel is contemplated as occupying a camp
(Num. v. 2-4, etc.) and living in tents (Lev. xiv. 8), and
in the wilderness (Lev. xvi. 21, 22). The bullock of the
sin-offering was to be burned without the camp (Lev. iv.
12, 21); the ashes from the altar were to be carried
without the camp (vi. 11). The leper was to have his
habitation without the camp (xiii. 46); the priest was to
go forth out of the camp to inspect him (xiv. 3); cere-
monies are prescribed for his admission to the camp
(ver. 8) as well as the interval which must elapse before
his return to his own tent. In slaying an animal for
food, the only possibilities suggested are that it may be
in the camp or out of the camp (xvii. 3). The law of
the consecration of priests respects by name Aaron and
his sons (viii. 2 sqq.). Two of these sons, Nadab and Abi-
hu, commit an offence which causes their death, a cir-
cumstance which calls forth some special regulations
(Lev. ch. x.), among others those of the annual day of
atonement (Lev. xvi. 1) on which Aaron was the cele-
brant (ver. 3 sqq.), and the camp and the wilderness the
locality (vs. 21, 22, 26, 27). The tabernacle, the ark, and
other sacred vessels were made of shittimm wood (Ex.
xxxvi. 20), which was peculiar to the wilderness. The
sacred structure was made of separate boards, so joined
together that it could be readily taken apart, and explicit
directions are given for its transportation as Israel jour-
neyed from place to place (Num. iv. 5 sqq.), and gifts of
wagons and oxen were made for the purpose (Num.
vii.). Specific instructions are given for the arrangement
of the several tribes, both in their encampments and their
marches (Num. ii.). Silver trumpets were made to direct
the calling of the assembly and the journeying of the
host (Num. x. 2 sqq.). The ceremonies of the red heifer
were to be performed without the camp (Num. xix. 3, 7,
9) and by Eleazar personally (vs. 3, 4). The law of puri-
fication provides simply for death in tents and in the
open fields (vs. 14, 16).
The peculiarity of these laws carries with it the evi-
dence that they were not only enacted during the so-
journ in the wilderness, but that they were then com-
mitted to writing. Had they been preserved orally, the
forms of expression would have been changed insensibly,
to adapt them to the circumstances of later times. It is
only the unvarying permanence of a written code, that
could have perpetuated these laws in a form which in
after ages, when the people were settled in Canaan, and
Aaron and his sons were dead, no longer described di-
rectly and precisely the thing to be done, but must be
mentally adapted to an altered state of affairs before they
could be carried into effect.
The laws of Deuteronomy are, besides, prefaced by two
farewell addresses delivered by Moses to Israel on the
plains of Moab (Deut. i. 5 sqq.; v. 1 sqq.), which are pre-
cisely adapted to the situation, and express those feel-
ings to which the great leader might most appropriately
have given utterance under the circumstances. And the
most careful scrutiny shows that the diction and style of
thought in these addresses is identical with that of the
laws that follow. Both have emanated from one mind
and pen. The laws of Deuteronomy are further followed
by a prophetic song (Deut. xxxii.) which Moses is said
to have written (xxxi. 22), and by a series of blessings upon
the several tribes, which he is said to have pronounced
before his death (xxxiii. 1), all which are entirely appro-
priate in the situation.
The genuineness of these laws is further vouched for
by the consideration that a forged body of statutes
could never be successfully imposed upon any people.
These laws entered minutely into the affairs of daily life,
imposed burdens that would not have been voluntarily
assumed, and could only have been exacted by compe-
tent authority. That they were submitted to and obeyed,
is evidence that they really were ordained by Moses, in
whose name they were issued. If they had first made
their appearance in a later age, the fraud would inevi-
tably have been detected. The people could not have
been persuaded that enactments, never before heard of,
had come down from the great legislator, and were in-
vested with his authority.
And the circumstance that these laws are said to have
been given at Mount Sinai, in the wilderness, or in the
plains of Moab, is also significant. How came they to be
attributed to a district outside of the holy land, which
had no sacred associations in the present or in the patri-
archal age, unless they really were enacted there? and if
so, this could only have been in the days of Moses.
5. The Pentateuch is either directly alluded to, or its
existence implied in numerous passages in the subse-
quent books of the Bible. The book of Joshua, which
records the history immediately succeeding the age of
Moses, is full of these allusions. It opens with the chil-
dren of Israel in the plains of Moab, and on the point of
crossing the Jordan, just where Deuteronomy left them.
The arrangements for the conquest and the subsequent
division of the land are in precise accordance with the
directions of Moses, and are executed in professed obe-
dience to his orders. The relationship is so pervading,
and the correspondence so exact that those who dispute
the genuineness and authenticity of the Pentateuch are
obliged to deny that of Joshua likewise. The testimony
rendered to the existence of the Pentateuch by the books
of Chronicles at every period of the history which they
cover, is so explicit and repeated that it can only be set
aside by impugning the truth of their statements and al-
leging that the writer has throughout colored the facts
which he reports by his own prepossessions, and has
substituted his own imagination, or the mistaken belief
of a later period, for the real state of the case.
But the evidence furnished by the remaining historical
books, though less abundant and clear, tends in the same
direction. And it is the same with the books of the proph-
ets and the Psalms. We find scattered everywhere allu-
sions to the facts recorded in the Pentateuch, to its insti-
tutions, and sometimes to its very language, which afford
cumulative proof that its existence was known, and its
standard authority recognized by the writers of all
the books subsequent to the Mosaic age. (See note 1,
p. 52.)
6. Separate mention should here be made, and stress
laid upon the fact, which is abundantly attested, that the
Pentateuch was known, and its authority admitted in the
apostate kingdom of the ten tribes from the time of the
schism of Jeroboam. In order to perpetuate his power
and prevent the return of the northern tribes to the sway
of the house of David, he established a separate sanctu-
ary and set up an idolatrous worship. Both the rulers
and the people had the strongest inducement to disown
the Pentateuch, by which both their idolatrous worship
and their separate national existence were so severely
condemned. And yet the evidence is varied and abun-
dant that their national life, in spite of its degeneracy,
had not wholly emancipated itself from the institutions
of the Pentateuch, and that even their debased worship
was but a perverted form of that purer service which the
laws of Moses had ordained.
It was at one time thought that the Samaritan Penta-
teuch supplied a strong argument at this point. The
Samaritans, while they recognized no other portion of
the canon of the Old Testament, are in possession of the
Pentateuch in the Hebrew language, but written in a
peculiar character, which is a more ancient and primitive
form of the alphabet than that which is found in any
Hebrew manuscript. It was argued, that such was the
hostility between Jews and Samaritans, that neither
could have adopted the Pentateuch from the other.
It was consequently held that the Samaritan Pentateuch
must be traced to copies existing in the kingdom of the
ten tribes, which further evidence that the Pentateuch
must have existed at the time of the revolt of Jeroboam,
and have been of such undisputed divine authority then
that even in their schism from Judah and their apostasy
from the true worship of God they did not venture to
discard it. Additional investigation, however, has shown
that this argument is unsound. The Samaritans are not
descendants of the ten tribes but of the heathen colonists
introduced into the territory of Samaria by the Assyrian
monarchs, after the ten tribes had been carried into cap-
tivity (2 Kin. xvii. 24). And the Samaritan Pentateuch
does not date back of the Babylonish exile. The mu-
tual hatred of the Jews and the Samaritans originated
then. The Samaritans, in spite of their foreign birth,
claimed to be the brethren of the Jews and proposed to
unite with them in rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem
(Ezr. iv. 2, 3); but the Jews repudiated their claim and
refused their offered assistance. The Samaritans thus
repulsed sought in every way to hinder and annoy the
Jews and frustrate their enterprise, and finally built
a rival temple of their own on the summit of Mount
MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PRNTATEUCH 45
Gerizim. Meanwhile, to substantiate their claim of be-
ing sprung from ancient Israel, they eagerly accepted
the Pentateuch, which was brought them by a renegade
priest.
While, therefore, in our present argument no signifi-
cance can be attached to the Samaritan Pentateuch, we
have convincing proof from other sources that the books of
Moses were not unknown in the kingdom of the ten tribes.
The narrative of the schism in I Kin. xii. describes in
detail the measures taken by Jeroboam in evident and
avowed antagonism to the regulations of the Pentateuch
previously established. And the books of the prophets
Hosea and Amos, who exercised their ministry in the ten
tribes, in their rebukes and denunciations, in their de-
scriptions of the existing state of things and its contrast
with former times, draw upon the facts of the Pentateuch,
refer to its laws, and make use of its phrases and forms
of speech. (See note 2, p. 56.)
7. A further argument is furnished by the elementary
character of the teachings of the Pentateuch as compared
with later Scriptures in which the same truths are more
fully expanded. The development of doctrine in re-
spect to the future state, providential retribution, the
spiritual character of true worship, angels, and the Mes-
siah, shows very plainly that the Pentateuch belongs to
an earlier period than the book of Job, the Psalms, and
the Prophets.
8. The Egyptian words and allusions to Egyptian cus-
toms, particularly in the life of Joseph, the narrative of the
residence of Israel in Egypt and their journeyings through
the wilderness, and in the enactments, institutions, and
symbols of the Pentateuch indicate great familiarity on
the part of the author and his readers with Egyptian
objects, and agree admirably with the Mosaic period;
Moses himself having been trained at the court of
Pharaoh and the long servitude of the people having
brought them into enforced contact with the various
forms of Egyptian life and taught them skill in those arts
which were carried in Egypt to great perfection.
These, briefly stated, are the principal arguments of a
positive nature for Moses's authorship of the books
which bear his name. They are ascribed to him by unan-
imous and unbroken tradition from the days of Moses
himself through the entire period of the Old Testament,
and from that onward. This has the inspired and au-
thoritative sanction of the writers of the New Testa-
ment and of our Lord himself. It corresponds with the
claim which these books make for themselves, corrob-
orated as this is by their adaptation in style and charac-
ter to their alleged origin, and by the evidence afforded
in all the subsequent Scriptures of their existence and
recognized authority from the time of their first pro-
mulgation, and that even in the schismatical kingdom of
Jeroboam in spite of all attempts to throw off its control.
And it derives additional confirmation from the progress
of doctrine in the Old Testament, which indicates that
the Pentateuch belongs to the earliest stage of divine
revelation, as well as from the intimate acquaintance
with Egyptian objects which it betrays and which is
best explained by referring it to the Mosaic age.
The assaults which have been made in modern times
upon the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch have
been mainly in one or other of four distinct lines or in
all combined. It is alleged that the Pentateuch cannot
be the work of Moses, because (1) It contains anach-
ronisms, inconsistencies, and incongruities. (2) It is
of composite origin, and cannot be the work of any one
writer. (3) Its three codes belong to different periods
and represent different stages of national development.
(4) The disregard of its laws shows that they had no exist-
ence for ages after the time of Moses. The first of these
is the ground of the earliest objections; the second is
the position taken by most of the literary critics; the
third and fourth represent that of those who follow the
lead of Graf and Wellhausen.
THE EARLIEST OBJECTIONS.
Certain ancient heretics denied that Moses wrote the
Pentateuch, because they took offence at some of its con-
tents;1 apart from this his authorship was unchallenged
until recent times. The language of Jerome2 has some-
times been thought to indicate that it was to him a mat-
ter of indifference whether the Pentateuch was written
by Moses or by Ezra. But his words have no such
meaning. He is alluding to the tradition current among
the fathers, that the law of Moses perished in the de-
struction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, but was mi-
raculously restored word for word by Ezra, who was di-
vinely inspired for the purpose. Its Mosaic authorship
was unquestioned; but whether the story of its miracu-
lous restoration was to be credited or not was to Jerome
of no account.
Isaac ben Jasos in the eleventh century is said to have
held that Gen. xxxvi. was much later than the time
of Moses.3 Aben Ezra, in the twelfth century, found
what he pronounces an insoluble mystery in the words
"beyond Jordan" (Deut. i. 1), "Moses wrote" (Deut.
xxxi. 9), "The Canaanite was then in the land" (Gen.
xii. 6), "In the Mount of Jehovah he shall be seen"
(Gen. xxii. 14), and the statement respecting the iron
1 Clementine Homilies, iii. 46, 47.
2 Contra Helvidium: Sive Mosen dicere volueris auctorem Penta-
teuchi, sive Esram instauratorem operis, non recuso.
3 Studien and Kritiken for 1832, pp. 639 sqq.
bedstead of Og in Deut. iii. 11, from which it has been
inferred, though he does not express himself clearly on
the subject, that he regarded these passages as post-Mo-
saic interpolations Peyrerius1 finds additional round
of suspicion in the reference to the book of the wars of
the LORD (Num. xxi. 14), to the LORD having given to
Israel the land of their possession (Deut. ii. 12), and
"until this day " (Deut. iii. 14). He also complains of
obscurities, lack of orderly arrangement, repetitions,
omissions, transpositions, and improbable statements.
Spinoza2 adds as non-Mosaic "Dan" (Gen. xiv. 14, see
Judg. xviii. 29), "the kings that reigned in Edom before
there reigned any king in Israel" (Gen. xxxvi. 31), the
continuance of the manna (Ex. xvi. 35), and Num. xii. 3,
as too laudatory to be from the pen of Moses; and he
remarks that Moses is always spoken of in the third per-
son. His opinion was that Moses wrote his laws from
time to time, which were subsequently collected and the
history inserted by another, the whole being finally .
remodelled by Ezra, and called the Books of Moses be-
cause he was the principal subject. Hobbes3 points to
some of the above-mentioned passages as involving an-
achronisms, and concludes that Moses wrote no part of
the Pentateuch except the laws in Deut. xi.-xxvii. Rich-
and Simon4 held that Moses wrote the laws, but the his-
torical portions of the Pentateuch were the work of
scribes or prophets, who were charged with the function
of recording important events. The narratives and gene-
alogies of Genesis were taken by Moses from older writ-
ings or oral tradition, though it is impossible to distin-
guish between what is really from Moses and what is
1 Systema Theologicum ex Praeadamitarum Hypothesi, 1655.
2 Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 1670.
3 In his Leviathan, 1651.
4 Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament, 1685.
derived from later sources. Le Clercl maintained that the
Pentateuch was written by the priest of Samaria, sent by
the king of Assyria to instruct the heathen colonists in
the land of Israel (2 Kings xvii. 26); a baseless conject-
ure, which be subsequently abandoned. He increased
the list of passages assumed to point to another author
than Moses, claiming that the description of the garden
of Eden (Gen. ii. 11, 12) and of the rise of Babylon and
Nineveh (Gen. x. 8) must have been by a writer in Chal-
dea; that "Ur of the Chaldees" (Gen. xi. 28, 31), "the
tower of Eder" (Gen. xxxv. 21, see Mic. iv. 8), "He-
bron" (Gen. xiii. 18, see Josh. xiv. 15), "land of the
Hebrews" (Gen. xl. 15), the word xybinA "prophet" (Gen.
xx. 7, see 1 Sam. ix. 9) are all terms of post-Mosaic ori-
gin; and that the explanation respecting Moses and
Aaron (Ex. vi. 25, 26) and respecting the capacity of the
"omer" (xvi. 36) would be superfluous for contemporaries.
He thus deals with the argument from the New Testa-
ment:2 "It will be said, perhaps, that Jesus Christ and
the apostles often quote the Pentateuch under the name
of Moses, and that their authority should be of greater
weight than all our conjectures. But Jesus Christ and
the apostles not having come into the world to teach the
Jews criticism, we must not be surprised if they speak in
accordance with the common opinion. It was of little
consequence to them whether it was Moses or another,
provided the history was true; and as the common opin-
ion was not prejudicial to piety they took no great pains
to disabuse the Jews."
All these superficial objections were most ably an-
swered by Witsius3 and Carpzov.4
1 Sentimens de quelques Theologiens de Hollande, 1685.
2 Ibid., p. 126.
3 Miscellanea Sacra, 2d edition, 1736, 1., ch. xiv., An Moses auctor
Pentateuchi.
4 Introductio ad Libros Canonicos Veteris Testamenti, Editio Nova,
1731, 1., pp. 57 sqq.
"Beyond Jordan" (Deut. i.1), said of Moses's position
east of the river, does not imply that the writer was in
the land of Canaan, as is plain from the ambiguity of
the expression. In Num. xxxii. 19 it is in the very same
sentence used first of the west and then of the east side
of the Jordan; elsewhere it is defined as "beyond Jor-
dan eastward" (Deut. iv. 47, 49; Josh. i. 15; xii. 1; xiii.
8, 27, 32), and "beyond Jordan westward" (Deut. xi. 30;
Josh. v. 1; xii. 7; xxii. 7); and in the addresses of
Moses it is used alike of the east (Deut. iii. 8) and of the
west (vs. 20, 25). This ambiguity is readily explained
from the circumstances of the time. Canaan was "be-
yond Jordan" to Israel encamped in the plains of Moab;
and the territory east of the river was "beyond Jordan"
to Canaan, the land promised to their fathers, and which
they regarded as their proper home.
"The Canaanite was then in the land" (Gen. xii. 6)
states that they were in the country in the days of Abra-
ham, but without any implication that, they were not
there still. "In the Mount of Jehovah he shall be seen"
(Gen. xxii. 14) contains no allusion to his manifestation
in the temple, which was afterward erected on that very
mountain but is based on his appearance to Abraham in
the crisis of his great trial. The bedstead of Og (Deut.
iii. 11) is not spoken of as a relic from a former age, but
as a memorial of a recent victory. "The book of the
wars of Jehovah" (Num. xxi. 14) was no doubt a contem-
poraneous production celebrating the triumphs gained
under almighty leadership, to which Moses here refers.
As the territory east of the Jordan had already been con-
quered and occupied, Moses might well speak (Deut. i.
12) of the land of Israel's possession, which Jehovah
gave to them. The words "unto this day " (Deut. iii. 14)
have by many been supposed to be a supplementary
gloss subsequently added to the text; but this assump-
tion is scarcely necessary, when it is remembered that
several months had elapsed since the time referred to, and
Havvoth-jair proved to be not only a name imposed by a
successful warrior in the moment of his victory, but one
which had come into general use and promised to be per-
manent. There is no proof that the "Dan" of Gen. xiv.
14 is the same as that of Judg. xviii. 29 or if it be,
there is no difficulty in supposing that in the course of
repeated transcription the name in common use in later
times was substituted for one less familiar which origi-
nally stood in the text. The kings of Edom who are
enumerated in Gen. xxxvi. were pre-Mosaic; and Moses
remarks upon the singular fact that Jacob, who had the
promise of kings among his descendants (Gen. xxxv. 11),
had as yet none, and they were just beginning their na-
tional existence, while Esau, to whom no such promise had
been given, already reckoned several. There is nothing in
Ex. xvi. 35 which Moses could not have written; nor
even in Num. xii. 3, when the circumstances are duly
considered (cf. 1 Cor. xv. 10; 2 Cor. xi. 5; xii. 11). And
the additional passages urged by Le Clerc have not even
the merit of plausibility. His notion that our Lord and
his apostles accommodated their teaching to the errors
of their time, refutes itself to those who acknowledge
their divine authority. Witsius well says that if they
were not teachers of criticism they were teachers of the
It should further be observed, that even if it could be
demonstrated that a certain paragraph or paragraphs were
post-Mosaic, this would merely prove that such para-
graph or paragraphs could not have belonged to the
Pentateuch as it came from the pen of Moses, not that
the work as a whole did not proceed from him. It is far
easier to assume that some slight additions may here and
there have been made to the text, than to set aside the
multiplied and invincible proofs that the Pentateuch was
the production of Moses.
Note to page 43.
1. The book of Judges records a series of relapses on the part of the
people from the true worship of God, ii. 10-12, and the judgments inflict-
ed upon them in consequence by suffering them to fall under the power
of their enemies, ii. 14, 15, as had been foretold Lev. xxvi. 16b, 17.
This extraordinary condition of things led to many seeming departures
from the Mosaic requirements, which have been alleged to show that
the law was not then in existence. That no such conclusion is war-
ranted by the facts of the case will be shown hereafter, see pp. 150 sqq.
For other points of contact with the Pentateuch, comp. i. 1, 2, xx.
18, and Gen. xlix. 8, Num. ii. 3, x. 14; i. 5, Gen. xiii. 7; i. 17, Deut.
vii. 2; i. 20, Num. xiv. 24, Deut. i. 36; ii. 1, Gen. 1. 24, xvii. 7; ii. 2,
Ex. xxxiv. 12, 13, Deut. vii. 2, 5, Ex. xxiii. 21; ii. 3, Num. xxxiii. 55,
Ex. xxiii. 33, Deut. vii.. 16; ii. 17, Ex. xxxiv. 15, xxxii. 8; iii. 6, Ex.
xxxiv. 16. Deut. vii. 3, 4; v. 4, 5, Deut. xxxiii. 2; v. 8, Deut. xxxii.
17; vi. 8, Ex, xx. 2; vi. 9, Ex. xiv. 30; vi. 13, Deut. xi. 3-5; vi. 16,
Ex. iii. 12; vi. 22. 23, xiii. 22, Ex. xxxiii. 20; vi. 39, Gen. xviii. 32;
vii. 18, Num. x. 9; viii. 23, Deut xxxiii. 5, the government established
by Moses was a theocracy, the highest civil ruler being a judge, Deut.
xvii. 9, 12; viii. 27, superstitious use of the ephod comp. Ex. xxviii. 4,
30; xi. 13, Num. xxi. 24-26; xi. 15, Deut. ii. 9, 19; xi. 16, Num. xiv.
25, xx.1; xi. 17-22, Num. xx. 14, 18, 21, xxi. 21-24; xi. 25, Num. xxii.
2; xi. 35b, Num. xxx. 2, Deut. xxiii. 24 (E. V. ver. 23); xiii. 7, 14,
xvi. 17, Num. vi. 1-5, Deut. xiv. 2; xiv. 3, xv. 18, Gen. xvii. 11;
xvii. 7-9, xix. 1, Num. xviii. 24, Dent. x. 9; xviii. 31, Ex. xl. 2, Josh.
xviii. 1 ; xx. 1, xxi. 10, 13, 16, hdAfe word claimed as peculiar to the
Priest Code ; xx. 3, 6, 10, Gen. xxxiv. 7, Lev. xviii. 17, Deut. xxii. 21;
xx. 13, Deut. xvii. 12; xx. 18, 27, Num. xxvii. 21 ; xx. 26, xxi. 4, Ex.
xx. 24; xx. 27, Ex. xxv. 21, 22; xx. 28, Num. xxv. 11-13, Deut. x. 8;
xx. 48, Mtm ryf as Deut. ii. 34, iii. 6.
Comp. Ruth iii. 12, iv. 3, 4, and Lev. xxv. 25 ; iv. 5, 10, Deut. xxv. 5,
6; iv. 11, 12, Gen. xxix., xxx., xxxviii. The obligation of the levirate
marriage has in the course of time been extended from the brother of
the deceased to the nearest relative; as in the case of Samson and Sam-
uel the Nazarite vow is for life instead of a limited term.
1 Samuel. Comp. i. 11 and Num. vi. 5; ii. 2, Ex. xv. 11, Deut.
xxxii. 4, 31; ii. 6, Deut. xxxii. 39; ii. 13, Deut. xviii. 3; ii. 22, Ex.
xxxviii. 8; ii. 27, Ex. iv. 27-v. 1, etc. ; ii. 28, Ex. xxviii. 1, 4, xxx. 7,
8, Num. xviii. 9, 11; ii. 29, iii. 14, sacrifice and meal-offering, x. 8,
etc., burnt-offerings and. peace-offerings, vi. 3, trespass-offerings, vii. 9,
whole burnt-offering as Deut. xxxiii. 10 (2 Sam. i. 21, heave-offerings),
implying a fully developed ritual; iii. 3, iv. 4 (2 Sam. vi. 2), Ex. xxv.
10, 18, 37, Lev. xxiv. 3; iv. 3 (2 Sam. xi. 11), Num. x. 35; vi. 15, 19,
(2 Sam. vi, 13, xv. 24), Num. iv. 15; viii. 3 Deut. xvi. 19; viii. 5.
Deut. xvii. 14; x. 24, Deut. xvii. 15; xii. 14, Deut. i. 43, ix. 23; xii.
6, 8, Ex. iii. 10, vi. 13; xii. 3, Num. xvi. 15 xiii. 9-13, Num. xviii.
4; xv. 2, Ex. xvii. 8, 14, Deut. xxv. 17-19 xv. 6, Num. x. 29, 30,
see Judg. i. 16, iv. 11; xv. 29, Num. xxiii. 19; xiv. 33, 34, Gen. ix.
4, Lev. iii. 17; xxi. 9, xxiii. 6, 9, xxx. 7, Lev. viii. 7, 8; xxviii. 3,
Ex. xxii. 17 (E. V. ver. 18), Deut. xviii. 10, 11; xxviii. 6, Num. xii.
6, xxvii. 21.
2 Samuel. Comp. vi. 6, 7, and Num. iv. 15 ; vii. 6, Ex. xl. 19, 24;
vii. 22, Deut. iii. 24; vii. 23, Deut. iv. 7, ix. 26, x. 21, xxxiii. 29; vii.
24, Ex. vi. 7 ; viii. ; 4, Deut. xvii. 16; xi. 4, Lev. xv. 19; xii. 6, Ex.
xxi. 37 (E. V. xxii. 1) ; xii. 9, Num. xv. 31 ; xv. 7-9, Num. xxx. 2;
xxii. 23, Dent. vi. 1.
The books of Kings, it is universally conceded, exhibit an acquaint-
ance with Deuteronomy and with those portions of the Pentateuch
which the critics attribute to JE. It will only be necessary here, there-
fore, to point out its allusions to the Priest Code. The plan of Solomon's
temple, 1 Kin. vi., vii., is evidently based upon that of the Mosaic
tabernacle, Ex. xxvi., xxvii., xxx.; the golden altar, vii. 48, the brazen
altar, viii. 64, the horns of the altar, i. 50, ii. 23, the lavers, vii. 43, 44,
the table of shew-bread and the candlesticks, with their lamps, vii. 48, 49,
the cherubim upon the walls and in the holiest apartment, vi. 27-29, the
dimensions of the building, and of each apartment, vi. 2, 16, 17, its being
overlaid with gold, vi. 22, and all its vessels made of gold, vii. 48-50, and
the Mosaic ark, the tent of meeting, and all the vessels of the tabernacle
were brought by the priests and Levites and deposited in the temple,
viii. 4. The feast was held in the seventh month, viii. 2, on the fifteenth
day, xii. 32, 33, for seven days and seven days (twice the usual time on
account of the special character of the occasion), viii. 65, and the people
were dismissed on the eighth day, ver. 66, comp. Lev. xxiii. 34, 36. They
had assembled from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt,
viii. 65, Num. xxxiv. 5, 8. The glory of the Lord filled the temple,
viii. 10, 11, as the tabernacle, Ex. xl. 34, 35; patrimony inalienable,
xxi. 3, Lev. xxv. 23 ; blasphemer to be stoned, xxi. 13, Lev. xxiv. 16
evening meal-offering xviii. 29, morning meal-offering, 2 Kin. iii. 20,
Ex. xxix. 39-41; new moon hallowed, 2 Kin. iv. 23, Num. x. 10,
xxviii. 11; laws concerning leprosy, 2 Kin, vii. 3, xv. 5, Lev. xiii. 46
high-priest, xii. 10, xxii., 4, xxiii. 4, Lev. xxi. 10, Num. xxxv. 25; tres-
pass-offering and sin-offering, xii. 16, Lev. iv., v. 15 (Deut. xiv. 24, 25)
the money of every one that passeth the numbering by his
estimation, xii. 5 (ver 4, see marg. R. V.), Ex. xxx. 13, Lev. xxvii. 2;
meal-offering, drink-offering, brazen altar before the Lord, xvi. 13-15;
unleavened bread the food of priests, xxiii. 9, Lev. vi. 16-18.
The books of the prophets also contain repeated allusions to the Pen-
tateuch, its history, and its institutions.
Joel shows the deepest interest in the ritual service, i. 9, 13, 16, ii.
14-17; and recognizes but one sanctuary, ii. 1, 15, iii. 17 (Heb. iv. 17);
comp. i. 10 and Deut. xxviii. 51; ii. 2b, Ex. x. 14b; ii. 3, Gen. ii. 8;
li. 13, Ex. xxxiv. 6, xxxii. 14; ii. 23, 24, Deut. xi. 14.
Isaiah uses the term "law" to denote, or at least as including, God's
authoritative revelation through the prophets, i. 10, ii. 3, v. 24, but also
as additional to the word of God by the prophets, xxx. 9, 10, and of
high antiquity, xxiv. 5, and the test of all professed revelations, viii.
16, 20, since there are prophets that mislead, ix. 15, xxviii. 7, xxix. 10.
To a people strenuous in observing the letter of the Mosaic law, but dis-
regarding its spirit, he announces the law of God to be that the union
of iniquity with the most sacred rites of his worship was intolerable to
the Most High, i. 10-14. There is in this no depreciation of sacrifice,
for like language is used of prayer, ver. 15, and of worship generally,
xxix. 13; and acceptable worship is described under ritual forms, xix.
21, lxvi. 20-23, in contrast with vs. 1-3. The terms of the ceremonial
law abound in i. 11-13: sacrifices, burnt-offerings, oblations (meal-offer-
ings), incense; fat, blood ; rams, bullocks, lambs, he-goats; appear
before me; court; new moon, Sabbath, calling of assemblies (convoca-
tions), solemn meeting (assembly), appointed feasts; abomination.
The vision of ch. vi. gives the most explicit divine sanction to the tem-
ple, its altar and its atoning virtue. Other allusions to the law of sacri-
fice, implying that it is acceptable and obligatory, xxxiv. 6, xl. 16, xliii.
23, 24, lvi. 7, lx. 7; Messiah the true trespass-offering, liii. 10.
Isaiah enforces the law of the unity of the sanctuary, Deut. xii. 5, 6,
by teaching (1) That Zion is Jehovah's dwelling-place, ii. 2, 3, iv. 5,
viii. 18, x. 32, xi. 9, xii. 6, xiv. 32, xxiv. 23, xxviii. 16, xxix. 8, xxxi.
4, 9, lx. 14. (2) The proper place for Israel's worship, xxvii. 13, xxix.
1, xxx. 29, xxxiii. 20, lxiv. 11, lxvi. 20; no other place of acceptable
worship is ever mentioned or alluded to. (3) Worship elsewhere, as in
gardens, on lofty places, and under trees, is offensive, i. 29, 30, lvii. 5-7,
lxv. 3, 4, 11. (4) Altars of man's devising are denounced, xvii. 7, 8,
xxvii. 9. (5) All such were abolished in Hezekiah's reform, xxxvi. 7.
(6) No objection can be drawn from the altar and the pillar in the land
of Egypt, xix. 19; for the pillar was not beside the altar, nor intended
as an idolatrous symbol, so that it was no violation of Lev. xxvi. 1,
Dent. xvi. 21, 22; and an altar in Egypt as a symbol of its worship
paid to Jehovah is more than counterbalanced by pilgrimages to Zion
predicted from other lands, ii. 3, xviii. 7, lvi. 7, lxvi. 20, 23. So that
it is not even certain, whether in the conception of the prophet the re-
striction of the law in this particular was one day to be relaxed; much
less is there reason to imagine that this restriction was unknown to
In addition to these recognitions of the laws of the Pentateuch Isaiah
makes allusions to its language and to facts recorded in it. Thus comp.
i. 2, and Dent. xxxii. 1; i. 7, Lev. xxvi. 33; i. 9, 10, iii. 9, Sodom and
Gomorrah, Gen. xix. 24, 25, Deut. xxix. 23 (overthrow as i. 7); i. 17,
23, Ex. xxii. 21 (E. V. ver. 22), Dent. x. 18, xxvii. 19; xi. 15, 16, lxiii.
11-13, passage of the Red Sea and the exodus from Egypt; xii. 2, Ex.
xv. 2; xxiv. 18, Gen. vii. 11; xxix. 22, xli. 8, li. 2, lxiii. 16, Abraham
and Sarah; xxx. 17, Lev. xxvi. 8, Deut. xxxii. 30.
Micah. Comp. i. 3b, and Deut. xxxiii. 29b; ii. 1b, Gen. xxxi. 29,
Deut. xxviii. 32b; ii. 9, Ex. xxii. 21 (E. V. ver. 22); ii. 12, iv. 6, 7,
vii. 19, Deut. xxx. 3-5; ii. 13b, Ex. xiii. 21; iii. 4, Deut. xxxi. 18,
xxxii. 20; iv. 4, Lev. xxvi. 6; v. 5 (E. V. ver. 6), land of Nimrod,
Gen. x. 8-12; vi. 1, 2, Deut. xxxii. 1 ; vi. 4a, Ex. xx. 2, Deut. vii. 8;
vi. 4b, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam; vi. 5, Num. xxii,-xxv. 3, xxxi. 16;
v. 6 (E. V. ver. 7), Deut. xxxii. 2; vi. 6, 7, exaggeration of legal sacri-
fices; vi. 8, Deut. x. 12; vi. 10, 11, Deut. xxv. 13-15, Lev. xix. 35,
36; vi. 13, Lev. xxvi. 16; vi. 14, Lev. xxvi. 26; vi. 15, Deut. xxviii.
38-40; vii. 14, Num. xxiii. 9, Deut. xxxiii. 28; vii. 15, miracles of the
exodus; vii. 16, Ex. xv. 14-16; vii. 17a, Gen. iii. 14; vii. 17b, Deut.
xxxii. 24b; vii. 1.8a Ex. xv. 11; vii. 18b Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7.
Jeremiah's familiarity with Deuteronomy is universally conceded;
it will accordingly be sufficient to show that his book of prophecy is
likewise related to other portions of the Pentateuch. Comp. ii. 3, and
Lev. xxii. 10, 15, 16; ii. 20, Lev. xxvi. 13; ii. 34 (see Rev. Ver. ), Ex.
xxii. 1 (E. V. ver., 2); iv. 23, Gen. i. 2; iv. 27, Lev. xxvi. 33; v. 2,
Lev. xix. 12; vi. 28, ix. 4, Lev. xix. 16; vii. 26, Ex. xxxii. 9, xxxiii.
3, 5, xxxiv. 9; ix. 4, Gen. xxvii. 36 ; ix. 16, Lev. xxvi. 33 (Deut. xxviii.
36); ix. 26 (see Rev. Ver.) Lev. xix. 27, xxi. 5; ix. 26b, Lev. xxvi.
41; xi. 4, Ex. xix. 5, Lev. xxvi. 12, 13; xi. 5, Ex. iii. 8, Num. xiv.
23; xiv. 13, Lev. xxvi. 6; xiv. 19, 21, Lev. xxvi. 11, 44; xv. 1, Ex.
xxxii. 11; xvi. 5, Num. vi. 26; xvii. 1, Ex. xxxii. 16; xvii. 22, Ex.
xx. 8-11; xxi. 5, Ex. vi. 1, 6 ; xxviii. 2, 4, Lev. xxvi. 13; xxx. 21,
Num. xvi. 5, 9; xxxi. 9, Ex. iv. 22; xxxi. 15, Gen. xxxv. 19, xxxvii.
35, xlii. 36; xxxi. 29, Ex. xx. 5; xxxi. 35, 36, Gen. i. 16, viii. 22;
xxxii. 7118, Lev. xxv. 25, 49; xxxii. 17, 27b, Gen. xviii. 14; xxxii.-
18, Ex. xx. 5, 6, xxxiv. 6, 7; xxxii. 27, Num. xvi. 22, xxvii. 16; xxxiii.
22, Gen. xiii. 16, xv. 5, xxii. 17; xxxiii. 26, Abraham, Isaac, and Ja-
cob; xxxiv. 13, Ex. xx. 2, xxiv. 7; xxxiv. 18, 19, Gen. xv. 17 ; xxxvi.
14, Ex. xxi. 2; xlviii. 45, 46, Num. xxi. 28, 29; xlix. 16, Num. xxiv.
21; xlix. 18, 1. 40, Gen. xix. 25.
Psalm xc., which is in its title ascribed to Moses, abounds in allu-
sions to the statements of the Pentateuch and in coincidences of lan-
guage; see the Commentary of Delitzsch. The following may be noted
in those Psalms of the first three books, which are in their titles
ascribed to David (the number of each verse in the English version is
commonly one less than in the Hebrew). Comp. iii. 4, and Gen. xv.
1; iv. 6, li. 21, Deut. xxxiii. 19; iv. 7, Num. vi. 25, 26; iv. 9, Lev.
xxv. 18, 19, Deut. xxxiii. 28 ; vii. 13, 14, Deut. xxxii. 23, 41, 42; viii.
7-9, Gen. i. 26; ix. 6, Deut. ix. 14; ix. 13, Gen. ix. 5; ix. 17, Ex. vii.
4b, 5; xi. 6, Gen. xix. 24; xiii 2, Deut. xxxi. 18; xiv. 1, Gen. vi. 11,
12; xv. 5, Ex. xxii. 25, xxiii. 8 ; xvi. 4, Ex. xxiii. 13; xvi. 5, Num.
xviii. 20, Dent. x. 9; xvii. 8, Dent. xxxii. 10; xviii. 16, Ex. xv. 8;
xviii. 27b, Lev. xxvi. 23b, 24a; xviii. 31a, 32, Deut. xxxii. 4a, 37, 39;
xviii. 34b, Deut. xxxii. 13a, xxxiii. 29b; xviii. 45b, Deut. xxxiii. 29b;
xix. contrasts the glory of God as seen in the heavens with that of the
law, testimony, statutes, commandments, and judgments of Jehovah,
Lev. xxvi. 46, xxvii. 34, Ex. xxv. 16; xx. 6, Ex. xvii. 15, Jehovah my
banner; xxiv. 1, Ex. ix. 29b, xix. 5b ; xxiv. 2, Gen. 1. 9; xxv. 4, Ex.
xxxiii. 13; xxvi. 6, Ex. xxx. 19-21; xxvii. 1, Ex. xv. 2; xxviii. 9,
Deut. ix. 29 ; xxix. 6, Sirion, Deut. iii. 9; xxix. 10, flood, Gen. vi. 17;
xxxi. 9a, Deut. xxxii. 30; xxxi. 16, Num. vi. 25; xxxiv. 17, Lev. xvii.
10; xxxv. 10, Ex. xv. 11 ; xxxvii. 26, Deut. xxviii. 12 ; xxxvii. 31,
Deut, vi. 6; xxxix. 13b, Lev. xxv. 23b; xl. 7, Ex. xxi. 6?; xl. 8, the
volume of the book is the law, which in requiring sacrifice intends
much more than the outward form of sacrifice, ver. 7; it lays its real
demand upon the person of the offerer himself; li, 9, hyssop, Lev. xiv.
4, Num. xix. 6, 18; lv. 16, Num. xvi. 30; lx. 9, Gen. xlix. 10; lx. 14,
Num. xxiv. 18; lxiii. 12, Deut. vi. 13; lxviii. 2, Num. x. 35; lxviii.
8, 9, 18, Sinai; lxix. 29, Ex. xxxii. 32; lxxxvi. 8, 10, Ex. xv. 11,
Deut. xxxii. 39; lxxxvi. 15, Ex. xxxiv. 6.
On the traces of the Pentateuch in later books see Hiivernick, Ein-
leitung in das Alte Testament (Introduction to the Old Testament), I.
136-142. Keil, Einleitung in A. T. § 34. Caspari, Beitrdge zur
Einleitung in Jesaia (Contributions to the Introduction to Isaiah), pp.
204 sqq. Caspari, " Ueber Micha, " pp. 419 sqq. Kueper, Jeremias
Librorum Sacrorum Interpres atque Vindex, pp. 1-51.
2. Allusions in Hosea and Amos to the facts recorded in the Penta-
teuch: Comp. Hos. i. 10, and Gen. xxii. 17, xxxii. 12 ; xi. 8, Deut.
xxix. 23 ; xii. 3a, Gen xxv. 26 ; xii. 3b, 4a, Gen. xxxii. 28; xii. 4b,
Gen. xxviii. 12-19, xxxv. 6-13; xii. 12, Jacob fled to Padan-aram,
served for a wife, and kept sheep ii. 15b, xi. 1, xiii. 5, exodus from
Egypt and life in the wilderness; ix. 10, Num. xxv. 3; the places of
idolatrous worship were such as were made sacred by events in the his-
tory of their fathers, iv. 15, Josh. iv. 20, Gen. xxviii. 19 (Bethel the
house of God is converted into Beth-aven, house of wickedness); xii.
11, Gen. xxxi. 48; Amos, v. 8, Gen. vii. 11; iv. 11, Gen. xix. 24, 25
i. 11, Edom, Israel's brother, Gen. xxv. 27, Deut. xxiii. 7; iv. 4, v. 5,
places of idolatry hallowed by events in the time of their forefathers;
ii. 10, iii. 1, v. 25, 26, exodus from Egypt, and forty years in the wil-
derness, and idolatry there, Deut. v. 6, xxix. 5, Lev. xvii. 7; iii. 2,
Deut. xiv. 2; vi. 14, Num. xxxiv 5, 8; ii. 9, stature of the Amorites
Num. xiii. 32, 33, Deut. i, 20, 28.
References to its laws: Hosea constantly sets forth the relation between
Jehovah and Israel under the emblem of a marriage, comp. Ex. xx. 5,
xxxiv. 14-16, Lev. xvii. 7, xx. 5, 6. Israel is an unfaithful wife, who
had responded to her lord in former days, when she came up out of
Egypt, ii. 15, Ex. xxiv. 7, but had since abandoned him for other lov-
ers, ch. i.- iii., Baal and the calves, xiii. 1, 2; she has broken her cov-
enant, has dealt treacherously, v. 7, vi. 7; has backslidden, iv. 16, xi.
7, xiv. 4; is repeating the atrocity of Gibeah, ix. 9, x. 9; is shamelessly
sacrificing on the hills and under shady trees, iv. 13, Deut. xii. 2;
Israel had an extensive written law, Hos. viii. 12 (see a discussion of
this passage in the Presbyterian Review for October, 1886), which they
had disobeyed, iv. 6, viii. 1; the annual feasts, new-moons, sabbaths,
and festive assemblies were observed in Israel, and held in high esteem,
and occupied a prominent place in the life of the people, so that their
abolition would be reckoned a serious disaster, Hos. ii. 11, ix. 5, xii. 9,
Am. v. 21, viii. 5; they had burnt-offerings, meal-offerings, peace-
offerings, Am. v. 22, Hos. viii. 13; thank-offerings, free-will-offerings,
Am. iv. 5; drink-offerings, Hos. ix. 4; the daily morning sacrifice, Am.
iv. 4; Hos. iv. 8, alludes to the law of the sin-offering; Hos. ix. 3, 4,
to the law of clean and unclean meats; viii. 11, xii. 11, the sin of mul-
tiplying altars implies the law of the unity of the sanctuary, Deut. xii.
5, 6; v. 10, removing landmarks, Deut. xix. 14, xxvii. 17; iv. 4, the
final reference of causes in dispute to the priest, refusal to hear whom
was a capital offence, Deut. xvii. 12 ; viii. 13, ix. 3, penalty of a return
to Egypt, Deut. xxviii. 68; ix. 4, defilement from the dead, Num. xix.
14, 22, Deut. xxvi. 14; x. 11, the ox not to be muzzled when treading
out corn, Deut. xxv. 4; vi. 9, hm.Azi is a technical word of the Holiness
Laws, Lev. xviii. 17 ; xiv. 3, mercy for the fatherless, Ex. xxii. 21, 22,
(E. V. vs. 22, 23), Deut. x. 18 vi. 11, Am. ix. 14, God returns to the
captivity of his people, Deut. xxx. 3 Amos, though delivering
message in Bethel, knows but one sanctuary, that in Zion, i. 2; ii. 7,
the law of incest, Lev. xx. 11, Deut. xxii. 30; ii. 11, 12, Nazarites,
Num. vi. 2, 3, and prophets, Dent. xviii. 15; iv. 4, triennial tithes,
Deut. xiv. 28, xxvi. 12, for which in their excess of zeal they may sub-
stitute tithes every three days; viii. 5, falsifying the ephah, shekel,
and balances, Lev. xix. 36, Deut. xxv. 13-15.
Coincidences of thought or expression: Comp. Hos. ii. 17, and Ex.
xxiii. 13; iii. 1, look to other gods, Deut. xxxi. 18 (Heb.); v. 14-vi. 1,
Deut. iv. 29, 30, xxxii. 39; iv. 10, Lev. xxvi. 26; xi. 1, Ex, iv. 22, 23;
xii. 5, Ex. iii. 15; xiii. 6, Deut. viii. 12-14; Am. ii. 7, to profane my
holy name, Lev. xx. 3; iv. 6, 8, Deut. xxviii. 48; iv. 9, Deut. xxviii.
22; iv. 10, Deut. xxviii. 60; iv. 6, 8, 9, 10, Deut. iv. 30; v. 1.1, ix.
14, Dent. xxviii. 30, 39; vi. 12, gall and wormwood, Dent. xxix. 18;
ix. 13, Lev. xxvi. 5.
For traces of the Pentateuch in the kingdom of Israel, whether in
Hosea, Amos, or the Books of Kings, see Hengstenberg, "Authentie
des Pentateuches," 1. pp. 48-180.
THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH
THE second objection which has been urged against
the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch, affects its form
rather than its contents. It is affirmed that such is the
constitution of the Pentateuch as to evince that it is not
the continuous composition of any one writer, but that it
is compacted of parts of diverse origin, the products of
different writers, themselves long posterior to the Mosaic
age; and consequently the Pentateuch, though it may
contain some Mosaic elements, cannot in its present
form have proceeded from Moses, but must belong to a
much later period. This objection is primarily directed
against the unity of the Pentateuch, and only seconda-
rily against its authenticity.
In order to render intelligible the nature of the parti-
tion hypotheses, with which we shall have to deal, the
nomenclature which they employ, and their application
to the Pentateuch, it will be necessary first to state pre-
cisely what is meant by the unity for which we contend,
and then give a brief account of the origin and history of
those hypotheses by which it has been impugned, and
the several forms which they have successively as-
sumed.
By the unity of the Pentateuch is meant that it is in its
present form one continuous work, the product of a sin-
gle writer. This is not opposed to the idea of his having
had before him written sources in any number or variety,
from which he may have drawn his materials, provided
the composition was his own. It is of no consequence,
so far as our present inquiry is concerned, whether the
facts related were learned from pre-existing writings, or
from credible tradition, or from his own personal knowl-
edge, or from immediate divine revelation. From what-
ever source the materials may have been gathered, if all
has been cast into the mould of the writer's own
thoughts, presented from his point of view, and arranged
upon a plan and method of his own, the work possesses
the unity which we maintain. Thus Bancroft's "History
of the United States" rests upon a multitude of author-
ities which its author consulted in the course of its prep-
aration; the facts which it records were drawn from a
great variety of pre-existing written sources; and yet, as
we possess it, it is the product of one writer, who first
made himself thoroughly acquainted with his subject,
and then elaborated it in his own language and accord-
ing to his own preconceived plan. It would have been
very different, if his care had simply been to weave to-
gether his authorities in the form of a continuous narra-
tive, retaining in all cases their exact language, but in-
corporating one into another or supplementing one by
another and thus allowing each of his sources in turn to
speak for itself. In this case it would not have been
Bancroft's history. He would have been merely the
compiler of a work consisting of a series of extracts
from various authors. Such a narrative has been made
by harmonists of the Gospel history. They have framed
an account of all the recorded facts by piecing together
extracts from the several gospels arranged in what is
conceived to be their true chronological order. And the
result is not a new Gospel history based upon the several
Gospels, nor is it the original Gospel either of Matthew,
Mark, Luke, or John; but it is a compound of the whole
of them; and it can be taken apart paragraph by para-
THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 61
graph, or sentence by sentence, and each portion as-
signed to the particular Gospel from which it was
drawn.
Now the question respecting the unity of the Penta-
teuch is whether it is a continuous production from a
single pen, whatever may have been the sources from
which the materials were taken, or whether it is a com-
posite production, made up from various writings woven
together, the several portions of which are still capable
of being distinguished, separated, and assigned to their
respective originals.
DOCUMENT HYPOTHESIS.
The not improbable conjecture was expressed at an
early period that there were ante-Mosaic records, to
which Moses had access, and of which he made use in
preparing the book of Genesis. The history of such a
remote antiquity would seem to be better accredited if it
had a written basis to rest upon than if it had been drawn
solely from oral tradition. Thus the eminent orthodox,
theologian and commentator Vitringa, expressed the
opinion in 1707, in the interest of the credibility of Gen-
esis, that Moses collected, digested, embellished, and.
supplemented the records left by the fathers and pre-
served among the Israelites. The peculiarity of the
critical hypothesis, with which we are now concerned,
however, is the contention that Genesis was not merely
based upon pre-existing writings, but that it was framed.
out of those writings, which were incorporated in it and
simply pieced together, so that each section and paragraph
and sentence preserved still its original style and texture,
indicative of the source from which it came; and that
by means of these criteria the book of Genesis can be
taken apart and its original sources reproduced. The
first suggestion of this possibility and the first attempt
actually to realize it by decomposing the book into the
prior documents supposed to have been embedded in it,
was made in 1753 by Astruc, a French physician of con-
siderable learning, but of profligate life, in a treatise en-
titled "Conjectures Concerning the Original Memoranda
which it appears Moses used to Compose the Book of
Genesis."1 This hypothesis was adopted and elaborated
with great learning and ingenuity by Eichhorn,2 the dis-
tinguished professor of Oriental literature at Gottingen,
to whose skilful advocacy it owed much of its sudden
popularity.
1 Conjectures sur les Memoires Originaux, dont it paroit que Moyse
s'est servi pour composer le Livre de la Genese. Avec des Remarques,
qui appuient ou qui eclaircissent ces Conjectures. This was published
anonymously at Brussels. For an account of the life and character of
the author see the Article Jean Astruc, by Dr. Howard Osgood, in
The Presbyterian and Reformed Review, for January, 1892. Astruc
assumes two principal documents, which were used throughout, and are
distinguished by the employment of Elohim and Jehovah respectively;
also ten minor documents relating chiefly to foreign nations, and not
immediately affecting the Hebrew people, in which no name of God is
found. These may have been of considerable extent, though Moses
only had occasion to make one small extract from each. With these he
classes likewise the story of Dinah, ch. xxxiv., and the extra document
to account for the triple repetitions in vii. 18-20 and 21-23 in the nar-
rative of the flood. The advantages which he claims for his hypothe-
sis are that it will account for the alternation of the divine names as well
as for the repetitions and displacements in the narrative. Occasional
departures from the exact chronological order are in his view attributa-
ble, not to any negligence on the part of Moses, but to the mistakes of
transcribers. These documents were, as he supposes, originally ar-
ranged in parallel columns after the manner of Origen's Hexapla; but
the transcribers, who copied them in one continuous text, sometimes
inserted paragraphs in the wrong places.
2 Einleitung in das Alte Testament, von Johann Gottfried Eichhorn.
First edition, 1782; 4th edition, 1823. He steadfastly insists that
Moses is the compiler of Genesis, and the author of the rest of the Pen-
tateuch, some interpolations excepted. Gramberg, whose Libri Gene-
teos secundum fontes rite dignoscendos Adumbratio Nova was published
1. The primary basis of this extraordinary hypothesis
was found in the remarkable manner in which the divine
names Elohim (the Hebrew term for God) and Jehovah
are used, particularly in the earliest portions of Genesis,
whole paragraphs and even long sections making almost
exclusive use of one of these names, while the alternate
sections make a similarly exclusive use of the other.
Thus in Gen. i. 1-ii. 3, Elohim occurs in almost every
verse, but no, other name of God than this. But in ii.
4-iii. 24, God is with few exceptions called Jehovah
Elohim, and in ch. iv. Jehovah. Then in ch. v. we find
Elohim again; in vi. 1-8, Jehovah, and in the rest of ch.
vi., Elohim, and so on. This singular alternation was
remarked upon by some of the early Christian fathers,
who offered an explanation founded upon the Greek and
Latin equivalents of these names, but which is not ap-
plicable to the Hebrew terms themselves. Astruc's as-
sumption was that it was due to the peculiar style of
different writers, one of whom was in the habit of using
Elohim, and another in the habit of using Jehovah, when
speaking of God. All those paragraphs and sections
which exclusively or predominantly employ the name
Elohim were accordingly attributed to a writer denomi-
nated from this circumstance the Elohist; and when
these paragraphs were singled out and put together, they
constituted what was called the Elohist document. The
other writer was known as the Jehovist, and the sections
attributed to him made up the Jehovist document. It
in 1828, substitutes for this faithful compiler an unknown Redactor,
who in combining the Elohist and Jehovist makes frequent changes and
additions of his own.
1 Thus Tertullian adv. Hermogenem, ch. 3, remarks that the Most
High is simply called "God" until the world was made, and his intel-
gent creature, man, over whom he had dominion, after which he is
likewise called LORD." See also Augustin, De Genesi ad Literam,
viii. 11.
was accordingly held that Genesis consisted of sections
taken alternately from two distinct documents by authors
of known proclivities, so far at least as their preference
for or exclusive use of one or other of the names,
and which existed and circulated in their separate state
until they were combined as they are at present. This
hypothesis is hence known as the document hypothesis,
since it assumes as the sources of Genesis distinct and
continuous documents, which are still traceable in the
book from the beginning to the end. And the first ar-
gument adduced in its support, as already stated, is the
interchange of divine names, each of which is erected
into the criterion of a separate document.
2. A second argument was drawn from the alleged
fact that when the Elohim sections are sundered out and
put together, they form a regularly constructed and con-
tinuous narrative without any apparent breaks or chasms,
whence it is inferred that they originally constituted one
document distinct from the intercalated Jehovah sections.
The same thing was affirmed, though with more hesita-
tion and less appearance of plausibility, of the Jehovah
sections likewise; when these are singled out and sev-
ered from. the passages containing the name Elohim, they
form a tolerably well-connected document likewise.
3. A third argument was drawn from parallel passages
in the two documents. The same event, it is alleged, is
in repeated instances found twice narrated in successive
sections of Genesis, once in an Elohist section, and
again with some modifications or variations in a Jehovist
section. This is regarded as proof positive that Genesis
is not one continuous narrative, but that it is made up
from two different histories. The compiler instead of
framing a new narrative which should comprehend all
the particulars stated in both accounts, or blending the
two accounts by incorporating sentences from one in the
body of the other, has preserved both entire, each in its
integrity and in its own proper form, by first giving the
account of the matter as it was to be found in one docu-
ment, and subsequently inserting the account found in the
other. Thus Gen. i 1-ii. 3 contains the account of the cre-
ation as given by the Elohist; but although this states how
the world was made, and plants and animals and men were
formed upon the Jehovist section, ii. 4, etc., introduces
a fresh account of the making of the man and the wom-
an, the production of trees from the ground, and the
formation of the inferior animals. This repetition be-
trays, it is said, that we here have before us not one ac-
count of the creation by a single writer, but two separate
accounts by different writers. So in the narrative of the
flood; there is first an account by the Jehovist, vi. 1-8,
of the wickedness of man and of Jehovah's purpose to
destroy the earth; then follows, vi. 9-22, the Elohist's
statement of the wickedness of man and God's purpose to
destroy the earth, together with God's command to Noah
to build the ark and go into it with his family, and take
some of all living animals into it; in vii. 1-5, the Jeho-
vist tells that Jehovah commanded Noah to go with his
family into the ark, and to take every variety of animals
with him.
4. A fourth argument is drawn from the diversity of
style, diction, ideas, and aim which characterize these
two documents. It is alleged that when these compo-
nent parts of Genesis are separated and examined apart,
each will be found to be characterized by all the marks
which indicate diversity of origin and authorship. It is
confidently affirmed that, wherever the Elohim sections
occur throughout Genesis, they have certain peculiarities
of diction and style which clearly distinguish them from
the Jehovah sections; and these again have their own
distinctive characteristics. The preference for one di-
vine name above another, which has already been spoken
of as a criterion, does not stand alone. There are be-
sides numerous words and phrases that are currently
used by the Elohist which the Jehovist never employs,
and vice versa. Thus the Elohist, in ch. i., uses the
phrase "beast of the earth," and speaks of the earth
bringing forth plants, while the Jehovist, in ch. ii., says
"beasts of the field" and "plant of the field." The Elo-
hist, in ch. i., repeatedly uses the word "create"; he
speaks of God creating the heavens and the earth, creat-
ing the whales, and creating man. The Jehovist, in ch.
ii., speaks instead of Jehovah forming man and forming
the beasts. The Elohist (ch. i.) speaks of man as male
and female; the Jehovist (ch. ii.) says instead the man
and his wife. The style of the two writers is equally
marked; that of the Elohist is formal, verbose, and repe-
titious; that of the Jehovist is easy and flowing. In ch.
the same stereotyped phrases recur again and again,
and particulars are enumerated instead of including all
under a general term. Thus ver. 25, "God made the
beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their
kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the
earth after his kind." And ver. 27, "God created man
in his own image, in the image of God created he him;
male and female created he them." The Elohist gives
God's command to Noah in detail (vi. 18), "Thou shalt
come into the ark; thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and
thy sons' wives with thee;" the Jehovist simply says,
(vii. 1), "Come thou and all thy house into the ark."
Along with these peculiarities of diction and style, and
corroborating the conclusion drawn from them, is the di-
versity in the ideas and scope of the two writers. Thus
the Jehovist makes frequent mention of altars and sacri-
fices in the pre-Mosaic period; the Elohist is silent re-
specting them until their establishment at Sinai. It is
the Jehovist who records the primeval sacrifice of Cain
and Abel, of which the Elohist says nothing. The Elo-
hist speaks, in v. 22, of Enoch walking with God, and vi.
9, of Noah walking with God, but though he gives (ch. ix.)
a detailed account of God's blessing Noah, and his cove-
nant with him after he came out of the ark he says noth-
ing of Noah's sacrifice, which the Jehovist records (viii.
20, etc). The divine direction to Noah to take animals
into the ark is given by the Elohist only in general
terms; God bade him take two of every sort (vi. 19, etc.).
But the Jehovist informs us more minutely of the dis-
tinction of clean and unclean animals which then ex-
isted and that Jehovah bade Noah take two of each spe-
cies of the latter, but seven of the former, vii. 2.
These arguments, derived from the alternate use of the
divine names, from the alleged continuity of each docu-
ment taken separately, from parallel passages, and from
the characteristic differences of the two writers, appeared
to lend so much plausibility to the Document Hypothe-
sis that it speedily rose to great celebrity, and was very
widely adopted; and many able and distinguished critics
became its advocates. As at first propounded it did not
conflict with the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.
Its earliest defenders, so far from impugning the author-
ship of Moses, were strenuous in maintaining it. So long
as the hypothesis was confined to Genesis, to which it
was at first applied, there was no difficulty in assuming
that Moses may have incorporated in his history of that
early period these pre-existing documents in any way
consistent with his truth and inspiration.
It was not long, however, before it was discovered that
the hypothesis was capable of being applied likewise to
the remaining books of the Pentateuch. This extension
of the hypothesis brought it for the first time into colli-
sion with the traditional belief of the Mosaic authorship;
and this, with its various modifications, has since been one
of the favorite and principal weapons of those who deny
that it was written by Moses. If the entire Pentateuch
is a compilation from pre-existing documents, it was
plausibly inferred that it must be post-Mosaic. For the
documents themselves inasmuch as they contained the
record of Moses's own times, could not have been older
than the Mosaic age. And if the Pentateuch was sub-
sequent to them, and framed out of them, it seemed nat-
ural to refer it to a still later period; though, it should
be observed, that this by no means necessarily follows.
Even if the composite character of the Pentateuch could
be established on purely literary grounds, we might still
suppose that the memoranda from which it was pre-
pared were drawn up under Moses's direction and with
his approval, and were either put together in their pres-
ent form by himself, or at least that the completed work
passed under his eye and received his sanction; so that
it would still be possible to vindicate its Mosaic origin
and authority, unless indeed the primary documents
themselves belong to a later time than that of Moses,
which can never be proved.
The critics who have held this hypothesis, however,
commonly do regard them as post-Mosaic; and hence
they claim that it affords ocular demonstration that the
books traditionally ascribed to Moses are not his. And
to corroborate this conclusion they appeal to Exodus vi.
3, where God says to Moses, "I appeared unto Abraham,
unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my
name JEHOVAH I was not known to them." They under-
stand this to be a distinct declaration that the name Je-
hovah was unknown to the patriarchs, being of later date
than the time in which they lived, and that it first came
into use in the days of Moses. It hence followed as a
logical necessity that the Jehovist document, according to
the testimony of this passage, was certainly not prior to
the time of Moses, for it employs a name which had no
existence previously. And it was plausibly urged that
this document was probably post-Mosaic, for it is charge-
able with the anachronism of putting into the mouths of
the patriarchs the name Jehovah, which did not then
exist. This was thought to be contradictory to the Elo-
hist statement above cited, and to betray a writer be-
longing to a period when the name Jehovah had become
so familiar and so universal that its recent origin was
forgotten, and he unconsciously transfers to patriarchal
times a designation current in his own.
This anachronism of the Jehovist led to the suspicion
of others; and since, as has already been stated it is
this document which makes mention of patriarchal altars
and sacrifices that are never referred to by the Elohist,
it was suspected that here again he had improperly trans-
ferred to the patriarchal age the usages of his own time,
while the Elohist gave a more accurate representation of
that early period as it really was. This was esteemed, if
not a contradiction, yet a contrariety between the two
accounts, a diversity in the mode of conceiving the pe-
riod whose history they are recording, which reflects the
different personality of the two writers, the views which
they entertained, andd the influences under which they
had been trained.
These diversities between the Jehovist and the Elo-
hist took on more and, more the character of contradic-
tions, as the credit of the Jehovist for veracity and accu-
racy was held, in less and less esteem. Every superficial
difficulty was made the pretext for fresh charges of
anachronisms, inaccuracies, and contradictions. The
text was tortured to bring forth difficulties where none
appeared. An especially fruitful source was found in
alleged parallel passages in the two documents. These
were greatly multiplied by pressing into the service narr-
rations of matters quite distinct, but which bore a general
resemblance to each other. The points of resemblance were
paraded in proof that the matters referred to were iden-
tical; and then the diversities in the two accounts were
pointed out as so many contradictions between them,
which betrayed the legendary and unreliable character of
one or both the narratives. Thus because some of the
descendants of Cain, whose genealogy is recorded by the
Jehovist (Gen. iv. 17-22), bear the same or similar names
with descendants of Seth recorded by the Elohist (ch. v.),
Enoch, Irad, Methusael, and Lamech of one table cor-
responding to Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech of
the other, it was concluded that these are only variants
of the same identical genealogy, which one writer has at-
tached to one of the sons of Adam, and the other to an-
other; and that every divergence in the two lists is a
discrepancy involving an error on one side or on the
other, if not in both. So in ch. xii. the Jehovist tells how
Abram, apprehensive that the monarch of the country in
which he was would be attracted by his wife's beauty,
prevaricated by saying that she was his sister, what per-
ils thence arose to both, and how they were finally extri-
cated. In ch. xx. the Elohist relates a similar story of
prevarication, peril, and deliverance. The same event, it
is alleged, must be the basis of both accounts, but there
is a hopeless contradiction between them. The former
declares that the occurrence took place in Egypt, and
that Pharaoh was a party to the transaction; the latter
transfers the scene to the land of the Philistines and the
court of Abimelech. And to complicate the matter still
further, the Jehovist gives yet another version of the
same story in ch. xxvi., according to which it was not
Abram but Isaac who thus declared his wife to be his
sister, running an imminent hazard by so doing, but
making a fortunate escape. According to the Elohist
(xxi. 22-32), Abraham had a difficulty with Abimelech in
respect to a well of water, which was amicably settled by
a covenant, in memory of which he gave name to Beer-
sheba. The Jehovist (xx vi. 17-33) relates a similar story
of strife concerning wells, a visit by Abimelech, an agree-
ment with him, and the naming of Beersheba in conse-
quence; but he says that it was not Abraham but Isaac
who was concerned in it.
FRAGMENT HYPOTHESIS.
Meanwhile a more extreme disintegration found favor
with Vater1 (1805), Hartmann2 (1831), and others, who
advocated what is known as the Fragment Hypothesis.
This may be fitly characterized as the Document Hypo-
thesis run mad. It is a reductio ad absurdum furnished
by the more consistent and thorough-going application
of the principles and methods of its predecessor. In-
stead of two continuous documents pieced together, para-
graph by paragraph, to constitute the Pentateuch as we
now have it, each paragraph or section is now traced to
a separate and independent source. The compiler was
not limited to two writings covering alike the entire
1 Commentar uber den Pentateuch von Johann Severin Vater. 1st
and 2d Part, 1802; 3d Part, 1805. This embodies many of the Explan-
atory Notes and Critical Remarks of Rev. Alexander Geddes, with
whose views he is in entire accord. Vater finds that Genesis is com-
posed of thirty-eight fragments, varying in length from four or five
verses to several chapters. The other books of the Pentateuch are
similarly disintegrated. In fact, the legislation is the favorite domain
of the Fragment Hypothesis, as the history furnishes the principal
material for the Document Hypothesis.
2 Historisch-kritische Forschungen uber die Bildung, das Zeitalter
and den Plan der funf Bucher Mose's, nebst einer beurtheilenden
Einleitung and einer genauen Charakteristik der hebraischen Sagen
wind Mythen, von Anton Theodor Hartmann.
period that he proposed to treat, but had before him
all that he could gather of every sort relating to his sub-
ject, some of which possibly were mere scraps, others of
larger compass, some recording, it may be, but a single
incident, others more comprehensive, and he adopted
one passage from one, another from another, and so
on throughout. Sometimes two or more fragments may
have been taken from the same original work, but this
cannot be positively affirmed. And it would be vain to
attempt to inquire into the extent, character, and aim of
the writings from which they were severally extracted.
All that we know of them is derived from such portions
as the compiler has seen fit to preserve.
The arguments adduced in support of the Fragment
Hypothesis were substantially identical with those which
had been urged in favor of the Document Hypothesis.
And assuming the soundness of those arguments, this is
the inevitable consequence. Admit the legitimacy of
this disintegrating process, and there is no limit to which
it may not be carried at the pleasure of the operator;
and it might be added, there is no work to which it
might not be applied. Any book in the Bible, or out of
the Bible, could be sliced and splintered in the same way
and by the same method of argument. Let a similarly
minute and searching examination be instituted into the
contents of any modern book. Let any one page be com-
pared with any other, and every word, and form of ex-
pression, and grammatical construction, and rhetorical
figure in one that does not occur in the other be noted
as difference of diction and style; let every incident in
one that has its counterpart in the other be paraded as a
parallel section evidencing diversity of origin and author-
ship, and every conception in one which has not its
counterpart in the other as establishing a diversity in
the ideas of the authors of the two pages respectively
let every conclusion arrived at on one page that does not
appear on the other argue different tendencies in the
two writers, different aims with which and different in-
fluences under which, they severally wrote, and nothing
would be easier, if this method of proof be allowed, than
to demonstrate that each successive page came from a
different pen.
The very same process by which the Pentateuch is de-
composed into documents, can with like facility divide
these documents, and subdivide them, and then subdi-
vide them again. Indeed the advocates of the Docu-
ment Hypothesis may here be summoned as witnesses
against themselves. They currently admit different
Elohists and Jehovists, and successive variant editions
of each document, and a whole school of priestly and
Deuteronomic diaskeuasts and redactors, thus rivalling in
their refinements the multitudinous array of the fragmen-
tary critics. And in fact the extent to which either may
go in this direction is determined by purely subjective
considerations. The only limitation is that imposed
by the taste or fancy of the critic. If the repetitions
or parallel sections, alleged to be found in the Penta-
teuch, require the assumption of distinct documents,
like repetitions occurring in each individual document
prove it to be composite. The very same sort of con-
trarieties or contradictions which are made a pretext for
sundering the Pentateuch, can furnish an equally plausi-
ble reason for sundering each of the documents. And if
certain criteria are regarded as characteristic of a given
document, and their absence from sections attributed to
the other is held to prove that they are by a different hand
from the former, why does not the same rule apply to
the numerous sections of the first-named document, from,
which its own so-called characteristic words and phrases
are likewise absent?
The titles and subscriptions attached to genealogies
and legal sections supplied an additional argument, of
which the advocates of the Fragment Hypothesis sought
to avail themselves. Such titles as the following are
prefixed to indicate the subject of the section that fol-
lows: "These are the generations of the heavens and
of the earth," Gen. ii. 4. "This is the book of the gen-
erations of Adam," v. 1. "These are the names of the
sons of Levi according to their generations," Ex. vi. 16.
"This is the law of the trespass-offering," Lev. vii. l.
"This is the law of the sacrifice of peace-offerings," ver.
11. "These are the journeys of the children of Israel,"
Num. xxxiii. 1. Or subscriptions are added at the close
suggestive of the contents of the section that precedes,
such as "These are the families of the sons of Noah
after their generations in their nations," Gen. x. 32.
"These be the sons of Leah," xlvi. 15. "These are the
sons of Zilpah," Yer. 18. "These are the sons of Rachel,"
ver. 22. "This is the law of the burnt-offering, of the
meal-offering, and of the sin-offering," etc., Lev. vii. 37,
38. This is the law of the plague of leprosy," etc., xiii.
59. These indicate divisions in the subject-matter, and
mark the beginning or end of paragraphs or sections,
and contribute to clearness by brief statements of their
general purport, but they do not prove that these sec-
tions ever had a separate and independent existence
apart from the book in which they are now found, or that
different sections proceeded from different authors, any
more than a like conclusion could be drawn from the
books and chapters into which modern works are di-
vided.
The extravagance and absurdity of the Fragment
Hypothesis could not long escape detection, for-
1. It involves the assumption of a numerous body of
writings regarding the Mosaic and ante-Mosaic periods
of which there is no other evidence, and which is out of
all proportion to the probabilities of the case. Every
several paragraph or section is supposed to represent a
distinct work, implying a literary activity and a fertility
of authorship which is not only assumed on slender and
inadequate grounds, but of which not another fragment
survives, to which no allusion is made, whether in the
Pentateuch itself or elsewhere, and not a hint or a trace
is anywhere preserved of its ever having existed.
2. A congeries of fragments borrowed from diverse
quarters could only form a body of disconnected anec-
dotes or a heterogeneous miscellany. It could not possi-
bly result in the production of such a work as the Pen-
tateuch, which is a coherent whole, possessing orderly
arrangement in accordance with a well-devised plan,
which is consistently carried out, with a continuous and
connected narrative, with no abrupt transitions, and no
such contrasts or discords as would inevitably arise from
piecing together what was independently conceived and
written by different persons at different times, and with
no regard to mutual adjustment. As in oriental writings
generally the successive portions are more loosely bound
together in outward form than is customary in modern
occidental style; but the matter of the record is through-
out continuous, and one constant aim is steadfastly pur-
sued. The breaks and interruptions which are alleged
to exist in the narrative, such as the failure to record in
full the abode in Egypt, the private life of Moses, or the
forty years' wandering in the wilderness, are no indica-
tions,of a lack of unity, but the reverse; for they show
with what tenacity the writer adhered to his proper
theme, and excluded everything which did not belong
to it.
3. Still further, the Pentateuch is not only possessed
of a demonstrable unity of structure, which renders its
fragmentary origin inconceivable, but there are through-
out manifest allusions from one part to another, one sec-
tion either referring in express terms to what is con-
tained in others, or implying their existence, being based
upon those that precede and unintelligible without them,
and presupposing those that follow. The minute exam-
inations to which this very hypothesis has driven the
friends of truth have shown that such explicit or tacit
allusions are traceable everywhere; and wherever they
occur they make it clear that the writer must have been
cognizant of the paragraphs alluded to, and have felt at
liberty to assume that his readers were acquainted with
them likewise. Of course this is quite inconsistent with
the notion that each of these paragraphs came from a
different source, and was written independently of the
rest.
It was refuted by Ewald1 in his earliest publication,
which still deserves careful study, and still more thor-
oughly by F. H. Ranke.2
SUPPLEMENT HYPOTHESIS.
Repelled by the inconsistencies and incongruities of
the Fragment Hypothesis, Bleek, Tuch, Stahelin, De
Wette, Knobel3 and others advocated what is known as
1 Die Composition der Genesis kritisch Untersucht, von Dr. H. A.
Ewald, 1823.
2 Untersuchungen uber den Pentateuch, von Dr. Friedrich Heinrich
Itanke, Pfarrer. Vol. i., 1834; Vol. ii., 1840.
3 The matured views of Bleek are given in the posthumous publica-
tion, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1860. In his opinion, "after
Ex. vi. 2-8, the determination of Elohistic constituents, if not impos-
sible, is incomparably more difficult and uncertain than in the preceding
history." 4th Edit., p. 92. He maintained that there was much in the
Pentateuch that was genuinely Mosaic, and especially that many of the
laws proceeded from Moses in the form in which they are there pre-
served, and were committed to writing by Moses himself, or at least in
the Supplement Hypothesis. This is a modification of
the Documentary, not on the side of a still further and in-
definite division, but on the opposite side of a closer
union. It was consequently a reaction in the right direc-
tion; a confession that what had been sundered without
limit, as though its several parts were void of all coher-
ence, really do belong together; it is an admission, so
far as it goes, of the cogency of the arguments, by which
the various parts of the Pentateuch can be shown to be
linked together.
The Supplement Hypothesis retained the Elohist and
the Jehovist of the older theory; but, instead of making
them the authors of distinct and independent documents,
which were subsequently combined and pieced together
by a different hand, it supposed that the Elohist first pre-
pared his treatise, which lies at the basis throughout of
the Pentateuch, and constitutes its groundwork. The
Jehovist, who lived later, undertook to prepare an en-
larged edition of this older history. He accordingly re-
tained all that was in the earlier work, preserving its
form andd language, only introducing into it and incor-
the Mosaic age. Kommentar uber die Genesis, von Dr. Friedrich
Tuch, 1838. Kritische Untersuchungen fiber den Pentateuch, die
Biicher Josua, Richter, Samuels and der Konige, von J. J. Stahelin,
1843. Stahelin is peculiar in beginning his literary analysis with the
laws, and then applying the results to the historical portions of the Pen-
tateuch and the Book of Joshua. De Wette, who at first seemed to
waver between the Fragment and Document Hypothesis, finally fell in
with the supplementary view. His latest views are given in the sixth
edition of his Lehrbuchder Historisch-kritischen Einleitung, 1845. Die
Genesis erk1drt von August Knobel, 1852. This was followed in suc-
cession by commentaries on the remaining books of the Pentateuch and
on Joshua. Knobel endeavored to remove the difficulty arising from the
large number of passages in which the characteristics of the Elohist and
Jehovist were blended, by assuming that they belonged to the Jehovist,
who in them drew from two antecedent sources, which he denominated
the Rechtsbuch and the Kriegsbuch. It is the same difficulty that Hup-
feld sought to relieve by his assumption of a second Elohist.
porating with it sections of his own, supplying omissions,
and amplifying what needed to be more fully stated,
thus supplementing it by means of such materials as were
within his reach, and making such additions as he es-
teemed important.
This form of the hypothesis not only provides, as the
old document theory had done, for those evidences of
unity which bind the various Elohim passages to one
another, and also the various Jehovah passages. But it
accounts still further for the fact, inexplicable on the
document theory, that the Jehovah sections are related
to the Elohim sections, presuppose them, or contain direct
and explicit allusions to them. This is readily explained
by the Supplement Hypothesis; for not only would
the Elohist and Jehovist be aware of what they had re-
spectively written, or of what they intended to write in
the course of their work, but in addition the Jehovist is
supposed to have the treatise of the Elohist in his hands,
to which all that he writes himself is merely supplement-
al. It is quite natural for him, therefore, to make allu-
sions to what the Elohist had written. But it is not so
easy to account for the fact, which is also of repeated oc-
currence, that the Elohim passages allude to or presup-
pose the contents of Jehovah passages. Here the theory
signally breaks down. For by the hypothesis the Elo-
hist wrote first an independent production, without any
knowledge of, and, of course, without the possibility of
making any reference to the additions which the Jeho-
vist was subsequently to make.
Another halting-place in this hypothesis was the im-
possibility of making out any consistent view of the rela-
tion in which the Jehovist stood to the antecedent labors
of the Elohist. The great proof, which was insisted upon,
of the existence of the Jehovist as distinct from the Elo-
hist, and supplementing the treatise of the latter, lay in
the diversity of style and thought which are alleged to
characterize these two classes of sections respectively.
Hence it was necessary to assume that the Jehovist faith-
fully retained the language of the Elohim document un-
altered, and that his own peculiarities were limited to the
sections which he introduced himself, and that there they
were exhibited freely and without reserve. It is fre-
quently the case, however, that the ideas or diction which
have been represented to belong to one of these classes
of sections are found likewise in the other class. Thus,
Elohim passages are found to contain those words and
phrases which have been alleged to characterize the Jeho-
vist, and to contain ideas and statements which are said
to be peculiarly Jehovistic. Here it is necessary to affirm,
that the Jehovist, instead of faithfully transcribing the
Elohim document, has altered its language and inserted
expressions or ideas of his own. Again, Jehovah pas-
sages are found in which those characteristics of style
and thought appear which are elsewhere claimed as
peculiar to the Elohist. This is explained by saying
that the Jehovist in such cases has imitated the style or
adopted the ideas of the Elohist, and has sought to make
his own additions conform as far as possible to the char-
acteristic style of the work which he is supplementing.
Again, while it is alleged that the Elohim and Jehovah
passages are for the most part clearly distinguishable,
there are instances in which it is difficult if not impos-
sible, to draw a sharp line of demarcation between con-
tiguous Elohim and Jehovah passages, and to determine
precisely where one ends and the other begins. Here
the Jehovist is thought to have used art to cover up his
additions. He has fitted them with such care and skill
to the work of his predecessor that the point of junction
cannot be discerned, and it has been made to look like
one continuous composition. Instead of allowing, as in
THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 80
other instances, his insertions to remain visibly distinct
from the original document, he has acted as if he desired
to confuse his additions with the pre-existing work, and
to make their separation impossible.
Now, apart from the fact that these attempted explana-
tions of phenomena at variance with the primary hy-
pothesis are merely shifts and subterfuges to evade the
difficulty which they create, and that this is bringing
unproved hypotheses to support a hypothesis, every
fresh addition making the superstructure weaker instead
of confirming it, the view which is thus presented of the
Jehovist is inconsistent with itself. At one time we
must suppose him to allow the most obvious diversity of
style and ideas between the Elohist sections and his own
without the slightest concern or any attempt at producing
conformity; at others he modifies the language of the
Elohist, or carefully copies him in the sections which he
adds himself in order to effect this conformity, though
no special motive can be assigned for this difference in
his conduct. He sometimes leaves his additions uncon-
nected with the original work which he is supplement-
ing; at other times he weaves them in so adroitly as to
create the appearance of continuity, and this again with-
out any assignable motive. A hypothetical personage,
who has to be represented by turns as artless and artful,
as an honest reporter and a designing interpolator, as
skilful and a bungler, as greatly concerned about a con-
formity of style and thought in some passages, of which
he is wholly regardless in others, and of whose existence
we have no other evidence than that afforded by these
contradictory allegations respecting him, can scarcely be
said to have his reality established thus. And a hy-
pothesis which is reduced to the necessity of bolstering
itself up in this way has not yet reached firm foot-
THE UNITY OF THE PE TATEUCHH 81
Kurtz furnished the best refutation in detail of the
critical analysis adopted by the advocates of the Supple-
ment Hypothesis. The unity and mosaic authorship of
Genesis were also ably defended by Drechsler, and that
of the entire Pentateuch by Havernick and Keil. The
most complete thesaurus in reply to objections is that of
Hengstenberg, upon whom Welte is largely dependent.1
CRYSTALLIZATION HYPOTHESIS.
The simplicity of the Supplement Hypothesis, which
was its chief recommendation, proved inadequate to re-
lieve the complications which beset the path of the divi-
sive critics. Attempts to remedy these inconveniences
were accordingly made in different lines by Ewald and
by Hupfeld, both of whom, but particularly the latter,
contributed to smooth the way for their successors.
Ewald's maiden publication, in 1823, was directed against
the extreme disintegration of the Fragment Hypothesis.
1 Beitrage zur Vertheidigung and Begrundung der Einheit des Pen-
tateuches, von Josh. Heinr. Kurtz, Erster Beitrag, Nachweis der Einheit
von Gen. i.-iv., 1844. This preliminary essay was followed in 1846 by
his complete and masterly treatise Die Einheit der Genesis. Unfort-
unately Kurtz was subsequently induced to yield the position, which
he had so successfully maintained, in his Geschichte des Alten Bundes,
and to admit that the Pentateuch did not receive its final form until
the generation succeeding that of Moses. Die Einheit and Aechtheit
der Genesis von Dr. Moritz Drechsler, 1838. Handhuch der historisch-
kritischen Einleitung in das Alte Testament, von H. A. Ch. Havernick,
Part I., Section 2, 1837. Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Ein-
leitung in die kanonischen Schriften des Alten Testamentes, von
Karl Friedrich Keil, 1853. Die Authentie des Pentateuches erwiesen
von Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, vol. i., 1836; vol. ii., 1839. Nach-
mosaisches im Pentateuch, beleuchtet von Dr. Benedikt Welte, 1841.
Also his important additions and corrections to Herbst's Einleitung,
which he edited, and of which the first division of the second part, con-
taining the Introduction to the Pentateuch, appeared in 1842.
His own scheme, proposed twenty years later,1 has been
appropriately called the Crystallization Hypothesis.
This is a modification of the Supplementary by increasing
the number engaged in supplementing from one to a series
successively operating at distinct periods. The nucleus,
or most ancient portion of the Pentateuch, in his opinion,
consisted of the remnants of four primitive treatises now
existing only in fragments embedded in the various
strata which were subsequently accumulated around
them. This was followed in the second place by what
he calls the Book of the Origins, and this by what he
denominates the third, fourth, and fifth prophetic nar-
rators, each of whom in succession added his accretion to
what had been previously recorded, and the last of whom
worked over all that preceded, together with his own ad-
ditions and alterations, into one continuous work. Then
the Deuteronomist wrote Deuteronomy, which was first
issued as an independent publication, but was sub-
sequently incorporated with the work of his predeces-
sors. And thus the Pentateuch, or rather the Hexateuch,
for the Pentateuch and Joshua were regarded by him, as
by the majority of advanced modern critics generally, as
one work--thus the Hexateuch slowly grew to its present
dimensions, a vast conglomerate, including these various
accessions made in the course of many centuries.
MODIFIED DOCUMENT HYPOTHESIS.
Hupfeld2 undertook to remove the obstacles, which
blocked the way of the Supplement Hypothesis, in a
1 Heinrich Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel bis Christus, vol. i., p.
60 sqq. 1843.
2 Die Quellen der Genesis and die Art ihrer Zusammensetzung von
neuem untersucht, von D. Hermann Hupfeld, 1853. The existence of a
second Elohist had been maintained long before, and a partition made
different manner; not by introducing fresh supplements,
but by abandoning the supplementing process altogether,
and falling back upon the Document Hypothesis, of which
he proposed an important modification. He aimed
chiefly to establish two things: First, that the Jehovist
sections were not disconnected additions to a pre-exist-
ing document, but possessed a continuity and indepen-
dence, which shows that they must have constituted a
separately existing document. In order to this he at-
tempted to bridge over the breaks and chasms by the aid
of scattered clauses arbitrarily sundered from their con-
text in intervening Elohim sections, and thus made a
shift to preserve a scanty semblance of continuity. In
the second place, he maintained the composite character
of the Elohist sections, and that they constituted not one
but two documents. The troublesome passages, which
corresponded neither with the characteristics of the Elo-
hist nor the Jehovist, but appeared to combine them both,
were alleged to be the product of a third writer, who
while he used the name Elohim had the diction and other
peculiarities of the Jehovist and whom he accordingly
called the second Elohist. Upon this scheme there were
three independent documents; that of the first Elohist,
the second Elohist, and the Jehovist. Amd these were
put together in their present form by a redactor who
allowed himself the liberty of inserting, retrenching,
on this basis by Ilgen in Die Urkunden des ersten Buchs von Moses in
ihrer Urgestalt, 1798; but it met no approval at the time. Eduard
Boehmer, in Das Erste Buck der Thora, adopted the scheme of Hupfeld,
though differing materially in many points in the details of the analysis.
E. Schrader, in editing the eighth edition of De Wette's Introduction, in
1869, follows the same general scheme, with some modifications of the
analysis. He designates the authors of the documents as the Annal-
istic, the Theocratic, and the Prophetic Narrators, corresponding severe
ally to the first and second Elohists and the Jehovist of Hupfeld's no-
menclature.
modifying, transposing, and combining at his own pleas-
ure. All references from one document to the contents
of another, and in general any phenomena that conflict
with the requirements of the hypothesis, are ascribed to
the redactor.
There are several halting-places in this scheme of Hup-
feld. (1) One is that the creation of a second Elohist
destroys the continuity and completeness of the first.
The second Elohist is supposed to begin abruptly with
the twentieth chapter of Genesis. From that point on-
ward to the end of the book, with the exception of ch.
xxiii. which records the death and burial of Sarah the
great body of the Elohim passages are given to the second
Elohist, and nothing reserved for the first but occasional
disconnected scraps, which never could have formed a
separate and independent record, and which, moreover,
are linked with and imply much that is assigned to the
other documents. So that it is necessary to assume that
this document once contained the very matter which has
been sundered from it. These scattered points simply
outline the history, apart from which they have no value
and no meaning. Severed from the body of the narra-
tive to which they are attached they are an empty frame
without contents. This frame only exists for the sake of
the historical material, to which it is adjusted and indis-
solubly belongs.
(2) It is also a suspicious circumstance that the first
Elohist breaks off almost entirely so near the point where
the second Elohist begins. All Elohist passages before
Gen. xx. are given to the first Elohist; all after that, with
trifling exceptions, to the second Elohist. This looks
more like the severance of what was once continuous,
than the disentangling of documents once separate which
the redactor had worked together section by section in
compiling his history.
(3) Another suspicious circumstance is the intricate
manner in which the Jehovist, and second Elohist are
thought to be combined. In many passages they are so
intimately blended that they cannot be separated. And
in general it is admitted to be impossible to establish
any clearly defined criteria of language, style, or thought
between them. This has the appearance of a factitious
division of what is really the product of a single writer.
There is no reason of any moment, whether in the dic-
tion or in the matter, for assuming that the Jehovist and
the second Elohist were distinct writers.
(4) It is indeed claimed that the first Elohist is
clearly distinguishable in diction and in matter from the
Jehovist and the second Elohist. But there are several
considerations which quite destroy the force of the
argument for distinct documents from this source. a. If
the Elohim sections prior to Gen. xx. are thought
to have a diction different from that of the Jehovist;
and the great body of the Elohim sections after Gen. xx.
have a diction confessedly indistinguishable from that
of the Jehovist the presumption certainly is that the
difference alleged in the early chapters rests on too
limited an induction; and when the induction is carried
further, it appears that the conclusion has been too hasty,
and that no real difference exists. b. Again, the great
bulk of the narrative of Genesis, so far as it concerns
transactions in ordinary life, is divided between the
Jehovist and the second Elohist. The first Elohist is
limited to genealogies, legal sections, extraordinary
events, such as the creation and flood or mere isolated
notices, as of births, deaths, ages, migrations, etc. That
matter of a different description should call for the use
of a different set of words while in matter of the same
sort like words are used is just what might be expected
and there is no need of assuming different documents in
order to account for it. c. Still further, when, as in Gen.
xxxiv., a narrative is for special reasons assigned in part
to the first Elohist, it is as impossible to distinguish its
diction from that of the other documents as it elsewhere
is to distinguish the diction of the second Elohist from
that of the Jehovist; and other grounds of distinction
must be resorted to in order to effect a separation. All
this makes it evident that the variant diction alleged is
due to the difference in the matter and not to diversity
of documents.
(5) The function assigned to the redactor assumes
that he acts in the most capricious and inconsistent
manner, more so even than the Jehovist of the Supple-
ment Hypothesis. At times he is represented as scrupu-
lously careful to preserve everything contained in his
various sources, though it leads to needless and unmean-
ing repetition; at others he omits large and important
sections, though the document from which they are
dropped is thus reduced to a mutilated remnant. Where
his sources disagree he sometimes retains the narrative
of each unchanged, thus placing the whole case fairly
before his readers; at others he alters them into corre-
spondence, which is hardly consistent with historical
honesty. Variant narratives of the same event are some-
times harmonized by combining them, thus confusing
both; sometimes they are mistaken for distinct and even
widely separated events and related as such, an error
which reflects upon his intelligence, since critics with
the incomplete data which he has left them are able to
correct it. He sometimes reproduces his sources just as
he finds them; at others he alters their whole com-
plexion by freely manipulating the text or making addi-
tions of his own. Everything in diction, style, or ideas
which is at variance with the requirements of the hypo-
thesis, is laid to his account, and held to be due to his
interference. The present text does not suit the hy-
pothesis, therefore it must have been altered, and the
redactor must have done it.
It is evident how convenient it is to have a redactor
always at hand to whom every miscarriage of the hypoth-
esis can be attributed. But it is also evident that the
frequent necessity for invoking his aid seriously weakens
the cause which he is summoned to support. It is
further evident that the suspicions cast upon the ac-
curacy with which the redactor has transmitted the
various texts which he had before him undermines the
entire basis of the hypothesis. For it undertakes to es-
tablish the existence of the so-called documents, and to
discriminate between them, by verbal criteria, which are
nullified if the original texts have, been tampered with.
And it is still further evident that the opposite traits of
character impliedly ascribed to the redactor, the utterly
capricious and irrational conduct imputed to him, and
the wanton and aimless manipulation of his authorities,
for which no motive can be imagined, tend to make this
most important functionary an impossible conception.
Both Ewald and Hupfeld were regarded at the time as
having made a retrograde movement instead of an ad-
vance, by falling back from the simplicity of the then
dominant Supplement Hypothesis into a greater complex-
ity than that of the original Document Hypothesis. The
fact is, however, that the complexity inevitably grows, as
the critics aim at greater precision, and endeavor to adapt
their scheme more exactly to the phenomena with which
they have to deal. The multiplication of machinery, which
is necessary before all can work smoothly, so overloads
their apparatus that it is in danger of breaking down by
its own weight. They find themselves obliged to pile
hypothesis upon hypothesis in order to relieve difficul-
ties, and explain diversities, and account for irregulari-
ties by subdivided documents, and successive recensions,
and a series of redactors, and unfathered glosses, and
variegated legal strata, and diaskeuasts in unlimited pro-
fusion, until the whole thing reaches a state of confusion
worse confounded, almost equivalent to that of the ex-
ploded Fragment Hypothesis itself.
For the sake of brevity the Pentateuchal documents
are commonly denoted by symbols. Dr. Dillmann em-
ploys the first four letters of the alphabet for the pur-
pose; he calls the Elohist A, the second Elohist B, the
Jehovist C, and the Deuteronomist D. Others use the
same symbols, but change the order of their application.
In the nomenclature that is now most prevalent the
term Elohist is applied exclusively to what used to be
known as the second Elohist, and it is represented by E;
the Jehovist by J. J and E are alleged to have ema-
nated from prophetic circles, J in the southern kingdom
of Judah, and E in the northern kingdom of Israel. The
second Elohist having been separated from what used to
be known as the Elohist document, the remnant was by
Wellhausen fancifully called Q, the initial of quattuor=
4, because of the four covenants which it contains.
Others prefer to designate it as P, the priestly writing, in
distinction from the prophetic histories J and E. The
critics further distinguish J1 and J2 E1 and E1, P1, P2
and P3, D1 and D2, which represent different strata in
these documents. Different Redactors are embraced
under the general symbol R, viz., Rj who combined J
and E, Rd who added D to JE, and Rh who completed
the Hexateuch by combining P with JED.
THE GROUNDS OF LITERARY PARTITION CONSIDERED.
While these various hypotheses, which have thus arisen
each on the ruins of its predecessor, are, as has been
shown, individually encumbered with insuperable diffi-
culties peculiar to each, the common arguments by which
their advocates seek to establish them are insufficient
and inconclusive.
1. The first argument, as already stated, in defence of
these several partition hypotheses, is drawn from the
alternate employment of the divine names Elohim and
Jehovah. It may be observed, however, that so far as
there is any thing remarkable in the alternation of these
names in the Pentateuch, it is confined almost entirely to
the book of Genesis, and chiefly to the earlier portions
of that book. It cannot, of course, be maintained that
the same writer could not make use of both names.
They are intermingled in various proportions in almost
every book of the Bible. The occurrence of both in the
same composition can of itself create no suspicion of its
lack of unity. The special grounds which are relied
upon in this case are, (1) the regularity of their alterna-
tion in successive sections; and (2) the testimony of
Ex. vi. 3, which is understood to declare that the name
Jehovah is not pre-Mosaic and was not in use in the
days of the patriarchs, whence it is inferred that P, by
whom this is recorded, systematically avoided the use of
Jehovah prior to the time when God thus revealed him-
self to Moses.
As to the first of these points, remarkable as is the
alternation of the divine names, particularly in the earlier
chapters of Genesis, it does not coincide so precisely
with sections or paragraphs as the advocates of these
hypotheses would have us imagine; for with all the care
that they have taken in dividing these sections to suit
their theory, each of these names is found repeatedly in
sections mainly characterized by the other. The diver-
gence between the hypothesis and the facts, on which it
is professedly based, is so great that it cannot give a
satisfactory explanation of them; and the arbitrary
methods to which its advocates are forced to resort, in
order to remove this divergence, are absolutely destruc-
tive of the hypothesis itself, as can be readily shown.
For the critics are obliged to play fast and loose with
the text in a manner and to a degree which renders
all their reasoning precarious. The alternation of the
divine names Elohim and Jehovah is made by them the
key of their whole position. This is the starting-point of
the partition, and of the entire hypothesis of the separate
documents. All the other criteria are supplementary to
this; they are worked out on this basis, and find in it
whatever justification and proof of their validity they
have. All hinges ultimately, therefore, on the exact trans-
mission of these fundamental and determining words.
At the outset the lines of demarcation are run exclu-
sively by them; and an error in these initial lines, by
confusing the limits of the documents, would introduce
error into their respective criteria as deduced from the
inspection of these faulty passages. If there is anything
that must be absolutely fixed and resolutely adhered to,
if the document hypothesis is to stand, it is the accuracy
of these divine names, which are the pillars on which the
whole critical structure rests. And yet the critics, in re-
peated instances, declare them to be incorrect or out of
place. They are, in fact, forced by the perplexities of
their situation thus to cut away the ground from beneath
their own feet. The divine names are made the prime
criteria for distinguishing the so-called documents. It is
said that J (the Jehovist) characteristically uses Jehovah,
E (the Elohist) Elohim, and P (the priestly writer) Elo-
him as far as Ex. vi. 2, 3, and Jehovah thereafter. But
the trouble is that with their utmost efforts the critics
find it impossible to adjust the documents into conform-
ity with this proposed scheme; though their alleged cor-
respondence with it is the sole ultimate warrant for their
existence, the supreme criterion, on which all other cri-
teria depend. In the first place, Elohim is repeatedly
found along with Jehovah in sections attributed to J.
Here the critics explain that the author of this document
used both names as the occasion demanded. But this is
putting the use of these names on an entirely different
ground from that of the distinctive usage of separate
writers. If J could use both of these names, and in so
doing was governed by their inherent signification and
by the appropriateness of each to the connection in which
they are severally employed, why might not P and E do
the same? or why, in fact, is there any need for J, P, or
E, or for any other than the one author to whom a uniform
and well-accredited tradition attributes all that it has
been proposed to parcel among these unknown and un-
discoverable personages? The appropriate use of these
divine names, as ascertained from the acknowledged em-
ployment of them by J, taken in connection with the ex-
plicit statement of Ex. vi. 3, not in the perverted sense
put upon it by the critics, but in its true signification, as
determined by the numerous parallels in the book of Ex-
odus, and throughout the entire Old Testament, will ex-
plain their alternation in Genesis in a satisfactory man-
ner, which the hypothetical documents have not done,
and cannot do.
Again, Jehovah occurs repeatedly in sections attributed
to P and E, where, by the hypothesis, only Elohim should
be found. Every possible evasion is employed to get
rid of these unwelcome facts. Where the facts are at
variance with the hypothesis, the invariable assumption
is that the hypothesis is right and the facts are wrong,
and require correction. The redactor has for some un-
imaginable reason been at fault. He has inserted a verse,
or a clause, or simply the unsuitable divine name of his
own motion, without there being anything in the original
text that corresponded to it; or he has erased the divine
name that was in the text, and substituted another for it;
or he has mixed two texts by inserting into the body of
one document a clause supposed to be taken from another.
And thus the attempt is made to bolster up the hypoth-
esis by an inference drawn from the hypothesis. And
the effect is to unsettle the text at those crucial points
where accuracy and certainty are essential to the validity
of the hypothesis, not to speak of the corollaries dedu-
cible from it.
Elohim occurs inconveniently for the critics in Gen.
vii. 9; hence Kautzsch claims that it must have been
originally Jehovah, while Dillmann insists that vs. 8, 9
were inserted by R (the redactor). The critics wish to
make it appear that two accounts of the flood, by P and
J respectively, have been blended in the existing text;
and that vs. 7-9 is J's account, and vs. 13-16 that by
P. But unfortunately for them, this is blocked by the
occurrence in each one of the verses assigned to J, of ex-
pressions foreign to J and peculiar to P; and to cap the
climax, the divine name is not J's but P's. The repe-
tition cannot, therefore, be wrested into an indication of
a duplicate narrative, but simply, as its language clearly
shows, emphasizes the fact that the entry into the ark
was made on the self-same day that the flood began.
"And Jehovah shut him in" (vii. 16b), occurs in the
midst of a P paragraph; hence it is alleged that this sol-
itary clause has been inserted from a supposed parallel
narrative by J. But this overlooks the significant and
evidently intended contrast of the two divine names in
this verse, a significance to which Delitzsch calls atten-
tion, thus discrediting the basis of the critical analysis,
which he nevertheless accepts. Animals of every species
went into the ark, as Elohim, the God of creation and
providence directed, mindful of the preservation of what
he had made; Jehovah, the guardian of his people, shut
Noah in.
In xiv. 22, Jehovah occurs not in a J section, and is
declared spurious for that reason; though it is the name
of God as known to Abram, in distinction from him as
he was known to Melchizedek (ver. 19).
Ch. xvii. is assigned to P because of the exclusive use
of Elohim in it after ver. I hence it is claimed that Je-
hovah in ver. 1 is an error for Elohim, notwithstanding
the regular recurrence of Jehovah in all that preceded
since the call of Abram (xii. 1), the identity of the phrase
with xii. 7; xviii. 1, and the obvious requirements of this
passage. Jehovah, the God of Abram, here reveals him-
self as God Almighty and Elohim, to signalize his power
to accomplish what nature could not effect, and to pledge
the immediate fulfilment of the long-delayed promise.
Ch. xx. records the affair with Abimelech, and the
name of God is for this reason Elohim, until the last
verse, where Jehovah's interference for the protection of
Sarah is spoken of. The significance of this change of
names is lost upon the critics, who assign the chapter to
E because of Elohim, and then can account for Jehovah
in no other way than by imputing ver. 18 to R.
In xxi. 1, 2, there is a curious specimen of critical dis-
section. Each verse is split in two, and one sentence
fashioned out of the two first halves, and another out of
the two second halves. The critical necessity for this
grows out of the need of finding the birth of Isaac in
both J and P. The alleged equivalence of the two
clauses in ver. 1 is made a pretext for sundering them,
and assigning to J "And Jehovah visited Sarah, as he
had said;" and to P the rest of the verse, "And Jehovah
did unto Sarah as he had spoken," which last is then
filled out by ver. 2b, at the set time of which Elohim
had spoken to him." But as it is inadmissible for Jehovah
to stand in a P clause (ver. 1b), it is assumed that it must
originally have been Elohim. This is all built upon the
sand, however; for ver. 1 does not contain two identical
statements. The second is an advance upon the first,
stating that the purpose of the visitation was to fulfil a
promise; and what that promise was is further stated
in ver. 2. All is closely connected and progressive
throughout; and it cannot be rent asunder as the critics
propose. Jehovah, the God of Abraham, visited Sarah,
and fulfilled his word to her, and Sarah bare her son at
the set time that Elohim, the mighty Creator, had said.
The names are in every way appropriate as they stand.1
In Abimelech's interview with Abraham, resulting in
the naming of Beersheba, the name of God is appropri-
ately Elohim (xxi. 22, . 23); but when Abraham wor-
shipped there he called, with equal propriety, on the
name of Jehovah (ver. 33). The critics, ignoring the true
reason of the interchange of names, tell us that ver. 33 is
a fragment of J inserted by R in a narrative of E.
In ch. xxii. Elohim puts Abraham to the trial, the an-
gel of Jehovah interposes and blesses him. The de-
mand of the Creator for the surrender of the dearest and
the best is supplemented by the God of grace and salva-
tion, who approves and rewards the mental surrender,
and in the substituted animal supplies for the time then
present an accepted type of the true sacrifice. This ob-
viously designed and significant change of names is lost
upon the critics, who find only the unmeaning usage of
distinct writers, and can only account for Moriah,2 (ver.
1 Kautsch seems to be alone in venturing to split xxxix. 3 and 5, in a
similar manner, and giving the second clause in each verse to E, with
its Jehovah converted into Elohim.
2 A compound proper name with an abbreviated form of Jehovah as
one of its constituents.
2), or Jehovah (ver. 11), as textual errors, and for the re-
peated occurrence of Jehovah subsequently by making
vs. 14-13, an interpolation by R, or an insertion from J.
But the alleged interpolation is plainly an essential part
of the narrative; the story of such a trial, so borne, is
pointless without the words of commendation and bless-
Isaac's blessing of Esau (xxvii. 27, 28) is torn asunder
because Jehovah in the first sentence is followed by Elo-
him in the second.
So Jacob's dream, in which he beholds the angels of
Elohim (xxviii. 12), and Jehovah (ver. 13); although his
waking (ver. 16) from the sleep into which he had fallen
(vs. 11, 12) shows that these cannot be parted. Jacob's
vow (vs. 20, 21) is arbitrarily amended by striking out
"then shall Jehovah be my God," because of his previous
mention of Elohim when referring to his general provi-
dential benefits.
The story of the birth of Leah's first four sons (xxix,
31-35), and that of the fifth and sixth (xxx. 17-20), are
traced to different documents notwithstanding their
manifest connection, because Jehovah occurs in the
former and Elohim in the latter.
Elohim in xxxi. 50, in a so-called J paragraph, is for
that reason summarily pronounced spurious.
Since Elohim occurs in xxxiii. 5b, 11, these are de-
clared to be isolated clauses from E in a J section.
The battle with Amalek (Ex. xvii. 8-13) is assigned to
E because of Elohim, ver. 9; but the direction to record
it, the commemorative altar, and the oath of perpetual
hostility to Amalek (vs. 14-16), which stand in a most in-
timate relation to it, are held to be from another docu-
ment, because of Jehovah.
In Jethro's visit (Ex. xviii.) Elohim (eleven times)
naturally preponderates in what is said by or to one not
of the chosen race; and yet Jehovah is used (six times)
where there is specific allusion to the God of Israel.
But each Jehovah clause must, according to the critics,
have been inserted in E's narrative by R from an as-
sumed parallel account by J.
Ex. xix. is mainly referred to E; but the repeated oc-
currence of Jehovah compels the critics to assume that
R has in several instances substituted it for Elohim and
even made more serious changes in the text.
Ex. xxiv. is divided between E and J; but the division
cannot be so made as to correspond with the divine
names in the current text.
No critic pretends to follow the indication of the di-
vine names in dissecting Ex. xxxii.
Dr. Harper, in the "Hebraica," vi. 1, p. 35, says of the
critical analysis of Ex. i. 1-vu. 7, "the language is but
a poor guide, owing probably to R's interference; not
even the names of the Deity are to be relied on implic-
itly, being freely intermingled." And p. 47, on Ex. vii.
8-xii. 51: "In this section the name of the Deity is ex-
clusively Jehovah, which must have been substituted by
R in all the E passages." In the "Hebraica," vi. 4, p. 269,
he confesses that Jehovah runs "all through E's material"
in the section Num. x. 29-xvii. 28 (E. V. ver. 13); and p.
287 complains in regard to Num. xx. 1-xxvii. 11, of "the
unsatisfactory use of the names of the Deity; Yahweh is
the prevailing name, Elohim occurring but nine times in
the entire section; this is, however, more easily explained
on the R hypothesis than by any other." That is to say,
the use of the divine names runs athwart the critical hy-
pothesis to such an extent as to be quite unsatisfactory to
its advocates. And the easiest way out of the difficulty is
to assume that R has altered the name wherever the
exigencies of the hypothesis require such a supposition.
For the striking significance of the divine names in the
history of Balaam (Num. xxii.-xxiv.) the critics have no
appreciation, but seek to resolve all by their mechanical
rule of blended documents. The occurrence of Elohim
four times in xxii. 2-21 is urged as determining it to
belong to E; but Jehovah also occurs four times, where
it is assumed that the word was originally Elohim, but it
has been changed by R. Jehovah predominates in vs.
22-35 J but Elohim is found in ver. 22, for which R is
again held responsible. The next two chapters are di-
vided between the same two documents, but with some
uncertainty to which each should belong. Wellhausen
assigns ch. xxiii. to J, and ch. xxiv. to E; Dillmann re-
verses it, giving ch. xxiii. to E, and ch. xxiv. to J. But
however they dispose of them, the divine names will not
suit, and R must be supposed to have manipulated them
here again.
The real facts are these. Balaam only once uses Elo-
him (xxii. 38); and then it is to mark the contrast be-
tween the divine and the merely human. Apart from
this he invariably uses the divine name Jehovah, whether
he is speaking to Balak's messengers (xxii. 8, 13, 18, 19),
to Balak (xxiii. 3, 12, 26; xxiv. 13), or uttering his prophe-
cies (xxiii. 8, 21; xxiv. 6). He thus indicates that it was
Jehovah whom he professed to consult, and whose will he
undertook to declare. And it was because of his sup-
posed power with the God of Israel that Balak desired
his aid. Hence Balak uses Jehovah in addressing
Balaam (xxiii. 17; xxiv. 11); only once Elohim (xxiii. 27),
as non-Israelites commonly do. When the writer speaks
of God in connection with this heathen seer, he stead-
fastly uses Elohim at the outset. Balaam regularly pro-
poses to tell the messengers of Balak what Jehovah will
say to him, but the writer with equal uniformity says
that Elohim came to him, and spoke to him (xxii. 9, 10,
12, 20, 22). He is not recognized as an accredited prophet
of Jehovah. But while it is only Elohim, the general
term denoting the Deity, which is put by the sacred
writer in relation to Balaam considered as a heathen
seer, it is the Angel of Jehovah who comes forth to con-
front him on his unhallowed errand, and Jehovah the
guardian and defender of Israel who constrains him to
pronounce a blessing instead of a curse. Hence from
xxii. 22 onward, wherever the writer speaks, he uses the
name Jehovah, not only in the encounter by the way but
after his arrival, as determining what he shall say. To
this there are but two exceptions. In xxiii. 4, when Ba-
laam had gone to look for auguries, "Elohim met him,"
reminding us that he was but a heathen seer still; yet it
was Jehovah (vs. 5, 16) who put the word in his mouth.
In xxiv. 2, "the Spirit of Elohim came upon him," ex-
presses the thought that he was divinely inspired, and
spoke by an impulse from above and not from prompt-
ings of his own; but his conviction that it was Jehovah's
purpose to bless Israel kept him from seeking auguries
as at other times (ver. 1). The partition hypothesis ob-
literates this nice discrimination entirely, and sees noth-
ing but the unmeaning usage of different writers coupled
with R's arbitrary disturbance of the text for no imagin-
able reason.
This rapid survey of a few prominent passages suffi-
ciently shows the character of the evasions by which the
critics seek to cover up the lack of correspondence be-
tween their hypotheses and the textual phenomena of the
divine names. This want of correspondence betrays it-
self in numerous signal instances. The attempts to
relieve it are based on arbitrary assumptions, which are
mere inferences from the hypothesis which they are ad-
duced to support. In this process passages which are
inseparable are rent asunder, and in many cases the real
significance of the divine names is ignored or marred.
THE UNITY OF SHE PENTATEUCH 99
And as a further consequence the main point above in-
sisted upon is fully established. The current hypothe-
sis of the critics is built on minute verbal distinctions,
which imply an accuracy and certainty of text which
they themselves unsettle by their frequent assumptions
of errors and of manipulations by the redactor. If he
altered the divine names, and inserted or modified clauses
containing them in the instances and to the extent alleged,
who is to vouch that he has been more scrupulous else-
where? The hypothesis is self-destructive; for it can
only be defended by arguments which undermine its
foundations. And even if it were not possible, as in
fact it is, to account satisfactorily for the interchange of
divine names on other grounds, the proof is ample that
the hypothesis of distinct writers will not explain it.
Here, however, the testimony of Ex. vi. 2, 3, is ad-
duced to show that P carefully and designedly avoided
the use of the name Jehovah in all that he had pre-
viously written, but regularly employed this name from
that place onward. The passage reads: "God spake
unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Jehovah: and I ap-
peared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob as God
Almighty; but by my name Jehovah I was not known
unto them." The critics interpret this to mean that the
name Jehovah was then first revealed to Moses, and that
it had not been in use in the time of the patriarchs.
They hence regard all prior sections containing the
name Jehovah as in conflict with this statement, espe-
cially as Jehovah is used not only in the language of the
writer himself, but when he is reporting the words of those
who lived long before Moses's time. Such sections, it is
said, imply a different belief as to the origin and use of
this sacred name, and must, therefore, be attributed to
another writer, who held that it was known from the
earliest periods, and who has recorded his idea upon
100 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH
that subject (Gen. iv. 26) that men began to call upon
the name of Jehovah in the days of Enosh.
But the sense thus put upon Ex. vi. 3, is altogether in-
admissible. For
(1) It is plain, upon the critics' own hypothesis, that
the redactor, to whom in their view the Pentateuch and
Genesis owe their present form, did not so understand it.
After recording the history of the patriarchs, in which
free use is made of the name Jehovah, he is here sup-
posed to introduce the statement, from the mouth of
God himself, that they had never heard this name, and
thus to have stultified himself completely.
(2) It is equally plain that it could not have been so
intended by the writer. The statement that God was not
known by his name Jehovah unto the patriarchs is ex-
plained by the repeated declaration that Israel (Ex. vi.
7; x. 2; xvi. 12; xxix. 46), the Egyptians (vii. 5; xiv. 4, 18),
and Pharaoh (vii. 17; viii. 6, 18 (E. V. 10, 22); ix. 14, 29,
comp. v. 2) should know that he was Jehovah; not that
they should be told that this was his name, but that they
should witness the manifestation of those attributes which
the name denoted. That he was not so known by the
patriarchs can only mean, therefore, that while tokens of
God's almighty power had been vouchsafed to them, no
such disclosure had been made of the perfections in-
dicated by his name Jehovah as was now to be granted
to their descendants.
(3) The uniform usage of Scripture proves the same
thing. A true apprehension of the divine perfections,
and not a mere acquaintance with the word Jehovah, is
the constant meaning of the phrase "to know the name
of Jehovah" (1 Kin. viii. 43; Ps. ix. 11 (E. V. 10); xci. 14;
Isa. lii. 6; lxiv. 1 (E. V. 2); Jer. xvi. 21; Ezek. xxxix. 6, 7).
It is important to observe here precisely what these
arguments prove, viz., that Ex. vi. 3, was not written with
THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 101
an antiquarian interest, nor from an antiquarian point of
view. It does not concern itself about the history of the
word Jehovah, and cannot with may fairness be regarded
as affirming or denying anything about it. Its sole de-
sign is to declare that Jehovah was about to manifest him-
self in the character represented by this name as he had
not done to the patriarchs. Since, then, the writer did
not intend to assert that the word was unknown to Abra-
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, there is no reason why, in relating
their history, he might not consistently introduce this
word in language uttered by them or addressed to them.
Neither, it should also be observed, was the patriarchal
history written in the spirit of a verbal antiquary, so as
to make a point of rigorously abstaining from employing
any word not then in current use. Even if the name
Jehovah were not in use prior to the days of Moses, the
God of the patriarchs was the very same as Jehovah, and
the writer might properly adopt the dialect of his own
time in speaking of him for the purpose of asserting the
identity of the God of Abraham with the God who ap-
peared to Moses and who led Israel out of Egypt. It is
customary to speak of the call of Abraham and of the
conversion of Paul, though the patriarch's name was
Abram when he was called, and the apostle's name was
Saul at the time of his conversion.
Whether the name Jehovah was ante-Mosaic is a legiti-
mate subject of inquiry. But it is not answered cate-
orically in the negative by Ex. vi. 3, nor inferentially in
the affirmative by the use of this word in the patriarchal
history. That question lay out of the plane of the
writer's thoughts in the one place as well as in the other,
and no express utterance is made regarding it. Much
less have contradictory answers been given to it. The
inconsistency which the critics affirm does not exist.
There is consequently no difficulty from this source in
supposing that the author of Ex. vi. 3, may likewise have
penned the Jehovist sections in Genesis. This passage,
though one of the pillars of the partition hypothesis,
really lends it no support.
Neither does Gen. iv. 26: "Then began men to call
upon the name of Jehovah." This is understood by the
critics to affirm that in the belief of if the name Jehovah
came into use in the days of Enosh the son of Seth.
This might seem to accord with Eve's use of Elohim (iv.
25) at the birth of Seth, and in her conversation with the
serpent (iii. 1-5), but does not agree with her mention of
Jehovah (iv. 1) at the birth of Cain, long before the time
of either Seth or Enosh. Reuss says that the writer here
contradicts himself. Dillmann can only evade the diffi-
culty by a transposition of the text. All which simply
proves that their interpretation of iv. 26 is false. It fixes
the origin not of the word Jehovah, but of the formal in-
vocation of the Most High in public worship.
If we may take a suggestion from Ex. vi. 3, it implies
that different names of God have each their distinct and
proper signification; and this inherent signification of the
terms must be taken into the account if any successful
attempt is to be made to explain their usage. The me-
chanical and superficial solution of two blended docu-
ments offered by the critics will not answer. Ex. vi. 3,
instead of contradicting the book of Genesis, affords the
key to the phenomena which it presents.
The derivation and primary signification of Elohim
are in dispute; according to some authorities the radical
meaning is that of power, according to others it denotes
one who is the object of fear and adoration. It is the
general name for God, and is applied both to the true
God and to pagan deities. Jehovah is not a common but
a proper noun. It belongs to the true God alone and is
his characteristic name, by which he is distinguished
from all others, and by which he made himself known to
Israel his chosen people. Accordingly Jehovah denotes
specifically what God is in and to Israel; Elohim what
he is to other nations as well. That universal agency
which is exercised in the world at large, and which is di-
rected upon Israel and Gentiles alike, is, by Elohim, the
God of creation and of providence. That special mani-
festation of himself which is made to his own people is
by Jehovah, the God of revelation and of redemption.
The sacred writer uses one name or the other according
as he contemplates God under one or the other point of
view. Where others than those of the chosen race
are the speakers, as Abimelech (Gen. xxi. 22, 23) or
Pharaoh (xli. 38, 39), it is natural that they should say
Elohim, unless they specifically refer to the God of the
patriarchs (xxvi. 28), or of Israel (Ex. v. 2), when they
will say Jehovah. In transactions between Abraham or
his descendants and those of another race God may be
spoken of under aspects common to them both, and the
name Elohim be employed; or he may be regarded under
aspects specifically Israelitish and the name Jehovah be
used. Again, as Elohim is the generic name for God as
distinguished from beings of a different grade, it is the
term proper to be used when God and man, the divine
and the human, are contrasted, as Gen. xxx. 2; xxxii.
28; xlv. 5, 7, 8; 1. 19, 20.
Hengstenberg1 maintained that Elohim denotes a lower
and Jehovah a higher stage of the knowledge and appre-
hension of God. The revelation of God advances from
his disclosure as Elohim in the creation (Gen. i.) to his
disclosure as Jehovah in his covenant with Israel at
Sinai; and in the interval between these two extremes
he may be designated by one name or the other, accord-
ing to the conception which is before the mind of the
1 Die Authentic des Pentateuches, I., p. 286, etc.
writer at the time. In any manifestation surpassing
those which have preceded he may be called Jehovah;
or if respect is had to more glorious manifestations that
are to follow, he may be called Elohim. The names ac-
cording to this view are relatively employed to indicate
higher or lower grades of God's manifestation of himself.
There seems to be a measure of truth in this representa-
tion of the matter, at least in its general outlines. The
name Jehovah shines out conspicuously at three marked
epochs, while in the intervals between them it is dimmed
and but rarely appears. Jehovah is almost exclusively
used in the account of our first parents, recording the
initiating of God's kingdom on earth (ch. ii. 4-iv. 16), in
its contrast with the material creation described in ch. i.
in the lives of Abraham and Isaac, recording the setting
apart of one among the families of mankind to found the
chosen people of God in its contrast with the preceding
universal degeneracy (Gen. xii.-xvii. 1; xxvi.); and God's
revelation of himself to Moses as the deliverer and God
of Israel, fulfilling the promises made to their fathers, in
contrast with the antecedent period of waiting and for-
eign residence and oppression. From this time onward
Jehovah is the dominant name, since the theocratic re-
lation was then, fully established. The general corre-
spondence of Hengstenberg's theory with the marked
prevalence of the name Jehovah in the sections indicated,
and its comparatively infrequent occurrence in the inter-
vening portions of the history is manifest; but there
are exceptional cases, which cannot be accounted for on
this sole principle, such as the occasional occurrence of
Jehovah in the narrative of the flood, or in the lives of
Jacob and Joseph, or of Elohim in Gen. xvii., which is
one of the crowning passages in Abraham's life. Here
Hengstenberg found himself obliged to resort to unsatis-
factory and far-fetched explanations, which have brought
THE UNITY OF THE PENT'ATEUCH 105
his whole theory into unmerited discredit. These, how-
ever, merely show, not that his principle was incorrect,
but that it was partial and was in certain cases limited
by other considerations, which must likewise be taken
into the account in order to a just view of the whole
subject.
Kurtz1 regards Elohim as denoting almighty power
and Jehovah progressive self-manifestation, which, prop-
erly understood and applied, furnishes the needed cor-
rective to the view just considered. For a right concep-
tion of the omnipotent energy of Elohim in creation and
providence, and of Jehovah as unfolding, guiding, and
sustaining his scheme of grace, and hence standing in a
special relation to the chosen race and out of relation to
Gentiles, to whom he has not made himself known and
who are suffered to walk in their own ways, supplies the
solution of the exceptional cases above referred to. But
unfortunately Kurtz's antagonism to Hengstenberg pre-
vented his combining his own suggestion with that of
his predecessor. And his fondness for theorizing led
him into unpractical refinements. Thus he explains
Jehovah according to its derivation (Ex. iii. 14, to mean
not the great I AM, the Being by way of eminence, the
self-existent God, the source of all existence, but he who
will become, is ever becoming, the self-developing God,
an expression which taken strictly savors of the pan-
theistic philosophy, for which Kurtz had no affinity,
though in this borrowing its terminology. He further
explains Elohim to be the God of the beginning and of
the end, and Jehovah the God of all that intervenes
between these two extremes. Elohim is the creator and
originator, imparting, the initial potency, Jehovah con-
ducts the development, and Elohim is the final judge
whether the development has miscarried through the
1 Einheit der Genesis, p. xlix. sqq. see also p. xxxi., note.
abuse of human freedom, or has reached its proper end
so that God is all in all. This might account for the
predominance of Elohim in the flood which overwhelmed
the guilty world; but it was Jehovah who overthrew the
flagitious cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and swept their
abominations from the holy land.
It should further be observed that while in certain
cases one of the divine names is manifestly appropriate
to the exclusion of the other, there are others in which
either name might properly be used, and it is at the
discretion of the writer which he will employ. When an
event is capable of being viewed under a double aspect,
either as belonging to the general scheme of God's uni-
versal providence or as embraced within the adminis-
tration of his plan of grace, either Elohim or Jehovah
would be in place, and it depends upon the writer's con-
ception at the time which he will employ. It is not
necessary, therefore, in Genesis any more than in other
books of the Bible, to be able to show that there was a
necessity for using that divine name which is actually
employed. It is sufficient to show, as can invariably be
done, that the writer might properly use the name which
he has actually chosen. This fully refutes the purely
mechanical view, which overlooks the difference in the
meaning and usage of these names, and their appropri-
ateness to the connection in which they are found, and
sees in their alternation nothing but the unmeaning
peculiarities of style of different writers.
II. The second argument in favor of the various par-
tition hypotheses is drawn from the alleged fact that
when the several sections or paragraphs, respectively
assigned to the supposed writers separately, are put to-
gether they form a continuous and connected whole.
But--
(1) The allegation is not well founded. It is only
they who have a theory to support who can fail to see
the chasms and abrupt transitions which are created by
the partition, and which require in order to fill them the
very passages which have been abstracted as belonging
to another document. Thus in ch. i. P gives an account
of the creation, and declares that God saw that everything
that he had made was very good. And then in vi. 11, 12,
without the slightest explanation, he suddenly announces
that the earth was corrupt before God and was filled with
violence so that he was determined to destroy it. This is
quite inexplicable without the account of the fall, which
has been sundered from it and given to J. In xix. 29
P tells what happened when God destroyed the cities of
the plain, without having before alluded to such a de-
struction as having occurred; the account of it is only to
be found in J. In xxviii. 1-5 P tells that Isaac sent
Jacob to Padan-aram to obtain a wife. But his entire
residence there, eventful as it was, is in P an absolute
blank. In xxxi. 18 he is said to be returning with goods
and cattle, and in xxxv. 22-26 his twelve children are enu-
merated, though no previous intimation had been given
by P of his having either property or a family. How all
this came about is related only in the other documents.
Numerous gaps and chasms of this nature are found in
each of the so-called documents, and are in every case
created by the critical partition. The critics undertake
to account for all such cases by saying that the redactor,
having given the narrative from one of his sources, de-
signedly omits what is contained in the others to avoid
needless repetition. And yet in other cases we are told
that he scrupulously retains the contents of his different
sources, even though it leads to such superfluous repeti-
tions as the double mention of Noah's entry into the ark
and of various particulars connected with the flood
as given both by J and P. They are besides perpetu-
ally drawing inferences that imply the completeness of
the documents, as when they attribute to P the notion
that sacrifice was first introduced by Moses; or when
they interpret passages at variance with their context on
the assumption that nothing had been joined with them
like that from which the so-called critical analysis sepa-
rates them. It is thus that the most of the alleged con-
trarieties are created. In fact critical partition would
lose its chief interest and importance in the eyes of its
advocates if they were not allowed in this manner to alter
and even revolutionize the meaning of the sacred text.
(2) In many cases where continuity is claimed it is
only accomplished by bridging evident gaps by means of
scattered clauses sundered here and there from their
proper connection, as is done for J in the account of the
flood, and for P in the early history of Abraham. Or
by alleging that the texts of two documents have been
mixed, and because a paragraph attributed to one docu-
ment contains occasional words or phrases which are
assumed to be peculiar to another, inferring that these
must have been taken from some imaginary parallel pas-
sage in that document, which is necessary to make out
its continuity, as in both J and E in the history of
(3) The apparent connection produced by bringing
separated passages together and removing the interven-
ing paragraphs or sections is altogether factitious. This
may be so adroitly done that such passages will read con-
tinuously as though there had been no omission. But
any other book can be subjected to the same mode of
treatment with a like result. Paragraphs of greater or
less extent can be removed from any piece of writing
whatever without the reader suspecting it, unless he is
informed of the fact.
(4) The proofs are abundant that each of the so-called
documents either directly alludes to, or presupposes, what
is contained in the others. This is, of course, quite incon-
sistent with the hypothesis of their independent origin.
The utmost pains have been taken by the critics to con-
struct their documents so as to avoid this inter-relation;
but it has been impossible for them to prevent it alto-
gether. Hence they are compelled to acknowledge their
intimate connection. Kayser regards J as the redactor of
JE; Dillmann thinks that J possessed and often borrowed
from E; Julicher that P drew from JE. Both the same-
ness of plan and the reciprocal relation of the narratives
in all the so-called documents throughout the entire Pen-
tateuchal history implies a dependence of one upon the
other. This is admitted even by Wellhausen.
(5) The critics are in the habit of playing fast and
loose with the criterion of continuity, which at times is
their sole or chief dependence, and at others is disre-
garded entirely. While they profess to trace documents
in a great measure by the connection of their several
parts, they in numerous instances sunder what is most
intimately bound together by necessary implications or
express allusions, thus nullifying their own principal
clew and invalidating their own conclusions.
III. The third argument in favor of the partition hy-
pothesis is drawn from parallel passages, which are al-
leged to be separate accounts of the same thing taken
from different documents. But--
(1) In many instances what are claimed as parallel
sections are not really such, but relate to matters quite
distinct which, however, bear some resemblance to each
other. Thus, to refer to an instance previously adduced,
there is nothing surprising in the fact that Abraham
should on two occasions have been betrayed into a pre-
varication respecting his wife. His having done so once
in apprehended peril might easily incline him to do so
again in similar circumstances. And that Isaac, when
similarly situated, should imitate the error of his father,
is not at all incredible. All history would be thrown
into confusion, if a mere general resemblance in differ-
ent events were to lead to their identification. How
easy it would be for some future historian to claim that
the accounts of the different battles at Bull Run, in the
late war of the rebellion, all issuing in one way, were
merely varying traditions of one and the same. To infer
the identity of the facts from the points of agreement in
the narratives, and then the discrepancy in the state-
ments regarding it from their disagreement in other
points, which simply shows the facts to be distinct, is to
construct a self-contradictory argument. Moreover, the
assertion that what are recorded as distinct events are in
reality variant accounts of one and the same thing, is
made without the semblance of proof or evidence of any
sort. It is simply based on the prior assumption of the
untrustworthiness of the sacred historian. His explicit
statement is set aside as valueless beside the arbitrary
conjecture of the critic. This is not a conclusion estab-
lished by the divisive criticism, but is assumed in advance
as a basis on which the divisive criticism is itself built.
This reveals the unfriendly animus of the current critical
analysis, which is inwrought in it, and inseparable from
it, and is one of the determining influences by which it
has been shaped.
(2) Where the events referred to are the same, they
are mentioned under a different aspect or adduced for a
different purpose, which accounts for the repetition.
Thus the renewed mention in Gen. ii. of the formation
of man and the lower animals, which had already been
spoken of in ch. i., is no proof that these are by separate
writers; for each chapter has a design of its own, which
is steadfastly kept in view, the second being not parallel
to, but the sequel of, the first. Noah's entry into the ark
is twice recorded, without, however, any implication that
two documents have here been drawn upon. After the
general statement (vii. 7-9) that he went in with his fam-
ily and various species of living things, the writer wishes
to emphasize more exactly that he went in on the very
same day that the flood began (vs. 13-16), and so restates
it with that view.
(3) In the simple style of Hebrew narrative it is usual
to make a summary statement at the outset, which is
then followed by a detailed account of the particulars in-
cluded under it, and in recording the execution of a com-
mand to restate the injunctions to which obedience is
rendered. The critics seize upon such passages and en-
deavor to turn them to the advantage of the partition
hypothesis, but in so doing sunder what evidently
belongs together. Thus in Gen. xxviii. 5, it is said that
Isaac sent away Jacob and he went to Padan-aram, unto
Laban, the brother of Rebekah. His actual journey is
described in xxviii. 10-xxix. 13. The critics rend these
asunder, giving the former to P and the latter to JE. In
like manner xxxi. 18 is a summary statement of Jacob's
leaving Padan-aram to go to Isaac, his father, unto the
land of Canaan. This is followed by the details of his
journey (xxxi. 20-xxxiii. 17), all which is given to JE,
while the preliminary statement is assigned to P. So
the account of Jacob's funeral (1. 4-11) is given to J,
the summary statement of the burial (vs. 12, 13) to P.
A like severance of what is closely related is made where
directions are given and carried into effect. Thus Sarah
proposes to Abraham that he should take Hagar as his
wife, to which he consents (xvi. 2); this is given to J.
But the carrying of this proposal into effect (ver. 3) is
given to P. The LORD bids Moses tell the children of
Israel how to observe the passover (Ex. xii. 2-20); this is
given to P. In obedience to this direction Moses sum-
mons the elders and explains the observance to them (vs.
21-27); this is given to J.
(4) Wellhausen and Dillmann have pushed the parti-
tion by means of alleged parallels to the most extrava-
gant lengths by what they call doublets. This brings
the subdivision down in many cases to minute para-
graphs, or even single clauses. In a transaction which
is accomplished by successive steps or stages, any one of
these steps may be regarded as the doublet of another at
the pleasure of the critic; that is to say, they may be
considered as variant statements of the same thing by a
different writer and accordingly assigned to distinct doc-
uments. Or any repetition of the same thought in va-
ried language, by which the writer would emphasize his
statement or more fully explain his meaning, may be
reckoned a doublet, and the clauses partitioned accord-
ingly. Thus in Gen. xxxvii. two things are recited which
awakened the hatred of Joseph's brethren; first (vs. 3,
4), his father's partiality for him, secondly (vs. 5-11), his
dreams, which he related to them. These statements
supplement each other, and must be combined in order
to a complete view of the grounds of their hostility.
But they are converted into two different modes of ac-
counting for the same thing, the former being the con-
ception entertained by J, the latter that of E. Again, a
doublet is found in the two clauses of xxi. 1, "The LORD
visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto
Sarah as he had spoken." These are reckoned equiva-
lents, and are divided between J and P, whereas the
second is additional to, and explanatory of, the meaning
of the first.
The alleged doublets, incoherences, and inconsisten-
cies, by which the attempt is made to bolster up the
weakness of other arguments for the original separate-
ness of J and E, are capable of being set aside in detail.
They are for the most part hypercritical cavilling, mag-
nifying molehills into mountains, and measuring ancient
oriental narratives by the rules of modern occidental
discourse.
IV. The fourth argument is based upon alleged differ-
ences of diction, style, and ideas. The process by which
these are ascertained is that of instituting at the begin-
ning a careful comparison of two sections, supposed to
be from different documents, such as the first two sec-
tions of Genesis. All differences of thought and lan-
guage between them are minutely noted, and the com-
parison is then extended to contiguous sections, and so
on, gradually and guardedly, to the remaining portions
of the Pentateuch, all being assigned to one or the other
document on the basis of the criteria already gathered,
and which are constantly accumulating as the work pro-
ceeds; the utmost pains being taken so to adjust the
sections that all references from one to the other shall
fall within the limits of the same document, and that the
intervening passages which are given to the other docu-
ment shall not be missed. But notwithstanding the
seeming plausibility of this method, and the apparent
scientific caution and accuracy with which it is con-
ducted, it is altogether fallacious. For--
(1) The argument is simply reasoning in a circle.
The differences are first created and then argued from.
The documents are first framed to correspond with cer-
tain assumed characteristic differences, and then their
correspondence with these characteristics is urged in
proof of their objective reality. All paragraphs, clauses,
and parts of clauses, in which a certain class of alleged
criteria occur, are systematically assigned to one docu-
ment, and those having another class of criteria are,
with like regularity, assigned to another document; and
when the process is complete, all the criteria of one class
are in one document, and those of the other class are in
the other document, simply because the critic has put
them there. The documents accord with the hypothesis
because they have been constructed by the hypothesis.
(2) The proofs relied upon for diversity of diction are
factitious, and can be applied with like effect to any
book of any author. All words in one of the so-called
documents which do not chance to be found in the oth-
ers are carefully gathered out and strung together in a
formidable list. Any one treatise of an author can in
this way equally be made to prove that any other of his
treatises was not written by him, or any part of one to
prove that the remaining portion came from another
hand. That certain words which occur in one series of
paragraphs or sections do not occur in another proves
nothing unless it can be shown that the writer had oc-
casion to use them. Especially is this the case when
the words adduced, are in familiar and common use, or
are the only words suited to express a given idea; these
obviously cannot be classed as the peculium of any
one writer.1 Also when they are of infrequent occur-
rence, and so give no indication of a writer's habitual
usage, or are words belonging to one particular spe-
cies of composition. It is not surprising that poetic
words should not be found in a document from which
poetic passages are systematically excluded; or that
legal words and phrases should be limited to the docu-
ment to which the legal passages are regularly assigned;
or that words appropriate to ordinary narrative should
1 My friend Professor McCurdy, of Toronto University, pertinently
suggests in a private note that much of the critical argument from dic-
tion would prove too much if it proved anything. If words of this de-
scription furnish a criterion, it would imply not merely a diversity of
writers, but writers using different dialects or languages.
THE UNITY OF TRE PENTATEUCH 115
chiefly abound in those documents to which the bulk of
such narrative is given. Since the entire ritual law is
given to P, and the great body of the history, together
with all the poetical passages, to JE, a corresponding
difference of diction and style must necessarily result
from this diversity of theme, and of the character of the
composition, without being by any means suggestive of a
difference of writers. When the words alleged to be
characteristic of one of the documents occur but rarely
in that document, and are absent from the great majority
of its sections, this must, on the critical hypothesis, be
regarded as accidental; so may their absence from the
sections of the other document be.
It must also be remembered that a writer who has a
reasonable command of language may vary his expres-
sions in conveying the same idea. It is not a safe as-
sumption that he cannot use words or phrases in any
place which he has not used elsewhere. Thus Dillmann
("Die Nicher, Exodus and Leviticus," p. 619), argues
that a peculiar diction is not always indicative of separate
authorship. After saying that the passage of which he
is speaking has some of the characteristics of J, but
"much more that is unusual and peculiar," he adds, "The
most of this nature may be accounted for partly by the
poetic and oratorical style, and partly by the new and
peculiar objects and ideas that were to be expressed,
and it can scarcely suffice to justify the conclusion of an
altogether peculiar writer, from whom we have nothing
besides."
(3) When synonymous expressions are used to con-
vey the same idea this does not justify the assumption
that they have been taken from different documents, and
that they severally represent the usage of distinct writ-
ers. They are not to be explained in this superficial and
mechanical manner. Synonyms are not usually exact
counterparts. There is commonly a distinction, more or
less clear, which may be observed between them, some
slight difference in their meaning or their association,
which governs their employment and leads to the use of
one rather than another in particular connections.
(4) The alleged criteria frequently conflict with each
other, and with the criteria derived from the divine
names. Words or phrases said to be characteristic of
one writer meet in the same section, or even in the same
sentence, with those that are said to characterize the
other. In such cases the critics resort to various sub-
terfuges to relieve the situation. Sometimes they admit
that what has been considered characteristic of one docu-
went is found likewise in another, which is equivalent to
a confession that it is not a distinctive criterion at all.
At other times they claim that two texts have been
mingled, and that expressions or clauses from one docu-
ment have been interpolated in the other, whereas these
blended criteria simply prove that the same writer freely
uses both in the same connection. Again, at other times
they claim that such passages belong originally to
neither document, but are insertions by the redactor,
who is always at hand to account for phenomena at vari-
ance with the hypothesis, when no other mode of escape
is possible. It is obviously possible by such devices to
carry through any hypothesis, however preposterous. If
all opposing phenomena can be set aside as interpola-
tions, or as the work of the redactor, the most refractory
texts can be tortured into accordance with the critic's
arbitrary presuppositions.
(5) The critic is engaged in solving an indeterminate
equation. The line of partition depends upon the
criteria, and the criteria depend upon the line of parti-
tion; and both of these are unknown quantities. Of
necessity the work is purely hypothetical from first to
last, and the liability to error increases with every step
of the process. A mistake in the criteria will lead to a
wrong partition, and this to further false criteria, and so
on indefinitely; and there is no sure method of correct-
ing or even ascertaining the error. The critic resembles
a traveller who without guide or compass is seeking to
make his way through a trackless forest, so dense as to
shut out the sight of the heavens. He will inevitably
diverge from a straight course, and may gradually and
imperceptibly be turned in the opposite direction from
that in which he started. Or he may prove to be only a
dreamer, whose beautiful creations are but airy phan-
toms.
(6) The complexity of the problem with which the
critic has undertaken to deal becomes more obvious the
further he proceeds. At the outset his work is compara-
tively simple; the fewer the criteria the more readily
they are applied. By the aid of such ingenious devices
as have already been indicated he makes his way
through Genesis with tolerable ease. But in the middle
books of the Pentateuch difficulties crowd upon him, as
is shown by the wide divergence of the critics in their
efforts to cope with them, and in the book of Joshua it
becomes a veritable medley. It is the natural result of
an attempt to apply criteria gathered elsewhere to fresh
passages for which they have no affinity. Partitions are
made which find no sanction in an unbiassed examina-
tion of the passages themselves, and are merely forced
upon them for the sake of consistency with a previously
adopted scheme of division. This is repeatedly con-
fessed by the critics themselves. Thus Wellhausen,1 in
beginning his discussion of Gen. xxxvii.-l. says: "The
principal source for this last section of Genesis also is
1 Jahrbueher fur Deutsche Theologie, 1876, p. 442, or in the sepa-
rate reprint, Die Composition des Hexateuchs, p. 52,
JE. It is to be presumed that this work, here as else-
where, is compounded of J and E; our former results
constrain to this assumption, and would be shaken if this
were not capable of proof."
The various arguments urged in support of the divi-
sive hypothesis in its different forms have now been suc-
cessively examined and found wanting. The alternation
of divine names can be otherwise explained, and more-
over it can only be brought into harmony with the parti-
tion hypothesis by a free use of the redactor, and the
assumption of repeated changes of the text. Ex. vi. 3
has not the meaning that the critics attribute to it. The
continuity of the documents is broken by serious chasms,
or maintained by very questionable methods; and it is
necessary to assume in numerous instances that the
documents originally contained paragraphs and sections
similar to those which the critics have sundered from
them. The alleged parallel passages are for the most
part falsely assumed identifications of distinct events.
And the diversity of diction, style, and ideas is made
out by utterly fallacious and inconclusive methods. But
while the attempted proof of lack of unity signally fails,
the positive evidence of unity abides and never can be
nullified. The great outstanding proof of it is the un-
broken continuity of the history, the consistent plan
upon which the whole is prepared, and the numerous
cross-references, which, bind it all together as the work
of one mind. Separate and independent documents
mechanically pieced together could no more produce
such an appearance of unity as reigns throughout the
Pentateuch than a faultless statue could be formed out
of discordant fragments of dissimilar materials.
The futility of the methods by which the Pentateuch
has been parcelled into different documents may further
be shown by the readiness with which they can be ap-
plied, and with equal success, to writings the unity of
which is indisputable. The fact that a narrative can be
so divided as to form from it two continuous narratives,
is reckoned by the critics a demonstration of its compo-
site character, and a proof that the parts into which it has
been severed are the original sources from which it has
been compounded. This may be tested by a couple of
passages selected at random-the parables of The Prodi-
gal Son and of The Good Samaritan.
THE PRODIGAL SON, Luke xv. 11-32.
11. A certain man had two (A certain man had two sons
sons: 12. and the younger of
them said to his father, Father,
give me the portion of thy sub-
stance that falleth to me. . . .
13. And not many days after the 12b. and he divided unto
younger son gathered all to- them his living.
gether, . . . and there he
wasted his substance with riot- 13b. And (one of them) took
ous living. his journey into a far country.
. . . 14. And when he had
spent all, there arose a mighty
famine in that country. . . .
14b. and he began to be in 15. And he went and joined him-
want. self to one of the citizens of that
country; and he sent him into
his fields to feed swine. 16. And
he would fain have been filled
with the husks that the swine
16b. And no man gave unto did eat. . . . 17. But when
him. he came to himself he said, How
20. And he arose, and came to many hired servants of my fath-
his father; . . . and he ran, er's have bread enough and to
and fell on his neck, and kissed spare, and I perish here with
him. 21. And the son said un- hunger! 18. I will arise and go
to him, Father, I have sinned to my father, and will say unto
against heaven, and in thy sight: him, Father, I have sinned
I am no more worthy to be called against heaven, and in thy sight :
thy son. 22. But the father said 19. I am no more worthy to be
to his servants, Bring forth called thy son: make me as one
quickly the best robe, and put it of thy hired servants. . . .
on him; and put a ring on his 20b. But while he was yet afar
hand, and shoes on his feet:. . . off, his father saw him, and was
24. for this my son was dead, moved with compassion : . . .
and is alive again. . . . And 23. and (said) Bring the fatted
they began to be merry. 25. calf, and kill it, and let us eat,
Now his elder son was in the and make merry. . . . 24b. he
field: and as he came and drew was lost, and is found. . . .
nigh to the house, . . . 28. he 25b. (And the other son) heard
was angry, and would not go in: music and dancing. 26. And he
and his father came out, and en- called to him one of the ser-
treated him. 29. But he an- vants, and inquired what these
swered and said to his father, Lo, things might be. 27. And he
these many years do I serve thee, said unto him, Thy brother is
and I never transgressed a com- come; and thy father hath killed
mandment of thine: and yet the fatted calf, because he hath
thou never gavest me a kid, that received him safe and sound
I might make merry with my . . . 32b. and he was lost
friends: 30. but when this thy and is found.
son came, which hath devoured
thy living with harlots, thou
killedst for him the fatted calf.
31. And he said unto him, Son,
thou art ever with me, and all
that is mine is thine. 32. But
it was meet to make merry and
be glad : for this thy brother
was dead, and is alive again.
There are here two complete narratives, agreeing in
some points, and disagreeing in others, and each has its
special characteristics. The only deficiencies are en-
closed in parentheses, and may be readily explained as
omissions by the redactor in effecting the combination. A
clause must be supplied at the beginning of B, a subject
is wanting in ver. 13b, and ver. 25b, and the verb "said"
is wanting in ver. 23. As these omissions occur exclu-
sively in B, it may be inferred that the redactor placed A
at the basis, and incorporated B into it with only such
slight changes as were necessary to adapt it to this pur-
A and B agree that there were two sons, one of whom
received a portion of his father's property, and by his
own fault was reduced to great destitution, in consequence
of which he returned penitently to his father, and ad-
dressed him in language which is nearly identical in
both accounts. The father received him with great ten-
derness and demonstrations of joy, which attracted the
attention of the other son.
The differences are quite as striking as the points of
agreement. A distinguishes the sons as elder and
younger; B makes no mention of their relative ages. In
A the younger obtained his portion by solicitation, and
the father retained the remainder in his own possession;
in B the father divided his property between both of his
sons of his own motion. In A the prodigal remained in
his father's neighborhood, and reduced himself to penury
by riotous living; in B he went to a distant country and
spent all his property, but there is no intimation that he
indulged in unseemly excesses. It would rather appear
that he was injudicious; and to crown his misfortunes
there occurred a severe famine. His fault seems to have
consisted in having gone so far away from his father and
from the holy land, and in engaging in the unclean occu-
pation of tending swine. In A the destitution seems to
have been chiefly want of clothing; in B want of food.
Hence in A the father directed the best robe and ring and
shoes to be brought for him; in B the fatted calf was killed,
In B the son came from a distant land, and the father saw
him afar off; in A he came from the neighborhood, and
the father ran at once and fell on his neck and kissed
him. In B he had been engaged in a menial occupation,
and so bethought himself of his father's hired servants,
and asked to be made a servant himself; in A he had
been living luxuriously, and while confessing his un-
worthiness makes no request to be put on the footing of
a servant. In A the father speaks of his son having been
dead because of his profligate life; in B of his having
been lost because of his absence in a distant land. In A,
but not in B, the other son was displeased at the recep-
tion given to the prodigal. And here it would appear
that R has slightly altered the text. The elder son must
have said to his father in A, "When this thy son came,
which hath devoured thy substance with harlots, thou
didst put on him the best robe." The redactor has here
substituted the B word "living"1 for "substance," which
is used by A; and with the view of making a better con-
trast with "kid" he has introduced the B phrase, "thou
killedst for him the fatted calf."
THE GOOD SAMARITAN, Luke x. 29-37.
29. But he (the lawyer, ver.
25) desiring to justify himself,
said unto Jesus, And who is my
neighbor? 30. Jesus made an-
swer and said, A certain man was 30b. And (a certain man) *fell
going down from Jerusalem to among robbers, which both
Jericho; . . . and they beat stripped him . . , and de-
him, . . . leaving him half parted. . .
dead. 31. And by chance a cer-
tain priest was going down that *Omitted by R. ( ).
1 No scholar will need to be informed that "living" ver. 13, has a
different sense and represents a different word in the original from " liv-
ing," ver. 12.
way: and when he saw him, he 32. And [in like manner] * a
passed by on the other side. . . . Levite, [also] * when he came to
33. But a certain Samaritan, the place, [and saw him, passed
as he journeyed, came where he by on the other side.]
was: . . . 33b. and when he saw him,
34. and came to him, and was moved with compassion....
bound up his wounds, pouring 34b. And he set him on his
on them oil and wine, . . . own beast, and brought him to
and took care of him. an inn. . . . 35. And on
the morrow he took out two
pence, and gave them to the
36 Which of these [three]*, host, and said, Take care of him;
thinkest thou, proved neighbor and whatsoever thou spendest
unto him? . . . 37. And he more, I, when I come back again,
said, He that showed mercy on will repay thee.
him. 37b. And Jesus said unto him
. . . that fell among the rob-
bers, . . Go, and do thou
likewise.
*Inserted by R [ ].
Both these narratives are complete; only a subject
must be supplied in B, ver. 30b, the omission of which
was rendered necessary by its being combined with A.
"Three" is substituted for "two" in A, ver. 36, for a
like reason. R has tampered with the text and materi-
ally altered the sense in ver. 32, from his desire to put the
Levite on the same plane with the priest in ver. 31, the
language of which he has borrowed; the genuine text of
B will be restored by omitting the insertions by R, which
are included in brackets. He has likewise transposed a
brief clause of B, in ver. 37b, and added it at the end of
ver. 36. These changes naturally resulted from his mak-
ing A the basis, and modifying what he has inserted
from B into accordance with it. Hence the necessity of
making it appear that it was not the Levite, but the
Samaritan, who befriended the injured traveller, and that
Jesus spoke not to the traveller, but to the lawyer. In
all other respects the original texts of the two narratives
remain unaltered.
Both narratives agree that a man grievously abused
by certain parties was treated with generous kindness by
a stranger; and that Jesus deduced a practical lesson
from it. But they differ materially in details.
A relates his story as a parable of Jesus in answer to
a lawyer's question. B makes no mention of the lawyer
or his question, but seems to be relating a real occur-
rence.
The spirit of the two is quite different. A is anti-
Jewish, Jewish, B pro-Jewish. In A the aggressors are Jews,
people of Jerusalem or Jericho or both, and a priest piti-
lessly leaves the sufferer to his fate; while it is a Samar-
itan, with whom the Jews were in perpetual feud, who
takes pity on him. In B the aggressors are robbers,
outlaws whose nationality is not defined, and it is a Le-
vite who shows mercy.
Both the maltreatment and the act of generosity are
different. In A the sufferer is beaten and half killed,
and needs to have his wounds bound up and liniments
applied, which is done by his benefactor on the spot.
In B he was stripped of all he had and left destitute,
but no personal injury was inflicted; accordingly he was
taken to an inn, and his wants there provided for at the
expense of the Levite who befriended him.
The lesson inculcated is different. In A it is that the
duty of loving one's neighbor is not limited to those of
the same nation, nor annulled by national antipathies.
In B it is that he who has been befriended himself
should befriend others.
It is not worth while to multiply illustrations. Those
now adduced are sufficient to give an idea of the method
by which the critics undertake to effect the partition of
the Pentateuch; and to show how they succeed in creat-
ing discrepancies and contradictions, where none really
exist, by simply sundering what properly belongs to-
gether. The ease with which these results can be ac-
complished, where obviously they have no possible sig-
nificance, shows how fallacious and inconclusive this
style of argument is. No dependence can be placed upon
a process that leads to palpably erroneous conclusions in
other cases. An argument that will prove everything,
proves nothing. And a style of critical analysis which
can be made to prove everything composite is not to
be trusted.
The readiness with which a brief, simple narrative
yields to critical methods has been sufficiently shown
above. That extended didactic composition is not proof
against it is shown in a very clever and effective manner
in "Romans Dissected," by E. D. McRealsham, the pseu-
donym of Professor C. M. Mead, D.D., of Hartford
Theological Seminary. The result of his ingenious and
scholarly discussion is to demonstrate that as plausible
an argument can be made from diction, style, and doc-
trinal contents for the fourfold division of the Epistle to
the Romans as for the composite character of the Penta-
teuch.
Two additional incongruities which beset the partition
of the Pentateuch may be briefly mentioned here, as
they are illustrated by the specimens above given of the
application of like methods to the parables. The first
is, that the narratives into which the critics resolve the
Pentateuchal history, and from which they claim that
this has been compounded, are, as a whole and in all
their parts, inferior in symmetry and structural arrange-
ment to the history as it lies in the existing text. On
the critical hypothesis precisely the reverse should be the
case. If the history is a conglomerate, in which hetero-
geneous materials have been compacted, the critical sev-
erance which restores the component parts to their orig-
inal connection and exhibits each of the primary narra-
tives in its pristine form, and purged of all interpolations
and extraneous matter, must remove disfigurements and
reunite the broken links of connection designed by the
early narrators. The intermingling of goods of different
patterns has a confusing effect. It is only when they are
separated, and each is viewed by itself, that its proper
pattern can be traced and its real beauty discerned.
But when the separation spoils and mars the fabric, we
must conclude that what has taken place is not the reso-
lution of a compound into its primary constituents, but
the violent rending asunder of what was really a unit,
the breaking of a graceful statue into misshapen frag-
ments.
The second incongruity to be alluded to here concerns
what the critics consider the restored original narratives,
not taken separately, each by itself, but in their relation
to one another. The critics take what in its present
form, as it lies before us in the Pentateuch, is harmoni-
ous, symmetrical, and complete, and they deduce from it
two or more narratives, between which there are discrep-
ancies, contrarieties, and contradictions; and these are
produced simply by the putting asunder of what in the
existing text to all appearance properly belongs together.
And it thereby writes its own condemnation. Harmony
does not arise from combining the incongruous, but dis-
cord naturally follows upon the derangement of parts,
which properly fitted into one another are harmonious.
A word may further be added concerning the marvellous
perspicacity, verging on omniscience, claimed by the crit-
ics, who undertake to determine with the utmost assurance
the authorship not merely of books, or large sections or
paragraphs, but of individual sentences and clauses, and
fragments of clauses. They undertake to point out to
the very last degree of nicety and minuteness not only
what J and E and D and P have separately written, how-
ever involved these may be with one another, but what
precise changes each of a series of redactors has intro-
duced into the original text of each, and what glosses
have been added by a still later hand, and what modifi-
cations were introduced into the successive editions
through which the principal documents have severally
passed before or since their combination. They further
profess to be able to distinguish the primary and some-
times discordant elements which entered into the orig-
inal constitution of the principal documents, and what
belongs to the various stages by which P was brought
by a series of diaskeuasts to its present complexity and
elaboration. One would think that the critics would be
awed by the formidable character of the task which they
have set for themselves. But they proceed with un-
daunted front as though they had an unerring scent
which could track their game through the most intricate
doublings and convolutions; and as though positive as-
sertions would compensate for the dubious nature of the
grounds upon which their decisions often rest.
If further proof were needed of the precarious character
of the methods and results of this style of subjective
criticism, it is abundantly supplied by similar exploits
conducted in other fields, where they can be subjected to
the sure test of ascertained facts. The havoc wrought in
the writings of Homer, belonging to a remote antiquity,
or in the "Nibelungenlied," produced in the obscurity of
the Middle Ages; is not so much to our present purpose
as the systematic onset upon Cicero's orations against
Catiline, of whose genuineness there is indubitable proof.
Madvig's account of the matter, to which my attention
was directed by Professor West, of Princeton University,
and of which he has obligingly furnished the translation,
is here given in a note.1
1 Let us relate the history of the discussion. It began with F. A.
Wolf,* who cast doubt in a general way upon several of Cicero's Ora-
tions. Following Wolf came Eichstaedt, who reviewed Wolf's book in
1802, and took the position that at least one of the Catilinarian Orations
ought to be included in the condemnation bestowed upon other orations.
Wolf quickly followed Eichstaedt and condemned the Third Oration,
and in subsequent comments and remarks stated the question in such a
way as to leave it uncertain which oration he meant, or whether it was
one of two orations, and so, in 1826, Clude, thinking he was following
out the opinion of Wolf, proved to his own satisfaction and the satisfac-
tion of some others, that it was the Second Oration which was spurious.
But shortly afterward (in 1827) Benecke, by producing the very words
of Wolf from one of his letters showed that Wolf meant the Third Ora-
tion. In the meantime the Fourth Oration had fallen under the dis-
pleasure of other critics, notably Zimmermann and Bloch, and so Ahrens,
in 1832, passed sentence on the unfortunate oration, embracing the
Third Oration at the same time in his condemnation. Finally came
Orelli, in 1836, and fearing, I suppose, that such inconsistencies of opin-
ion would end in contempt and ridicule, decided that all three were
spurious.
"In addition to other evidence from ancient writers which was easily
answered, there stood opposed to this conclusion the authority of Cicero
himself, who in the First Epistle of the Second Book of his Letters to
Atticus makes abundant reference to his own consular orations, and
enumerates one by one the four Orations against Catiline.
"And so no other course was left the critics except to come to the in-
credible conclusion that genuine orations of Cicero, delivered on a most
famous occasion, had so faded out of remembrance by the time of Au-
gustus (for Ahrens admits that the orations we possess are as old as this)
that spurious orations could be put in their place and meet with accept-
ance, without any contemporary objection, in spite of the fact that one
genuine oration out of the four still remained, and was put together
with the three false ones. Orelli met the emergency heroically (forti
remedio), for he cut out the whole of this passage from the middle of
Cicero's Letter to Atticus. Consequently no statement remained regard-
ing the various Catilinarian orations published by Cicero himself.
Thereupon Orelli excogitated a pleasant hypothesis (fabulam lepidam)
to the effect that a forger first supplied the three orations, and then, in
order to insure their acceptance, inserted in the Letter of Cicero a forged
The critic of Homer and father of the destructive literary criticism.
My colleague, Dr. Warfield, has also pointed me to an
instructive instance which is still more recent. It is
thus described by Dr. Heinrici:1 "How easily one is
led astray by assuming a course of thought supposed
to be requisite, is shown in a very instructive man-
statement in regard to these same orations. But inasmuch as Cicero's
Letters were then in circulation, we might ask, How was it that this
forger inserted his forgery not only in his own copy of Cicero's Letters,
but in the copies of all other readers whom he wished to deceive, and
so managed it that no other copy of this Letter should remain extant
written in any other manner? But the same critical shrewdness helps
the critics at this juncture. The forger is that very man who edited
the volume of Letters after Cicero's death, namely, Marcus Tullius Tiro,
the freedman. What! Tiro, the faithful freedman to whom Cicero en-
trusted his Letters, and who wrote the life of his dead patron accurately
and affectionately, and upon whom no suspicion ever fell, was he a
forger? 'Yes, indeed' they answered, 'and he did it with good in-
tention.' Orelli says, 'He thought that he would honor his noble pa-
tron most if Cicero's illustrious performance were made celebrated not
merely by one but by four orations.' What a marvellous license of
imagination and credulity of doubt! So, then, Tiro did not think the
matter would be famous by reason of his narrative of Cicero's life, but,
although he had never uttered a word in a public assembly, or written
even a short oration, he yet thought that the glory of his patron, the
greatest orator of Rome, would be increased by Tiro's forging orations
under Cicero's name. Yet why not? For the very critic, who is every-
where finding fault with the wretched inconsistencies of Tiro's writings,
yet in former times had actually admired Cicero on account of these
false orations." Madvig: Opuscula Academica, Hauniae, 1887, pp. 671
sqq.
Dr. West adds: "Madvig's reductio ad absurdum is complete.
There are numerous other instances in Latin criticism that are in-
structive. Ribbeck's youthful venture at the text of Juvenal, Peerl-
kamp's exploits in Horace, the discussion forty years ago regarding the
treatise De Trinitate, ascribed to Boethius, and the treatment of Coasar's
Commentaries on the Gallic War, ought not to be forgotten. Schoell's
slashing editing of Plautus in our own time is also a case in point.
Happily the spirit which at present rules Latin studies is historical and
inductive. The other reminds us of the old proverb about the Sabines
--Sabini quod volunt somniant."
1 Meyer's Kommentar uber den 1 Cor., seventh edit., 1888, Vorrede.
ner by Scherer's ingenious analysis of the Prologue
of Faust in his Goethe-Studies. It should set up a
beacon to warn classical philologists against overhasty
interpolation-criticism, since it shows how in a piece of
writing, whose composition by one author is beyond
question, profound diversities of style and inner contra-
dictions exist. Scherer proposes to explain them from
differences in the time of composition and subsequent
combination. And now the oldest manuscript of Faust
has been published by Erich Schmidt, which proves that
it was the 'young Goethe' who wrote the prologue at
one effort essentially as it now stands. It is the same
'young Goethe' who speaks both in the ferment of
youth and in a disillusioned old age."
It has been claimed that the general agreement among
critics of various schools in regard to the partition is such
as to establish in the main the correctness of their con-
clusions. Where not only avowed antisupernaturalists
like Wellhausen, Kuenen, and Stade, but Dillmann, who
openly antagonizes them, and believing scholars like
Delitzsch and Driver are in accord, are we not con-
strained to yield assent to their positions? To this we
1. That this is not a question to be decided by author-
ity but by reason and argument.
2. The consensus of divisive critics settles, not the
truth of the hypothesis, but what they consider its most
plausible and defensible form. The partition of the
Pentateuch is a definite problem with certain data, to
which any solution that is offered must adapt itself.
Experiments without number have been made to ascer-
tain the practicability of this partition, and what lines of
division offer the best chance of success. The ground
has been surveyed inch by inch with the most scrupulous
care, its possibilities ascertained, and diligent search
made for the best methods of guarding weak points,
protecting against assault, overcoming difficulties, clos-
ing up gaps, and dealing with intractable passages.
And the present agreement of critics, so far as it goes,
indicates what is believed to be the most practicable
mode of carrying out the hypothesis that has yet been
devised.
3. The agreement of the critics is by no means per-
fect. While at many points there is a general consent,
at others there is wide divergence. Dillmann differs
from Wellhausen, and he from Kuenen, and Julicher
from them all. Many are content to follow the promi-
nent leaders more or less implicitly, but critics of inde-
pendence and originality continue to propose new expe-
dients and offer fresh conjectures. Difficulties gather as
the work proceeds. In large portions of Genesis there is
comparative agreement; in the middle books of the Pen-
tateuch the diversities greatly multiply; and in Joshua,
the crown of the Hexateuch, there is the most discordant
medley.
4. A large number of eminent scholars accept the
critical partition of the Pentateuch in general, if not in
all its details. It has its fascinations, which sufficiently
account for its popularity. The learning, ability, and
patient toil which have been expended upon its elabora-
tion, the specious arguments arrayed in its support, and
the skill with which it has been adapted to the phenom-
ena of the Pentateuch and of the Old Testament gener-
ally, have given to it the appearance of great plausibility.
The novel lines of inquiry which it opens make it attrac-
tive to those of a speculative turn of mind, who see in
it the opportunity for original and fruitful research in
the reproduction of ancient documents, long buried un-
suspected in the existing text, which they antedate by
centuries. The boldness and seeming success with
which it undertakes to revolutionize traditional opinion,
and give a new aspect to the origin and history of the
religion of the Old Testament, and its alliance with the
doctrine of development, which has found such wide
application in other fields of investigation, have largely
contributed to its popularity. And those who have a
bias against the supernatural or the divine authority of
the Pentateuch see in this hypothesis a ready way of
disposing of its Mosaic origin and of the historic truth
of whatever they are indisposed to accept.
The various forms of the partition hypothesis and the
several arguments by which they are supported have
now been examined. The arguments have been found
inadequate and it will elsewhere be shown in detail that
the hypothesis cannot be fitted to the phenomena of the
Pentateuch.1 Its failure is not from the lack of ingenuity
or learning, or persevering effort on the part of its advo-
cates, nor from the want of using the utmost latitude of
conjecture, but simply from the impossibility of accom-
plishing the end proposed. While, however, the hy-
pothesis has proved futile as an attempt to account for
the origin of the Pentateuch, the labor spent upon it
has not been entirely thrown away, and it has not been
without positive advantage to the cause of truth. (1) It
has demonstrated the impossibility of such a partition.
The experiment has been tried in every way that the
utmost ingenuity could devise, but without success. (2)
It has led to the development of a vast mass of positive
evidence of unity, which would not otherwise have been
so diligently sought for, and might not have been
1 Its incompatibility with the book of Genesis is demonstrated in a
companion volume, The Unity of the Book of Genesis. The reader
is likewise referred to the discussion of the remaining books of the
Pentateuch in articles by the author in the Hebraica for 1890 and sub-
sequently.
brought to light. (3) It has led to the elucidation and
better understanding of the Pentateuch from the neces-
sity thus imposed of minute and thorough investigation
of the meaning and bearings of every word and sentence,
and of the mutual relations of every part. It verifies
the old fable of a field which was dug over for a chimeri-
cal purpose, but the labor thus expended was rewarded
by an unlooked-for harvest, sprung from seed which lay
unsuspected in the soil.1
1 Crisis Hupfeldiana, by W. Kay, D. D., Oxford and London, 1865, is
a trenchant review of Hupfeld's hypothesis as set forth in Bishop
Colenso's Pentateuch and Joshua, Part V.
The Elements of the Higher Criticism, by Professor A. C. Zenos, New
York, London, and Toronto, 1895, is a very clear and satisfactory pres-
entation of the nature and objects of the higher criticism, together with
its methods and its history, both in its application to the Old and to the
New Testament.
GENUINENESS OF THE LAWS
THE first and second stages of opposition to the Mo-
saic authorship of the Pentateuch have now been re-
viewed. There yet remain to be considered the third
and fourth lines of objection, which are based upon the
triplicity of the legal codes and the non-observance of
the laws. This brings us to the third and last stage of
The next phase of the critical movement, which issued
in the present reigning school of divisive criticism,
wrought as sudden and complete a revolution in the
ideas of scholars of this class as the speculations of Dar-
win effected in Natural History, when the denial of the
unity of the human race collapsed on the instant, and it
was held instead that all animated being had sprung from
common germs. And the lever which effected the over-
throw was in both cases the same, that is, the doctrine
of development. This at once exalted the speculations
of Ewald and Hupfeld to a prominence which they had
not previously attained, and made them important factors
in the new advance. From Ewald was borrowed the
idea that the composition of the Pentateuch was not
accomplished at a stroke by one act, whether of supple-
menting or of combining pre-existing documents, but
took place in successive stages by a series of enlarging
combinations. From Hupfeld were derived the two pil-
lars of his scheme--the continuity of the Jehovist docu-
ment and the composite character of the Elohist--or, in
GENUINENESS OF THE LAWS 135
other words, that the Jehovist did not merely make addi-
tions to a pre-existing work, but wrote an independent
work of his own and that there were two Elohists instead
of one. Thus both Ewald and Hupfeld, without intend-
ing or imagining it, smoothed the way for the rise of a
school of criticism with ideas quite diverse from their
The various attempts to partition the Pentateuch had
thus far been based on exclusively literary grounds.
Diction, style, ideas, the connection of paragraphs and
sentences supplied the staple arguments for each of the-
forms which the hypothesis had assumed, and furnished
the criteria from which all conclusions were drawn.
Numerous efforts had been made to ascertain the dates
to which the writers severally belonged. Careful studies
were instituted to discover the bias under which they
respectively wrote, as suggesting the influences by which
they might be supposed to be surrounded, and hence
their historical situation. They were diligently searched
for historical allusions that might afford clews. But with
all the pains that were taken no sure footing could be
found, and the critics agreed not together. Conjectures
ranged ad libitum through the ages from the time of
Moses, or his immediate successor, Joshua, to that of
Josiah, eight centuries later. And while the internal cri-
teria were so vague, there was no external support on
which the whole hypothesis could rest, no objective
proof that the entire fabric was not a sheer figment of
the imagination. Amid all diversities, however, two
points were universally agreed upon, and regarded as
settled beyond contradiction: (1) The Elohist was the
groundwork of the Pentateuch; it supplied the scheme
or general plan, into which the other parts were fitted.
And as it was the oldest, so it was historically the most
reliable and trustworthy portion. The Jehovist was
more legendary, depending, as it was believed to do,
upon later and less credible traditions. (2) Deuteronomy
was the latest and the crowning portion of the Penta-
teuch, by the addition of which the whole work was ren-
dered complete.
DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS.
Here the Development Hypothesis came in with its
revolutionary conclusions. It supplied the felt lack of
its predecessors by fixing definite dates and offering ob-
jective proof of their correctness. The conclusions de-
duced from the examination of the Pentateuch itself are
verified by an appeal to the history. Arguments are
drawn, not as heretofore, from the narratives of the Pen-
tateuch but from its institutions; not from its historical
portion but from its laws. The principle of development
is applied. The simplest forms of legislation are to be
considered the most primitive. As the Israelites devel-
oped in the course of ages from rude nomadic tribes to a
settled and well-organized nation, their legislation natu-
rally grew in complexity and extent. Now the Pentateuch
obviously contains three distinct codes or bodies of law.
One is in Exodus xx.-xxiii. which is called in the original
text the Book of the Covenant (Ex. xxiv. 7). This Moses
is said to have written and read to the assembled people
at Mount Sinai as the basis of the covenant relation there
formally ratified between Jehovah and Israel. Another
is the Deuteronomic Law, which Moses is said to have
rehearsed to the people in the plains of Moab, shortly
before his death, and to have delivered in writing to the
custody of the priests, to be laid up alongside of the ark
of the covenant (Deut. xxxi. 24-26). A third is the Ritual
law, or Priest code, contained in the later chapters of
Exodus, the book of Leviticus, and certain chapters of
Numbers. This law is declared in the general and in all
its parts to have been communicated by God to Moses.
The advocates of this hypothesis, however, take issue
with these explicit statements, and affirm that these
codes could not have had the origin attributed to them.
It is maintained that they are so diverse in character and
so inconsistent in their provisions that they cannot have
originated at any one time or have proceeded from any
one legislator. The Book of the Covenant, from its sim-
plicity and brevity, must have belonged to an early stage
in the history of the people. From this there is a great
advance in the Deuteronomic code. And the Ritual law,
or Priest code, is much the most minute and complicated
of all, and hence the latest in the series. Long periods
must have elapsed, and great changes have taken place in
the condition of the people to have wrought such changes
in their institutions.
The Book of the Covenant makes no mention of a
priesthood, as a separate order of men alone authorized
to perform sacred functions. The Deuteronomic code
speaks of priests, who are constantly designated "the
priests, the Levites," from which it is inferred that the
sacerdotal prerogative inhered in the tribe as such, and
that any Levite might be a priest. The Priest code lim-
its the sacerdotal office to the family of Aaron: other
Levites were simply their servants and attendants, per-
forming menial functions at the sanctuary, but not al-
lowed to offer sacrifice.
In the Book of the Covenant sacrifices are not regu-
lated by statute, but are the free, spontaneous gift of the
offerer unto God, in grateful acknowledgment of the di-
vine benefits. In Deuterronomy certain kinds of offerings
are specified, but with no fixed requisition of number
and quality, and these are to be joyously partaken of by
the offerer and his family and friends before the LORD.
In the Levitical code additional kinds of sacrifice are re-
quired, not mentioned elsewhere, and everything is rigor-
ously fixed by statute--what particular animal is to be
offered in each species of sacrifice or on any given occa-
sion; its sex and age, and sometimes even its color; its
accompaniments and the precise ceremonies to be ob-
served are specified. The whole has become a matter of
ritual, an affair of the priests, who absorb as their per-
quisites what had previously fed the devotion of the
offerer.
All this, and much beside, is urged as indicating the
progressive development in the Israelitish institutions
as represented in these codes, which are hence regarded
as separated by long intervals of time. The fallacy lies
in putting asunder what really belongs together. All
belong to one comprehensive and harmonious body of
law, though each separate portion has its own particular
design, by which its form and contents are determined.
That the Book of the Covenant is so brief and element-
ary in matters of worship is because of its preliminary
character. It was intended simply to be the basis of
God's covenant with Israel, not to develop in detail the
duties growing out of that covenant relation. That Deu-
teronomy does not contain the minute ceremonial require-
ments to be found in Leviticus is no indication that the
latter is the subsequent development of a more ritualistic
age. It is simply because there was no need of repeat-
ing details which had already been sufficiently enlarged
upon elsewhere. The Priest code was for the guidance
of the priests, in conducting the ritual; Deuteronomy for
the people at large, to whom the great lawgiver addressed
his earnest warnings and exhortations as he was on the
point of being taken from them. The differences and
discrepancies alleged in these laws are for the most part
capable of being satisfactorily harmonized. If a few
puzzles remain insoluble by us, they are not more than
might be expected in :matters of so ancient date, so
foreign from modern ideas and usages and in regard to
which we are so imperfectly informed. If we had more
knowledge our present difficulties would doubtless vanish,
as others once considered formidable have long since dis-
appeared.
The Book of the Covenant, primitive as it is, neverthe-
less could not have been enacted in the desert; for it has
laws respecting fields and vineyards and olive-yards and
standing grain and grain in shocks (Ex. xxii. 5, 6; xxiii.
11), and offerings of first-fruits (xxii. 29, xxiii. 19), and six
years of tillage with a sabbatical year whose spontaneous
products should be for the poor and the beasts of the
field (xxiii. 10, 11), and harvest feasts and feasts of in-
gathering (xxiii.). All these have no application to a
people in the desert. They belong to a settled people,
engaged in agriculture. Such a law, it is alleged, could
only have been given after the settlement of the people
in Canaan.
The law of Deuteronomy, while greatly expanded be-
yond the Book of the Covenant in its provisions, has one
marked and, characteristic feature which serves to define
the period to which it belongs. The Book of the Cove-
nant (Ex. xx. 24), sanctions altars in all places where God
records his name. Deuteronomy, on the other hand (ch.
xii.), strictly limits the offering of sacrifice to the one
place which Jehovah should choose. Now, it is said, the
period of the judges and the early kings is marked by a
multiplicity of altars and worship in high places in ac-
cordance with the Book of the Covenant. But in the
reign of king Josiah, more than eight hundred years
after the settlement in Canaan, the high places were
abolished and sacrifice was restricted to the altar in Jeru-
salem. And this was done in obedience to the require.
ments of a book of the law then found in the temple (2
Kin. xxii. 8). That book was Deuteronomy. It was the
soul of the entire movement. And this is the period to
which it belongs.
This new departure, though successful so long as the
pious Josiah lived, spent its force when he was taken
away; and under his ungodly successors the people re-
lapsed again into the worship on high places, the popu-
lar attachment to which had not been eradicated. This
was effectually broken, however, by the Babylonish cap-
tivity, which severed the people from the spots which
they had counted sacred, until all the old associations
had faded away. The returning exiles, impoverished and
few in number, were bent only on restoring the temple in
Jerusalem, and had no other place at which to worship.
It was then and under these circumstances that Ezra
came forthwith a fresh book of law, adapted to the new
state of things, and engaged the people to obedience
(Neh. viii.). This book, then first produced, was the
Ritual law or the Priest code. It also limits sacrifice to
one place, as was done by Deuteronomy; but in the lat-
ter this was regarded as a new departure, which it would
be difficult to introduce, and which is, therefore, reiter-
ated and insisted upon with great urgency (Deut. xii.).
In the Priest code, on the contrary, it is quietly as-

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