as their virtues are plainly recorded, and these are faults which appear such not only to us, but also to those who recorded them.

§ 6. Concerning the Pentateuch as a literary work there is but little direct testimony. But that the author did not simply mechanically record revelations directly given, but based at least part of his work on other literary documents, is plainly enough stated. In Num. xxi: 14, a "Book of the Wars of the Lord " is expressly quoted. The book of Genesis and everything that the author could not know himself as an eye and ear witness could be historically accurate only if the statements are based on older and reliable records. Even if the dogmatic teachings of Genesis concerning the creation, the fall, the covenant, etc., are the direct revelation from God, they were not such in Moses' day, but had been given and were known to the patriarchs. When the Pentateuch was written, they too doubtless existed recorded in writing, from which a knowledge of them was drawn. The same is doubtless true, as far as the writing is concerned, of what is simply history, chronology, genealogies, etc. The inspiration of the Pentateuch certainly does not consist in this, that the author received all this information from the Holy Spirit as something entirely unknown to him before, but rather in directing him to make the correct use of the means of information at his command. This method in the composition of a biblical book is well illustrated by the parallel cases of Kings and Chronicles, where the sources of in

formation are given with great frequency. From considerations of this kind it would seem that a "documentary theory" of some sort, at least in reference to the book of Genesis, would not only be allowable but even a necessity. Whether the documentary theory as is now generally accepted even by those in Europe who are regarded as conservative scholars, such as Delitzsch, Strack, v. Orelli, and many others, is the correct one is quite another question. As this subject has been assigned as the special topic for another essay in this series, it is not to be discussed here. But a few words, in so far as our special subject is concerned, in regard to this matter may not be out of place. The danger in the documentary theory does not lie in it per se. In itself it is a literary and critical and not a theological question. It is simply the question whether in the Pentateuch as now constituted we have indications pointing to its being a compilation from various documents and sources. In itself the question has nothing to do with the problem of Mosaic authorship or divine character of the contents of the Pentateuch.

It must be decided on its own merits. The great

evil of modern Pentateuchal criticism does not lie in the analysis into documents, but in the erection upon this analysis of a superstructure of pseudohistory and religion that runs directly counter to the revealed and historic character of the Pentateuch. But as little as this analysis justifies such a building of hay and stubble, just so little does the abuse of this theory by advanced critics justify

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conservative men in refusing to accept what the evidences seem sufficient to warrant. Even when in such an array of reasons as Dillmann gives at the close of his commentary of the Hexateuch (p. 593 sqq.) in favor of an analysis, we discard as worthless and unworthy such groundless ones as the many imagined contradictions, conflicting accounts, etc., there yet remains in the pages of the Pentateuch sufficient evidences, philological and material, to make it probable that as at present shaped the five books are a compilation from a number of sources. Nor need such an explanation of the literary character conflict in any way with the essentially Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch-i.e., Mosaic not in the sense that every word of it was written by the lawgiver, but in the sense that the laws were promulgated through him. It becomes then an historical question as to the manner in which these laws were first written down and afterward united into one code. problem is not unlike that would be if in some way our four Gospels had been united into one account of the life and work of Christ. All that is necessary in the purely literary study of the Pentateuch is not to go any further than the facts in the case justify us in doing. No genuine scholar should be ashamed to answer non liquet when facts tell him to stop.

The

87. Now we will be prepared to discuss the question whether the Pentateuch contains anything that is post-Mosaic. This has been the rock of offense in the Pentateuch from the beginning,

and the first

views of the

doubts concerning the traditional church and synagogue proceeded from the claim that these books contained a large number of anachronisms which could not be explained or understood if Moses had written them. These have been formulated and catalogued in various ways, and not always in perfect agreement as to their number and character. The principal ones can be found mentioned in almost any critical work on the Old Testament (cf. Bleek, Introduction, 18 sqq.; Keil, Introduction, § 25 sqq. ; Hengstenberg, Beiträge, III. 179-345-the fullest discussion from the conservative standpoint; Dillmann, Commentary on Num., Deut., Joshuap. 594 sqq. the most compact and solid discussion from the other side). A number of these claims are groundless because they proceed from a false conception of the character of the Mosaic legislation. This is notably the case in regard to the law given to regulate the conduct of kings in Deut. xvii. That kings should at one time in the history of Israel be set up over those people was designed of God. This was one of the promises expressly given to the patriarchs (Gen. xvii : 6). If in giving the law which should control the historical development of the people under the cove, nant which he had made with them, Jehovah gave a law also on that one point which from the beginning was intended to be an important factor in this development, it is incorrect to say that such a law could proceed only from a time when the evils against which it was to operate actually existed.

Such a method of argument is essentially the same, and outwardly also not dissimilar to that which makes all predictions vaticinia post eventum. Other passages claimed as post-Mosaic are not such, or at least need not be such, for other reasons. Thus is the case, e. g., in Gen. xii : 6; xiii:7, where the Canaanites seem to be spoken of as a people who formerly existed in Palestine, but who no longer existed when these words were written. This interpretation is possible but not necessary. The verse can be understood from a Mosaic standpoint when we suppose that it was given by the lawgiver to his contemporaries as explanatory of the actions of the patriarchs, and to enable them to understand the historical surroundings of the time and place. Again, the expression "beyond the Jordan," used so often, especially in Deuteronomy, of the East Jordan land, does not compel the belief that these books were written on the west side of that river. "Eber ha Jordan" is the technical and geographical name for the East Jordan country. It was such doubtless in the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (cf. Hebrews from the same root), and as such was incorporated into the Hebrew language and used in that sense by the Israelites in Egypt, and brought back with them as a fixed fact of their language. That in the use of this term the etymology was no longer thought of can surprise no one who knows that every language under the sun can furnish hundreds of similar cases. Again the Dan in Gen. xiv : 14 is not certainly the Dan in Josh. xix: 47; Jud.