PLURALITY OF AUTHORS

The documentary hypothesis is not inconsistent with the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Moses may have employed several documents in its composition. In this there is nothing inherently incredible or improbable. Astruc, who is regarded by many as the originator of the documentary hypothesis (but was not), was at least a professed advocate of the traditional belief. As Kuenen remarks, the very title of his work shows how little he questioned the Mosaic authorship of Genesis.¹ More than half a century before Astruc, Vitringa, an orthodox Protestant, propounded the documentary hypothesis, as follows: There were "documents of the fathers preserved among the Israelites, which Moses collected, digested, embellished, and supplemented."² Abraham may have brought family records and other written memorials from Ur of the Chaldees. Moses may have had access, in Egypt, to documents much older than Abraham, and may have taken copies of them, or retained a knowledge of them. Jethro, his father-in-law, who was both priest and statesman, may have had in his possession records that came down from former generations. Moses mayhave employed some of his own contemporaries to write for him and to furnish him with narratives and statements. These various documents, consisting of registers, narratives, and statements, Moses may have put together, condensing, curtailing, and filling out, and thus making the whole his own. If there were any literary monuments of the past in Moses' time, we think there were none more likely than he to be acquainted with them, and to utilize them in his own writings.

Nor is this hypothesis inconsistent with the most thoroughgoing doctrine of supernatural inspiration. Luke, the writer of the third Gospel, intimates in the outset that much of the knowledge of the events he is about to relate had been derived from natural sources.³ This is undoubtedly true of Moses and of every other divinely guided and inspired writer. The knowledge which Moses acquired by his residence in Egypt and at the court of Pharaoh was undoubtedly utilized in writing Genesis and Exodus. It is more reasonable to suppose that God gave him knowledge by putting family records and other memorials of the past into his possession than that he communicated with him in every case by direct, supernatural revelation. The hypothesis of Cave that J of the critics is Moses, is not to be rejected on account of any antecedent improbability, but, if at all, on account of the want of positive evidence in its support.

The documentary hypothesis, then, or rather a documentary hypothesis, is not incompatible with Mosaic authorship. Though it should be shown that the Pentateuch embraces several documents, consisting of extracts, sketches, statements, family records, taken from various sources, yet may Moses have been the one who, by his own hand, or by amanuenses, collected, arranged, curtailed, condensed, supplemented, corrected, and also added much of his own, and thus constituted himself the real author, and secured that remarkable unity which even analysts are forced to admit is a striking feature of the Pentateuch as a whole.

If, then, the hypothesis of a plurality of writers were proved, the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch would not thereby be disproved.

But has the hypothesis of plural authorship been established? or can it be established.? Let us examine.

1. One of the arguments employed in its favor, based on claimed inconsistencies, has already been considered. We have but little to add to what has already been said in Chapter V. on this subject.

(1) We have shown that, in many cases, the claimed inconsistencies and contradictions are the results of misinterpretation, or exist only in the imagination of the objectors.

(2) As has often been remarked concerning claimed discrepancies in the Bible in general, it may truly be said of those that are claimed in the Pentateuch that they involve most generally names and numbers, in which copyists are most likely to make mistakes.

(3) The analysts, in much of their argmentation on this point, proceed on the theory that Moses was plenarily inspired as a writer, or was in some way rendered infallible. They argue that the Pentateuch was not written by him because it contains inconsistencies and other errors.

(4) Some of the analytic critics are on this point discreditably illogical. We refer to those of them who admit the Bible, including the Pentateuch with all its claimed errors, to be in some sense the word of God, or that at least it contains the word of God, but, because of these claimed errors in the Pentateuch, deny that Moses is, in any sense, its author. If, notwithstanding these supposed errors, it contains God's word, may it not contain the word of Moses as well? Is God less free from error than Moses?

(5) This argument from claimed errors proves in many cases too much. If the Pentateuch contains such contradictions and incredibilities as are claimed, the conclusion must be that neither Moses nor any man of common sense wrote, compiled, or redacted it. Their hypothesis amounts to this, that a crowd of writers worked on the Pentateuch, combining documents, supplementing, curtailing, and amending, doing the work of compilers, editors, and redactors, but that not one of them had sense enough to remove palpable contradictions and absurdities. Yet these same writers, so destitute of common sense, have at last succeeded in working up these five books into such a unity of thought and such literary excellence that they have been the admiration of the civilized world for hundreds of years.

2. Another argument in favor of the hypothesis of a plurality of authors is that in many places two narratives are combined in one. It is claimed that the two narratives in many case's can be separated, and that each narrative, taken by itself, constitutes a complete and consistent whole. We will test this claim by the presentation of some of the so-called distinct stories.

Separating the account of the flood into what are called the "P" and "J" stories, we have for the "J" story the following: "And Yahweh said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark: for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven and seven, the male and his female: and of the beasts that are not clean two, the male and his female; of the fowl also of the air seven and seven; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the ground. And Noah did according unto all that Yahweh commanded him. . . . . And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, . . . there went in unto Noah into the ark, as God commanded Noah. And it came to pass, after the seven days, that the waters were upon the earth. . . . . And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. . . . . And Yahweh shut him in. . . . . And the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. . . . . All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground: . . . and Noah only was left, and they that were with him in the ark. . . . . And the rain from heaven was restrained; and the waters returned from the earth continually; . . . and it came to pass at the end of forty days that Noah opened the window of the ark, which he had made; and sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth."⁴ Such is the account of the flood as attributed by the critics to J. We can scarcely realize how abrupt, broken, and incoherent this account is, because, as we read it, we supply ideas which have been made familiar to us by reading the full account. In this fragmentary account there is no information as to what the ark was, and no information as to who made it, or whether it was made at all, until near the close, where it is incidentally stated that Noah made it. The account begins with the statement that Noah found favor with God, and then comes the command, "Come into the ark," there being no allusion to the ark before. Also the sentence, "And Yahweh shut him in," stands dislocated and alone. So, too, the sentence, "And it came to pass after forty days," has no meaning; but as it stands in Genesis it means forty days after the tops of the mountains had been seen. This is the way the analysts cut up and mangle the Scriptures, while claiming to separate them into their independent and distinct parts. The so-called "J" story of the selling of Joseph is as follows: "And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. . . . . So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. . . . And before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. . . . . And Reuben heard it, and delivered him out of their hand; and said, Let us not take his life. . . . . And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, . . . . the coat of many colors that was on him. . . . . And they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a traveling company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content. . . . . And sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver: . . . . And they sent the coat of many colors. . . . . Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces. . . . . And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted: and he said, For I will go down to the grave to my son mourning. And his father wept for him."⁵

Here, again, the narrative called "J," when taken by itself, is broken and disconnected. Some of the sentences are cut in two, mangled in meaning as well as in form.

We give, as follows, the so-called "J" account of the first journey to Egypt to buy corn: "And the famine was over all the face of the earth. And Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine was sore in the land of Eg3"pt. . . . . And he said, . . . . Get you down thither. . . . . For he said, Lecst peradventure mischief befall him. And the sons of Israel came to buy among those that came: for the famine was in the land of Canaan. . . . . He it was that sold to all the people of the land. . . . . And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them; . . . . and he said unto them. Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food. . . . . And as one of them opened his sack, to give his ass provender in the lodging-place, he espied his money; and, behold, it was in the mouth of his sack. And he said unto his brethren. My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack: and their heart failed them. . . . . And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he only is left: if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave."⁶

The so-called "E" account is as follows: "Now Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, and Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? . . . Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt: . . . . and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die. And Joseph's ten brethren went down to buy corn from Egypt. But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with them. . . . . And Joseph was governor over the land, . . . . and Joseph's brethren came, and bowed down themselves to him with their faces to the earth. . . . . And spake roughly with them. ... And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him."^{7 8}

Comment is unnecessary. The Pentateuchal narratives cannot be decomposed without violence and distortion. Neither the so-called "J" nor "E" document taken by itself constitutes a narrative characterized either by continuity or sense. The attempt to separate the historical portions of the Pentateuch into distinct and coherent stories is a failure. All that has been done in decomposing the Pentateuchal narratives might be done with Macaulay's History of England and Bancroft's History of the United States.

3. Another argument in favor of the hypothesis of a plurality of the authorship of the Pentateuch is drawn from the differences in style. It is claimed that a plurality of authors is necessary to account for these differences. The analytics hold that if Moses wrote the five books of the Pentateuch they would all be written throughout in one style. The weakness and inconclusiveness of this argument are shown by several considerations.

(1) The assumption on which this argument is based is incorrect. It is not true that authors do not vary in style. Many authors have written in different styles at different periods of their lives, and many authors have written in different styles at the same period of life. Most authors become less ornate and florid as they advance in age. At least, there are many examples of this. But there are examples of change in the other direction. Of these Bacon is one. His mind, to use Macaulay's illustration, reversed the order of nature, producing fruit first (which remained to the last), and blossoms much later. The writings of his later years are much superior to those of his youth in variety of expression, in richness of illustration, in sweetness and vigor, in everything that constitutes eloquence. A similar change took place in the style of Burke. At the age of twenty it was simple and unadorned; at forty it was rich and copious; at fifty, ornate and florid, . . and at seventy, gorgeous. Macaulay declares it strange that the essay on the ' ' Sublime and Beautiful" and the "Letter to a Noble Lord" ( the former, one of Burke's early, and the latter one of his late, productions) should have been written by the same man.⁹ But they were; and this, with other similar facts, shows the unreasonableness of the conclusions drawn by the critics from the differences of style in the Pentateuch.

Not only do authors write in different styles at different periods of their lives, but many of them write in different styles at the same period. Every poet has his prose as well as his poetic style. There is a greater difference between the prose writings and the poetry of most modern authors, so far as style is concerned, than between different parts of the Pentateuch. According to the argumentation of the critics, the prose works of Milton and the "Paradise Lost" must have been written by different authors. According to their way of reasoning, Scott's "Life of Napoleon" and the "Lady of the Lake" cannot be the productions of one man. The same may be said of Cowper's poems and epistles, and the prose and poetic writings of many other authors.

Authors vary much also in poetic style. Judging by style alone, we would conclude that the "Pucelle," the "Henriade," and the dramas of Voltaire, to say nothing about his "Charles XII." of Sweden and other prose works, must have been produced by three different authors. According to the way the analytics reason, Byron's "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," his "Childe Harold," and his "Don Juan" owe their origin to a triple authorship. Each of these productions has marked peculiarities of style. An argument founded on archaisms may be employed to prove that "Childe Harold" was written long before Byron's time, for it abounds in obsoletisms, such as mote, whilome, idlesse, eld, fytte, fere, and other words, which are not found even in Byron's other poems. If we follow the linguistic argument, we must conclude that the author of this poem lived centuries before the time of Lord Byron. Coleridge, too, sometimes wrote in a weird and antique style. Our critics, to be consistent, ought to maintain that the author of " Christabel " and the hymn "Before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni " could not have written the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." The views of our critics about style are shown to be absurdly incorrect by the example of the writings of Burns. He was master of two styles of language, the broad Scotch dialect and the pure Anglo-Saxon English. We have the pure English in such poems as "To Mary in Heaven" and "Man was Made to Mourn"; and the broad Scotch in the "Twa Dogs" and the "Twa Brigs." "Tam O'Shanter" is written mainly in the Scotch dialect, but a small portion is characterized by the purest and most elegant English, as follows:

"But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow-falls in the river,
A moment white— then melts forever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm."

The two styles appear also in "Bannockbum." The first four stanzas of this poem are in Scotch, and the last two in pure English. Besides, there are two distinct styles of thought in Burns's poems. Some of them contain only noble and pure ideas, and some of them are characterized by vulgarity and obscenity. The author of "The Cotter's Saturday Night" was apparently a man of good moral ideas, but some of Burns's pieces would seem to have been written by a drunkard and a debauchee. Thus we have in Burns's works four or five diverse styles of thought and diction — prose style and poetic style, Scotch style and English style, and a pure and elevated style of thought in contrast with a vulgar and obscene style. We must admit that all these different styles were practiced by one man, and sometimes in writing one poem, or else maintain that there were four or five different authors of the productions attributed to Burns. Yet the analytics go on reasoning about the Pentateuch just as if no author ever wrote in more than one style, and just as if Moses, who lived one hundred and twenty years, and whose literary activity may have continued for eighty years or more, could not have changed his style of thought or diction during all that time.

(2) The extreme weakness of the linguistic argument is shown by other facts. One of these is that in the Pentateuch, as well as in other parts of the Old Testament, poetry and prose are mingled together. How can the critics be sure that what they regard as transitions from one author to another, as from E to J and from J back to E, are not in some cases alternations of poetry and prose, or adaptations of style to subject, by the same author? If men should judge of the alternations of style in Goethe's "Faust" as the analysts do of the Pentateuch, what would be the result?

(3) Besides, the uncertainty of all theories founded on differences of style in the Pentateuch is increased by the fact that if the hypothesis of the critics be correct there is very little to determine what the style of Hebrew writing was in the Mosaic age. According to their showing, there are indeed a few pieces of composition of that age found in the Pentateuch. Is there any difference between these few pieces and the Pentateuch in general, as to style of language and thought? This is a point which the critics ignore, and thereby tacitly admit that the facts are against them. But aside from this, with what is the style of the Pentateuch to be compared? The critics can only reason thus: The style of it is a good deal like that of Jeremiah or Joel, and therefore it is not like the style of Moses. Yet they fail to consider the style of what they admit Moses actually wrote.

(4) The weakness and uncertainty of all this reasoning are admitted by the ablest of the analytics themselves. Kuenen says, "The extant Israelitish literature is too limited in extent to enable us to determine the age of any work with certainty from mere considerations of language and style."¹⁰ Even Cheyne quotes approvingly from Kuenen, as follows: "Linguistic arguments do not furnish a positive or conclusive argument."¹¹ Wellhausen expresses his contempt for linguistic arguments, as well as for some others, by saying that "the firemen kept at a distance from the spot where the conflagration raged." He takes the ground that the battle must be fought out "in the regions of religious antiquities and dominant religious ideas."¹²

(5) The weakness of the linguistic argument is further shown by the efforts that have been made to point out peculiarities of style in the books of the Pentateuch. Take, for example. Driver's list of phrases which he claims are characteristic of Deuteronomy.¹³ The number of such phrases as presented by him is forty-one. But the number of obsoletisms, called by philologists archaisms, in "Childe Harold" is found by actual count to be fifty-five.¹⁴ Here, then, are fourteen more linguistic facts to prove that Byron did not write that poem than Driver produces to prove that Moses did not write Deuteronomy. On examination, however, we find that very many of these phrases said to be characteristic of Deuteronomy are really not such. The author admits that the first ten are found in Exodus.¹⁵ This admission does not go far enough, for, according to his own showing, nearly all of these ten phrases are found not only in Exodus, but elsewhere. Number one is found in Exodus, and also in Joshua and Hosea. Number two is found in Exodus and Joshua, often in Kings and Jeremiah. Number three is found in Exodus, and in Isaiah, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. Number five is found in Exodus, Judges, Micah, and Jeremiah. Number nine is found in Exodus and in Genesis and Joshua. Nearly all of the first ten phrases said to be characteristic of Deuteronomy are found not only in Exodus, but also elsewhere. The same is true of most of the other thirty-one examples. The eleventh, said to be very characteristic of Deuteronomy, is admitted also to be "characteristic of II. Isaiah," and is found also in I. Kings and in Jeremiah. The fourteenth is found in Exodus, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. The seventeenth is found in Genesis, Isaiah, and frequently in Ezekiel. The nineteenth is found in Joshua and I. Chronicles. The twenty-sixth is found in Numbers, often in the Book of Judges, in Kings and Jeremiah occasionally. The thirty-fifth is found in Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Jeremiah. The fortieth is found in Leviticus. Numbers, and Joshua. Very few of these forty-one phrases are found in Deuteronomy alone. The most of them are found in other books, many of them frequently. To call these phrases in general characteristic of Deuteronomy is absurd. But Driver has a way of construing things to his own mind and of representing them to others that covers up the absurdity. He claims that many of these phrases were incorporated into Deuteronomy from JE, and that JE was incorporated afterward into the Book of Exodus. The viciousness of this procedure from a logical point of view is manifest; for the thing in dispute is the existence of these supposed authors, J, E, D, and P. And now comes Driver, and, in order to prove that certain phrases are characteristic of Deuteronomy, brings in the existence of JE as an established fact. The fact of characteristic phrases being thus proved is then used in turn to prove the existence of such writers as J and E. Another absurd procedure in this undertaking is the claiming that phrases are characteristic of Deuteronomy which yet are found in several other books — some of them frequently thus found. Since these phrases are used b3^ many writers, they are not characteristic of any one in particular. Driver's list and argumentation confirm the admissions of Kuenen and Wellhausen concerning the weakness and inconclusiveness of the linguistic argument as employed against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.

4. The argument in favor of the documentary hypothesis drawn from the use of the divine names in Genesis, though doubtless the strongest adduced by the analytic critics, is by no means conclusive or satisfactory. It is as follows: In Genesis 1:1-31 and 2:1-3 the Divine Being is designated exclusively by the name "God" (Elohim); in 2:4-25 and 3:1-24 the name "Lord God" (Yahweh Elohim) is generally employed; in 4:1-26 "Lord" (Yahweh) is generally employed; in 5:1-32 "God" is generally employed; in 6:1-8, "Lord"; in 6:9-22, "God." Now this varied use of the divine names may be accounted for by the hypothesis that in Genesis extracts from several documents written by different authors have been pieced together, and that one of these authors employed the name "God," another, "Lord," and perhaps another, "Lord God." It is further claimed that the phenomenon in question is not satisfactorily accounted for in any other way. It is hence inferred that the hypothesis that Genesis is made up largely of extracts from documents written by different authors must be accepted; and a further inference is that Genesis is not the production of any single author, and hence not the production of Moses.

The argument certainly has plausibility and force. But there are several considerations by which it is very much weakened, if not altogether destroyed.

(1) One of these is the union of the two names "Lord" and "God," as in Genesis 2:4-25 and 3:1-24. It is, indeed, very easy to say that this is a JE document, an amalgamation of extracts from a Jehovistic and an Elohistic writer; but not a word is claimed from an Elohistic document except the name "God" (Elohim). After all, then, the critics cannot claim this passage as a JE document, but are compelled to take the ground that it is purely Jehovistic, and that the name '*God" (Elohim) was interpolated in it at least sixteen times by some unknown person for an unknown purpose. For the fact of the interpolation they have, and claim, no other evidence than that there is no other way of reconciling this passage with their hypothesis.

(2) Another weak place in the argument is suggested by the fact that frequently the name "Lord" (Yahweh) is found in the so-called Elohistic document¹⁶ and the name "God" (Elohim) in the Jehovistic.¹⁷ Hence, again, in more than half a dozen places the analytic critic is under the necessity of supposing, in order to conform the text to his hypothesis, that an interloping redactor inserted sometimes Jahweh for Elohim and sometimes Elohim for Jahweh. No reason can be assigned for this arbitrary tampering with the text of the original writer, except a wanton disposition to make changes. We are not aware that any of the critics have gone so far as to maintain that the intention of the interpolator in making these arbitrary substitutions was to remove traces of plural authorship and thus deceive mankind.

(3) Still further, the interchange of divine names is not found in the last ten chapters. In all these chapters the name Jahweh appears but once.¹⁸ In every case, with this one exception, Elohim is employed to designate the Divine Being. Yet the critics, notwithstanding, go right on with their analysis, dividing up this portion of Genesis between E and J, assigning to the latter even whole chapters in which Elohim is exclusively employed.¹⁹

Such are some of the facts in regard to the use of the divine names in Genesis and the analysis of this book into several documents written by different authors. Elohim is found very many times joined to Jahweh in a so-called Jehovistic document. The analysts easily reconcile this fact with their hypothesis by supposing that this is the work of an interpolator. Jahweh is found in a so-called Elohistic document, and again the aid of an interpolating redactor is invoked. Repeatedly are the names Jahweh and Elohim found, each just where, according to the hypothesis, it ought not to be. But our critics again show themselves equal to the emergency by suggesting that some redactor sometimes substituted Elohim for Jahweh, and sometimes Jahweh for Elohim, making these arbitrary changes in mere wantonness; or else that there were two redactors, a Jehovist and an Klohist, and that the former got his work in on the original E document, and the latter his work in on the original J document. If, in chapter after chapter, the interchange of the divine names disappears altogether, the critic still sets up his analysis just as in the chapters where the varied use of the divine names is the most apparent. Thus are the facts and the text conformed to the analytic hypothesis. Thus what seems the best argument for this hypothesis loses in a great degree its plausibility and strength through the very efforts that must be made in its behalf. An argument is scarcely admissible which creates a necessity for supposing interpolations, substitutions, or other alterations in the biblical text. Violence of this kind is generally resorted to in desperate cases, just as the taking of human life is considered justifiable only in self-defense. The frequency with which the analysts resort to the supposition of interpolations, redactions, or other changes in the text of Genesis, in order to carry out their argument derived from the use of the divine names, is certainly suspicious, and suggests the desperateness of the case.

5. The documentary hypothesis, as it is at this time held and advocated by critics, is to be accepted only on positive and strong evidence. The authors designated as E, D, J, P, Q, R, E² J² P¹ P² P³ etc., are absolutely unknown. Their names and places are not even conjectured. E is supposed to have been an Ephraimite, and J of the tribe of Judah. But this is a mere fancy, without a scintilla of evidence in its favor. The absolute ignorance that prevails in regard to these authors is evinced by the fact that not even a conjecture is offered that any one of them bore a name that is given in the biblical histories or genealogies. In all the writings of all these men and in all the other writings contained in the Bible, there is not a hint nor an allusion in regard to the name, place, position, or character of any of them. History knows nothing of them. Tradition knows nothing of them. The very writings attributed to them know nothing of them. The whole Bible knows nothing of them. The analysts themselves do not name a single man who they even suppose might be one of them. The argument from silence is, at best, perhaps only presumptive, but in this case the presumption is exceedingly strong that the supposed host of authors, compilers, interpolators, and redactors had no existence. Such a presumption is to be overcome only by conclusive evidence. Such evidence in this case does not seem to be forthcoming.

6. Let it not be forgotten that a documentary hypothesis is not incompatible with the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Such an hypothesis seems to have been suggested by one who firmly held the traditional belief.²⁰ Principal Cave, an advocate of that belief, has suggested that Moses is the Jehovist of the critics. Truly he may have acted, as before suggested, as compiler, editor, and redactor, as well as author. The documentary hypothesis, then, even if proved, does not disprove Mosaic authorship.

We have now reviewed a number of the arguments that are urged against the traditional belief. Some of them, such as the arguments founded on the silence of succeeding books, the centralization of worship and divergences of the Mosaic laws, the non-adaptation of these to the Israelites in the wilderness, and the account of the finding of the book of the law in the time of Josiah, have not been considered. These will be attended to as we proceed in the presentation of evidence and arguments on the other side. We will present the internal evidence in the first place, and then the external.

1) Hexateuch, p. 58:"Conjectures sur les Memoirs originaux dout il paroit que Moïse s'est servi pour composer le livre de la Genèse."

2) Observationes Sacrce, Vol. I., p. 36.

3) Luke 1:1-3.

4) Gen. 7:1-8:7.

5) Gen. 37:13-3.5.

6) Gen. 41:56-42:38.

7) Gen. 42:1-8.

8) These quotations are taken from Die Heilige Schrift des Atten Testaments, by Kautzsch-Socin.

9) Macaulay's Essay on Bacon.

10) Hexateuch, p. 268.

11) Founders of the Old Testament Criticism, p. 281.

12) Prolegomena, p. 12.

13) Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, pp. 91-95.

14) See above, p. 109.

15) Introduction, p. 91.

16) Gen. 15:1; 21:1; 22:11; 28:21.

17) Gen. 7:9, 17; 31:50.

18) Gen. 49:18.

19) Gen. 43, 44.

20) Vitringa, Observationes Sacrœ, p. 413.