The Suspicious Sources Of This Theory

Before we consider the evidences for and against this theory, it is proper that we note some prima facie considerations which cast upon it a cloud of suspicion.

Those who have wrought it out were unbelievers, and were moved in their labors by hostility to the Bible and the Christian religion. Especially is this true of the two scholars to whom, above all others, the present form of the theory owes its completion and defense, A. Kuenen, now deceased, and Julius Wellhausen, who is still living.(1) They unhesitatingly reject as incredible all accounts of supernatural events, including those connected with the career of Christ. These statements are freely admitted by the advocates of the theory, and some of them strive, as best they can to ward off suspicion thence arising. W. Robertson Smith acknowledges his own indebtedness to these two scholars in the following two sentences: "The first to attempt a connected history of the religion of Israel on the premises of the newer criticism was Professor Kuenen, the value of whose writings is admitted by candid inquirers of every school." "Taken as a whole, the writings of Wellhausen are the most notable contribution to the historical study of the Old Testament since the great work of Ewald, and almost every part of the present lectures owes something to them" (Prophets, 12, 43). Professor Briggs makes a similar acknowledgment, and seeks to guard against its effect: "We should not allow ourselves to be influenced by the circumstance that the majority of the scholars who have been engaged in these researches have been rationalistic or semi-rationalistic in their religious opinions; and that they have employed the methods and style peculiar to the German scholarship of our century. Whatever may have been the motives and influences that led to these investigations, the questions we have to determine are: (1) What are the facts in the case, and (2) do the theories account for the facts!"' (Bib. Study, 212). But it is vain to attempt to allay suspicion by such remarks as these. When the enemies of the Bible invent and propagate theories in the direct effort to destroy faith in the Bible, the friends of the book must necessarily be suspicious of them for such men would not be satisfied with their own works did they not believe that the Bible is discredited by them.

Prof. W. H. Green expresses himself on this point, with his usual calmness, in the following words: "It is noteworthy that the partition hypotheses in all their forms have been elaborated from the beginning in the interest of unbelief. The unfriendly animus of an opponent does not indeed absolve us from patiently and, candidly examining his arguments, and accepting whatever facts he may adduce, though we are not bound to receive his perverted interpretations of them. Nevertheless, we can not intelligently nor safely overlook the palpable bias against the supernatural which has infected the critical theories which we have been reviewing, from first to last. All the acknowledged leaders of the movement have, without exception, scouted the reality of miracles and prophecy and immediate divine revelation in their genuine and evangelical sense Their theories are all inwrought with naturalistic presuppositions which can not be disentangled from them without their falling to pieces" (H. C. of P., 157).

When the armies of one nation surrender to those of another it is usually understood that the latter has won its cause. So, if the army of the Lord shall surrender to the enemies of the Bible in respect to the nature of the Bible itself, it is inevitable that the onlooking world will take it that the cause of unbelief has triumphed. It should also be said in this connection, that the same rationalistic scholars who have evolved the analytical theory of the Pentateuch have espoused all of the old infidel objections to the various books of the Old Testament, and have made these important parts of their argument in favor of the analysis. Their triumph, therefore, would be the triumph of infidelity in its oldest and most radical forms. If it is able to triumph thus, let it be so; but let no man who hopes for salvation in Christ surrender to the enemy unless he shall be compelled to do so after exhausting all the resources of evidence and logic within his reach. That the analytical theory of the Pentateuch originated with and has been developed by the enemies of the Bible, while it does not indeed necessarily prove it to be false, establishes a strong logical presumption that it is so, and demands of believers that they continue to combat it until their last weapon shall have been used in vain. 

1. In the introduction to his Religion of Israel, Kuenen says: "For us the Israelitish is one of these religions (the 'principal religions'), nothing less, but also nothing more" (p.5). "As soon as it began to be clear that the testimony of Israel's sacred books could not stand the test of a searching inquiry; as soon as it appeared that they were least trustworthy just in those places where their accounts seemed to afford the most unequivocal proof of the truth of supernaturalism--from that moment, especially in connection with all the other motives which lead to the rejection of supernaturalism, its fall was an assured fact" (p.11 f.). "The representation of Israel's early history presented to us in the books named after Moses and Joshua, must be rejected as in its entirety impossible. Prejudice alone can deny that the miracles related in the same writings must be rejected at the same time" (p. 22).