INTRODUCTION. (continued 2)

¹ It should be clearly understood that as regards Priestly-Code and Yahwist the distinction of divine names is but one of many marks of diverse authorship (see Driver An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament⁸, 131 ff., where more than fifty such distinguishing criteria are given), and that after Exodus 6, where this particular criterion disappears, the difference is quite as obvious as before. As regards Yahwist and Elohist, the analysis, though sometimes dependent on the divine names alone, is generally based on other differences as well.

The next great step towards the modern documentary theory of the Pentateuch was Hupfeld’s¹ demonstration that אלהים is not peculiar to one document, but to two; so that under the name Elohist two different writers had previously been confused. It is obvious, of course, that in this inquiry the divine names afford no guidance; yet by observing finer marks of style, and the connexion of the narrative, Hupfeld succeeded in proving to the ultimate satisfaction of all critics that there was a second Elohistic source (now called Elohist), closely parallel and akin to the Yahwistic (Yahwist), and that both Yahwist and Elohist had once been independent consecutive narratives. An important part of the work was a more accurate delimitation of the first Elohist (now called the Priestly Code: Priestly-Code), whose outlines were then first drawn with a clearness to which later investigation has had little to add.²

¹ Die Quellen der Genesis und die Art ihrer Zusammensetzung (1853). Hupfeld’s discovery had partly been anticipated by Ilgen (Urkunden des ersten Buchs von Moses [1798]). Between Eichhorn and Hupfeld, criticism had passed through two well-defined phases: the Fragmentary Hypothesis (see page xxxii f. above) and the Supplementary Hypothesis, of which the classical exposition is Tuch’s fine commentary on Genesis (1858; reissued by Arnold in 1871). The latter theory rested partly on a prejudice—that the framework of the Pentateuch was necessarily supplied by its oldest source; partly on the misapprehension which Hupfeld dispelled; and partly on the truth that Yahwistic sections are so interlaced with Elohistic that the former could plausibly be regarded as on the whole supplementary to the latter. Though Tuch’s commentary did not appear till 1858, the theory had really received its death-blow from Hupfeld five years before.

² See Nöldeke, Untersuchungen zur Kritik des Alte Testament, 1869, pages 1‒144. It is worthy of mention here that this great scholar, after long resisting the theory of the late origin of Priestly-Code, has at last declared his acceptance of the position of Wellhausen (see Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, 1908, 203).

Though Hupfeld’s work was confined to Genesis, it had results of the utmost consequence for the criticism of the Pentateuch as a whole. In particular, it brought to light a fact which at once explains why Genesis presents a simpler problem to analysis than the rest of the Pentateuch, and furnishes a final proof that the avoidance of יהוה by two of the sources was not accidental, but arose from a theory of religious development held and expressed by both writers. For both Priestly-Code (Exodus 6^{2 ff.}) and Elohist (Exodus 3^{13 ff.}) connect the revelation of the Tetragrammaton with the mission of Moses; while the former states emphatically that God was not known by that name to the patriarchs.¹ Consistency demanded that these writers should use the generic name for Deity up to this point; while Yahwist, who was bound by no such theory, could use יהוה from the first.² From Exodus 6 onwards Priestly-Code regularly uses יהוה; Elohist’s usage fluctuates between א׳ and י׳ (perhaps a sign of different strata within the document), so that the criterion no longer yields a sure clue to the analysis.

¹ A curious attempt to turn the edge of this argument will be found in the article of H. M. Wiener referred to above (Bibliotheca Sacra and Theological Review, 1909, 158 ff.).

² For a partial exception, see on 4²⁶.

It does not lie within the scope of this Introduction to trace the extension of these lines of cleavage through the other books of the Hexateuch; and of the reflex results of the criticism of the later books on that of Genesis only two can here be mentioned. One is the recognition of the unique position and character of Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch, and the dating of its promulgation in the eighteenth year of Josiah.¹ Although this has hardly any direct influence on the criticism of Genesis, it is an important landmark in the Pentateuch problem, as furnishing a fixed date by reference to which the age of the other documents can partly be determined. The other point is the question of the date of Priestly-Code. The preconception in favour of the antiquity of this document (based for the most part on the fact that it really forms the framework of the Pentateuch) was nearly universal among scholars down to the publication of Wellhausen’s Geschichte Israels, i., in 1878; but it had already been shown to be groundless by Graff² and Kuenen in 1866‒69.

¹ De Wette, Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament (1806‒7); Riehm, Gesetzgebung Mose’s im Lande Moab (1854); al.

² Die geschichtliche Bücher des Alte Testaments (1866). Graf did not at first see it necessary to abandon the earlier date of the narratives of Priestly-Code; for an account of his subsequent change of opinion in correspondence with Kuenen, as well as the anticipations of his final theory by Vatke, Reuss, and others, we must refer to Kuenen An Historico-Critical Inquiry Into the Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch xix ff., or Holzinger’s Einleitung in den Hexateuch, especially page 64 ff.

This revolutionary change was brought about by a comparison of the layers of legislation in the later Pentateuch books with one another, and with the stages of Israel’s religious history as revealed in the earlier historical books; from which it appeared that the laws belonging to Priestly-Code were later than Deuteronomy, and that their codification took place during and after, and their promulgation after, the Exile. There was hesitation at first in extending this conclusion to the narratives of Priestly-Code, especially those of them in Genesis and Exodus 1‒11. But when the problem was fairly faced, it was perceived, not only that Priestly-Code in Genesis presented no obstacle to the theory, but that in many respects its narrative was more intelligible as the latest than as the oldest stratum of the book.

The chief positions at which literary criticism has arrived with regard to Genesis are, therefore, briefly these: (1) The oldest sources are Yahwist and Elohist, closely parallel documents, both dating from the best period of Hebrew literature, but distinguished from each other by their use of the divine name, by slight idiosyncrasies of style, and by quite perceptible differences of representation. (2) These sources were combined into a composite narrative (Jehovist) by a redactor (Redactor^Jehovist), whose hand can be detected in several patches of a literary complexion differing from either of his authorities. He has done his work so deftly that it is frequently difficult, and sometimes impossible, to sunder the documents. It is generally held that this redaction took place before the composition of Deuteronomy, so that a third stage in the history of the Pentateuch would be represented by the symbols Jehovist + Deuteronomy. (3) The remaining source Priestly-Code is a product of the Exilic or post-Exilic age, though it embodies older material. Originally an independent work, its formal and schematic character fitted it to be the framework of the Pentateuchal narrative; and this has determined the procedure of the final redactor (Redactor^Pentateuch), by whom excerpts from Jehovist have been used to fill up the skeleton outline which Priestly-Code gave of the primitive and patriarchal history.

The above statement will, it is hoped, suffice to put the reader in possession of the main points of the critical position occupied in the Commentary. The evidence by which they are supported will partly be given in the next four §§; but, for a full discussion of the numerous questions involved, we must here refer to works specially devoted to the subject.¹

¹ The following may be mentioned: Kuenen, Historisch-critisch onderzoek naar het ontstaan en de verzameling van de boeken des Ouden Verbonds², i. (1885) [English translation, The Hexateuch (1886)]; and Gesammelte Abhandlungen (translated into German by Budde); Wellhausen, Composition des Hexateuchs, etc. (²1889); and Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (⁶1905) [English translation 1885]; Westphal, Les Sources du Pentateuch (1888, 1892); Reuss, Geschichte der heiligen Schriften Alten Testaments (²1890); Robertson Smith, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church (²1892); Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (⁸1909); Holzinger, Einleitung in den Hexateuch (1893); Cornill, Einleitung in das Alte Testament (⁶1908); König, Einleitung in das Alte Testament (1893); Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Composition of the Hexateuch (1902) [= volume i. of The Hexateuch (1900)].

Some idea of the extent to which conservative opinion has been modified by criticism, may be gathered from the concessions made by Professor Orr, whose book, The Problem of the Old Testament, deservedly ranks as the ablest assault on the critical theory of the Pentateuch that has recently appeared in English. Dr. Orr admits (a) that Astruc was right in dividing a considerable part of Genesis into Elohistic and Yahwistic sections; (b) that Eichhorn’s characterisation of the style of the two documents has, in the main, ‘stood the test of time’; (c) that Hupfeld’s observation of a difference in the Elohistic sections of Genesis ‘in substance corresponds with facts’; and (d) that even Graf and Wellhausen ‘mark an advance,’ in making Priestly-Code a relatively later stratum of Genesis than Jehovist (pages 196‒201). When we see so many defences evacuated one after another, we begin to wonder what is left to fight about, and how a theory which was cradled in infidelity, and has the vice of its origin clinging to all its subsequent developments (Orr, 195 f.), is going to be prevented from doing its deadly work of spreading havoc over the ‘believing view’ of the Old Testament. Dr. Orr thinks to stem the torrent by adopting two relatively conservative positions from Klostermann. (1) The first is the denial of the distinction between Yahwist and Elohist (216 ff.). As soon as Hupfeld had effected the separation of Elohist from Priestly-Code, it ought to have been perceived, he seems to suggest, that the sections thus disentangled are really parts of Yahwist (217). And yet, even to Dr. Orr, the matter is not quite so simple as this, and he makes another concession. The distinction in the divine names remains; and so he is driven to admit that Yahwist and Elohist were, not indeed independent works, but different literary recensions of one and the same old work (229). What is meant by two versions in circulation alongside of each other, which never had currency as separate documents, is a point on which Dr. Orr owes his readers some explanation; if there were two recensions they certainly existed separately; and he cannot possibly know how far their agreement extended. The issue between him and his critical opponents is, nevertheless, perfectly clear: they hold that Yahwist and Elohist are independent recensions of a common body of tradition, while he maintains that they were recensions of a single document, differing in nothing but the use of יהוה or אלהים. What reasons, then, hinder us from deserting the critical view, and coming over to the side of Dr. Orr? In the first place, the difference between Yahwist and Elohist is not confined to the divine names. The linguistic evidence is very much clearer than Dr. Orr represents; and differences of conception, though slight, are real. It is all very well to quote from candid and truth-loving opponents admissions of the close resemblance of the narratives, and the difficulty and uncertainty of the analysis, in particular instances, and to suggest that these admissions amount to a throwing up of the case; but no man with an independent grasp of the subject will be imposed on by so cheap a device. In the second place, Yahwist and Elohist consist largely of duplicate narratives of the same event. It is true, this argument is lost on Dr. Orr, who has no difficulty in conceiving that Abraham twice told the same lie about his wife, and that his son Isaac followed his example, with very similar results in the three cases. But he will hardly affect to be surprised that other men take a more natural view,¹ and regard the stories as traditional variations of the same theme.—(2) The second position is that Priestly-Code was never a distinct or self-subsisting document, but only a “framework” enclosing the contents of Jehovist (341‒377). Again we have to ask what Dr. Orr means by a ‘framework,’ which, in his own words, “has also, at certain points, its original, and, in parts, considerable contributions to bring to the history” (272); and how he can possibly tell that these original and considerable contributions did not come from an independent work. The facts that it is now closely interwoven with Jehovist, and that there are gaps in its narrative (even if these gaps were more considerable than there is any reason to suppose), prove nothing except that it has passed through the hands of a redactor. That its history presupposes a knowledge of Jehovist, and is too meagre to be intelligible apart from it, is amply explained by the critical view that the author wished to concentrate attention on the great religious turning-points in the history (the Creation, the Flood, the Covenant with Abraham, the Blessing of Jacob by Isaac, the origin of the name Israel, the Settlement in Egypt, etc.), and dismissed the rest with a bare chronological epitome. When we add that on all these points, as well as others, the ‘original and considerable contributions’ are (Dr. Orr’s protestations notwithstanding) radically divergent from the older tradition, we have every proof that could be desired that Priestly-Code was an independent document, and not a mere supplementary expansion of an earlier compilation (see, further, page lvii ff. below). But now, supposing Dr. Orr to have made good his contentions, what advantage has he gained? So far as we can see, none whatever! He does indeed go on to assert a preference for the term ‘collaboration’ as expressing the ‘kind and manner of the activity which brought the Pentateuchal books into their present shape’ (375).² But that preference might just as easily have been exercised on the full literary results of the critical theory. And Dr. Orr deceives himself if he imagines that that flimsy hypothesis will either neutralise the force of the arguments that have carried criticism past the barren eccentricities of Klostermann, or save what he chooses to consider the ‘essential Mosaicity’ of the Pentateuch.

¹ So even Sayce, Early History of the Hebrews (1897), 62 f., 64 f.

² It is a grave injustice to Dillmann to associate his name, however remotely, with this theory of ‘collaboration’ (527). What Dillmann is speaking of in the words cited is simply the question whether the three documents, Priestly-Code, Elohist, and Yahwist, were combined by a single redaction, or whether two of them were first put together and afterwards united with the third. Dr. Orr, on the other hand, is thinking of “the labours of original composers, working with a common aim and towards a common end” (375). If everything beyond this is conjectural (376), there is nothing but conjecture in the whole construction.

Professor Eerdmans of Leiden, in a series of recent publications, has announced his secession from the Graf-Wellhausen school, and commenced to lay down the programme of a new era in Old Testament criticism (Hibbert Journal vii. [1909], 813 ff.). His Komposition der Genesis (1908) gives a foretaste of his literary method; and certainly the procedure is drastic enough. The divine names are absolutely misleading as a criterion of authorship; and the distinction between Priestly-Code and Jehovist goes overboard along with that between Yahwist and Elohist. Criticism is thus thrown back into its original chaos, out of which Eerdmans proceeds to evoke a new kosmos. His one positive principle is the recognition of a polytheistic background behind the traditions, which has been obscured in various degrees by the later monotheistic interpretation. By the help of this principle, he distinguishes four stages in the development of the tradition. (1) The first is represented by remnants of the original undiluted polytheism, where Yahwe does not appear at all; e.g. 35^1‒7; the Israel-recension of the Joseph-stories; the groundwork of chapters 1. 20. 28^1‒9 6⁹‒9¹⁷. (2) Legends which recognise Yahwe as one among many gods; 4. 9^18‒27 22. 27. 28^11‒22 29. 30. 31. 39. (3) In the third stage, polytheistic legends are transferred to Yahwe as the only God: 2. 3. 6^1‒8 7^1‒5 8^20‒22 11^1‒9 16. 18. 19. 24. 25^19‒34 26. (4) Late additions of purely monotheistic complexion: 15^1‒6 17. 35^9‒15 48^3‒6. Now, we are quite prepared to find traces of all these stages of religion in the Genesis-narratives, if they can be proved; and, indeed, all of them except the second are recognised by recent critics. But while any serious attempt to determine the age of the legends from their contents rather than from their literary features is to be welcomed, it is difficult to perceive the distinctions on which Eerdmans’s classification is based, or to admit that, for example, chapter 17 is one whit more monotheistic than 20 or 27, or 24. In any case, on Eerdmans’s own showing, the classification affords no clue to the composition and history of the book. In order to get a start, he has to fall back on the acknowledged literary distinction between a Jacob-recension and an Israel-recension of the Joseph-narratives (on this see page 439 below). Since the former begins אלה תלדות יעקב, it is considered to have formed part of a comprehensive history of the patriarchs, commencing with Adam (5¹), set in a framework of Tôlĕdôth. This is the groundwork of Genesis. It is destitute of monotheistic colouring (it contains, however, legends of all the first three classes!), Yahwe being to the compiler simply one of the gods; and must therefore have originated before the Exile: a lower limit is 700 B.C. This collection was soon enlarged by the addition of legends not less ancient than its own; and by the insertion of the Israel-recension, which is as polytheistic in character as the Tôlĕdôth-collection! The monotheistic manipulation of the work set in after Deuteronomy; but how many editions it went through we cannot tell for certain. The last thorough-going reviser was the author of chapter 17; but additions were made even later than that, etc. etc. A more bewildering hypothesis it has never been our lot to examine; and we cannot pretend to believe that it contains the rudiments of a successful analysis. There is much to be learned from Eerdmans’s work, which is full of acute observations and sound reasoning in detail; but as a theory of the composition of Genesis it seems to us utterly at fault. What with Winckler and Jerome, and Cheyne, and now Eerdmans, Old Testament scholars have a good many new eras dawning on them just now. Whether any of them will shine unto the perfect day, time will show.

§ 8. The collective authorship of Yahwist and Elohist.

In Yahwist and Elohist we have, according to what has been said above, the two oldest written recensions of a tradition which had at one time existed in the oral form. When we compare the two documents, the first thing that strikes us is their close correspondence in outline and contents. The only important difference is that Elohist’s narrative does not seem to have embraced the primitive period, but to have commenced with Abraham. But from the point where Elohist strikes into the current of the history (at chapter 20, with a few earlier traces in chapter 15), there are few incidents in the one document to which the other does not contain a parallel.¹. What is much more remarkable, and indeed surprising, is that the manner of narration changes in the two documents pari passu. Thus the transition from the loose connexion of the Abraham legends to the more consecutive biography of Jacob, and then to the artistic unity of the Joseph-stories (see page xxviii f.), is equally noticeable in Yahwist and in Elohist. It is this extraordinarily close parallelism, both in matter and form, which proves that both documents drew from a common body of tradition, and even suggests that that tradition had already been partly reduced to writing.²

¹ The precise extent to which this is true depends, of course, on the validity of the finer processes of analysis, with regard to which there is room for difference of opinion. On the analysis followed in the commentary, the only episodes in Elohist to which there is no trace of a parallel in Yahwist, after chapter 15, are: the sacrifice of Isaac, 22; Esau’s selling of his birthright, 25^29‒34 (?); the theophany of Mahanaim, 32^{2. 3}; the purchase of land at Shechem, 33^18‒20; and the various incidents in 35^{1‒8. 14‒20}. Those peculiar to Yahwist are: the theophany at Mamre, 18; the destruction of Sodom, 19^1‒28; Lot and his daughters, 19^30‒38; the birth of Jacob and Esau, 25^21‒28; the Isaac-narratives, 26; Jacob’s meeting with Rachel, 29^2‒14; Reuben and the love-apples, 30^{14 ff.}; the incest of Reuben, 35^{21. 22a}; Judah and Tamar, 38; Joseph’s temptation, 39^7‒20; the cup in Benjamin’s sack, 44; Joseph’s agrarian policy, 47^{13‒26 (?)}; and the genealogies of 22^20‒24 25^1‒6.

² One is almost tempted to go further, and say that the facts can be best explained by the hypothesis of literary dependence of one document on the other (so Luther Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme, 169: “Elohist steht völlig in seinem [Yahwist’s] Banne”). But the present writer is convinced from repeated examination, that the differences are not of a kind that can be accounted for in this way (see Procksch, 305 f.).

Here we come back, from the side of analysis, to a question which was left unsettled in § 5; the question, namely, of the process by which the oral tradition was consolidated and reduced to writing. It has been shown with great probability that both Yahwist and Elohist are composite documents, in which minor legendary cycles have been incorporated, and different strata of tradition are embedded. This presupposes a development of the tradition within the circle represented by each document, and leads eventually to the theory advocated by most recent critics, that the symbols Yahwist and Elohist must be taken to express, not two individual writers but two schools, i.e., two series of narrators, animated by common conceptions, following a common literary method, and transmitting a common form of the tradition from one generation to another.

The phenomena which suggest this hypothesis are fully described in the body of the commentary, and need only be recapitulated here. In Yahwist, composite structure has been most clearly made out in the Primæval History (chapters 1‒11), where at least two, and probably more, strands of narrative can be distinguished (pages 1‒4). Gunkel seems to have shown that in 12‒25 two cycles of Abraham-legends have been interwoven (page 240); also that in 25 ff. the Jacob-Esau and the Jacob-Laban legends were originally independent of each other: this last, however, applies to Yahwist and Elohist alike, so that the fusion had probably taken place in the common tradition which lies behind both. Further, chapters 34 and 38 (pages 418, 450) belong to an older stratum of tradition than the main narrative; and the same might be said of chapter 49 (page 512), which may very plausibly be regarded as a traditional poem of the ‘school’ of Yahwist, and the oldest extant specimen of its repertoire.—With regard to Elohist, the proof of composite authorship lies chiefly in the Books of Exodus, Numbers, and Joshua; in Genesis, however, we have imperfectly assimilated fragments of a more ancient tradition in 34 (? if Elohist be a component there), 35^1‒7 48²² and perhaps some other passages.—The important fact is that these passages exhibit all the literary peculiarities of the main source to which they are assigned; at least, no linguistic differentiæ of any consequence have yet been discovered.¹ The problem is to frame a theory which shall do justice at once to their material incongruities and their literary homogeneity.

¹ The only exception would be Sievers’ metrical analysis, which leads to results far more complicated than can be justified by other indications (see page xxxi f.).

While the fact of collective authorship of some kind is now generally recognised, there is no agreement as to the interpretation which best explains all the phenomena. Some scholars are impressed (and the impression is certainly very intelligible) by the unity of conception and standpoint and mode of treatment which characterise the two collections, and maintain that (in the case of Yahwist especially) the stamp of a powerful and original personality is too obvious to leave much play for the activity of a ‘school.’¹ It is very difficult to hold the balance even between the claims of unity and complexity in the documents; but the theory of single authorship may easily be pressed too far. If we could get through with only a Yahwist¹ and Yahwist², Elohist¹, Elohist² etc.,—i.e., with the theory of one main document supplemented by a few later additions,—it would be absurd to speak of ‘schools.’ And even if the case were considerably more complicated, it might still be possible to rest satisfied (as a majority of critics do) with the idea of literary schools, manipulating written documents under the influence of tendencies and principles which had become traditional within special circles. Gunkel goes, however, much further with his conception of Yahwist and Elohist as first of all guilds of oral narrators, whose stories gradually took written shape within their respective circles, and were ultimately put together in the collections as we now have them. The theory, while not necessarily excluding the action of an outstanding personality in shaping either the oral or the literary phase of the tradition, has the advantage of suggesting a medium in which the traditional material might have assumed its specifically Yahwistic or Elohistic form before being incorporated in the main document of the school. It is at all events a satisfactory working hypothesis; and that is all that can be looked for in so obscure a region of investigation. Whether it is altogether so artificial and unnatural as Professor Orr would have us believe, the reader must judge for himself.

¹ See the lengthy excursus of Luther in Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme, 107‒170, where the thesis is upheld that the Yahwist (i.e. Yahwist¹) is not a stage in the natural process of remodelling the tradition; that he does not mean merely to retail the old stories as he found them, but writes his book with the conscious purpose of enforcing certain ideas and convictions which often run contrary to the prevailing tendencies of his age (108). Luther seems to simplify the problem too much by excluding the primæval tradition from consideration (108), and ignoring the distribution of the Yahwistic material over the various stages of the redaction (155). It makes a considerable difference to the theory if (as seems to be the case) the sections which Luther assigns to Yahwist² (e.g. chapters 34, 38, 19) really represent older phases of tradition than the main document; for if they existed in their Yahwistic colouring prior to the compilation of Yahwist¹, there must have been a Yahwistic circle of some kind to preserve them; and even if they received their literary stamp at a later time, there must still have been something of the nature of a school to impress the Yahwistic character so strongly upon them. His conception of the Yahwist as an Ephraimite, a detached and sympathetic adherent of the prophetic and Rechabite movement of the 9th century, an opponent of the cultus, and an upholder of the nomadic ideal against the drift of the old tradition, seems to go far beyond the evidence adduced, and, indeed, to be hardly reconcilable with the religious tone and spirit of the narratives.—To a similar effect writes Procksch, Sagenbuch, 284‒308; although he does justice to the composite structure of the document Yahwist, and describes it in terms which throw a shade of uncertainty on the alleged unity of authorship. When we read of an “einheitlichen Grundstock, auf den wie in einen Stamm ♦Geschichten ganz anderer Herkunft gewissermassen aufgepropft sind, jetzt eng damit verwachsen durch die massgebenden Ideen” (294 f.), we cannot help asking where these branches grew before they were engrafted on their present stem. If we are right in distinguishing a strand of narrative in which Yahwe was used from the beginning, and another in which it was introduced in the time of Enosh, it is not easy to account for their fusion on any theory which does not allow a relative independence to the two conceptions.

§ 9. Characteristics of Yahwist and Elohist—their relation to Literary Prophecy.

It is not the purpose of this section to give an exhaustive characterisation of the literary or general features of the two older documents of Genesis. If Yahwist and Elohist are to be regarded as, in the main, recensions of a common body of oral tradition, and if they are the work of schools rather than of individuals, it is obvious that the search for characteristic differences loses much of its interest; and in point of fact the attempt to delineate two well-defined literary types is apt to be defeated by the widely contrasted features which have to find a place in one and the same picture. Our object here is simply to specify some outstanding differences which justify the separation of sources, and which may assist us later to determine the relative ages of the two documents.

Yahwist presents, on the whole, a more uniform literary texture than Elohist. It is generally allowed to contain the best examples of pure narrative style in the Old Testament; and in Genesis it rarely, if ever, falls below the highest level. But while Elohist hardly attains the same perfection of form, there are whole passages, especially in the more ample narratives, in which it is difficult to assign to the one a superiority over the other. Yahwist excels in picturesque ‘objectivity’ of description,—in the power to paint a scene with few strokes, and in the delineation of life and character: his dialogues, in particular, are inimitable “for the delicacy and truthfulness with which character and emotions find expression in them” (compare Genesis 44^{18 ff.}).¹ Elohist, on the other hand, frequently strikes a deeper vein of subjective feeling, especially of pathos; as in the account of Isaac’s sacrifice (22), of the expulsion of Hagar (21^{8 ff.}), the dismay of Isaac and the tears of Esau on the discovery of Jacob’s fraud (27^{35 ff.}), Jacob’s lifelong grief for Rachel (48⁷), or his tenderness towards Joseph’s children (48¹⁴).² But here again no absolute distinction can be drawn; in the history of Joseph, e.g., the vein of pathos is perhaps more marked in Yahwist than in Elohist. Where parallels are sufficiently distinct to show a tendency, it is found in several instances that Yahwist’s objectivity of treatment has succeeded in preserving the archaic spirit of a legend which in Elohist is transformed by the more refined sentiment of a later age. The best example is Yahwist’s picture of Hagar, the intractable, indomitable Bedawi woman (chapater 16), as contrasted with Elohist’s modernised version of the incident (21^{8 ff.}), with its affecting picture of the mother and child all but perishing in the desert. So again, Elohist (chapter 20) introduces an extenuation of Abraham’s falsehood about his wife which is absent from the older narrative of Yahwist (12^{10 ff.}).

¹ Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, page 119.

² Compare Gunkel, page LXXVII.

It is not surprising, considering the immense variety of material comprised in both documents, that the palpable literary differences reduce themselves for the most part to a preference for particular phrases and turns of expression in the one recension or the other. The most important case is, of course, the distinctive use (in the pre-Mosaic period) of Yahwe in Yahwist and Elohim in Elohist.¹ But round this are grouped a number of smaller linguistic differences which, when they occur in any degree of profusion in a consecutive passage, enable us to assign it with confidence to one or other of the sources.

¹ This, it is true, is more than a mere matter of phraseology; in the case of Elohist, it is the application of a theory of religious development which connected the revelation of the name Yahwe with the mission of Moses (Exodus 3^13‒15). It is now generally held that the original Elohist continued to use Elohim after the revelation to Moses, and that the occurrences of Yahwe in the later history belong to secondary strata of the document. On either view the choice of the general name of deity is difficult to account for. Procksch regards it as due to the influence of the great monotheistic movement headed by Elijah; but that is not probable. The inspiring motive of Elijah’s crusade was precisely jealousy for Yahwe, the national God of Israel. Gunkel, on the other hand, thinks it arose from the fact that the legends were largely of Canaanite and polytheistic origin; and it is certainly the case that in the patriarchal history Elohist contains several strong traces of a polytheistic basis of the narratives (28^{10 ff.} 32^{2. 3} 35⁷ etc.). But that Elohim had a monotheistic sense to the mind of the Elohistic writers is not to be doubted (against Eerdmans).

The divine names.—While the possibility of error in the Massoretic textual tradition is fully recognised, cases of inadvertence in the use of יהוה and אלהים are in Genesis singularly few. In Elohist contexts, יהוה occurs 22^{11. 14 bis} 28²¹ 31⁴⁹, where its presence seems due to the intentional action of a redactor. Yahwist has אלהים (a) in 3^1‒5 4²⁵ (a special case: see pages 2, 53); (b) where the contrast between the divine and the human is to be emphasised, 32²⁹; (c) in conversations with, or references to, heathen (real or supposed), 9²⁷ 39⁹ 41^{32b. 38} 43^{28. 29} 44¹⁶; there are also (d) some doubtful examples which are very probably to be assigned to Elohist, 33^{5b. 10b. 11} 42²⁸. It is only in the last group (if even there), with the possible addition (see page 155) of 8¹, that redactional alteration or scribal error need be suspected.

For the inhabitants of Canaan, Yahwist uses כנעני, 10^{18b. 19} 12⁶ (? Redactor), 24^{3. 37} 50¹¹ + (with פרזי, 13⁷ (Redactor?) 34³⁰); Elohist אמרי, 15¹⁶ 48²² +.¹

¹ The cross (+) means that the usage is continued in the other books of the Hexateuch.

For the name Jacob, Yahwist substitutes Israel after 35²² (except 46^5b); Elohist consistently uses Jacob (except 46² 48^{8. 11. 21} [50²⁵?]).

The following are selected lists of expressions (in Genesis) highly characteristic of Yahwist and Elohist respectively:

Yahwist: אבי and ושם אחיו in genealogies: the former, 4^{20. 21} 10²¹ 11²⁹ 22²¹; the latter, 4²¹ 10²⁵ (compare 22²¹ 25²⁶ 38^{29 f.}).—זְקֻנִים (in connexion with a late-born child), 21^{2a. 7} 24³⁶ 37³ 44²⁰.—מצא חן, 6⁸ 18³ 19¹⁹ 30²⁷ 32⁶ 33^{8. 10. 15} 34¹¹ 39⁴ 47^{25. 29} 50⁴ +.—טרם (without ב), 2⁵ 19⁴ 24^{15. 45} +.—ידע (in sexual sense), 4^{1. 17. 25} 19^{5. 8} 24¹⁶ 38²⁶ (also in Priestly-Code).—ילד (= ‘beget’), 4¹⁸ 10^{8. 13. 15. 26} 22²³ 25³.—יש, 24^{23. 42. 49} 28¹⁶ 39^{4. 5. 8} 42² 43^{4. 7} 44^{19. 20. 26} 47^6b + (42¹ Elohist?).—Derivatives of √ עצב, ♦3^{16. 17} 5²⁹ 6⁶ 45^5a.—הפעם, 2²³ 18³² 29^{34. 35} 30^20b 46³⁰ +.—צעיר, צעירה (for the younger of two brothers or sisters), 19^{31. 34. 35. 38} 25²³ 29²⁶ 43³³ 48¹⁴.—קרא בשם י׳, 4²⁶ 12⁸ 13⁴ 21³³ 26²⁵ +.—רוץ לקראת, 18² [19¹] 24¹⁷ 29¹³ 33⁴.—שפחה, 12¹⁶ 16^{1. 5. 6. 8} 24³⁵ 30^{7. 10. 12. 43} 32^{6. 23} 33^{1. 2. 6} (20¹⁴ 30¹⁸ Redactor: also common in Priestly-Code); see on אמה below.—השקיף, 18¹⁶ 19²⁸ 26⁸ +.—מעט with following genitive, 18⁴ 24^{17. 43} 43^{2. 11} 44²⁵.—Particles: בעבור, 3¹⁷ 8²¹ 12^{13. 16} 18^{26. 29. 31. 32} 21³⁰ 26²⁴ 27^{4. 10. 19. 31} 46³⁴.—כי־על־כן, 18⁵ 19⁸ 33¹⁰ 38²⁶ +.—לבלתי, 3¹¹ 4¹⁵ 19²¹ 38⁹ + (in Elohist and Priestly-Code once each).—נא, in Yahwist about 40 times, in Elohist about 6 times (in Genesis).

Elohist: אמה, 20¹⁷ 21^{10. 12. 13} 30³ 31³³ + (see שפחה above).—גדול and קטן (‘elder’ and ‘younger’), 29^{16. 18} 42^{13. 15. 20. 32. 34} (compare 41^{51 f.}).—כלכל, 45¹¹ 47¹² 50²¹.—משכרת, 29¹⁵ 31^{7. 41}.—A very characteristic idiom of Elohist is the vocative (sometimes doubled: 22¹¹ 46², Exodus 3⁴, [1 Samuel 3⁴ LXX] +) with the answer הנני: 22^{1. 7. 11} 27^{1b. 18} 31¹¹ 37¹³ 46² +.—Elohist is further distinguished by a number of rare or archaic words or phrases: אמנה, 20¹² + Joshua 7²⁰; דגה, 48¹⁶ +; זבד, 30²⁰; חמת, 21^{14. 15. 19} +; טחה, 21¹⁶ +; כן (‘honest’), 42^{11. 19. 31. 33. 34}; מנים, 31^{7. 41} +; נין ונכד, 21²³ (compare Isaiah 14²², Job 18¹⁹ +); עקד, 22⁹ +; פלל, 48¹¹; פתר, 40^{8 ff.} 41^{8 ff.} +; פתרון, 40^{5 ff.} 41¹¹ +; צנום, 41²³; קשיטה, 33¹⁹ + Joshua 24³² [Job 42¹¹] +; by a partiality for rare infinitive forms (31²⁸ 46³ 50²⁰ 48¹¹ +), and the occasional use of long forms of the nominal suffix (21²⁹ [31⁶] 41²¹ 42³⁶).

The religious and theological conceptions of the two documents are in the main identical, though a certain difference of standpoint appears in one or two features. Both evince towards the popular cultus an attitude of friendly toleration, with a disposition to ignore its cruder aspects; and this tendency is carried somewhat further in Yahwist than in Elohist. Thus, while neither countenances the Asherah, or sacred pole, Elohist alludes, without offence, to the Maẓẓebah, or sacred pillar (28^{18. 22} 31^{13. 45 ff.} 35²⁰); whereas Yahwist nowhere allows to the maẓẓebah a legitimate function in the worship of Yahwe. A very singular circumstance is that while both frequently record the erection of altars by the patriarchs, they are remarkably reticent as to the actual offering of sacrifice: Elohist refers to it only twice (22. 46¹), and Yahwist never at all in the patriarchal history (contrast 4^{3 ff.} 8^{20 ff.}). It is difficult to imagine that the omission is other than accidental: the idea that it indicates an indifference (Gunkel), or a conscious opposition (Luther), to the cultus, can hardly be entertained; for after all the altar had no use or significance except as a means of sacrifice.—The most striking diversity appears in the representation of the Deity, and especially of the manner of His revelation to men. The antique form of the theophany, in which Yahwe (or the Angel of Yahwe) appears visibly in human form, and in broad daylight, is peculiar to Yahwist (chapters 16. 18. 19), and corresponds to the highly anthropomorphic language which is observed in other parts of the document (chapters 2. 3. 7. 8. 11^{5. 7}). Elohist, on the contrary, records no daylight theophanies, but prefers the least sensible forms of revelation,—the dream or night-vision (15¹ 20^{3. 6} 21¹² [compare ¹⁴] 22^{1 ff.} 28^{10 ff.} 31^{11. 24} 46²),¹ or the voice of the angel from heaven (21¹⁷). In this respect Elohist undoubtedly represents a more advanced stage of theological reflexion than Yahwist.—The national feeling in both sources is buoyant and hopeful: the ‘scheue heidnische Stimmung,’ the sombre and melancholy view of life which marks the primæval history of Yahwist disappears absolutely when the history of the immediate ancestors of Israel is reached. The strongly pessimistic strain which some writers note as characteristic of Elohist finds no expression whatever in Genesis; and so far as it exists at all (Joshua 24), it belongs to secondary strata of the document, with which we are not here concerned.

¹ We do not include the dreams of the Joseph-stories, which seem to stand on a somewhat different footing (page 345). Nocturnal revelations occur, however, in Yahwist (26²⁴ 28¹³), but whether in the oldest parts of the document is not quite certain.

Here we touch on a question of great importance, and one fortunately capable of being brought to a definite issue: viz., the relation of Yahwist and Elohist to the literary prophecy of the 8th and following centuries. It is usual to speak of the combined Jehovist as the Prophetical narrative of the Pentateuch, in distinction from Priestly-Code, the Priestly narrative; and in so far as the name is employed (as, e.g., by Driver An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament⁸, 117) to emphasise that contrast, it is sufficiently appropriate. As used, however, by many writers, it carries the implication that the documents—or that one to which the epithet is applied—show unmistakable traces of the influence of the later prophets from Amos downwards. That view seems to us entirely erroneous. It is undoubtedly the case that both Yahwist and Elohist are pervaded by ideas and convictions which they share in common with the writing prophets: such as, the monotheistic conception of God, the ethical view of His providential government, and perhaps a conscious opposition to certain emblems of popular cultus (asheras, maẓẓebas, teraphim, etc.). But that these and similar principles were first enunciated by the prophets of the 8th century, we have no reason to suppose. Nor does the fact that Abraham, as a man of God, is called Nābî’ (20⁷, compare Deuteronomy 34¹⁰) necessarily imply that the figure of an Amos or an Isaiah was before the mind of the writers. We must bear in mind that the 9th century witnessed a powerful prophetic movement which, commencing in Northern Israel, extended into Judah; and that any prophetic influences discoverable in Genesis are as likely to have come from the impulse of that movement as from the later development which is so much better known to us. But in truth it is questionable if any prophetic impulse at all, other than those inherent in the religion from its foundation by Moses, is necessary to account for the religious tone of the narratives of Genesis. The decisive fact is that the really distinctive ideas of written prophecy find no echo in those parts of Yahwist and Elohist with which we have to do. These are: the presentiment of the impending overthrow of the Israelitish nationality, together with the perception of its moral necessity, the polemic against foreign deities, the denunciation of prevalent oppression and social wrong, and the absolute repudiation of cultus as a means of recovering Yahwe’s favour. Not only are these conceptions absent from our documents, but it is difficult to conceive that they should have been in the air in the age when the documents were composed. For, though it is true that very different religious ideas may exist side by side in the same community, it is scarcely credible that Yahwist and Elohist could have maintained their confident hope for the future of the nation intact against the tremendous arraignment of prophecy. This consideration gains in force from the fact that the secondary strata of Elohist, and the redactional additions to Jehovist, which do come within the sweep of the later prophetic movement, clearly show that the circles from which these writings emanated were sensitively responsive to the sterner message of the prophets.

§ 10. Date and place of origin—Redaction of Jehovist.

On the relative age of Yahwist and Elohist, there exists at present no consensus of critical opinion. Down to the appearance of Wellhausen’s Geschichte Israels in 1878, scholars were practically unanimous in assigning the priority to Elohist.¹ Since then, the opposite view has been strongly maintained by the leading exponents of the Grafian theory,² although a number of critics still adhere to the older position.³ The reason for this divergence of opinion lies not in the paucity of points of comparison, but partly in the subjective nature of the evidence, and partly in the fact that such indications as exist point in opposite directions.

¹ Hupfeld, Schrader, Nöldeke, Reuss, al.

² Wellhausen, Kuenen, Stade, Meyer; so Luther, Procksch, al.

³ Dillmann, Kittel, König, Winckler al.

To take a few examples from Genesis: Chapter 16^1‒14 (Yahwist) produces an impression of greater antiquity than the parallel 21^9‒19 (Elohist); Yahwist’s explanation of the name Issachar, with its story of the love-apples (30^14‒16), is more primitive than that of Elohist (30¹⁷); Yahwist (30^28‒43) attributes the increase of Jacob’s flocks to his own cunning, whereas Elohist (31^4‒13) attributes it to the divine blessing. On the other hand, Elohist’s recension of the Bethel-theophany (28^{11 f. 17 ff.}) is obviously more antique than Yahwist’s (^13‒16); and in the Joseph narratives the leadership of Reuben (Elohist) is an element of the original tradition which Yahwist has altered in favour of Judah. A peculiarly instructive case is 12^{10 ff.} (Yahwist) ∥ 20 (Elohist) ∥ 26^{7 ff.} (Yahwist), where it seems to us (though Kuenen and others take a different view) that Gunkel is clearly right in holding that Yahwist has preserved both the oldest and the youngest form of the legend, and that Elohist represents an intermediate stage.

This result is not surprising when we understand that Yahwist and Elohist are not individual writers, but guilds or schools, whose literary activity may have extended over several generations, and who drew on a store of unwritten tradition which had been in process of codification for generations before that. This consideration forbids us also to argue too confidently from observed differences of theological standpoint between the two documents. It is beyond doubt that Elohist, with its comparative freedom from anthropomorphisms and sensible theophanies, with its more spiritual conception of revelation, and its greater sensitiveness to ethical blemishes on the character of the patriarchs (page xlviii), occupies, on the whole, a higher level of reflexion than Yahwist; but we cannot tell how far such differences are due to the general social milieu in which the writers lived, and how far to esoteric tendencies of the circles to which they belonged. All that can safely be affirmed is that, while Elohist has occasionally preserved the more ancient form of the tradition, there is a strong presumption that Yahwist as a whole is the earlier document.

In attempting to determine the absolute dates of Yahwist and Elohist, we have a fixed point of departure in the fact that both are earlier than the age of written prophecy (page li f.); in other words, 750 B.C. is the terminus ad quem for the composition of either. If it be the case that 37⁸ in Elohist presupposes the monarchy of the house of Joseph, the terminus a quo for that document would be the disruption of the kingdom, circa 930 (compare Deuteronomy 33⁷); and indeed no one proposes to fix it higher. Between these limits, there is little to guide us to a more precise determination. General considerations, such as the tone of political feeling, the advanced conception of God, and traces of the influence of 9th-century prophecy, seem to us to point to the later part of the period, and in particular to the brilliant reign of Jeroboam II. (785‒745), as the most likely time of composition.¹ In Yahwist there is no unequivocal allusion to the divided kingdom; and nothing absolutely prevents us from putting its date as early as the reign of Solomon. The sense of national solidarity and of confidence in Israel’s destiny is even more marked than in Elohist; and it has been questioned, not without reason, whether such feelings could have animated the breast of a Judæan in the dark days that followed the dissolution of Solomon’s empire.² That argument is not greatly to be trusted: although the loss of the northern provinces was keenly felt in Judah (Isaiah 7¹⁷), yet the writings of Isaiah show that there was plenty of flamboyant patriotism there in the 8th century, and we cannot tell how far in the intervening period religious idealism was able to overcome the depression natural to a feeble and dependent state, and keep alive the sense of unity and the hope of reunion with the larger Israel of the north. In any case, it is improbable that Yahwist and Elohist are separated by an interval of two centuries; if Elohist belongs to the first half of the 8th century, Yahwist will hardly be earlier than the 9th.³

¹ So Procksch (178 ff.), who points out a number of indications that appear to converge on that period of history. Wellhausen, Kuenen, Stade, Holzinger agree; Reuss, Dillmann, Kittel place it in the 9th century.

² Procksch. 286 ff.

³ So Wellhausen, Kuenen, Stade, Kittel, Gunkel al.

Specific historical allusions which have been thought to indicate a more definite date for Yahwist (or Elohist) prove on examination to be unreliable. If 31^{44 ff.} 49^{23 ff.} contained references to the wars between Israel and Aram under Omri and his successors, it would be necessary to bring the date of both documents down to that time; but Gunkel has shown that interpretation to be improbable.—27^40b presupposes the revolt of Edom from Judah (circa 840); but that prosaic half-verse is probably an addition to the poetic passage in which it occurs, and therefore goes to show that the blessing itself is earlier, instead of later, than the middle of the 9th century.—The curse on Canaan (9^{23 ff.}) does not necessarily assume the definite subjugation of the Canaanites by Israel; and if it did, would only prove a date not earlier than Solomon.—Other arguments, such as the omission of Asshur and the inclusion of Kelaḥ and Nineveh in the list of Assyrian cities in 10¹¹ etc., are still less conclusive.

While it is thus impossible to assign a definite date to Yahwist and Elohist, there are fairly solid grounds for the now generally accepted view that the former is of Judæan and the latter of Ephraimite origin. Only, it must be premised that the body of patriarchal tradition which lies behind both documents is native to northern, or rather central, Israel, and must have taken shape there.¹ The favourite wife of Jacob is not Leah but Rachel, the mother of Joseph (Ephraim-Manasseh) and Benjamin; and Joseph himself is the brightest figure in all the patriarchal gallery. The sacred places common to both recensions—Shechem, Bethel, Mahanaim, Peniel, Beersheba—are, except the last, all in Israelite territory; and Beersheba, though belonging geographically to Judah, was for some unknown reason a favourite resort of pilgrims from the northern kingdom (Amos 5⁵ 8¹⁴, 1 Kings 19³).—It is when we look at the divergence between the two sources that the evidence of the Ephraimite origin of Elohist and the Judæan of Yahwist becomes consistent and clear. Whereas Elohist never evinces the slightest interest in any sanctuary except those mentioned above, Yahwist makes Hebron the scene of his most remarkable theophany, and thus indelibly associates its sanctity with the name of Abraham. It is true that he also ascribes to Abraham the founding of the northern sanctuaries, Shechem and Bethel (12^{7. 8}); but we can hardly fail to detect something perfunctory in his description, as compared with Elohist’s impressive narrative of Jacob’s dream at Bethel (28^{10‒12. 17‒22}), or his own twofold account of the founding of Beersheba (chapters 21. 26). It is Elohist alone who records the place of Rachel’s grave (35¹⁹), of those of Rebekah’s nurse Deborah (⁸), of Joseph (Joshua 24³²), and Joshua (³⁰),—all in the northern territory. The sections peculiar to Yahwist (page xliii) are nearly all of local Judæan interest: in 18 the scene is Hebron; 19^1‒28 is a legend of the Dead Sea basin; 19^{30 ff.} deals with the origin of the neighbouring peoples of Moab and Ammon; 38 is based on the internal tribal history of Judah (and is not, as has been supposed, charged with animosity towards that tribe: see page 455). Finally, while Joseph’s place of honour was too firmly established to be challenged, it is Yahwist who, in defiance of the older tradition, transfers the birthright and the hegemony from Reuben to Judah (49^{8 ff.} 35^{22 f.}, the Joseph narratives).—These indications make it at least relatively probable that in Yahwist we have a Judæan recension of the patriarchal tradition, while Elohist took its shape in the northern kingdom.

¹ Wellhausen Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels⁶ 317. It is the neglect of this fact that has mainly led to the belief that Yahwist, like Elohist, is of Ephraimite origin (Kuenen, Reuss, Schrader, Fripp, Luther, al.).

The composite work Jehovist is the result of a redactional operation, which was completed before the other components (♦D and Priestly-Code) were incorporated in the Pentateuch.¹ The redactors (Redactor^Jehovist) have done their work (in Genesis) with consummate skill and care, and have produced a consecutive narrative whose strands it is often difficult to unravel. They have left traces of their hand in a few harmonising touches, designed to remove a discrepancy between Yahwist and Elohist (16^{9 f.} 28^21b? 31^{49 ff. (passim)} 39¹ 41^50? 46¹ 50^{10 f.}): some of these, however, may be later glosses. Of greater interest are a number of short additions, of similar import and complexion but occurring both in Yahwist and Elohist, which may, not with certainty but with great probability, be assigned to these editors (13^14‒17 18^17‒19 22^15‒18 26^3b‒5 28¹⁴ 32^10‒13 46^3bβ): to this redaction we are disposed also to attribute a thorough revision of chapter 15. In these passages we seem to detect a note of tremulous anxiety regarding the national future of Israel and its tenure of the land of Canaan, which is at variance with the optimistic outlook of the original sources, and suggests that the writers are living under the shadow of impending exile. A slight trace of Deuteronomic phraseology in 18^{17 ff.} and 26^{3b ff.} confirms the impression that the redaction took place at some time between the publication of Deuteronomy and the Exile.

¹ So Nöldeke, Wellhausen, and most; against Hupfeld, Dillmann, al.

§ 11. The Priestly Code and the Final Redaction.

It is fortunately not necessary to discuss in this place all the intricate questions connected with the history and structure of the Priests’ Code. The Code as a whole is, even more obviously than Yahwist or Elohist, the production of a school,—in this case a school of juristic writers, whose main task was to systematise the mass of ritual regulations which had accumulated in the hands of the Jerusalem priesthood, and to develop a theory of religion which grew out of them. Evidence of stratification appears chiefly in the legislative portions of the middle Pentateuch, where several minor codes are amalgamated, and overlaid with considerable accretions of later material. Here, however, we have to do only with the great historical work which forms at once the kernel of the Code and the framework of the Pentateuch, the document distinguished by Wellhausen as Q (Quatuor foederum liber), by Kuenen as Priestly-Code², by others as Priestly-Code^Kernel.¹ Although this groundwork shows traces of compilation from pre-existing material (see pages 8, 35, 40, 130, 169, 428 f., etc.), it nevertheless bears the impress of a single mind, and must be treated as a unity.

¹ Kuenen’s Priestly-Code¹ is the so-called Law of Holiness (Priestly-Codeʰ), which is older than the date usually assigned to Priestly-Code^Kernel.

No critical operation is easier or more certain than the separation of this work, down even to very small fragments, from the context in which it is embedded. When this is done, and the fragments pieced together, we have before us, almost in its original integrity, an independent document, which is a source, as well as the framework, of Genesis. We have seen (page xli) that the opposite opinion is maintained by Klostermann and Orr, who hold that Priestly-Code is merely a supplementing redactor of, or ‘collaborator’ with, Jehovist. But two facts combine to render this hypothesis absolutely untenable. (1) The fragments form a consecutive history, in which the lacunæ are very few and unimportant, and those which occur are easily explicable as the result of the redactional process. The precise state of the case is as follows: In the primæval history no hiatus whatever can be detected. Dr. Orr’s assertion (The Problem of the Old Testament, 348 f.) that Priestly-Code’s account of the Flood must have contained the episodes of the birds and the sacrifice, because both are in the Babylonian version, will be worth considering when he has made it probable either that Priestly-Code had ever read the Babylonian story, or that, if he had, he would have wished to reproduce it intact. As matter of fact, neither is in the least degree probable; and, as we shall see presently, Noah’s sacrifice is an incident which Priestly-Code would certainly have suppressed if he had known of it.—In the history of Abraham there is again no reason to suspect any omission. Here is a literal translation of the disjecta membra of Priestly-Code’s epitome of the biography of Abraham, with no connexions supplied, and only one verse transposed (19²⁹): 12^4b “Now Abram was 75 years old when he went out from Ḥarran. ⁵ And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions which they had acquired, and all the souls whom they had procured; and they went out to go to the land of Canaan, and they came to the land of Canaan. 13⁶ And the land could not bear them so that they might dwell together, for their possessions were great, and they were not able to dwell together. ^11b So they separated from one another: ^12ab Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the Oval. 19²⁹ And when God destroyed the cities of the Oval, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot away from the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt.—16¹ Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. ³ So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband for a wife to him. ¹⁵ And Hagar bore to Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bore to him Ishmael. ¹⁶ And Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.—17¹ And when Abram was 99 years old, Yahwe appeared to Abram, and said to him,” etc. Here follows the account of the covenant with Abraham, the change of his name and that of Sarai, the institution of circumcision, and the announcement of the birth of Isaac to Sarah (chapter 17).—The narrative is resumed in 21^1b “And Yahwe did to Sarah as he had spoken, ^2b at the appointed time which God had mentioned. ³ And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac. ⁴ And Abraham circumcised Isaac his son when he was 8 days old, as God had commanded him. ⁵ And Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac his son was born to him.—23¹ And the life of Sarah was 127 years; ² and Sarah died in Kiryath Arba, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan.” This introduces the story of the purchase of Machpelah as a burying-place (chapter 23), and this brings us to—25⁷ “And these are the days of the years of the life of Abraham which he lived: 175 years; ⁸ and he expired. And Abraham died in a good old age, an old man and full [of years], and was gathered to his father’s kin. ⁹ And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar, the Hittite, which is opposite Mamre: ¹⁰ the field which Abraham bought from the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.—¹¹ And after the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac his son.” The reader can judge for himself whether a narrative so continuous as this, every isolated sentence of which has been detached from its context by unmistakable criteria of the style of Priestly-Code, is likely to have been produced by the casual additions of a mere supplementer of an older work. And if he objects to the transposition of 19²⁹, let him note at the same time how utterly meaningless in its present position that verse is, considered as a supplement to 19^1‒28.—In the sections on Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, there are undoubtedly omissions which we can only supply from Jehovist; and if we were to judge from these parts alone, the supplementary theory would be more plausible than it is. We miss, e.g., accounts of the birth of Jacob and Esau, of Jacob’s arrival in Paddan Aram, of his marriage to Leah and Rachel, of the birth of Joseph, of his slavery and elevation in Egypt, his reconciliation with his brethren, and perhaps some other particulars. Even here, however, the theory is absolutely negatived by the contradictions to Jehovist which will be specified immediately. Dr. Orr’s argument on this point (The Problem of the Old Testament, 343 ff.) really assumes that the account of Jehovist is the only way in which the gaps of Priestly-Code could be filled up; but the examination of the story of Abraham has shown that that is not the case. The facts are fully explained by the supposition that a short epitome of the history, similar to that of the history of Abraham, has been abridged in the redaction, by the excision of a very few sentences, in favour of the fuller narrative of Jehovist.—(2) The second fact which makes Dr. Orr’s hypothesis untenable is this, that in almost every instance where Priestly-Code expands into circumstantial narration it gives a representation of the events which is distinctly at variance with the older documents. The difference between Priestly-Code’s cosmogony and Yahwist’s account of the Creation is such that it is ludicrous to speak of the one as a supplement or a ‘framework’ to the other; and the two Flood stories are hardly less irreconcilable (see page 148). In the life of Abraham, we have two parallel accounts of the covenant with Abraham in chapter 15 (Jehovist) and 17 (Priestly-Code); and it is evident that the one supersedes and excludes the other. Again, Priestly-Code’s reason for Jacob’s journey to Mesopotamia (28^1‒9) is quite inconsistent with that given by Jehovist in chapter 27 (page 374 f.); and his conception of Isaac’s blessing as a transmission of the blessing originally bestowed on Abraham (28⁴) is far removed from the idea which forms the motive of chapter 27. In Jehovist, Esau takes up his abode in Seir before Jacob’s return from Mesopotamia (32³); in Priestly-Code he does not leave Canaan till after the burial of Isaac (35⁶). Priestly-Code’s account of the enmity between Joseph and his brethren is unfortunately truncated, but enough is preserved to show that it differed essentially from that of Jehovist (see page 444). It is difficult to make out where Jacob was buried according to Yahwist and Elohist, but it certainly was not at Machpelah, as in Priestly-Code (see page 538 f.). And so on. Everywhere we see a tendency in Priestly-Code to suppress or minimise discords in the patriarchal households. It is inconceivable that a supplementer should thus contradict his original at every turn, and at the same time leave it to tell its own story. When we find that the passages of an opposite tenor to Jehovist form parts of a practically complete narrative, we cannot avoid the conclusion that Priestly-Code^Kernel is an independent document, which has been preserved almost entire in our present Book of Genesis. The question then arises whether these discrepancies spring from a divergent tradition followed by Priestly-Code^Kernel or from a deliberate re-writing of the history as told by Jehovist, under the influence of certain theological ideals and principles, which we now proceed to consider.

The central theme and objective of Priestly-Code^Kernel is the institution of the Israelitish theocracy, whose symbol is the Tabernacle, erected, after its heavenly antitype, by Moses at Mount Sinai. For this event the whole previous history of mankind is a preparation. The Mosaic dispensation is the last of four world-ages: from the Creation to the Flood, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, and from Moses onwards. Each period is inaugurated by a divine revelation, and the last two by the disclosure of a new name of God: El Shaddai to Abraham (17¹), and Yahwe to Moses (Exodus 6³). Each period, also, is marked by the institution of some permanent element of the theocratic constitution, the Levitical system being conceived as a pyramid rising in four stages: the Sabbath (2^{2 f.}); permission of the slaughter of animals, coupled with a restriction on the use of the blood (9^{1 ff.}); circumcision (17); and, lastly, the fully developed Mosaic ritual. Not till the last stage is reached is sacrificial worship of the Deity authorised. Accordingly neither altars nor sacrifices are ever mentioned in the pre-Mosaic history; and even the distinction between clean and unclean animals is supposed to be unknown at the time of the Flood. It is particularly noteworthy that the profane, as distinct from the sacrificial, slaughter of animals, which even the Deuteronomic law treats as an innovation, is here carried back to the covenant with Noah.

Beneath this imposing historical scheme, with its ruling idea of a progressive unfolding of God’s will to men, we discover a theory of religion which, more than anything else, expresses the spirit of the Priestly school to which the author of Priestly-Code^Kernel belonged. The exclusive emphasis on the formal or institutional aspect of religion, which is the natural proclivity of a sacerdotal caste, appears in Priestly-Code^Kernel in a very pronounced fashion. Religion is resolved into a series of positive enactments on the part of God, and observance of these on the part of man. The old cult-legends (page xii f.), which traced the origin of existing ritual usages to historic incidents in the lives of the fathers, are swept away; and every practice to which a religious value is attached is referred to a direct command of God. In the deeper problems of religion, on the other hand, such as the origin of evil, the writer evinces no interest; and of personal piety—the disposition of the heart towards God—his narrative hardly furnishes an illustration. In both respects he represents a theology at once more abstract and shallower than that of Yahwist or Elohist, whose more imaginative treatment of religious questions shows a true apprehension of the deeper aspects of the spiritual life (chapter 3. 6⁵ 8²¹ 18^{23 ff.} 45⁸ etc.), and succeeds in depicting the personal religion of the patriarchs as a genuine experience of inward fellowship with God (compare 22. 24^{12 ff.} 32^{9 ff.} 48^{15 f.} etc.). It would be unfair to charge the author of Priestly-Code^Kernel with indifference to the need for vital godliness, for he lacks the power of delineating character and emotion in any relation of life; but his defects are none the less characteristic of the type of mind that produced the colourless digest of history, which suffices to set forth the dominant ideas of the Priestly theology.

Another characteristic distinction between Jehovist and Priestly-Code is seen in the enhanced transcendentalism of the latter’s conception of Deity. Anthropomorphic, and still more anthropopathic, expressions are studiously avoided (an exception is Genesis 2^{2 f.}: compare Exodus 31^17b); revelation takes the form of simple speech; angels, dreams, and visions are never alluded to. Theophanies are mentioned, but not described; God is said to ‘appear’ to men, and to ‘go up from them’ (Genesis 17^{1. 22 f.} 35^{9. 13} 48³, Exodus 6³), but the manner of His appearance is nowhere indicated save in the supreme manifestation at Sinai (Exodus 24^{1 ff.} 34^29b 40^{34 f.}). It is true that a similar inconcreteness often characterises the theophanies of Yahwist and Elohist, and the later strata of these documents exhibit a decided approximation to the abstract conceptions of Priestly-Code. But a comparison of the parallels chapter 17 with 15, or 35^{9 ff.} with 28^{10 ff.}, makes it clear that Priestly-Code’s departure from the older tradition springs from a deliberate intention to exclude sensuous imagery from the representation of Godhead.

It remains to consider, in the light of these facts, Priestly-Code’s attitude to the traditional history of the patriarchs. In the first place, it is clear that he accepts the main outline of the history as fixed in tradition. But whether he knew that tradition from other sources than Yahwist and Elohist, is a question not so easily answered. For the primitive period, direct dependence on Yahwist is improbable, because of the marked diversity in the accounts of the Creation and the Flood: here Priestly-Code seems to have followed a tradition closely akin to, but not identical with, that of Yahwist. In the history of the patriarchs there seems no reason to suppose that he had any other authorities than Yahwist and Elohist. The general course of events is the same, and differences of detail are all explicable from the known tendencies of the Code. But the important facts are that nearly the whole of the history, both primitive and patriarchal, is reduced to a meagre summary, with little save a chronological significance, and that the points where the narrative becomes diffuse and circumstantial are (with one exception) precisely those which introduce a new religious dispensation: viz. the Creation, the Flood, the Abrahamic covenant, and the Exodus. The single exception is the purchase of Machpelah (chapter 23), an event which doubtless owes its prominence to its connexion with the promise of the land to Abraham and his seed. For the rest, a certain emphasis naturally lies on outstanding events, like the origin of the name Israel (35^{9 f.}), or the settlement of Jacob’s family in Egypt (47^5‒11); and the author lingers with interest on the transmission of the patriarchal blessing and promise from Isaac to Jacob (28³ 35¹²), and from Jacob to his sons (48^{3 f.}). But these are practically all the incidents to which Priestly-Code^Kernel attaches any sort of significance of their own; and even these derive much of their importance from their relation to the chronological scheme into which they are fitted.—Hence to say that Priestly-Code’s epitome would be ‘unintelligible’ apart from Jehovist, is to confuse his point of view with our own. It is perfectly true that from Priestly-Code alone we should know very little of the characters of the patriarchs, of the motives which governed their actions, or of the connexion between one event and another. But these are matters which Priestly-Code had no interest in making ‘intelligible.’ He is concerned solely with events, not with causes or motives. The individual is sufficiently described when we are told whose son he was, how long he lived, what children he begot, and such like. He is but a link in the generations that fill up the history; and even where he is the recipient of a divine revelation, his selection for that privilege depends on his place in the divine scheme of chronology, rather than on any personal endowment or providential training.

The style of Priestly-Code^Kernel can be characterised without the reserves and qualifications which were necessary in speaking of the difference between Yahwist and Elohist (page xlvii f.); there is no better illustration of the dictum le style c’est l’homme than in this remarkable document. Speaking broadly, the style reflects the qualities of the legal mind, in its stereotyped terminology, its aim at precise and exhaustive statement, its monotonous repetitions, and its general determination to leave no loophole for misinterpretation or misunderstanding. The jurist’s love of order and method appears in a great facility in the construction of schemes and schedules—genealogical tables, systematic enumerations, etc.—as well as in the carefully planned disposition of the narrative as a whole. It is necessary to read the whole work consecutively in order to realise the full effect of the laboured diffuseness, the dry lucidity and prosaic monotony of this characteristic product of the Priestly school of writers. On the other hand, the style is markedly deficient in the higher elements of literature. Though capable at times of rising to an impressive dignity (as in Genesis 1. 47^7‒11), it is apt to degenerate into a tedious and meaningless iteration of set phrases and rigid formulæ (see Numbers 7). The power of picturesque description, or dramatic delineation of life and character, is absent: the writer’s imagination is of the mechanical type, which cannot realise an object without the help of exact quantitative specification or measurement. Even in chapter 23, which is perhaps the most lifelike narrative in the Code, the characteristic formalism asserts itself in the measured periodic movement of the action, and the recurrent use of standing expressions from the opening to the close. That such a style might become the property of a school we see from the case of Ezekiel, whose writings show strong affinities with Priestly-Code; but of all the Priestly documents, Priestly-Code^Kernel is the one in which the literary bent of the school is best exemplified, and (it may be added) is seen to most advantage.

The following selection (from Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament⁸, 131 ff.) of distinctive expressions of Priestly-Code, occurring in Genesis, will give a sufficient idea of the stylistic peculiarity of the book, and also of its linguistic affinities with the later literature, but especially with the Book of Ezekiel.

אלהים as the name of God, uniformly in Genesis, except 17¹ 21^1b.—מין, ‘kind’: 1^{11. 12. 21. 24. 25} 6²⁰ 7¹⁴ (Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14; only again Ezekiel 47¹⁰).—שָׁרַץ, ‘to swarm’: 1^{20. 21} 7²¹ 8¹⁷ 9⁷ +¹ (outside of Priestly-Code only Psalms 105³⁰, Ezekiel 47⁹).—שֶׁרֶץ, ‘swarming things’: 1²⁰ 7²¹ + (only in Priestly-Code and Deuteronomy 14¹⁹).—פרה ורבה: 1^{22. 28} 8¹⁷ 9^{1. 7} 17²⁰ 28³ 35¹¹ 47²⁷ 48⁴ (Exodus 1⁷, Leviticus 26⁹; elsewhere only Jeremiah 3¹⁶ [inverted], 23³, Ezekiel 36¹¹).—לאכלה: 1^{29. 30} 6²¹ 9³ + (elsewhere only in Ezekiel (10 times), and (as infinitive) Jeremiah 12⁹).—תולדות: 10³² 25¹³ + (elsewhere 1 Chronicles 5⁷ 7^{2. 4. 9} 8²⁸ 9^{9. 34} 26³¹). The phrase [ו]אלה תולדות occurs in Priestly-Code 10 times in Genesis (see page xxxiv), and in Numbers 3¹; elsewhere only Ruth 4¹⁸, 1 Chronicles 1²⁹.—גוע: 6¹⁷ 7²¹ 25^{8. 17} 35²⁹ 49²³ + (elsewhere poetical: Zechariah 13⁸, Psalms 88¹⁶ 104²⁹, Lamentations 1¹⁹, and 8 times in Job).—עִמְּךָ, אִתְּךָ, etc. (appended to enumerations): 6¹⁸ 7^{7. 13} 8^{16. 18} 9⁸ 28⁴ 46^{6. 7} +.—אחריכם, etc. (after ‘seed’): 9⁹ 17^{7. 8. 9. 10. 19} 35¹² 48⁴ +.—עצם היום הזה: 7¹³ 17^{23. 26} +; only in Priestly-Code and Ezekiel 2³ 24² 40¹ (Joshua 10²⁷ redactional).—יהם—למשפחותם: 8¹⁹ 10^{5. 20. 31} 36⁴⁰ + (very often in Priestly-Code: elsewhere only Numbers 11¹⁰ [Jehovist], 1 Samuel 10²¹, 1 Chronicles 5⁷ 6^{47. 48}).—ברית עולם: 9¹⁶ 17^{7. 13. 19} +, only in Priestly-Code.—במאד מאד: 17^{2. 6. 20} + Exodus 1⁷; elsewhere only Ezekiel 9⁹ 16¹³.—רכוש: 12⁵ 13⁶ 31¹⁸ 36⁷ 46⁶ +; elsewhere Genesis 14^{11. 12. 16. 21} 15¹⁴; and 15 times in Chronicles, Ezra, Daniel.—רָכַשׁ: 12⁵ 31¹⁸ 36⁶ 46⁶ +.—נפש (= ‘person’): 12⁵ 36⁶ 46^{15. 18. 22. 25. 26. 27} +; “much more frequent in Priestly-Code than elsewhere.”—יכם—לדרתם: 17^{7. 9. 12} + 36 times (only in Priestly-Code).—מגורים: 17⁸ 28⁴ 36⁷ 37¹ 47⁹ + Exodus 6⁴; elsewhere Ezekiel 20³⁸, Psalms 55¹⁶ 119⁵⁴, Job 18¹⁹ +.—אחזה: 17⁸ 23^{4. 9. 20} 36⁴³ 47¹¹ 48⁴ 49³⁰ 50¹³ +. Often in Ezekiel (44²⁸ 45^{5. 6. 7. 8} 46^{16. 18} 48^{20. 21. 22}); elsewhere Psalms 2⁸, 1 Chronicles 7²⁸ 9² [= Nehemiah 11³], 2 Chronicles 11¹⁴ 31¹ +.—מקנה: 17^{12. 13. 23. 27} 23¹⁸ + (confined to Priestly-Code except Jeremiah 32^{11. 12. 14. 16}).—עמים (= ‘father’s kin’): 17¹⁴ 25^{8. 17} 35²⁹ 49³³ + (also Ezekiel 18¹⁸; elsewhere Judges 5¹⁴?, Hosea 10¹⁴ +).—תושב: 23⁴ + 10 times (also 1 Kings 17¹?, 1 Chronicles 29¹⁵, Psalms 39¹³).—קנון: 31¹⁸ [34²³] 36⁶ + (outside of Priestly-Code, only Ezekiel 38^{12 f.}; Proverbs 4⁷, Psalms 104²⁴ 105²¹).

¹ As on page xlix, the cross (+) indicates that further examples are found in the rest of the Pentateuch. It should be expressly said, however, that the + frequently covers a considerable number of cases; and that a selection of phrases, such as is here given, does not fully represent the strength of the linguistic argument, as set forth in the more exhaustive lists of Driver (l.c.) or the Oxford Hexateuch (volume i. pages 208‒221).

In the choice of synonymous expressions, Priestly-Code exhibits an exclusive preference for הוליד in the sense of ‘beget’ over ילד (in the genealogies of Yahwist), and for the form אני of the 1st person pronoun (אנכי only in Genesis 23⁴).

Geographical designations peculiar to Priestly-Code^Kernel are: Kiryath-’Arba‛ (for Hebron) 23² 35²⁷ +; Machpelah, 23^{9. 17. 19} 25⁹ 49³⁰ 50¹³ +; Paddan-Aram, 25²⁰ 28^{2. 5. 6. 7} 31¹⁸ 33¹⁸ 35^{9. 26} 46¹⁵ +.—To these may be added ארץ כנען, 11³¹ 12⁵ 13¹² 16³ 17⁸ 23^{2. 19} 31¹⁸ 33¹⁸ 35⁶ 37¹ +; the expression is found in Jehovist only in the Joseph-section (chapters 42, 44, 45, 47). Priestly-Code^Kernel has כנען without ארץ only in בנות כנען (28¹ 36²).

In view of all these and similar peculiarities (for the list is by no means exhaustive), the attempt to obliterate the linguistic and stylistic distinction between Priestly-Code and Jehovist (Eerdmans) is surely a retrograde step in criticism.

The date of the composition of Priestly-Code^Kernel lies between the promulgation of the Deuteronomic law (621 B.C.), and the post-Exilic reformation under Ezra and Nehemiah (444). It is later than Deuteronomy, because it assumes without question the centralisation of worship at one sanctuary, which in Deuteronomy is only held up as an ideal to be realised by a radical reform of established usage. A nearer determination of date depends on questions of the internal analysis of Priestly-Code which are too complex to be entered on here. That the Code as a whole is later than Ezekiel is proved by the fact that the division between priests and Levites, which is unknown to the writer of Deuteronomy, and of which we find the origin and justification in Ezekiel 44^6‒16, is presupposed as already established (Numbers 3. 4. 8, etc.). It is possible, however, that that distinction belongs to a stratum of the legislation not included in Priestly-Code^Kernel; in which case Priestly-Code^Kernel might very well be earlier than Ezekiel, or even than the Exile. The question does not greatly concern us here. For the understanding of Genesis, it is enough to know that Priestly-Code^Kernel, both in its theological conceptions and its attitude towards the national tradition, represents a phase of thought much later than Yahwist and Elohist.

The view that Priestly-Code^Kernel was written before the Exile (in the end of the 7th century) is advocated by Procksch (l.c. 319 ff.), who reduces this part of Priestly-Code to narrower limits than most critics have done. He regards it as an essentially historical work, of considerable literary merit, embracing hardly any direct legislation except perhaps the Law of Holiness (Priestly-Codeʰ), and recognising the priestly status of the entire tribe of Levi, just as in Deuteronomy (Numbers 17^16‒24 and Priestly-Codeʰ in its original form). If that fact could be established, it would go far to show that the document is older than Ezekiel. It is admitted both by Kuenen and Wellhausen (Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels⁶ 116) that the disparity of priests and Levites is accentuated in the later strata of Priestly-Code as compared with Priestly-Code^Kernel, but that it is not recognised in Priestly-Code^Kernel is not clear. As to pre-Exilic origin, the positive arguments advanced by Procksch are not very cogent; and it is doubtful whether, even on his own ground, he has demonstrated more than the possibility of so early a date. In Genesis, the only fact which points in that direction is one not mentioned by Procksch: viz. that the priestly Table of Nations in chapter 10 bears internal evidence of having been drawn up some considerable time before the 5th century B.C. (page 191 below); but that may be sufficiently explained by the assumption that the author of Priestly-Code^Kernel made use of pre-existing documents in the preparation of his work.

The last distinguishable stage in the formation of the Pentateuch is the amalgamation of Priestly-Code with the older documents,—in Genesis the amalgamation of Priestly-Code^Kernel with Jehovist. That this process has left traces in the present text is quite certain a priori; though it is naturally difficult to distinguish redactional changes of this kind from later explanatory glosses and modifications (compare 6⁷ 7^{7. 22. 23} 10²⁴ 27⁴⁶ etc.). The aim of the redactor was, in general, to preserve the ipsissima verba of his sources as far as was consistent with the production of a complete and harmonious narrative; but he appears to have made it a rule to find a place for every fragment of Priestly-Code that could possibly be retained. It is not improbable that this rule was uniformly observed by him, and that the slight lacunæ which occur in Priestly-Code after chapter 25 are due to the activity of later scribes in smoothing away redundancies and unevennesses from the narrative. That such changes might take place after the completion of the Pentateuch we see from 47^{5 ff.}, where LXX has preserved a text in which the dovetailing of sources is much more obvious than in Massoretic Text.—If the lawbook read by Ezra before the congregation as the basis of the covenant (Nehemiah 8^{1 ff.}) was the entire Pentateuch (excepting late additions),¹ the redaction must have been effected before 444 B.C., and in all probability the redactor was Ezra himself. On the other hand, if (as seems to the present writer more probable) Ezra’s lawbook was only the Priestly Code, or part of it (Priestly-Code^Kernel + Priestly-Codeʰ),² then the final redaction is brought down to a later period, the terminus ad quem being the borrowing of the Jewish Pentateuch by the Samaritan community. That event is usually assigned, though on somewhat precarious grounds, to Nehemiah’s second term of office in Judæa (circa 432 B.C.).

¹ So Wellhausen, Dillmann, Kittel al.

² So Cornill, Holzinger al.

Of far greater interest and significance than the date or manner of this final redaction, is the fact that it was called for by the religious feeling of post-Exilic Judaism. Nothing else would have brought about the combination of elements so discordant as the naïve legendary narratives of Jehovist and the systematised history of the Priestly Code. We can hardly doubt that the spirit of the Priestly theology is antipathetic to the older recension of the tradition, or that, if the tendencies represented by the Code had prevailed, the stories which are to us the most precious and edifying parts of the Book of Genesis would have found no place in an authoritative record of God’s revelation of Himself to the fathers. But this is not the only instance in which the spiritual insight of the Church has judged more wisely than the learning of the schools. We know that deeper influences than the legalism and institutionalism of Priestly-Code’s manifesto—necessary as these were in their place—were at work in the post-Exilic community: the individualism of Jeremiah, the universalism of the second Isaiah, the devotion and lyric fervour of the psalmists, and the daring reflexion of the writer of Job. And to these we may surely add the vein of childlike piety which turned aside from the abstractions and formulas of the Priestly document, to find its nutriment in the immortal stories through which God spoke to the heart then, as He speaks to ours to-day.

COMMENTARY.