She
promised
me that she would wait Beyond the wood for me .
Universal Anthology - v01
.
Adam —
My son ! . . . sad day ! . . . sad sight ! . . . How deep
and large
The wound with which his guiltless head is cloven !
Alas ! there is no remedy. My son,
Whogave thee suchablow? and whattheweapon? . . . O Heavens ! Is't not Cain's pickax that I see
Lying all-bloody there ? . . . O grief ! O madness !
And is it possible that Cain has slain thee ?
A brother kill his brother ?
Will arm, with thy own arms ; and find thee out,
And with my own hands slay thee. O thou just Almighty God, didst Thou behold this crime,
And suffer it ? breathes still the murderer ?
Where is the villain ? Didst not Thou, great God, Beneath the feet of such a monster cause
The very earth to gape and swallow him
In its profound abyss ? Then, 'tis Thy will,
Ah yes ! that by my hand should punished be
This crime irreparable : 'tis Thy will
That I should follow on the bloody track
Of that base villain : here it is : from me,
Thou wicked Cain, shalt thou receive thy death . . .
O God ! But leave my Abel breathing still . . .
Abel —
Father ! . . . return, return ! . . .
I fain would tell thee . . . Abel — He was . . . indeed . . .
Adam —
My son, but how could Cain . . .
. . . itwas not he . . . Moreover . . . He is thy son . . . O pardon him, . . . as I do . . .
Beside himself :
Adam —
Thou only art my son. Devotion true !
O Abel ! my own image ! thou, my all ! . . . How could that fierce . . .
Abel — Ah, father ! . . . tell me . . . truly ;
I
myself
THE MURDER OF ABEL.
Didst thou e'er plan . . . to take away . . . from Cain, . . . Andgive . . . tome . . . some mighty good, . . . whichlies Beyond . . . the river ?
Adam — What dost mean ? one son Alone I deemed that I possessed in both.
Abel—
Deceived. . . wasCainthen;. . . thishesaidtome. . . Ofttimes, . . . inflamed with rage . . . The only cause . .
. . . he had . . . a conflict fierce . . . and long . . .
Was this:
Within himself . . . atfirst ; . . . but . . . then . . . o'ercome
He struck me . . . and then fled . . . — But now . . . my
breath,
Father, . . . is failing . . .
Adam — —
O God ! . . . He dies.
Has that last sob cut off at once his voice
And life as well ! — Behold thee, then, at last,
Death terrible and cruel, who the daughter
Of my transgression art ! O ruthless Death,
Is, then, the first to fall before thy blows
A guileless youth like this ? 'Twas me the first,
And me alone, whom thou shouldst have struck down . . . — What shall I do without my children now ?
And this dear lifeless body, how can I
From Eve conceal it ? Hide from her the truth ?
In vain : but, how to tell her ? And, then, where,
Where bury my dear Abel ? O my God !
How tear myself from him ? — But, what behold I ?
Eve is approaching me with weary steps
From far !
She promised me that she would wait Beyond the wood for me . . . Alas ! —But I
Must meet her and detain her ; such a sight
Might in one moment kill her . . . How I tremble I Already she has seen me, and makes haste . . .
Adam —
Why, woman, hast thou come ? 'tis not allowed Farther to go : return ; return at once
Unto our cottage ; there will I erelong
Rejoin thee.
Eve — Heavens ! what see I ? in thy face What new and dreadful trouble do I see ?
Hast thou not found them ?
Adam — No : but, very soon . . ,. Do thou meanwhile retrace thy steps, I pray . . .
Kiss me . . .
He is dying . . . Unhappy father ! How
Eve, and Adam [running to meet her].
THE MURDER OF ABEL.
Eve —
And leave thee ? . . . And my children, where are they ? But, what do I behold ? thy vesture stained
With quite fresh blood ? thy hands, too, dyed with blood ? Alas ! what is't, my darling Adam, say !
Yet on thy body are no wounds . . . But, what,
What is the blood there on the ground ? and near it
Is not the ax of Cain ? . . . and that is also
All soiled with blood ? . . . Ah, leave me ; yes, I must, Imust approach ; to see . . .
Adam — Ipray thee, no . . . Eve —
In vain . . .
Adam. — O Eve, stop, stop ! on no account
Shalt thou go farther.
Eve [pushing her way forward a little'] —
But, in spite of thee, From out thine eyes a very stream of tears
I must see, at any cost,
Ispouring ! . . .
Thereason. . . Ah,I
My darling Abel . . . O unhappy I
The ax . . . the blood . . . Iunderstand . . .
Adam — Alas ! We have no sons.
Eve— Abel, my life . . . 'Tis vain To hold me back . . . Let me embrace thee, Abel.
Adam —
To hold her is impossible : a slight
Relief to her immense maternal sorrow . . .
Eve —
Adam, has God the murderer not punished ?
Adam —
O impious Cain ! in vain thy flight ; in vain Wilt thou conceal thyself. Within thy ears (However far away from me thou art)
Shall ring the fearful echo of my threats, And make thy bosom tremble.
Eve — Abel, Abel . . .
Alas,he hears me not! . . . —
That I discerned a traitor's mark, yes, traitor's, Between Cain's eyebrows.
Adam — Never on the earth That traitor peace shall find, security,
Or an asylum. — Cain, be thou accursed
By God, as thou art by thy father cursed.
see itnow! . . . therelies ! . . .
I ever told thee,
WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH? 61
WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH? By Rev. A. H. 8AYCE.
(From "Early History of the Hebrews. ")
[For biographical sketch, see p. 25. ]
It is clear that if the modern literary analysis of the Penta teuch is justified, it is useless to look to the five books of Moses for authentic history. There is nothing in them which can be ascribed with certainty to the age of Moses, nothing which goes back even to the age of the Judges. Between the Exodus out of Egypt and the composition of the earliest portion of the so-called Mosaic Law there would have been a dark and illit erate interval of several centuries. Not even tradition could be trusted to span them. For the Mosaic age, and still more for the age before the Exodus, all that we read in the Old Testament would be historically valueless. "
Such criticism, therefore, as accepts the results of the lit erary analysis " of the Hexateuch acts consistently in stamping as mythical the whole period of Hebrew history which precedes the settlement of the Israelitish tribes in Canaan. Doubt is thrown even on their residence in Egypt and subsequent escape from "the house of bondage. " Moses himself becomes a mere figure of mythland, a hero of popular imagination whose sep- ulcher was unknown because it had never been occupied. In order to discredit the earlier records of the Israelitish people, there is no need of indicating contradictions —real or other wise — in the details of the narratives contained in them, of enlarging upon their chronological difficulties, or of pointing to the supernatural elements they involve; the late dates assigned to the medley of documents which have been dis covered in the Hexateuch are sufficient of themselves to settle the question.
The dates are largely, if not altogether, dependent on the assumption that Hebrew literature is not older than the age of David. A few poems like the Song of Deborah may have been handed down orally from an earlier period, but readers and writers, it is assumed, there were none. The use of writ ing for literary purposes was coeval with the rise of the mon archy. The oldest inscription in the letters of the Phoenician alphabet yet discovered is only of the ninth century B. C. , and
52 WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH?
the alphabet would have been employed for monumental pur poses long before it was applied to the manufacture of books. As Wolf's theory of the origin and late date of the Homeric Poems avowedly rested on the belief that the literary use of writing in Greece was of late date, so too the theory of the analysts of the Hexateuch rests tacitly on the belief that the Israelites of the age of Moses and the Judges were wholly illiterate. Moses did not write the Pentateuch because he could not have done so.
The huge edifice of modern Pentateuchal criticism is thus based on a theory and" an assumption. The theory is that of " the literary analysis of the Hexateuch, the assumption that a knowledge of writing in Israel was of comparatively late date. The theory, however, is philological, not historical. The analysis is philological rather than literary, and depends entirely on the occurrence and use of certain words and phrases. Lists have been drawn up of the words and phrases held to be peculiar to the different writers between whom the Hexateuch is divided, and the portion of the Hexateuch to be assigned to each is determined accordingly. That it is some times necessary to cut a verse in two, somewhat to the injury of the sense, matters but little; the necessities of the theory require the sacrifice, and the analyst looks no further. Great things grow out of little, and the mathematical minuteness with which the Hexateuch is apportioned among its numerous authors, and the long lists of words and idioms by which the apportionment is supported, all have their origin in Astruc's separation of the book of Genesis into two documents, in one of which the name of Yahveh is used, while in the other it is replaced by Elohim.
The historian, however, is inclined to look with suspicion upon historical results which rest upon purely philological evidence. It is not so very long ago since the comparative philologists believed they had restored the early history of the Aryan race. With the help of the dictionary and grammar they had painted an idyllic picture of the life and culture of the primitive Aryan family and traced the migrations of its offshoots from their primeval Asiatic home. But anthropology has rudely dissipated all these reconstructions of primitive his tory, and has not spared even the Aryan family or the Asiatic home itself. The history that was based on philology has been banished to fairyland. It may be that the historical results
WHO WKOTE THE PENTATEUCH? 53
based on the complicated and ingenious system of Hexateuchal criticism will hereafter share the same fate.
In fact, there is one characteristic of them which cannot but excite suspicion. A passage which runs counter to the theory of the critic is at once pronounced an interpolation, due to the clumsy hand of some later "Redactor. " Indeed, if we are to believe the analysts, a considerable part of the professedly historical literature of the Old Testament was written or "redacted " chiefly with the purpose of bolstering up the ideas and inventions either of the Deuteronomist or of the later Code. This is a cheap and easy way of rewriting ancient history ; but it is neither scientific nor in accordance with the historical method, however consonant it may be with the methods of the philologist.
When, however, we come to examine the philological evi dence upon which we are asked to accept this new reading of ancient Hebrew history, we find that it is wofully defective. We are asked to believe that a European scholar of the nine teenth century can analyze with mathematical precision a work
composed centuries ago in the East for Eastern readers in a language that is long since dead, can dissolve it verse by verse, and even word by word, into its several elements, and fix the approximate date and relation of each. The accomplishment of such a feat is an impossibility, and to attempt it is to sin as much against common sense as against the laws of science. Science teaches us that we can attain to truth only by the help of comparison ; we can know things scientifically only in so far as they can be compared and measured one with another. Where there is no comparison there can be no scientific result. Even the logicians of the Middle Ages taught that no conclu sion can be drawn from what they termed a single instance. It is just this, however, that the Hexateuchal critics have essayed to do. The Pentateuch and its history have been compared with nothing except themselves, and the results have been derived not from the method of comparison, but from the so-called "tact" and arbitrary judgment of the in dividual scholar. Certain postulates have been assumed, the consequences of which have been gradually evolved, one after another, while the coherence and credibility of the general hypothesis has been supported by the invention of further subordinate hypotheses as the need for them arose. The " critical " theory of the origin and character of the Hexa
64 WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH?
teuch closely resembles the Ptolemaic theory of the universe ; like the latter, it is highly complicated and elaborate, coherent in itself, and perfect on paper, but unfortunately baseless in reality.
Its very complication condemns it. It is too ingenious to be true. Had the Hexateuch been pieced together as we are told it was, it would have required a special revelation to dis cover the fact. We may lay it down as a general rule in science that the more simple a theory is, the more likely it is to be correct. It is the complicated theories, which demand all kinds of subsidiary qualifications and assistant hypotheses, that are put aside by the progress of science. The wit of man may be great, but it needs a mass of material before even a simple theory can be established with any pretense to scientific value.
But it is not only science, it is common sense as well, which is violated by the endeavor to foist philological speculations into the treatment of historical questions. Hebrew is a dead language ; it is, moreover, a language which is but imperfectly known. Our knowledge of it is derived entirely from that fragment of its literature which is preserved in the Old Testa ment, and the errors of copyists and the corruptions of the text make a good deal even of this obscure and doubtful. There are numerous words, the traditional rendering of which is ques tionable ; there are numerous others in the case of which it is certainly wrong ; and there is passage after passage in which the translations of scholars vary from one another, sometimes even to contradiction. Of both grammar and lexicon it may be said that we see them through a glass darkly. Not unfre- quently the reading of the Septuagint — the earliest manuscript of which is six hundred years older than the earliest manuscript of the Hebrew text — differs entirely from the reading of the Hebrew; and there is a marked tendency among the Hexa- teuchal analysts to prefer it, though the recently discovered Hebrew text of the book of Ecclesiasticus seems to show that the preference is not altogether justified.
How, then, can a modern Western scholar analyze with even approximate exactitude an ancient Hebrew work, and on the strength of the language and style dissolve it once more into its component atoms? How can he determine the relation of these atoms one to the other, or presume to fix the dates to which they severally belong ? The task would be impossible
WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH? 66
even in the case of a modern English book, although English is a spoken language, with which we are all supposed to be thoroughly acquainted, while its vast literature is familiar to us all. And yet, even where we know that a work is composite, it passes the power of man to separate it into its elements, and define the limits of each. No one, for instance, would dream of attempting such a task in the case of the novels of Besant and Rice ; and the endeavor to distinguish in certain plays of Shakespeare what belongs to the poet himself and what to Fletcher has met with the oblivion it deserved. Is it likely that a problem which cannot be solved in the case of an Eng lish book can be solved where its difficulties are increased a thousand fold? The minuteness and apparent precision of Hexateuchal criticism are simply due, like that of the Ptole maic theory, to the artificial character of the basis on which it rests. It is, in fact, a philological mirage ; it attempts the im possible, and in place of the scientific method of comparison, it gives us as a starting point the assumptions and arbitrary principles of a one-sided critic.
Where philology has failed, archaeology has come to our help. The needful comparison of the Old Testament record with some thing else than itself has been afforded by the discoveries which have been made of recent years in Egypt and Babylonia, and other parts of the ancient East. At last we are able to call in the aid of the scientific method, and test the age and character, the authenticity and trustworthiness, of the Old Testament history by monuments about whose historical authority there can be no question. And the result of the test has, on the whole, been in favor of tradition, and against the doctrines of the newer critical school. It has vindicated the antiquity and credibility of the narratives of the Pentateuch ; it has proved that the Mosaic age was a highly literary one, and that con sequently the marvel would be, not that Moses should have written, but that he should not have done so ; and it has un dermined the foundation on which the documentary hypothesis of the origin of the Hexateuch has been built. We are still, indeed, only at the beginning of discoveries ; those made dur ing the past year or two [1895-1896] have, for the student of Genesis, been exceptionally important ; but enough has now been gained to assure us that the historian may safely disregard the philological theory of Hexateuchal criticism, and treat the books of the Pentateuch from a wholly different point of view.
Adam —
My son ! . . . sad day ! . . . sad sight ! . . . How deep
and large
The wound with which his guiltless head is cloven !
Alas ! there is no remedy. My son,
Whogave thee suchablow? and whattheweapon? . . . O Heavens ! Is't not Cain's pickax that I see
Lying all-bloody there ? . . . O grief ! O madness !
And is it possible that Cain has slain thee ?
A brother kill his brother ?
Will arm, with thy own arms ; and find thee out,
And with my own hands slay thee. O thou just Almighty God, didst Thou behold this crime,
And suffer it ? breathes still the murderer ?
Where is the villain ? Didst not Thou, great God, Beneath the feet of such a monster cause
The very earth to gape and swallow him
In its profound abyss ? Then, 'tis Thy will,
Ah yes ! that by my hand should punished be
This crime irreparable : 'tis Thy will
That I should follow on the bloody track
Of that base villain : here it is : from me,
Thou wicked Cain, shalt thou receive thy death . . .
O God ! But leave my Abel breathing still . . .
Abel —
Father ! . . . return, return ! . . .
I fain would tell thee . . . Abel — He was . . . indeed . . .
Adam —
My son, but how could Cain . . .
. . . itwas not he . . . Moreover . . . He is thy son . . . O pardon him, . . . as I do . . .
Beside himself :
Adam —
Thou only art my son. Devotion true !
O Abel ! my own image ! thou, my all ! . . . How could that fierce . . .
Abel — Ah, father ! . . . tell me . . . truly ;
I
myself
THE MURDER OF ABEL.
Didst thou e'er plan . . . to take away . . . from Cain, . . . Andgive . . . tome . . . some mighty good, . . . whichlies Beyond . . . the river ?
Adam — What dost mean ? one son Alone I deemed that I possessed in both.
Abel—
Deceived. . . wasCainthen;. . . thishesaidtome. . . Ofttimes, . . . inflamed with rage . . . The only cause . .
. . . he had . . . a conflict fierce . . . and long . . .
Was this:
Within himself . . . atfirst ; . . . but . . . then . . . o'ercome
He struck me . . . and then fled . . . — But now . . . my
breath,
Father, . . . is failing . . .
Adam — —
O God ! . . . He dies.
Has that last sob cut off at once his voice
And life as well ! — Behold thee, then, at last,
Death terrible and cruel, who the daughter
Of my transgression art ! O ruthless Death,
Is, then, the first to fall before thy blows
A guileless youth like this ? 'Twas me the first,
And me alone, whom thou shouldst have struck down . . . — What shall I do without my children now ?
And this dear lifeless body, how can I
From Eve conceal it ? Hide from her the truth ?
In vain : but, how to tell her ? And, then, where,
Where bury my dear Abel ? O my God !
How tear myself from him ? — But, what behold I ?
Eve is approaching me with weary steps
From far !
She promised me that she would wait Beyond the wood for me . . . Alas ! —But I
Must meet her and detain her ; such a sight
Might in one moment kill her . . . How I tremble I Already she has seen me, and makes haste . . .
Adam —
Why, woman, hast thou come ? 'tis not allowed Farther to go : return ; return at once
Unto our cottage ; there will I erelong
Rejoin thee.
Eve — Heavens ! what see I ? in thy face What new and dreadful trouble do I see ?
Hast thou not found them ?
Adam — No : but, very soon . . ,. Do thou meanwhile retrace thy steps, I pray . . .
Kiss me . . .
He is dying . . . Unhappy father ! How
Eve, and Adam [running to meet her].
THE MURDER OF ABEL.
Eve —
And leave thee ? . . . And my children, where are they ? But, what do I behold ? thy vesture stained
With quite fresh blood ? thy hands, too, dyed with blood ? Alas ! what is't, my darling Adam, say !
Yet on thy body are no wounds . . . But, what,
What is the blood there on the ground ? and near it
Is not the ax of Cain ? . . . and that is also
All soiled with blood ? . . . Ah, leave me ; yes, I must, Imust approach ; to see . . .
Adam — Ipray thee, no . . . Eve —
In vain . . .
Adam. — O Eve, stop, stop ! on no account
Shalt thou go farther.
Eve [pushing her way forward a little'] —
But, in spite of thee, From out thine eyes a very stream of tears
I must see, at any cost,
Ispouring ! . . .
Thereason. . . Ah,I
My darling Abel . . . O unhappy I
The ax . . . the blood . . . Iunderstand . . .
Adam — Alas ! We have no sons.
Eve— Abel, my life . . . 'Tis vain To hold me back . . . Let me embrace thee, Abel.
Adam —
To hold her is impossible : a slight
Relief to her immense maternal sorrow . . .
Eve —
Adam, has God the murderer not punished ?
Adam —
O impious Cain ! in vain thy flight ; in vain Wilt thou conceal thyself. Within thy ears (However far away from me thou art)
Shall ring the fearful echo of my threats, And make thy bosom tremble.
Eve — Abel, Abel . . .
Alas,he hears me not! . . . —
That I discerned a traitor's mark, yes, traitor's, Between Cain's eyebrows.
Adam — Never on the earth That traitor peace shall find, security,
Or an asylum. — Cain, be thou accursed
By God, as thou art by thy father cursed.
see itnow! . . . therelies ! . . .
I ever told thee,
WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH? 61
WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH? By Rev. A. H. 8AYCE.
(From "Early History of the Hebrews. ")
[For biographical sketch, see p. 25. ]
It is clear that if the modern literary analysis of the Penta teuch is justified, it is useless to look to the five books of Moses for authentic history. There is nothing in them which can be ascribed with certainty to the age of Moses, nothing which goes back even to the age of the Judges. Between the Exodus out of Egypt and the composition of the earliest portion of the so-called Mosaic Law there would have been a dark and illit erate interval of several centuries. Not even tradition could be trusted to span them. For the Mosaic age, and still more for the age before the Exodus, all that we read in the Old Testament would be historically valueless. "
Such criticism, therefore, as accepts the results of the lit erary analysis " of the Hexateuch acts consistently in stamping as mythical the whole period of Hebrew history which precedes the settlement of the Israelitish tribes in Canaan. Doubt is thrown even on their residence in Egypt and subsequent escape from "the house of bondage. " Moses himself becomes a mere figure of mythland, a hero of popular imagination whose sep- ulcher was unknown because it had never been occupied. In order to discredit the earlier records of the Israelitish people, there is no need of indicating contradictions —real or other wise — in the details of the narratives contained in them, of enlarging upon their chronological difficulties, or of pointing to the supernatural elements they involve; the late dates assigned to the medley of documents which have been dis covered in the Hexateuch are sufficient of themselves to settle the question.
The dates are largely, if not altogether, dependent on the assumption that Hebrew literature is not older than the age of David. A few poems like the Song of Deborah may have been handed down orally from an earlier period, but readers and writers, it is assumed, there were none. The use of writ ing for literary purposes was coeval with the rise of the mon archy. The oldest inscription in the letters of the Phoenician alphabet yet discovered is only of the ninth century B. C. , and
52 WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH?
the alphabet would have been employed for monumental pur poses long before it was applied to the manufacture of books. As Wolf's theory of the origin and late date of the Homeric Poems avowedly rested on the belief that the literary use of writing in Greece was of late date, so too the theory of the analysts of the Hexateuch rests tacitly on the belief that the Israelites of the age of Moses and the Judges were wholly illiterate. Moses did not write the Pentateuch because he could not have done so.
The huge edifice of modern Pentateuchal criticism is thus based on a theory and" an assumption. The theory is that of " the literary analysis of the Hexateuch, the assumption that a knowledge of writing in Israel was of comparatively late date. The theory, however, is philological, not historical. The analysis is philological rather than literary, and depends entirely on the occurrence and use of certain words and phrases. Lists have been drawn up of the words and phrases held to be peculiar to the different writers between whom the Hexateuch is divided, and the portion of the Hexateuch to be assigned to each is determined accordingly. That it is some times necessary to cut a verse in two, somewhat to the injury of the sense, matters but little; the necessities of the theory require the sacrifice, and the analyst looks no further. Great things grow out of little, and the mathematical minuteness with which the Hexateuch is apportioned among its numerous authors, and the long lists of words and idioms by which the apportionment is supported, all have their origin in Astruc's separation of the book of Genesis into two documents, in one of which the name of Yahveh is used, while in the other it is replaced by Elohim.
The historian, however, is inclined to look with suspicion upon historical results which rest upon purely philological evidence. It is not so very long ago since the comparative philologists believed they had restored the early history of the Aryan race. With the help of the dictionary and grammar they had painted an idyllic picture of the life and culture of the primitive Aryan family and traced the migrations of its offshoots from their primeval Asiatic home. But anthropology has rudely dissipated all these reconstructions of primitive his tory, and has not spared even the Aryan family or the Asiatic home itself. The history that was based on philology has been banished to fairyland. It may be that the historical results
WHO WKOTE THE PENTATEUCH? 53
based on the complicated and ingenious system of Hexateuchal criticism will hereafter share the same fate.
In fact, there is one characteristic of them which cannot but excite suspicion. A passage which runs counter to the theory of the critic is at once pronounced an interpolation, due to the clumsy hand of some later "Redactor. " Indeed, if we are to believe the analysts, a considerable part of the professedly historical literature of the Old Testament was written or "redacted " chiefly with the purpose of bolstering up the ideas and inventions either of the Deuteronomist or of the later Code. This is a cheap and easy way of rewriting ancient history ; but it is neither scientific nor in accordance with the historical method, however consonant it may be with the methods of the philologist.
When, however, we come to examine the philological evi dence upon which we are asked to accept this new reading of ancient Hebrew history, we find that it is wofully defective. We are asked to believe that a European scholar of the nine teenth century can analyze with mathematical precision a work
composed centuries ago in the East for Eastern readers in a language that is long since dead, can dissolve it verse by verse, and even word by word, into its several elements, and fix the approximate date and relation of each. The accomplishment of such a feat is an impossibility, and to attempt it is to sin as much against common sense as against the laws of science. Science teaches us that we can attain to truth only by the help of comparison ; we can know things scientifically only in so far as they can be compared and measured one with another. Where there is no comparison there can be no scientific result. Even the logicians of the Middle Ages taught that no conclu sion can be drawn from what they termed a single instance. It is just this, however, that the Hexateuchal critics have essayed to do. The Pentateuch and its history have been compared with nothing except themselves, and the results have been derived not from the method of comparison, but from the so-called "tact" and arbitrary judgment of the in dividual scholar. Certain postulates have been assumed, the consequences of which have been gradually evolved, one after another, while the coherence and credibility of the general hypothesis has been supported by the invention of further subordinate hypotheses as the need for them arose. The " critical " theory of the origin and character of the Hexa
64 WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH?
teuch closely resembles the Ptolemaic theory of the universe ; like the latter, it is highly complicated and elaborate, coherent in itself, and perfect on paper, but unfortunately baseless in reality.
Its very complication condemns it. It is too ingenious to be true. Had the Hexateuch been pieced together as we are told it was, it would have required a special revelation to dis cover the fact. We may lay it down as a general rule in science that the more simple a theory is, the more likely it is to be correct. It is the complicated theories, which demand all kinds of subsidiary qualifications and assistant hypotheses, that are put aside by the progress of science. The wit of man may be great, but it needs a mass of material before even a simple theory can be established with any pretense to scientific value.
But it is not only science, it is common sense as well, which is violated by the endeavor to foist philological speculations into the treatment of historical questions. Hebrew is a dead language ; it is, moreover, a language which is but imperfectly known. Our knowledge of it is derived entirely from that fragment of its literature which is preserved in the Old Testa ment, and the errors of copyists and the corruptions of the text make a good deal even of this obscure and doubtful. There are numerous words, the traditional rendering of which is ques tionable ; there are numerous others in the case of which it is certainly wrong ; and there is passage after passage in which the translations of scholars vary from one another, sometimes even to contradiction. Of both grammar and lexicon it may be said that we see them through a glass darkly. Not unfre- quently the reading of the Septuagint — the earliest manuscript of which is six hundred years older than the earliest manuscript of the Hebrew text — differs entirely from the reading of the Hebrew; and there is a marked tendency among the Hexa- teuchal analysts to prefer it, though the recently discovered Hebrew text of the book of Ecclesiasticus seems to show that the preference is not altogether justified.
How, then, can a modern Western scholar analyze with even approximate exactitude an ancient Hebrew work, and on the strength of the language and style dissolve it once more into its component atoms? How can he determine the relation of these atoms one to the other, or presume to fix the dates to which they severally belong ? The task would be impossible
WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH? 66
even in the case of a modern English book, although English is a spoken language, with which we are all supposed to be thoroughly acquainted, while its vast literature is familiar to us all. And yet, even where we know that a work is composite, it passes the power of man to separate it into its elements, and define the limits of each. No one, for instance, would dream of attempting such a task in the case of the novels of Besant and Rice ; and the endeavor to distinguish in certain plays of Shakespeare what belongs to the poet himself and what to Fletcher has met with the oblivion it deserved. Is it likely that a problem which cannot be solved in the case of an Eng lish book can be solved where its difficulties are increased a thousand fold? The minuteness and apparent precision of Hexateuchal criticism are simply due, like that of the Ptole maic theory, to the artificial character of the basis on which it rests. It is, in fact, a philological mirage ; it attempts the im possible, and in place of the scientific method of comparison, it gives us as a starting point the assumptions and arbitrary principles of a one-sided critic.
Where philology has failed, archaeology has come to our help. The needful comparison of the Old Testament record with some thing else than itself has been afforded by the discoveries which have been made of recent years in Egypt and Babylonia, and other parts of the ancient East. At last we are able to call in the aid of the scientific method, and test the age and character, the authenticity and trustworthiness, of the Old Testament history by monuments about whose historical authority there can be no question. And the result of the test has, on the whole, been in favor of tradition, and against the doctrines of the newer critical school. It has vindicated the antiquity and credibility of the narratives of the Pentateuch ; it has proved that the Mosaic age was a highly literary one, and that con sequently the marvel would be, not that Moses should have written, but that he should not have done so ; and it has un dermined the foundation on which the documentary hypothesis of the origin of the Hexateuch has been built. We are still, indeed, only at the beginning of discoveries ; those made dur ing the past year or two [1895-1896] have, for the student of Genesis, been exceptionally important ; but enough has now been gained to assure us that the historian may safely disregard the philological theory of Hexateuchal criticism, and treat the books of the Pentateuch from a wholly different point of view.
