Translated From Manuscript Notes
Samuel Ives Curtiss, D. D.,
Professor in Chicago Theological Seminary
Taken from THE HEBREW STUDENT April, 1882. Vol. 1, Issue 3
§ 13. Parts of the Pentateuch
which are attested as written by
Moses. There are in the Middle Books of
the Pentateuch certain portions, concerning
which it is expressly said that they were written down
by Moses:
(1) The so-called Book of the
Covenant (סֵפֶר הַבְּרִית, Ex. xxiv. 7), which
contains the Decalogue and the fundamental
laws of the Sinai tic covenant (Ex. xx—xxiii).
(2) The laws of the renewed
Sinaitic covenant, which are contained in Ex.
xxxiv. This so-called law of the second tables is
attested in Ex. xxxiv. 27 as written by Moses.
(3) Jehovah’s determination to
destroy Amalek, which Moses was to put in
documentary form, that it might be observed by Joshua
(Ex. xvii. 14, where בַּסֵפֶר as in Is. xxx. 8 has the
generic article).
(4) The list of stations (Num.
xxxiii. 2).
(5) The Tora contained in
Deuteronomy (Deut. xxxi. 9, 24).
(6) The song (Deut. xxxi. 19,
30) which is appended to Deuteronomy.
The attestation that these parts
of the Pentateuch were written by Moses does not
at all justify the conclusion that he was the
author of the entire Pentateuch, certainly not of the
whole without exception, because it closes
with the account of his death. Even Deut. xxxi. 9 does
not require us to suppose that the entire
Pentateuch was recorded by Moses, for the book of the Tora
which Moses wrote is only the legislative part of
Deuteronomy. The terminus a quo of that to which
this testimony of Moses refers is Deut. iv. 4, and
the terminus ad quern is the peroration (Deut.
xxvi. 16-19) and the subscription (Deut. xxviii. 69).
Everywhere in Deuteronomy we are to understand by
“this Tora,” the second law of the fortieth year
of the Moabitic legislation.
§ 14. The Present Condition of
Pentateuchal Analysis.
As we now prepare to test these
declarations of the Tora respecting itself, it
seems to be indispensable that we should previously
become acquainted with the present condition of
the critical analysis and its terminology.
(1) The book, comprehending a
history of the people and their legislation,
which is based on all the original excerpts contained
in the Pentateuch, begins with the account of
creation, Gen. i. 1—ii. 4, and is continued in the
toledoth
of Adam (Gen. vi). According to Dillmann it is
designated as A, according to Wellhausen
as Q (quatuor)
that is the Book of the Four Covenants
(Adam, Abraham, Noah, Israel).
(2) It is absolutely impossible
that Gen. ii. 6-iv can nave come from the same
author. The author of the Book of the Four
Covenants has received this history of the first human pair,
and of the first family from the Jahvist who is
designated by Dillmann as C and by Wellhausen
as J.
(3) In the twentieth chapter of
Genesis we meet with a third narrator, who like
Q calls God Elohim until the beginning of the
Mosaic history; but he is distinguished by a peculiar
style and language. This is the so-called second
Elohist, who is older than the other: he is designated
by Dillmann as B, and by Wellhausen as E.
(4) The writings of the Jahvist
and second Elohist, before Q embodied
excerpts from them, were already blended into one whole (JE).
Wellhausen calls the one who blended them
together the Jehovist in order to distinguish him
from J (the Jahvist).
(5) But also Q was gradually
expanded. The work which grew up in this way
among the priests, to whom the transmission of the
Tora was committed, we call, after
Wellhausen, the Priests’ Code
(PC).
(6) Besides JE and Q we
distinguish the collection of laws. Lev.
xvii—xxv, with the peroration in chapter xxvi. We name it
with Klostermann the Law of Holiness (LH),
since it confirms its precepts with the words: “I
am Jehovah,” and always lays special emphasis on
the fact that Jehovah is holy and is to be
hallowed.
(7) Deuteronomy was, as it
appears, an organic part of the priestly code, when
LH received its present shape; for LH forms a
connecting link between the Jehovistic and
Deuteronomic language of the law and that of the
Elohist.
(8) But besides the sources that
we have mentioned the moulding hand of an
editor (Redacteur), R, is evident throughout the
entire Pentateuch, who in distinction from the
author of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomiker) is called the
Deuteronomist, so far as his editorial additions
exhibit the point of view and the manner of
expression which we find in Deuteronomy.
We are convinced that these
parts are to be distinguished in the Pentateuch. We
are confident that the view which was dominant
before Graf, that J
intended to supplement Q, must
be given up. But we consider the decisions of
the present criticism respecting the time, origin, and
historical value of these portions as
certainly immature and not duly established. Dillmann
rightly recognizes in the Priests’ Code old
foundations which he partially designates as S
(Sinai). This brings us back to the testimony of the
Tora, contained in the preceding paragraph, respecting
itself. Remark. Enemies of Christianity
and of revealed religion raised the first
opposition against the Five Books of Moses. A
philosopher in the Apocritica of Macarius of
Magnesia, held that nothing was
preserved which had
been written by Moses; all was consumed when the
temple was burned, and that which now bears
Moses’ name was written eleven hundred and
eighty years afterwards by Ezra and his
coadjutors. The emperor Julian, as his views are found in Cyrillus, was more conservative. He considers the
Pentateuch, concerning whose religious contents
he has a very low opinion, as a work of Moses, but
not throughout, since Ezra has added many of his
own ideas. There is rather more reason for the
views concerning the Pentateuch expressed by
Carlstadt, Hobbes, and Spinoza. But the first founder
of the critical analysis was Astruc (d. 1760 in
Paris), author of the Conjectures sur les memoires
originaux, etc., Brussels, 1763. This celebrated
physician is the father of the documentary
hypothesis and, above all, of the distinction between two
chief writers, according to their use of the divine
names. The fragmentary hypothesis, founded by
Geddes (d. 1802) and Vater 1802-5, is only
distinguished from the documentary hypothesis in the
ojnnion, that the Pentateuch is a planless, checkered
mosaic. The documentary hypothesis became a
supplementary hypothesis, and was carried out
to the finest point in Tuch’s Genesis, Halle, 1838;
he discriminates the Elohist from the Jehovist as
the writer who extended and completed the work.
Stähehn maintained (1843) that the Jehovist
and the Deuteronomiker were one person, but
this opinion is certainly wrong. Instead of this
identification of J and D, the Elohistic work was
divided with greater propriety into two Elohistic
narratives, namely by Hupfeld 1853, and even by Ilgen,
Urkunden des jerusalemischen Tempelarchivs,
1798. Of these two narratives, the author of the
so-called fundamental document was always considered
the elder, until Graf in this respect
transmitting and developing the views of his teacher.
Professor Reuss, effected a subversion of the previous
theory of the Pentateuch, since he sought to prove,
that the supposed fundamental document was the
youngest and indeed the post-exilic portion of the
Pentateuch, even including, for the sake of
consistency under the jiressure of Riehm, the
primitive historical parts contained in Genesis. The chief
work of Graf is entitled: Die geschichtlichen
Buecher des alien Testaments, Lemzig, 1866. After
his example the analysis of the Pentateuch
together with Joshua is carried through by Kayser,
and finally by Wellhausen. His history of Israel is
the most important
work from this standpoint and,
in the Biblical province, has won a fascinating
power which can be compared with the influence of
Hartmann’s Philo-Sophie des Unbewussten. But we
can acknowledge that the Priests’ Code as it
lies before us is the youngest portion of the
Pentateuch, that is, that it represents the latest
development of the Mosaic law, and yet at the same time
maintain, that with reference to its chief mass it
codifies histories and laws transmitted from the Mosaic
age. The cardinal question around which
everything turns is this: Is that which the priestly code
relates concerning the Mosaic time a pure
fabrication, or is it tradition?
We consider it tradition.
Moreover our standpoint is different in this respect,
that we deny to the new theory of the Pentateuch the
value of being a final solution. The analysis of the
Pentateuch is not yet more than one hundred years old.
It has run through many phases which were
called hypotheses, while for the latest phase not
only a preponderating probability is claimed, but even
infallible certainty.
§ 15. The Decalogue.
The
affirmation, that in the
Holy Scriptures all is both divine and human, is
also true of the Decalogue (Ex. xxxiv. 28; Deut.
iv. 13; x. 4). The two tables of stone are
called God’s work, the writing upon them God’s writing
(Ex. xxxiv. 16 sq., compare xxxi. 18), also the
writing of the new tables xxxiv. 1, although Ex.
xxxiv. 27 sq. seems to say, that Moses served in some
way as an instrument in the divine writing.
Undoubtedly Moses’ soul was the laboratory in which
the divine thoughts of the Decalogue found
human expression. And since the Decalogue is the
most unquestionable document of the Sinaitic
legislation (compare Ps. xxiv. 4 with Ex. xx. 7), we may
expect in some degree to make through it a
representation of Moses’ method of thinking and speaking.
The Decalogue however has a Jehovistic and
Deuteronomic character, compare the following
expressions: מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים
Ex. xiii. 3, 14 and Deut. vi. 12;
vii. 8 sq., אֱלׂהִם אֲחֵרִים Deut.
vi. 14;
vii. 4 sq. מִמַּעַל הַשָׁמַיִם except in the Decalogue, occurs
only in Deut. iv. 39, and
בַּמַּיִם מִתַּחַת לָאָרֶץ only in
Deut. iv. 18; אֵל קַנָּא as in Deut. iv. 24; vi.
15;
שִׁלֵּשִׁים posterity of the third generation, Gen.
l.
23, (certainly does not belong to Q);
אָמָה maid as in
Deuteronomy, where שִׁפְחָה never occurs.
בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ in thy gates
as about twenty times in
Deuteronomy, but nowhere else in the Pentateuch. To which
must yet be added, that
לְאׂהֲבַי which never occurs
in the Middle Books of the Pentateuch,
rests upon the exclusively Deuteronomic command:
“Thou shaft love God,” and that
לְמַעַן יַּאֲרִיכוּ is a
favorite Deuteronomic motive. Hence if
one of the two different characteristic
modes of representation in the Pentateuch go back
to a primitive Mosaic type, it is the
Jehovistico-Deuteronoinic and not the Elohistic. Even the
basing of the command for the observance of the
Sabbath (Ex. xx. 11)
upon the hebdomad of the
creation does not contain anything characteristically
Elohistic. If it contained anything of that character, it
would appear as a later interpolation. That it is
such, does not follow from Deut. v. 16, where the
command for the observance of the Sabbath has
another ground. The Decalogue is there freely
reproduced in the oratorical flow of an exhortation, but
not literally. On the contrary, we may conclude
from the lyric echo in Ps. viii. that this account of
the creation was even in existence in the time of
David. It is all the more certain, that even Moses
knew the traditions which are written down in it;
and why may we not assume, that the Elohist in Gen.
ii. 2 sq. follows the reason for the foundation of
the Sabbath given in the Decalogue?
§ 16. The Book of the Covenant
and the Law of the Second Table.
These fundamental laws of the
first conclusion of the covenant (Ex. xx. 22 sqq.,
xxi-xxiii) and of the conclusion oi the renewed
covenant (xxxiv), spring from JE. The latter are a
concise repetition and in some point a continuation of
the first from J. For the law concerning the
first-born (xxxiv. 19 sq.) resembles the Jahvistic law
(xiii.12 sq.). On the contrary the fundamental laws in
their more extended but partially more universal
wording, are essentially so reproduced as they were in E,
who in this respect appears to be the elder of
the two. The twofold testimony that these
laws were recorded by Moses, properly considered,
reduces itself to one, that according to the account in
E and J he wrote down the fundamental laws of the
Sinaitic covenant; and the examination is
confined to the question, whether the series
of laws which are undoubtedly older (xx. 22 sqq., xxi-xxiii), (not to speak of the
possibility
of later editorial additions) can legitimately
claim that the were formulated
and written by Moses. We answer
this question in the
affirmative. Undoubtedly the
antique word זְכוּר is
peculiar to this book, which has been transmitted from
it to xxxiv. 23; Deut. XVI. 16; xx. 13.
Furthermore the prevailing designation of the magistrates
as הָאֱלׂהִים and also
פְּלִילִים (Ex. xxi. 22, which is
found elsewhere only in Deut. xxxii. 31, and from
there has been adopted in Job.
xxxi. 11); further רְגָלִים for
פְּעָמִים which occurs elsewhere only in the
section concerning Balaam Num. xxii. 28, 32;
הָדַר to
adorn with the tropical meaning
preferring, Ex.
xxiii. 3, which only occurs again in Lev. xix. 15 (LH).
עָזַב to release, to free (xxiii. 5) like Deut.
xxxii. 36. Besides the following technical terms are
without any further authentication in the Old
Testament: מְלֵאָה and דֶּמַע
xxii. 28; ֵצֵא לַחָפְשִׁי and
שִׁלַּח תָפְשִׁי for manumission xxi. 2, 26 sq.;
בְּגַפּוׂ with his person (back, body) equivalent to
be
alone xxi. 3; שְׁאֵד food
xxi. 10; עָנָה cohabitation xxi.
10; בְּעֵרָה conflagration
(compare תַּבְעֵרָה Num. xi. 3);
אָיַב to be hostile xxiii. 22. The
complexion of the
language is different entirely
from that of the Priests’ Code, and from that of
E (for words like אָמָה and
אָסוׂן which occur only
in the history of Joseph, are not characteristic
of E in distinction from J and D). It is precisely
that which is peculiar to the Jehovist and, in
a more developed way, to the Deuteronomiker.
Especially the promissory end with the peculiar image
of the angel (Ex. XXIII. 20 sq q .) sounds
extremely Jehovistico-Deuteronomic. We here see in the Book
of the Covenant as well as in the Decalogue the
peculiar Mosaic type.
Remark 1. First Ewald and after
him Bertheau called attention to the fact,
that the laws of the Book of the Covenant permit
decadal series to be recognized, which here and
there, as Ewald added at a mter time, may frequently
be divided into five parts. Accordingly Dillmann
reckons in xxii. 6-16 ten legal axioms concerning
trusts, loans, and the seduction of a virgin, and in
xxi. 18-32 ten (5+5) legal axioms concerning bodily
and mortal injuries.
Remark 2. The law of “the two
tables” is characterized, in
contradistinction to the Book of
the Covenant, as a younger
recapitulation of the fundamental law; for example, through
the fact that the feast of pentecost in the Book
of the Covenant is the feast of harvest (xxiri.
16), while on the contrary it is here xxxiv. 22, called the
feast of weeks, a name which is then continued in
Deuteronomy. In the Priests’ Code briefly
שְׁבֻעוׂת
(Num. xxviii. 26) is the name of the feast;
and it is further characterized by the exchange of
the old רְגָלִים (xxiii. 14), with the commonly understood
פְּעָמִים (xxxiv. 23 sq.). The verse
xxxiv. 26 is the literal repetition of xxiii. 19, which
corresponds to the secondary relation of the law of
the two tables to the Book of the Covenant.
Remark 3. The law concerning the
sacrificial altar (Ex. xx. 24-26) is the
main support of the new theory of the Pentateuch. It is
said that here the erection of altars everywhere in
the land at the pleasure of each individual is
indicated (Knobel and Dillmann hold the same
view); but through the qualifying sentence: “In
every place, where I shall establish a remembrance
of my name,” all free will is removed in the
erection of altars. This law is certainly older than the
appointment of the tabernacle of the covenant, with
its altar of burnt- offering, and older than the
inauguration of the Aaronitic priesthood. But it
does not follow from this, that these belong to a
much later post-Mosaic age. The law which was thereby
rendered powerless came again into force, when
there was no such central sanctuary, and when the
centralization could not be sustained. It is the only
passage in the Tora, which under certain
conditions legalizes the Bamoth (E. V. high-places). The
new theory strains the carrying power of
this one passage.
§ 17. The Destruction of Amalek
and the List of Stations.
The divine sentence. Ex. xvii.
14, which Moses is to record that it may be
remembered is: “I will
destroy the remembrance of
Amalek from under the heavens.” The narrative is
historical, for Deuteronomy XXV. 19 calls special
attention to it, and Samuel declares (1 Sam. xv.)
that Saul shall lose the throne because he has not
acted strictly in accordance with it.
The fact that Moses registered
the stations is indisputable; but it is neither
affirmed nor can it be proved that Num. xxxiii. is his
own list of stations; yet aside from some additions to
the names of the stations, it was neither made by
E nor by J, but it is a document handed down from
antiquity. For (1) we read here twenty names of
stations, which never occur elsewhere, and of
which sixteen from Rithma on (Num. xxxiii. 18)
appear to belong to the thirty-seven years between
the second and fortieth; (2) Four out of the
forty-one stations in all are also named in Deut. x.
6-9, but with particulars which do not harmonize
with Num. xxxiii; (3) Instead of the three
stations from Iyye-Abarim on (Num. xxxiii. 45-47) seven
others are named (Num. xxi. 12-20). We have here
an instructive example of the
frequent phenomenon, that the
historical books of the Bible
often repeat dissonant historical traditions with all
fidelity, and refrain on principle from violent,
harmonistic interferences with the text.
§ 18. Plan and Character of
Deuteronomy.
Before we critically examine the
statement of Deut. XXXI. 9, 24: “And Moses
wrote this book,” let us bring before us the
construction of the book. It is a historical book in which
Moses is introduced as speaker and indeed in such a
way that his addresses are placed in one wide
frame of introductory, intermediate and final
historical portions. Two opening addresses (i. 6—iv.
40 and v. 1—xi. 32) between which the
designation of the three free
cities east of the Jordan falls
(iv. 41-43, compare Num. xxxv. 14) prepare the final
legislation in view of the projected possession of
the land and unite them in a recapitulatory
historical retrospect of the events from Horeb till Kadesh
and Moab, with the fundamental legislation. These
two great prologues are followed by the
(corpus legum) body of the laws (xii—xxvi), which are
succeeded by two corresponding perorations, of
which the first xxvii—xxviii begins with the
command: To write “all the words of this law ”
after the entrance into Canaan, upon the stones of Mount Ebal. In the second
peroration (xxix—xxx)
the covenant of the present, and at the same time of
the future people, is renewed with Jehovah; life
and death, blessing and cursing are given them as
their choice, but at the same time on condition of
their conversion, their future restoration from
the exile is promised. Moses then confirms Joshua
in his office and delivers to the Levitical
priests and to the elders the Tora written by
him for periodic, public reading (xxxi. 1-13). He
and Joshua receive the command to write out the
memorial song which follows in chapter xxxii. The
Book of the Law as
completed through this
supplementary writing is given to the Levites for
preservation in the side of the ark of the covenant (xxxi.
14 sqq.) The memorial song with the closing
exhortation is purposely placed at the end of the book.
In xxxii. 48 the language of the earlier books
recommences, so that the blessing of Moses properly
lies beyond the real Deuteronomy. The
historiographer, who reports in it the testamentary addresses
and last regulations of Moses, is neither Moses, nor
does he claim to be. For he distinguishes himself
from him by introducing him as speaking (i.
1-5; iv. 44-49), and adopts into
Moses’ addresses much that is
historic (iv. 41-43; x. 6-9),
and archaeological (ii. 10-12,
20-23; HI. 9, 11, 13 sec.
clause, 14), which distinguishes
itself as all the more foreign,
the more remarkable the deep
psychological truth of the contents and tone of these
addresses is. They breathe the deep emotion of one about to
die; and the pain at being refused entrance with
Israel into the promised land gives them a
melancholy tone. Even the statement: “ And Moses wrote
this book,” is made respecting Moses,' and is
not a testimony which Deuteronomy makes for
itself, but the testimony of the Deuteronomiker,
that Moses left behind him a Tora in his own
hand. This is contained in Deuteronomy, but it is
not identical with it.
§ 19. The Mosaic Tora of the
Fortieth Year.
We may gather from Deut. xxvii.
8, that the testimony in Deut. xxxi. 9 and
24 merely refers to the kernel of the Mosaic
legislation, which is found in Deuteronomy historically
framed and introduced. According to this passage, when
the people have reached the land of the Jordan,
they are to write all the words of this law upon
stones of Mount Ebal covered with plaster (compare
Josh. viii. 30 sq, with Deut. XVII. 18, where
מִשְׁנֶה
indicates a coy of this Tora). An abridged copy
of this Tora is intended, namely of that Tora
which is announced in Deut. IV. 44, and which after a
second preface begins with a new superscription
(xii 1). But this code of laws does not like the
Book of the Covenant make the impression of an
immediate document adopted in its original
form. For Deuteronomy in all its parts is a work
from a single smelting. The historical connections,
terminations, transitions, and accounts have the same
complexion as the addresses; and this unity of
color is also observable, although in a conceivably less
degree, in the repetition (deuterosis) of the
law (xii—xxvi). This never stands in actual
contradiction with the prologues; for Deut. iv. 41 treats
of the separation of the three trans-jordanic free
cities and in xix of the separation of three cities on
this side of the Jordan and their eventual increase. And
as the chapters XII—XXVI so also the prologues
contain retrospective references to the Book
of the Covenant, for example Deut. vii. 22 refers
to Ex. xxiii 19 sq.
Hence not only the Mosaic
addresses, but also the Mosaic laws have passed
through the subjectivity of the Deuteronomiker.
Thus far we fully coincide with the results of
modern criticism. In those parts which are both
oratorical and historic, the Deuteronomiker, in the
consciousness of his oneness of spirit with Moses,
has. expanded and developed a traditional sketch
of Moses’ testamentary addresses, in accordance
with the frame of mind and situation of the
departing lawgiver; and in the legal code he recasts the
traditional legislation of the fortieth year in
harmony with the ethical and religious requirements of
his time. For Deuteronomy in distinction from the
Priests’ Code is a people’s book. Not a few laws,
which have no application to the time of the kings,
prove that Deuteronony really contains the
final ordinances of Moses. The following are
examples: xx. 15-18, for in the later royal period
there was no longer any war with the old Canaanitic
peoples; xxv. 17 sq., for the sentence of extinction
had already been executed on Amalek; xxiii. 8 sq.,
for the exhortation to a thankful attitude toward
the Edomites and Egyptians is contradictory to
the later attitude of both peoples toward Israel; xii,
for the permission to slaughter everywhere in the
land presupposes the connection of the
slaughtering for household use with the Tabernacle of the
Covenant during the wandering in the wilderness;
xvii. 15, for the command not to make a foreigner
king is comprehensible in the mouth of Moses,
but in so late a time as that of Josiah1 without
occasion and object; xvin. 21 sq., for the criterion
here given of a true prophet could no longer be
considered as sufficient in the seventh century. And why
should not the substance of this legislation be
Mosaic, since it is to be presupposed from the very
outset, that Moses before his death, would once
more have brought the law of God home to the hearts of
the people, and further expounded God’s will
with reference to their future possession of their own
land. If the Book of the Covenant is substantially
Mosaic, then we must also presuppose for
Deuteronomy Mosaic foundations; for the legislation
of the fortieth year was the Mosaic
deuterosis of the
Book of the Covenant, and Deuteronomy, as it
lies before us as the work of the Deuteronomiker, is
the post Mosaic deuterosis of this deuterosis.
Remark. In the code of laws
also, there are many examples of that which is
specifically Deuteronomic. The mountain on which
the law was given is here also called Horeb
(xviii. 16), the day on which it was given
יוׂם הַקָּהָל (xviii.
16); the land of promise is here also
called: “'fhe land flowing with milk and honey”
(xxvi. 9 and 15); the people of God are here also
called עֵם סְנֻלָּה (xiv. 2;
xxvi. 18 like vii. 6);
the occupation is here also called
לְרִשְׁתָּהּ xii. 1; xv. 4; xix.
2; xxi. 1; xxiii. 21; xxv. 19; and
הָאֵל
equivalent to אֵלֶּה is found in xix. 11 as in iv.
42; vii. 22.
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1) That is at the time when most Gorman critics suppose that Deuteronomy was written. C.
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