NOV 30 1910 *j Division ••) :S)'65 A HISTORY OF THE SCIENCES Astronomy, by Prof. George Forbes, F.R.S. Chemistry, 2 volumes, by Sir Edward Thorpf,, C.B., D Sc, F.R.S., etc. (Director of Govern- ment Laboratories) Old Testament Criticism, by Prof. Archibald Duff (Prof, of Hebrew and Old Testament Theology in the United College, Bradford) In Active Preparation — New Testament Criticism, by F. C. Conybeare, M.A. (Late Fellow and Prselector of Univ. Coll., Oxford) Geology, by H. B. Woodward, F.R.S., F.G.S. (Assistant Director of Geological Survey) Geography, by Dr. Scott Keltie, F.R.G.S., F.S.A. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS New York London Paul de Lagarde. Dr. Phil. et. Theol., Professor of Semitic Philology, Gottingen. A HISTOR Y OF THE SCIENCES ^y .^.^^-% PB/,!^f> HISTOR^ NOV 3OI910 > OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM ARCHIBALD DUFF, D.D., LL.D. PROFESSOR OF HEBREW AND OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY IN THE UNITED COLLEGE, BRADFORD IV/T// I L LUSTRA TIONS G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON Cbc IRnichcvbocl^er |prc66 1910 Copyright iqio BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS This series is published in London by The Rationalist PriiSS Association, Limited Xibe 'Rnicfterbocfter press, mew lorft DEDICATED IN GRATEFUL DEVOTION AND REMEMBRANCE TO THE MEMORY OF MY BRILLIANT AND BELOVED TEACHER PAUL DE LAGARDE The History of Chemistry: Vol. I. circa 2000 B.C. to 1850 A.D. Vol. II. 1850 A.D. to date. By Sir Edward Thorpe, C.B., LL.D., F.R.S., Director of the Government Laboratories, London; Professor-elect and Director of the Chemical Laboratories of the Imperial College of Science and Technology; author of A Dictionary of Applied Chemistry. To he followed by: The History of Geography. By Dr. John Scott Keltie, F.R.G.S., F.S.S., F.S.A., Hon. Mem. Geographical Societies of Paris, Berlin, Rome, Brussels, Amster- dam, Geneva, etc.; author of Report on Geographical Education, Applied GeograpJiy. The History of Geology. By Horace B. Woodward, F.R.S., F.G.S., Assistant-Director of Geological Survey of England and Wales; author of The Geology of England and Wales, etc. The History of Anthropology. By A. C. Haddon, M.A., Sc.D., F.R.S., Lec- turer in Ethnology, Cambridge and Lon- don; author of Study of Man, Magic and Fetishism, etc. The History of Old Testament Criticism. By Archibald Duff, Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Theology in the United College, Bradford; author of Theology and Ethics of the Hebrews, Modern Old Testament Theology, etc. The History of New Testament Criticism. By F. C. CoNYBEARE, M.A., late Fellow and Praelector of Univ. Coll., Oxford; Fellow of the British Academy; Doctor of Theol- ogy, honoris causa, of Giessen; Officer d' Academic; author of Old Armenian Texts oj Revelation, etc. Further volumes are in plan on the following subjects: Mathematics and Mechanics. Molecular Physics, Heat, Life, and Electricity. Human Physiology, Embryology, and Heredity. Acoustics, Harmonics, and the Physiology of Hearing, together with Optics Chromatics, and Physiology of Seeing. Psychology, Analytic, Comparative, and Ex- perimental. Sociology and Economics. Ethics. Comparative Philology. Criticism, Historical Research, and Legends. Comparative Mythology and the Science of Religions. The Criticism of Ecclesiastical Institutions, Culture, Moral and Intellectual, as Reflected in Imaginative Literature and in the Fine Arts. Logic. Philosophy. Education. Preface 1AM asked to tell to a large body of thoughtful readers what has been the story of the criti- cal cr literary handling of the Old Testament throughout the ages, as scientific study of that literature is at present showing what the story has been. I am told, with admirable frankness, that the only condition laid upon me is that my tale be the true one ; I am kindly given to under- stand that the Directorate of the publication have full confidence in my spirit and method, as these have been shown in my various works. For this confidence I am bound to utter my heartfelt and deep gratitude, in the belief that such a trust will inspire me to leave no jot or tittle of due exposition unrecorded. Under a sense of spiritual compulsion upon me to set forth the beautiful record to every ear that will hear, I set out on the task, feeling most deeply my feebleness, but knowing also that strength is always sufficient as one goes forward in the course of duty. I have elsewhere shown why I do not confine the History to the Christian era , and I feel that X ^ Preface the proper method which I have tried to follow will help to lift away the benumbing and entirely mistaken fancy concerning Scriptures as sacred in the sense of unalterable. A. D. April, igio. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PAGE Of the Ideal and the Plan i CHAPTER 11. How THE Hebrews Criticised Their Own Literature 14 I. — Criticism in the Earliest Narratives 14 2. — Early Criticism of Ethical Writings 26 3. — Early Criticism of Prophet's Oracles 34 4, — Hebrew Criticism in the Exile in Babylon 41 CHAPTER HI. Of Criticism among the Jews 48 I. — Under Persian Rule, 500 to 300 b.c 48 2, — Criticism of the Jewish Commentators under Greek Influence 64 3. — Under the New Kingdom, 150 B.C. to a.d. i 73 CHAPTER IV. Early Christian's Treatment of the Old Testament 83 I. — From Jesus to the Fixture of the Canon.. 83 2. — Criticism of Origen and his Comrades 92 3. — Jerome's Orthodox Canonic Text 99 xi xii Contents CHAPTER V. PAGE Criticism by the Jewish Rabbis io6 I. — Outline from A.D. i to the Reformation io6 2. — Jewish Use of the Old Testament in Their Synagogal Expositions io8 3. — The Criticism of Baruch Spinoza 129 CHAPTER VI. From Spinoza to Astruc 137 CHAPTER VII. Modern Criticism from Astruc until the Present 148 I. — Aids and Hindrances , 148 2. — Discovery of the Foundation Document 157 3. — Unravelling of the Two Earliest Sources. . . 160 4. — Concerning the Law Codes 163 5. — The Determination of the Dates 167 6. — The Reconstruction of the History 175 7. — Criticism of the non-Pentateuchal Books. . 180 Bibliography 189 Index 195 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Paul de Lagarde, Dr. Phil, et Theol., Professor of Semitic Philology, Gottingen Frontispiece Julius Wellhausen, Dr. Theol., Professor of Old Testament Theology, Gottingen 33 The Rev. Canon T. K. Cheyne, D. Litt., D.D., Pro- fessor of Old Testament Interpretation, Oxford. 35 Benjamin Wisner Bacon, D.D., Professor of New Testament Theology, Yale University, New- haven, U.S. A 51 Bernhard Duhm, Dr. Theol., Professor of Old Testament Theology, Basel 67 Benedictus de Spinoza 109 Jean Astruc, Dr. Med., Royal Physician and Pro- fessor of Medicine, Paris 147 Johann Karl Wilhelm Vatke, Dr. Theol., Pro- fessor of Old Testament Theology, Berlin 150 Bernhard Stade, Dr. Theol. et Phil., Professor of Old Testament Theology, Giessen 152 The Right Rev. John William Colenso, D.D., Anglican Bishop of Natal 155 Hermann Hupfeld, Dr. Theol., Professor of Old Testament Theology, Halle-a-S 162 Wilhelm Martin Leberecht De Wette, Dr. Theol., Professor of Old Testament Theology, Berlin 164 Abraham Kuenen, Dr. Theol., Professor of The- ology, University of Leyden 169 Karl David Ilgen, Dr. Theol., Professor of The- ology, Jena University 171 Karl Budde, Dr. Theol., Professor of Theology, Marburg University 181 Heinrich Ewald, Dr. Theol., Professor of Old Testament Theology, Gottingen 185 xiii HISTORY OF OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM Chapter I Of Our Ideal, and Our Plan I. The Ideal WHERE shall we begin with this History? At what date ? Commonly the Teachers of various sorts concerning the matter before us start at the year a.d. i. But why? I. vSuch questions arise at once most natur- ally when we set out to study the history of any subject. But the query alters itself speedily, for a thoughtful mind, into the moral question, "Where ought we to begin?" In this day of scientific thinking, in this age whose students seek to find just the facts and then to systematise these, calling the result Science, it is quite clear that, to get all of the facts, we must trace the stream of phenomena right up to the first I 2 Old Testament Criticism fountain-head. Where, then, shall we begin to observe the process and the course or history of the criticism of a literature? Undoubtedly we ought to run right back to the very beginning of the process, and of the course and history of the literature itself. Can any good reason be given why we should not? Surely, then, if we can trace Hebrew literary monuments back to 900 B.C., we are bound to ask how the Hebrew men of that time, nine centuries before our era, thought about their literature. Their think- ing about it was, surely, always their having some opinion about it, and this thinking was a judging concerning it; in scientific phrase, it was a criticism. Therefore, our History of Criticism must vSet out, at least, at 900 B.C. — else it will be a headless body, and virtually useless. 2. But such a beginning has been commonly and singularly neglected; indeed, this neglect has been one of the notable features m the history of the matter. If we examine Diestel's work on The History of the Old Testament in the Christian Church,^ the handy, if now some- what old, text-book on such study, we find the very title begging the whole question. A few words are devoted by Diestel to the real owners of the noble old literature, but they are doubly ^ For full statements of titles, etc., of books quoted see our Bibliography. Of Our Ideal, and Our Plan 3 curious. All that is said runs thus (p. 7 f .) : "Christianity appeared at a time when Judaism was passing through a process of fermentation. This fermentation was certain either to burst its national limits or to degrade itself into a lifeless form. For while the Old Testament was then the supreme avithority in every sense, yet the application of this authority had long lacked that inmiediateness which marks the fresh vitality of a real spiritual power." Now, with- out lingering to point out some startling and groundless assumptions here made, we may simply say that Diestel gives himself away, and vitiates his v/ork entirely, by implying that there had indeed been, once upon a time, a day of "real spiritual power" and of "fresh vitality, " and of "immediateness." If there had been these, why does he fail entirely to include the story of such great things in his History ? Surely an exposition of them was essential for a clear comprehension of the "Christian" use of this great old literature. If Diestel had not been bound in chains and iron, as we shall have occasion to show, he could have told of the days of "fresh vitality" all along the line of the ten centuries B.C.; and especially he could have illustrated that most vigorous "immediateness" and "spiritual power" which burst out in the wonderful "Priestly" literature of Nehemiah's time — 450 B.C. and thereafter. Our hope, in 4 Old Testament Criticism these pages, is to do some small justice to those and other similar matters which are so sorely and so often neglected, even by not a few liberal- ly-minded teachers and preachers in all circles about us. 3. But what caused the neglect on the part of Diestel and by the body of theologians whom he well represents? The plain fact is that, with the development of Christianity, there arose a sharp antithesis in the ranks of those who should have joined hands for all good work — viz., between the Christians and the Jews; and in that antithesis the Christian thinker, on the one hand, threw away the singularly free liter- ary spirit which his Jewish ancestors had possessed, and which had very largely made Christianity and enabled it to emerge; while, on the other hand, the Jewish scholars stiffened themselves back from the rich legacy of critical freedom which their fathers had left to them, and put on many of the very bonds which their opponents in Christian circles accused them untruly of always wearing. Other evils have resulted which are still more to be regretted; for the common neglect to realise the literary freedom of the forma- tive days of Hebrew literature has created the dream among ordinary persons in general that the whole Old Testament was written on one plan, and on one literary, moral, and theological Of Our Ideal, and Our Plan 5 level. The astounding wortlilessness of such a fancy is not the worst of it. Two classes of readers have suffered sadly in consequence. On one side, the would-be friends and devoted users of the Bible as a book of devotion have been puzzled and pained by an apparent cruelty encouraged by God in Old Testament times, although a study of the criticism that had gone on throughout the ages would have taught them that the encouragement was merely apparent. On the other side, there have been sometimes in the past centuries of our era men at enmity for various reasons with Christian institutions; and these have laid to the charge of the God represented by Jesus those cruelties that we have just mentioned, unaware all the time how a study of criticism would have shown them their historical mistake. It is very trvie that the neglect of study of criticism and of its history has caused much dishonour to the venerable Hebrew literature — a literature quite as noble as any other: the lovers of the Bible have been brought into sore straits by that neglect, and the Bible has been mistakenly blamed for huge real evils that were wrought bv entirely different influences. Therefore, let us avoid a plan that has been fruitful of such mis- takes, and let us set out in our examination of the whole course of Old Testament Criticism, not from the year a.d. i, but from the earliest 6 Old Testament Criticism known date of the literature itself. We can promise the reader a rich and happy result. 4. But now another important question presses in upon us — namely, Can we really and honestly use the term "criticism" to describe at all accurately the treatment of their literature by those far-away Hebrews of 900 B.C. and onwards ? The reply is doubly in the afhrmative. What is it, let us ask in the first place, that we propose to study under the term "criticism"? That word of Greek parentage is the same as the term "judgment," its synonym of Latin descent. Therefore, if we find the so-called "lahwistic" writers of 900 B.C. using their judgment in culling from earlier sources what- soever they would use for their newer purposes, who shall say that they were not exercising criticism? Again, two hundred years later, about 700 B.C., amid a great movement both material and mental, another set of Narrators known to us as "Elohists" deliberately set aside the older narrative and substituted in its place matter that was essentially different both in its account of events, and in its ideas of duty, and in its conception of the nature of the national Deity. Surely we may again say that this was a very serious case of exercise of critic- ism. But we need not anticipate here any further what is to be described in the following pages. We are going to see how some literary Of Our Ideal, and Our Plan 7 men among the Hebrews in those far-away days examined, judged, criticised, rejected, and altered this or that in the writings that lay before them as inheritances from the past. They laid aside what the}^ did not approve of; they replaced the rejected material by what seemed to them to be better; they made large additions; and they wrote entirely new works, all of which breathed opinions entirely different from those of their predecessors on all sorts of topics. Now, such criticism must be examined carefully by the historian. Does the question still arise whether this was akin to what we practise to-day as "criticism"? Here, then, comes our second claim, in that we say we do use the term justifiably; we say that it was as truly criticism as were all the clearly unscientific procedures that went on during the early Christian ages, during the medieval times, and even during the times of the Reformation, and for many a day after it. It was criticism like that which went on until a century ago — nay, which continues until this day in many places. Even the rise of exact method in all science and history — material, mental, and literary — has not precluded the existence of a very primi- tive style of criticism: the scholar rather en- courages the novice, knowing that practice will make the simple man perfect. But let us look back for an illustration. The 8 Old Testament Criticism Elohists of, say, 700 B.C. rejected the lahwistic narrative of 900 B.C., its teachings concerning morals and reHgion ; they did so for what we may call subjective reasons. Here was a religious bias at work, and it would vitiate the new Elohistic ("E") record. Quite true; and was it not from an exactly similar bias that many an early Christian student, many a medieval writer, many a reformer, set down his critical views? We have learned now not to let sub- jective preference influence our decisions; but this method is of comparatively recent date, and is not universal even yet. Another word must be said. What was the imdercurrent that moved those old Elohists of 700 B.C. to reject this and to accept that in the writings of 900 B.C. — what save their deep sense that their action was right and was best? But go farther and ask: Is it anything more than a sense of strict duty that holds the hand and guides the judgment of the scientific critic of to-day? Indeed, we must agree that the sense of duty is always the highest control that any man feels and knows. This has always been so ; in the voice of his conscience the workman of any sort hears really his Deity's command. So it has been in all the past, in the far-away ages, and in the nearer; and so it is to-day. Here is an essential oneness between the early Hebrew literary men and the faulty critics of Of Our Ideal, and Our Plan 9 the pre-scicntific centuries of ovir era and the properly scientific criticism of to-day. We may add that we are thus reaching the kernel of things which any history has to exhibit — namely, the undercurrent of plan; or, it may be, of course, the want of plan — that runs all through the long ages of man's existence. On the presumed basis of such plan all the business of men in the world is done. All busy and thoughtful men have confidence that there is such a protective management of all affairs, public and private. This trust that all work-a- day persons have is, of course, a "faith"; and all men do act on this "faith" in that which rules the universe. In another well-known phrase, "they trust God." 5. Now we can see why we need to study this history of Old Testament criticism. Let us note here, therefore, the rationale of the present volume: it is that since the Christian idea of the character of Jesus is strictly analo- gous to this business-like faith on which all men act in their callings, therefore very naturally may we look into the literature that enswathes the story of Jesus to see whether or not the history of it, and of men's handling of it, does or does not exhibit the same undercurrent of causal management as trustworthy^ Our chief question and interest must be this: "Does the history of Old Testament criticism exhibit lo Old Testament Criticism always the character of God as just like Jesus?" If it does, then our search will contribute to calm strength in human hearts and lives and society. 2. The Plan of Our Work The starting-point is now defined, in accord- ance with the demands of facts. The method of treating the successive stages of the story must vary; and we may indicate here very briefly the chief points. 1. It will be wise first to examine very care- fully what sort of criticism was practised by the real owners, writers, readers, and early transmitters of the literature. And this can be done best by systematic illustration of the treatment that was accorded, in each generation that was at all active, to the literature that had been received from former generations. For this reason we must give a good deal of thought and of space to critical handlings — rejections, editings, substitutions, and additions — as they were carried on by the properly so- called Hebrew literary men, both before and after the Exile or Destruction of the Hebrew nation; and we promise that this story will be found to be more than important — it is startling ! 2. At the entry of Greek and other foreign influence, it will be enough to watch whether Of Our Ideal, and Our Plan n there came in any change of the attitude and the mode of treatment hitherto f oho wed. And here, too, we shall verily be startled: the usual traditional fancies concerning unalterableness of Scripture are so unreal that it is time they were left for a vision of the beautiful facts. But we shall not need to linger long over this part of our task. 3. The study and estimate of the attitude that was maintained by Jesus has by no means been completed. But of recent years the de- voted, and tender, and brilliant work of Philip Schmiedel has let the whole world see the magni- ficent outlines, deep and high, grand in breadth and length, of the structure of the Life of Jesus that is being built, tested, and approved fear- lessly and absolutely by the finest and most thorough criticism. The work done by Schmie- del and the like shows that even already we may venture to indicate the attitude of Jesus towards the literature of earlier generations, with much confidence that our exhibition is fairly correct. Of necessity we shall at this point seek to watch, and to describe also, the methods of his first followers. 4. The earlier ecclesiastical tendency amid Christians has some fine features. Indeed, the work of such men as Origen and Lucian is on a level with the finest in any age; but we can speed rapidly over the first Christian ages, until 12 Old Testament Criticism the tremendous awakening under Islamic touch stirred the dry bones to a new quickening. 5. In the exhibition of the parallel practice and mind of Jewish students down to the Renaissance we may have to step along as children ; yet we can hold the hands of admirable leaders. 6. The new thoughtfulness in the Renais- sance cared less for literary criticism, and more for certain other features of life — as, indeed, it had to do; but, in the later stages of that awakening which came with Luther, the story of the Reformers' attitude towards the Old Testament is again startling. 7. Then a mingling of Judaism with Christ- ianity in vSpinoza made that noble soul the pioneer of all that has been truly done ever since. If these pages might turn the eyes of some to Baruch Spinoza's great epoch-making Tract, and might exalt that little essay into use as a text-book for to-day, then a supremely good result would have been obtained. 8. It is when we reach the middle of the eighteenth century that the immense work of scientific men upon the ancient literature begins ; and then it rolls forward with tremendous force, startling the dreams of dead souls, who clutched the great Book, and withheld it from living men and their needs. The Old Testament is free from that clutching now — even more free than Of Our Ideai, and Our Plan 13 is the New Testament; and yet the dreamers are slow in stirring from their torpor. May the tale of the marvellous discoveries, disclosing old and long-lost treasiires, fomid during the past thirt}^ years, help on the wonderful awak- ening. To record the story of the last century's study and criticism might well demand a volume for itself. Chapter II How the Hebrews Criticised Their Own Literature I . Criticism in the First Narrative Litera- ture, 900-800 B.C. WE are about to consider now the separate constituent sources from which our present Pentateuch — or, rather, the Old Testa- ment narrative books as a whole — have been put together ; and here we shall watch the process of criticism to which each earlier writer's work was submitted by the next following. By-and- bye we shall have to see, further, how all these were set into the combined whole as it has been in men's hands now for some 2000 years. We must take some results of recent study for granted; yet we do not pre-suppose much if we say that a lahwistic narrative of the Hebrew monarchy and its rise was written somewhere about 900 b.c.^ That lahwistic ^ lahwistic is that narrative which begins in Gen. ii. 4b, and runs on, cropping up ever and anon, through 14. Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 15 story itself ha.d involved really much criticism of earlier records, traditions, and writings; for there are in the lahwist man}^ indications of busy collection and repetition of other and earlier men's statements. There is evidence also that interesting additions to the lahwistic record were made by "lahwistic" hands that worked later than what we may call the "great lahwist." Additions, and what some call interpolations, were put in for various purposes — either to give a little geographical information as in Genesis ii. 10-14; or to embody a new religious theory, as in the added story of Cain and Abel. But to follow out all, or even a good few, of these would take far too much of our possible space, and, although it would be very interesting, we have to forbear. A still more serious process demands attention, and it will illustrate the custom that prevailed, identi- cally the same, in all cases. First, then, we have to look at the singular change that w^as made when this lahwistic record of 900 B.C. was calmly laid aside about 700 B.C., when the Elohists wrote and pub- lished an almost entirely different description of the early history of the people. That step all the books from Genesis to Kings, save Ruth. It calls the Hebrew God by the name "lahweh" from the first, and it has many other characteristics. i6 Old Testament Criticism has influenced all the ages ever since in a remarkable way. I . We must observe at the outset the causes and the nature of the change. They were somewhat thus : — The little nation of the Hebrews came into fearful straits about 750 B.C., through the mili- tary movements of the two great rivals for world-supremacy. These were the Assyrians, from the far north-east of Palestine, and the Egyptians, from the south-west. Then, as the prophet or preacher Amos describes the crisis, the. farmers or merchants v/ould go out to their work or their journeys by the hundred, and would return by a ten! Now, just in that hour of trouble Amos the prophet and his com^- rades, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, sprang to the task of cheering and guiding the suffering folk. The counsel that they gave to the sufferers is of great interest to us now for several reasons. (i.) In the first place, this counsel was, of course, what is commonly called the "providen- tial" outcome of the various lines of creative and evolutionary operation that had been going on for ages previously, and that culminated then. Hebrew critical handling of their own literature resulted from a preaching adapted to the times and circumstances of the people, and it v/as a preaching of help or deliverance. (ii.) But let us look more narrowly, and Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 17 we shall detect at once a remarkable fact — the preaching was that deliverance would come if the people would undergo a great moral change. The earliest of the preachers, Amos, the Herds- man of Tekoa in southern Judah, preached: "Seek your God, lahweh; for he being Life- giver is naturally the proper one to help you now ; and if you are in any doubt as to where to find him, Seek Good, and then lahweh will be 'with you,' as you say." Now the inward point of this counsel was that hitherto their way of conduct had been altogether narrow, and by its limitations was fatal. Hebrew life and religion had been what we may call "Tri- balism" — /. e., the principle had been followed that all action and thought must be for the interests of the tribe, with little or no regard for the life and joy of any individual man or woman when such life lay across the interests of the tribe and of all that the tribe connoted. But now, said this preacher, "Give up that tribal rule of life, and seek Good." That is to say, this man's gospel was that a joyful or satisfactory life would come to such as adopted a higher morality. (iii.) But, again, it can be fearlessly asserted that this action of certain teachers meant also a like revolution in at least a regnant portion of all the people themselves, for the preaching of these prophets was so prized that it was i8 Old Testament Criticism preserved. We have also to note that until this time no such honour had been done to any prophet as was done to Amos, no such treatment and preservation of any previous prophet's sayings had occurred. The revolution which those prophets wrought was wide-spread; and the new ideas of morality were accepted freely. 2. As for the contents of the new morality, we can sum it all up thus: life, chastity, individ- ual possessions, and in general justice between man and man, and from man towards woman, with due reverence for all honourable persons and things, were now exalted as never before. We shall notice presently some illustrations of this. But now we have to add that this was a preaching of a new theology, as well as of a new morality; for the very essence of the old tribal morality was that it was practised by the tribal Deity himself, and was enjoyed by him, as well as by the human members of the tribe, lahweh shared in all their ways; he himself stood on the old moral level, which was now condemned by Amos, and which miist be aban- doned. Therefore, Amos was preaching an entirely new idea of God; the prophet was in- troducing a new lahweh when he introduced a new morality. Note well that the earlier leaders had worshipped a lahweh, and Amos worshipped a lahweh too; but Amos would have said: "Ah, yes, only my lahweh is not the same as Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 19 the old lahwch: the true lahwch was not known before. Herein my ideal is a revelation of the real lahweh." 3. Now we can appreciate the critical result that speedily followed. A new story, a new record, a new Bible was constructed; or, as we arc becoming accustomed to say, the Elohistic narrative ("E") of the past, of the forefathers, of the Exodus, of the conquest of Palestine, and of the Davidic monarchy, was written and published as the real story; while the old lahwistic narrative was virtually condemned and displaced as wrong. Of course, this statement implies a good deal; for example, it is natural to ask whether the two narratives are really very different, and what is characteristic in the differences. So one turns to a few illustrations: — (i.) Consider, then, the several pictures or conceptions of Abraham given in the two stories; and, as we consider, let us observe that the difference is in their moral levels. Thus, in "J," which we may set to stand for the lahwist, Abraham, that first great traditional ancestor of the Hebrews, is described naivtly as turning out of his home the mother of his yet unborn son Ishmael. Hagar, his natural wife, is pictured as outcast, alone in the desert, awaiting the birth there of the child of that man who was held by the writer of the story 20 Old Testament Criticism to be the honourable head of the Hebrew tribe. But turn to the Elohistic story of AbraJiam. Here the bondwoman Hagar is described as in- deed expelled, but not until her boy is quite a lad and able to learn something of the occupa- tions of the desert. So the criticism of "E," as we may call the Elohistic narrative, was ready to alter the older records of the past when the morality of the old story was beneath the level of what " E " counted due regard for the woman Hagar. This is but one of many illustrations of the early Hebrew Old Testament criticism. And we can see that it was not merely a literary question, but was most earnestly a question of right or wrong. (ii.) Another illustration will show the in- wardness of the old criticism exactly. On the famous mountain in the desert where lahweh was believed to dwell the leader Moses is said by "J" to have received a document, in stone, containing fundamental rules for the government of his people; but in that lahwistic document aU these rules concern ceremonial worship. We turn to the Elohistic narrative; and there we are told that the document received on the mountain-top was a series of moral injunctions: it was, in a word, that famous code which we know as the "Ten Commandments," or the Decalogue. At all events, says "E," this was Vv^iat Moses received at first; although, indeed, Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 21 he flung the Tablets down the mountainside and destroyed them, in indignation with his people for their bull- worship. He received, says "E," another set instead of this broken set ; and the second set was certainly a ceremon- ial code. Now those supposed original "Ten Commandments" of the "E" story, the broken and lost set, prove on examination to have been exactly equivalent to the moral demands m.ade upon the nation by Amos and his comrades. Here, then, is a most important illustration of the early Old Testament criticism: it rejected as incorrect the record of the earlier writers who had said that the Hebrew Deity had given through Moses, on Sinai, a law that was chiefly taken up with ceremonial rules. The critics claimed that lahweh gave first the tables con- taining moral law; and only when these were broken did he give the mere ceremonial rules, (iii.) But the Elohistic writers went still fur- ther in their criticism, and in their rejection of the records and the theories of their lahwistic predecessors. Those lahwists had taught be- fore 800 B.C. a certain view of the nature of the God lahweh and of his ways, of his mind and his methods ; and they had taught that this view of theirs had always been known and held ; but the Elohists in 700 B.C. reject that lahwistic conception of God entirely, and teach another view altogether. And, what is more, they do it 22 Old Testament Criticism of quite set purpose. For the reader of the Elohist record, as it has been made accessible of late years, sees that all through the "E" story of the patriarchs — i.e., all through Genesis, — no matter whether these men are pictured as good or bad, no one of them ever mentions the name "lahweh." Constantly and consistently throughout the book of Genesis we read that ' ' Elohim ' ' — not lahweh — did this and that , or said thus and thus. lahweh never appears in the Elohistic parts of Genesis. The term "Elohim " means simply "Elo'hs" — i.e., deities, or out- reaching powers or influences in genera,!. The inner character of these powers no man knew; or, as the Hebrews would say in their language, men knew there were "powers, " but the " name " or character of any one of these deities was not known. Abraham knew, says the "E" writer, that there were such powers; and he honoured them by feasts, and they, on their part, en- trusted certain affairs to his charge; but he had no idea at all that any one of them had the character that is signified by the name ' * lahweh . ' ' According to the new Elohistic theory, Abraham knew no one of those gods at all. But long after Abraham — 400 years after him, says "E" — those powers, or that complex of deities, summoned Moses to the great task of leading the Hebrews out from Egypt and away safely to the lands of Palestine; and then the chosen Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 23 loader, Moses, amid anxiety concerning his task and his fitness for it, ventured to pray: "Oh, Elohim, who is it among the deities that is commanding me? Whom shall I name to my people as their Commanding Deliverer and Friend?" And now there came to the timid yet finely brave man this oracle from the Unseen : "Yes, indeed, they know Me not; and all their Fathers have been unaware Who I am. But go thou tell them that * I am going to be What I am going to be.'"^ So Moses went; and thenceforward the name "lahweh" is used by these "E" narrators — not always, indeed, but chiefly — as the token of the character of this their covenanting, and ever-helping, and ever more and more self-revealing Elo'h. We may say that the " E " writers have a distinctly new theology-proper, if by this expression we may indicate the view they take of the nature and ways of the Deity. Such, then, was the criti- cism of these Elohistic narrators, the comrades of Amos and Isaiah. They made fearless rejections and alterations, all being made for the profoundest moral and spiritual reasons. And all along they take the consequences of this view; all along they avoid the old lah- wistic fancy that the gods could or would come among men, to walk and talk with them, to sit at the tent- door with them, and to eat of their ^See Exodus iii. 24 Old Testament Criticism spread tables. The gods of these Elohistic narrators are never seen. They dweU in secret in the heavens far above, far away from men; they communicate with men in visions and dreams of the night; and then the beholding man may see a ladder let down to earth, whose top reaches into the heavenly abode of the Elo- him, and whereon there descend and ascend messengers who bear oracles and prayers. There are, indeed, say the Elohists, some specially and graciously gifted persons of insight, inspired for the gift of further entirely new sets of con- ceptions concerning duty and concerning God and men, and even concerning history. All such could be given through prophets raised up and inspired for the purpose. Criticism was in very deed provided for: God arranged for it, say these ''E" writers! 4. We are not bound here to discuss n.i- nutely the historic correctness, or otherwise, of the statements of these " E " narrators as against those of their "J" forerunners; the fact is, however, that on investigation the student of the two sorts of story finds himself bound in most particulars to award the verdict in favour of the lahwists as the more reliable. These "J" men lived nearer to the events; moreover, they were not led by a theological bias. The "E" writers were so led. At the same time we must note that the "E" writers show us Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 25 clearly the historical facts concerning themselves and they reveal their own ideas and their bias; they show us also, may we not say, the ethical and religious ideas of the whole body of people who were influenced by the great revolution that the prophets brought about. Now we may throw all this into brief summary form, and say that in "E" we can see the critical attitude towards their scriptures which was held by the best men of those days ; and it was an attitude of absolutely perfect freedom. Let us, then, cast the result into a proposition con- cerning the history of criticism thus: A great body of men discarded the cruel tribal religion of the days previous to Amos, and rose to the moral height where they could conceive the Ten Commandments and declare them to be the ideal moral standard — and no mean standard it was, as most will agree; and these noble seers of a better morality felt themselves entirely free from any sense of a duty to submit their life, ideas, opinions, or practice to the control of the scriptures that had been written in the earlier times. They deliberately set aside the older oracles, and substituted a contradictory series. Such, then, was the first stage in Hebrew literary criticism. We may say here at once that we shall see the same attitude preserved throughout many generations of Hebrew and 26 Old Testament Criticism Jewish life. We proceed to a brief description of the critical work of the age that followed immediately after those Elohists. 2. — Of Early Hebrew Criticism of Ethical Writings The successors of the Elohists are commonly called the "Dcuteronomists" ("D"), and they must have done their work in the years from about 700 to 620 B.C. The criticism which was carried on by the "D" men concerns chiefly ethical and ceremonial regulations, as a reading of the Book of Deuteronomy will show. I. A few words of preliminary explanation will aid us in grasping the position in history of this Deuteronomic hterature. (i.) The name implies, of course, that it is to be seen in the Book of Deuteronomy; but we should add that there are not a few additions, or commenting notes, to be found in other parts of the narrative books from Genesis to Kings which are very clearly traceable to the hands, or, at any rate, to the spirit, of the Deuterono- mists. The nature or spirit of these men may be described simply thus: — (ii.) When the great Elohistic change in the ideas of past history and of moral obliga- tion had been accomplished by the preaching of the prophets, micn could not at once sit down Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 27 contented with the attainment gained under the first wave of influence and impulse; it was certain that there would be a tendency to medi- tate still further on duty, and also on the true nature of religion. It is also certain that the difficulty of displacing old customs would prove all the greater according as the area of the re- formatory efforts was more and more widely extended. There was sure to be a reaction, and in some sense a discontent, and even a disintegration, that would soon turn, on the one hand, into a hatred of the new ideas, and that on the other hand would, no doubt, pro- duce a more earnest effort to extend and to perfect the great changes. (iii.) These results did come about. There was reaction, led by the able King Manasseh; and the lahwistic story was in a measure restored to importance. On the other hand, the enthu- siasts for reform went much farther than the "E" writers had desired; quietly and in hidden circles they enlarged the moral demands. But their chief work lay in propounding a grand theory of unification of all the theological ideas and all the cercm.onial and political interests of the nation, by means of a singular project for centralisation of worship. To this end they wrote Deuteronomy, or the Deuteronomic writings ; for there are quite a number of different writings, the work of different men, combined 28 Old Testament Criticism in the Book of Deuteronomy — and all pervaded by the same purposes. All unite in proclaiming (a) the unity of the Hebrew God lahweh. The differences of the views men had as to what his ways and wishes were must all be overcome; for, said these "D" teachers, there is only one lahweh. And (b) this was to be accomplished by having only one sanctuary for lahweh in all the land. Then (c) they claimed that many other regulations would have to be established, to the end that the unification and the true moral ordering of all things in the land might be accomplished. The Deuteronomists believed that a great political unity would result, and that, with it, strength would be obtained to face the terrible enemies from the north and south. 2. Now the remarkable fact bearing on our historical understanding of the literary criticism of those days is that these *' D " men set aside de- liberately the directions and descriptions which even the " E " men, their immediate predecessors and leaders, had uttered as the very oracles of God! One illustration is striking and sufficient: in Exodus xx. the " E " document says distinctly that "an altar may be erected at every place where there has been a theophany, or self-mani- festation, of lahweh. " But in Deuteronomy xii. it is laid down as a fundamental rule — a rule written in different forms by several different persons — that "they must take heed not to Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 29 build an altar in every place, b\it only in one place — to wit, in the one place which lahweh their God may choose from among all their various centres of habitation. There shall they build the one and only place for altar-worship, and thither shall all worshippers repair to per- form their offices of worship." Of cotirse, the serious consequences of this plan — for it was adopted by the king Josiah and the nation in 620 B.C. — were many and great, and they last even to our own time; but our present concern is with the implied handling of ''Scripture" by this "D" school. Clearly, those Deuterono- mic men, who were eager, like the "E" men, to carry out the great moral reformation initiated by Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and their fellows, paid no submission or regard at all to those elders' writings as authoritative. They contradicted even the directions of the Elohists, who had been their own teachers! 3. There is another literary feature in the "D" age to be observed, and it is of no little importance. In Professor Driver's masterly Introduction to the Old Testament^ it is held and demonstrated with fullest evidence that this "D" is based, in the literary sense, upon what Driver calls "JE." This implies a strange fact — viz., that when the "D" men wrote, the old lahwistic narrative had not after all been ^ For title, etc., in full, see Bibliography. 30 Old Testament Criticism wholly discarded in favour of the new "E" story! Rather, there had asserted itself a desire to preserve both narratives. After a fashion that has always been common among Semitic literary people; some one had made a combined narrative out of *' J" and ''E," weav- ing and interweaving them together for purposes of preservation. The combination, which we call "JE," is not, indeed, a comfort for the ordinary reader, for he is apt to be sadly con- fused by the intertwining of the double records, say, concerning Abraham. But here is a striking feature of the literary ways of those days; and be it noted that this was the method which was followed not by barbarians, but by the moral reformers of 700 B.C. These critics, who com- bined and altered, were the comrades of Amos and Hosea and Isaiah — i.e., they were the men to whom we owe our Ten Commandments, that worthily honoured compendium of duty. Thus again, in this second period, and on a field where literature concerned itself with morals, the history of Old Testament critici.sm is that the men of noblest faith and inspiration and of morally creative power were full of absolute freedom. Writers of such a quality altered the Scriptures which they had received from the Fathers; and each fresh generation felt per- fectly free to alter the whole again. We have thus learned how the traditional Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 31 dream that the Hebrews looked on their Scrip- tures as far above all alteration is a purely unhistorical fancy. 4. Ere we leave this age and its methods, we ought to add a few words concerning a process that affected Deuteronomy, and the other "D" literature, not in their relation to the Elohistic narrative which preceded and occasioned it, but in the internal structure and relationships of ''D's" various parts and ele- ments. For we can examine the relations to one another of a whole school of Deuteronomic thinkers on this matter of centralisation and sacrifice. Various men spoke out their ideas; and the book we call Deuteronomy is a combi- nation of many of these ideas and utterances all welded together into the one document. It is admitted by scholarly investigators that Deuteronomy grew out of older documents and codes to a large extent, and that these were used with remarkable freedom of adaptation, rejection, combination, and addition for the purposes aimed at by the compilers. It is admitted also very generally that in Deutero- nomy the ordinarily careful analyst can see at least two main documents, two statements of the principle that altar-worship must be central- ised at one place. Let any simple reader com- pare together the various verses of the twelfth chapter of the book, and what we have said will 32 Old Testament Criticism seem somewhat clear to him. Furthermore, ar.y lay reader of the English text can distinguish with little difficulty certain layers of growth that have taken place from time to time by the addition of successive introductions and appen- dices to the earlier forms of the work. Here, again, we have clearly to recognise a critical activity of no mean or careless sort, and one that had a very defmite purpose in the political, ceremonial, and ethical order of the little Hebrew state. The men who combined and re-edited through the years from 700 to 600 B.C. practised a criticism of a fine, fateful, and fearless sort. 5. Ere we pass from these two periods already considered, two questions may be troubling the reader. In the first place, some one is sure to be wondering how we can know those various documents, and how we can speak of them with any such assurance as we have used. In reply we have to point to the careful analytical work done by Hebrew scholars during the past half- century. So thoroughly has this analysis been accomplished that now all the various introduc- tions to the Old Testament, written even by conservatively-minded scholars, are full of the analytical results; all great scholarly works are built thereupon; and, notably, there are now scarcely any points in the whole matter where scholars disagree. Already published is t; ^ whole lahwistic narrative, restored to its origii.L Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 33 unbroken form, the form in which the people of Amos's time knew it; and in like manner the By kind perinissitDi. Julius Wellhausen Dr. Theol., Professor of Old Testament Theology, Gottingen. whole of the Elohist's story has been set together and published, hxvy one may consult for himself 34 Old Testament Criticism these documents in reliable detail and fulness. Indeed, the study of the process of analysis and of its results is becoming a favourite task among younger learners of Old Testament science. Again, when any one is unwittingly tempted, at sight of the critical methods of these Elohistic narrators, to say "Is not this forgery?" or perhaps to use some stronger words, then we beg such a light-hearted accuser to read the history of those Elohistic men. That history has, indeed, been all unknown until within the past forty years; but, unknown so long and hidden as they were, those men were great moral heroes. They did more than invent the Deca- logue; they laid a deep, noble, wonderful founda- tion for the grandest sort of literary study and criticism, inasmuch as they were entirely regard- less of any traditional sacredness of the religious literature that had been written by their fathers. They demanded not submission to writings, but to the sense of manly duty ; and they exhibit in their work a true creative power. 3. Of Early Hebrew Criticism of the Prophets' Writings Similar critical work has affected the writings of the very prophets themselves, in the critics' rejection of old religious records of prophetic oracles, and in alteration of them and addition By kind permission. The Rev. Canon T. K. Cheyne D.Litt,, D.D., Professor of Old Testament Interpretation, Oxford. 35 36 Old Testament Criticism to them. The students of the Old Testament in our days have laid their hands on all the literature, and by no means on the narrative writings only, and they have discovered what we have now to show. We look at the book bearing the name of "Isaiah," the most brilliant of those prophets; and we no sooner open it than we find ourselves driven to do much severe critical work ; and that b}^ reason of the remark- able freedom which the critics of Isaiah's own time, or soon after, felt quite free to exercise. A very few striking examples will suffice to show the state of affairs. I. A notable illustration of old Hebrew critical handling of Isaiah's utterances meets the reader on the opening page of the book. It may be of little moment whether the first chapter has any particular right to stand where it does; but any thoughtful man becomes speedily anxious to know why chapter vi. is not first. Why does not that story of the prophets' call stand at the very beginning of all that he is said to have com.- posed or spoken? Does not that passage tell of the earliest hours, and scenes, and experiences of the lad Isaiah, who was to be almost the greatest of all Hebrews? There was evidently some deep critical reason for so peculiar an order of the utterances and narratives which set the story of his "call" as chapter vi. in the book. The best one can say is that it lay probably in Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 37 the different views held at different times con- cerning the fitness of the various utterances of the man to accomplish the moral change which was always the prophet's main concern. Pos- sibly Isaiah was himself the critic who altered the order and made the non-chronological ar- rangement; but the changes are almost too drastic for that theory. Doubtless, other men undertook to re-write or to re-arrange, in the prophet's name. Here, then, is again an illus- tration of Hebrew freedom of criticism of oracles during those normative generations. 2. But now, passing over many a problem that frets the student to-day, let us read the fifth chapter, so filled with Isaiah's best coinage of both phrase and thought; here are remnants of what once was some of his most striking poetry. In the first half-dozen verses comes his exquisite ''Song of the Vineyard"; but even this has not reached us untouched by the hands of the altering editors. For example, the second verse runs thus, as most students translate it: He digged it and cleared it of stones. But one is struck immediately by the strange procedure of clearing a vineyard of stones. A stony soil is usually counted, say, in the Rhine regions or in the valley of the Adige, to be a necessary medium for the long-reaching roots of 38 Old Testament Criticism the grape-vines, that they mav stretch out and down to the hidden moisture, far out of reach of the hot, semi-tropical sun. The word ''stones" seems Hke an interloper. Moreover, there is just one metrical ''foot" too many in the verse; surely a word has been added since Isaiah sang the song. So we examine the Hebrew text ; and speedily we see that the word translated "He digged it" is a very old and most unusual word, occurring only this once in the Old Testament; it was evidently unfamiliar and quite unknown to some man who happened to be making the manuscript copy from which our particular text is taken. So he set beside it a word which he guessed might be an explanation of the diffi- culty; then the next copyist copied both words as if they had been there from the first — both written by Isaiah! That was the way of the criticism — shall we call it? — of those days, per- haps not very long after Isaiah lived. 3. But when we read on further in this same chapter, we see at once how careless often was the handling of the prophet's writings. Next after the fine "Song of the Vineyard" stands the "Seven-fold Woe." Let the reader consult either Cheyne's Polychrome edition, or the great work by Duhm, of Basel, or the admirable new Commentary by Mr. Box,^ and it will be seen 1 For detailed information concerning these and other books the Bibliography may be consulted. Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 39 that the stanzas of this splendid poem have been preserved in fragments only. Mr. Box says: "This powerful allocution to the upper classes in Judah has apparently suffered not in- considerably in parts of its text. One of the sections consists of only one line (v. 21); but symmetrical arrangement is clearly traceable throughout." Before we draw a conclusion con- cerning the criticism of the times that is re- sponsible for this defaceinent let us look a little further. 4. All students have seen how Ewald dis- covered the remarkable fact that the last few verses (25-30) of this fifth chapter belong to the terrible **Song of the Outstretched Arm," while the other extant parts of the Song have been displaced, and stand in chapter ix., 8 to chapter x., 4. In this case very little of the vSong has been lost: the stanzas are nearly complete, as both the metre and the sense will show. But how could the wonderful bit of poetry, perhaps almost the most powerful that Isaiah composed, be torn asunder thus, and bits of it set in different places in the collection? Did perhaps the leaf that contained the one fragment belong to one person, while the other leaves of the roll con- taining the rest of the Song belonged to some one else? Or did some person think tl.^at the few words in chapter v. would fitly close the list of the awful "Seven Woes"; and did he, therefore, 40 Old Testament Criticism tear it off its proper piece of parchment and leave the rest to be picked up at another time, and placed in a different collection of the pro- phet's words? In any case, we can now tell what was the nature of the critical method of those days; from which, let us note, might have easily resulted the loss of these great oracles instead of their transmission in such confusion to us. The literary men of one generation handled the Scripture of the previous generations with per- fect freedom. x\nd it is to be added that, of course, the illustrations just given are by no means singular; they follow the customary ways of the literary and religious men of those days, just after the great Isaiah lived. 5. If we pause a moment to ask again the question whether the methods thus followed can be properly called criticism, the answer must be, Certainly, yes. Early Hebrew criticism laid no practical stress at all on the words of the^ pro- phets of the past ; and least of all did they regard any such words as infallible guides for men busy in the affairs of life. They did subordinate their handlhig of writings to a rule; but that rule was the inner utterance of the "practical reason," as Kant would call it. It is unnecessary now to illustrate the like treatment that was accorded by Hebrew critics to the writings, or the records of the sayings, of an Amos and a Hosca, and other men as f'reat. Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 41 4. Of Hebrew Criticism in the Exile, UNDER the Influence of Babylon The literature produced by the Hebrews under their taskmasters on the plains of the Euphrates and Tigris was in some senses the most brilliant that the little people ever wrote. 1. It was then that Ezekiel felt the inspira- tion of his new and strange environment, and wrote in the third section of his book that plan for a new Israelite nation which threw to the winds the plans of Deuteronomy. Students of the Bible in recent years have seen how Deutero- nomy had provided that all Levites should be priests ; but the priest Ezekiel flatly opposed this Deuteronomic principle, and demanded that only the Zadokites among the Levites should hold the priestly office. This was textual critic- ism in a very real sense, since it denied all dominant authority of the Deuteronomic book and of its writers, and even of its royal patron, the King Josiah. Ezekiel denied even the au- thority of the whole Hebrew nation, who with the King had proclaimed Deuteronomy to be the new Royal and National Charter for State and Worship. 2. In the same exilic time, from 600 B.C. on- wards, the little "Holiness Book" so-called, contained in Leviticus, cc. xvii.-xxvi., was com- piled as a scheme for a worthier life than that 42 Old Testament Criticism which the exiled people had practised in Judah before their fall. Now that little code was made up out of at least two earlier codes of rules, as any one may see who will compare the two chapters xviii. and xx., two parallel but singu- larly dissimilar sets of rules for nearly the same matters. That was a result of critical pro- cedure; shall we not say that those earlier and now quite lost codes were surely as much part of the sacred materials of the Bible as are any passages or books that we can read now in the Old Testament ; and yet the men of those times in Babylon deliberately exercised their critical rights, and threw away those older codes, counting it enough to keep the fragments that we see in those chapters of Leviticus. The facts concerning the minute analysis of Leviti- cus, cc. xvii.-xxvi., and the interrelations and parallelisms between part and part, can be seen fully expounded in the two new great Bi-ble Dictionaries.^ 3. The greatest work in all that exilic Hebrew literature, and, indeed, one of the greatest works in all literature, composed, strange to say, in the years when the people were in bitter slavery on the far-away plains of Babylon, was the poem beginning in Isaiah xL: Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, hath said your God. 1 See Bibliography. Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 43 The poem runs on to the end of chapter Iv. cf that book; but it inckides in its present form certain remarkable passages inserted at four different points by a hand quite different from the writer of the main poem, as all scholars incline to agree. A word will illustrate the difference, and will help to a clear grasp of the critical attitude held by the ablest and best He- brews of those exilic days towards the literature of any preceding pen or time. The main poemi is an impassioned effort to incite and inspire the slaves to make claim to freedom. It cries out to them with entreaty and command, summon- ing them to march away out into the terrible desert, and so in the end to reach the old home- land of Judah, the old farms and treasures there, the dear dwellings and the Zion sanctuary for which their hearts yearned. The poein m.ust have been written about the year 560 B.C., when the Medo-Persian conqueror Cyrus was march- ing across the upper Tigris to master all the West. The writer evidently expects that Cyrus will de- scend on the more southerly Babylonian regions, and will take possession of all the lands, the cities, the wealth, and the empire which the waning Babylonian government seemed unable to hold much longer. Of course, in such a juncture the Hebrews who had still any strong patriotism caught at the hope that they might be set free to go back to the beloved old land. So, with an 44 Old Testament Criticism impassioned declaration by the singer that his thought and hope are really of God's own breath- ing, he bids all his fellows awake and rise to the opportunity. Some of the passages he utters are certainly unsurpassed for beauty and pathos — e.g., chapter xli., 17-20, where he anticipates the terrors of a march across the desert, and chants : When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, When their tongue faileth them for thirst, I, lahweh, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open rivers on the high places, And fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will set in the wilderness brimming pools, I will make the parched land springs of water. I will set in the wilderness the cedar. The acacia, the myrtle,— So swells and rolls the splendid afflatus and the power of this man ; and we do well to appreciate the quality of his utterance, so that we may the better value, on the one hand, the strength of literary men of the time, and, on the other hand, also the entire lack of hesitation they had in those days in criticising such a poet's work and setting it aside if need seemed to be. Now, it is well to remember that a writing of such a sort as this "Comfort" poem was dangerous; he who wrote, and also those who read or listened, were liable to be charged with treason. No wonder, Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 45 then, that the writer finds his task a hard one, and finds himself driven, as he thinks, to cry out in reproach and indignation against the people who will not rise at his charming. Ere long he calls them "deaf and blind," and uses many a similar angry term. He seems to grow dis- heartened, as he writes and sings, pressing his argument and his plan. True he is too wise to end his great sermon-poem with a wail of disap- pointment, yet such is never very far from his voice all through his sixteen chapters, xl.-lv. Now comes the remarkable literary fact that in the pages of this very work we find clear evi- dence that some other man wrote about the same time, or a little later, concerning the same matter, but in quite a different tone. For this other writer's verses are interpolated and im- bedded in the text of the "Comfort ye" poem, in cc. xlii., xlix., 1., liii. They can easily be dissected out of the whole work. They are not only of quite another spirit, and that, indeed, in many senses, but they are couched in quite a different literary form. They are lyrics of an- other sort, and of a metre entirely different from that of the main poem. They use, indeed, a very regular metre, and the whole four of them are in exactly the same metre. Clearly, to the eye of the reader of the original, they have been inserted into the main poem as it was left by the first composer. They are four in number; we 46 Old Testament Criticism would describe them, for it is important that an EngHsh reader should be able to check the matter for himself, but space forbids. Now, it is the sequel that we have to do with. Some one inserted these four songs of self-devo- tion to the world's good into the larger poem which had so limited an outlook, and which wished so eagerly to return to the old forms and to the lost treasures, desiring these material good things. That is to say, there came soon, even among those slaves, a time when literary criticism fearlessly condemned the earlier and more selfish poem as unworthy of the nation. Then men deliberately expressed that condemna- tion by inserting the far nobler utterances into the ''Comfort ye" poem just at the very points where that elder poem was most insistent on the narrower ideal. So those four inserted lyrics that we have named declare most plainly, by their very position, that the critical insertors condemned the ''Comfort" or "Return" poem, and actually called attention to it as beneath the true level. So did the best men handle Scripture in those days. Quite clearly these editors had not a vestige of the fancy that the writer of "Comfort ye, my people" was a man so sacred, or that he uttered words so sacred, that later generations might not flatly deny his doctrine and contradict his opinion of what God's mind is. Such freedom Hebrews Criticised Own Literature 47 of opinion existed in the generations of the centuries 600 to 400 B.C. The writer of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah exercised criticism with such freedom. 4. We might now illustrate the same freedom of judgment and criticism in handling literature, by looking into the composite nature of the book or collection of writings called "Job"; for in it there are woven together remarkably several elements, some of which contradict each other in startling ways, even on the important question of why God lets good men suffer. The interweaving of these various elements in Job is due probably to the very age which saw the editing of Isaiah xl. ff., which we have just been considering. There was certainly a very free hand allowed then. But we have not space for setting out all the details of this criticism manifest in the great ''Job" collection of litera- ture, but must pass on to the early Jewish ages from, say, 500 B.C. onwards. Chapter III Of Criticism among the Jews I. — Under Persian Rule, 500-300 b.c. (I.) How did the early Jews handle their so- called ''Mosaic" Torah or Doctrine? I . We shall take it for granted that the read- ing world is now fairly well aware how Genesis, Exodus, and the other narrative books have been made into their present form by the interweaving of three distinct narratives and two codes of laws; also that in Gen, i. we have the beginning of one of these three narratives, which is now commonly known among students as the "Priestly" narrative ("P"), because it ex- pounds at great length, in Exodus xxv. ff., the priestly system of worship, which has a high priest, priests, and Levites; and, further, that this Priestly book was brought from Babylon to Jerusalem in or about the year 450 B.C., in charge of Nehemiah, who was sent from the royal Persian court at Shush an, east of Babylon, by the Persian Emperor, to render any possible assistance to the little Jewish province in Judea. 48 Of Criticism among the Jews 49 All this has been fully expounded by many teachers. 2. Perhaps, however, not so many are aware that in this Priestly doeument, as we are able to read it, thanks to the service done by the care- fully analysing Hebraists, we can see clear evi- dence that those who composed that document were not all of one mind; they had, indeed, strikingly different opinions. It is a most re- markable fact that many different shades of opinion were collected together and preserved in the document as we have it, and may easily be recognised. Let us try to illustrate this fact briefly. The restored document has been printed in full, so far as it is contained in the Pentateuch, especially by Bacon, in his Genesis of Genesis and his Triple Tradition of the Exodus} Examina- tion will show that from chap. xxv. onward nearly the whole of Exodus belongs to this Priestly document, which we call ''P" for con- venience. These chapters are the real kernel or burden of the Priestly document. They set forth the "P" writers' theory of true religion; and it is to be {a) communion between the God lahweh and his people; {h) in trysted meetings; ic) beside a certain casket; wherein {d) records of his revelations are to be kept; and at which meetings {e) ever fresh revelations are to be ' See Bibliography. 4 50 Old Testament Criticism given to his folk. The passage sets forth also how (0, as the "P" writers believe, fit worship is to be rendered to Tahweh only at and around this casket. Now, if we follow the contents of these chapters from the xxvth on to the end of chapter xxix., we shall hardly fail to feel that at the end of chapter xxix. the wTiter completes his plan for the proper sanctuary; he sets, as it were, the "finis" sign at the close of the great matter that he has in hand, binding all together, and excluding apparently anything else, by solemn subscriptionary formulas. His words are in summary these: "Thus and thus, as has now been described, shall the sanctuary be con- structed and furnished. Then I, lahweh, will enter and make my abode as my trysting-place with you, and from my seat upon the sacred casket, covered by the precious tray of gold with my own token of possession laid daily upon it — namely, touched by my 'broad arrow,' which is a spot of blood — there abiding always I will utter ever new words of guidance for my people." The reader of the passage feels that here he has now heard all that the author of "P" believed to be the divinely ap- pointed order for the sanctuary and its w^orship. Note, then, that this plan of "P" has included and described — first (a) the all-important casket ; and (b) the tent to contain it, this being divided into two halls by a curtain, the casket being in By kind pcruiission Benjamin Wisner Bacon, D.D. Professor of New Testament Theology. Yale University, New Haven, U.S.A. 51 5-^ Old Testament Criticism the inner hall ; and, further in the outer hall stand two things: (r) a table, whereon bread is to be placed for the use of the ever-present Deity; and likewise in this outer hall is (d) a lamp-bearing candelabrum, needed, of course, since there were no v/indows and no other pro- vision for light. These things, then, were all the furniture that was to be within. Without, in an including compound or cotu't, was to be (e) the one altar, or place for slaying the sacri- ficial animals, and for burning the offal and other portions that must be destroyed. Now, on reflection, any one who is fairly well aware of the traditional ideas concerning ''the tabernacle in the wilderness" will say that we have omitted something from the list of the furniture. No mention at all has been made of two things, an altar of incense and a laver for ablutions, which are commonly supposed to have been required in or at the sanctuary. It is the simple fact that these two are actually not at all mentioned in the list of matters in chapters xxv. to xxix. They were not thought necessary in the first draft plan, chapters xxv. to xxix. But it is quite as startling to the reader who has the literary habit of comparing passage with passage to find that, although chapter xxix. formed the close of the draft plan for the place of worship, yet chapter xxx. proceeds to Of Criticism among the Jews 53 add more contents. And now, not less sur- prisingly, this addition contains provision for furnishing just those two things previovisly not named: (a) the altar of incense; and (b) the laver. Must we not draw the conclusion that the original plan in chapters xxv. to xxix. was made by a writer who had no thought of the need of these two added things; and that after- wards perhaps this same man — or was it some one else — criticised the draft and believed that the plan should be enlarged? So he said and wrote that the two additional things — (a) the incense altar and (b) the great bason — were necessary. Nay, more, this later expanding hand says that it was the God lahweh, seated on the top of the great mountain of Sinai, the Deity of the Hebrews, who felt that he had not done enough, but had left out, or even forgotten, some needed furnishings; and so now he must add an appendix, to make the plan or the re- quired place of worship properly adequate. This conception of the methods v\^hich the Deity would follow seems singular to our eyes; but, on the other hand, it shows emphatically that a perfectly free criticism of sacred documents was practised, as well as a perfectly untrammelled liberty of addition to them, even when the Deity himself was regarded as the original author and also the later critic. The Deity was believed to practise such la.ter additions as something 54 Old Testament Criticism indispensable; he himself was wont, so thought the "P" writers, to criticise older writings and to reject them as insufficient, and then to enlarge them; and so he taught his people to write critical amendments. 3. Let us linger for a few moments longer over this interesting bit of an old document and its amendments, for something more startling still will appear. Read on in chapter xxx. to the sixth verse, in which the place is prescribed where the added Altar for Incense shall stand inside the sanctuary. Even in che ordinary Authorised Version that is read in our pulpits, that sixth verse may be seen to be made up of two sentences which are nearly identical. The identity is striking when the whole is read in the Hebrew version. Here are the two sentences. We set at the side of the chief word in each case the Hebrew root of the word, which consists, as usual, of three consonants; and we can see that the three letters are the same in each case, and only their order is different: Exodus xxx., 6 — "And thou shalt put it (a) "before the Paroketh (root P.R.K. —i.e., the Veil) which is upon the Casket of the Testimony; (b) "before the Kapporeth (root K.P.R. — i.e., the Atonement-place) which is upon the Testimony." Is not this a case of two different readin":s, Of Criticism among the Jews 55 parallel, and even equivalent, save in the fresh arrangement of the three letters P.R.K. ? Surely this means two conflicting views! Now con- sider also the text given by the old Greek version, commonly known as the Septuagint, and we shall find that here only the first of the two alternative places is named — i.e., we read there (Exodus XXX., 6) : "And thou shalt put it "before the Veil that is upon the Casket of the Testimonies." Then the second half of the verse, or what we expect to stand as the second half, is lacking. The whole condition of matters makes upon us these impressions: (i) That the two portions (a) and (b) in the Hebrew text are what we call "doublets"; in other words, we say that some copyist, when writing out his MS., made a " dittography " here, writing down the same sentence twice over. Did he write the second bit by mistake, or had he some other reason; and, perhaps, even a controversial one? (ii) When we reflect still more closely, we see that the Greek writer of the Septuagint version did not find the doublet condition in the Hebrew MS. from which he w^as translating. His Hebrew MS. had only the first of the two sentences that are so similar. Now we know that the Hebrew MS. which the LXX. version- maker had before him in his work was older by 56 Old Testament Criticism far than the Hebrew of our present Bible's text. {Hi) So we are driven to concKide that — (a) In the very first plan for the sanctuary, as in cc. 25-29, there was no provision at all for the secondary Altar for Incense; and (b) That in the appendix next added, and still plainly visible in the Greek Exodus, the direction was to make this Altar, but to set it outside the veil ; and (c) Then some one else said, "No, set it inside the veil, beside the Casket or Ark"; and (d) In the perplexity as to which plan was right, the final writer nam.ed both places. Observe the method adopted for commending this new theory; it was managed by altering the word for "veil" — i.e., Paroketh — and transposing its letters in a sort of "Grimm's Law" fashion to make it read Kapporeth, which means "place of atoning." This was a piece of not at all uncommon Rab- binical fancy-work ; but it was more, and, indeed, a good deal more. (iv) This fancy of the criticising and altering Rabbis had a serious method in it ; for if the new theory of the position were the right one, then the High Priest, who had to burn incense on this Incense Altar every day, had, therefore, to enter within the Veil every day, and to stand every day before the Seat of the Deity, an act which represented the Deity as far more accessible than He would be if the altar were without the Of Criticism among the Jews 57 Ycil, and if the priest entered within only once in a year. So the Rabbi, believing in this greater aceessibihty, mnst have said: ''The old writer made just a slight error in the order of those three letters P.R.K.; they ought to be set K.P.R.; for our God loves us so much that he will be approached by us every da}^" The Rabbi's little bit of reasoning was perfectly natural — nay, even winsomely fit. But the matter grows even more interesting when we notice the sequel, and ask how these alternative doctrines of an Incense Altar were received by the general public of the times. Evidently the old original alternative readings and the two theories of the position of the Altar were not rejected; all were left standing in the new copies of the document, else we should never have seen it. Jvist as fully as did the original, so did the new reading and theory receive a place in the sacred document. So we have the singular fact of two contradictory readings set in the text one after the other, and that two theories of the greater or less accessibility of the Deity were both regarded as orthodox and deserving of the revere -ICO of the people of 400 to 100 B.C. How brightly docs all this exhibit the freedom of men in those formative days of Judaism, their freedom to think concerning God, and their freedom to criticise the older docum.cnts and to write dowm two directly contradictory 58 Old Testament Criticism critical opinions on the very sacred page itself, and in the very lines where the variation and the contradiction could not escape observation and remark. Verily, the customary fancy of many among us and among our forefathers that the text of those Bible documents was something far too sacred to be altered in any way is a fancy altogether mistaken, and altogether dis- cordant with the ways of the men of God of early Jewish days, the days of the actual con- struction of the Bible. We find that what is called by students "the Lower Criticism" — i.e., criticism of individual words and sentences — was practised most freely in those normative days. It must be added that the feature of Exodus XXX. now described is no mere fancy of the hunters for curiosities. If we read the Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament, at chapter ix., we shall find that the writer of that tractate knew of the difference of opinion concerning the place prescribed for this Incense Altar in Exodus xxx. 6; for in verses 3 and 4 he says it was inside the Veil;^ whereas in verse 7 he implies that this altar was outside the Veil, for in verse 7 he says the High Priest went within the Veil only once a year. Of course, if the Altar had been inside, he would have to go in every day, to burn the daily incense upon it. ' See for clearness the Revised Version and its mar- ginal reading, or, better still, see the Greek of Hebrews. Of Criticism among the Jews 59 The matter was one of deep theological signi- ficance, yet those old Jewish critics had no hesitation in exercising this perfect critical freedom. (11.) How did the early Jews handle the Pentateuch as a whole? We might now claim that we have given sufficient illustration of special criticism within the limits of Torah or Book of Mosaic Doctrine itself, and therewith adequate proof of the view we have set forth of the conduct of those critics of 500 to 300 B.C. But for the general user of the Bible, and for not a few quite careful readers, it will be well to give a more complete insight into the whole matter of this document commonly called ''The Priestly Document, " and into the method of insertion of "J" and "E" into it. 1. "P" is regarded by students as undoubt- edly that "Book of Torah, or Teaching, or Doctrine," which was brought with Nehcmiah from Babylon to Jerusalem in 450 B.C. A few words concerning ''P's" fate will clinch the argument given above to prove that there was a very large and excellent freedom allowed for critical work in those early days of Judaism, the very days when the Old Testament was taking on its present form. 2. Historical study of Hebrew literature, both narrative and prophetic, has shown that the second chapter of Genesis is the beginning of 6o Old Testament Criticism the earliest original Hebrew document now extant; and that the framers of Genesis, etc., used it as one of their "sources" when they composed the final text, which we now possess in the Bible. This document, commonly known as the "lahwist" or "J," was written by the school of writers who lived about 900 B.C., as has been already noted above. Its aim was probably to glorify the establishment of the Davidic, united Hebrew State, by telling the story of its origin. Historically the narrative is wonderfully reliable, for the plain reason that standing on the rather low ethical level of its times, say, 900 B.C., it never seeks to make its heroes appear better than they really were. 3. The second document used by the final composers of the Pentateuch begins to appear in Genesis, chapter xv., and it is largely used in chapter xx. ff. This document or source is now commonly known as the "Elohist,"^ or "E." Its ethical standard is higher than that of ''J"; indeed, as we have seen, it seeks to inculcate the great moral demands made by Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah. No doubt it was written by literary companions of those great reforming preachers. Its aim is, in general, to lift the people from the lower "J" level of morality up to far better ways. 4. In 450 B.C. Nehemiah was sent by the Persian Emperor from Shushan to Jerusalem, Of Criticism among the Jews 6i on two commissions of inspection, and he carried with him, as we have said above, a book of Torah or teaching; and this book was evidently the Priestly Document, "P." It is based on Ezekiel's Temple plan which rests mediately on "D," and, therefore, it is a consequence of the Elohist ''E," just described above. The remarkable relationship between "P" and "E" may be observed in the fact that "P" fully adopts "E's" theory of entire ignorance of the name and the character of lahweh until Moses had intimation of it by a wonderful revelation on the summit of vSinai or Horeb. Of course, this opinion that the name and character were not known could not be historically correct; the lahwistic writer in 900 B.C. describes the patriarchs as all of them quite well acquainted with the name, and as using it constantly, and as using no other. The sense in which "E" and "P" are correct in the matter is that these consider the people to have been ignorant of the moral character of the God lahweh. This is quite true; but they always say that the very name was unknown, whereas it was not so. We need not continue the description of the several documents. vSurely we see clearly that each writer, or school of writers, felt quite free to criticise and to alter records, even in cases where we are compelled to feel that what they altered had been correct. 62 Old Testament Criticism 5. But now we must go further in our record of criticism. Nehemiah's document (" P") be- came the great "Torah" or Doctrinal book in 450 B.C. It was held to contain and to express the sum and substance of the traditional faith of the people, held ever since the delivery from Egypt, and therefore called ''the Mosaic Dec- trine." The word "Torah" simply means "Doctrine." Yet ere long the spirit of freedom took another notable step, and "P," as a w^hole, was changed. For an editor later than 450 B.C. inserted "J" and "E" into "P"; doing so, perhaps, for the sake of saving these latter two from loss. So that fearless editor, or a school of such men, made our present Books of Moses by a new combination or "insertion." vShall we not say that this editor's principle of criticism was, in a real sense, a love for his nation's literature! He and his comrades of, say, 300 B.C. would save all they could of that, no matter whether one document in the combination contradicted another. The conception of a peculiar sacredness in one part more than in another does not seem to have entered the horizon of their minds. And then the still more wonderful fact is that the people at large did not object to the combination. We are bound to believe that especially the thoughtful people who cared for literature, who loved to save the older writings, and whom we might Of Criticism among the Jews 63 call the godly people of those Jewish times, paid no regard whatever to any doctrine of the infallible sacredness of Scriptures. Here, then, was the condition of criticism of the Old Testa- ment in the very age when it has been believed that the Jewish people were in close touch with the Divine Inspiring Mind, and when they were receiving inspirations moving them to compose even farther Scriptures. Verily, the dread that is common now, or, let us say, that has been common up to recent years, must have grown up some time after the composition of the Pentateuch was completed. Superstitious dread of change did not arise until 100 a.d. at earliest. It grew out of the sad conflict between Christianity and Judaism. 6. In closing this section, let us bid readers remember well the remarkable evidences of differing opinions, and even of keen controver- sies going on concerning these, that are clearly discernible on the pages of the Pentateuch. It is remarkable that those controversies went on concerning the very things in the records, and at the very points in them which the Jewish people must have counted most sacred, most crucial, most essential. It will not do to fancy that the godly Jews just before Christianity differed only on non-essentials. Exactly the opposite is true. That most precious literature contained in Genesis and the other "Mosaic" 64 Old Testament Criticism books was composed amid the stormiest times of theological debate. 2. The Criticism of Earlier Jewish Com- mentators UNDER Greek Rule AND Influence We might abundantly illustrate this by describing the effort to discard the very Pen- tateuch itself, by substituting " Chronicles " in its place. But space forbids us to do more than describe how the finest literature of all — namely, the works of the great prophets — came to be annotated and enlarged. We choose as our example the Oracles of Jeremiah, perhaps the grandest prophet of all. The process was exactly what occurs every- where when we make marginal notes; only in those days these were often copied into the original text. Our illustration requires little trust in special- ists; but we will follow a ' master-specialist, Professor Duhm, of Basel. We take it from Jeremiah, chapter iv., 5 to 31. By far the best parts of Jeremiah's Oracles are his songs concerning the Scythians. These were Tartar hordes from Central Asia, who swept south over the Armenian mountains in 630 to 620 B.C. They were primitive folk hungry for comfort, and especially for the booty, rich and Of Criticism among the Jews 65 abtindant, which they were sure of getting if they plundered Nineveh, the imperial capital of Assyria. Thence they marched on to the farther south to repeat their raidings in the rich valley of the Nile. They wrought terrible mischief; Assyria was shaken to the core, and ere long, in 609 B.C., she fell to rise no more. So, little Judah was in danger, and naturally in terror as she saw these wild masses of warriors pouring down the coast-line on their way towards Egypt. It was true that the position of Jeru- salem on an almost inaccessible mountain top, more than two thousand feet above the sea level, and with sheer precipices all around her, made that city safe; and this position had given good reason for Isaiah's old oracle that the God of the Hebrews had made their city and sanctuary inviolable. But who knew when the barbaric horde might take the fancy to scale those heights, to rob of all the little wealth that was in temple and in homes, and to slay with red hand every man, woman, and child that might be in the way. Hence Jeremiah's task was to comfort his countrymen in face of such a terror. His "Scythian Songs" were written to bring such comfort; and they are among his finest utterances. The earliest of them are contained in a short series given in chapter iv. But not all of the present text is the prophet's; indeed, many commentators of later days might 5 66 Old Testament Criticism well set their notes on the margins of such grand songs, since they are so wonderful. We will set down the original lyrics and the later anno- tations separately. Lyric (I.), chapter iv., 5-8, is in four stanzas : (i) Blow the horn in the land! Cry with loud voice! Gather, and let us go To the strong towns. (2) Hoist a signal towards Zion! Fly! Wait not! For evil is coming from the north, And terrible destruction. (3) The lion rose from his thicket, And the Slayer of peoples: He broke out, and marched from his place, To desolate the earth. (4) So gird you with sackcloth! Cry and wail! For there shall not turn from us The anger of lahweh! Now follows verses 9-1 1 a, which, as Duhm indicates, have quite another metre, if such blunt prose can be said to have metre at all. The tone is very tame in comparison with the fire of what we have just read. The words added are: "And it shall come to pass at that day, hath said lahweh, that the heart of the king By kind permission Bernhard Duhm Dr. Theol., Professor of Old Testament Theology, Basel. 67 68 Old Testament Criticism shall perish, and the heart of the princes; and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder. Then said I, 'Ah, Divine lahweh, surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, say- ing, Ye shall have peace ; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul. ' At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jeru- salem " After such tame remarks, and a little connective phrase furnished by the editor, the song of Jeremiah runs on again — Lyric (II.), verses I lb- 1 6 — in four stanzas: (i) A wind of the hottest steppes of the desert Blows right on my people; And not for the threshing is it, and not for cleans- ing. A terrible wind! A little bit of addition is inserted: ''Now will I also utter judgments against them which is entirely unlike Jeremiah in tone, as well as in its injury to the metre. The second stanza follows : (2) See, they come up like clouds; And their chariots are like the whirlwind; Faster than eagles are their horses. Woe to us! — we are destroyed. Of Criticism among the Jews 69 Again the editor puts in a word of edification : "O Jerusalem! wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee ! ' ' Then comes stanza three, clearly marked out from this comment just quoted, which is so utterly out of place: (3) Listen, they are calling from Dan! They are telling of mischief! From the mountain of Ephraim they give warning (Crying with loud voice). Here is a needless little insertion — "Tell Jeru- salem"; and the fourth stanza follows full of terror : (4) See panthers [watchers?] are coming From the land afar Against Judah's cities; They lift the voice all round. Now at once, again, we can pick out an addition — viz., verses 17b and 18 — which run thus: "For she hath been rebellious against me, hath lahweh said. Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee. This is thy wickedness ; for it is bit- ter; it reacheth to thy heart." How like are these words to the simple sort of 70 Old Testament Criticism remarks made by thoroughly good, but quite untrained, speakers in many a religious meet- ing! One recognises at once the ''few remarks" pencilled on the margin of the great singer's writings. But then we find the song itself pouring forth again in one of the most striking parts of the series — Lyric (III.) , verses 19 to 2 1 — in only three stanzas : (i) O my bosom, my bosom, how I tremble! And O my inmost soul! My spirit rages in me; My heart quivers. (2) For 't is sound of the war-horn that I 've heard, The cry of onset in battle; Ruin runs on ruin. Wasted is all the land. (3) Suddenly are my tents destroyed; In an instant all my tent-covers! How long must I see the signal, And hear that awful trumpet's blast! Again, in verse 22 follow a few remarks, in which the annotator lets us see plainly that he makes a peculiar mistake; for he writes and thinks as if lahweh were the speaker in these lyrics, whereas it is clearly the prophet that is crying out as in terror. We quote the addi- tion: ''For my people is foolish, they know me not; they are sottish children, and they have no understanding ; they are wise Of Criticism among the Jews 71 to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge." Here evidently the writer is far away in time from the horrors which Jeremiah sees; he would have been a hard-hearted man that could have made such remarks to the real sufferers, and we can honestly say that our annotator was no hard man. Now we come to the fourth lyric — Lyric (IV.), verses 23-26 — in four stanzas. (i) I looked to the earth, And lo 't was chaos! I looked to the sky: Fled was its light. (2) I looked to the mountains, And lo they were shaking; Yea, all hills. They began to tremble. (3) I looked to earth, the home of men; And lo no man was there. Even all fowls of the heavens Had fled, had flown away. (4) I looked to the corn land, And lo it was a waste. Yea, all the towns were destroyed, Gone before lahweh. Again the editor makes additions, in verse 27/., quoting Isaiah by the way in his remarks. He says: ''For thus hath lahweh said: 'The "J2 Old Testament Criticism whole land shall be a desolation; 3^et will I not make a full end. ' " Then he quotes a truly fine passage which, however, is hardly Jeremiah's: Therefore shall the earth mourn, And black shall be the heavens above. For I have spoken, and I repent not: I have planned, and I fail not. That is somewhat unlike Jeremiah's tender heart; and, as Duhm says, the ideas are unsuit- able to the connection. But now comes the last Scythian Song — Lyric (V.), verses 29-31 — in five stanzas: (i) At the noise of the troopers and the bowmen The whole land fiees. They run to the thickets and the forests; They climb up among the rocks. (2) All the towns are forsaken: No one dwells in them. And thou, O poor violated woman, What art thou to do? (3) Tho' thou shouldst put on golden things, Tho' thou shouldst clothe thee in scarlet, Tho' thou shouldst paint thine eyes; All in vain wouldst thou look fair. (4) Lovers! They '11 only mock at thee! They are seeking thy life. I hear a cry of a woman in childbirth, The agony of one with her firstborn. Of Criticism among the Jews 73 (5) Hark! the daughter of Zion gasps; She stretches her hands. O woe is me over this undoing Of my soul among the murderers. Enough, then, of illustration! We have seen by examination of the finest prophetic products, and of the most sacred ceremonial forms, as well as of the hoariest narratives, that there was always a readiness to criticise. Even those who are eager to learn what is the "Biblical" doctrine in such a matter will surely see it is simply a history of utmost freedom from all dreams of an unchangeable canon of Scrip- tures, and that the constant practice of our Bible writers was the freest criticism. 3. Criticism under the New Kingdom from 150 b.c. to a.d. i. Let us now try to know the later Jews and their literary criticism; and more especially let us seek to understand how Greek influence affected the Jewish use of the old Hebrew litera- ture. To this end we must examine the Jewish literary work of the three pre-Christian centuries themselves. I. First let us remember, as we have seen in previous pages, what a generous spirit there was in the leading Jewish literary men when they came under the influence of Alexander and his 74 Old Testament Criticism followers about the year 300 B.C. They had an inheritance we seldom think of, but which was of signal importance and noble worth. To go back two and a half centuries to about 550 B.C.: the highest level of thinking attained by old Hebraism is seen in the slave-songs written then, and inserted in Deutero-Isaiah.^ These count it the ideal task of the nation not to go back to Judca and there to live easily on the old sacred soil which had been believed to be the only soil that lahweh could bless, but to stay in the foreign lands, so that they might there teach all men! The Hebrew slaves had grasped a new ideal altogether. Now the instruction purposed must have been by means of literature; so, clearly, there had to be in those days much literary thoughtfulness. Then, in the middle of the next century, about 450 B.C., when there came from the Babylonian fellow- Jews that Priestly system of worship which we have de- scribed above, ^ the very essence of the methods appointed was a communion between the Jew and his God lahweh in study of certain Records of the Past, which were to be preserved in the precious Casket, or '*Ark of Covenant"; and these records were to be ever and anon increased by the very voice of lahweh Himself speaking • Isaiah xl., 1-4; xlix., 1-6; 1., 4-9; and chapter liii. 2 Bcghming in Genesis i., and richly preserved in Exodus XXV. ff. Of Criticism among the Jews 75 to the communing people. Evidently, then, a continuing thoughtfulness, that was always being crystallised in new literary products, was the core of the Jews' religion. The common notion of a hard and iron form of words of "Law," that dare never be left, but must be studied and followed for ever, is entirely a mistaken fancy as to what Judaism was. That notion comes from a misreading of early Christ- ian literature especially of the Pauline Epistle to Rome. 2. The Greeks brought their life into the Palestinian and Babylonian Jewish society about, say, 300 B.C.; and now everything tended still more towards instruction and culture, and helped to intensify the desire for continuation of literary effort, and to increase the power to think and to write. Besides, the Jew was natur- ally a trader; now trade itself tends always to literary fertility, and so it tended then. Hither- to the Jews had been cramped much by their territorial and linguistic limitations; but now they were welcomed everywhere as traders, and were even drawn out from the old homes to live amid the wide-spreading Greeks and their new political organisations. Many settled in Egypt, while some found new abodes on the far western Mediterranean shores, and others migrated to the far east, even as far as India. The reader of what we call the Jewish ' ' Wisdom ' ' literature 76 Old Testament Criticism knows how thoroughly the books of "Proverbs, " the "Wisdom of Sirach's Son," and the "Wis- dom of Solomon" are treatises on life and business for men who are engaged chiefly in commerce; and we must notice, though surely it should go almost without saying, that all that literature, all the collection of it from older or newer wise men, all the "criticism" of it, to the end that fresh "books" might be con- structed, was the free and rich fruit of Jewish thoughtful life. In short, under Greek in- fluences and impulses a vigorous literary activity, both directly productive and also genuinely critical, was going on among the Jews in 300 B.C. to A.D. I, and it was concerned with things commercial as well as religious and historical. 3. But now we can turn to another large section of the literary activity of those days, which was particularly a spiritual kind of literature, or which was, we might say, a tho- roughly devout class of utterances; and as we turn to this first field we shall learn two things: namely, on the one hand, how deeply spiritual, even in the best present-day sense, a great part of those Jews were; and, on the other hand, how those persons of finest spirituality used abso- lute literary freedom. The literature that we mean was the Psalmody, or, in simpler and truer expression, the hymns and other poetry of which there are five Books in the Hebrew Bible, Of Criticism among the Jews 77 and still more also in the so-called Book of the Psalms of Solomon. The studious readers of the Old Testament are growing every day more certain that almost the whole of this lyrical poetry, if not indeed the whole, dates from the times we are considering — 300 B.C. to a.d. t, or even to a.d. 70. Let us name a few of the best Psalms, and then we may ask what were the critical attitude and methods of their com- posers and singers. (a) To read Psalm xxii., verses i to 21, is to listen certainly to the soul of one of the finest of men. Again, Psalm Ixxiii. is a noble effort to understand why the righteous suffer and the unrighteous do not. And, moreover, it grasps a faith in life after death. Once more. Psalm cxxxix. faces truly, if very simply, the relation of our life to that of the Divine Being, and the relation of spirit to space. Such was Judaism in that period. (b) If these are somewhat isolated cases of such lofty composition and deep introspection, yet their composers were really leaders of a large and well-known class, who used greatly those Psalms that we may call saint-hymns, because they are ever and anon using the term ''saints" — i.e., the Hebrew word for it, Hasidim. And nearly all of these are utterances of poets of high character, both in spirit and in word. It is of interest to see how the number of such 78 Old Testament Criticism saint-hymns is quite large in the first collection of lyrics that was made — viz., Psalms i.-xli.; and that the later collections included far fewer of this noble class. Probably the bitter anta- gonisms that arose between the two great sec- tions, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, tended to lessen the general interest in such purity of thought as time went on, although psalm-writing was practised more and more. All that we have just seen shows the presence of a high type of character, which any age or people or religious community might well take a just pride in possessing. But there is this clear fact to be noted, that the authors of the Psalms, and the editors who later on arranged them into psalm-books, used a perfectly free hand in the arranging of them, and then even in alteration of them. They put titles to them that had evidently nothing to do with their actual origins; they set the name " David" at the head of a good many, implying certainly that the poems had something to do with David, but believing most probably that the royal Davidic dynasty of the olden times, which the people counted in some way imperish- able, had been gloriously re-established in the new independent and brilliant Maccabean or Hasmonean kingdom. "David" was restored and raised up; so the psalm-editors entitled the Psalms as "For David" — i.e., "For the new Of Criticism among the Jews 79 kingdom." And why not! Then, again, the literary people composed some of their finest hymns or psalms by piecing together portions of older compositions — as some one evidently did even in the case of that wonderfully noble poem Psalm xxii. Or at times they did the opposite, separating, for example, a single poem into the two Psalms xlii. and xliii. This last case leads to the mention of another critical process which is followed in the second Book of Psalms, numbers xlii. to Ixxii., whose compiler counted it right and necessary to strike out the name lahweh, the personal name of the Hebrew Deity, from all the hymns he selected. He substituted in all cases the generic name "Gods" (Elohim).^ Why he did so is hard to tell: perhaps he was superstitious, and feared to let the name lahweh be uttered aloud ; or he may have been imitating the early prophetically-influenced narrator "E" in the books of Genesis, etc., who for theological reasons effaced the name "lahweh" from all stories of the pre-Mosaic patriarchs. In any case, here we have a freedom quite unlike that supposed unalterable character of Old Testa- 1 His pen has indeed slipped, and forgotten its task in a case or two. Yet note, by the way, that one of the hymns included by him, Psalm liii., is a copy of Psalm xiv. of the First Book; and there, in Psalm xiv., the name "lahweh" is duly written. Psalm liii. alters "lahweh" to "Gods." 8o Old Testament Criticism ment Scriptures that many a one to-day believes to have existed among the Jews. Such a fixity simply did not exist. 4. We have discovered that the Jews of the purest spiritual character in the later part of the period 300 B.C. to i a.d. felt quite free to criticise and to alter the Psalms. This discovery is abundantly confirmed when the student examines the Aramaic versions of all the Old Testament which were familiar in Palestine in the time of Jesus. Hebrew had gone out of use, save for scholastic purposes, at the period when the great exile, or enslavement by the Babylonian armies, had taken place — about 600 B.C. The few poor people who were left in the land seem to have been unable to assert their linguistic individuality as against the overpowering influence of their Aramaic, or Syriac, neighbours of northern Palestine, who must have pressed into the deserted land to exploit it. So Aramaic became the language of the new Jewish nation that gradually grew up on the old soil. Therefore, for the use of the Palestinian Jews, it became necessary to trans- late the Torah of "Moses" and other needed Scriptures into that Aramaic tongue which these Palestinian Jews alone spoke and under- stood. The preaching to which Jesus listened, and in which he probably took part, must have been largely an explaining of the written Hebrew Of Criticism among the Jews 8i books in this Syriac language, or Aramaic, which the audiences could understand. There- fore we may examine the Aramaic versions, commonly called Targums,^ to see what sort of criticism was customary among the preachers and writers who made those Targum expositions. In a word, here is a clear way of learning the critical methods followed by the Palestinian leaders in our period. We have space only to summarise; and the main result of examination of these Aramaic translations or expositions is that we find a very free handling. For example, we find alterations of many hard and cruel passages into mildness. Even passages in the Pentateuch (such, e.g., as the saying in the Decalogue that "the sins of the fathers were to be visited on the children for generations ") were altered by the Aramaic preachers — by adding the qualification, "but only if the children themselves do sin." Such a free alteration is very common in these Aramaic translations. It may be added that we possess to-day two different Aramaic versions, one hailing from the teachers in Jerusalem, and the other from teachers in distant regions ; and the curious fact is that the Jerusalem men were by far the more liberal and more ready to alter the original. Of course, this is natural; the students in a 1 This is the same word as Dragom-an — i.e., inter- preter. 6 82 Old Testament Criticism capital city are likely to be more liberal than those in the provinces. 5. There is a farther area which might be studied — viz., the alterations of the Torah or Doctrine book as manifest by comparison of our present Hebrew text with the Septuagint, which was made from an earlier Hebrew than ours. After the LXX. was made, the Hebrew text was much altered, as may be seen by examination of Genesis xlvii., 5, 6. But space forbids a look at this fascinating comparison. Chapter IV The Early Christians' Treatment of the ' Old Testament I. From Jesus Himself Down to the Fix- ture OF THE "CaNOxN" or " RuLES OF THE Faith": a.d. 30-150 Of Jesus' s Own Way, and the Early Christians' Use of the Jewish Scriptures (I) His Principle of Action. — Here we are bound to ask, first, What exactly was the attitude of Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth, towards the Old Testament? The kernel of that attitude seems to be contained in the words found in Matthew xxiii., I to 3: "Then Jesus talked to the multi- tudes and to his disciples, saying, 'In the very seat of Moses do the scribes and the Pharisees sit; all things, therefore, so far as they may say to you, these observe to do. According to their works, however, do ye not, for they say rightly, and do badl}^' " This passage seems worthy to be set with the "pillar-passages" pointed 83 84 Old Testament Criticism out by Dr. Schmiedcl as sure to have been actu- ally spoken by Jesus. It seems very likely that these words would never have been placed in the narrative unless the writers of the Gospels had actually found them in the original tradition from which they drew ; for they seem to go right in the teeth of what the Gospel narrators them- selves would be likely to say in order to support their own case as against the claims of those Jews whom the writers of this "Matthew" Gos- pel sought to convince. It seems entirely probable that Jesus did utter the saying we have quoted. Surely, then, he did agree, as here stated, with the claim of the scholars of his time, that they had a perfect right to alter even the so-called "Mosaic" regulations. We have seen how freely the scholars of the three or four centuries after 400 B.C. added to the "Mosaic Doctrine," or took away from it, or altered it, when they felt they ought so to do; they en- larged, they softened, they expunged, they transposed; they did as they believed that their own God-guided judgment led them. And here Jesus says that in so doing they did right. This, then, is Jesus' own view concerning criticism of the Old Testament. (II) His Own Use of the Old Testament. — Now, if we could be quite sure of the significa- tion of the present existing Gospel narratives, so as to know their exact relations to the actual By the Early Christians 85 history of Jesus; and if we could tell what pas- sages really come from his own actual times, and how much is rather the "preaching" of later generations as it grew up around the original: then we could venture with some certainty to examine the actual quotations from the Old Testament found in these Gospels, and we could see exactly how Jesus used the Old Testament literature. But New Testament stu- dents, hard as they are toiling, have not yet shown us with sufficient certainty how far the Old Testament quotations attributed to Jesus were really made by him. However, it is not a large or a difficult task to read all the quota- tions supposed to have been made by him, and recorded in the simplest and most original of the narratives — that, namely, of "Mark"; and when we do so we can form atleast an approxi- mate idea of Jesus' way of quotation. There are scarcely a dozen of such quotations; and every one of them shows a freedom that would be startling if we had to think that Jesus re- garded the Old Testament as anything more than the honoured literature of his nation, which he was at liberty to alter, and which also every one was perfectly at liberty to mould to his own purpose for illustration of what he might be teaching. We can see clearly that Jesus maintained the real Jewish attitude of freedomx towards the 86 Old Testament Criticism national literature; his earlier followers did the same. If all his followers had done so, there might never have been any superstitious treat- ment of the Old Testament, and there would not have arisen any opposition to the steady ad- vance of truly critical method. Jesus, like all thoughtful Jews thus far observed, heralded the modem historical method; he would be a leader in our present-day critical study. This discovery which is quite familiar to scholarly men, honours in the highest that unwavering fearlessness in Biblical criticism which has all along marked the noble investigators of the past nineteenth century, and which will ere long become the universal Christian method. But we turn to see how a change intervened. (Ill) Of the Rise of Canon, and of Super- stitions Use of Bible. — We must compress into few words the intensely interesting story of several generations. It is remarkable that^the mind of thoughtful Jews concerning these generations, and that of studious Christians, is coming to be almost identical. We might follow fairly closely the account given by the brilliant Jewish historian Graetz, in his great work on The History of the Jews, and should find little in it that would not be accepted by any careful student. I. Concerniitg Paul. — The substance of the story is this. The beautiful, tender, and truly By the Early Christians 87 powerful work of Jesus might have passed out of memory nearly unknown had not Paul's keen enthusiasm grasped the idea of the Anointed Lord — i.e., of the "lahweh" nature of Jesus. Paul, thus moved, threw his immense energy into the peculiar line of work that we know so well. His insight grasped the idea of that love for man as man, apart from the limits of the seed or blood of Abraham, which had been at the kernel of Jesus' preaching and purpose. Thus, intensively, that great missionary under- stood the new World-Gospel; and speedily he went out consistently to the ends of the earth to realise the good message extensively. The work of the missionary Paul was done soon after 50 A. D. ; and, through that labour in all the wide marches of the empire, Jews and Gentiles soon learned to trust "Jesus as Lord, or lahweh and Christ,"^ and to count the God and Father of Jesus as their Almighty Saviour. Then in the wonderful Epistle to Rome — either written by this missionary or penned perhaps a century later — the fiery word and thought consume away the old Jewish limited faith that only by exact accordance with the Abrahamic birth and • Let us use the word "lahweh" instead of "Lord," for it clarifies the whole story. Moreover, it is well known that many so-called "Gnostic" Christians in the second century spoke commonly of Jesus as " laou. " See Colenso, vol. v., 318 ff. 88 Old Testament Criticism by the Mosaic methods could a soul be pleasing to God. 2. Is it not thus quite clear how there emerged the causes of bitter antagonism on the part of the Jews, who held to the Abrahamic Blood-Descent as the all-in-all, against the Pauline Christianity — viz., Paul's rejection of that claim, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, his claim that Jesus was truly lahweh? Here were two crucial causes of antagonism. We can see easily that this antagonism was sure to produce a divergence of attitudes concerning the use and the criticism of the Old Testa- ment. At once all the efforts of the official Judaism were thrown into the struggle to exalt the Pentateuch with its Abrahamic and Mosaic theory as the sole rule of life. From that time until now that great Torah is to the Jew the unalterable Book, Palladium, and almost Nu- mai or God-manifest. On the other hand,^ the young Christian effort became concentrated on opposition to this theory, and on exaltation of faith in the ever-present and inspiring word of the Great Spirit. These two streams of antagon- ism can be seen as clearly as the distinct waters of the Rhone and the Arve at Geneva ! How much of all the later history of the two religions, Christianity and Judaism, has come from that division? Of course the universalism of Christianity, so far as it was preserved, was By the Early Christians 89 the trul}^ lineal descendant of the noble faith of the exiled Hebrew who wrote Isaiah xlix.; and so, too, within Judaism there is to this day a strong and large party who count Israel's mis- sion to be to the whole world, although there is also the powerful traditional party who refuse an.y recognition of the uncircumcised. Exactly so, also, are there two great parties within Christianity : one leaning to traditional claims — though, indeed, anti- Jewish claims — of au- thority attaching to the Pentateuch, and also to all else that might be easily combined with that Hebrew product; while the other has always believed that the eternally inspiring Spirit God teaches ever new revelations in every new age. But how could the reactionary tendency and doctrine of a limitation of God's inspiration gain a hold amid the followers of Paul? So asks the student, very naturally; and the an- swer is at hand and manifold. Out of the grand faith of Paul in the Inspiring Presence amid all Christian souls arose speedily a widely spread delight in assimilating all kinds of non- Jewish opinions, and even many of the would- be-wise subjective opinions gotten through so-called visions and dreamy fancies. Hence the kaleidoscopic array of Gnostic theories, a sea in which anything really rational might easily have been lost. This tendency caused at 90 Old Testament Criticism once an opposite tendency to reaction, and orthodoxy fell back upon adhesion to the ancient inspirations which the narrower Judaism held to be alone sacred. The outcome that called itself the orthodox Christian doctrine was a faith in the utter sanctity of the old Hebrew literature on the one hand, and faith in this combined with the Pauline and Paulinistic literature on the other. 3. Again, there was a strongly influential force at work to aid this orthodoxy, which was partly economic and partly ecclesiastic. Even Graetz,^ in his History of the Jews, says distinctly and freely that the new religious leaders brought a gospel for the poor, which was recognised by suffering men in every region and nation ; and it was this blessing of the Christian evangel that undermined Judaism on her own territory. Judaism is, indeed, to-day perhaps the finest existing provider for the poor ; but in that ^arly day she let another step in before her. Christ- ianity learned well the hereditary beneficent spirit of Hebraism and Judaism; and the young daughter religion won the heritage of the noble old mother. Now it was in this region of beneficence that there lay one of the first objects of earliest Christian organisation. Hence economic and ecclesiastical rcquiiremcnts inHucnced decidedly ' See Bibliography. By the Early Christians 91 the establishment of a so-called Rule or Canon which should be the Standard of Instruction, previous to admission to the privileges of the Fellowship; and therewith was set up a super- stitious view of the Old Testament as something normative and regnant. Henceforth that col- lection dared not be counted as literature, and might not be criticised like other writings. From this time on there grew the effort to preserve the Books in the exact form that existed when the Canonical theory was established. Hencefor- ward criticism had to be content to be what we now distinguish as "Lower Criticism" — i.e., the care of the individual words and even of the particular spelling of them, all to the end that the Christian might be able to see for himself exactly what form of words had been given and established as the Rule of Life. Up to this time, as we have seen, amid Judaism and in the earlier Christianity of Jesus and of Paul, thoughtful men felt perfectly free to alter the literature, to add or to subtract or to vary, and to supplement by new writings or by com- m.ents on the old. Now no longer might any such freedom be used: the sacred words were regarded as having been uttered and written once for all. So had entered into history, alas, both among Christians and Jews, the idea that only a certain ecclesiastically authorised few have had or ever could have direct inspiration 9- Old Testament Criticism by the omnipresent Divine Spirit. Economic care and ecclesiastical methods are both good, and even essential; but if they rule they are deadly. 2. Of the Old Testament Criticism of Origen and his Comrades If the material inertia of economics and of churchly organisation has mightily held back the freedom of spiritual life, and has done so signally in the case just described, where an iron and deadening rule was laid upon the keenest and finest spiritual life, yet the spirit- uality of men has always set to work at once to burst all such bonds. This is finely illustrated by the noble thoughtfulness of the early master- critic Origen. We are fortunate to-day in having in our hands the work, minute and m.asterly, of such historians as Graetz, Dill, Glover, Harnack;^ for we can trust these to tell us the condition of religious life. Christian and otherwise, during the generations from about 150 to 350 a.d. If we give generally few special references to such teachers, it is because space is limited; more- over, it is of little value to quote isolated passages from this or that book, and it is far better to indicate simply how and where he who is willing 1 See Bibliography. By the Early Christians 93 to investigate for himself may consult the works of scholarly men, rather than give mere sen- tences from their pages. In the period that we have just marked out for our view there lived and wrote not a few noble men whose influence has moulded the world ever since. The earliest of those few, among such as we must name, was Marcion, of Asia Minor first, and afterwards of Rome; he lived and toiled for the accomplishment of the Kingdom of his Anointed Lord about 150 a.d. His toil had immense effect for good, although he has been counted an arch-heretic. Soon after him, about 178 a.d., the so-called "hea- then" Celsus flourished, and wrote a keen attack on the Christians and their ways; pro- bably it was in Egypt that he worked, for he was opposed vigorously by the great Alexandrian Origen. It is well to quote Glover's^ sentence, p. 240 : " CelvSus was above all a man of culture — candid, scholarly, and cool." Hence we may see that the atmosphere was well fitted to keep men's minds clear and sweet. At Alexandria at the same time was the Grecian Clement, born about 150 A.D., a very leader of students until he died in 211 a.d. A great contemporary, of Egypt also, but later far west in Carthage was TertuUian, another leader among students of Scripture. But the greatest of all was Origen, ' See Bibliography. 94 Old Testament Criticism living about 160-240 a.d. ; he was for a long time chief teacher in the Theological School in Alex- andria, and then also for many years in Palestine a quiet investigator of Greek versions of the Old Testament, until he died in Tyre at the age of almost seventy. Alongside of this chief may well be named one like-minded, of a half- century later, Lucian of Antioch, the diligent student and restorer of texts, who died in 311- All these, even including Celsus, were busy searchers into the records that we call the Old Testament. And all show by their arguments and practice that there was growing up into strength a theory of legalistic authority of the Scriptures; that, indeed, both the Old and the New Testaments were beginning to be regarded as in some way divinely ordained to be the rules by which all Christian life must be governed. As we look closely we learn that Marcion and Celsus were in a sense at the two opposite poles of respect for the Old Hebrew and Jewish Scrip- tures; for, while Celsus declared that the Jews were far more sensible in their devotion to their documents than were the Christians in following the new literature, Marcion taught that the Old Testament must be laid aside entirely, and that only the new Gospel concerning Jesus, as seen in Paul, may rightly be used. Marcion's view was that, to quote Harnack, "the Pauline By the Early Christians 95 criticism of the Old Testament religion must be laid down as the basis of all religious thinking ' ' ; and, again: "To Marcion this Paulinism, cut off entirely from any touch with the Old Testament, was the real Christianity." But Harnack moves on to an even more striking utterance: "Marcion's insight led him to a historical crit- icism of all Christian tradition. Marcion was the first Christian to undertake such a t^sk. He determined to set Christianity on the firm basis of a definite conception of what is really Christian; and this conception he purposed to secure by a collection of Christian writings which should have 'Canonical' importance. He was the first to grasp this idea [of a Canon], and to realise it in a large measure." Then Harnack adds this further remarkable testimony, that "Marcion was not a systematic thinker indeed; but he was more, for he was a religious character; and, much more than that, he was a man of such organising ability as was no other person among the early Christians." Here, then, was the dividing point in the road, and we shall go on to see how thoughtful men fell into this snare laid by so good a man ; they counted a "Canon" necessary to organised Christianity. That snare is forever mischievous; and yet, even when falling into such, the aims of the mistaken leaders have always shown the real mind down deep within their souls, the mind and spirit 96 Old Testament Criticism of freedom, and the necessity of freedom of judgment. For, as first and excellent illustration of this, we find Tertullian teaching fifty years later that no one can come to the Scriptures as to an authority unless he is already a Christian; that is to say, Tertullian counts Scripture as excellent material for devotional edification of Christians, since it is all a panorama of godly life, and there- fore a good guide and an authority for Christian souls ; yet, as he declares, it is of no use to present it as authoritative to minds outside. Again, Clement also taught, indeed, that all argument must be based on Scripture; but, then, his vv^hole argumentative use of the Old Testa- ment was allegorical. To quote Harnack's description of such "Gnostic" method in illus- tration of our proposition: "Nothing [in Scrip- ture] was what it seemed to be; all was but a symbol of something unseen. The story of. the Old Testament was sublimated into a record of the emancipation of reason from passion." Origen likewise was a Gnostic of the most thorough sort. He held that there are three quite different meanings in every part of the Scriptures — to wit : first, the Pneumatic meaning, by which he meant the final ideas which will have in the student's soul a mystical, self -evi- dencing nature when once they are gained; then, secondly, the Psychic meaning or moral signili- By the Early Christians 97 cation, which is to be got by stripping off the husk oE mere history; and, thirdly, there is the Somatic meaning, or the historic sense, which should indeed be found first of all, but then is to be thrown away as mere Jewish and fleshly stuff, especially when it contradicts the reason or the nature of God. Such was the conception of the relative rank of the Scriptures and the stu- dious mind; the latter, the inner mind of the student, was clearly felt to be the judge. The mind was the court wherein alone sat the ulti- mate authority; and the mind of man was also the voice of that judge. No wonder that Origen has been respected ever since as one of the ablest and most honourable representatives of Christian mental activity. Such were the personal character of Origen and his inner principle of studious work with Scriptures; but let us now turn to observe the results of his activity. His greatest work, so far as our particular quest is concerned, was his so-called "Hexapla." This exhibited in six parallel columns, or perhaps in eight, the various differing texts of the Old Testament — viz.: (i.) the Hebrev/ written in its own letters; (ii.) the same Hebrew written with Greek charac- ters — a very gold-mine, by the way, for the student, since it shows us how Hebrew words sounded to the Greek ear of Origen; (iii.) next stood a Grcc!: translation of a somewhat strained 9^ Old Testament Criticism sort, seeking to be very exact, and made by a scholarly and devoted Jew named Aquila, who had once been a Christian, and who had been moved by what he thought Christian extrava- gances to make a translation of "Moses," etc., which should controvert Christianity; (iv.) next followed a column giving another Greek trans- lation — on the whole, a very good version — made by one Symmachus, a proselyte from Samaritan- ism to Judaism, as some have reported, who also sought to oppose Christianity by his version ; (v.) the fifth column contained what is better known to us as the Septuagint Greek version, or we had better say "a Septuagint," for the number of various Septuagints amazes the student; and, finally (vi.), there stood a column containing a translation by one Theodotion, who was also a proselyte to Judaism, but in this case had turned to it from following Marcion. Such was theHexapla — lost, alas! ere many gen- erations had passed over it, yet fairly well known to us through quotations and descrip- tions. The loss of it is not altogether without its valuable lesson: it shows us the historical fact that early Christianity did not prize very highly such study of the Bible Faith; much less was there any serious Bibliolatry.^ Another of the best services done for us by Origen's construction of this great Sixfold work > See J. A, Picton's Man and the Bible, p. 155. By the Early Christians 99 is its clear evidence that the meaning of the Old Testament writings was far, very far, from being a fixed thing to which anybody might appeal as giving a definite utterance of the laws of God. Origen may or may not have recognised how he was showing us a vivid picture of the great variety of opinions held in his time concerning the actual utterances of Old Testament Scrip- ture; but the criticivSm of the great Alexandrian father was thus a distinct and autographic declaration of the facts. It shows that uni- formity of "Canon" was non-existent in the time of Origen. 3. The Sequel: Jerome's Development of AN Orthodox Canonic Text We can go farther still, for a mass of evidence tells us that about 300 a.d. there were at least three, and probably five, distinctly different forms of the Greek text actually ''Authorised"; that is to say, each of these was officially used in one or other of the different great archiepis- copal provinces. It is curious that this is re- corded by Jerome, living 331-420 a.d., in a letter of his to a scholar called Rufinus, whom he sorely disliked. The passage tells of this re- markable variety of official Greek versions, all of them orthodox ; and it gives us also opportunity to see at close distance the temper of Jerome, 100 Old Testament Criticism this other indubitably famous student — and shall we not say critic? — of the Old Testament. Jerome's words which we quote are in a letter attacking his quondam friend Rufinus on the ground that the latter has defended the old master Origen; while Jerome purposes to hold that master up for condemn::tion as a father and very fountain of heresy. Such is the fate that so often befalls the devoted workman and keen thinker like Origen. Jerome credits Origen, indeed, with having been a great student of the Old Testament, and a man whose works are worthy to be translated from their original Greek into Jerome's own Latin tongue. But then he describes the Hexapla's exhibition and evidence of the variety of Jewish versions ; and he bewails this with some suggestion that Origen is to blame for the variety. He even accuses Origen of vitiating the Greek by mixing to- gether various sources and making a new text that would please himself. The passage has become classic ; and we might well give it in full, but space forbids. The most valuable point in it is Jerome's testimony to the currency in his time of no less than ten or more distinct forms of the Old Testament — • viz.: (i.) the Hebrew; then (ii. to iv.) the official Greek texts of the three great provinces — Asia, Palestine, Egypt; also (v.) the old Latin text, or, indeed (vi.), more than one such; also (vii., By the Early Christians loi viii., ix., and x.) the four Greek texts shown in Origen's Hexapla; and, finally (xi.), Jerome's own new Latin text, which he claimed to have made directly from the Hebrew. This last is what has come, in altered form, to be called the "Vulgate." Here, then, was liberty in interpretation and the possibility of healthy progress at the very time when Jerome was trying to fix an iron rule or Canon, and was wishing there were only one absolutely authoritative text! It is a remark- able fact that this liberty and this critical free- dom were used by the very men who were doing their utmost to compel uniformity of opinions on religious matters throughout the whole of Christendom. Jerome's new Latin version was an effort to condemn all else. For his whole letter from which we have quoted is an attack on Origen for heresy, or, rather, for many heresies; and it is right to remark that the long, weary letter, with its snarls and quibbles, is not very savoury reading. No wonder that Har- nack says very strong things in condemnation of Jerome, a man commonly exalted by tradition to great heights of praise. Harnack's words are : ''Jerome's dream of being at once a pillar of the Church and a theologian like Origen faded away. He preferred to remain a pillar, and to forsake Origen. After this defection, along with betrayal of his friend Rufinus [in the letter 102 Old Testament Criticism named above], Jerome became the Father of ' Ecclesiastical Science. ' And in a certain sense he is still typical of this 'Science.' It lives on fragments of the wisdom of the men whom it has called heretics. It always accepts just so much that is new from these men as the circum- stances of the times will allow, and it holds fast to as much of what is old as can be done with decency. . . . There is one question that is never found in its catechism — namely, 'What is the historical truth? ' That was the ' Science' of Jerome."^ This severe judgment sums up well the situation of Old Testament criticism four centuries after the birth of Christianity. Another first-rank leader in the study of Christ- ian history, Professor Hase, of Jena, has put it thus: "The Empire's adoption of the Church meant its eternal strong unity, which now proceeded naturally to enforce internal unity. "^ From this time onwards — 400 a.d. — there was no official sufferance of criticism in the Church before the Reformation; we have to turn else- where to find any encouragement of thought- fulness and of Old Testament scholarship. As we pass forward, leaving this wintry negation, steriHty, and death, let us gather in a simple picture of few lines the substance of the treatment of the Old Testament, both critical 1 See Harnack's History of Doctruie, ii., p. 472. 2 See Hase, Church History, ninth ed., p. 124. By the Early Christians 103 and uncritical, in the first four hundred years of Christian Hfe. The story needs to be told plainly, for there has been many an effort to give glory to those days that really deserve very little of it. Yet we are bound to speak carefully and calmly; for there is danger cer- tainly of depreciating the value of such days and men through natural reaction against the estimates that have been too high, and also through the long distance of that age from ours, which makes us scarcely able to understand the conditions of the times. The whole course of movement, in brief, was this: (i.) In the earliest Christian times all used a freedom of treatment of the old writings quite as generous as that which we have seen existing constantly in Judaism. (ii.) But in the middle of the second century there arose — for notable reasons, antagonistic, economic, ecclesiastic, and later on also imperial — the sense that the new organisation of the Christians must have a Canon or rule by which to test all who would enter the limits of the Fellowship. (iii.) The next stage in the canon-making process was naturally the effort to secure a correct form of the Canon; and here, among the many who lent strength to the task, the greatest by far was Origen in his criticism of the Hebrew and Jewish literature. Then followed Jerome 104 Old Testament Criticism with his effort to put the great Canon of Old and Nev/ Testaments into a good Latin dress. (iv.) In those days the Canon came to be revered and ahiiost worshipped as a dreadful rod for beating all who came in any way short of agreement with it. And this came about because, alas, the heathen Rom.an Empire — or shall we say simply, the non-Christian and un- Christian Roman Empire — had adopted Christianity to use it for political purposes. The military force of the Roman Government, hard, unspiritual, and material, was determined to compel the Christian organisation and all Christ- ian souls within it to do exactly what the emperor commanded. (v.) The outcome of the story was that Jerome's Latin translation was set up as the very law of God on earth ; and now all criticism of the Old Testament within the Roman- Christian Empire was at an end. And ^ yet, strange but true, while no betterment dared be undertaken, and while no truly critical eye or hand dared now to meddle with the sacred words of this so-called ''Vulgate" or text for the common use, yet careless men did their careless work as copyists or as fanciful adorners, and they often altered the text of Jerome griev- ously. Popes lent their imprimatur to such debasements of the would-be-holy Latin words ; which, soon afterwards, other popes had to By the Early Christians 105 denounce as contrary to the will of God. Jerome's blows at Origen were deadly blows at thinking and life; the author of the Vulgate stunned Old Testament study for a thousand years. (vi.) An Augustine could quote this or that passage without any of the deep respect due by the student. He and his comrades through the ages of Roman Christianity had no sense of the real meaning and value of a document coming from an age other than their own. Aug- ustine's superficial expositions and his allegorical deductions headed the procession, ten centuries long, of similar uncritical use of the noble old Scriptures. Deliverance came at length from a quarter that seems strange, and that yet was very naturally the region whence light should come; it was the Jews who taught the world once again to read historically their Old Testa- ment. We turn to some brief sight of their literary work through the centuries. Chapter V Criticism of the Old Testament among Jewish Scholars and Rabbis I. From the First Century to the Reformation IT is possible to consult concerning this im- portant field the guidance of thoroughly scholarly men among the Jews themselves. For the student of the religious ways of Judaism, for him especially who seeks to know the labours of the Rabbis in the synagogue, their cultivation of the inward life by sermons, expositions, and devout meditations, and for all who would understand Jewish instruction of youth, the classic teacher is Leopold Zunz, also called Yom-Tob Lippmann, who was born at Detmold in 1794, and died in Berlin in 1886, after a long and active professional life. He was truly a founder of modern Jewish literary science. In 1832 he published an octavo volume of some five hundred pages, entitled Gottesdienstliche Vortrdge der Juden, historisch entwickelt, which means, being translated, Jewish Worship-Lilera- 106 By Jewish Scholars and Rabbis 107 tare Examined Historically. Since its appear- ance ever}^ student of matters bearing on the wide range of Jewish and Christian thought has been deeply indebted to the book. We shall quote presently from its pages. Further, in the magnificent History of the Jews, written by Professor H. Graetz of Breslau (born 1817, died 1891), we have a most careful, sympathetic, and in the true sense scientific exposition of Judaism, at least from the Macca- bean times onward. The earlier story is handled far too briefly in comparison with the rich fulness of story that is told concerning 200 B.C. onwards, almost to our own day. This work also will guide us well. But, finally, the prince of all students of Judaism and Christianity, and indeed of all essential religion, was Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza of Amsterdam (born 1632, died 1677). He left us in his famous "Theological and Political Treatise" the foundation plans for our modern criticism, and also invaluable records of the word of genuine Jewish critics of the Middle Ages. We seek, then, to give a very brief account of the story as it may be learned under the guidance of these three teachers just named — Zunz, Graetz, and Spinoza. We need not at every point refer to the exact words of those teachers, but will rather set the whole in summary of our own. io8 Old Testament Criticism 2. The Story of Jewish Use of the Old Testament as Seen in their Synagogal Expositions Our plan shall be to study carefully the treatises of the two noted Jews whom we have named, Zunz and Spinoza; and to supplement what we learn from these by use of Graetz, obtaining from this last-named especially the general outlines of movement. We begin with Zunz, although he is much later in time than Spinoza, because Zunz's work is in the form of a history of the matter from early days until now. He writes really the story of the thinking of the Jews in their religious worship and concerning it during all the ages since Ezra and Nehemiah, 450 B.C. We do not need to go so far back with him, but shall follow his guidance from about the time of the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 a.d. Let us describe the main points in Zunz's historical account, and we shall see how they furnish the story of Jewish criticism of the Old Testament. He arranges the course of events and of mental n^ovements in several ways: I. First, he sets forth the series of great events — viz., the Cessation of the Prophetic Activity, about 500 B.C.; then, the Work of the Great Fellowship of the Elders — i.e., the so- called Great Synagogue of the times from Nehe- miah, 450 B.C., on to I a.d. or later; next, the M.1>C XXXIt Benedictus di: Spikoza. ^ Cm nattira.Dens.rerian cui cog-nitiis ordo , ■ ■ ^ Hoc Spinofa ftatu coiiipiciendus erat. ; / ' ExpreHere viri faciem.leci pm^ere ineutem — ..- -.;:: Zeiixidis artirices non valwere mantis. --...-= Ilia Vie'el fcriptis : ilijc rublimia tractat: ■- Hiuicquicunq^uecupis nofcerelcripta leg-e . -^ ^ no Old Testament Criticism Emancipation from the vSyrian Oppression, i8o B.C. ; the Fall of Jerusalem, 70 a.d. ; the Formation of the Mishna or Enlarged Mosaic Laws of Conduct, 200 A.D.; the Compilation of the Gemara, or further enlargement of the Jewish Codes, 500 A.D.; the Rise of Arab Scientific Activity, 700 a.d. onward; the Decay of Tra- dition; and, finally, the Transference of the Jewish Educational Centres to Europe, and the Close of the Babylonian Universities, 1000 a.d. 2. Then our guide describes all in a series of dated periods, thus: from Ezra to the Writer of Chronicles, 200 years (450-250 B.C.) ; from the Chronicler to the Restoration of the Sanhedrin — i.e., the Directing Council of Elders, over 100 years (250-150); thence, until the Destruc- tion of the Temple, 220 years (150 B.C.-70 a.d.) ; from that Catastrophe until the Formation of the Mishna, or Second Ethical Law, 250 years (70-320 a.d.); from the Mishna until the Completion of the Gemara, or Supplementary Ethical Law, 250 years (320-570) ; from the Gemara to the new activity of the Gaonim (the "exalted ones"), or Leaders of the Universities of Babylon, 270 years (570-840) ; from the Bloom of those Universities to the Versifying Schools of Rabbi Sherira and Rabbi Kallir, 230 years (840-1070 a.d.). About this last date the centre of Jewish study left the Euphrates and Palestine, and migrated to Europe: the By Jewish Scholars and Rabbis 1 1 1 Babylonian lines of work finding their home and congenial environment in Spain, by way of the Arabs and Morocco; while the Palestinian influences flowed rather by way of Greece to Italy and Germany. 3. Now we reach Zunz's list of great schools that arose successively, and which handled variously the critical examination and the public exposition of the older Jewish literature. These schools were as follows: We need not enumerate his list of workers previous to the catastrophe of the fall of Jeru- salem, for we have already considered that in our pages above. It was about the year 70 a.d., the year of the awful catastrophe, that the sad separation between Jewish and Christian think- ing, study, and life came about. Few words are here necessary concerning the causes of that separation and antagonism. In briefest sum- mary, they were somewhat as follows: There was not a deep antagonism between Jesus' own message and the orthodox Mosaic doctrine ; but ere long deep cause for antagonism did arise. The early followers of Jesus preached that he lived beyond the grave, and was the Lord — i.e., lahweh, the great Hebrew national Deit}^, and the Christ — i.e., Anointed. Here were at once dread heresies, and thus arose bitter antagonism between the Jews and the follow- ers of this Anointed lahweh. This anta";onism 112 Old Testament Criticism was speedily multiplied twofold when the early missionary Paul preached that the helpful Gos- pel of Jesus and the acceptance of his Lord- ship were just what all other peoples needed as well as did the Jews. Here, was indeed, a breaking down of all the old Mosaic Faith concerning circumcised Jewry; no wonder that there grew an antagonism more bitter than ever. And this was not yet all; for speedily the new Christ theory was extended to signify that every follower of Jesus actually possessed the Christ within himself. Surely here was to the orthodox Jew, the Scribe, the Torah student, the stern dissenting Pharisee, a heresy that had to be fought to the bitterest end. We must consider that at this very time orthodox Judaism was convulsed by the terrible ruin brought upon their sacred capital, Jerusalem, by Titus with his Roman legions, which destroyed that city in 70 A.D. Surely they must have thought all" this evil a sign that their God was angry over such gross departures from the ancient Mosaic faith. In any case, the feud was bitter to the extreme; and ere many years passed the most natural consequence was a jealous effort to ''hedge round the ancient Doctrine, " as the famous tract on the ''Sayings of the Hebrew Fathers" had counselled ; and how better could the Jewish scholars "hedge" than by declaring clearly just what were the contents of their Sacred Writings. By Jewish Scholars and Rabbis 113 Thus a Jewish criticism of the Old Testament was made imperative by the rise of Christianity. Hence many decisions concerning Scripture were made by the so-cahed Council of Jabne, or Jamnia, a town near the coast some thirty miles west of Jerusalem. When Jerusalem was in the throes of ruin, the Sanhedrin left the city and met for a long time thereafter at this town of Jabne. No particular council was held there to settle the matter of an Old Testament canon ; but in the meetings of the Sanhedrin during the years just before and just after 100 a.d. miuch study was devoted to the question of the right of this book and that to be in the sacred collec- tion. So, for example, we learn that, under the presidency of Eleasar, the son of Asariah, it was finally decided concerning Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, two somewhat doubtful writings, that these did possess the proper qualities, and must be included in the Hebrew Bible. Put here was the end of discussion on the actual limits of the sacred list considered simply as a precious collection. Thus a Jewish Canon was finally determined in or near 100 A.D. And yet criticism and freedom of thought went on as busily as ever. (a) For, more especiall}^, the directions for life and its duties found written in the Mosaic codes had always been felt to be quite insufficient and the question had to arise, "Who shall tell 114 Old Testament Criticism us further what it is right to do?" Hence con- troversy became abundant within the ranks of the noted elders themselves. Those who were closely attached to the Government, and who were called ''Sadducees," after Sadoc, the Da- vidic chief priest, refused to give to any writings outside the Torah such respect as was given to the Moses-books; while, on the other hand, the Pharisees, or Dissenters,^ believed in the ever-present inspiration of God in the minds of his people. The latter refused to submit to governmental commands as if these had God's authority; but they delighted in seeing the growth in scholarly hands of a large new body of ethical opinion and regulation. And this Pharisee faith gained the day in the end; the enlarged ethical opinions and regulations that were worked out in the councils of elders were ere long honoured with the name of "The Second Mosaic Doctrine, " or " Mishnah. " ^ The continuous body of greatly esteemed elders who wrought out these extensions were called "The Tannaim," or Mishnah-Makers. Here, then, was direct authorisation given by orthodox Jewish opinion to a very vital criticism 1 The word "Pharisee" meant literally "separatist"; the earnest men so-called were especially opposed to the Prince's and Government's assumption of hier- archical office. The Pharisee was simply and literally an anti-State-Church-man. By Jewish Scholars and Rabbis 115 of the most important and most serious parts of the very Pentateuch itself. Surely the men who felt the Decalogue to be insufficient, who thought out supplementations of it, and who regarded these as God's mind, deserved the name of Old Testament critics. The most sacred rules for moral life were judged and found insufficient; new rules were thotight out, criti- cised, and adopted. We have seen above how Zunz sets the epoch of these men's activity as lasting down to about 320 A.D. Not a few of them worked so earnestly and well that their names endure in wide honour to this day. We have named above Eleasar, son of Asariah ; before him were such critics as Sham- mai, Hillel, and Gamaliel I., Paul's teacher of about the middle of the first centur}^; Gamaliel II., grandson of the former Gamaliel, living about 100 A.D.; then the very famous Akiba, of date no to 130 a.d.; and later the noted Judah the Prince, living about 150 to 200 a.d. This last is counted generally the first who edited the Mishnah; he at least prepared a very early edition of it in written form. Such was the Tannaite school of early Jewish criticism in the first and second centuries of our era. It has been imperative to describe at length the rise of this scholarly criticism, especially since, un- fortunately, it was antagonistic to Christianity. (b) Criticism within Judaism took now a new ii6 Old Testament Criticism peculiar direction. Jewish scholars gave them- selves for ages, for some 250 years indeed, to the exposition of this Second Law; criticism of the Mishnah pushed criticism of the actual Bible aside. The newer scholars counted the text of the Biblical Hebrew books altogether too sacred to be made la.rgely a subject of discussion ; they read it aloud in their synagogal worship without remark, as we read lessons now. Cer- tainly they took "texts" from the Hebrew Scriptures as bases for their expositions of the Mishnah; but these "texts" were always fanci- fully used, and thus the new criticism treated these scriptural texts with small respect. The expositions were given in the synagogues and other places of assembly, and the expounders were called "Amoraim" — i. e., simply "Speak- ers." There was a long list of them, among whom the most commonly named is Tanchuma, of about 425 A.D., whose name became connected with one of the more noted commentaries upon the Mosaic Doctrine. It was in the days of these Amoraim that three distinguished universities for such Jewish studies arose: in Babylon, at Sura and Pumbeditha ; and also in Palestine at Tibe- rias on the western shore of the Lake of Galilee. (c) It was inevitable that such a method of mere exposition of Mishnah, a thing that was rightly or wrongly said to be of only secondary importance, should in course of time degenerate By Jewish Scholars and Rabbis 117 into great timidity, and even into slavish repe- titions. But add to this the constant and bitter terror wherein every Jew Hved, whether he were a scholar or a hand- worker, during t^ose ages from 400 to 600 a.d. Then the so-called Christian Church system had become a public instrument and pitiable tool of the diseased and m.oribund, morally degenerate and decaying Roman Empire; and all the jealousies of such a condition fell in fierce strokes upon the Jews, those rival claimants for the successorship of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the saints of the Old Testament ages. We may quote Zunz here (p. 341): ''In this period of two hundred years the Sabbath ministrations and preaching among the Jews of Persia and Palestine were not regularly continued; and the cause must be found in the wars and the persecutions of the time." He describes one of the productions of the time, the so-called "Midrash" or comment- ary on ''LaiTientations," as full of weeping for the nation, with interwoven narratives of the sad fortunes of the Jews, their persecutions by the Romans who were now all called Christians, and the mockery of them in the Roman theatres. The title of Amoraim was no longer given, for the teachers had grown too timid even towards their God and his inspirations; they called themselves only ''Seboraim" — i.e., "Holders of Opinions." They would not go so far as to ii8 Old Testament Criticism say, ''Thus and thus hath God said"; they only murmured timidly, "We think that probably such and such is the mind of God. " And yet all of this was on the eve of a revival of strength; and the notes of its coming are to be seen in a mass of careful studies, begun about this time, concerning the exact wording of the text of the Hebrew Scriptures. These studies are known as the " Masorah, " and those engaged in it were the Masoretes, or Traditionalists, for the word Masorah means "tradition. " The Masoretes sought, even amid the sweat of sorrow and fear, to know and secure the exactly correct spelling of every word in the Scriptures, and the exactly correct pronunciation of all in the Sabbatic readings in synagogal worship. It was then, therefore, that what are called the Hebrew "vowel-signs"^ were invented. The ex- positions of those days, called "Hagada" — i. e., "Setting forth," were feeble efforts to read- the sad experiences of the times into the ancient sacred text; but weakness came just before revival. The twilight of dawn shone about the timid learning of the Seboraim. 1 Every learner of Hebrew knows that the language has in itself no letters representing vowels. The proper pronunciation of words used to be handed on by mem- ory, as in the case of English. At the time under con- sideration a set of signs were invented for the guidance of those learning to read the lessons in worship. By Jewish Scholars and Rabbis 119 (d) While the timid Seboraim were rendering their simple service, there was coming into blossom and fine fruit the work of the Univer- sities of Babylon and Palestine, already named. A long list of notable teachers led the studies of hosts of young men there; those leaders were called the "Gaonim" — i. e., ''Exalted Ones," and not at all unworthily were they so called. Let us quote in summary Zunz's valuable ac- count of the activity of the schools in Babylon, as given on pp. 308 f. of his work. In the Acad- emies of Babylon, Halacha was chiefly studied. ("Halacha" means the customary and proper Rule of Life.) There was often an over-refine- ment, indeed, that has been greatly blamed. Narrative or exposition (Hagada) was less studied in the earlier generations of the period ; but later on its ethical and historical possibilities were understood and searched out. From about the year 800 a.d. scientific investigations claimed much attention: the hrst lexicons were prepared; Arabic astronomy and medicine were cultivated; translations from Arabic, and es- pecially studies in theology, grammar, and exegesis, were published. Mental activity was greatly influenced and nourished by the rich literature of the Arab schools, and this led Jews in all other Islamic lands into similar activity. Especially in North Africa, and in Andalusia in southern Spain, Jews sought and gained large 120 Old Testament Criticism culture. All these movements radiated from the two Babylonian Universities; while the Palestinian Academy tended to cultivation of specially Jewish matters, and it was in the latter that the greatest service was rendered to the Masoretic study of the wording of the sacred text which we have just mentioned. Of the Gaons there were in all a good hundred, the most famous of whom by far was Saadia, the son of Joseph of Fay yum, born in Egypt in 892 A.D., and President in the Sura University at the time of his death in 942 a.d. He is often called the founder of the scientific activities of Judaism. When he was made Gaon in 928 A.D. his University entered upon a period of great brilliancy, as is recorded by Professor Bacher of Budapest. The works of Gaon Saadia are being published, and chief among them is his translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Arabic. One of his most earnest efforts was to combat Karaism, a doctrine that had risen among his fellow Jews as a rebellion against all traditionalism. The Karaites claimed, like the old Sadducees, that only the actual books of the Old Testament should be followed, and that all Mishnaic and similar teaching is mischievous. Very natural it was that the reviving Judaism, in the person and work of Saadia and his comrades, should seek to uphold its traditional custom of making or criticising By Jewish Scholars and Rabbis 121 Mishnaic enlargements of the ethics of the Doctrine of Moses; all the more natural was this since that custom meant a constant im- provement and enlargement of the older views. The Karaites were the strictest traditionalists, and of the narrowest sort in their would-be absolute adherence to the letter of the Hebrew Scriptures. (e) The greatest period of the revived Judaism began when the universities of the Far East were closed through the political difiPieulties caused by Islam. Then the Babylonian scholarship found a new home in Morocco and in Spain and southern France, while the Palestinian scholars moved westward along the northerly line through Greece, Italy, Germany, and northern France. Zunz writes enthusiastically of this migration, this Light from the East: "The sunshine of a really Jewish literature burst forth for Europe in the ninth century." It was not, however, until the year 1050 a.d., or thereabouts, that the close of the eastern schools brought the midday glory over the West. The earMcr productions of this western Rer ais- sance i_i Judai::"i were versified wise sayings on all sorts of matters, but especially on wor- ship. These were commonly called "the Pints." But ere lor_g another and far higher stage was reached in the philosophical and philological writings of a host of strong thinkers, am^ong 122 Old Testament Criticism whom Moses Maimonides was easily the prince. Ere we consider these greater Jews, let us note those who practised the so-called Kabbala, although a very few words are almost too much for the value of the system. From the close of the twelfth century, says Zunz, "a mysticism had arisen, commonly called Kabbala." We had better follow his characterisation of this visionary school and call it "mysticism, " so that any would-be mystics of our time may set value on the utterance and watch the outcome of the system. Zunz's words are: "Notably the term 'Kabbala' means 'tradition,' something handed down from the past; nevertheless, it became the name of a fancied philosophy wherein everything was in reality brand new. Every author claimed tradition as the source of his own peculiar new ideas." Such mysticism arose easily in the dim dawn of the better Jewish thoughtf ulness ; it arises always, and to-day as much as ever, in similar half-awakened circles. (/) The eleventh century was brilliant with a galaxy of Jewish scholars. It was then that Aben Ezra, in Spain, about 1150 a.d., wrote his Commentaries and his Grammar ; the former of which was so much trusted by his followers in the field that it was printed at Bomberg in the greater Rabbinical Bible, along with the Aramaic Targum or Interpretation, and with the companion commentary of the scholar Rabbi By Jewish Scholars and Rabbis 123 Solomon, son of Isaac, commonly called Rashi. The commentaries of these two men have fur- nished work for generations of later commen- tators, for every one has counted it well to write expositions and descriptions of what these men said. We shall presently have occasion to re- turn to one of them, when we examine what Spinoza did. About a generation later still (1200 a.d.) there lived in Narbonne, in France, three similar students, Joseph Kimchi and his two sons, Moses and David. This last became the most noted; he introduced a new method by laying a careful grammatical study at the foundation of his expositions, and thus he became a powerful mover of the study and thought of the next three following centuries, which culminated in the Reformation. His teaching went far to create Reuchlin, the teacher of Luther. (g) But we must go back to the greatest by far of all the new scholars — Moses, son of Maimon, born in Cordova 1135 a.d. Concerning him we may give the sum of what Zunz writes, thus: Be- sides him all others fall into the background ; he was the first to grasp the philosophical and essen- tial value of the record of God's working as set out in the long narrative given in Scripture and in the Hagada that is based on it — the Midrash stories and illustrations produced in the course of the centuries from the time of Nehemiah and 124 Old Testament Criticism Ezra down to the Middle Ages. Maimon began what may be called the properly philosophical exposition of those narratives and of the Mid- rashic or Hagadic writings, as containing and implying a constant providential order, and as therefore exhibiting a great divine purpose and control; this being manifest in the life of all men, but especially in the life of the Hebrews and the Jews. Maimon was signally one of the bene- dictions that came to Europe through the migra- tion of the Far Eastern scholarship by way of Arabian North Africa and Spain. Indeed we may count him a signal illustration of the service that Islam has done for European civilisation, by leading the Christian peoples to deliverance from the heathenism that had been forced on them in Rome's sorry adoption of the Church. And yet, although Maimon was born in Cordova, and might have become one of the brightest and best treasured jewels in Spanish history, he was very early compelled to wander to other lands to escape persecution; his later life was spent in Egypt. Among his fellow Israelites his work earned for him the notable title of the Second Moses, so profoundly and yet practically did he learn and teach. As a student or critic of Scripture he is not so directly notable; but his indirect influence was immense, through his philosophical guidance of all who were to come after him. Among his works the best known By Jewish Scholars and Rabbis 125 and doubtless most influential is his Moreh Ncbhochim — i.e., The Teacher of Perplexed Ones. An excellent sentence from this ' ' Moreh ' ' is quoted by Dr. Broyde in his Jeivish Encyclopcedia article: "The design of this work is to promote the true understanding of the real spirit of the law, or Doctrine of Moses, and to guide those religious persons who, while adhering to the Doctrine, have also studied philosophy, and who arc embarrassed by the contradictions between the teachings of philosophy and the literal sense of the Doctrine." Evidently there had arisen among those Jews of the early Renaissance the same determination that stirred in the soul of Giordano Bruno four hundred years later. Qi) From Maimon to the end of the fifteenth century Spain was constantly enriched intel- lectually by a series of Jewish scholarly men and their cultured supporters, as well as she was enriched materially by Jewish industry of every kind; such service did Jews render, although all the while they were exposed to ill-treatment, to pillage by taxation, and to death by violence. But the day of serious parting of the ways cam.e when Torquemada commanded his king and queen, Ferdinand and Isabella, to hurl out those Jewish enrichers of the nation for the sake of what that priest counted the cause of God; and in 1492 the final mad edict of expulsion was issued. Thus Spain was bereaved. Henceforth 126 Old Testament Criticism Jewish scholarship centred in the northern li'ids; where in France Nicholas de Lyra, of about 1300, studied the work of Rashi, and taught his fellow Frenchmen the value of the Hebrew tongue. Jewish scholars expelled from Spain migrated also to Germany; and about 1500 A.D. Johann von Reuchlin, the earliest Professor of Hebrew in Germany, first in In- goldstadt, and then in Tubingen, devoted his learning and his skill to the defence of the perse- cuted Jews of Cologne and Frankfurt, ultimately and bravely carrying his plea in person before his friend, Pope Leo X. Am.ong Reuchlin's pupils was his son-in-law, Philip Melanchthon, the comrade and theological guide of Martin Luther; and ere long the great Reformer himself set about the task of learning Hebrew, to the end that he might give his countrymen a popular translation of the Old Testament. Graetz is not wrong when he counts his fellow Jews as largely re- sponsible for the Reformation. He writes, vol. iv., p. 452: "The Talmud had indirectly a great share in awakening the slumbering forces [in Germany]. We can boldly assert that the war for and against the Talmud [wherein Reuchlin was its champion] aroused German consciousness and created a public opinion, without which the Reformation as well as other efforts would have died in the hour of their birth, or perhaps would never have been By Jewish Scholars and Rabbis 127 born at all." In its occasion, then, the Refor- mation was really an event in that history of Old Testament criticism which we are tracing. The freedom fought for by the Reformers was the same independence that had been shown by the Jews in their enlargement of their Pentateuch, and by their production of the Mishnah and its developments. (i) Yet only a poor gratitude was returned to the Jews for all this service. Through long generations the newly-awakened peoples of north-western Europe used their independence almost as cruelly as the southern nations had used their power; and from the year 1500 on to 1800 there were three centuries of shameful cruelty towards the venerable owners of the Old Testament Scriptures. Of this Zunz writes sadly, p. 418: "Fear lamed the tongue of the Jewish preacher, and suffering drove away the hearers. Repeated and cruel persecutions now destroyed every Jewish effort to rise with the times, in France and Germany. The Jews were maltreated by a thieving nobility; they were hated by fanatical monks, and by a bloodthirsty ' common folk. The unhappy Jew saw his most sacred things dishonoured, his synagogues torn down, his Talmud burnt, the graves of his fathers desecrated, his dear ones tortured to death. He wandered about, seeking refuge; so that thoughtfulness was frozen and the ear 128 Old Testament Criticism grew deaf to all utterance of comfort. Hope became a silent look towards the heavens." It is only right to hear this explanation, by a scholarly and most godly Jew, of the dulled condition into which all Jewish life fell, whether among scholars or others, as the actual result of the new reformed vigour among all other nationalities. But time has brought its healing; in 1800 Lessing could point to Moses Mendels- sohn as, perhaps, the wisest among all the thoughtful men of Germany; and Lessing's wonderful play, Nathan der Weise, has been a gospel of rational treatment of Jews, and a consequent joy for all who know them. To-day the Jewish E?icyclopcedia, in its stately series of twelve tomes, filled with instruction written ^' by men of all faiths, and purposed most wisely by its generous patrons as a great national and religious library for guidance of the younger generation, provides a symbol of the present thoughtfulness, the critical ability, and the pure spirit of a very large proportion of the Jewish race. That Encyclopccdia's articles on Biblical subjects give always full information on what is called the Rabbinical views of any question, and then they describe faithfully the results and aims of the historico-critical workmen. Such bright blossom and fruit on the ancient tree, that had seemed so withered, might well give pause to us in our common fancy that Judaism By Jewish Scholars and Rabbis 129 is far behind Christianity. But the ancient race had a deep vitality all along the way; for even in the darker days amid those three hundred years after Luther the Jews produced the very highest scientific Biblical thought. We are to see this now as we turn back to watch an early, hidden, and much-maligned Jewish critical scholar, Baruch Spinoza, whom the whole world is learning every day to esteem more highly. 3. The Old Testament Criticism of Baruch Spinoza We may well call this man the great father of all modern Old Testament criticism; al- though he was a feeble-bodied lens polisher of Amsterdam and The Hague, and lived only from 1632 to 1677. His epoch-making work on the matter, which he called his Theological and Political Tract, was published in 1670. To grasp the essence of this little book will be enough to throw a flood of light on the merits of the subject, and also on the course of all studious efforts thereafter until this day. He sets out his object at once in his sub- title, where he calls the essay "Certain attempts to show that perfect liberty to philo- sophise — i. e., to reason and think, and to speak accordingly in public — is not only com- 130 Old Testament Criticism patible with devout piety and with the peace of the State; but, moreover, to take away that hberty is to destroy the pubHc peace and also all real piet}^ itself. " His arguments for this proposition are drawn almost entirely from an examination of the history of his own race, especially as that is to be learned from their ancient sacred literature, and also from their own studies in it during the later centuries. The bitter attacks that have been made on Spinoza all along the two centuries since he died have probably owed most of their virulence to the deep sense all clear- sighted men have had of the vast power of this Theological and Political Tract. It shook the orthodoxies of Catholic, of Jew, and of Protest- ant. But surely now the day has arrived when Spinoza too shall come to his own, and shall be honoured as he has always deserved to be. A few descriptive paragraphs would not be nearly so serviceable for showing the nature of the Tract as will be Spinoza's own actual summary, given in the analytical table of con- tents, to which we shall add here and there a word or two of quotation from the text itself. There are twenty chapters in the booklet, full of rich information, and all woven into a strong cord of reasoning. Here is the analysis: Chapter i. is entitled "Concerning Pro- By Jewish Scholars and Rabbis 131 phesving." Spinoza defines this at once in these words: "Prophesying or Revelation is the sure knowledge of something revealed to men from God." He proceeds to claim that the imagination is the seat of the prophet's information. Clmpter ii. is "Concerning the Prophets." Here he teaches that the utterances of the Prophets were always thoroughly fitted to the imaginative powers of the people whom they addressed. Chapter iii. is "Concerning Divine purpose with the Hebrews, and whether they alone pos- sessed the Prophetic Gift." He concludes that no nation can possibly be chosen out and fa- voured as possessors of knowledge or virtue more than any other nations. Chapter iv. concerns "The Divine Law." In the midst of the chapter stands this classic passage: "Only he keeps the Divine Law who seeks to love God; and that, because he is ac- quainted with God, and knows that acquaint- ance with God and love for Him are the greatest Good." Chapter v. is entitled "Concerning the reason why Ceremonies were appointed in olden days; and of the Trustworthiness of Scripture Narra- tives — that is to say, how and for whom they are necessary." Here he contends that cere- monial res:ulations were nothing and of no 132 Old Testament Criticism service, save as expressions of the nature of the soul. Chapter vi. concerns "Miracles." He de- scribes some men who "think that God is never doing anything so long as nature moves for- ward in its ordinary course; and, vice versa, they think that the powers of nature are never at work so long as God is acting. So," says Spinoza, "they really believe in two different supreme powers in this world — viz., on the one hand, the power of God ; and on the other hand, the power of Natural Things. " Chapter vii. reaches the central theme; it is entitled "Concerning Exposition of the Scrip- tures." Here Spinoza defines the true rule of interpretation, thus: Nothing must be im- puted to the Scriptures save what is quite clearly derived therefrom and in detail: (i) We must know the languages of Scripture and the history of these. (2) We must examine the statements of each book separately and for itself, and then arrange these together in logi- cally critical order. (3) Then we must set down exactly the history of each book, as also of the circumstances of the author. Only after all this has been done can we know the mind of the particular prophet who wrote and of the Holy Spirit who inspired him. All is illustrated with a wealth of intimate knowledge. Chapter viii. is headed: "Herein is shown that By Jewish Scholars and Rabbis 133 the Pentateuch, the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, were not written by any of the men described in them." Then follows investigation of each, to see whether each had several authors or only one, and who such au- thors could be. This is perhaps the most startling section of the book, for here Spinoza criticises the theory that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. His plan is to quote one of the most thoughtful and esteemed of Jewish Rabbis, and to make it clear that this honoured teacher believed Moses did not write those books so often attributed to him. The Rabbi was Aben Ezra, of about iioo A.D. Spinoza shows that, five hundred years before himself, one of the ablest of the Rabbis had denied that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. He says: "Aben Ezra did not openly declare his opinion, but put it in a kind of cipher, which I do not hesitate to explain." The Rabbi says, concerning Deutero- nomy, that we read in that book the words, ^ "On the other side of the Jordan. " Aben Ezra spoke also of how "the Canaanite was then in the land"; and he added: "and herein is a secret, and let him be silent who understands it," and "then you shall see the truth." Spi- noza shows further by his quotation that, in order to evade some of these evidences, Jona- than, the writer of the Aramaic interpretations 1 Deuteronomy i. i, 4; iii. 8; iv. 41-49; etc. 134 Old Testament Criticism of Scripture, actually mistranslated passages rather than reveal difficulties that he felt deeply. Space forbids further quotation ; but the reader of the Tract will find how clearly Spinoza antici- pated the methods of some of the results of modern critical students, and prepared the way for them. It is specially to be noticed that he shows how such freedom of criticism was al- ready five centuries old in his time. True it is, certainly, that he shows how "the prudent man had to keep silence" in the twelfth century. Chapter ix. examines "Whether Ezra was the last to retouch those mentioned books, and whether the marginal notes found on Hebrew manuscripts were various readings." Chapter x. considers the remaining books of the Old Testament in the same fashion. Chapter xi. considers the Apostles. Chapter xii. considers the real meaning of the term "Word of God," and asks in what sense the Scriptures are to be called "Holy," and in what sense they are the Word of God. Spinoza holds that in so far as they contain the Word of God they have come to us unadulterated. Chapter xiii. shows "That the Scriptures teach concerning the Divine nature nothing save what men themselves may be, if they will only follow a particular way of life." Chapter xiv. discusses "Faith" and "Be- lievers." By Jewish Scholars and Rabbis 135 Chapter xv. is entitled ''Theology is not the servant of reason, nor is reason the servant of theology." Chapters xvi. to xx. treat of more politi- cal matters, speaking of "The basis of the State," and especially of the Hebrew Govern- ment. The last few chapters reveal the anxiety of Spinoza to shut out hierarchical interference from his little land of Holland, and to make his people leaders in all thoughtfulness. It was for such ends that he studied his Hebrew literature and Hebrew history; therefore his criticism was a deeply practical element of his life, in the midst of the sternest conflicts of society all around him. In such sense his work was genuinely fitted to be the dawn of a new age. We go forward from this man and the new era he opened, to watch criticism in that later age which is our own. First let us put together in a few statements the substance of the whole Jewish story as thus far seen. I. Jewish students were compelled to be critical in self-defence over against the ever- growing power of the nascent Christianity; but the efforts of Jewish criticism concerned almost exclusively ethical development, while the actual text of the Old Testament was guarded as a palladium too sacred to be touched. Copies of it had to be exact reproductions, the 136 Old Testament Criticism newer of the older, even in the minutest matters of writing and spelling. 2. Yet the Jewish students were among the earliest to hail the Renaissance; they were in some sense its forerunners, for keen critics like Aben Ezra thought and wrote a whole century before Oxford was founded. The Jewish succes- sion of such noble workmen continued, until they had taught Luther and his Reforming comrades. 3. Spinoza, the true Jew who was also true Christian, gathered into one treasure of utterance the critical wisdom, the critical conscience, the critical courage that had been developed in the story of these two antagonistic families of lovers of the Old Testament. He laid down, to use another great teacher's phrase, the prolegomena for every future real study of the Scriptures in that Theological and Political Tract which we have just examined. 4. Spinoza defined in his Tract the~ three great aims for every future student: (i.) That there must be thorough linguistic knowledge, (ii.) There must be analysis of the writings to discover their original documents and the au- thors of these, (iii.) The aim of all study and interpretation, and the principle of it and the test of it, must be a critical reconstruction of the history of the literature, the ideas, and the religion of the people. History mvist be the pole-star of the investigator. Chapter VI From Spinoza to Astruc HAS not every one regarded the Reformation of the sixteenth century as so entirely based upon the Bible that the ages following might be supposed to be saturated with the volume's own teaching concerning itself, as well as concerning all else that affects mankind? And A^et closer examination will make it clear that the Bible was not the basis of the Reforma- tion: the basis was the recognition of the value of the soul and mind of man. The Bible, and its own light upon itself, were so thoroughly secondary that the actual use of it and the study of it were desultory and wayward to a strange degree; and the result was an utter maze of fanciful comments, opinions, and very different theories, and of results that show very little organic interrelation, and baffle earnest effort to see the path of logical mental progress through them. The writings and the minds of the many students of Biblical matters in the years from 1550 to 1850 are a thicket, or 137 138 Old Testament Criticism almost an impenetrable jungle. To count the trees in all this mass would be a weary task, and to set down all the tale would be a thankless service, for it could not win much study even from the souls that hunger for a vision of a guiding hand in the ages. There have been penned three valuable and brief summaries of the story — namely: (i.) In Mr. W. E. Addis's Documents of the Hexateuch, published in 1892, in which the prefatory para- graphs, pp. xiii. to xli. give a summary of "The history of opinion on the origin and date of the Hexateuch." (ii.) In Dr. B. W. Bacon's Genesis of Genesis, published in Hartford, U. S. A., in 1891, the Introduction to which, from the pen of Professor G. F. Moore, now of Harvard, gives another excellent sketch, (iii.) In the fine volume entitled Fonnders of Old Testament Criticism, by Professor Canon T. K. Cheyne, which is full of the author's per- sonal enthusiasm and devotion, and tells the tale more fully; though it begins only about 1750 with the Englishmen Warburton, Lowth, and Geddes. He who would become well versed in the story should make close acquaintance with all three of these volumes. A summary is as follows : (1.) Some few features of the movement were, of course, chronologically earlier than From Spinoza to Astruc 139 the time of Spinoza, and these require brief mention. (i.) The Reformers, both Lutheran and Swiss, did good work for criticism in demanding that the people should read the Scriptures for them- selves, and also in giving men the Bible in their own tongue. They were certainly not minded to submit their teaching to the arbitrament of the Book, as distinct from their own subjec- tive judgment of what it meant. They hon- oured the independent human soul first, and believed that God held their individual callings and their independent minds as infinitely dear and entirely near to Himself. For this reason they refused any papal control over their lives, and denied all papal right to give exclusive interpretation of the literature of Hebrews, or Jews, or early Christians concerning Jesus. All this was good, and it was in the line of pro- gress, and was sure in time to bring about edu- cation, universities, and historical and linguistic knowledge and skill. But meanwhile the edu- cational outfit was meagre, as well it might be after the long Roman oppression; consequently Luther's translation of the Bible was not genuinely critical. Kostlin's great Life of Luther shows abundantly the wonderful man's humble consciousness of his own imperfect power to translate adequately. Yet, while Luther was nailing up his Theses in Wittenberg, 140 Old Testament Criticism his colleagues and he himself also were asking boldly what it mattered whether Moses wrote or did not write all of the Pentateuch. (ii.) The reforming eagerness that all people should see the actual words of Scripture pro- duced very soon a rich fruit; and one of the remarkable signs of the times was the prepara- tion of the great Polyglot Bibles. The more famous four of these were described already in 1678 by Richard Simon, Priest of the Congre- gation of the Oratory, in his Critical History of the Old Testament. They are: The Polyglot of Alcala, called "The Complutensian, " and dated 15 14; that of Philip II. of Spain, called "The Antwerp," dated 1569; that of Paris, known as "Jay's," dated 1629; and that of Walton, called "The English Polyglot," dated 1657. There had been previously several minor works of the sort even as early as 1586, as well as the so-called Rabbinical Bibles, which had set together, side by side on the same page, the texts of the Hebrew original and the Aramaic interpretations, giving also on the same page commentaries of noted Rabbis. The new method of the Polyglots sought to make public all the various known versions — the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Syriac, etc. And, sin- gularly, the Roman Catholic scholars were even more eager than the Protestants to render this service. This was criticism; for it not only From Spinoza to Astruc 141 implied much critical work by the editors, but it also submitted the actual texts to the comparison and the judgment of every one. (iii.) We have just named Richard Simon and his notable Histoire Critique, suppressed indeed when first published in 1678, but re- printed in Rotterdam in 1685. Spinoza's Tract, already described, had appeared in 1670, or per- haps even a little earlier. Simon seems to have purposed his work as an overwhelming answer to the Dutch- Jewish master; and at once in the preface he denounces Spinoza as a man who denies the Divine authority of the Scriptures, and calls them "purely human." We know that Spinoza did nothing of the sort ; yet prob- ably Simon's denunciation. has had much to do with the condemnatory treatment that Spinoza has received from both Catholics and Protest- ants ever since. . Singularly enough, Simon himself fell under the ban for heterodoxy, because of this great work of his ; he too has been looked at sidelong all through these two hund- red years. No wonder, for he could use strong expressions. He had little patience with any Protestant theologians who ventured to handle the Scriptures, and he writes of them thus: "Cette perfection que nous cherchons, et qui n'a point ete connue des Protestans" (book ii., chapter xxiii.). Again, he calls Walton, the editor of the Eno^lish Polvelot, "a thief"; even 142 Old Testament Criticism although he looks on him as better than most Protestants, because he was an episcopal prelate. On the other hand, Simon fearlessly points out the liberty which the prophets took in altering the ancient sacred writings; he gives also the evidence from "repetitions," and these even in the Pentateuch, that no one man can have written all the five books, and that certainly Moses did not write them. He had studied Judaism well; and, naturally, he was deeply impressed with the great value of the constant devotion of the Jews to their literature and to righteousness. He declares, as we have had occasion to see, that the Jews were far more liberal before their conflict with Christianity than they became under the influence of the controversy therewith. (iv.) It is right to name here, finally, Thomas Hobbes (i 588-1 679), who is often quoted, as having said, in his Leviathan, or Doctrine of the State, that a Mosaic authorship for the Penta- teuch was not at all indispensable. Most of these utterances, however, were of little importance, for they were only negative; moreover, two large fields of life and study had to be surveyed before any positive knowledge and really useful critical results could be gained concerning any part of the Old Testament. First, linguistic attainments had to be far greater than hitherto; and, secondly, the essen- From Spinoza to Astruc 143 tial value of history, and even the clear idea of what history is, had to dawn on men's minds before a really thorough criticism could emerge. We turn to watch the coming of the dawn over these two regions that were still so dark. (II.) The linguistic field was eagerly cultivated by a series of men whose works are, in several cases, of much practical value to this day. We have mentioned the Polyglot Bibles: these in- cluded studies of grammar which are still usable; while their lexicons, provided in a time when few such existed elsewhere to aid any one who desired to read the various texts, are in some instances still among the best. Such, for ex- ample, is the Syriac Lexicon by Edmund Cas- tellus printed in Walton's English Polyglot. Then for a whole hundred years the devoted family of the Buxtorfs were Hebraists of note, the greatest of whom was John Buxtorf, called commonly "the Father" (1564- 1629), Professor in the University of Basel for thirty-eight years. He was followed in the same office for nearly as long a period by his son, John Buxtorf, commonly known as "the Son" (1599- 1664). The father prepared a little lexicon that is much used to this day; and father and son together constructed the great Concordance to the Hebrew Bible, which is still most valuable, and is indeed almost indispensable to the Hebrew student, for there is no other such work save 144 Old Testament Criticism the much more costly Concordance of Fuerst. Alongside of these two scholars lived Salomon Glass, whose work on Hebrew philology is still much used. Then came the two noted Hebra- ists bearing the name Michaelis: John Henry (1668-1738), Professor of Hebrew in Halle, editor of a still usable edition of the Hebrew Bible; and his grand-nephew, John David (1717- 1791), Professor in Gottingen, author of one of the earliest so-called "Introductions." This latter did good service also through his study of The Mosaic Law. An especial interest gathers round these two men, because the nota- ble Pietistic movement was in their day at its highest bloom. Its centre was the Uni- versity and the city of Halle, with Francke, the founder of the great orphan-house, at the head. J. H. Michaelis succeeded Francke as Professor of Hebrew in the University when the latter took the Chair of Systematic Theology. The whole tone of life and of study in Halle at the time was pietistic ; the aim in use of the Scrip- tures being scarcely historical at all, but an effort to find edification only. (III.) There was awaking in those genera- tions a singular sense of need for what Spinoza called a historical grasp of the literature of the Hebrews and the Jews. Few writers of the time treated directly of this field, and yet a work by one of them is a classic. In the seven- From Spinoza to Astruc 145 teenth century, in addition to Simon and Spinoza, Dr. John Spencer, of Ely and Cam- bridge (1630-1695), in his Laivs of the Hebrews laid the foundations of the science of Compara- tive Religion, as W. Robertson Smith has said in his brilliant lectures on ''The Religion of the Semites." The very first words of its prole- .gomena are: "To show that the laws and rites of the Jews were not instituted of God without reasonable ends." Spencer then goes forward to assert the propriety of studying the "ration- ality" of all such matters of cultus, as that ra- tionality is to be found in the "pleasure, the usefulness, the respectability, and the novelty and rarity thereof. " Similarly brave was the Scottish Catholic priest, Alexander Geddes, in his New Trans- lation of the Bible, published about 1792. He died ere his task was completed, but the two stately quarto volumes gave the translation from Genesis to Chronicles. A later volume of Critical Remarks led to his suspension from office; but his teaching recorded in his preface to Genesis could not be suspended. We may quote a sentence or two from that preface (p. iii.) : "To me it is sufficiently evident that the world of the Hebrew cosmologist was a recent world, created out of pre-existing matter"; and again on p. vi. : "There arc many sincere friends of religion who are not of the opinion ' that every 146 OJd Testament Criticism word of the Pentateuch is divinely inspired,' and I freely confess myself to be one of them." Thus we are led to the threshold of our present period. With Astruc an entirely new process emerged. From Mr. Rtsch^itz Jean Astruc Dr. Med., Royal Phy3ic::ir. and Profccs^r cf Medicine, Paris. Chapter VII Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now I. Aids and Hindrances A FEW introductory notes are necessary con- ^^ cerning the environments of criticism, and preparation for it during the past century. I. From the Renaissance to the year 1800 the minds of men were steadily awakening to consciousness of the value of each individual as against all aristocracies. This religious valuation led naturally to that missionary effort at home and abroad which seeks to acquaint every human soul with its value ; and then arose the demand for dissemination of the literature of the Old and New Testaments. Hence was born the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804, which has already issued in all 215,000,000 copies of Scripture in 418 different languages. Thus the nineteenth century became in a large sense a Bible-reading age; but it needs to be remembered that this was the first really Bible- reading age in the history of the world, as J. A. Picton's admirable book on Man and the Bible 148 Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 149 has proved. The fairly general reading through- out the century since then has had a powerful influence in promoting strictly scientific critic- ism; for it is impossible now for any teacher to ignore in public the difficulties in the Scrip- tures, since most people have seen these with their own eyes. 2. It is important to see how critical study of the Scriptures has arisen and grown hand-in-hand and stage-by-stage along with the philosophic activity which means scientific formulation of the consciousness of men. When Kant propounded his doctrine of the freedom to think, just then Dr. Astruc and his few comrades were venturing to analyse Genesis. Notably, however, Kant did not provide any unfailing criterion, whereby men might test their final results, and might have a sufficient certainty and also a satisfying unity in their operations. Hegel did this work ; he saw that there is in this world more than the individual life of each of us; there is the long course of history which becomes, as we look on it, the very autograph, or we may say the great individual record of the Invisible Cause himself. It was a pupil of Hegel, Wilhelm Vatke, who published in Berlin in 1835 his Biblical Theology Scientifically Exhibited, which aimed at discovery of the great history which is concealed amid all the varying documents of Hebrew and Jewish literature; Fro77t Mr. Rischgitz JoHANN Karl Wiliielm Vatke Dr. Theol., Prcfesscr of Old Testament Theology, Berlin. Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 151 and the substance of Vatke's book remains to this day, in the main, unchallenged and con- firmed as correct. We may well quote two sentences concerning this work from Pfleiderer's volume on Development of Theology (1890): ''As a disciple of Hegel, Vatke had a keen eye for the laws of the mental development and re- ligious consciousness of nations." But the book met with a strange fate. "It was not until 1 865-1 870 that the same critical views were again advanced in a different form, and they have evoked ever-growing interest." 3. The keen instinct of Spinoza saw the need of critical study of the Old Testament language, its vocabulary, and its grammar. A few words may sum up the history of this department. (i.) Strangely, the matter of lexicon, or know- ledge of vocabulary of the Old Testament language, has moved most slowly of all the depart- ments of study. Gesenius began to publish a small lexicon in 18 10, but not until 1858 did Emil Rodiger complete the "Gesenius" Thesaurus of the then-existing stories of acquaintance with the meaning of Hebrew words; so that Thesaurus took half a century in construction. The methods followed in it were naturally somewhat medieval; and, strange to say, these methods rule most of the lexicons: Fuerst's, Stade's, and the "Oxford," to this day. (ii.) In grammatical territory there was 152 Old Testament Criticism similar slow advance, until H. Ewald (1803 to 1874) constructed his philosophically-planned ^-^f^ 'S:.~>^.. /Ik ^^^^H^^^^ 1 BB||||K Bernhard Stade Dr. Theol. et Phil., Professor of Old Testament Theology, Giessen. By kinii />crinissio?i but all too fanciful Ilaiidbook, editions of which work ran on from 1827 to 1863. In 1 861 Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 153 Justus Olshausen published his carefully-ordered System, surpassing Ewald by far; and he was followed by Stade of Giessen, in a similar work published in 1879, with even fuller material. Then the brilliant master of Semitic languages, Paul de Lagarde, issued in 1889 his splendid analysis of The Structure of Aramaic, Arabic, and Hebrew Nouns. Comparative Semitic grammar in the hands of these teachers shows that the language of the Old Testament is one of the most natural, most logically constructed, and most simple of all languages; although, like the languages of all merchant peoples, especially of peoples dwelling as the Hebrews did on a great international highway, it has suffered a good deal of debasement by rubbing and roughening. There is not in it an atom of the unlikeness to all other sorts of speech which the less critical ages supposed it to possess. 4. We turn now to the fascinating story of the re-discovery of the original documents from v/hich the Narrative Books were formed. Some special prefatory words are here needed: (i.) The task of discovery has been accom- plished amid almost overwhelming difficulties. The deep prejudice felt and expressed by re- ligious organisations has compelled the toilers to "keep silence in the evil day," as Amos counselled ; so the work has had to be done many a time in secret. The workmen have in some 154 Old Testament Criticism cases waited long years ere they have made public what they knew to be right and to be very precious. In the article concerning Dr. As true in Herzog's Real-Encyclopedia, E. Bohmer quotes from the Eloge historique of the Regent of the Medical Faculty in Paris, in 1767, these pathetic words: "Ce ne fut que lorsqu'il se sentit avance en age qu'il se crut en droit de donner au public un travail qu'il avait medite longtemps. Le scrupule le retenoit." Later on the mischief of prejudice appeared more sadly, when in 18 19 De Wette was ex- pelled from his professorship in Berlin, nomi- nally for a political reason, but really through ecclesiastical enmity. In vain ''the Faculty of Theology, led by Schleiermacher, did all in its power to save one of its ablest members," as Cheyne's beautiful tribute tells. We are pre- sently to see also what splendid and epoch- making service Bishop Colenso did for the Old Testament, as the students of the matter have long agreed; and yet in 1864 Bishop Gray of Capetown formally excommunicated Colenso. Nearer still to our own day, by a majority of half-a-dozen in an assembly of many hundreds, the Free Church of Scotland deposed from the ministry of the Gospel one of the ablest theo- logians of the century — William Robertson Smith — and denounced his brilliant teaching as heresy. From Messrs. Elliott b' Fry The Right Rev. John William Colenso, D.D. Anglican Bishop of Natal. 156 Old Testament Criticism (ii.) Difficulty has been great and long, be- cause the field was so new, the methods almost all untried. Most of the appliances necessary in such analytical study, such as the sciences of comparative vocabulary, style, ritual, and ethical history, had to be constructed. Just herein, indeed, lay one excellence of the work: the surveyors, explorers, analysts, had con- tinually to make tentative theories, as in every similar investigation of nature. They had to suggest possible solutions of problems, then to reject what did not stand the test of application, and to lay down what did stand testing as a new foundation for the next steps. (iii.) The aim has alwa37S been to construct. The Old Testament stands to-day as a great re-constructed treasure; as a whole, it is more intensely studied than ever it was before, and there is vastly more labour, time, and expense of every kind expended upon its pages than was ever spent in the ages past. In addition there has been re-discovered and re-constructed an immense mass of ancient Hebrew and Jewish literature and literary life that had actually been lying hidden on its own pages, all unknown through many generations. (iv.) As we proceed to see what Dr. Astruc did, let us note that there were others at work in a similar way at the same time. The article in Herzog referred to already tells of a Disserta- Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 157 tion by Peter Brouwer, presented to the Uni- versity of Leyden in 1753, the very year of Astruc's first pubHcation; and Brouwer had made an analysis much Hke that of Dr. Astruc. 2. The Discovery of the Foundation Document 1. Dr. Astruc published in 1753 his Con- jectures sur les memoir es originaux dont il par oil que Moyse se servit pour composer le livre le la Genese. Because of this work Astruc must always be honoured as the man who showed the key to the fundamental operation of the analysis. Here he discovered the Foundation Document of Genesis, which he called "the Elohist." 2. Dr. Astruc's name suggests Jewish descent, for the Jewish EncyclopcBdia's article on the word, by Professor Gottheil of New York, says : "As a praenomen the word 'Astruc' was used frequently by Jews in southern France and eastern Spain"; and again: "It is used to this day as a family name in France." 3. Now, concerning the analysis, — Astruc saw and pointed out the remarkable fact that in Genesis i. and ii. there are two different names used for Deity. This had been observed as far away back as Augustine and Tertullian; but Astruc set about using the phenomenon as a guide to analysis. Giving the designation "A" to all i5< Old Testament Criticism passages using the one name "Elohim, " and the sign '' B " to all that use the other name " Ihwh, " he set down the two series of passages separately. Observe that the reader of the English Bible will not find the word "Ihwh" or "lahweh" in Gen- esis ; but instead of this the word Lord appears in Genesis ii., etc. The explanation is that the word "Ihwh" is never pronounced by the Jew. When he comes to it in his reading of his Old Testament, he reverently says "My Lord," and the English Version has copied this custom. Now let us show how wonderfully Astruc was thus able to obtain, in the year 1753, almost the same result that the latest analysts agree in finding. We can illustrate this by setting in parallel columns side by side the "Elohim" passages as indicated by Astruc, and the like given by Dr. Bacon, of Yale University, in his Genesis of Genesis. Here they are: Astruc's El hist in Genesis i. to xvii. Gen. i. i to ii. 3. Ch. V. I to the end. Ch. vi. 9-22. Ch. vii. 6-10; 19, 22, 24. Bacon's Elohist, now commonly called the Priestly Book, or up „ Gen i. i to ii. 4a. Ch. V. all except v. 29. Ch. vi. 9-22. Ch. vii. 6, 1 1-2 1, ex- cept 17b, 24. Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 159 Bacon — Continued Astruc — Continued Ch. viii. 1-19. Ch. ix. i-io, 12, i6f, 28f. Ch. xi. 10-26. Ch. xvii. 3-27. Ch. viii. 1-5, except 2b, also 13a, 14-19. Ch. ix. 1-17, 28f; also ch. X. la, 2-7, 20,22f, 31 f. Ch. xi. 10-27, 3if; also xii. 5; xiii. 6, 12; alsoxvi. la, 3, 15 f. Ch. xvii. 1-27. It can be easily seen that there is remarkable agreement in chapters i.-xvii. Then, however, serious variation enters ; but even this has proved to be extremely interesting, for we know now that just at chapter xvii. there begins the inser- tion of another quite different document, which is also peculiarly Elohistic. It uses the name "Elohim" until the third chapter of Exodus, but otherwise it is almost entirely different from the production of the Elohistic scribe who wrote Genesis chapter i.^ This leads us directly to the next stage in the tale. But ere we step forward let us note how this early correct instinct displayed by Astruc 1 The name "Priestly Document" or "P" is now given to the Foundation Document, for very simple reasons; while the term "Elohist" or "E" is reserved for the other document beginning in chapters xv.-xx. i6o Old Testament Criticism in his analysis disposes of the somewhat too common and unwise charge against the BibHcal students that "they never agree." The same gate or key to the right road has been used by every analyst since Astruc discovered it. 3. Of the Unravelling of the Two Earliest Sources The lesson learned from Astruc leads us to another; for the next important step was taken almost at once, although, strangely enough, the value of it was not realised for fifty years. Astruc had said in 1753 that he believed he could recognise thirteen different documents from which Moses had drawn his materials or paragraphs. In 1799 Professor Ilgen, of Jena, published a work claiming that there are seven- teen documents used in Genesis ; but all of them are the work of probably only three independent writers. Canon Cheyne states that Ilgen's three source- writers were: — (I.) The first scribe who uses the name "El" for God; (II.) the second who uses the same name "El"; and (III.) the first who uses the name "lah." Now, that is exactly the position of scientific opinion to- day; Ilgen's discovery of a hundred and ten years ago is in substance the present common view. Ilgen's work was the climax of what is often called the "first Documentary period" of Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now i6i investigation — a period when the Pentateuch was believed to be a combination of several documents. What drove men away from this position it is hard to tell. Possibly it was the traditional devotion to the idea that there must be, after all, only one great document. In any case, after Ilgen a new period began, which has been called the "Fragment Theory," and which sought to account for the phenomena by sup- posing that there was only one Mosaic work, beginning in Genesis i., which was enlarged afterwards by the addition of fragments written by many men at many times. For fifty years there went on the long contentions of De Wette, and a host of others, greater and lesser, ending finally with the brilliant but uncertain conjec- tures of Ewald ( 1 803-1 875). At last, in 1853, Professor Hupfeld, of Halle, published an epoch-making book on The Sources of Genesis and the Mode of their Combination ; and here at last, in some sense independently, Hupfeld made again the old discovery of Ilgen. He gave convincing proof that, mingled with some paragraphs taken from the old so-called "Elohist" of Genesis i., etc., and vSome from the lahwist which begins in Genesis ii. 4, there was a third writing singularly related to each of these and yet singularly different from either. This new Elohist is related, said Hupfeld, to "P" because of the use of the name Elohim until 1 62 Old Testament Criticism the beginning of Exodus; but the two are re- lated also in their coinmon tendency to form- Herrmann Hupfeld Dr. Theol., Professor of Old Testament Theology, Halle a/S. alism, or shall we say to pedagogic aims. In fact, both "E" and "P" are teachers; but they are teachers of religious theories, **E" seeking Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 163 to teach a new moral theory of religion, and ''P" seeking to teach a new ceremonial system. 4. Concerning the Two Law Codes Ere we can understand fully the matter of dating the documents, we must look at a part of the Hexateuch which we have scarcely men- tioned so far — namely, the Book of Deuteronomy. I. Deuteronomy's "Mosaic" origin was ques- tioned by Spinoza, as we have seen; but even before Spinoza our fellow-Englishman Hobbes, in his Leviathafi (1651), had laid his finger on this book as the starting-point of criticism of all Mosaicism. Hobbes doubted the story of the Lawgiver's death told in the book (c. xxxiv.). How, said he, could a man write down the story of his own death and burial? Going farther, he analysed the work into a "husk" enclosing a "kernel," which latter is cc. xii. to xxviii. Li 1805 De Wette published in Jena University his graduation Discourse on Deuteronomy, claim- ing that that book was written by some one different from the writer of the other books of the Pentateuch, and living after they did. De Wette claimed that Deuteronomy was com- posed in the time of Josiah, just before 600 B.C., when the Deuteronomic plan of having only one sanctuary was introduced and adopted. One teacher after another followed in support of 164 Old Testament Criticism De Wette's theory; until, just thirty years later, a new epoch in the particular field was opened. From Mr. Rischgitz WiLHELM Martin Leberecht De Wette Dr. Theol., Professor of Old Testament Theology, Berlin. In 1835 a remarkable work on The Old Jewish Festivals, with a Critical Study of the Legislation Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 165 of the Pentateuch, was issued by J. F. L. George, a young lecturer in the University of Berlin. Herein George proves that the laws of Deu- teronomy are evidently older than almost all other Pentateuchal laws; and he lays down propositions that ever since then have been seen more and more clearly to be the corner- stones of all criticism of Hebrew history. Says he: "In critical investigations of the Old Testament the Prophets must give the decis- ive light concerning date; for their dates are the most certain among all." And again: "The Prophets before Jeremiah refer often to the popular traditions that are the matter of the Pentateuch's stories; but no one of them ever mentions the Pentateuch's laws." Farther: "Jeremiah is the first writer who both knows and speaks of 'The Law.' The law that Jere- miah names is Deuteronomy, and he is depend- ent largely on Deuteronomy." Farther again: "It is the facts of the story of the development of 'priesthood' that have chiefly decided the date of Deuteronomy. The decision depends on the distinction between what we may call Xevitism' on the one hand, and the entirely peculiar character of Deuteronomy on the other." Once again: "Ezekiel stands clearly between Deuteronomy and Leviticus, for while Jere- miah and Deuteronomy know no distinction between the priests and the other Levites, 1 66 Old Testament Criticism Ezekiel, on the other hand, begins to set up such a distinction; yet Ezekiel knows nothing of the further distinction that sets a ' high priest above the priests,' as we find Leviticus prescribing." Thus George pointed to the clue for the critic- ism of Deuteronomy, and of the whole Pen- tateuch ; and, indeed, of all Hebrew history. The treatise of Riehm, of Halle (1854), on The Legislation of Moses in the La?td of Moab, simply drew out in full form and force the details of George's argument, and assigned the writing of Deuteronomy to the time of Manasseh, about 660 B.C. Closer investigation is at present being made by Steuernagcl, especially to discover how many hands took part in the formation of " D." 2. Very early in the study of the so-called foundation document (Genesis i., etc.) differ- ences of the original composers of various por- tions of it were suspected. The most striking fact was the peculiar appearance of Leviticus, chapters xvii. to xxvi. To-day this little book is recognised as dating from Ezekiel' s day, 600 to 500 B.C. Its sources were, of course, still older. The combined booklet must have been inserted into the Priestly work after the composition and publication of that work; and this cannot date earlier than the days of Nehemiah, about 450 B.C. Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 167 5. The Determination of the Dates The determination of the dates of the various documents troubled the workmen for long years. We have just seen that in 1835 George showed the laws of Deuteronomy to be older than most of the other legislation in the Pentateuch. And yet the book beginning in Genesis i. and con- taining those younger laws was the founda- tion document! How could these things be reconciled? We can feel to-day how natural it was to decide finally that the youngest source of all could in 400 B.C. be made the foundation docu- ment. But how was it discovered that "P" was really of so late a date as 450 B.C. ? We have here to observe a transformation of opinion that came about fifty years ago; its cause is of deep interest to us. I. Down to about the year 1866 even scholarly men could not overcome the old rever- ence towards the stories of Creation in Genesis. All seem to have felt especially unwilling to consider as of late origin that first Creation story of Genesis i., which begins so grandly with the sublime sentence: "AVhen at the first Elohim fashioned the heavens and the earth." And yet the legislation of "P," connected with that narrative, was the youngest set of laws in the Pentateuch. Here was a dilemma that troubled i68 Old Testament Criticism scholars as well as laity. What was to be done? What the earnest souls did was to say : "Then we must cut the knot. We must regard the Priestly narrative as old indeed; but we must separate from this the Priestly legisla- tion, and we must regard its laws for ceremonies as written by an entirely different and very late hand." The view was set up that some person who lived long hundreds of years after Moses had succeeded remarkably in adopting the ancient style of the narrator of Genesis i., etc. The narrative, it was felt, must be honoured as by far the oldest literature of the Hebrew race, and, therefore, worthy of entire credence; but the ceremonial rules for sanctuary, priesthood, and offerings must be counted as the very latest and the most richly refined methods of the people as they entered into the ways of Persian and Greek culture. Such was the situation of criticism from 1835 until about the year i860. 2. Singular to relate, the hand of an English- man lifted away the veil from the scholars' eyes. John William Colenso, the Anglican Missionary Bishop of Natal, in South Africa, did in this matter the essential service — somewhat un- wittingly, indeed, and yet very thoroughly. That service has made him deservedly one of the foremost leaders in Biblical criticism. His creative touch is on the study of the Old Testa- ment for all time. The splendid tribute to By kind per 711 ission Abraham Kuenen Dr. Theoi., Professor of Theology, University of Leiden. 169 lyo Old Testament Criticism Colenso given by Professor Abraham Kuenen, of Leyden, in the Introduction to his Historical Inquiry into the Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch, pubUshed in 1886 in EngHsh transla- tion by Professor Wicksteed, is an abiding utterance of thankful praise from an acknow- ledged representative of the whole world's best scholarship. We are far enough away from Colenso now to listen to Kuenen's estimate, and to echo in England the praise of him as a brave leader in our own land, and also as the path- finder for the whole science. Kuenen points out, and Cheyne shows also, how, among all the seven volumes of Colenso's magnum opus, Part I. was actually the most valuable of all, although it was the very part which brought down on him the bitterest condemnations. It showed, to quote Kuenen, "that just the very narratives of the foundation document 'P' were the piost helpless before criticism." And again: ''The difficulties on which Colenso dwelt, massed together as they were by him, and set together with such imperturbable sang froid and relent- less thoroughness" showed that "we had stopped halfway in our criticism of the founda- tion document, and must go right through with it before we could reach our goal. It was Colenso that let us have the proofs, not, indeed, clearly realised by himself, that the narratives in T' must be regarded as inaccurate, and By kind peymission of P'ofcssor Struck Karl David Ilgen Dr. Theol., Professor of Theology, Jena University. 171 1/2 Old Testament Criticism therefore late conceptions" of a time removed by long ages from the matters they describe. Therefore the narrative portions of the Penta- teuch were no longer to be torn away from the Levitical descriptions of ceremonial arrange- ments. Both had always been known to be in the same style; now both narratives and cere- monial rules were seen to be from the same time, and from the same school of writers: therefore, since the ceremonial parts of "P" were post-exilic, its narratives must be post- exilic also. "P" was thus recognised as being altogether the product of 450 B.C. Kuenen, Graf, and many another declared themselves of this opinion; and the thinking world has never gone back from the position that Colenso her- alded, and which his work in Natal from 1862 to 1879 compelled all students to adopt. 3. Meanwhile Professor Julius Wellhausen^ then of Greifswald, began to pubHsh (1876- 1877), in the Year-books for German Theology, his now long-famous articles concerning ''The Composition of the Hexateuch." To quote from the skilful monograph by Professor Gordon, of Montreal, in the Expositor for 1905: "Well- hausen applied the critical knife to the analysis of the text, dividing between the lahwist CJ')» the Elohist ('E')— i.e., Hupfeld's Second Elohist of Genesis xx., etc. — the Deuteronomist ('D'), and the Foundation Document (T'), with an Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 173 incisive keenness and skill and a reasoned judg- ment, which raised his articles at once to the rank of a standard work on the subject. " These articles have not all been turned into English, so that our countrymen have not yet had the right opportunity^ to feel their power, or, indeed, to deal at all adequately with them. Colenso did translate the earlier parts of them; but the complete task awaits younger hands. 4. Now, ere we proceed further, let it be set down that the approximate dates of the three sources we have described run thus, according to the fairly general consensus of all investi- gators : (i.) The lahwist ("J") must have been written about 900 B.C.; for it describes the com- ing of the Davidic monarchy, and it is at home in the sort of religion which Elijah and Elisha represent, and against which the great moral reforming crusade of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah was aimed. (ii.) The Elohist (^'E")— i.e., Hupfeld's se- cond user of the name Elohim — v/rites under the influence of the moral preaching and work of the prophet Amos and his comrades. Therefore '*E" was written between 750 and 700 B.C., at about the time those prophets lived and preached. (iii.) The Deuteronomist school ("D") is an immediate development of the Elohistic school, 174 Old Testament Testament and makes an advance upon the ideas of "E" with the same ultimate moral aims; therefore some of " D " dates from 700 B.C., or even a few years earlier. The " D " school must have gone on working all the way through the following century down to the Reformation of King Josiah in 620 B.C., which used "D" as its charter. (iv.) The oldest part of the book of Leviticus, cc. xvii. to XX vi., commonly known as the "Holi- ness Code" ("H"), was very probably produced by a contemporary of Ezekiel, and is therefore from a little after 600 B.C. (v.) Finally, the Priestly or Foundation Document ("P") is the Torah-Book, or the Book-of- Doctrine, brought with Nehemiah from Persia to Jerusalem in 450 B.C., and then and there immediately adopted as the charter of the new Jewish community. It became, therefore, the only sacred book, as it was the Charter- Doctrine-Book, of Judaism; and it remained so for perhaps a century. Then men saw that the older writings were too precious to be lost; so, to preserve them, they were incorporated in "P", bit by bit, as we have said, at the appro- priate points, just as we set books on a library shelf according to subjects. This incorporation was done before 300 B.C.; for about that date someone wrote the Books of Chronicles, as a new attempt to form a "Bible" with fresh and Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 175 greatly altered^ ideas of ceremonial duties; and Chronicles uses the combination of "P," '*J," and * ' E " as the material for this new Chronicle- Bible. Such, then, is the succession of the documents. 6. Of the Critical Construction of the Course of the History of Hebrew AND Jewish Religion I. In 1875 Bernhard Duhm published his Theology of the Prophets, which in a second title he called A Basis for Realising the Development of the History of the Religion of Israel. All scholars have recognised a classic in this little book. With large knowledge of Hebrew litera- ture and with fine philosophic skill, Duhm analysed each prophet's oracles, and character, and service; beginning with Amos, and following on with Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. Then he studies the legislation of Deuteronomy, and, following this, he examines Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Zechariah xii. ff., Jeremiah, and EzekieL Later he treats of the men ''of the Persian period," which included, he said, second Isaiah and various anonymous parts of the first ^E.g., the author of Chronicles makes David, and not Moses, the author of most of the Jewish ceremonies. He develops the priestly system far beyond " P, " yet he uses " P" as material. 176 Old Testament Criticism Isaiah ; alsoHaggai, Zechariah, Joel, and Malachi. In Duhm's judgment, Hebrew religion ended with Malachi in 500 B.C. What followed, in- cluding "P," was Judaism — not properly a part of Hebraism, but its heir. The finest fea- tures in the work of Duhm are, first, certainly his intimate acquaintance with each part of the literature discussed and his exact exposition of the nature of each writer; but he shows also singular skill in tracing the connection between each prophet and his successor. 2. The effect of Duhm's work was manifest at once. There used to be taught in books and university lectures before that date a so-called "Old Testament theology," which said some- what as follows: "We expound, first, Mosaism — i.e., Moses as inspired of God to set forth in the desert all the great features of the nature of God in Creation, in Providence, and in Revela- tion; also the features of man's nature, his covenant with God, his theocratic system of government, the Levitical priesthood, etc., etc., with all details of Mosaic worship in the sanctuary, its offerings, and its festivals." All this used to be set forth without any hint or thought of the idea of perspective, which is so essential in any true exhibition of the life of a people. "All those things of God and man," said the old method, "were revealed to Moses; scarcely one of them was ever known before Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 177 him; all were shown to him in complete system, and needing no addition or development for ever: if" — ah, here entered the difficulty — if ''only the people had kept the faith" thus once for all delivered. But they did not keep it; they fell. So the books and lectures described a new set of ideas called " Prophetism. " But this new prophetic revelation had again also no perspective, oddly enough, although it was given by many men and at different times. Mimhile dictii; the features of life in heaven and earth were the same for all those prophets, with no single hint of any development. Such was the customary instruction by theological Professors. The plan and theory may be seen, only slightly improved, in Oehler's Old Testament Theology, ptiblished 1873, and in the earlier editions of Schultz's work on the topic. All was a dead-level. Was it any wonder that religious teachers, trained on such food, had to see the people steadily slipping away out of their hands, away from their pastoral care and away from worship beneath the pulpits where such training influenced the sermons? 3. The new understanding came, and worked speedily a change; at first, indeed, a strangely inadequate change. It was realised that most of the regulations commonly called "law" were actually of later date than were the utterances of the prophets; so in some cases the curious lyS Old Testament Criticism result appeared that authors who had pubHshcd books on Old Testament theology on the old plan issued new editions that were simply the old books very curiously altered. The text was the same as before, save that Part L, on " Mosaism" — with all its dead-level of system — was set second in order as Part IL ; while the old Part IL, on "Prophetism" — with the other dead-level — now stood first, and was pro- claimed to be really Part L! Such teaching left unaltered all the lack of perspective, and per- petuated the mischievous absence of the idea of development. So tight was the grip of the old tradition; so blinding had it been to the mind. But Duhm's work has changed all these feeble methods. 4. Immediately after the issue of Duhm's Theology of the Prophets there appeared Well- hausen's History of Israel, the publication of which in the Encyclopcedia Britannica under the direction of Robertson Smith, awakened English theologians to the absolute necessity of diligently setting their house in order. And now it was that there arose the bitterest outcry against the "Higher Criticism." Platforms and pulpits cried out that the Higher Critics were doing two wrong things: they were altering the pages of Scripture, and they were teaching that the world was actuaUy created by "Evolution," that in- vention of Charles Darwin. To this day some Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 179 philosophers think to act wisely in denouncing Higher Criticism as based entirely on Hegel's teaching that history and development are the essential method and records of God's working. It is astonishing to hear these men ; for develop- ment goes on without regarding them, and even they move forward a little day by day. It may be noted here that the term "Higher Criticism" does not mean in any case a science by itself; it is simply the work that every student of any literature does and must do when he seeks to test the supposed course of the history of life as seen in literature. The outcry against the "Higher Critics" was in reality an effort to remain wedded to a conception of a history with- out any development in it. But that effort has passed away. There are now very few teachers who do not say plainly that the critical and exact idea of history which includes in it the fact of development is the only really living blessing both for teachers and for taught, both in church and school, and in the wider thinking of society. Men are everywhere demanding such a picture of the story of Providence. With singular eagerness, men are everywhere reading the history of Israel, of its people and its religion, as these are based on the new grasp of the Old Testament literature. Kittel's history, that of Stade, the short sketches by Addis, Marti, the present writer, and others, are widely read both i8o Old Testament Criticism by pew and by pulpit, in the school and in the home. The new story of the coming of Jesus, through the developments of Hebrew history, is now almost a universal possession. 7. Concerning other Books besides the Narratives Our task would not be finished unless we pointed to the steady progress of critical work in other departments of the Old Testament besides that of the Pentateuch. A few words on those other parts will suffice to indicate how thoroughly the task is faced, and how the same great ends on which we have been looking are still being attained. I. The narrative books beyond Deuteronomy have always been much in the mind of the analyst. The use of the word "Hexateuch" meant that Joshua was long ago recognised to be of exactly the same sort of origin as were the five Torah books, although Joshua had for ages been held by the Jews to be the work of some man of a second rank of inspiration as com- pared with the intimate manner of speech which God was believed to have allowed between Moses and himself. So said the "Sayings of the Fathers" in the Mishnah. But the argu- ments for inclusion of Joshua among the books of narrative that had to be studied apply with quite By k ind perm iss io n Karl Budde D. Theol., Professor of Theology, Marbury University iSl l82 Old Testament Criticism equal force to "Judges," the "Samuel" books, and the books of "Kmgs." The process of analysis which dealt with the former five or six books deals now with all these other five at the same time; the "J" "E," "D," and "P" documents are found in all eleven books, along with other material also. Budde has done masterly work in this direction. We must not suppose that all the material used was ob- tained from those four sources; for plainly in Genesis, chapter xiv. a source is used which differs from every one of the writings " J , " "E,""D,"and"P." 2. A new impulse to the critical study of the Old Testament has come from the science of Assyriology, which has been created within the past fifty years. We know now the litera- ture and history of a great and brilliant civilisa- tion that existed for ages in the lands of Tigris and the Euphrates, long before an Abraham can have been born or could emigrate thence. A remarkable code of laws was published by King Hammurabi 500 years before Abraham lived; and while such a civilisation rested, on the one hand, on previous millenniums of develop- ment, it provided, on the other hand, the basis for the far later rise and growth of Hebrew organisations. 3. It was wisely said by Canon Cheyne that, just when the lamented Professor W. Robertson Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 183 Smith died, criticism entered on an almost entirely new field. That field is the "Prophets " themselves, and the "Psalms," and much of the more especially Jewish writings. Many men have busied themselves with minute analy- sis of the Prophets' writings, seeking to find out exactly, where at all possible, what were the original and actual oracles of those men, and what have been the later additions. In this class of work no one has been more devotedly earnest than the venerable Canon Professor Cheyne himself. Weighted now with years and feeble health, he still commands his spirit with singular strength to the task of searching into these fi.elds. On "Isaiah" especially he and Duhm have toiled, so to speak, in the same harness and with wonderful results, both analy- tic and constructive. In Boston, U.S.A., also, a gifted student. Professor Kellner, has done fine service concerning Isaiah ; and more recently Mr. G. H. Box's Isaiah has put the very latest critical result within the reach of English readers. Professor Duhm has laid his hand upon the precious book of Jeremiah also, with the result that that prophet lives again before us in his own real song and cry, letting us feel what were the spiritual facts just as Judah was about to fall. But Duhm shows us also the commentaries that were written in ages afterwards on the edges of the old prophet's pages, and that were then 184 Old Testament Criticism incorporated with the original so closely that they had come to seem to be the prophet's own. Duhm lights up both the mind and devotion of the prophet, and also those of the Jewish com- mentators of the later centuries. And Duhm is not at all alone in such work; he is one of a host of workmen on this field both in England and abroad. 4. At the present moment all these operations seem in some sense secondary in value to dis- cussions of the ''Psalms." For it grows singu- larly evident that that collection of poems was really the Worship-Song of the people who stood around Jesus in the eventful and fateful first generations of our era. The story of our attainment to the present state of psalmody criticism is long; only recently several notable contributions have been made to the matter. Professor Cheyne's latest edition of his Psalms is so thoroughly different from that given in his Bampton Lectures of 1889 that it shows clearly a most marked change in the field dtiring the fairly short period intervening. The finest work by far — work that promises to be epoch-making, and not likely to be superseded for many a day — is the commentary on "Psalms" by Duhm, wherein he points out, as present in the Psalms, the very features of society as it lived and thought about the year a.d. i. The Pharisees and the Saints, their hatreds and their beautiful Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 185 devout ness — all are uttered in those poems. We are beginning to see that we have in our hands the thoughts and the utterances of the By k 171 d pe r m iss ion: Front /'; -of. Jfr llh an sen Heinrich Ewald Theol. Dr., Professor of Old Testament Theology, Gottingen actual audience to whom John preached ''Re- pent," to whom Jesus spoke his "Comfort," and to whom Paul preached so eloquently. iS6 Old Testament Criticism 5. And now our closing word is that Old Testament criticism has been so successful, and so infectious through its success, that to-day at last the students of the New Testament have set diligently about their duty and task of applying the same methods to the analysis of the Gospels and of the Epistles. The conse- quence is that these New Testament students are disclosing the need of a far more thorough acquaintance with the literature of the people among whom the New Testament events were accomplished. Therefore the demand is be- coming stringent for closer study of every sort of record coming from the last stages of what must be called the Old Testament territory. The knowledge of Psalms, both those in the "David" books and those in the "Solomon" book ; knowledge also of the books of "Wisdom, " of those inside the Old Testament and those without it; acquaintance with the "Pseud- epigraphs" such as "Ezra," "Daniel," "Enoch" and the Hebrew original of the "Revelation of John" — all this is now being sought eagerly; and it is seen that only from the critical student of the Old Testament are the answers to be obtained. Great areas for investigation are yet unmentioned — to wit, first, the "Targums," those Jewish interpretations of the Scriptures in the Aramaic tongue spoken in Palestine about A.D. i; secondly, also the Mishnah and its legal Modern Criticism from Astruc till Now 187 interpretations and enlargements of the Mosaic Ethics. Nor are these all the tasks that now occupy the Old Testament critic or student. For it grows more and more evident that much of the speech and the thinking of the people of the New Testament was simply a continuation of the vocabulary and the mind of centuries of pre-Christian Jews. Has not Schiirer just told us how the New Testament Greek was the ordinary speech of the Jews in Egypt through one to four hundred years B.C.? Therefore the Old Testament workman must now be more diligent than ever, busy providing in- struction in all these matters for his comrade students of the New Testament Scriptures. Old Testament criticism has accomplished a wonderful work in its primary field; then it has inspired New Testament criticism; and that again has bidden the Old Testament critical student start on a new career, as brilliant in its promise as was ever its older service. Such is the history of Old Testament Criticism. BIBLIOGRAPHY I. — The Scientific Encyclopedias are I. The Jewish, 12 vols.; 2. The Bihlica, 4 vols.; 3. The New Bible Dictionary, 5 vols.; also 4. Herzogs Real-Encydopedie, and 5. The Britannica, just about to be issued in new editions. II. — History of Criticism 1. Cheyne's Founders of Old Testament Criticism. 1893. 2. Wellhausen's Sketch in Bleek' s Einleitnng. 1878. 3. Diestel, Geschichte d. Alien Testaments. 1869. 4. Richard Simon, Histoire Critique dti V. Testament. 1685. 5. See also Addis's Documents; Moore in Bacon's Genesis; and the various Introductions: Driver's, ist ed., 1891; Bennett's, 1891; Strack's, 1906; Reuss's Geschichte d. Heiligen Schriften, 1890; Swete's Septuagint, 1902. III. — Discussions of Special Problems I . Spinoza, Tractatus theologico-politicus. Tr. Elwes, 1883. 189 190 Bibliography 2. Spencer, De legihiis Hebrceoriim ritualihus. 1685. 3. Astruc, Conjectures stir . . . Genese. 1753. 4. Geddes, Bible Translated, 1792; Critical Remarks, 1800. 5. Ilgen, Urkunden d. Jenisalemischeft Arcliivs. 1798. 6. De Wette, Detiteronominm, 1805; Beitrdge sur Einleitnng, 1806; Einleitung i7i d. A. T., ist ed., 1817. 7. Ysitkes Biblische Theologie. Berlin, 1835. 8. George, Die Jildischen Feste u. Kritik d. Gesetzgebung, 1835. 9. Ewald's Eifileitiing in d. Geschichte d. Volkes Israel. 3ded., 1864, perhaps the greatest of his host of works. 10. }lVi\)ic\d'^Quellen d. Genesis. 1853. 11. Riehm, Die Gesetzgebung Mosis im Lande Sinai. Gotha, 1854. 12. Colenso, The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined. Seven volumes, from 1862 onwards. 13. Graf, Die geschichtlichen Bilcher d. A. T.; (si) Genesis, etc.; (h) Chronik. 1865. 14. Kuenen, Onderzoek naar het ontstaan en de verzameling van de boeken des 0. Verbonds. 1885. Tr. Wicksteed, 1886. 15. Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexa- teuchs. 1885. Treatises on Samuel, Pharisees and Sadducees, The Smaller Prophets, History of Israel (translated) . Bibliography 191 16. Budde, Die Bilcher Richter u. Samuel. 1890. 17. Addis, The Documents of the Ilexateuch. 1892. 18. Bacon, Genesis; Triple Tradition of Exo- dus. 1893-4. 19. Holzinger, Einleitung in den Hexateuch. 1893. 20. Kautzsch, History of 0. T. Literature. Tr. Taylor, 1898. IV. — Serviceable Texts 1 . The Polychrome Bible. English : Leviticus, Joshua, Judges, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Psalms; Hebrew of the same, and Genesis, Numbers, Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, Ezra- Nehemiah, Chronicles. In each, the original sources are printed in different colours. 2. Hexateuch, Introduction by Carpenter and Battersby. 1900. 3. Kit t el edits Biblia Hebraica. A set of critical texts. 4. Field's Hexapla of Origen. Clarendon Press, 1875. 5. Lagarde's Lucianic Text of the Septnagint. 1883. Lagarde's many works bear on construc- tion of a critical Greek text of the O. T., preparatory to a critical Hebrew text. V. — Commentaries To name the many excellent commentaries were impossible. Cheyne's Isaiah, and Box's 192 Bibliography also, and Driver's Samuel are among the best. In the '' International " Series and the "Century " Series are some good volumes. VI. — On History 1. Zunz, Die Gottesdienstlichen Vortrdge der J lid en. 1832. 2. Herzfeld's Geschichte des Volkes Israel. 1863. 3. Graetz's Geschichte der Jtiden. Tr. Miss Lowy. 1 89 1. 4. Stade, Geschichte des Volkes Israel. 1887-9. 5. Kittel, History of the Hebrews. Tr. Tay- lor. 1895. 6. W. Robertson Smith, The Old Testament i?i the Jewish Church, 1892; Prophets of Israel, 1895. 7. Wellhausen, see above. 8. Duhm, Theologie der Propheteji, als Grnnd- lage fur d. Entwickelungs geschichte d. Israeli- tischen Religion. 1875. 9. Cheyne, Jewish Religious Life After the Exile. 1898. 10. Addis, Hebrew Religion. 1906. 11. Armstrong's translation of Knappert's Religion of Israel. 12. Marti's Religioji of the Old Testament. 13. Cornill's Prophets of Israel. 14. The present author's Old Testament Theo- logy, I. and II. ; Hints on Old Testament Theology; Bibliography 193 Hebrew Theology and Ethics; and Abraham and the Patriarchal Age. VI I. — On the General History of Religion AND Christianity W. R. Smith's Religion of the Semites; Dill's Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aiireliiis, and I71 the Last Century of the Western Empire; Glover's Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire; Hase's Kirchengeschichte; Har- nack's History of Doctrine; Picton's Man and the Bible. INDEX Page Aben Ezra 122, 133, 136 Abraham 19 ff., 30, 87 ff., 182 Addis 138, 179 Akiba 115 Amoraim 116 Amos 16 ff., 29, 33, 40, 173 ff. Annotators 64 ff. Aquila 98 Aramaic 80 ff., 122, 133, 140, 186 Ark 49 ff., 54 ff., 74 Assyria 16, 65, 182 Astruc 137, 146, 149, 154, 157 ff. Augustine 105 Authorised texts 99 Babylon 42 ff., 74 ff., no ff., 116 ff. Bacon 49, 138, 158 ff. Benevolence 90 ff. Bible Society 148 Bibliolatry 98 Blood-descent 88 Box 38, 183 Budde 182 Buxtorfs 143 ff- Canon 83 ff., 91, 95, 99 ff., 113 ff. Castellus I43 Celsus 93 ff- Ceremonial 168 ff., 174 Cheyne 38, 138, 182 ff. Christ 87, 93, III ff. Christianity.. .3 ff., 12, 83, 88 ff., 102 ff., in ff., 117 ff., 128, 129, 139 Chronicles .,. 1 10, 1 74 ff . Clement 93, 96 195 196 Index Page Colenso 87, 154, 168 ff. Comfort-poem 42 ff. Complutensian 140 Concordance 143 Creation 167 ff. Cyrus 43 David 19, 60, 78, 173, 175, 186 Decalogue 20 ff., 25, 30, 34, 81, 115 Deutero-Isaiah 42 ff., 74 Deuteronomy 26 ff., 41 ff., 133, 163 ff., 173, 180 Dill 92 Dittography 55 Documentary hypothesis 160 Documents, original 14, 48 ff., 153 ff., 172 ff. Dragoman 81 Driver 29 ff. ECCLESIASTICISM 90 ff., I02 ff. Economics 90 ff. Egypt 16, 75, 93, 100, 120, 124, 187 Elders 108 TT Ipc) CO r* T T "2 Elohist '. '. '. '.'.'.'.'.'.6 ff.i 15, 19 ff., 33, 60 ff.',' 1 57 ff.', 172 ff. El and Elohim 22, 79, 158 ff., 161, 173 English Polyglot I40 ff . Evolution . .' 1 78 ff . Ewald 39, 152, 161 Exile 10, 41 ff., 74, 172 Exodus 19, 28. 48 ff. Exposition 1 16 ff., 132 Ezekiel 41, 61, 165 ff., 174 ff. Ezra 108, 1 10, 134, 186 Foundation-Document 157 ff., 166 ff. Fragmentary hypothesis 161 France 121, 126 ff., 140, 154, 157 Francke 144 Fuerst 144, 151 Gamaliel 1 115 Gamaliel II 1 15 Gaonim no, 119, 120 Geddes 138, 145 Index 197 Page Gemara no Genesis. . 14 ft"., 22, 26, 48 ft"., 59, 60, 82, 145, 149, 157 ft'., 166 ft., 182 George 165 ft. Germany 121, 126 ft., 144, 153, 160, 165 ft., 172 Gesenius 151 Glass 144 Glosses 37, 63 ft. Glover 92 ff . Gnostics 87 ff . , 96 Gospels .84 ff., 112, 186 Graetz 86, 90, 107 ff., 126 Grammar 151, 153 Greeks 55, y^ ft., 75, 93, 97 ff. Hagada , 1 18, 123 ff. Hagar 19, 20 Halacha 119 Hammurabi 182 Harnack 92, 94, 95, loi ff. Hase 102 Hebraism 176 Hegel 149, 179 Hexapla 97 ff- Hexateuch 138 ff., 170, 180 Higher Criticism 1 78 ff . High Priest 48, 56 ff., 166 Hillel 115 History and Historical Method 132, 135 ff., 142 ff., 149, 165, 175 ff. Hobbes 142, 163 Holiness Code 41 ff., 174 Holland 129, 135, 157 Hosea , 16, 29 ff., 40, 175 Hupfeld 161 ff., 173 Iahweh 15, 17 ff., 28 ff., 44, 49, 53, 61, 66 ff., 71, 74, 79, 87 ff., Ill, 158, 160 lahwist and lahwistic 6 ff., 14 ff., 19, 29, 60, 161, 172 Ilgen 160 ff. Immortality yj Imperial Christianity 102 ff., 117 ff. Incense-altar 52 ff. 198 Index Page Isaiah 16, 23, 29 ff., 36 ff., 42 ff., 65, 74, 175, 183 Islam 119 ff., 124 Jabne or Jamnia 113 Jeremiah 64 ff., 165, 175, 183 ff. Jerome 99 ff- Jerusalem 65 ff., 81, 108 ff., 174 Jesus 5,9ff.,83ff., Ill ff., 139, 180, 184 Jewish Encyclopaedia 125, 128, 157 Job 47 Joshua 133. 180 Josiah 29, 41, 163, 174 Judah, the Prince 115 Judah 43, 65, 183 Judaism 3, 12, 57, 59, 75.77. 88 ff., 98, 103, 106 ff., 115, 120, 128, 174 ff. Judges 133. 182 Kabbala 122 ff. Kallir no Kant 40. 149 Karaism 120 Kellner 183 Kimchi family , 123 Kings 14, 26, 182 Kittel 179 Kostlin 139 Kuenen 170 ff- Lagarde 153 Lamentations 117 Latin text 100 ff., 104 ff. Law. 75. 94. I04. no, 131, 145, 163 ff., 175 ff. Lessing 128 Levites 41. 48, I45, 176 Leviticus 41 ff., 165 ff., 174 Lexicons 151 ff- Linguistic study 142 ff.,151 ff. Lord 87, III Lower Criticism 58, 91 Lowth 138 Lucian n . 94 Index 199 Pace Luther 12, 123, 126, 136, 139 ff. Lyra • • . 126 Maccabean 78 Maimonides 122 ff. Manasseh 27 Marcion 93 ff., 98 Mark 85 Marti I79 Masorah 1 18 ff. Matthew 83 ff. Melanchthon 126 Mendelssohn 128 Micah 16, 175 Michaelis 144 Midrashim 117, 124 Miracles 132 Mishna, or Mishnah no, 118 ff., 120, 127, iSo, 186 Morality 8, 17 ff., 25 ff., no, 114 Mosaic Doctrine . .48, 59 ff., 80 ff., 84, iioff., 116, 121, 125, 163 ff., 174, 176 ff. Moses. . . 20 ff., 61, 80, 83, 98, 133, 140 ff., 163, 176, 180 Mysticism 122 ff. Nathan der Weise 128 Nehemiah 3, 48, 59 ^m 108, 166, 174 New Testament 13. 94. 104. 148, 186 ff. Oehler 177 Old Testament Theology 176 ff. Olshausen i53 Origen n, 92 ff., 96 ff., 103 ff. Oxford 136, 151 Palestine 16, 19, 22, 75, 80 ff., 94, 100, no ff., 116 ff., 186 Paris Polyglot 140 Paul . . . .' 75, 86 ff., 94, 1 12, 185 Pentateuch 14-49. 59 ff- ^>3. 88, 89, 115, 127, 133, 140 ff., 146, 161, 165 ff., 180 Pfleiderer 151 Pharisees 78. 83, 112 ff., 184 Picton 98, 148 Pietists 144 200 Index Page Pillar-passages 83 "Piuts" 121 Polyglots 140 ff. Poor 90 ff. Priestly Document 48 ff., 59 ff., 74, 156 ff., 166 ff., 174 Prophets.. . 16 ff., 30, 34 ff., 60, 64 ft"., 108, 131, 165, 173 ff., 183 ff. Proverbs 76, 1 86 Psalms 76 ff., 183 ff., 186 Pseudepigraphs 186 Pumbeditha 116 Quotations 85 ff . Rabbinical Bible 122, 140 Rabbis no, 123, 128, 133, 140 Rashi 123, 126 Reading of the Bible 148, 179 Reformers and Reformation 27 ff., 102, 106 ff., 123, I26ff., I36ff. Religion of the Semites 145 Renaissance 12, 121, 136, 148 Rcuchlin 123, 126 ff. Riehm 166 Rufinus 99 ff. Saadia 120 Sadducees 78, 1 14 Sadoc 114 Saints 77 ff., 184 Samuel 133, 188 Sanhedrin 1 10, 1 13 Sayings of the Fathers 112, 180 Schmiedel 11, 84 Schultz 177 Schiirer 187 Scythians 64 ff. Seboraim 1 1 7 ff . Septuagint 55 ff., 82,98 ff. Servant or slave-songs 43 ff., 74 Shammai 115 vSherira no Simon, Richard 140 ff., 145 Sinai 21, 53, 61 Index 201 Page Sirach 76 Smith, W. R 145, 154, 178, 183 vSolomon 76 ff . , 1 86 Song of Songs 113 Spain Ill, 119, 121, 124 ff., 140 Spencer 145 Spinoza .... 12, 107, 123, 129 ff., 137 ff., 141, 144 ff., 151, 163 Stade 151, 179 Steuernagel 166 Sura 1 16, 120 Symmachus 98 Synagogue 106 ff., 116 ff., 127 Tabernacle 49 ff. Talmud 126 ff. Tanchuma 116 Tannaim 114 Targum 81 ff., 122, 133, 186 Tertullian 93, 96 Theodotion 98 Tiberias 116 Torah 48, 59 ff., 82, 112 ff., 174, 180 Torquemada 125 Trade 75 Tribalism 17,25 Universities no, 116, 119 ff. Vatke 1 49 Versifying Schools no, 121 Vowel-signs 118, 136 Vulgate 1 01, 104 ff. Walton 140 ff. Warburton 138 Wellhausen 172, 178 De Wette 154, 161, 163 Wisdom 75, 186 Word of God 1 34 Zadokites 41 Zion 66 Zunz 1 06 ff . A History of the Sciences ^ Hitherto there have been few, if any, really popular works touching the historical growth of the various great branches of knowledge. The ordinary primer leaves unexploited the deep human interest which belongs to the sciences as contributing to progress and civilization, and calling into play the faculties of many of the finest minds. Something more attractive is wanted. 11 The above need in literature has now been met. Each volume in The History of Sciences is written by an expert in the given subject, and by one who has studied the history as well as the conclusions of his own branch of science. The mono- graphs deal briefly with the myths or fallacies which preceded the development of the given science, or include biographical data of the great discoverers. Consider- ation is given to the social and political conditions and to the attitudes of rulers Q. P. Putnam's Sons New York London A History of the Sciences and statesmen in furthering or in hindering the progress of the given science. The volumes record the important practical application of the given science to the arts and life of civilized mankind, and also contain a carefully-edited bibliograph}^ of the subject. Each volume contains from twelve to sixteen carefully-prepared illus- trations, including portraits of celebrated discoverers, many from originals not hither- to reproduced, and explanatory views and diagrams. The series as planned should cover in outline the whole sphere of human knowledge. ^ Science is to be viewed as a product of human endeavor and mental discipline, rather than taken in its purely objective reference to facts. The essential purpose has been to present as far as practicable the historical origins of important dis- coveries, also to indicate the practical utility cf the sciences to human life. Q. P. Putnam's Sons New York London A History of the Sciences Each volume is adequately illustrated, attractively printed, and substantially bound. i6mo. Each, net^ '/^ cents. By mail, S_S cents. 12 illustrations History of Astronomy By George Forbes, M.A., F.R.S., iVl.Inst. C.E. • Formerly Professor of Natural Philosophy, Anderson's Colleg'e, Glasgow I thank you for the copy of Forbes's History of Astononiy received. I have run it over, and think it very good indeed. The plan seems excellent, and I would say the same of your general plan of a series of brief histories of the various branches of science. The time appears to be ripe for such a series, and if all the contributions are as good as Prof. Forbes's, the book will deserve a wide circulation, and will prove very useful to a large class of readers. — Extract from a letter received from Garrett P. Serviss, B. S. History of Chemistry By Sir Edward Thorpe, C.B., LL.D., F.R.S. Author of "Essays in Historical Chemistry," '• Humphry Davy: Poet and Philosopher," "Joseph Priestley," etc. 12 illustrations. T700 vols. Vol. I — circa 2000 B. C. to 18^0 A.D. Vol. II—iSjo A.B. to date The author traces the evolution of intellectual thought in the progress of chemical investigation, recognizing the various points of view of the different ages, giving due credit even to the ancients. It has been necessary to curtail many parts of the History, to lay before the reader in unlimited space enough about each age to illustrate its tone and spirit, the ideals of the workers, the gradual addition of new points of view and of new means of investigation. The History of Old Testament Criticism By Archibald Duff Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Theology in the United College, Bradford The author sets forth the critical views of the Hebrews con- cerning their own literature, the early Christian treatment of the Old Testament, criticism by the Jewish rabbis, and criti- cibm from Spinoza to Astruc, and from Astruc until the present. In Preparation The History of Geography. By Dr. John Scott Keltie, F.R.G.S., F.S.A.. Hon. Mem. Geographical Societies of Paris, Berlin, Rome, Brussels, Amsterdam, Geneva, etc. The History of Geology. By Horace B. Woodward, F.R.S., F.G.S., Assistar.t Director of Geological Survey of England and Wales. The History of Anthropology. By A. C. Haddon, M.A., Sc.D., F.R.S., Lecturer in Ethnology, Cambridge and London. The History of New Testament Criticism. By F. C. ConybeaRE, M.A., late Fellow and Praelector of Univ. Coll., Oxford ; Fellow of the British Academy; Doctor of Theology, honoris causa, of Giessen ; Officer d'Academie. Further volumes are in plan on the following subjects: Mathematics and Mechanics — Molecular Physics, Heat, Light, and Electricity — Human Physiology, Embryology, and Heredity — Acoustics, Harmonics, and the Physiology of Hearing, together with Optics, Chromatics, and Physiology of Seeing — Psychology, Analytic, Comparative, and Experimental — Sociology and Economics — Ethics — Comparative Philology — Criticism, Historical Research, and Legends — Com- parative Mythology and the Science of Religions — The Criticism of Ecclesiastical Institutions — Culture, Moral and Intellectual, as Reflected in Imaginative Literature and in the Fine Arts — Logic — Philosophy — Education. New York Q. P. Putnam's SOHS London Date Due Qtf <»»»'^ l^u^ ^ >/ Mix. ;!; h* 9 - ;■' ^ 15 ^ m ^-^"^ '5:^ r' ',!B ^t BSllbO D85 History of Old Testament criticism Princeton Theological Semlnary-Speer Library "^t , ' ^ " i » L ,t,i, p,ii 1 ,i5 .=i't !i'it«J.'j ,1 t5> ''. ,' I'll SJ; ~E '$'1 ■' ; ; 'v ;,;-;,' .'■,.;■!, Y ■'!<. ,\ ■ll' ';: *;J;f;ii''f a ■J'^"'' M {■i^dii^