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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

The Negative Criticism
AND
The Old Testament.

AN ALL ABOUND SURVEY OF THE NEGATIVE CRITICISM FROM
THE ORTHODOX POINT OF VIEW, WITH SOME
PARTICULAR EBFEEBNOB TO
CHBTNB'B "FOUNDERS OF OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM."

BY
THEODORE E. SCHMAUK.
LEBANON,
PENNSYLVANIA,
^LDUS COnPANY, Publishers,
1894-

COPTRIOHT, 1894.
By theodobe e. sohmatjk.

Preface.
THE beginning of this book is Biblical. The
second part is Biblical and historical.
The third partis prevailingly philosophical.
The last part is prevailingly literary and
archaeological. A hurried reader should glance through
chapters two, one, flre, fifteen and sixteen,
and at the literary methods of the new criti
cism, as detailed in chapter twenty-one and
onwards. The trained reader may appreciate
the attempt to delineate the negative critical
mental type in chapters seventeen to twenty-
two, in which chiefly the references to Cheyne
occur. One wishing to weigh dry facts will
find them largely in the front part, where
there has been great indebtedness to Prof. W.
J. Beecher.
There is a sequence running throughout.
The series of external, is followed by the se
ries of internal evidence. This leads to the
series of defective motivs underlying the
theory, and finally to the series of defective
means through which the theory manifests
itself.

? ar\d ?
q^hc ©Id f Gstement.

INTRODUCTION.

Brief View of Features of the Negative Criticism.
Page 9.
Brief View of the Effects of the Negative Criticism.
Page 11
Brief View of the Methods of the Negative Criticism.
Page 13.
Brief View of the Movement as Characteristic of the Age.
Page 16.
Brief View of the Literature and History of the Negative Crit-
' icism.
Page 17.
Brief View of the Causes, Character, Success of the Neoative
Movement. Page 20.
Preliminary Argument in Oeneral on the Value of Circum
stantial Evidence in the Case.
Page 29.

The Argument.
CHAPTER I.
AU the Positive Evidence of the Old Testament Itself is against
the Negative Theory.
Page 35.
CHAPTER II.
AU the Positive Evidence of the New Testament is against the
Negative Theory.
Page 47.
CHAPTER III.
The Evidence of Ancient Jewish and Christian History is
against the Negative Theory.
Page 51
CHAPTER IV.
The Evidence of the Later Historical Books of the Old Testa
ment does not Warrant the Negative Conclusions.
Page 66
CHAPTER V.
It is against the Negative Theory that it Makes all Israel's Lit
erature Spring fromthe Period of the
Nation's Decline and Fall.
Page 62
CHAPTER VI.
The Principal Argument of the Negative Theory to Establish
This Post-Exilian Authorship, is Inconclusive.
Page 68
CHAPTER VII.
The Ground on which this Argument Rests is Contradicted by
the Facts.
Page 74
CHAPTER VIII.
The Negative Theory Fails to Explain Other Cognate Facts:—
The Origin of the Sacrificial Code.
Page 80

6 CHAPTER IX.
The Negative Theory Fails to Fit Deuteronomy into the Time
of Josiah, and Leviticus into the Time of Ezra.
Page 85
CHAPTER X.
The Negative Theory Fails to Explain the Presence of Many
Regulations that are Meaningless on its own Hypothesis.
Page 88
CHAPTER XI.
The Negative Theory Fails to Present a Plausible View of the
Personality of Moses.
Page 91
CHAPTER XII.
The Negative Theory Contradicts itself in Explaining its
Term Mosaic.
Page 93
CHAPTER XIII.
The Negative Theory Fails to Explain the Rise of the Prophets.
Page 96
CHAPTER XIV.
The Negative Theory Forces the Words of the Prophets.
Page 99
CHAPTER XV.
The' Negative Theory Assumes that the Mosaic Lam was Smug
gled in Twice .
Page 102
CHAPTER XVI.
The Negative Theory Assumes a Pious Fraud on the Part of
Old Testament Writers.
Page UI
CHAPTER XVII,
The Negative Theory is Essentially a Radical one, and Toler
ates No Half- Way Measures.
Page 119

CHAPTER XVIII.
The Negative Theory's Secret Strength is a Desire to Deny the
Supernatural .
Page 129
CHAPTER XIX.
The Conclusions of the Negative Theory Affect the Authority
of our Lord's Teaching.
Page 199
, CHAPTER XX.
The Negative Tlieory Throws Overboard all External q,nd Tra
ditional Evidence.
Page 144
CHAPTER XXI.
The Reasoning of the Negative Criticism is not Freed from the
Weakness of Its Own Mental Type.
Page 150
CHAPTER XXII.
The whole Theory of the Pentateuch is, with one exception, De
pendent entirely upon Internal Evidence.
Page 165
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Negative Theory is Obliged to Introduce a large number of
Reckless Internal Assumptions. Redactions and
Interpolations.
It Fails to Show why the Redactors are not Consistent.
Yet It Rejects Pentateuchal Legislation on the ground of Incon
sistencies. Page 159
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Negative Theory Forces a number of Passages to Make
Them Agree with its Hypothesis.
Page 168
CHAPTER XXV.
The Negative Theory Needlessly Assumes that Writings are
Non-Authentic .
Page 171

CHAPTER XXVI.
The Negative Theory Assumes that the Same Things Will No
Happen Twice, or be Described Over Again .
Page 177.
CHAPTER XXVII.
The Negative Theory Assumes that a Writing which can be
Decomposed into Two Narratives is a Compilation.
Page 182.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Negative Theory Assumes that Similarity of Style Assures
Identity of Authorship.
Page 185.
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Negative Theory Assumes that Dissimilar Style assures
Diverse Authorship. The Use of Analogy, and the
Value of Internal Literary Principles.
Page 189.
CHAPTER XXX.
The Negative Theory fails to note the force of the argument
from General Internal Consistency.
Page 196.
CHAPTER XXXI.
The Negative Theory fails to note the drift of the argument
from Subject, Style, Thought, Constructions and Words.
Page 200.
CHAPTER XXXII.
The Negative Theory Assumes a Primitive Rudeness in the Age
of the Exodus, which History Now Disproves.
Page 206
CHAPTER XXXIII.
The Post-Exilian Theory is improbable in view of discoveries in
Egyptology and Assyriology, and in view of the Scenes
Topography and Characters of the Pentateuch.
Page 212-232

The Negative Criticism
and
The Old Testament.

npHB negative criticism claims that the religion of
the Old Testament is an evolution, not a reve
lation. Like all other religions, it was at first polytheis
tic and idolatrous. Beginning as an altogether natural
product of the Hebrew mind, it developed in slow and
gradual stages, passing into the pure monotheism of the
prophets, and culminating in the complex legal cere
monial of the priestly law. It has been left to this era
of Darwin to discover that the religion of Jehovah, like
all other religions, was a historical development, built
up on the principle of historic evolution, of unconscious
selection, of the survival of the fittest.
The Old Testament writings, then, as we have been
taught to know them, do not convey a correct impres
sion of the Old Testament religion. They reverse all the
great facts. Israel's laws, festivals, institutions, sacri-

10 IKTRODirCTORTf.
floes and worship were a growth of ages, arriving at
completeness only in the last days of the Old Testament.
They were not revealed directly and completely in a pat
tern which God showed Moses on the Mount; nor his
torically established in actual fact, as the record says
they were.
So the teaching of Chri.stianity that the law came by
Moses, needs to be revised. The negative criticism be
lieves that the complete Old Testament Law, in its per
fection, was not revealed by God to Moses at the very
beginning of Israel's history. TheKueHtaen^Wellhausen
hypothesis postulates as a fundamental fact that Israel
was slowly lifted from the polytheism of its heathen
neighbors through the power of the prophets, and passed
into the stage of ritualistic formalism at the late date
when the Old Testament record received its present
shape. The hypothesis postulates that the Old Testa
ment Law, being no exception to the universal law of
natural development, was a gradual growth, first the
blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear.
Only the blade is Mosaic. The ear appeared in the
days of Klngirbsiah. The full corn was ripened in the
school of Ezra. He labelled the finished ear "Mosaic,"
and imparted an antique appearance to the whole. He did
this by shelling the grains from the original cob, brown
ing the young corns of his own day with archaic dye,
bleaching the older ones where needed, and then re-ar
ranging the whole in a new and artificial setting.
It is this ingeniously arranged mosaic that constitutes

INTRODUCTORY. 11
the Old Testament, as we now have it. Ezra's work was
so cleverly done that the production bears a surprisingly
real appearance of historical actuality, and the world for
all these centuries has taken it for such, Christ himself
not disturbing the belief.
Though certain facts have always been perplexing to
Old Testament students, it was not until the negative
criticism instituted a thorough-going analysis, on scien
tific prinoiples,of the various incongruous corns, that the
surprising fact came to light, that the greater part of the
Pentateuch is a post-exilian writing; that the whole Old
Testament is a series of artificially arranged, not of nat
urally succeeding strata; and that the history of the
children of Israel is very different from the traditional
view of it. The great task before the negative criticism
at the present moment, is the reconstruction of the Old
Testament. Ezra's cob must be re-shelled, each com
picked out, examined, and put back into its natural ar
rangement, on the theory that the law came not by Mo
ses, but ripened subsequently to the Babylonian exile.
TpHE theory introduces a revolution into He-
brew history. Abraham was a mythical figure.
Moses wrote no laws nor history; "David, no psalms; Sol-
omon, no proverbs. The plagues did not descend mirac-
ulously'upon the land of Egypt. The pillar of flre did
not precede the journeying Israelite. The fire and thun
der and quaking of Sinai, and God's appearance with
speech unto Moses are rhetorical imagery. The Lord did
not command the construction of a tabernacle. The latter

13 INTRODTTCTORY.
is itself an entirely fictitious figment of the age of Ezra,
being simply the reflex of the temple of Solomon trans
ported back to those early times. For, the historical and
prophetical books know nothing of a central and only
place of worship, and the Jehovist document sanctions
many altars. There is no trace of sin and guilt offerings in
the Old Testament, before Ezekiel. Consequently there is
no preflguring of Christ. There is no Passover, no day
of Atonement, no Sabbath and Jubilee years, before the
later days. In the earliest period there was no distinction
between the clergy and the laity ; no Aaron by the side
of Moses. Everybody might sacrifice. There was a
tribe of Levi, but it perished before the Judges. The
High Priest is a personage brought in by the priestly
code whose importance is entirely foreign to the remain
der of the Old Testament. The divine and supernatural
is eliminated, according to the radical school of critics ;
while the conservative school practically identifies inspi-
ration with natural genius, or holds that the Word of
God came to the Old Testament writers as it comes to
all contemplative minds in all ages, even now yet, by
immediate mystical communion. ' The Old Testament
is inspired as Homer and Shakespeare are !
It these things be so, it follows that God's Law, as a
dispensation preparatory to the coming of the Gospel, is
not the basis of all of Israel's religious history from
Exodus to Malachi ; and that the promise and prophecy
and doctrine of a Redeemer and of Redemption are not
(I Verbum Dei.— Horton.)

INTRODUCTORT. 13
the sum and substance, the sole and sufloient reason of
existence for the Old Testament. On the other hand,
these writings receive "a basis of naturalness and of ab
solute rationality," and are brought into touch with
"universal history and the religious consciousness of the
race." They are inspired, only more so, as the other sa
cred writings of the world are, as are the religions of
Egypt, and Greece, and Rome.
tT is well to have in view the working of the
Methods by which the negative criticism came to
conclude that its most important Old Testament writer,
Ezra; a sort of Moses redwivus. living a thousand years
later than the time of the original Moses, took the old
traditions and documents and dressed them up in the in
terests of his own age, whilst clothing them in the garb
of antiquity, and presenting them as the original religion
of Israel to the Jewish congregation of his own time and
to posterity.
In the first place the critics have made a literary anal
ysis of the style and diction and range of ideas in the
various books. They have compared the results of their
dissection, and have placed similar parts together into
earlier and later documents. In the second place they
have traced the growth of laws and institutions in these
documents. They have learned in this way that the
prophets are older than the law, and the psalms later
than both. There was in fact no Old Testament at all
earlier than the time of the literary prophets, Hosea,
Amos and Isaiah, and their contemporaries, in the eighth

14 INTBODUCTORY.
century before Christ. There were, it is true, some frag
ments of Israelitish literature.
The older document of the Old Testament, the Jeho
vist document, which contains the decalogue and the
whole of the Book of the Covenant, namely from the
twentieth to the twenty fourth chapter of Exodus, and
includes large parts of Genesis, took its rise soine time
after the occupation of the land of Canaan, and before
the time of the prophets. In these ages priests and
prophets were in conflict for pre-eminence. The priests
emphasized worship, and sacriflces, and sacred places
and festivals. The prophets represented morality and
spirituality. The prophets prevailed.
In the year 631 B. C. another document, namely Deu
teronomy, was prepared. It was intended to reform the
people. It was pretended to have been found in the ark
in Jerusalem. This document, oontaining the Deuteron-
omic legislation, is the offspring of the prophetic
spirit. We see in it that the interest of society is placed
above worship. Everywhere humane ends are assigned
for the rites and offerings. But the result did not corre
spond to its prophetic origin. When prophecy allowed
its precepts to become practical laws, it died. The flnal
outcome of Deuteronomy, namely that the worship of
Jehovah was abolished everywhere outside of Jerusalem,
greatly increased the influence of the priests of Jerusa
lem. The third document is the product of the Babylonian
captivity. During the exile, the Jews of Babylon, under

INTRODUCTORT. 15
the lead of Ezekiel, elaborated the "Law" and reduced
it to writing. It embraced and corresponded to the sa
cred praxis of that time. Ezra came to Babylon with
this law in his hand. Heretofore the covenant had rested
only on Deuteronomy ; now it was based on Ezra's
book. And Ezra's lag, book was substantially our mod
ern "Pentateuch." In the interests of the priests he
originated the whole Levitical law together with almost'
all of the last fifteen chapters of Exodus, and considera
ble sections of Numbers. This which he originated is
the "Priestlyoode," the latest document of the Penta
teuch. The striking facts of the Priestly code are the im
mense extension of the dues payable to the priests, and
the sharp distinction made between the descendants of
Aaron and the common Levites. The striking princi
ples of the code are its ideal of Levitical holiness,its com
plete surrounding of life with purificatory and propitia
tory ceremonies, and its prevailing reference of sacrifice
to sin. Everything is regarded from the Jerusalem
point of view. The nation and the temple are identified.
And in this way the prophetical movement, stooping to
become practical, arrives at complete extemalization.
This Priestly code was constructed as a framework
Into which to dovetail the earlier documents, and thus
to produce the Pentateuch. The author, probably a
priest, and in touch with priestly tra ditions concerning
the beginnings of Israel, recorded them in systematic
order. He was particularly minute in treating such an-

16 INTRODUCTORY.
cient ceremonial institutions as the Sabbath, Circumci
sion, the Passover, the Tabernacle and the Priesthood.

-^^'^i^^^^^r^'

r^ROM what has been said up to this point, it will be
seen, that it becomes a matter of importance to ex
amine the grounds on which the negative criticism moves
up and sweeps away the faith of the fathers, and to know
whether these grounds are able to support the conclusions
to which they lead. A belief that these grounds are not
merely inadequate, but that they are not reasonable, to
gether with the feeling that the time-spirit of the cen
tury has invested them with a dangerously fascinating
glamour, has impelled the writer, somewhat against his
own inclination, to interrupt the preparation of another
work in the Biblical field, and to attempt the argument
against ''¦ them on the whole.
2 "Argument" is direct and open warfare. The aegatlve criti
cism has attacked with intent to demolish. It is not in a position
to say, "Come, and let us reason together." It is committed not
merely to a discussion of facts, but to a contest of principles.

INTBODUCTORY. 17

COR the negative criticism of the Old Testament,
apart from such purely sceptical animus as is al
ways with us in the world, is the highest wave of a
general critical movement caused by a vast breaking
up of the waters of human thought, through the intro
duction of certain modern principles. The flow of this
tidal wave of criticism is equally strong, and has been
felt with equal keenness, in the secular realms of litera
ture and history, in philosophy, in sociology and politi
cal economy and even in the ordinary avenues of practi
cal business life. Having produced a ferment, success
fully or unsuccessfully, in all the lower regions of thought
and truth, it has at last reached the doors of the loftiest
and most sacred citadel of Christendom, and is rushing
through its portals.
The movement is distinctively rooted in the rationalis
tic and revolutionary soil of the end of the last century. ^
It passed down through Eichhorn, the all embracing
litterateur, and Ilgen, the linguistic analyst, and De
Wette, the exegete, and Gesenius, the philologist, and
Hitzig, the dry, ingenious etymologist, and Ewald, the
intensely real exhibiter of prophetic ideas. Ewald sowed
the critical seed liberally by his epoch-making commen-
3 It was not generated then,but earlier. For a more complete
historical resume compare Chapter XVII.

18 INTRODUCTORY.
taries and prophetical boots and his History of Israel. *
Thus the negative criticism of the Old Testament is both
the predecessor and the successor of that brilliant but
utterly routed school of Baur, Strauss and Renan in the
fleld of New Testament criticism.
It was in 1884 that Edward Reuss, while lecturing to
his students on introduction to the Old Testament, first
put forth the new theory. He did so only orally, and
over thirty years elapsed before his words bore fruit in
the works of two students who heard him, Graf and Kay-
ser. In 1835 Vatke made a stir with his "Biblische The
ologie," maintaining that the religion of Israel was a
development. But his book was not widely read on ao
count of the difficult Hegelian terminology. In the same
year Leopold George put forth a similar view as to the
Levitical Legislation inhis"Die alteren Judischen Feste."
In 1861 the first volume of Abraham Kuehnen's "His-
torico-Critical Investigation" appeared. It was only
moderately radical, but in 1863 the English Bishop Co
lenso published;the first part of his "Pentateuch and Book
of Joshua Critically Examined," producing a tremen
dous sensation, and leading Kuehnen much further ou in
negative views.
But it was Grafs famous treatise on the "Historical
Books of the Old Testament," in 1866, from which the
post-exilian hypothesis properly dates. Kuehnen fol
lowed and extended Graf's destructive work in his "Re-
i In form, Ewald was rather across, than exactly along the
lines of the recent development, and his influence may have
temporarily held back rather than advanced the latter.

INTRODUCTORY. 19
ligion of Israel" in 1869-70, and in a series of special
papers. In 1873 his "Five Books of Moses" appeared,
and "Prophets and Prophecy in Israel" in 1877. Mean
time, Wellhausen, chief follower of Kuehnen on the conti
nent, published his "Text der Buecher Samuers,"in 1871 ;
his article on "The Composition of the Hexateuoh," in
1876, 1877; his "Prologemena zur Geschichte Israels" in
1878; and his "Skizzeu und Vorarbeiten," in 1885. Kay-
ser wrote his "D.vorexil. Buchd. Urgesch. Israels u. seini;
Erweiterungen," in 1874. Dillman began his commenta
ries with "Genesis," in 1875, and by 1886 had published
his "Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua." Stade pub
lished his "Geschichte des Volkes Israel," in 1881-85.
Cornill wrote on Jeremiah and on Bzechiel previous to
1886, and in 1888 his "Entstching des Volkes Israel und
seiner nationalen Organization," came out.
In 1885,Kuehnen himself published an important second
edition of his "Inquiry," and long before that time he
had gained his chief follower in Great Britain, Robertson
Smith, who was arousing great excitement, and who in
1881 published his lectures to his students on "The Old
Testament in the Jewish Church," and in 1883 "The
Prophets of Israel." By 1886, the ninth edition of the
Encyclopedia Britannica was out, with Wellhausen's ar
ticle on "Israel;" Robertson Smith's articles on "Mes
siah" and "Psalms," etc.; and T. K. Cheyne's articles
on "Cosmogony," "Daniel," "Deluge," "Isaiah," "Jere
miah," etc. Canon Cheyne, Oriel Professor in Oxford,

20 INTRODUCTORY.
is the main-spring of the thoroughly negative movement
in the English theological world at this time. He is a
great aud accurate linguist, with unusually capacious
and sober powers^_reasoning and judgment, and with
a boldspirit. He is very active in propagating the new
spirit among young students and is using powerful exer
tion to hurry up the hesitating pace of Driver, Davidson
and other cautious scholars, who still love to linger near
the gates of orthodoxy. The new propaganda of the
English negative school is the Salmond-Briggs Foreign
International Library, and in literary and theological cir
cles, the papers of the "Lux Mundi" group of writers.
There is also a school of critics on the continent which
accepts the analjtic_method of dealing with the Penta
teuch, but denies the post- exilic origin of the Pentateuch.
Dillraan himself, with Noeldenke, Schrader, and Strack,
are representatives of this school.
'TpHE causes and wide-spread character of the new
movement, seeming to sweep the brightest scholar
ship of two generations into its wake, are not less diffi
cult to indicate, and to struggle against, than were the
causes and overwhelming power of any great philosophi
cal or theological movement of past ages, each in its own
day, and until it had run its course, and spent its strength.
There was a time for instance when the philosophical
movement which culminated in the hypothesis of Hegel
ruled the intellect of the greatest scholars, and when all
phenomena were interpreted and ordered in accordance

INTBODUCTORY. 31
with it, and it was accepted as a certainty, and as the great
and settled finality of the human mind. And it was only
after the lapse of decades and after the tendency was
spent, that scholars, though they were as yet unable to
combat the all-embracing theory of this wonderful phil
osophy, gradually began creeping out of the mazes of
its perfect reasoning.
So in the present day, it is far more difficult to pene
trate to the secret of power in the negative criticism, and
to expose it, than it will be a century hence, when it
shall have become a movement of the past. But a cen
tury is a long while for laith to wait, and it is permissible
to meantime do what may be possible towards explain
ing the movement.
The power of the negative scholarship is largely due
to a triple conjunction of mental forces, a conjunction
both new and fruitful. The modem rationalistic motive
has combined with both the modern linguistic and the
modem psychological methods of investigation. The
rationalistic motive working with free hand in a whole
Bible full of new philological and literary material, and
among the underlying psychological causes, whether
going about it boldly or cautiously, whether exer
cising sober and maturely trained judgment or wild and
brilliant fancy, becomes a creative re -constructor of
a very grand and momentous order. And so sure does
it feel of the correctness of its methods and the con
sequent certainty of its results, checked and counter-

S^ INTRODUCTORY.
checked as they are at almost every step by cross indue.'
tive tests, that even when the results are in a constant
flux, or when conflicting critics reach contradictory con
clusions, ^ each remains sure that the carefully applied
judgment of his own school has reached a historical cer
tainty beyond a doubt.
The two greatest peculiarities of the negative criticism
are, first, the necessity of disintegrating the material in
which it works ; and second, the internal, literary, and
subjective character of its methods.
Cheyne well calls the theory of the negative criticism
a "disintegrating theory." That explains a great part of
its nature, and also of its charm to a very high order of
mind and scholarship. It is of the essence of human rea
son to be destructive and creative. When once tbe fas
cinating craze to disintegrate, on internal grounds, seizes
a critic, there is no limit to the minuteness into which it
divides the material before it. The greater the analyti
cal and cross-logical ability of the critic, the more wonder
ful does his destructive and subsequent reconstructive
work become. * The books of the Bible are thus not
merely each a stiff and defunct organism with several
5 Klostermann of Kiel, himself a negative critic, has publish
ed a whole series of lengthy articles to show that au entirely
new reconstruction ot the Pentateuchal analysis is demanded.
Thus "sure" results of the modern criticism have been discred
ited in its own house.
6 Of this fact Canon Cheyne's reasonings on the Psalms are an
excellent example, and it is his regret that Dr. Driver in his
treatment of the Psalms, "with all his love for the Jd ebrew lan
guage, cannot bring himself to say that the linguistic argument
is a primary one."

INTRODtJCTOBY. S3
limbs sadly out of joint, but they are an unorganized
pile of old material, falling into a greater and greater
multitude of smaller and smaller original pieces at the
will, or according to the needs of the investigator, along
any one of an increasing number of internal lines of
cleavage. The second characteristic of the new theory is the sub
jective, the psychological, the internal character of the
field in which the investigations are cc'iiducted. Perfectly
sober judgment may be exercised on the internal phe
nomena, and everywhere within the theory, but the theory
itself is held to be established and positive, without the
need of any external witness or historical foundation or
corroboration. In fact external and objective history is
set aside as unreliable and unnecessary, and the literary
sense and feeling of the critic to a great extent supplant
it. Canon Cheyne himself unguardedly acknowledges a
literary "feeling," namely that of "the fascination of
myths," ' as a basis of critical judgment in the younger
generation of scholars.
It is to be distinctly noticed that the negative criticism
is a critical literary movement of rationalistic origin,
which did not take its rise in an objective historical field,
and which indeed ignored the historians and archaeolo
gists as long as it could afford to do so. Further, it will
be shown, later in this work, that the great scholars who
are the exponents of the theory, in their younger days
1 "Founders of Old Testament Criticism," page 318.

S4 INTRODUCTORY.
had their home and training in rationalistic ideas, and
that with some exceptions their development along this
line was only what might have been expected. Finally,
it may be said, that some of these leaders appear to
have been men constitutionally drawn toward the more
free, and liberalizing, and humanistic side. Some of
them e. g., Wellhausen and Kuehnen, were probably
men whose bent of reasoning would have carried them
outside of the church in any age or position ; and others,
e. g., Robertson Smith, would never have entered the
Biblical field at all, if it had not afforded the best open
ing for their talents at the time ; while others like Ewald
were "hungry for fresh distinction." In short, we find a
partial explanation of the negative criticism in the under
lying mental states from which the analytic processes
spring, and in the fundamental nature of the judgments
which the critics apply in using the processes.
As to the success of the theory, it may be well to point
out some of the reasons of the rush of a younger scholar
ship of the age after the lead of the newer theory. For
there are reasons why fresh scholars are likely to be
caught up into and carried away by the age's character
istic movement, and the surprise is that the infection is
not even more universal. It is not given to many young
active minds to remain calmly on a fixed rock, when
they see the passing tide bearing everything floatable by.
First of all, a new investigator with fresh and leading
powers, is intensely alive to the spirit and trend of hia

INTBODUCTOKY. 25
age. He feels that progress is along its line. * He longs
to be its exponent and to introduce its peculiar principles
and strength into his own special department. He may
aim to be at the head of the procession in his own times.
Whatever happens to be the advanced thought of the
day, attracts some minds simply on that account.
In the second place the new theory appeals to the he
roic instinct of youth. Young men love flght,and daring
deeds. There is a feeling of dash and liberty in cutting
away from the old, in bursting the fetters of tradition, in
hewing one's way with a sabre through a perilous path,
and burning the bridge behind. Cheyne in his "Founders
of Old Testament Criticism," ^ quotes an instance
just in point in reference to Vatke : "Courageously he
made a way for himself through untrodden fields, and
his pioneering boldness counted for much in the attrac
tion which he exercised upon the academic youth."
In the third place, the freshness of the new field, the
room for original research, the many discoveries to be
made, the rich mines of material untouched and still to
be worked out, the endless puzzles to be solved, the pros
pects of startling results, are very tempting in compari
son with the tedious prospect of mining in the old quar
ries and finding here a little and there a little.
In the fourth' place, the possibility of being original,
aud of being looked up to as the founder of a new school
and the developer of a new trend of thought, especially
8 This is particularly true to-day,
9 "Founders of Old Testament Criticism," page 134.

26 inTkoductoby.
if It be in accord with the direction of the general men
tal activity of the age, is an evident, if not a conscious
motive in all departments of professional scholarship.
In the fifth place, the same literary and critical and
creative faculties of the i-eason that urged on the founders
of the negative criticism, serve as a temptation to the
younger thinkers. The new theory offers wide scope for
both the destructive and the constructive powers of the
intellect. The biblical literature is wonderfully rich in
its human aspects, and if these maybe invaded and inves
tigated and reoombiiied, all the architectural and crea
tive faculties are given a play which is otherwise denied
them. In the sixth place, the negative criticism by lowering
this literature to the level of other religious literatures, and
eliminating the miraculous, seems to bring all intellect
ual development into one single series, and to harmonize
all existence into unity. It enables one to conceive a
complete scheme of existence through the operation of a
single universal principle. It brings the Bible under the
principle of evolutionary development. Tet here we need
to remember the very latest teaching of science, namely
that Nature herself will not reduce to a unit or a unity.
"The occurrence of the exceptional is now more clear
to naturalists than it was a century ago. Even in the
matter of miracles it seems not improbable that science
is likely to come nearer to religion than in the earlier daya
of that learning."
The chief strength of the negative criticism has been

INTRODUCTORY. 27
that it brought the Biblical writings into harmony with
the idea of a continuity of natural causation, with an
orderly succession of events in which sudden transitions
and interventions are excluded. It reduced the per
plexing and exceptional Word of God to accord with
the modern philosophical conception of the world.
But the newest science now points out the insuflSciency
of this modern conception even in respect to purely physi
cal phenomena, and the necessity of its limitation. Thus
the Professor of Geology in Harvard University in his
latest work ' » takes the decided ground that although this
conception as applied to matter and energy is vast and
informing, yet it does not of itself alone enable us to ex
plain the occurrences in the universe. "It appears that
we have to be on our guard lest we extend our notions of
continuity in the natural world beyond the point where
the evidence justifies it. The notion is so overwhelming
in its magnitude that we cannot adopt it without danger
of extending it far beyond the limits of proof." For
this world is a "place of surprises which take place
under natural law, but are quite as revolutionary as if
they were the products of chance, or a result arising from
the immediate intervention of the Supreme Power." He
sums up the matter thus :
"Speaking from my own experience alone, I may say
in conclusion that by dwelling on these considerations^'
10 "The Interpretation of Nature,"by N. S. Shaler, Houghton,
Mifflin and Co., 1893.
Ill The critical points in the continuity ot natural phenomena.

28 INTRODUCTORY.
we may attain to a view ooacerniag the course of nature
which differs widely from that which seems to be held by
most naturalists. We see that this world, though mov
ing onward in its path of change under conditions which
are determined by the persistence of energy and of mat
ter, is subject to endless revolutionary changes. These
crises seem to be arranged in a certain large and orderly
way. The minor of them occur with innuite frequency,
appearing in every combination of matter, the greater
happen but rarely, the greatest only from age to age.
For my own part I find this rational introduction of the
unexpected ind the unforeseeable into the conception
of nature more satisfying than the purely mechanical
view which is so commonly held by my brethren in
science." From these considerations we may perhaps conclude
with confidence on the one hand that even presumptively,
and far more than is actually the case, we would expect
to find the leading and most vigorous critics of the age
on the negative side, entirely apart from the real merits
' of the question ; and that on the other hand there are
indications that the present spirit of the age, with which
the negative criticism probably stands or falls, will it
self be out of date, giving way to something else in the
future ; and that in all probability neither nature nor sci
ence will permanently uphold the purely naturalistic
view of life, or thought, which now obtains.
Therefore, untroubled by the weight of adverse schol
arship, and undisturbed by any present day popularity

INTBODUCTORY. 29
that the negative criticism may possess, we can with
good courage proceed to an examination of the latter on
its own intrinsic merits.
A T the very beginning of our argument, we notice a
serious point in general against the negative
criticism. It is that the evidence on which the whole
theory rests, and on which it depends for proof, is
almost entirely internal and circumstantial. Circum
stantial evidence as a rule is exceedingly captivating in
its plausibility, and striking to the human imagination,
but a long experience has taught the judicial tribunals
of the race, that circumstantial evidence is an unsafe
thing by which to effect a proof. It is a valuable and
clinching confirmation of positive proof. In the absence
of the latter, it is not entirely safe and trustworthy.
There is especial need for caution when it is adduced to
overthrow beliefs that have been generally held by hu
manity for ages and ages. The presumption and the prob-
ability are against it. And the reason is plain to see. It
is possible to secure, especially in the realm of history,
where facts are multitudinous, striking Circumstantial
evidence for almost any theory one may venture to broach.
Thus, for example, when Mr. Buckle wrote his history of
civilization on the theory that individuals have no influ
ence in moulding the course of affairs, he was able, for
the purpose of proving his theory, to accumulate an aston
ishing number of interesting facts, and he arranged them
with an ingenuity iu every way admirable. But, says a

30 INTRODUCTOBT.
historian, "though he had done what he could to fortify
and render impregnable the position he had taken, the
failure of his argument will be patent to those who are
able to clear their minds from the bewilderment caused
by the author's multitudinous citations."
So the negative criticism with admirable imaginative
faculty and with analytic ability has arranged an ap
parently simple and lucid plan for clearing up the difft-
culties out of the Old Testament, and has supported it
with some striking features of internal evidence. But it
has not sufficiently — or rather not at all — realized the un
certainties of such historical evidence as it offers. Nor
does it appear to be cognizant of the dangers of drawing
inferences at a distance of dozen of centuries from the
actual events.
The difficulties in the way of learning the exact truth
at very short range are often quite insurmountable. Still
more inaccessible is the truth in respect to events remote
in point of distance or in point of time. Some unknown
condition or unseen state of affairs may entirely upset a
view that seems thoroughly logical and plausible. There
is force in the tale told of Sir Walter Raleigh that after
viewing a brawl with his own eyes beneath his prison
window; and finding to his surprise that he had misap
prehended the whole affair, he threw the unpublished
part of his history into the fire, saying, "If I could not
understand what passed under my own eyes, of what
use is it to attempt to tell the truth about what took
place hundreds or thousands of years ago?"

INTRODUCTORY. 31
There is a very fine illustration of the insecurity of re
lying upon internal evidence and plausible circumstance,
and of the mistaken confidence of higher critics in their
results ; in the parallel field of classical literature. The
case is parallel in methods, use of evidence, and results,
to the whole movement of the higher criticism in Biblical
fields. It is the effort to prove that the two great poems
of Greece, the Iliad and the Odyssey, were not written
by Homer, but were originally a set of popular lays,
which were subsequently dovetailed by men of a much
later period, into epics, amidst a mass of additions and
interpolations ; while Homer himself was only a mythi
cal personage. The only external evidence for the theory
is an obscure tradition in out of the way corners of Greek
literature that the poems had been "scattered " and that
by some one they were gathered up and put together.
Cicero, the first extant writer, who mentions the matter,
lived five centuries after the supposed event. Still later
authors tell a similar tale, and all seem to base their
statements on a few verses of an epigram, itself late and
anonymous. About 90 A. D., Josephus mentions, as a
common belief the idea that Homer could not write, and
that his poems were long handed down by memory,
"hence the discrepancies in them." In addition to this
circumstantial evidence, there is nothing but what is
gotten out of the analysis of the writings themselves.
Much is said of "ancient lays," but concerning them
we know nothing whatever. Much is stated about the
" HomeridsB," but they are a mere name. There is "no

32 INTBODUCTORY.
trace of such organizations." 1' Much is inferred in re
spect to diaskeuasts and rhapsodists, of whose labors
(except that they are appealed to in minutiae by the crit
ics of Alexandria, say 200 B. C.) we have no knowledge
at all. 13
Wolf, the leading advocate of the new theory, was
the greatest and most scholarly editor, from the text
ual point of view, that Homer ever had. His "Pro
legomena" to the Iliad, written in 1795 is still the stand
ard in that line. "Wolf possessed enormous learning,
great conscientiousness and fairness ; moreover, unlike
most Homeric critics, he had literary taste. But between
his taste as a man of letters and his microscopic studies
as a critic, he failed quite to make up his mind. Com
pared with many living critics of the cocksure school.
Wolf may almost be said to have no constructive theory
at all. He admitted that when he read Homer for pleas
ure, he was angry with his own doubts. Now Homer
made his poems merely to be heard, or read, for pleasure,
and to peer into his work as if we were examining a
clause in a new bill or a new treaty, or cross-examining
a witness before a jury, is to prove our own incompe
tence. We must keep his object in view, he sang for hu
man enjoyment ; and we must keep his audience in view,
he sang to warriors and to ladies. Many things would
pass with them, nay, would delight them, which a prac
tised barrister could cause to appear very dubious in the
isjebb.
isLike the Eabelaisian chimera, the Higher Criticism is bom-
binans in vacuo, " buzzing in the void.' "

INTRODUCTORY. 33
eyes of a jury. Wolf knew and felt all this when he
studied Homer for enjoyment as Homer expected to be
studied ; he forgot it when he came to apply his critical
microscope. Moreover since the death of Wolf many
discoveries have been made, a chapter of lost history has
been recovered, and were he living now his acute and
candid mind would reverse many of his old conclusions.
Perhaps we might say that Wolf never was a Wolfian.
It is certain that he would be a Wolfian no longer."
For to-day one of Wolfs main grounds, namely that
Homer could not have known how to write, is completely
overthrown by several sorts of evidence to which we
shall refer in detail later on. And since Wolf died, re
cent discoveries have thrown a light for which we never
could have hoped. The grave has given up her treasures.
It has become clear that Homer described a real but hith
erto unknown civilization, of which true relics were
found at Mycenss, Tiryns, Orchomenos, and Amyclse.
The objects unearthed correspond to and verify the pic
tures and art in the Homeric poems.
How instructive this effort of the higher criticism in
the department of classical literature is in reference to
the parallel and more recent effort of the same tendency in
the fields of Biblical literature, need not be pointed out. It
all goes to show that circumstantial evidence is plausible
but not to be trusted ; and that until critical research
discovers positive external evidence to the effect that
the positive witnessing of the biblical record to its own
origin is not true ; we are probably safer in accepting

34 INTBODUCTORY.
these witnessings as true, even though we cannot ex
plain them,than we are in committing our confidence to
any ingeniously constructed line of internal evidence,
however plausible the latter may be made to appear.

^^-^J^^^^*?:^^^'

35

The Argument
Against the Negative Criticism of
the Old Testament centering
in the Post=Exilian Hypothe=
sis of the Pentateuch.

CHAPTER I.

A LL the positive evidence of the Old Testament
¦^ itself is against the new theory. All the posi
tive evidence is even on its face against the new theory.
The testimony of the Pentateuch, in the meaning it nat
urally conveys, attributes the authorship to Moses. In
Deuteronomy^ we read, "Moses wrote this law," and
again ^ ' 'When Moses had made an end of writing the
words of this law in a book until they were finished."
The book of Joshua shows that "this law" means not
simply the book of Deuteronomy, but the whole Penta-
131:9. 2 31:24.

36 CHAPTER I. EVIDENCE OE
teuch. For Joshua states ^ that "this book of the law"
contained "all the law which Moses comma nded;" and
the commands of Moses, guiding Joshua, were not mere
ly from Deuteronomy, but were from Numbers, * from
Genesis, <> from Bxodus ® and from Leviticus.'
In the eighth chapter of Nehemiah, "the book of the
law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel"
was to be read to the people at the feast of the taberna
cles (verse 14 shows that Ezra understood that Lev. 23,
40-12 was to be included) ; and in 2 Kings, 22, 8, it was
found preserved in the sanctuary.
The book of the law of Moses, which the Lord, had
commanded to Israel, would naturally mean the whole
Pentateuch. The very least it could mean, would be
those parts of the Pentateuch which are expressly said
to have been written by Moses. Those parts are Deuter
onomy 13-26, Bxodus 20-33, Exodus 34 : 10-36. Besides
this, all the laws scattered through Exodus, Leviticus
and Numbers, are expressly declared in detail to have
been given by God to Moses, and by him delivered to the
people. The occasion upon which these statutes were
severally enacted, the circumstances which called them
forth, and facts connected with their actual observance
in the time of Moses, are in many cases recorded in detail.
3 1:8.7. i Comp. Josh. 1, 13 ff.. 4.12, 22. 2fE.w. Num.32.
5 Comp. Josh. 5. 2 w. Gen 17, 10.
6 Comp. Josh. 5. 10 w. Ex. 12, 6, and Levit. 23, 5.
' "The Book ot the Law ot Moses," (See Josh. 8: 31-34) may
have been more comprehensive thtin "The law of Moses," and
may have been the same as ''the book" referred to in Ex. '7: 14,
and contained whatever else Moses wrote in connection with the
law. This is confirmed by the fact that a record made by Joshua
himself was written in "The book of the Law" (Josh. 24:26).

OLD TESTAMENT ITSELP. 37
The argument is particularly strong in the case of Deu
teronomy, which makes numerous and distinct claims to
Mosaic authorship. "Early in. the book Moses is de
scribed as declaring the law that follows, and appears in
the first person as the narrator of the providential story.
Toward the close the same statement is reiterated. '
A little later it is expressly said that Moses wrote the
foregoing law and delivered it unto the priests, and unto
all the elders of Israel, ' aud the statement is repeated
in language even more definite and precise. Written the
words were, and written 'in a book ;' i » and the words
Jihat were written embodied the covenant which the Lord
commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel
at the close of their long wanderings in the wilderness.
And then, as if to authenticate all, Moses adds his sub
lime parting psalm f ^ and concludes with his benedic
tion on the tribes that were then ibout to enter into the
long promised heritage."
The laws of the Pentateuch thus claim to have been all
given by Moses ; those of three separate parts are ex
pressly stated to have been recorded by him ; and a large
proportion of the remainder, show by their very struct
ure, that their present written form dates from the abode
of Israel in the wilderness.
D UT, in the second place, and entirely apart from this
^"^evidence in the Pentateuch and the later books as to
the authorship of the Pentateuch, the Old Testament,as it
8Deut.29,l. 9 31,9. I0 31,24ffi. n 31,30.

88 CHAPTER 1. EVIDENCE OP
now stands, represents that there was in Israel, from a
very early period a growipg book of the Law of Jeho
vah, which was kept carefully distinct from all other lit
erature, and regarded as of divine authority aud as a pe
culiar possession of Israel. This fact if true, upholds
the claim made by the Pentateuch, on its face.
To begin, the t wo tables of stone are represented to
have been in God's own writing, i Moses also represents
that God gave to him statutes and judgments in which to
instruct the people, in addition to what God himself
wrote. ^ In the account of the second giving of the ta
bles it is explained that God wrote the tables, but Moses
the other matters. ' What Moses wrote is here said to
include the law of the festivals, etc. *
The two tables were placed "in the ark," and were
still there in Solomon's temple. ^ In the sanctuary, be
fore the ark, were preserved the national memorials
which were regarded as peculiarly sacred. *
Long before Moses received the tables, and a yet longer
time before he deposited them in the ark, we find that
Moses had charge of "the book," and wrote in it by di
vine command, matters concerning Amalek, naw appar
ently found in Exodus. ' It seems to be the same book
in which Moses, before he received the two tablets, wrote,
" and took the book of the covenant and read in the ears
of the people." * Among the arrangements, made by
1 Ex. 32: 15, 16; Deut.5;22, &9, 10; Ex. 31: 18, & 24,12.
2 Deut. 4, 13, 14. 3 Deut . 10, 1-5. Ex. 34, 1, 27,28, 29, and Deut.
4, 14. * Ex. 34, 23-27. 5 Deut. 10, 2-5. 1 Kings 8, 9. 2 Chron. 5, 10.
6 Ex. 40:4. 5,23,25; 16,32,33,34; Num. 17:4, 7, 10; Heb. 9: 2-5;
Ex. 25: 16, 2L » Ex. 17 : 13, 14. » Ex. 24: 4,7.

OLD TESTAMENT ITSELE. 3&
Moses for closing up his life-work, « the finished book in
which the law was written was to be deposited "beside
the ark of the covenant of Jehovah." There are further
notices of the contents of this book in the Pentateuch.
Josephus speaks with special revprence of the books
laid up in the temple, and he mentions the Law of the
Jews, along with the golden candlestick and other furni
ture of the Holy of Holies, as being among the spoils of
Titus. The book of the Law of Moses, whatever it may have
comprised, was handed over to Joshua. ^^ Joshua
counted it a part of his mission to add something to this
book. 1^ This must have been "the book," not "a book,"
in which Samuel wrote the fundamental law of the
kingdom, ^^ just as Moses had written in it the funda
mental law of the theocracy. The aged David ' * charged
Solomon to do "as it is written in the law of Moses."
David 1 * made the arrangements for worship and sacrifice
"according to all that is written in the law of the Lord
which he commanded Israel." In the previous verses
David's singers are represented as singing a song which
cites from Genesis the story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
and, apparently, that of creation. A longer version of
this song of David is found in four other psalms. ^^
There the allusions cover the periods mentioned in Joshua,
9 Deut. 31:24, 25, 26.
10 Josh. 1, 7-8; 8: 30-35. Comp. Deut. 27, 1-3, and Ex. 20: 24, 25.
Josh. 23:6.
11 Josh. 24:25,27.
T2 1 Sam. 10, 25.
T3 1 Kings 2, 3.
T*l Chron. 16:40.
T» Psalm 136: 105, 106, 107.

40 CHAPTER I. EVIDENCE OP
Judges and I Samuel. ^ ^ In Psalm 104 is an epitome of
the account of the creation in Genesis. The evidence
from the Psalms is too abundant to be properly intro
duced. This evidence does not lack much of proving that Sol
omon inherited a Bible brought up to date by David,
Samuel, Nathan and Gad, sharply distinguished by them
from all other literature, and including the Mosaic wri
tings, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, a collection of Psalms,
and probably Ruth, all recognizable by the matters they
contain. Later on, the men whom Jehoshaphat appointed to in
struct Judah 1' had "the book of the law of the Lord"
with them. In 2 Chron., 20 : 31 there is probably a rec
ognition of the group of Psalms mentioned in 1 Chron.,
16, and therefore of the historical books recognized in
those Psalms. In the same book ' ' the words of David,
Asaph, Samnel,' etc., are mentioned as authoritative in
the midst of an account of sacrifices offered according to
the Mosaic laws. In Isaiah '¦^ terms are used which
seem to show familiarity with the idea of appeal to the
written canon of Scripture. The "book of the Lord" ^'^
can hardly be anything else than such a canonical Bible.
The prophets of the time of Isaiah are familiar with the
idea of written law ^^. They are also familiar with a
16 Ps.105: 34:106: 34-40.
1' 2 Chron. 17:9.
18 2 Chron. 29: 25, 30.
19 Isa. 29, 18; 8, 16, 20 ; 30, 8.
2 0 Isa. 34,16.
21 Isa.8:16, 20;3n, 8, 9. Hos. 8:12.

OLD TESTAMENT ITSELF. 41
definite body of instruction, known as the law, and by
other definite forms of expression. ' "
It is highly improbable that the copy of the Law found
in Josiah' s time was the only one then known. It is more
natural to suppose that the excitement it caused arose
from its being the original copy which had been tempo
rarily lost or concealed. ^3 Josiah's canon cannot cer
tainly have been narrower than that of his predecessors.
His written Scripture included writings by David and
Solomon. »* The record of his deeds includes a refer
ence to Samuel the prophet, ^3 ^nd to matters and pre
dictions now found in I Kings. '^ The writers after the
Captivity ^' are perpetually referring to the "Scrip
tures," "the Law," "the Prophets," the writings of Da
vid, of Jeremiah, etc.
Thus the Old Testament, as it now stands, gives a
clear and consistent account of its own origin. This
body of literature has existed in its present shape for at
least twenty centuries. If its shape is abnormal, we
shall be apt to find evidence of the fact in its, testimony
on a crucial question like that concerning its own origin.
If the witness does not tell the truth in his original
statements, he will probably under this cross-examina
tion, have contradicted himself. If he gives a consistent
22 Mic.4:2. Isa. 2:3; 30:9; 1:10; 5:24; Hos. 4:6; 7: 1,12. Am. 2:4.
23 2 Kings 22: 8, 10, 11, 16; 23: 2; 2 Chron. 34: 14-30; 35: 12.
24 2 Chron. 35: 4, 15.
25 2 Chron. 35: 18.
26 2 Kings 23: 15-18, 27.
27 Dan. 9: 2, 6, 10-15, 24;10:21;Neh. 8: 1-8; 9: 3-32; 10:29,30;
Ezra 3: 10, 11; Zech. 7: 12. etc.

42 chapteb I. EviDENcs or
account, then his testimony must be either accepted or
disproved. The evidence is remarkably strong and con
sistent, and proves, at the very least, that the law of
Moses and certain writings of David and Solomon were
accepted as authoritative from the time when they were
written. It also seems to show that there was a law of
growth in the canon of Scripture, succcessive portions
being kept distinct and being regarded as scriptural from
the time they were written.
•« ^ 7E have seen that from two different points of view,
the evidence is flatly against the new theory. When
we come to a third point of view, that of the actual con
tents of the Pentateuch, the evidence again is fairly
against the new theory. The Pentateuch with Joshua,
is very varied in form ^ and matter. It consists of prose
narrative, with a number of poems ', and addresses, '
and especially a large body of legislation, designed for
magistrates and all classes of people ; including a codi
fied list of precepts in Exodus, * "largely in the apparent
form of decisions on adjudicated cases, in shape to be
easily memorized, and suited to practical judicial use ;"
and "a more extensive collection of laws in Deuteronomy
with a bulky historico - homiletical comment upon
them." There is in addition a still larger collection of
laws scattered through the different books, and intended
especially for the priestly class.
1 The argument from literary form, language and style will
be treated later on. 2 Qen. 49; Ex. 15; Num. 23; Deut. 32
3 Deut. 14, Josh. 23-24. * Ex. 21-23. 20; 34.

OLD TESTAMENT ITSELF. 43
"This legislation consists partly in records of prece
dents, partly in manuals for particular services, partly in
alleged proclamations, general orders, return reports, and
the like. While certain portions of it are carefully ar
ranged in order, this class of the legislation as a whole ex
hibits no trace of orderly arrangement or of codification. ' '
"The various poems, addresses, laws, heterogeneous
as they are in themselves, are bound together, partly by
being arranged in a certain order, but mainly by being
imbedded in a connecting narrative. The narrative it
self, moreover, is frequently duplicated, and this and
other phenomena are supposed to indicate that previously
existing narratives have been incorporated into it."
Nevertheless, the whole Pentateuch, together with
Joshua, in spite of this variety of contents, and apart
from the question of its authorship, is evidently and con
fessedly a single work, with a single purpose. And con
servative scholars feel themselves perfectly able to show
that there is nothing in all this variety of contents that
would prevent Moses from being their author, "in the
sense of being responsible for the literary existence of
these books in their present form," and in such a way as
one would naturally expect of a public leader ; and that
there are many things to compel the view. He may have
written some parts personally, some parts through aman
uenses, other parts "by directing secretaries, or by ac
cepting documents prepared to hand . He may have taken
other parts from the works of earlier authors."

44 CHAPTER I. EVIDENCE O*
The objections of the negative criticism to these views
are quite weak. It says for instance that Moses does
not speak of himself in the first person, but that some
other writer, living long after,speaks of him in the third.
But why could not Moses speak of himself in the third
person, "just as Csesar and Josephus do. And if it is
another writer that speaks of Moses in the third person,
he could do this as easily while Moses was living, as long
after." It says again, that the Book of the Wars of Jehovah '
would not have been referred to by Moses himself, as it
speaks of his own deeds. "But there is nothing in the
fact that a book mentions a man's deeds to prevent that
man's citing the book."
It refers to the passage "There arose not a prophet
since in Israel like unto Moses," " as having had to be writ
ten ages after Moses. But in fact it would be just what
any old man one generation later than Moses, who in his
youth had known Moses, would be likely to say. These
are really representative instances of the objections
brought by the negative criticism against the Mosaic au
thorship. Of all the several hundred instances that can
be brought to bear on the question by the negative criti
cism, there is not a single one of them which necessarily
points to a later date than the' generation after Joshua.
Now there was a grandson of Aaron and a grand-
nephew of Moses, Phinehas, who was already in public
» Num. 21: 14.
6 Deut. 34: 10

OLD TESTAMENT ITSELE. 45
life, and among the most prominent men of the nation
before the death of Moses. ' Next to -Joshua himself he
was the chief public man in Israel in the times of the
conquest. He was still high-priest in the time of the
civil war with Benjamin, which war occurred early in
the times of the Judges. Still more significantly Phin
ehas is known to have been the successor of his father,
Eleazar, in the high-priesthood. "In this position he
was the chief of the men to whom the custody of Moses'
book of the law had been committed. If anything was
done to the sacred writings of Moses and Joshua under
his direction, it was done in the spirit of Moses and
Joshua, within the lifetime of their personal associates.
With these facts in mind, notice that the closing verses
of the Book of Joshua bring the history up to the time
of the death of Eleazar, the high-priest, and all that
generation, that is up to the time when Phinehas of the
next generation was already an old man." And the point
is,that just here all contemporary references cease. There
is no unmistakable allusion to any event later than the
time of Phinehas in these' writings.
When we remember how apt historians are to bring in
later historical allusions, and to reflect on events in the
light of their own age, as for instance in Genesis when a
thing is said to exist "unto this day, "or in Exodus where
to the first giving of the manna, a fact belonging to the
ceasing of the manna, forty years later, is added ; the
force of the conclusion becomes very strong, that the life-
1 Num.ii5:7,ll;Ps.l06:30Num.31:6.

46 CHAPTEB II. EVIDENCE OP
time of Phinehas marks the date of the completing of the
writings of the Pentateuch and Joshua. This theory
seems to thoroughly explain the Pentateuch, from the
point of view of its contents, as a Mosaic writing. That
earlier and later names of a place are mentioned, for in-
8tance,only shows what the experience of every one will
verify — how the old name of a place clings to it long after
a new one is adopted. The fact that Moses, speaking of
the kings of Edom, says that they reigned before there
reigned any king over the children of Israel, only shows
that Moses still had in mind a promise which Jehovah
had made to Abraham, namely that a line of kings was
to come from his and Jacob's loins. Edom (Esau) be
ing the elder brother of Israel (Jacob) , it was very nat
ural that Moses should mention the circumstance that
there were as yet no kings in Israel, though the Edom-
ites had already had kings for some generations.
Thus these apparent exceptions of which many more
might be cited, in the light of the doubly strong posi
tive evidence already produced, become additional cir
cumstantial confirmations of its force.
And, finally, as over against all this positive evidence to
the effect that the Pentateuch was written hundreds of
years before the prime of Israel, there is not one single
word of positive evidence in the whole Old Testament to
the effect that it was written hundreds of years later, in
the days of the exile.

NEW TESTAMENT. 47

CHAPTER II.
A LL the positive evidence of the New Testa-
ment is against the negative theory. Christ
and the writers of the New Testament uniformly attach
the name of Moses to the Pentateuch : 'Moses said,'
'Moses wrote,' 'Moses taught,' 'the law of Moses.' If
we take from the Pentateuch the name of Moses, we
most probably take from itthe indorsement of Christ and
the apostles.
I John tells us that "the law" came by Moses. And in
so saying he meant both the moral and the ceremonial
rlaw. Christ uniformly speafes of Moses as the giver of
jthe law. He says : "Did not Moses give you the law,
and yet none of you doeth the law?" ' And again he
causes Abraham to say to Dives : "They have Moses and
the prophets, let them hear them," ' where "Moses" evi
dently stands for the Pentateuch, and precedes the proph
ets. And still more pointedly he says .• "Had ye be
lieved Moses, ye would have believed me ; for he wrote
of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye
believe my words." ' All negative critics agree that
none of Deuteronomy was written by Moses, but comes
from the time of Josiah. Yet here Christ says directly
1 John 7:19. 2 Luke 16:29. 3 John 5:44-47.

48 CHAPTEB II. ETIDBNCB OP
the contrary, referring to the striking passage in which
Moses prophesied that He should come. He says plainly
of Moses, "He wrote of me." When he says : "On these
two commandments hang all the law and the p-ophets, " ¦*
he quotes the commandments from the book of Deu
teronomy. If they were merely a part of what came to
light in the days of Josiah, he could probably not morally
have used them in the solemn manner he does.
Similarly each of his three answers to Satan, prefaced
by ''It is written" is taken from the book of Deu-
terononiy. WEen the Pharisees come to him and ask
him about their right to divorce, he replies : "What did
Moses command you ?" referring to Deuteronomy 34:1,
and implying that this book was really written by Moses .
When Christ healed an impotent man at the pool of Be
thesda, in a passage of a distinctly critical character *
he not only endorses the reality of patriarchal history,
but in referring to Moses, and by inference to the Book
of Leviticus, in which circumcission is ordained, he con
nects the personal lawgiver with a passage in a particu
lar book, for here the term "Moses" is not synonymous
with the Mosaic law. '
Again when a leper came to Jesus, ' he told the leper
"Show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses
commanded," referring to the law in Leviticus 14: 3, 4, 10.
He tells the multitude that the scribes and pharisees sit
in "Moses seat," thus making Moses and not Ezra to
have been the founder and head of the teachers and law-
* Matt.22:40. 6 John 7:22-23. « Ellicott. » Matt. 8:4.

NEW TESTAMENT 49
givers. In the dispute with the Sadducees on the ques
tion of the resurrection of the seven wives, when they
quote Moses as the author of Deuteronomy, he in turn
quotes Moses as the author of Exodus, saying : ' "Have
ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God
spake unto him, saying : I am the God of Abraham, and
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ?" ^
And the risen Lord, we are told by Luke, i" "Begin
ning at Moses and all the prophets expounde i unto them
in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself ' ' And
after the meal he says that he had told them while he
was yet with them that ^ ' "All things must be fulfilled,
which were writtea in the law of Moses, and in the proph
ets, and in the psalms concerning me."
That the writers of the New Testament have distinctly
stated that even the Levitical law was from Moses, we
see from Luke 3:33, where Luke refers to the book of Le
viticus. 1 ' ' 'And when the days of her purification accord
ing to the law of Moses were accomplished." And
Philip, the apostle, declares, "We have found him of
whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write." ^ '
So Paul, learned in the Old Testament, says, i* "For it
is written in the law of Moses, 'Thou shalt not muzzle
8 Mark 12:26.
9 If Christ had regarded Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as mythi
cal characters, he could not have added this comment on the pas
sage : "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living."
10 Luke 24:27.
11 Luke 24:44.
12 12:2-6.
13 John 1:45.
14 1 Cor. 9, 9.

50 CHAPTEB III. EVIDENCE OP
the mouth of the ox,' referring to a passage in Deu
teronomy. T8 If this New Testament testimony were
not so emphatic, ^s and specific, and uniform, even from
a critical point of view, and so abundant as to have more
than settled the authorship of any other book in the
world, T' one might be disposed to consider it as perhaps
possible that the expressions are only conventional. But
the nature of the testimony renders such a view impossi
ble. 15 25:4.
IS See also Chapter XVIII.
1 ' Consider how much better Christ and even the scholars of
his age were fitted to decide on the facts than we are and how
convenient and necessary it would have been for Paul to have
used the negative theory of the origin of the ceremonial law in
his life-and-death contests with narrow, legal-minded Jews, and
Jewish Christians, if it had had any foundation in fact !

JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH 51

CHAPTER III,
'T*HB evidence of ancient Jewish and Christian
History is against the negative theory.
Though Jewish scholars in the century before and af
ter Christ may have differed as to whether certain books
had actually been included in the contents of the Old
Testament, they all held that the Old Testament had, in
their own day, been complete for nearly three centuries
at least, and probably for a much longer time. It was
the unanimous tradition of the Jewish nation that Mala
chi, who prophesied under the first Artaxerxes, was the
last prophet, and that with him both the spirit of proph
ecy and also the spirit of holy inspiration needed to com -
pose holy writings had disappeared. The Jewish le
gends in the fourth Book of Esdras ^ add testimony to
this tradition.
At the time when Ecclesiasticus was written, there
must already have been a sharp distinction between the
completed canon and later literature. For this book, in
spite of its claims to prophetical and canonical impor*
tance, and in spite of its popularity with the Palestin
ian Jews, was not received into the canon. The latter
must have already been completed, and must have dis
tinguished between holy and later profane writings, so
1 Chap. 14; and also, In the church Father Irenaaus.

53 CHAPTER III. EVIDENCE OP
that no one ventured to add to it. And, in addition, Eccle
siasticus itself, both in the prologue and in chapters for
ty-four and forty-flve, clearly refers to the Old Testa
ment as such, in its three parts, and involves the fact of
its previous completion.
All parties of the Jews, in reality, acknowledged the
canonical authority of the Old Testament, and it was so
firmly fixed that neither the claims of Ecclesiasticus or
any other later composition availed to admit them into
the canon ; nor did the Talmudic discussions concerning
the holiness of particular books in the least change the
settled condition of the canon.
Josephus expressed the judgment ^ that all the books
which properly belonged to the Old Testament were
written before the death of the prcphets who were con
temporaneous with the first Artaxerxes, that is before
424 B. C. The Mishna says several times that Ecclesi
asticus and all the books written after it are not canoni
cal. So it was held that all the books of the Old Testa
ment were older than Ecclesiasticus, which claims to have
been written by the grandfather of a man who lived at
least as early as 130 years before Christ.
Just here we meet a specimen of the forced reasoning
resorted to by the negative criticism, to which more ex
tensive reference will yet be made. There are some pas
sages in the Mishna which indicate that there were dis
putes among the Jews as to the canonicity of several
books such as Daniel and Ezekiel and Ecclesiastes, and
2 Contra Apion LI. C. 8.

JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH 53
the negative criticism has used these passages to prove
the late date of some of the parts of the Old Testament,
and the lateness of its completion as a whole. But these
disputes do not prove that at all. On the contrary the
weight of their evidence is on the other side. "The very
men who questioned the canonicity of Ecclesiastes and
Ezekiel in the matter of the propriety of their contents,
do not appear to have at all doubted the matter of the
genuineness of the early date assigned to the books.
They did not dispute whether the books were in the
canon, or whether they had been admitted at a very late
date, but they assumed that they had been in it origi
nally, if at all, and what they questioned was the pro
priety of having placed them there originally. ' There
• "They never determined a book to be canonical in the sense
of introducing it into the canon. In every instance in which a
writing is said to have been admitted to the canon the writing
had already been in existence for generations, and had for gen
erations been claimed as canonical before the discussions arose
in regard to it. In every instance the decision is not that the
book shall now be received to the collection of sacred writings,
but that the evidence shows it to have been regarded fromthe
first as part of that collection. If tlie decisions ot early schol
ars and councils here have any valiiity, they are valid as prov
ing that the books which they recognized as scriptural had al
ways been so recognized from the time when they were written.
In the case of those that were best known and most used no
great difference of opinion would arise. In the case of those
that were less familiar it became necessary every few genera
tions to re-examine the evidence. This was done in the first
centuries as it has been done in the last centuries." Prof. W. J.
Bucher.

54 CHAPTER III, EVIDENCE OP
are scholars to-day yet who still dispute the propriety of
recognizing these books as canonical. But does that
prove that these scholars believe them to be now of re
cent origin, or to have been only lately recognized as
scriptural ?
Another example of the forced historical reasoning of
the negative criticism is its conclusion that because the
Greek Alexandrians did not distinguish between the can
onical and the apocryphal writings as to inspiration, that
therefore the distinction was not founded in fact, but
was only a subjective party measure of the Palestinian
Jews. As a matter of fact wc know that .Josephus, although
he used the Septuagint and in many respects favored the
Alexandrian Jews, yet expressly declares that all books
not found in the Hebrew canon are uninspired and less
worthy of credence ; and Philo and all the Hellenistic
Jews clearly show that they knew the Hebrew canon,
with its three divisions very well. But it was because
of a different dogmatic principle of revelation, namely
that this principle of revelation is the Logos or Wisdom
who worked in the hearts of the wise and pious in all
generations, both early and late, that the Alexandrian
Jews did not acknowledge that the spirit of prophecy
had disappeared in 400 B. C, and that they obliterated
the distinction between the older prophetical and the
later non-inspired literature. It was here again not a
question as to time, or dates, or facts, but it was a mat
ter of doctrinal presupposition.

JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH 55
A still worse example of misleading argument, is the
statement that the nurriber of books in the canon changed
two or three times at a late date. While this may be
literally true, it is not actually so. The actual fact is
that only the ways of counting the books changed, not
that entirely new productions were every now and then
added to the canon at a late date.
From the very beginning the Christian church used the
Old Testament writings as the ones which testified to
Christ and were fulfilled in him. It caused them to
be read in its services and ascribed final and divine au
thority to them in its dogmatic and apologetical discus
sions. At first the Christians were only able to read the
Old Testament in the Alexandrian translation, and they
regarded the apocryphal books as canonical, until Melito
of Sardis, A. D.,172,and Origin, died A. D. 254,made the
church thoroughly acquainted with the Hebrew canon.
The Greek church then rejected the apocryphal books,
while the Latin church accepted them, but in neither in
stance was there any doubt as to the genuineness and
date of the Pentateuch or other writings of the Old Tes
tament.

66 CHAPTER IV. EVIDENCE OP

CHAPTER IV.
TPHE evidence of the Later Historical Boolcs of the
* Old Testament does not warrant the conclusion
of the negative theory.
The negative theory tries to prove that the books of
Chronicles, Nehemiah, and also the book of Daniel,were
not completed until long after the time of Nehemiah. It
says, for instance, that the genealogies in the boots of
Chronicles and Nehemiah contain the names of persons
who were not living until long after the time when the
books are said to have been written. But the presence
of these names in the lists can be easily explained.
Take the most extreme case of the sort, the name of
Jaddua, the high priest in Nehemiah 13: 33. "This Jad-
dua, according to Josephus, was high priest when Alex ¦
ander conquered Darius, say 333 B. C. He died at about
the time of the death of Alexander, B. C. 334, just 121
years after Nehemiah left the court of Artaxerxes to go
to Jerusalem. Nehemiah was then evidently a very
young man. There is nothing extravagant in the idea
that the pontificate of Jaddua may have begun during
Nehemiah's lifetime, and covered the remaining fifty-six
years of the 131. Even, therefore, if it were necessary
to assume that Jaddua's name was put into the registra-

LATER HISTORICAL BOOKS. 57
tion after he became high priest, there would still be no
absurdity in holding that the registration was made dur
ing the lifetime of Nehemiah. i
But "it is not necessary, or even natural, to assume
that Jaddua became high priest ^ before his name was in
cluded in the registration. If only he was bom before
the death of Nehemiah, he may have been registered in
Nehemiah's lifetime. And the supposition that he was
thus born does not necessitate the conclusion that either
he or Nehemiah lived to a greater age than seventy-five
years." With one exception, which is easily explained,
"on the view just given, the accounts of Josephus
and of Nehemiah fit each other, and each proves the
other to be exact. It is, therefore, not a mere hypothe
sis, but an historical fact, that the genealogical lists in
Nehemiah and Chronicles close within the limits of the
lifetime of Nehemiah. This view finds some further
confirmation in the passage in 3 Mac, 1, 3-3."
In the case of the book of Daniel, we are not sure that
it makes any difference to the integrity of the canon,
1 Prof. W. J. Beecher.
a The proof of this is founded in Neh. 12:22-23. There is in
addition to this an independent and plausible reason why he
should not have been registered before his accession. Nehemiah
lived until after the marriage of Manasseh, brother of Jaddua,
and is therefore likely to have been for some time the contempo
rary of Jaddua. Now it Jaddua was enrolled in the succession
of high priests before he actually succeeded ; and if this was an
exceptional thing, then the ofBcial naming of Jaddua was, in ef
fect, the official exclusion of Manasseh.

58 CHAPTER IV. EVIDENCE OP
when the book was written, or whether the visions look
forw9.rd or backward. It was peculiarly grouped, being
placed between Esther and Ezra, and not with the proph
ets. This might seem to indicate a late date for the book,
for if it had,been known earlier, it would have been possi
ble to have placed it among the prophets. But, ou the
other hand, its form, its historical tendency, and other
considerations, may have caused it to be given its pecu
liar place among the Uagiographa. Like Ezra, it is writ
ten partly in Hebrew and partly in Aramaean.
The negative criticism assigns its authorship to the
reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, 175-164 B. C. It does
so on philological grounds like the following : "The
book does not have suifloient marks of a Babylo
nian origin ; its writer has blundered in the use of proper
names ; it contains nine or more words of Persian ori
gin ; it contains three or four Greek names of musical
instruments ; it misapplies the term "satrap." To these
philological reasons, it has added the following histori
cal ones: Belshazzar is not a historical personage ; Darius
the Mede has not been identified ; and there are contra
dictions with other history in the book. The ninth chap
ter of the book itself points to a late date. The doctrine
of a resurrection and of augels, and the fact that the pre ¦
dictive elements are apocalyptic rather than strictly pre
dictive, and must therefore have been written after
the event, add, it is maintained, additional force to the
theory of a late origin.
Each of these reasons admits of its own reply. That

LATER HISTORICAL BOOKS. 59
'the book has a Babylonian element in it is clear to all.
Whether this is sufflcient evidence either for or against
either view of the book's authorship, is a question. "Le-
normant and other scholars have made it clear that the
author of the first six chapters must have known much
more about life in Babylon than could easily have been
learned by a Jew who had always lived in Palestine. If
these stories were finally compiled with the visions of
the last six chapters as late as the time of Antiochus
Epiphanes, it seems to me clear that these stories were
first written in Babylon, and were then filled with the
color of Babylonian life, and retained facts in Babylonian
history not elsewhere recorded until discovered under
Babylonian soil." ' This second is a roundabout supposi
tion, to displace the first and simple one.
That the writer has blundered in his use of proper
names is conjecture, not to be settled in the present state
of our knowledge, though the argument for it tells
rather against it.
That the book contains Persian words is not against its
early authorship. Any man, like Daniel, who lived much
atthe Babylonian Court, would have met Persians there ;
while such men as Ezekiel, in whose book no Persian is
found, did not mingle in court life. Then, there are Persian
words in Ezra and Esther as well as in Daniel, and the
negative theory does not make that weigh against those
books. Still further, it has been said that of the seven
Persian words which occur in the Chaldee of Daniel, only
3 William Hayes Ward.

60 CHAPTER IV. EVIDENCE OP
one is found in the Targums. Therefore the book seems
to belong to an early period when the Persian influence
was strong, and not to a late period when the Persian
words had been mostly dropped. In regard to the Greek
names for musical instruments, it has been suggested
that if they are a criterion, their use would show the
book to be as old as Homer, or of any of the music-loving
Greek princes from Agamemnon down. In regard to the
term "satrap," it has been replied that if to-day "some
Turkish correspondent of an American newspaper should
apply the term Bey to some official who was only a Pa
cha, this use of terms would prove him to be a contempo
rary of the author of Daniel." In regard to the mythi
cal character of Belshazzar, the negative theory has been
put to shame. "The recovery of the name of Belshazzar
as an actual ruler over Babylon and the son of its last
king, and the later more important discovery of Cyrus'
own record of his camjiaign against Babylon and his fi
nal capture of the city, are among the most brilliant
achievements of modern historical research, and give to
some extent confirmation of statements greatly ques
tioned in the Book of Daniel, and cast still more light
on the events there mentioned." * In regard to the con
tradictions in the book, they can be reconciled. The
limits of our space does not warrant their introduction
and discussion.
In regard to the ninth chapter, it just as easily proves
that the Jews of Daniel's day possessed and studied col-
* William Hayes Ward.

LATER HISTORICAL BOOKS. 61
lections of the prophetic writings, as it does that the
book of Daniel was written long after the captivity.
That is, it proves nothing. As to the doctrine of the
resurrection and of angels, Daniel could have used Per
sian sources as readily as a later writer. Moreover these
doctrines are present in the 25th chapter of Isaiah, a
writing which the negative criticism places at an earlier
date. As to the apocalyptic nature of Daniel's propheoy,
while the subject is interesting, the argument only has
weight for those who hold to the impossibility of predic
tive propheoy. ^ On the whole, the internal evidence for
a late date for Daniel is not strong.
On the other hand, the external evidence is entirely in
favor of the early date. All the evidence we have
touched on in Chapter III. goes to prove that Daniel was
in existence at the early date. Josephus ' expressly testi
fies that the book of Daniel was shown to Alexander the
Great, by the high priest Jaddua, about 333 B. C. ; and
that Alexander was greatly influenced by the predictions
concerning himself. Then the book of Baruch clearly
presupposes the existence of Daniel. In Mac. II. 56,
Mattathias, during the lifetime of Antiochus Epiphanes,
is represented as citing Daniel and his companions along
with Abraham, Caleb, Elijah, David, and the other an
cient worthies.
5 See Chapter XVII.
s Antiquities XI, 8, 5.

63 CHAPTER V. THESE BOOKS NOT

CHAPTER V.
'TpURNING now from the survey of testimony, to a
survey of the theory itself, we notice a whole se
ries of things rising into view against it. It is against
the negative theory that it makes all Israel's literature
spring from the period of the nation's decline and
fall. It leaves the basal and institutional epochs of Israel's
early strength without a literature. It leaves the balmy
and propitious periods of her maturer prime almost with
out a literature. It assigns Israel's grandest writings to
the age of Ezra, and places nearly all her productive
powers after her national decay and deportation.
This is against nature. It was not the case with the
literatures of Egypt, of Assyria, of Rome, of Greece, of
Germany, or of iSngland. The rose blooms in June.
The harvests are white in Summer. No land has ever
garnered its grandest flowers and richest fruits after the
overshadowing destruction of the autumnal storms.
The greatest periods of a nation's history are not barren
of literary effort. It is against the law of natural devel
opment that the best and almost the whole literature of
Israel should be a product of the period of her deca
dence.

PROM AN AGE OP DECLINE. 63
A moment's thought is needed to take in the real size
and difBculty of the assumption that is here made. We
are asked to believe that nearly a whole literature, the
greater part of the literary work commonly assigned to
Isfiiah, Jeremiah, and the other later pre-exilic prophets,
and substantially all that is assigned to the earlier men,
Solomon, David, Nathan, Samuel, Joshua, Moses, was
written, not by these men, but by "unknown scribes,
obscure men, who made no mark on their own genera
tion, and left no name to the generation that followed."
If it were only the texts or writings of a single prophet,
or school, or generation, or of several of them, that were
thus corrupted, and dissected and rendered composite,
or pushed forward into an earlier age, the assumption
might more readily carry some air of possibility, but "it
is difficult to believe that nearly the whole of a nation's
literature is marked by these characteristics ; it is easier
to believe that almost any supposed criteria of compos
ite structure are mistaken. It is not surprising if we
find that some great man did not perform work that has
been commonly attributed to him ; or if we find that
some obscure man has done great work ; but when we
are called upon to believe that throughout a nation's
history the great men have done substantially nothing,
and the nobodies have done everything, that is beyond
the bounds of ordinary credibility. " ' ' Views like these
are not credible, except upon strong evidence."
Beyond a doubt the exiles weeping by the waters of
Babylon were inspired with patriotic feeling, and gave

64 CHAPTER T. DOBS NOT SPRING
heroic expression to it both in rebuilding the ruined city
and in thinking over the songs of Zion. Undoubtedly
they had the time and the talent and the calling to pro
duce a literature. But all the scraps of knowledge that
we possess about that period, when ingeniously jointed
together and indefinitely expanded by the imagination
of the historian, cannot possibly form a background
deep and vast and lofty enough for the literature of the
Old Testament.
This is the weakness of the theory as far as the post-
exilian period is concerned. There is too much crowded
into it. But the difficulties of the new vie v are only be
ginning. When we come to turn our eye upon the many
other more striking periods of Israel's history, how
shall we explain their emptiness of historic record and
poetic effort ? It is impossible to find a hypothesis that
will account for their barrenness.
For instance, could Moses, trained in the foremost lit
erary nation of antiquity, leading the greatest and most
orderly migration of which history tells, looking for
ward to a settled and larger future of the nation in a
strange land, with new surroundings, a new government,
new customs, new institutions, have left only some
scanty and doubtful fragments of legislation ? Are the
multitudinous laws set into similar multitudinous and
seemingly natural details of history purporting to have
come direct from Moses, more easily explained by saying
that they were invented and elaborated in an age sepa
rated by many wide centuries from the time of their al-

PROM AN AGE OP DECLINE. 65
leged occurrence ? Such records of the Mosaic period, as
we have, would not have been written by men removed
from the Exodus by as great a period as that which sepa
rates us from the discovery of this continent by Colum
bus; or as that which separates us from the birth of Mar
tin Luther. Still less could they have been recorded as
long afterwards, as we are after the last of the Crusades
— ten centuries after the Exodus. Such a vast amount of
fabricated legislation and re-written history could not
p'ossibly have been produced at such a long distance and
in such a period as that of the era of the exile on the
one hand ; and on the other hand such men and such
institutions as are found in the early days of Israel would
not have done what they did without leaving a record.
If we take another conspicuous instance, say the period
of the Psalms, the case for the new theory is, if any
thing, worse. Late eras, like that of Ezra, are rich in
science and schools. Schools and schoolmen produce
annotations, but not poetry. It is against nature, and
almost miraculous, that the best religious lyrics of all
antiquity should also be written in an age of national de
cay, when there were neither great men to write nor
great events to evoke such lyrics. Can the experience of
Israel in the Persian, Greek and even the Maccabean
periods be the natural and sufficient mother of such a
wonderful progeny. Truly ' 'the great post Exilic Jewish
Church" ' must have had such a concentration of "great
1 Cheyne.

66 CHAPTER V. THESE BOOKS NOT
religious ideas" and such an affluence of inspired histori
cal and poetic genius, all of it humble and anonymous,
as the world has not seen before nor since, and as the or
thodox view has not claimed for any of the more promis
ing eras of historic Israel.
There are psalms in which all the events of the exo
dus, and the history of Israel as far as the first king, are
recorded. These are the themes which failed to stir con
temporaries, but which waited for eight or nine centuries
further on to stir the soul of a singer ! There are nu
merous psalms in which royalty plays an elevated and
prevailing part. These are the psalms which were writ
ten ages after the kings had disappeared, and in the very
centuries when it is supposed that the Jews were inclined
to satirize kings. ' But "from the halcyon ages of David
and Solomon, when the people of Israel were in contact
with Egypt and Phoenicia, when their maritime expedi •
tions brought them tidings and products of other lands,
no authentic composition has come, no record of religious
opinions or customs ; except, perhaps, the fragment of a
psalm or at most, one or two of their sacred songs."
The real ground for running the composition of the
greatest hymns the world has known, of different and
varied ages, into one late and comparatively narrow and
prosaic era is the negative theory's necessity of consist
ently maintaining the dominating idea of a progressive
evolutionary religious development in the history of Is-
2 They "form a large number whose date would be irrevoca
bly fixed, if it was a question of any other book than the Bible."

PROM AN AGE OP DECLINE. 67
rael. • But the necessity is equally stringent to the neg
ative critic, of maintaining a natural literary develop
ment. And the two necessities clash in the case of the
Old Testament. Therefore the principle cannot hold in
that field.
» If any large number of the Psalms, which contain hun
dreds of allusions to the Pentateuch, were written in the times
of David, then tlie Pentateuch was written still earlier.

68 CHAPTER VI. PRINCIPAL

CHAPTER VI.
'T'HE Principal Argument on which the negative
theory relies to establish this post-exilian au
thorship is inconclusive. It reasons thus : 'because
there is no reference to a thing on the historical record
at a certain period, therefore the thing did not exist at
that period. Because the ceremonial law, with the whole
tabernacle worship and the great festivals, are not re
ferred to in the writings before the captivity, therefore
/ they did not exist before the captivity. Israel is appar
ently ignorant of the ceremonial law, and constantly vio
lates it, before this time. The sacrifices are offered not
in the tabernacle, but in the high places, through the
whole of Israel's history. There seem to be no festivals
at all. The priests and ceremonies are very different and
of a far more primitive character than those described in
the elaborate so-called 'Mosaic, ' but in reality 'post-ex
ilian' law.'
This argument seems strong. But it is both inconclu
sive and delusive. In the first place, absence of refer
ence to an institution does not necessarily prove non-exis
tence of the institution. It may indicate observance so
common and well understood as not to be in need of

AEOUMBNT INCONCLUSIVE. 69
special mention. History rarely records the regular ob
servance of established institutions. It is taken for
granted. When there is mention of the thing made, it
is likely to be for the sake of drawing attention to in
fractions and irregularities. This principle applies with
particular force to the very field before us, and its force
is recognized by the new theory in a parallel instance.
The new theory admits that the Decalogue is as old as
Moses and came from him. But nowhere in the prophe
cies, and scarcely anywhere in the histories, is there any
reference to the Decalogue. There are abundant refer
ences to statutes which have been transgressed ; but the
references are general, and might be understood to in
clude the ceremonial law as well as the moral. So that
the argumentum e silentio relied on by the new theory to
prove that there was no ceremonial law by Moses, would
also prove that there was no decalogue by Moses, and so
destroys itself.
It is very true, however, that absence of reference may
indicate non-observance, just as readily as it may indicate
common observance. But non-observance is not non-ex
istence. On the contrary, non-observance implies exis
tence. It is possible, in the first place, that a ceremonial
law may exist, and that the times may be too unpropi-
tious for its observance. It is no wonder that the days of
the Judges were bad times for the observance of the cere
monial law of Moses. The Israelites had neglected the
divine command and failed to drive out before them all
the inhabitants of Canaan. The Canaanites had their

W CHAPTER vl. Principal
strongholds here and there throughout the land. They
and the Philistines and other surrounding peoples man
aged to keep the tribes in a perpetual worry. Thelatttr
needed to be ever on the watch to preserve their bounda
ries intact. There was constant suspicion, uneasiness and
internal warfare.
Some of the tribes too were jealous of the others, and
frequently they refused to co-operate With each other in
battle, and each tribe had to fight for and by itself. This
pirevented them from consolidating, as they should have
done, into a united people; and certainly prevented them,
as a nation, from keeping the yearly feasts with regu
larity. It would probably have the additional tendency
to thrust the systematic teaching of the law into the back
ground. It has been said that people perpetually en
gaged in border forays are likely to be moulded by the
rude age in which they live, and to become neglectful of
religious and educational duties, and also to underesti
mate the value of any institution that is a peace measure
and does not turn out fighters and soldiers. A reason
able view of the situation will lead to the conclusion
that non-observance of the ceremonial law is just what
might be expected in ages such as these.
In the second place, in consequence of such trying
times, the people may sink into deep ignorance, as well
as into recklessness and carelessness in regard to the ob
servance of such law. What an illustration of this fact
was that wide-spread religious degeneracy which came
over our country after the close of the Revolutionary

ARGUMENT inconclusive. 71
War, and the effects of which were felt for fully half a
century. And even in our own advantageous and enlightened
day, there are many people who are almost entirely ig
norant of their own civil and religious law, who are in
uncertainty as to the proper observance of religious cus
toms and seasons, who set light store upon such observ
ance, or who are utterly careless in regard to it. How
difficult it is even in our time of comfort and civilization
and peace, and with all our machinery in full operation
for that purpose, to educate our people up to church go
ing, to Sunday observance and Festival observance. And
how much of even our Christian religion is still a matter
of obscurity, and is intermingled with lower supersti
tious heathenish elements on the part of the lower
classes ! And if this be so in an age where books and
papers are as plentiful as grain in harvest, and where
New Testaments can be bought for five cents, and where
Christ is preached in churches every few blocks apart,
how much more a thousand times must it have been the
case in the age of which we are speaking.
A third case in which non-observance does not indicate
non-existence, is when the people know the law, but are
set against it. It may exist, and the people may be rebel
lious against it. It is not an unusual thing for a people to
disobey its own laws. This is especially true of Israel.
It would be strange, indeed, if they, — a people constantly
denounced by their own historians and prophets as a
stubborn and rebellious people — ,had always observed the

72 CHAPTER Tl. PRINCIPAL
requirements either of the ceremonial or of the moral
law. The very prophets whose high morality the new
theory commends, are the strongest witnesses in their
powerful denunciations to both a ceremonial and a moral
law, each of which must have existed before it could be
either obeyed or disobeyed.
A fourth case in which non-observance of legislation
does not indicate non-existence, is the case where the
leaders and rulers of the people are too wicked and too
neglectful to enforce it. We know how even in our own
country there are so many laws which are not enforced
and have been forgotten. Some are so obsolete that their
very existence may be unknown to the masses. Others
are known but looked on as a "dead letter." When we
called to mind the corruption of the priests in many of
the periods of Israelitish history, ^ it is easy to under
stand how the laws were lying neglected among the
archives of the temple.
But, in the last place, if we interpret the Pentateuchal
book of laws, as the negative school of critics is bound
to do, by applying common sense and reason and the
analogy of other nations to them, the whole argument
falls to the ground. "If we interpret what seem to be
legal maxims as legal maxims, and not as statutes ; if
we apply the rule that when the reason for a law ceases,
the law itself ceases, and other similar rules,— in short,
if we may interpret these books as other historical books
containing laws are commonly interpreted, we shall get
1 Isa. 28. 7sq.; Mic.3. 11. Zeph. 3. 4, etc.

ARGUMENT INCONCLUSIVE. 73
a very different idea of the nature of many of their re
quirements from that which is sometimes presented.
Remembering that rules which were established for the
camp in the wilderness, and rules which presuppose the
existence of a united nation with a central sanctuary,
cannot, in the very nature of things, have been intended
to apply, without modification, to individuals for whom
neither of these conditions existed, we shall find no dif
ficulty in explaining all the facts of the history."
Each and all of these five separate cases would serve
to throw light on the alleged fact that there are no ref
erences to the ceremonial law in the old Testament, pre
vious to the days of the exile. The reason why there
are more, and more exact references in the post-exilian
books, to the Pentateuch, inheres in the nature of the
change which began in the sacred writings from the time
of Ezra. With him began the period not of the giving
of the law, nor of the coming of the prophets, but of
the studying, searching and quoting of the old docu
ments. It was the period of the scribes.

74 CHAPTER VII. THERE ARE

CHAPTER Vll.
I3UT now we oome to something striking. The car-
dinal assertion on which the principal argu
ment of the negative theory rests, is contradicted by
the facts. The alleged absence of reference to the cer
emonial law, the tabernacle and the Pentateuch is not
actual. There is not an absence of such reference in the
Old Testament.
In any case, it is an unlikely assumption that Israel,
going out of a country which, long before the exodus,
possessed a large and influential priestly caste, would
have been without a priesthood. And it is, secondly, a
still less likely assumption that this early priesthood of
Israel would have remained a thousand years without
written priestly laws. It would be a natural inference, if
there were no positive testimony, that the priest Mo
ses 1 established a ritual. But there is positive testimony
to such an early date of the priestly law.
So the assertion on which the negative argument rests,
that there is no reference to the priestly law and the taber
nacle, is not true. The number of direct references is sur
prising. The Pentateuch, itself is fllled with direct ref-
1 Ex. 24.6 tt : Deut. 33.10; Ps. 99,6.

BEPerBNCBS TO PRIESTLT LAW. 75
erences and with descriptions of the tabernacle and cer
emonial law, though it is ruled out as being incompetent
to testify in its own behalf. But there is one book in
the Pentateuch which cannot be thus ruled out. It is
the book of Deuteronomy. Even the new theory places
this book as early as the reign of King Josiah, and this
book testifies fully for the fact in question. Compare
Deuteronomy 18:3 with Numbers 18:33 sqq., and Deuter
onomy 34:8, where a priestly law concerning leprosy is
is referred to, such as is found in Leviticus 13:14. Deu
teronomy 33: 10, makes reference to the ceremonial law
of uncleanness.
Secondly, those prophets which the new theory admits
as witnesses accepted and unimpeachable, do not ignore,
but make allusion to the ceremonial law. The prophet
Micah refers to priestly teaching in 3: 11. The prophet
Jeremiah mentions "the law that shall not perish from
the priest" in 18: 18. The prophet Zephaniah refers to
both the tabernacle and the law, saying, in 3.4, "Her
priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done vio
lence to the law." The prophet Hosea refers to an ex
tensive written law.
Still further, nearly all of the historical books of the
Old Testament make extended allusions to the priestly
law. The book of Joshua, it is admitted on all hands,
implies the existence and observance of the entire cere
monial law. The Law of Moses and the Book of the Law
are continually spoken of, and the different ordinances of
the ceremonial law are seen to be observed. The answer

76 CHAPTER VI. Thbbe Abb
made by the negative theory in rebuttal to this testimony
is the assumption that the book of Joshua is a forgery of
the time of the exile.
The book of Judges offers direct testimony for the ex
istence of the tabernacle and the priestly law. It speaks
of but one house of Jehovah, 19.8, and this located at
Shiloh, 18.81 ; of the annual feast there, 21.19 ; of Phin
ehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron as priest,
20. 38. Though the idolater Micah consecrated one of his
own sons as priest, 17.5 ; he was delighted to have a Le
vite instead, who deserted his service to become priest
of a tribe. Beyond doubt he would have been more will
ing still to have been a priest of all Israel in Shiloh, if
that had been permissible. ^
The books of Samuel, which we shall take up below,
and the books of Kings also show that the tabernacle
and ritual services Were not unknown before the time of
Josiah. I Kings expressly quotes Deuteronomy 17.17.
I Samuel 3.22 and I Kings, 8.4 make distinct mention of
the tabernacle as a historical fact. In order to overturn
this testimony of the books of Judges, Samuel andKing^,
the negative theory turns against the books themselves.
It says that all the books have been "worked over," so
that passages implying the Pentateuchal laws must be
assumed to have bean interpolated long afterwards. But
why such an assumption must be made does not appear.
To set up a theory, on the ground that there are no xef-
1 Prof. W. H. Green ; to whom there is indebtedness for a num
ber of facts and statements in this, and several other chapters.

BEPERENCBS TO PRIESTLY LAW. T7
erences to certain facts; and then when references to those
facts appear and invalidate the ground cf the theory ; to
dispose of them by saying that they must be interpola
tions, because they are contrary to the theory, is arguing
in a circle. By such a method th« evidence of these
books cannot be excluded.
In Samuel's childhood the Mosaic "tabernacle of the
congregation," i named in Samuel indifferently "the
house of the Lord," 1.24; and "the temple of the Lord,"
1.9, was still in Bhiloh,and was the one commanded place
of sacrifice for Israel, 2.29. Eli and his sons officiated
there as descendants of Aaron, whom God had chosen
out of all the tribes to be his priest, 2.28. There was the
ark and the lamp of God, 3.3 ; and annual pilgrimages
were made thither for worship. • The offering of sacri
fices elsewhere than before the tabernacle, in these times,
is natural and explainable. *
From the time the ark was captured by the Philistines
1 I Sam., 2.22.
» ISam.,1.3.7, 21:2.14, 19.
• Sacrifices la the presence of the ark were not Irreeular,
Judges 20. 26, 27; 21. 4; I Sam, 6. 15. The phrase "before God"
does not imply a particular place of stated worship. Josh., 24. 1;
Judges 11. 11 ; 20. 1. Again, "the sanctuary of the Lord" at
Shechem was not a building erected for sacrifice, — for the oak
was "in it"—, but a spot hallowed by its associations. Joihua 24.
26. The sacrifice! at Bochim by Gideon and by Manoah were
called forth by special appearances and rcTelation of the angel
oi the Lord in extraordinary emergenciee at placei distant from
the tabernacle.

78 CHAPTER VII. THERE ARE
until it was brought to Zion by David, there was no
longer a sanctuary. * Samuel, God's immediate repre
sentative, in place of the degenerate priesthood, offered
sacrifice in various parts of the land. When the temple
was dedicated, the tabernacle is mentioned in connection
with it. This is in I Kings 8:4. Shiloh and Jerusalem
were the only places that ever became the abiding spot
of the ark and tabernacle. Shiloh was the national
sanctuary from Joshua to Samuel, and Jerusalem was
the same from David onwards. Between the days of
Samuel and David, the people worshipped in high places,
3:3 ; but then the high places in Judah were censured by
both the historian and the prophets. Elijah's sacrifice
on Carmel was offered by direct divine command ; and
the unrebuked altars in the northern kingdom, 18:30 ;
19:10, were erected by those who could not go up to the
temple at Jerusalem.
To the psalmists, from David onward, God's sole dwell-
¦ ing place is Zion. Psalm Forty ^ testifies to the exis
tence of the book of the law. The older prophets allude
to the ceremonial law and denounce the sanctuaries of
the northern kingdom. Hosea speaks of a written law.
Second Kings 12:16 ; and Hosea 4:9 imply that sin offer
ings were known before the time of Ezekiel. * The
prophet Joel speaks respectfully of the priests and be
wails the famine, for cutting off the offering, (1:13 ;
i I Sam. 2:32-36 ; Ps. 78:60-fi8 ; Jer. 7:12,14 ; 26:6,9.
5 The new theory puts it into the post-exilian period.
^ The new theory explains away the obvious meaning by a
strained exegesis.

REPERBNCES TO PRIESTLT LAW. 79
2:14^17.) Joel has always been regarded as one of the
oldest of the prophetical books. '
Thus we have seen that the alleged absence of refer
ence to the Pentateuch, the tabernacle and the ceremonial
law is not a fact. On the contrary there is such a full
ness of reference that even after the passages which the
new theory has expurgated, are removed, the argumen
tum e silentio will not apply to the balance. The amount
of positive testimony rejected is astonishing. Yet even
without any of this testimony, it is well to remember,
the case of the new theory would still be weak. Forthe
fact that the prophets complained ' so frequently of the
immorality of the priests, makes it quite clear, says
Bredekamp, that "the old laws remained lying in the ar
chives of the temple instead of governing the life of the
people." And the most remarkable fact that in all
prophetic literature, there is not once to be found a com
mand to be holy,shovild, remarks Baudissin, "be a warn
ing to deal carefully with the non-occurrence of certain
ideas in certain books."
' The new theory also puts this book after the exile. Its argu
ments in this matter are an example of reasoning in a circle.
It says, first, "The Levitical law is post-exilio, because there is
no evidence of its existence in pre-exilio books." Then it says,
second, "Whenever such evidences are found in the pre-exilic
books, they must either be considered as later interpolations, or
we must transfer the books to the post-exilic period" !
8 Isaiah 28. 7 fE. : Mic. 3:11 ; Zeph. 3:4 ; and Jer. passim.

80 CHAPTER VIII. THE NEW THEORY PAILS

CHAPTER VIII.
'TpHE negative theory is not only inconclusive in deal
ing with its own selected facts, but it fails to ex
plain other cognate facts in the same field. Thus it fails
to explain the Origin of the Sacrificial Code
It sees the sacrifices and ceremonies in full and com
plete development at the end of Israel's career, but it can
not tell where they came from, nor what they are for.
Here is a singular and central phenomenon in Israel, for
which it has no rational explanation.
The theory may take the ground that the sacrifices
were a development of the natural religion, like the
heathen rites and ceremonies around them, and that they
were not directly instituted by God. But then it is hold
ing that an institution which God, through the prophets,
is alleged to have condemned, is the one towards which
the religion of the nation was more and more tending.
Therefore the evolution of the Jewish religion was a de
velopment downwards or backwards. It began with the
lofty spirituality of the prophets and ended with the
gross formality of the priests. But this conclusion is in
consistent with the evolutionary principle underlying the
new theory, and with other parallel parts of the nega
tive hypothesis. The very scholars who regard the sacri-

TO EXPLAIN SACRIPICBS. 81
ficial code as a product of the post-exilian period argue
(without the historical evidence) that the Psalms must
have been a product of the same or a later date, on the
ground that the religious development of the previous
centuries was not adequate to their production. But
surely one cannot be allowed to assume an upward pro
gress when discussing the Psalter, and a downward pro
gress when discussing the ritual. ^
But if the new theory takes the ground that the sacrifices
were really commanded or sanctioned by God.it is again in
difficulty. Why would God introduce sacrifices at the
end of the Old Testament period? What meaning or ob
ject could they have ? They could not have been a mere
form for form's sake. They could not have been merely
a destruction of property for the sake of the loss inflicted.
They were surely not intended to develope self-righteous
ness, by their being performed merely as an opus oper-
atum. They must have had some better significance. That
this is so, even the prophets imply in the figures which
they draw from the ritual service. Sacrifices were an
expression of praise, consecration, and penitence. But
they were an expression adapted to the beginning, to a
primitive state of religious development. And would the
divine plan, even according to the law of evolution, have
begun with a spiritual code of morals, and have ended
after a thousand years with a system of external sacri
ficial rites. They were needed, if at all, from the very
1 Prof. C. M. Mead.

82 CHAPTER VIII. THE NEW THEORY PAILS
beginning of the religious development of the people.
Besides, their symbolical language could be understood
only as they accompanied the moral law. And again,
to suppose that God at first gave a moral law, and then
waited a thousand years before he gave the ritual, requires
us to assume that, after denouncing as religious sacrilege,
the sacrifices which the people had in their own gropings
instituted, God at last instituted as a religious duty what
was in substance the same thing !
If symbolism was needed to set forth thanksgiving,
consecration, and expiation, it was needed at the begin-.
ning, rather than near the end of the Jewish national ex
istence. If it was a part of the Mosaic legislation, it is
quite intelligible that it might have been more or less
abused and misunderstood, or loosely observed, that after
tbe great national misfortune it might have been more
carefully, and even too punctiliously performed accord
ing to the terms of the ritual law. But if there was
originally no such ritual legislation at all, it could hardly
have been introduced by any one inspired of God, at the
late date assigned to it.
The more we study the sacrificial and moral legislation
of Exodus and Leviticus, the more we shall be convinced
that it could have been made only for a very primitive,
somewhat savage people, of a high antiquity ; afar off it
tells of the desert and of an early people. Tet the legisla-
tion itself is not the work of a primitive mind. From a
merely human and critical point of view, it corresponds
well with what we know of the mind of Moses, which

TO EXPLAIN SACRIPICBS. 83
was imbued with the civilization of Egypt, where elabo
rate priest codes and rituals were in use. Coming from
such a land, with such a leader, it is not likely that Israel
waited a thousand years before giving its priests a writ
ten code for their organization and duties.
If, on the one hand, the new theory fails to explain the
origin of the sacriflces ; on the other hand, the explana
tion given by the Old Testament itself is satisfactory.
Even according to the decision of the new school, Deu
teronomy cannot be later than the time of Josiah, and
just this book bears witness to the existence of such a
code. "Everywhere in Deuteronomy, where the book
contents itself with a mere general outline and sketch of
precepts which, in practical life, demand a special appli
cation and complement, the conclusion must be drawn
that more special commands, which it presupposed and
to which it points, were already in existence." '
The flaws pointed out in the Old Testament explana
tion of the rise of the sacrificial code are not flaws in re
ality. There is no divergence in the laws of the Penta
teuch in respect to the altar. Exodus 30:24 gives no
sanction to simultaneous plurality of altars. In Leviti
cus, priestly duties are assigned by name to Aaron and
his sons as the officiating persons. Deuteronomy, which
mainly respects the future, describes the priests by the
tribe to which they belonged, as Levitical priests ; but it
neither asserts nor implies, as has sometimes been main
tained, that every Levite was entitled to discharge priestly
I Delitzsch, in 1880.

84 CHAPTER Till. NEW THEORY PAILS
functions. Leviticus has, of course, fuller details in re
spect to the feasts and the ritual than Deuteronomy, but
there is no disagreement between them.

TO fiT DEUT. AND LEVITICUS. 85

CHAPTER IX.
npHE negative theory fails to fit Deuteronomy into
the time of Josiah, and Leviticus into the time
of Ezra. If they were produced in these times there is
much in them that is superfluous ; and there are doctrines
and environments that do not correspond in the degree
of development with the age in which they are said to
belong. In. reality, each of these bodies of law not only
has its distinct occasion and separate purpose, but each
is appropriate to the circumstances which called it forth.
Both were moulded throughout by the abode in the
wilderness, and their style and character are as different
as possible from that which they must have borne, if
they had been produced at any subsequent period.
The Pentateuch, for instance, ordains rites, but sug
gests no explanation of them. This was a matter of sub
sequent reflection, as respecting sacriflce (Ps. 40 ; Isa. 63.)
purifications (Ps. 26:6, 81:7), incense (Ps. 141:2), the
privileges of God's house (Ps. 27:4), the comparative
value of ritual and spiritual worship (Ps. 50:8, ss;
51:16-17, Isa. 1:11 s s.) If these laws had not been writ
ten until the time of Ezra, we would be having the re
flections and explanations before the law itself.

Then, in the case of those Mosaic laws which were ex
panded by usage at a quite early period of Israel's his
tory, we would have the expansion before we have the
existence of the law itself. Such laws, for instance are
that of the levirate marriage in Euth, the Nazarite in
Samson, and the consecration of the first-bom in Samuel.
Thus toe the service of the sanctuary was enlarged by
music and by courses of priests under David, and its ves
sels multiplied under Solomon ; and the prophetic order,
of which the Pentateuch speaks as still future, super
seded the priestly responses, for which it made provision.
Still again, in the Pentateuch, the teachings respecting
the Messiah, divine retribution, the evil spirit, and the
future state, are of the most elementary character, aiid
in all these points,a great advance is made in the Psalms
and other poetical books, and in the prophets. '
I So, too, the Pentateuch's account of the creation, the fall,
and the deluge, while free from polytheistic conceptions, haB
such points of contact with the old Assyrian stories as estab
lish its high antiquity.

CHAPTER X, PRESENCE OP

CHAPTER X.
npHE negative theory fails to explain the presence
of many legal regulations, and of ideas,
that are meaningless after the exile. What pur
pose could the regulations in reference to Urim and
Thummim, Ex. 28.30 ; Lev. 8. 8 ; Num 37. 21 ; of, Ezra
2. 63 ; and Neh. 7. 65, have had,' if they were post exil
ian ? What can the post-exilian theory do with the reg
ulations in regard to the jubilee year. Lev. 25. 8 ff . ? Or
in regard to the Levitical cities, and the cities of refuge,
in the thirty-fifth chapter of Numbers. These laws are
all in the priest code. Further, the priest code confines
itself to and gives only the services to be performed by
the Levites in the wilderness, and no special legislation is
made for the time of rest in Canaan. If the priest code
were post exilian, that could scarcely have been the case.
Such a fiction would not have fitted into exilian needs,
and would hardly have occurred to exilian writers.
In general, the narratives and ideas that fill the Penta
teuch, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings are at vari
ance with the spirit of the times after the exile. They
are the outcome of a primitive civilization which could
not have been imagined later on. It passess all histori
cal probability to regard the laws of Exodus and Leviti-

LEGAL REGULATIONS. 89
cus as invented by, say the contemporaries of Alesan-"
der the Great. Not only are the general contents against
such an origin, but the smallest details are at war with
this adaptation.
Take one example among many , "A stranger shalt
thou not wrong, neither shalt thou oppress him ; for ye
were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Ex. 23: 31 ; 33.9).
Can we believe that we have here a writer, a legislator
of the third century B.C., suggesting as the motive of an
important law, which was opposed to the customs of
his people, an imaginary fact, invented by him, which
must have taken place a thousand years before, in place
of resting this law upon the events of the captivity
which still burned in the memories and hearts of the
people ? Even Kuehnen and Cheyne have been com
pelled to admit that some of these laws and regulations
could not have been written after the exile. Thus
Cheyne says "the Priestly Code contains many vei-y
early elements. Leviticus xi for instance, which is vir
tually identical with Deuteronomy xiv. 4^-30, is, no
doubt, as Kuehnen says, 'a later and amplified edition of
those priestly decisions on clean and unclean animals,
which the Deuteronomist adopted,' And above all,
Leviticus xvii-xxvi, when carefully studied, is seen to
contain an earlier stratum of legislation, which 'exhibits
a characteristic phraseology, and is marked by the pre
ponderance of certain characteristic principles and mo
tives?'" In other words, even in the post-exilian docu.
ment of the priest code there are regulations, customs

90 CHAPTER X. LBAAL BECttTLATlONS.
and language, which judged simply by the subjective can
ons of the negative school, will not at all fit into the pe
riod to which the document is assigned, and which can
only be disposed of by postulating a complicated author
ship,

PERSONALITY OP M08BS. 91

chapter;xi.

'TpHE negative view of the Pentateuch fails to pre
sent a tolerably plausible theory of the person
ality of the great reputed author of the Pentateuch.
It divides and doubles the traditional Moses ; but its at
tempt is flimsy, and does not satisfy either historical prob
ability or the facts. Its first Moses is the original but
mythical reality of the exodus. Its second Moses is the
amplified character elaborately constructed from the
brain of the litterateurs of the exile. Its theory would
be more conveniently served if it could make a complete
myth of the earlier and real Moses, but in view of the
utterances of the early prophets, it is compelled to leave
to him his life, and to admit that he conducted the exo
dus and originated a few rudimentary laws.
But, suppose we strip the Pentateuch of its alleged
later supplementary elements. On the one hand the
shadowy earlier Moses will be too feeble a foimdation,
too slender a pillar of support, for all that is still left of
the early history of Israel, with its battles, victories, de
feats, organization, settlement, detailed customs, insti
tutions and traditions. The weight of even the
remaining historic detail is still too heavy for a Moses who
.is little more than a shadow to hold aloft.
And on the other hand, it is impossible to satisfactorily
reduce Moses to a half mythical personality. He is one

93 CHAPTEft XI. ifOBKS
of those characters we cannot kill off. He will live in
strength and force of sharp-cut detailed act in spite of
our arguments and desires to the contrary. In infancy,
for instance, he was exposed, but in a strictly probable,
asnd not in a mythical fashion. He cannot be placed in
the category of Semiramis or with Komulus and Remus.
No dove came to feed the babe in the bulrushes, no wolf
to suckle it. Audit isdry,hard, natural law, corroborated
in details by extra-biblical facts, that the Egyptian king
should fear the menace of a prolific subject race, and
should seek to cripple it ; that Moses' parents should
conceal him as long as possible ; that maternal affection
should devise the cunning expedients adopted, relying on
the prompting of a woman's sympathy to have her babe
spared. The narrative is also natural in its silences.
There is no mention of his boyhood in the palace, of his
youth at the university, of his manhood at court, of the
possible honors, jealousies, intrigues and perils about
one so near the throne, yet so far from it. What a tempt
ing field for romance ! Surely the post-exilian chroni
cler might have put in a little pf the heroic and marvel
ous for us. But Moses comes and goes before us as a
bare man, and only as he is an instrument in relation to
the great purposes of Jehovah. There is nothing of the
humanistic interest in this tale. Nor is there such a lit
erary filling up of the character as even the moral ear
nestness of Ezra would have been tempted to make, for
the purpose of placing the character as an ideal before
the people.

THE TERM MOSAIC. 93

CHAPTER Xll.
'TpHE negative theory involves itself in contradiction
in trying to explain its term "flosaic." It as
sumes that the law was not by Moses, yet affirms that it
was necessary for later legislators to frame and name
the code as if coming from actual Moses. It maintains
that Moses gave no laws but the decalogue, and yet
teaches that Ezra found it necessary to promulgate the
whole pentateuchal law, including the ceremonial, un
der the name of Moses.
There is weakness here. It is impossible to show
cause for the necessity of terming the Ezraiticlaw "Mo
saic in spirit." If Moses gave no laws, except perhaps
a few moral laws, and if his personality was such a
shadowy thing in all^the prime of Israel's history, Ezra
would not have flxed on him as the one to father such a
mass of priestly and detailed ceremonial legislation. It
is a question whether such an unnatural expansion, by
which from a grain of one kind — the moral, a ton of
another kind — the sacerdotal, is developed, would have
occurred to Ezra. And if it did, the people would have
regarded it as a very weak expedient. If the clergy of
Germany today desired to introduce a full-fledged|code of
minute Sabbatarian laws, they could not and would not

94 CHAPTER XII. PAILS TO IXPLAIN
go back to Martin Luther to father them, nor could they
call them by the term "Lutheran."
According to the negative theory, first of all, there
was a great antagonism between the moral and the cer
emonial law: the prophets were always enforcing the
decalogue as over against the sacrificial rites of their
hearers. But if now the decalogue was in the spirit of
Moses; the pr'iesfs law, which was the competitor of the
decalogue, according to the new theory, could neither
have been, nor have been considered as an evolution out
of the decalogue. A development of the ritual law out
of the decalogue is very much like a development of
Boman Catholicism out of Puritanism I
Neither, in the second place, would such a real or as
sumed development have been accepted by the later
Jewish people. If Moses was a very dim figure to them,
if the law of Moses is not mentioned in the historical
books and seems to have been unknown ; if the pro
phetic books, in which Moses is seldom mentioned at all,
and in the few cases in which he is mentioned (except
the late Daniel and Malachi) is not spoken of as a
lawgiver, but only as a leader; ^are the only books that
are authentic and were in existence, previous to the ex
ile, the priest class would not have found it either nec
essary or advisable or possible to call all their legisla
tion "Mosaic."
When David or Solomon or other kings made laws,
moral or ceremonial, they did not call them "Mosaic"
1 Is. 53. 11, 12 ; Jer. 15, 1 ; Mic. 6. 4.

THE TEBU MOSAIC. 95
or in form ascribe them to Moses. When Ezekiel, who
is alleged to have undertaken to introduce an elaborate
ritual which was new for the most part to the Jews of
his time, and was the fore-runner of the post exilian
Levitical code, brought out his law, he did not call it
"Mosaic." The principle that all legislation had to be
in form attributed to Moses, here breaks down in the
most conspicuous instance. If Ezekiel came with the
authority of a prophet, needing no Moses to lean on,
why did the author of Deuteronomy, any more than
his contemporary Ezekiel, hide himself behind the
name of Moses, especially if Moses as a legislator had
been previously as good as unknown ? '
» Frof. C.M.Mead.

^6 CHAPTEB XIII. PAILS TO EXPLAIN

CHAPTER XIII.
'TpHE negative theory fails in its own principle, when
applied to an explanation of the rise of the
prophets. According to the negative theory, the prophets between
600 and 800 B. C, Isaiah, Hosea, Amos and' their con
temporaries, were the earliest writers of the Old Testa
ment. While there was probably a Torah before the
time of these writers, it was entirely oral, it is said ; and
while there were some fragments of Israelitish literature,
these, it is affirmed, were not properly of the character
of sacred literature. So that, according to the negative
theory, there was no literature of account before these
prophets. The principle of the negative theory is the law of nat
ural growth. All Old Testament literature is a develop
ment ; first the blade, then the ear, and then the full
corn in the ear. But what a blade we have in the early
prophets ! Why, it excels the full corn. It is the acme
of the Old Testament's literary development. These
very first authentic utterances of the Jewish mind rise at
once to the sublimest heights of Hebrew prophecy, and
take a place among the grandest and most elevated wri
tings in history!

THE EISE OP THE PEOPHETS. 97
Matthew Arnold, a literary critic certainly not preju-
. diced in favor of the orthodox view, writes that "The
Hebrew language and genius, it is admitted by common
consent, are seen in the Book of Isaiah at their perfec
tion ; this has naturally had its effect on the English
translation, which nowhere rises to such beauty as in
this book." And another writer, Dr. Stalker, remarls,
"The prophetic books are almost as artistic as poems.
Their literary form is not exactly poetry, though now
and then it crosses its own boundary and becomes poet
ical. It is a kind of rhythmical prose, governed by laws
of its own, which it carefully observes. All the proph
ets are,indeed,not equally careful. Some of them appear
to have been too completely carried away with the
message which t^ey had to deliver to think much of
the way of delivering it. But theae were not the
strongest of the prophets. ... At the head of them all
stands Isaiah. All the resources of poetry and elo
quence are at his command. His language ranges
through every mode of beauty and sublimity, being
sometimes like the pealing of silver bells, and sometimes
like the crashing of avalanches, and sometimes like the
songs of seraphim." And even the most negative of
critical scholars will admit that parts of this remarkable
book were written by Isaiah in the days of King Heze
kiah. And they lay all emphasis on the genuineness of
the earlier prophetical writings. This is indeed one of
the foundation stones of their theory. Tet these are the
very scholars who hold that the Jewish religion could

»0 CHAPTEB XIII. THE PBOPHETS.
not have produced the Psalms till during or after the
captivity. They "admit the genuineness of the pro
phetical writings, which are saturated with quite as
lofty, pure and fervent a religious Spirit as that of the
best of the Psalms;" and deny the genuineness of the
Psalms. "One could not well conceive of a more glaring
self-contradiction than that which is involved in conced
ing, on the one hand, the genuineness of the prophetical
books, and in contending, on the other, that the Jews
could not have developed their religious poetry till cen
turies afterwards.
If Hebrew literature began in such a glory, and with
such eloquent and artistic work, the law of literary de
velopment is an unreliable guide to go by in judging of
the age of biblical books. How different and more nat
ural is the account of the 'Bible, which attributes liter
ary authorship by name to Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Gad,
Nathan, Asaph, David, Solomon, Iddo, Shemaiah, Ahi-
jah, Elijah and several others before the literary prophets
of the eighth century.

THE ¦WORDS OF THE PBOPHETS.

CHAPTER XIV.
'TpHE negative theory forces the Words of the
Prophets into an interpretation against the existence
of the ceremonial law. If it be true that the prophets
fail to mention its existence, it is also true that they
fail to mention the existence of the decalogue. And it
would have been much more natural for them to have
referred to the latter than to the former. For they were
contending against immorality combined with supersti
tious trust in sacrificial offerings. They would have
had occasion to lay stress on the observance of the moral
law ; but they had no occasion to lay any stress on the
observance of the ceremonial law. On the contrary as
the ceremonial law was over-used and abused, the
prophets strongly condemned this ritualistic formalism,
Jeremiah even going so far as to say — ^very like the
fashion of modem indignant eihphatic speakers— for
the effect of rhetorical emphasis — "I spake not unto
your fathers nor commanded them, in the day that I
brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning
burnt-offerings or sacrifices." - 7. 23
Now these are the words which the negative criticism
would interpret against the existence of a ceremonial
law. Taken literally they say just that. But these

100 CHAPTEB XIV. FORCES
were not spoken literally, as is very evident. Under
the circumstances of their utterance they are a strong
proof of the existence of the ceremonial law. And, be
sides, Jeremiah himself, unfortunately for the negative
criticism, presents an additional and literal proof of the
existence of the ceremonial law in his positive state
ment (34. 13-14) that the law concerning the redemption
of Hebrew servants was given at the time of the exodus.
If the first passage is figurative, this is literal. And if
the first passage is literal, this also is literal, and shows
that he knew, of the existence of either Deuteronomy or
of the Book of the covenant, and both of these show
that God did command them concerning sacrifices.
Again where Jeremiah, 31, 31-33, tells of the new
covenant, when the law of God is to be written on the
heart of his people, he also tells of the old covenant
made at the time of the exodus. He also, 11, 1-5, makes
a formal quotation of what seems to be Lev. 36, 3, 12,
which, on the theory, had not been written yet. And in
general his references and those of other prophets show
that a considerable body of laws is assumed by them to
have been given at the time of thesexodus. Their prej
udicial expressions against sacrifices are due to the
common abuse of sacrifices in that day. They cannot
have meant to inveigh against them as such, for they rep
resent the ideal future state as one in which sacrificial
rites are to be observed. Thus Jeremiah himself
speaks of the time when they shall come from many
places bringing burnt-offerings and sacrifices, 17. 25.

THE WORDS OF THE PROPHETS. 101
And Isaiah, 33, 17-32, Zechariah, Zephaniah and Hosea
say the same with equal emphasis. Nowhere do the
prophets speak of an ideal future as characterized by
the absence of sacriflce, while they repeatedly speak of
such a future as characterized by their presence. And,
though they did lay greatest stress on moral upright
ness as the need of the moment, because that was the
greatest lack then, yet since their great ideal church is
conceived as one in which sacrifices are offered, they
must have regarded the old law of Jehovah as prescrib
ing such sacrifices. ^ If it had not, their very bent
toward morality would have swung them away from
the ceremonial element, j
1 From the words of Isaiah 19:19, ''In that day shall there be
an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a
pillar at the border thereof", Kobertson Smith draws the con
clusion that Deuteronomy could not have been written before
Isaiah. But Deut. XVI, 21, 22, only condemns idolatrous "pil
lars" and herein agrees with acknowledged old passages (Exod.
23:24). Moses himself erected twelve pillars atthe side of the
altar, (Exod. 24:4)! Here we find grounds again to justify us in
holding that Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:4) recognized the binding
character of the injunction of a central altar, and hence recog
nized the authority oi,DeutMOO.oiay.— Strack.

103 ASSUMES TWO

CHAPTER XV.
The negative theory requires a faith in the assump
tion that the most of the Mosaic law could twice be
smuggled into general currency, on two occasions
about two hundred years apart. The Mosaic law was re
ceived by the whole Hebrew nation as the work of Moses
written under the inspiration of God. This national re
ception of it as such by the whole Hebrew people, — a
testimony in itself sufficient to outweigh conjectures of
centuries away critical scholars — , we put aside for
the moment, in order to discuss each of the two cases on
their own merits.
The earliest case is that of the book of Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy is held not to have been written until a
short time previous to the reforms of Josiah, and for the
purpose of aiding those reforms. It is held to have been
then promulgated, as an ancient work, long lost, just
come to light.
The first objection to this theory is that it does not
correspond to the most important fact in the case. For
the account of the discovery — "I have found the book of
the law in the house of the Lord" (3 Kings 23.8) — ^indi
cates that its contents were known, not only to Hilkiah,
but to others, aud that it was found in the temple, its

GREAT NATIONAL DECEPTIONS. 103
proper place, Deut. 31. 36. The book found there in
the temple must have contained at least a part of Deu
teronomy; for the words of chapter 28 in Deuteronomy
explain Huldah's utterances, and the contents of the
book as a whole explain Josiah's reforms. Morepver
the simple and natural explanation of the case is the one
intended to be conveyed in the text, that the priest seek
ing among the records of the long-neglected sanctuary
really found the old book from the time of Moses.
The second objection to the negative theory is that the
book was at once so universally accepted. It must have
been a book known, or heard of, and respected, before
the time it was found. Otherwise it would not have re
ceived such rapid and universal recognition, unless in
deed it was strongly attested by some official and uni
versally respected personal forces of the day. Did Hil
kiah and the priests thus attest it ? Not if it was a new
book to be smuggled in. It would not have been a book
to suit .them, according to the new theory of Hebrew
history. According to that theory, the injunction of
Deuteronomy 18. 6-8, must have been very unwelcome to
the priests at Jerusalem. Nevertheless they and Hil
kiah do cooperate to spread the authority of the book.
So we here have a reasonably probable proof that the
book was not just newly made, but that it already en
joyed irresistible authority at the time of its discovery.
On the whole, and in view of the fact that party spirit
has the same general qualities in all ages, it would pro
bably not be putting the case too strongly to say that it

104 THE WORDS OF THE PROPHETS.
would have been as easy to originate and bring a smug
gled book into general acceptance among both reform
and anti-reform elements in those days, on the ground of
its having been ostensibly written by Moses ; as it would
be easy in our day and land to originate and bring a tar
iff reform bill into universal acceptance on the ostensible
ground that it had been originally adopted as part of the
organic law of the land by George Washington and the
constitutional convention, but had been lost in the na
tional archives, and had only just come to light.
A third strong objection to the negative theory of a
newly written Deuteronomy is that the nature of much
of its contents is inconsistent with the theory of its or
igin just before the reforms of Josiah. The book speaks
in a friendly way of Egypt, 33. 8. How different is the
tone of Isaiah, 30. 1 sqq. and Jeremiah 3, 18, 36! It speaks
in a similar way of Edom, 33. 8, and condemns Moab
and Ammon, 33. 4, 5, while the case is just reversed in
Jeremiah 49. 17, 18, 40, 47; 49. 6 ! What was the appro
priateness, in Josiah's time, of the injunction against
the extermination of the Canaanites, Deuteronomy 20.
16-18, and the Amalekites, 35. 17-19, and in favor of
conquests and war, 20. 10-30, and how could the legis
lation for the throne, 17, have originated so late !
The account of the discovery and the implied public
knowledge of the book at the time are against the
theory. The contents of the book is against the theory,
and in the fourth place the means that it would have
been necessary to employ are against the supposition^

GREAT NATIONAL DECEPTIONS. 105
Either Hilkiah, in order to do good in his reform, was
willing to plS.n and tell a falsehood when he reported
that he had found the book ; or the author, or an agent
of his,hadthebook stealthily hidden in the temple in the
anticipation that it would be discovered and be ac
cepted as the work of Moses. Either supposition is un
likely. "It is certainly not a light thing to ask Christian men
to believe that the best men of the Hebrew nation, act
ing too, under divine inspiration, could find no better
way to further their pious design than to perpetrate
such a forgery" and then force it into acceptance by the
use of falsehood.
The supposition is even more unlikely, when we con
sider the source to which the new theory is obliged to
assign the book. It supposes it to have come from the
prophetical party. But the prophets are just the ones
who are rightly praised as the preachers of a stern mo
rality. They denounce fraud, injustice and deceit in the
most vigorous terms. Yet the new theory makes the
devising and execution of this scheme, which, at the
very least, verges on fraud, to be the result of their in
fluence. But the supposition seems utterly impossible when we
look at the results it is said to have brought about. It is
alleged to have accomplished what centuries of direct
preaching had failed to accomplish. No amount of talk, ut
tered as the direct message of Jehovah, had succeeded in
checking the prevalence of idolatry and worship on the

106 CHAPTER XV. ASSUMES TWO
high places. This unknown prophet, by the happy device
of deluding king, priests, and people into the belief that a
hitherto , lost work of the great deliverer had come to
light, introduced a new era into the religious history of
Israel. The secret never leaked out, and no one ever
censured his conduct until to-day.
The supposition seems again impossible, when we con
sider the nature of the case, largeness of the scale, and
the character of the times and people. Kings, priests,
all the civil officials and even the prophetess Huldah, ac
cepted such laws as are here found, and now brought for
ward for the first time, as the law of Jehovah given
through Moses. "In an age of national decay, when
the people had admittedly fallen away into idolatry and
revelled, in it, they permitted themselves to be coerced
into reformation by a fictional history, invented for their
benefit, but which neither they nor their fathers had
known ; and no honest man, nor any devotees of idol
atry, denounced the 'pious fraud.' And, when after
a long period of exile in a foreign land, a remnant of the
people, humbled and imjioverished, returned to Pales
tine, they calmly received more of this fictional history
as truth ; and submitted to having imposed upon them a
complete and minute system of ordinances, rites and
ceremonies, which was presented as having been di
vinely revealed to Moses long ages before, but which in
that special form had hitherto been unknown."
It is true that the negative theory eases up the
stringency of its position by making liberal allowance

GREAT NATIONAL DECEPTIONS. 107
for the preparatory influences of tradition. "There
were strong and growing traditions about the law of
Moses, and in accordance with these, and as a formula
tion of these, the two sets of writings appeared. They
were only the crystallization of ideas already dominant."
But while this supposition partly relieves the two schemes
from the stigma of immorality and partly lessens the
difficulties of universal acceptance, it merely lessens the
latter and it adds still other and more complicated in
ternal considerations.
In the first place a thousand or more years of traditional
growth would not have left facts such as those under
consideration, in the public mind. And the growth
would not have been of such a kind as we have in these
books. In the second place, the variations according to
section and locality could not have been so suddenly
exterminated. In the third place there would have been
some ugly gaps in Israel's history, for such tradition to
leap across. In the fourth place, the litterateurs would
have had to do the impossible thing of so revising the
latest growth that it should appear as the earliest in
time. In the fifth place the proposed growth is not of
such a kind as the people of Israel would have originated
or tolerated. In the sixth place it is only to uphold a
single idea, namely, that of development from morality
to ritual formalism, for which the new theory introduces
the growth of tradition, whereas that idea would be totally
incompetent to sum up and explain the scores of influ
ences and results at work, if all this law and history had

108 CHAPTEB XV. ASStTMES TWO
been only a matter of tradition. We are opening wide
doors when we let hypothetic tradition in ; doors wide
enough to swallow a hundred positive and negative
theories, and end all science in conjectural confusion.

In the case of the other smuggled writings, several
centuries later, including the greater part of Exodus,
Leviticus and Numbers, which the returned Exiles are
said to have accepted as coming from Moses, though they
really came from Ezra or one of his contemporaries, the'
difficulty is in some respects greater. If Ezra did not
know of their recent origin, he must have known that up
to his own time no such laws had been heard of, and he
must have made investigations. If he did know of
their recent origin, we cannot reconcile the fact with
either his or Nehemiah's character. Still less can we be
lieve that their bitter enemies, those who rebelled against
their rigor, those who conspired against the building of
the wall, and more especially those priests and Levites
who had their wives and children torn from them by
the new law against foreign marriages, just put into op
eration, would either themselves quietly and unsuspect
ingly receive any such code as of Mosaic origin, or
would allow others to do so, without ventilating the de
ception. Even where all the men of prominence in civil
and ecclesiastical life have been a unit on such a mat
ter, it would scarcely be possible to point to any simi
lar instance of deception on such a colossal scale. The

GREAT NATIONAI DECEPTIONS. 109
case of the Pseudo-Isidore Decretals comes perhaps near
est to it. But it was less audacious and less successful.
And when we examine the historical setting into
which this great questionable transaction is fltted, and
carefully mark all that is said by the new critics in its
favor, we cannot but feel the meagreness and the uncon
vincing character of the history upon which this great
conjectural act is based. •
"It is impossible to admit that a fraud so colossal
could have succeeded under the conditions supposed ;
that the Jews after the exile permitted through deceit
and forgery, to be imposed on themselves a Draconian
set of laws like those of Leviticus and foreign to their
mode of thought. We cannot even conceive that the
priests of that time could have harbored the idea. In
order that a mystiflcation of this sort should succeed
the Jewish nation must have been composed on the one,
side of a people utterly unlettered and stupifled,with no
memory of the past, and, on the other side, of a priest
hood sensational and enterprising, all perfectly united
and incapable of betraying the secret of their trickery.
Between these two extremes there could have had been
no middle class. Such was not the case. And as re
spects the prophets, can one conceive the priests of the
fourth or second century B. 0. suddenly coming before
the people with books fallen from heaven, containing
prophecies of events that took place centuries before,and
the people, educated and ignorant, believing that these
lucubrations, ridiculous as ex post facto, had existed

110 GREAT NATIONAL DECEPTIONS.
for centuries in the midst of a nation without ever being
known by them ? If there has ever been a miracle, this
was one." ^
In the last place, the supposition seems improbable
when we consider that there could have been no neces
sity for it. It was the prophetic verdict of Huldah that
confirmed the impressions of Josiah about the newly di^
covered l5,w. It was again the authority of Ezra, their
great ecclesiastical leader, that caused the returned ex
iles to accept the Levitical code. But this same author
ity, which was sufficiently weighty to overcome the pre
sumption against the genuineness of laws proffering to
be Mosaic, if they made their first appearance centuries
after Moses' death, would have also been sufficiently
weighty to cause the people to believe in a really new
legislative revelation as coming direct from God. If
they believed these prophets to be divinely inspired, they
would have accepted what the prophets gave them under
the latter's own name.
1 De Harlez.

A PlOtrs FBAUD. Ill

CHAPTER XVI.
'X'HE negative theory assumes a Pious Fraud on the
part of Old Testament Writers. In addition
to the introduction of a non-genuine law on two great
public occasions, it involves the practice ot pia fraus on
the part of a great many individual writers. Hear, for
instance what Canon Cheyne says of the writer of the
books of Chronicles:
"The Chronicles are inspired ... as even a sermon might be
called inspired, 1. e. touched in a high degree with the best spir
itual influences ot the time  That there are some passages
in Chronicles which have a specially inspiring quality, and may
therefore be called inspired, is of course not to be denied. But
upon the whole,as Frof .Kobertson Smith truly says,theChronicler
'is not so much a historian as a Levitical preacher on the old
history.' ... He omits some facts and colours others in perfect
good faith according to a preconceived religious theory, to edify
himself and his readers. He also adds some new facts, not on
his own authority, but on that of earlier records, but we dare
not say that he had any greater skill than his neighbors in sift
ing the contents ot these records, if indeed he had any desire
to do so."
And the Chronicler is but a single one out of many
writers, according to the new view, who have been busy
ing themselves in colouring, retouching, inventing, and

112 CHAPTER XVI. ASSUMES
composing under more ancient names, large parts of the
Pentateuch, Judges, Kings, Psalms and many of the
books of the Prophets. Indeed to such an extent is the
history idealized and imagined and adapted by both the
numerous writers of the original documents and the
various redactors, and so conflicting are the assignments
of authorship by subjective experts of the negative
school, that to the cautious and non-enthusiastic look
er-on, it becomes a question as to the value of any of it.
When he considers, for instance, the many persons who
are said to have had a hand in writing the plagues, or
the daring and detailed imagination of the legislator
of the exile who ' invented both the extraordinary con
ception and also the elaborate description of the taber
nacle, or the deliberate clipping and falsifying of facts
on the part of the Chronicler, himself, when he rewrote
Samuel and Kings in his own interests ; the onlooker is
naturally led to feel that the whole Old Testament is so
thoroughly honeycombed with fiction and pious fraud,
perhaps also even in places which have eluded the in
stincts of the scholarship of this age, that the entire
mass of writings have become valueless for the purposes
of accurate history, and are not worth the pains which
the negative scholarship is putting on them. This is a
result which such critics as Canon Cheyne are illy pre
pared to meet.
For, strange to say. Canon Cheyne seems to think
that people will have as much faith in a building
which is tumbling down on their heads, and from

A PIOUS FRAUD. 113
which he has removed the central pillars of support,
as they used to have in it, while the pillars were still
standing in their strength. This very illogical ' bent of
mind proposes to feel as confident in its faith while
standing upon the ruins of an objective Christianity, as
it ever did in the well-built structure. Thus Cheyne
expressly illustrates this assertion by saying, for instance,
that if it should become decidedly probable that John
did not originate the Fourth Gospel as it now stands, "I
am sure that all truly religious students would believe,
with heart and with head, as strongly as ever in the in
comparable nature and the divine mediatorship of Jesus
Christ. They would do so on the ground of the facts
which would still be left by the historical analysis of
the Gospels, and on the correspondence between a sim
ple Christian view of those facts and the needs of their
own and of the Church's life." All this is a great mis
take, and if it is fair to take it as a sample of his critical
judgment and of that fine historical sense and deep
knowledge of human nature which he exercises on the
biblical records, it is easy to estimate the uncertain value
of his results. For, while he is perfectly justified in
speaking confidently of his own type of mind, there are
many other types of truly religious mind, less mystical
and more hard-headed and scientific in their deduction
from cold facts, who could not "believe as strongly as
ever in the incomparable nature and the divine media
torship of Jesus Christ." We may be mistaken, but
1 That Is, from a strictly scientific point of view.

114 CHAPTER IVI. ASSUMES
perhaps Prof. Toy, of Harvard, is a case in point, and it
is perhaps a question whether Kuehnen and Wellhausen
themselves could come under Canon Cheyne's, "I am
sure." The present writer believes Cheyne's judgment
to be pretty well opposite to facts as far as men in gen
eral are concerned. For the authorized use of pious
fraud has a tendency to vitiate faith in divine providence
itself, and "the facts still left by the historical analysis"
then no longer having any weight.
The defenders of the Old Testament sometimes incur
rebuke for fastening such shoc'king and mis-leading
epithets as "pious fraud" and "forgery" upon negative
views. They are supposed to have originated these terms
in dislike and ignorance, and are held responsible for
them. But, excepting that some negative scholars re
pudiate them, both "pious fraud" and "forgery" are the
negative theory's own term. Canon Cheyne says, "I
quite enter into the dislike of reverent Bible-readers for
the theory of 'pious fraud.' " But in the very next sen
tence he adds, "I think that dislike an exaggerated one." '
While he does not adopt that theory in all cases, he vir
tually uses it in some. As to the term "forgery," he
brings forward the test suggested by Mr. Gore, "viz: to
find out whether the writer of a particular book could
have afforded to disclose the method and circumstances of
his production." We differ from him in believing that
Hilkiah could have stood this test (on the assumption for
the moment that Hilkiah was the writer of Deuteronomy) ;
1 Founders of Negative Criticism, p. 271. Footnote.

A PIOUS FRAUD. 115
but even if we grant that Hilkiah could be freed from the
charge of forgery under this proposed test, there are a
number of other writers, of whom Cheyne is not think
ing just at this point, who on his own theory in regard
to them, could not be freed under this test, but would
be implicated.
At times the new theory is far less blunt, in its use'of
soft language to convey the exact shade of idea which it
infuses into or impresses upon its results. It will not
turn certain parts of writings into myths, legends, sagas,
or even "inventions of a later age." It calls them ideal
izations of history. But such idealizations can have in
their message, to men no divine basis, or warrant, or
promise, or strength, or comfort, other and more than
any other purely human idealization. Nevertheless the
point is that, in the Old Testament and in New Testa
ment comment on the Old, they distinctly and promi
nently profess to have a direct divine basis and war
rant and promise entirely different from that of purely
human writings. And in order to cause the reader to
believe the more strongly in that difference of basis and
in their divine warrant, the purely human writers have
clothed them with antiquity and put them into the lips
of prophets who say they received them direct from God.
If our knowledge of God and hope of life eternal rise
from such a cloudy well, faith is clean gone forever.
Such idealization is perfectly permissible as long as it
is intended to be understood as springing simply from
the sum of human insight and knowledge, but it is no

116 CHAPTER XVI. ASSUMES
more permissible for a human being to construct an ut
terance out of its own self-hood and then say to the
world, "The Lord speaketh, hear ye Him ;" than it is for
a priest to fashion an idol out of his own mental con
sciousness, and say, "This is the Lord's image ; bow ye
down before it." Indeed, except, in the quality and
kind of material used in the two processes, we do not
see any difference between them. The prominent inten
tional element in each is pious fraud. And each of the
two minds may sincerely consider itself inspired to do
the thing.
To "invent fictitious narratives of events that never
happened, to devise codes of laws that never were en
acted, to compose speeches that were never uttered, and
to describe in detail institutions that never had any ex
istence, ' ' is proper to poet or preacher or writer of fiction.
But to give these fictions currency and authority by
solemnly attributing them to God Himself, or to utter
Hhem as revealed to men directly by God Himself, is
pious fraud. And it is just here that the 'legal fiction'
theory introduced by Robertson Smith, breaks down in
the point of its analogy. The analogy is all right, — if we
leave an objective God out of the Old Testament. But
if we leave God out of the Old Testament, we are stand
ing on useless ruins.
The whole matter is not a question as to whether the
records have everything down in protocol form, even to
the reproduction of the least circumstance, but it is essen
tially a question as to whether God's Spirit would speak

A Pious FRAUD. 117
through such contents and oracles as have their origin in
a pious fraud.
Both in the numerous different cases of individual
writers of the Old Testament, and in the two special
cases of Deuteronomy and the Exilian Priest Code,
the whole matter is not a question of the mere sub
jective, personal truthfulness, or good intention of
the writers, but it is a question of the objective result.
The imposition, for example, of Deuteronomy on the
people, as having been spoken by God to Moses when
Israel was entering the promised land, was no mere lit
erary fiction, but a political maneuver, which can be
justified by no principle of morality except the Jesuitic
one that "the end justifies the means." And when Ca
non Cheyne remarks, "Such conduct as that of Hilkiah
is, I maintain, worthy of an inspired teacher and states
man in that age and under those circumstances," he is
falling back we suspect upon principles, the use of
which would have made him an adept in the art of polit
ical priestcraft in bygone ages, and the particular de
testation of secular rulers and upright men even in that
early day, If the conduct of Hilkiah was such, we do
not see how it would have been possible for him to face
king and people, on discovery of his conduct, without loss
of self-respect and reputation, no matter how pure his
intentions may have been. Benevolent intentions are no
excuse for bad actions.
If the view taken above is correct, it would similarly
and more conspicuously follow that the promulgation of

118 CHAPTER XVI. A PIOUS FRAUD.
laws and invented narratives by the priesthood in the
time of the exile for the purpose of securing prestige for
their ecclesiastical order and divine sanction for their
ceremonies, was also immoral, and greatly increases the
already heavy burden which the new conjecture is com
pelled to bear on pure historical grounds.

ESSENTIALLY RADICAL. Il6

CHAPTER XVII.
npHE Negative Theory is essentially a Radical one,
and tolerates no Half- Way positions. Its work
is to level Scripture downwards. Its temper is, to
eagerly advance further and further down the decline.
For it, there is neither rest nor peace in an established
position. It is "a movement." This is abundantly and
almost amusingly illustrated by what is perhaps the most
striking feature in Canon Cheyne's recent work. In this
work the protagonist of the English criticism plays the
part of paternal adviser, with fond and anxious pride, to
the whole tribe of negative critics. He presses upon
them the repeated exhortation that the one thing need
ful is to descend more hastily to the bottom levels. He
tells us that "so eager and rapid has been the advance of
recent criticism" that Schrader and Sayce, "both emi
nent Assyriologists," have been compelled to drop be
hind as Old Testament critics." He pushes and pulls
and pushes, and cajoles, and expostulates, and laments,
and will not be satisfied until he has brought the critics
of more conservative build down to his present level.
He says Davidson is the loser by excessive caution, and
asks how can the work "which we are eagerly expecting
from him, he produced without the aid of a wisely bold

1^0 CHAPTFR XTII. THE NEGATIVE THEORY
'higher criticism.' " He deplores Prof. Sayce's position
as an obstacle to progress and, throwing out a compli
mentary sop to him, asks why he should not "seek the
assistance of the critics."
But it is concerning Dr. Driver that is he is particu
larly anxious, and for him he is overflowingly full of
mild reproach and strong exhortation. He thinks there
is a "still more excellent way" than Dr. Driver's,
namely to absorb the full spirit of criticism, and to
stand beside the foremost workers. He considers
Driver "a very clear-headed but slowly moving scholar,
who stands "a little aside from the common pathway of
critics," And he says on the next page, "I do earnestly
hope that he is not meditating a step backwards in de
ference to hostile archaeologists  I greatly re
gret this. To fall behind Ewald, Dillmann and even
Delitzsch and Kittel, is a misfortune which I can only
account for on the theory of compromise. I hesitate to
contemplate the consequences which might possibly fol
low from the acceptance of this view." It strikes him
that Dr. Driver shows too much "cautious reserve" and
too little "courage" in treating the books of Samuel, and
that his remarks on the Psalms are "not untouched by
the spirit of compromise." As for Dr. Sanday, Canon
Cheyne thinks that he "rests for the moment in tem-
pory hypotheses and half-way positions, prepared to go
either forwards or backwards as the case may be, and
disposed to idealize Dr. Driver's hesitations and incon
sistencies'' in the matter of the Psalms. As for New

ESSENTIALLY BADICAL. 121
Testament criticism in England, Canon Cheyne does not
feel that it is very hopeful (i. e. from his point of view).
He says, "There is no doubt much good work being done,
but for want of a disposition to learn from the 'higher
critics' of the Old Testament, it appears to me to be,
however fruitful up to a certain extent, singularly one
sided." Canon Cheyne also tells us that he finds it rather dif
ficult to learn from English critics, through their un-
progressiveness, and speaking of the Proverbs, exclaims,
"Alas ! Dr. Driver has not thrown off that spirit of def
erence to conservatism, which, if I am not mistaken, in
jures his work elsewhere. . . Dr. Driver speaks as if
some of the Proverbs in two of the greater collections
might possibly be the work of Solomon. This is hardly
the way to cultivate the critical spirit in young stu
dents" [1] Speaking of Driver on Job, the Canon still
continues, "I think Dr. Driver should have taken some
steps in advance of a book published in 1884. Both he
and Dr. Davidson have a way of stopping short in the
most provoking manner. At the very outset, for in
stance, they compromise rather more than is strictly
critical [note the sense in which this word is used] on
the subject of the historical existence of Job." In the
matter of the date of the Song, the Canon says, "Here
I must complain that such a thorough Hebraist as Dr.
Driver hesitates so much," and adds, "That I reluc
tantly call an unwise compromising with tradition."
So we see the leader of the Negative School himself

122 CHAPTER XVII. THE NEW THEOEY
making the most positive assertions that no half-way
positions are possible in this movement. We see him
standing in the deep hollow, and calling out in tones,now
of pathetic appeal and now of public rebuke, to his
more timid followers holding on with might and main
half-way up the hillside: "Come down lower 1 Come
down to me !" '
Moreover, he traces for us the stages of the down
ward "advance." Comparing the moderately conserva
tive position of Ewald with the radical one of his pupil
Wellhausen, he says, "In one sense he [Wellhausen] has
no doubt broken with his master. . But in another he
carries on his old teacher's work; he stands where so
fearless a critic as Ewald would stand, could he begin
his career agjtin  Wellhausen is a faithful disciple
of Ewald, whose principles he does but apply more con
sistently, and therefore with different results." He
states that Dr. Driver has now reached the point*
which he himself had reached in 1888 ; and that while
in 1881 Cornill still thought some psalms were Davidic,
by 1891 he had come to see that the whole Psalter' was
post-Exilic, which is essentially Cheyne's own present
position. Though he takes Prof. Briggs under the
special shelter of his wing, he says he is bound to group
him with Prof. Toy of Harvard. And through all his
writings and biographical descriptions we feel how en
tirely his sympathies and convictions both in literary
1 Speaking of the Psalms.
* Except perhaps Fsalm 89.

ESSENTIALLY BADICAL. 123
methods and results are entirely at one with the most
pure school of destructive rationalists.
But here we come across an idiosyncracy in Canon
Cheyne and his school. While he is at the bottom of
the hill as a philologer, and is trying to pull his asso
ciates and followers down to his present place ; and
while he is in intimate association, alliance and fellow
ship with pure continental rationalism as a philologer,
he resolutely refuses to be considered at the bottom of
the hill as a theologian, or to be classed with the pure
rationalists in their philosophy. In all seriousness and
reverence he thinks he is advancing the interest of "true
evangelical religion," and he hopes that his work will
tend to the strengthening of spiritual faith, and it is ' 'in
the name of the Apostle of Faith" that he very mod
estly, nobly and gravely advocates the use of his meth
ods. As a scholar and linguist he is a master-workman
overturning every wall and stone in the foundations of
Christianity, and trying his best to show that only or
dinary human and natural principles have been opera
tive in this ancient historical structure. But as a re
ligious man, he is still a firm believer; on the strength of
some things he still finds in these foundations. As an in
vestigator, he eliminates the supernatural; as a Christian,
he finds the supernatural still present in some unex
plained way. Moreover the existence of his Christian
faith is no barrier whatever to closest fellowship and
sympathy with those who draw the rationalistic theo
logical inference, and, from the same standing ground as

124 CHAPTER XVir. THE NEW THEORY
Cheyne, ridicule the existence of such Christian faith.
The mode of contact in him between faith and its ob
ject appears to be entirely mystical, and it seems strange
to see a keenly rationalistic head illogically receiving its
spiritual life blood from the outflow of a mystical heart.
The same "more consistent application of princi
ples" which made Wellhausen a better exponent of
Ewald's principles than Ewald himself ; and the same
thorough-going premises in theology which Cheyne
wishes Driver to apply in history and linguistics, ought
in all fairness to the principles be applied by Cheyne
himself to the theological field. Then he would be
where his principles belong, in the camps of rationalism,
and would be less dangerous to the Christian faith he so
earnestly hopes he is serving. And we feel rather cer
tain that it is just in those camps that his whole follow
ing and his successors will ultimately land. * The Cheyne
of 1888 is not the Cheyne of 1894, as he himself admits ;
and with time, and with the spirit of eager and ardent
''advance" to impel them, the principles will work
themselves out to a finish in that class of mind.
This statement will be probably be contested with
considerable feeling, by the whole school of intermedi
ate critics, so active and popular now, who are trying to
eombine a reconstructed Old Testament with devout
I The science of Comparative Keligion will welcome their ar
rival, and assign the Old Testament a place in its catalogue of
religions, from which by comparative methods of elimination It
Iiopes to educe the ultimate religion of rational humanity.

ESSENTIALLY RADICAL. 125
faith in Christ. Many of them believe it to be both en
tirely possible, and also more satisfactory, to accept the
principle of historical development in the Old Testament,
without denying the authority of Christ and the princi
ple of the supernatural in the New Testament. Indeed
they become exceedingly restive when it is asserted that
these two principles have any destructive bearing on each
other. They consider the argument from the New Tes
tament as to the character of the Old as being illegiti
mate, and feel that the opposition to the new views of the
Old Testament comes chiefly from narrowness and igno
rance. They feel that defenders of the orthodox view
are "laying in a handicap on both science and religion."
The irritation in their souls probably arises from a com
plication of causes.
Beyond question they have a grievance, in being ham
pered, and held back, and criticised and throttled by the
orthodox world. Such treatment is certainly sufficient
reason for great impatience, from their point of view.
But they should remember that there is another point of
view. Orthodoxy realizes how precious to itself and to
the world that is which they determine to destroy. Or
thodoxy realizes that their whole theory is still but_^hy-
pothesis,and as it believes, unprovable hypothesis, audit
knows how eager they are to impregnate young and un
formed minds with the theory, and if orthodoxy has the
same right to act on its principles,as they{have on theirs,
they certainly should not be impatient when it acts. If
they were in the position of orthodoxy, it is quite certain

126 CHAPTER XVII. THE NEW THEORT
that they would be not a whit more tolerant and they
might be much more intolerani; than it is. Again, ortho
doxy knows only too well how that "eagerness to advance"
which puts forth so many changing conjectures in the
name of religion, is very hurtful to all religion. Men
cannot change their religion a number of times, and yet
retain it. It is either stability, or , infidelity. And in
any case, on the common sense question of the religious
value of the new results, the judgment of men who are
not 'scholars has both rights and weight.
No doubt too these scholars feel that their tendencies
and their position are misrepresented even in works such
as the one before the reader. But that is inevitable. It
is the price of fame. It is the price of reform. When
Luther was misrepresented, he did not sit down and
whine about it.
No doubt, again, that these English scholars especially
in past years have felt the lack of appreciation and the
condemnation visited upon them by the great bulk of
Christians. But they have not become martyrs yet for
their convictions. And if they had, what a glorious
privilege to have possessed ! Is it not a privilege to lay
down one's life for the truth ? And is not truth more
precious than life? If these men are really look
ing unto Jesus, as the author and finisher of their
faith, ought they be so restless under tribulation. Some
of these advance guards of the eternal truth seem to be
in the battle with a heavenly glory in one eye, and a
worldly aim in the other. None of them have resisted

ESSENTIALLY RADICAL. 127
yet unto blood. It is scarcely reasonable to expect to
appropriate the martyr's crown, without bearing the
martyr's cross. And much of the excitement that has
been stirred up in the Christian world of late has per
haps come from the fact that several of the eagerly ad
vancing defenders of the new truth, never learned to
sing, with any real inwardness,
"Must I be carried to the skies.
On flowery beds ot ease.
While others fought to win the prize.
And sailed through bloody seas ?"
There is probably however still another cause that ren
ders some of the intermediate critics to be both hesita
ting and restless. The fact that there are men like Drs.
Driver and Davidson and Smith and Cheyne and Gore,
who both accept the theory of the negative criticism, and
yet may be said to be believers in prophecy and possibly
in miracle, shows how there are now, as there have al
ways been, great scholars remaining in an inconsistent
midway position between two things mutually exclusive
of each other. These critics have adopted the theories
and methods of the negative school without accepting
the grounds on which the theories are based. They deny
the validity of the one great forceful consideration which
renders these theories and ideas and positions really
cogent. They admit the supernatural, but not in such a
sense as the Record itself really requires.
Though they are clinging with might to the heart of
the Christian faith, there is likely to be a|lurking uneasi-

128 ESSENTIALLY RADICAL.
ness for fear that their tendency may after^all be verging
away from faith, and that consistency may after all draw
them down from their present unstable midway position
into the abyss of unbelieving rationalism. Both history
and instinct can scarcely fail to suggest to them the im
possibility in such a movement, of establishing a bottom
half way down hill. Both must suggest the insecurity
of all the considerations by which they seek to avoid
the conclusion pressed upon them, and which their
bolder and less conservative brethren on the continent
at once accepted. It may be only the forces of their
early education and environment that are holding their
reason in check, and temporarily preventing the land
slide. Such a thought is uncomfortable in the extreme,
and one from which they would naturally shrink. With
out therefore pressing its irritating edge inwards any
further, we turn to the negative theory as such, in its
own thorough-going essence.

DENIAL ot' SUPERNATURAL. 129

CHAPTER XVIII,
'TpHE Secret Stronghold of^the negative theory is
the ever-present and ever-pressing Desire of the
intellect to Deny the existence of the supernatural
in history. The great problem which the radical critics
set themselves to solve is to account for the Old Testa
ment without admitting the presence of the supernat
ural. The strictly naturalistic method, governed —
some one has said — by "the greatest of modem tyrants,
the idea of development," neither needs nor finds a God
in Israel. Jehovah was a local deity of Israel, with no-
more real existence than Baal or Chemosh, Israel's re
ligion did not essentially differ from that of Moab, Am
mon, and Edom, Israel's nearest kinsfolk and neighbors.
Narratives of miraculous events are mere legends, often
recorded for unworthy ends.
These are the fundamental assumptions that underlie
and are really at the bottom of the |whole negative
theory as such. They form its philosophical basis. Its
ultimate spring, its "/ons 6<oriV," i» the rationalistic
motive. This is a deeper and more final motive even than
the love for historic truth. In its essence and inner
most spirit, the problem of the newer criticism is not a
mere literary problem. It is the.question of "a philo-

130 CHAPTER XVIII. A DESIRE TO
sophical theory in conflict with the Biblical view of God
and His working in the world." It is not a question of
letters, or of literary analysis. There is a spirit back of
and beneath the literary analysis that gives rise to and
urges the latter on. This spirit occasionally exists in
Christian minds, side by side with faith, and brings the
believer into great mental conflicts. But where the hu
man mind for any reason comes to a "practical denial by
logical rationalism of the special and immediate work
ing of God in the world and the progress of events," he
also comes, a few steps further on, to the explaining
away of the supernatural in Scripture, and flnally to a
denial of the possibility and fact of miraculous Divine
revelation. It is because of this philosophical theory behind the'
literary problem, and because it appears to veil itself
so innocently in questions of literature and history,
that evangelical orthodoxy 'scents danger from afar'
and strenuously refuses to have anything to do with
the new ways. It is true enough as the critics right
eously maintain, that the ways may be harmless and
in the line of progress; but it is not less true that
behind the ways there is something deadly, i In and by
itself, it might really be a very small matter as to who
wrote many ofi the Psalms, or this and that part of the
1 There is particularly one great teacher and scholar here in
America who under the guise of simple grammatical and histo
rical teaching insidiously infuses rationalism into the minds
of students.

DENY THE SUPERNATURAL. 131
prophets ; but it becomes a vital matter be_canse of the
rationalistic presuppositions which are made the basis
of the literary and historical determination. For in
stance, whether there are one or two Isaiahs may not
be particularly important, but the important thing is
that the negative criticism desires to establish^two or
more Isaiahs in order to prevent the original Isaiah from
having predicted anything which happened long before
his time. The fact in itself may be a very little thing.
But the determination of the negative criticism to es
tablish the fact in order to deny the prophet the outlook
of any more distant prophetic prevision, than the na
tural power of a gifted man to foresee events which
would be likely to take place in a very few years, causes
the little thing to assume a very fundamental and im
portant aspect.
"In rationalism, reason is the sole arbiter. What
reason cannot comprehend and accept can never form
part of the rationalist's conviction. His intellect is con
sistent throughout. To him, Scripture is -like any other
book. He accepts it, only when it agrees with his opin-
ions, and then only as an illustration and affirmation,not
as an authority. "1 Rationalism has always been a ten
dency in the history of the human mind, and of Christ
ianity. Its course has generally been from orthodoxy
to liberal Christianity ; from liberal Christianity to reli
gion in general, "from religion in general to mere moral-
ty, and finally from morality to eudaemonism." After
1 Fr. V. Eeinhard.

133 CHAPTER XTIlI. A DESIRE TO
it is once fully seen that the negative theory of the
Old Testament and the Higher Criticism in general are
not something absolutely new, and are in their ani
mating spirit but the tail-end of a well known way of
thinking which has been coursing restlessly through
all the centuries, much of its attractive power will
have disappeared. It will sink to the position of a sin
gle joint in a long articulated and ever oscillating series
of mental movements.
The spirit that brings the negative theory to the front
today is the spirit that of old threw up Pelagius, and
Duns Scotus and Abelard and the sceptics of Saracenic
culture, and Erasmus and the Italian Humanists, and
partly perhaps Richard Simon. After the Reformation
and the Renaissance had caused historico-critical inves
tigations to be possible, and they began to spring up ; a
new and modern type of this rationalistic spirit drew them
to itself as its handmaid, and the resulting union gave
rise to a whole progeny of movements, including the ac
tual series by which we are still affected.
Des Cartes was the father of modern philosophy. His
syllogism of universal doubt could not help invading ¦
the realm of theology. Its rationalistic animus was
quickly carried to English soil and the^school of the
English deists sprang up. Among these deists,.rational-
ism first touched the Old Testament Scripture in Hobbes'
Leviathan. Hobbes died in 1679. At the same time on
the continent Spinoza, who died inil677, in his Tracta
tus Theologico-politieus openly attacked the authority

DENY THE SUPERNATURAL. 133
and genuineness of Scripture. In 1753 Astruo the
French physician published his book against the spirit
of rationalistic criticism and in defense of the Mosaic
authorship of the Pentateuch. In this book the docu
mentary theory of the Pentateuch originated, being sub-
sequently appropriated by the leaders of the rationalistic
side for their purposes.
The soil of Germany was at this time being rendered
rich and ready for the reception of the rationalistic crit
ical seed. The great Prussian Frederick had surrounded
himself with free-thinkers from France, and the self-
sufficient followers of an extreme Wolfian philosophy
brought on the period of superficial rationalistic illumi
nation. Michaelis of Gosttingen prepared the way for
rationalism in exegesis of the Old Testament, and
Ernesti did the same in the exegesis of the New.
Ernesti laid it down as a leading law that the interpre
tation of the Scriptures was to be similar to the inter
pretation of a profane author.
Then came Semler. His restlessly sceptical mind be
came the instrument of the rationalistic spirit. Though
privately devout, by undermining the genuineness of
the biblical writings, he "reaped a whirlwind, at which
he himself trembled." From him there went forth
swarms of rationalists to occupy the chairs and pulpits
in Protestant Germany. At this time Lessing published
the Wolfenbuettler Fragments which attributes the in
troduction of Christianity to bold deception.
Meanwhile Eichhorn, who was a pupil of Michaelis,

134 CHAPTER XVIII. A DESIRE »0
began to exert a great influence on the trend of thought,
approaching the Biblical writings through the portals of
Oriental literature. Eichhorn' s friend Herder, and Her
der's friend Lessing, contributed greatly towards toning
down the rationalistic spirit, which had been largely re
inforced by the principles of the French Revolution,
into a cosmopolitan humanitarianism, which began to
act widely in literary and in theological circles. This
new critical feeling, in conjunction with the introduction
of comparative methods into the study of philology and
religion, caused the books of the Bible to be viewed as
merely human compositions like the sacred books of
other religions. To prove this to be the case with the
New Testament, the learned Ferdinand Christian
Baur, in our century, made his famous effort of a life
time, being at last unsuccessful ; while his pupil Strauss
and the French scholar Renan undertook a similar task
in respect to the life of Christ.
Meantime Gesenius had been absorbing the rational
istic spirit from his teachers Henke and Eichhorn, and
was combining his cold and almost frivolously sceptical
criticism with accurate wealth of lexicographical and
archaeological learning. De Wette, in his early training,
was being steeped in rationalism of the worst kind.
Ewald, influenced by Eichhorn, and *drawn to the
Arabic and Persian languages, came upon the scene
to turn attention to Old Testament criticism. Vatke
and Hupfelt followed. Vatke's father was a rational
ist, and so was Hupfelt's. Hupfelt was probably the

Deny THE SUPERNATURAL. l35
first to proceed on the great idea that the religion of
Israel was a natural development. Kuehnen was study
ing under his teacher, the rationalist Scholten, and was
forming those rationalistic theological convictions which
probably drew him to Old Testament Criticism. Well
hausen left Ewald and followed Kuehnen. Robertson
Smith imbibed from both, and Canon Cheyne, taught of
Ewald, was "fascinated," as he admits, by Kuehnen. ^
So we see, that with a few exceptions, the really repre
sentative negative Old Testament scholars have either
been bred in rationalistic surroundings or have been
strongly under their influence. '
Within the last half century, the greatest new philo
sophical idea since the days of Des Cartes, has become
a dominating presence in science, literature and relig
ion, and it is the use of this idea, applied to Old Tes
tament results and methods as left by Ewald, that has
brought forth the negative higher criticism of to-day.
1 It Is to the present chapter that the footnote in the Intro
duction, page 17, refers. To the earlier writers mentioned in the
Introduction, Knobel should have been added, and Budde,
Duhm and Kittel might have been added to the later ones.
' When Cheyne remarks that three such men as Keuss, Vatke
and Kuehnen, reaching the same result by difEerent paths, are
not likely to have been entirely mistaken, he fails to remember
that all three men were infected by the same literary atmos
phere ot the age ; all three had the same literature and history
behind them ; all three were to a greater or less extent moulded
by rationalistic training, and all three, in spite of their greatly
differing natures, had that bent of intellect to which the ra
tionalistic explanation would probably alone appear plausible.

l36 CHAPTEB XVtII. A DESIRE TO
The universal adoption to-day of the principle of evo
lution, as a starting point for the negative criticism is
proof that the latter has dogmatic interests at stake, and
not merely scientiflc interests. These dogmatic inter
ests are the principles of rationalism. More important
than the facts themselves, to the negative criticism,- is
the ability to show, that as all religion is a natural de
velopment through various stages to higher forms, so
also it is the case with the religion of Israel. And as
the history we have in the Old Testament shows a higher
spirituality at the very start than afterward in its course,
that history must be imaginary and unhistorical for the
most part, — a projection from a later age into the past.
To establish this dogma, not to apply a purely scientiflc
method, is the point for which the negative theory exists.
The facts are not the thing in itself, but the dogma is.
The dogmatic working of this intellectual bias is
seen very clearly when the results it has reached in
Biblical criticism are placed side by side with the results
reached by it in reference to the other historical monu
ments of the race. The incongruity of the comparison -
is striking. On the one side the most distant antiquity,
with great facility and against probability, has at least
until very recently been accorded to works like the
Avesta and the Rig- Veda. On the other side the great
est endeavors are made to bring down the date of the
composition of the Bible as near as possible to our own
times. On the one side everything is interpreted in fa
vor of the sacred books of India or Eran, and, on the

DEWY THE SUPERNATURAL. 137
other, everything is claimed against the sacred books of
the Jews. This is due to the dogmatism of the intel
lectual bias.
From such a survey of the higher criticism in its his
torical connection, it may perhaps be seen that the neg
ative theory of the Old Testament is another of the nu
merous waves thrown up by the ever rushing current of
rationalism, and it is probably within rational limits to
conjecture that though the same old underlying spirit of
rationalism will perennially be renewing the old conflict
with faith from a different point of attack, yet its pre
sent type, incarnate in the negative higher criticism, will
disappear or be displaced— leaving some results to en
rich the race — ,and men will be wondering how its fal
lacies were ever able to enthrall the powerful minds it
held in its embrace. Bishop Lightfoot, speaking of the
rationalistic criticism of the New Testament, from the
view of the long time perspective, puts the matter in the
Tfollowing language :
"There is at least a presumption (though in individ
ual cases it may prove false on examination) that the
historical sense of seventeen or eighteen centuries is
larger and truer than the critical insight of one late half-
century. The idols of our cave never present themselves
in a more alluring form than when they appear as 'the
spirit of the age.' It is comparatively easy to resist the
fallacies of past times, but it is most difficult to escape the
infection of the intellectual atmosphere in which we
live. I ask myself, for instance, whether one who lived

1S8 DENIAL OF THE SUPERNATURAL.
in the age of the Rabbis would have been altogether
right in resigning himself to the immediate current of
intellectual thought, because he saw or seemed to see,
that it was setting strongly in one direction. . . . The
comparison is not without its use. Here were men em
inently learned, painstaking, minute ; eminently ingen
ious also, and in a certain sense eminently critical. In
accumulating and assorting facts — such facts as lay
within their reach — and in the general thoroughness of
their work, the Rabbis of Jewish exegesis might well
bear comparison with the Rabbis of neologian criticism.
They reigned supreme in their own circles for a time ;
their work has not been without its fruits ; many useful
suggestions have gone to swell the intellectual and moral
inheritance of later years ; but their characteristic teach
ing, which they themselves would have regarded as
their chief claim to immortality, has long since been
consigned to oblivion. It might be minute and search-.
ing, but it was conceived in a false vein ; it was essen-
tially unhistorical, and therefore it could not live. The
modern negative school of criticism seems to me equally
perverse and unreal, though in a different way ; and
therefore I anticipate for it the same fate."

OUR lord's TEACHING. .139

CHAPTER XIX.
npHB Conclusions of the negative theory affect the
Authority of our Lord's teaching. In a previous
chapter^ it has been shown that the new theory of the
Old Testament is_og£Osed by the direct testimony of the
New Testament. But there is an additional and deeper
point. It is the fact that Christ's own personal author
ity is involved by the new theory.
We fully realize the danger in reasoning on a point of
this kind. We know how often and how wrongfully
and harmfully the authority of Christ has been set up,
in apriori argument against that which was subsequently
found to be the truth ; and which, properly understood,
was not in conflict with Christ. We know how this
brings injury to the cause of Christ on the one hand, and
pushes seekers after the truth towards unbelief, on the
other. We do not therefore desire to use this argument
in such a manner as to shut off investigation or any
right of criticism. We appreciate all the force there is
in the query of the newer critics, "Does the language of
our Lord forever debar a Christian scholar from raising
the question whether the Pentateuch is a composite doc-
1 Ssep.17.

140 chapter xix. AFFECT
ument or wholly the work of Moses ?" We know the
danger of taking any passage of (Scripture to teach that
which it is originally not intended to teach ; and the dif
ficulty of the human interpreter in distinguishing be
tween the teaching of Scripture, and his own inference
from that teaching.
Nevertheless, we may ask the critics the same ques
tion that they ask us. "Does the historical spirit of in
vestigation presume for itself such certainty as to for
ever debar a Christian scholar from raising the question
whether its conclusions are not sweeping away the au
thority of our Lord, and whether it is not in danger of
teaching too rapidly, as facts, such damaging conclu
sions, before they are shown to be necessary and proven?"
It is with the feeling that equal rights must be
granted to both sides in this case, that we proceed to
state our own side, which we believe to be so strong.
It is admitted that our Lord accepted the Old Testa
ment as it stands. It was part of God's Word for him
and his disciples. Both the Law and the Psalms and the
Prophets were one of the chief sources of the most im
portant teachings of Jesus, and one can not make the whole
originate in pious fraud, and yet say that he was "filled
with grace and truth. ' ' He gave no hint either in his public
teaching or in his confidential revelations to his disciples
that the Old Testament was not authentic. "He blamed,
indeed, the sceptics of His day — the Sadducees — for their
attitude towards Scripture. And in so far as the Scribes
wore accredited teachers of the law of Moses (apart

OUR LOBD'S TEACHING. 141
from their traditions), He exhorted the people to 'do and
observe' what they said."
At the very beginning of his ministry, and under the
solemn circumstances connected with the great Sermon
on the Mount, our Lord distinctly specified His own re
lation to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and es
pecially to the Law, in what is really the text of the
first part of the sermon. He says: "Think not that I
come to destroy the law or the prophets : I came not to
destroy but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, — see
how solemnly and strongly he makes the statement, —
"till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or tittle shall
in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be ac
complished." He could not have spoken more forcibly or clearly.
He does not mean merely the moral law, for the word is
used which in all similar passages in the New Testa,-
ment means the whole Mosaic law — "the books of the
law, as every Jew of the days of our Lord would have
understood this term to include and signify."
He came to set forth in his own person, in deeds and
words, the whole priestly and moral law of the Old Tes
tament, as the writer to the Hebrews so well shows.
But the new theory maintains that the greater part of
this law, — of every jot and tittle of which the Saviour
speaks so seriously— was composed of i^he "idealizations
of the pious Jew of the Exile." The new theory is
responsible for making"T3hrist at least seein to stultify
himself here.

142 CHAPTER XIX. AFFECTS
It has not yet successfully shown how it can hold to
the authority of Christ, and at the same time to the post-
exilian origin of the law.
Christ in his ministry went so far as to distinctly
found, or illustrate or corroborate his teaching on both
the deeds and the writings of Moses. In arguing with
the Sadducees in regard to the resurrection, he said,
"Now that the dead are raised up, even Moses showed at
the bush."^ He said, again, "If you believe not the
writings of Moses, how shall you believe my words?"*
He illustrated his own redemptive work on the Cross
to Nicodemus, that master in Israel, by saying that it
should be "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilder
ness," which certainly presumes both a historical mira
cle of healing and a historical personality to lift the ser
pent up as redeemer. When the Jews appeal to the
manna in the desert as a miracle given to their fathers, he
does not discredit the historical fact of the miracle, in
order to strengthen by contrast his own greatness, but
he admits its reality, and even introduces the personality
of Moses, in the words, "Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Moses gave you not that bread from heaven."
"Did he leave his followers under the delusion that
mythical was actual history ? Did he permit his apostles
to go forth and teach this mythical history as truth,
stamped with the impress of his authority ? Is this
what men would have expected from him, on consider-
1 Luke 20, 37.
2 John 5, 47.

OUB LOED'S TEACHING. 143
ing hislife and character?" "Is this in accord with ra
tional ideas of what a divine revelation should be,— to
conceive cf it as given in such a form that fact in it can
hardly be distinguished from a fable. Is this a reason
able hypothesis that through Christ men were not en
lightened as to the true nature of the elder revelation,
but that the discovery of this was left, after the lapse
of centuries, to men who either altogether rejected the
idea of revelation, or who sought to explain away the
supernatural in Scripture, i. e. to deny really that it is a
special revelation at all?'

144 THE THEORY BBJBCTS

CHAPTER XX.
npHE Negative Theory throws overboard all Ex
ternal and Traditional Evidence. I admit that it
is very difficult to prove the trustworthiness of this class
of evidence. But it is equally difficult to prove its un-
trustworthiness. In our lack of knowledge either for or
against such evidence, it is only fair to accept, and not
to reject it.especially in view of the tenacity with which
Orientals retain a definite traditional record.
The folly of allowing a series of internal probabilities
to weigh decisively against external evidence, — and this
is the essential method of the higher criticism — has been
shown recently tothehumiliationof the higher criticism,
in the New Testament field, — where discovery and discus
sion of external evidence are more possible — ,in connection
wJth the date of the Gospel of John and the recovery of
the lost Harmony of Tatian, which Prof. J. Rendell Har
ris calls the greatest Patristic discovery of the century.
And the consequence that the literary funeral of St.
John, which the negative criticism had announced and
was so desirous of officiating at and attending, has, be
cause of the recovery of the Harmony, as well as for
other reasons, been postponed indefinitely, ought in all
good grace and conscience have made the negative critics

TRADITIONAL EVIDENCE. 145
a little less sure and confident of their method in the
Old Testament field.
Mr. Harris, who imagines that the advanced critics
are so named by compliment, chiefly because they have
a tendency to run ahead of the facts of the case which
they discuss, says that in the question of the genuine
ness of St. John's Gospel, the negative critics occupied
themselves chiefly with the discussion of the internal
probabilities, to the exclusion, almost entirely, of the
external evidence and the ecclesiastical tradition. It
would have been better to stay a while longer by these
latter, he thinks, for they constitute the real facts of the
case, at all events in regard to the antiquity of the book.
But instead of doing that, Prof. Reuss, ^ for instance,
who is the original founder of the post-exilian hypothe
sis, expressed himself as follows in his History of the
New Testament, on the question of the external evidence
for St. John's Gospel:
"The positive testimony does not begin .... until Theophi
lus of Antioch, after 170 A, D. But the universal recognition of
the book by the Church immediately thereafter, sufDciently at
tested, would be inexplicable did it not reach back much far
ther  The unspeakable pains that have been taken to col
lect external evidence only shows that there is none in the
proper sense of the term."
Similarly, Dr. Davidson, wrote of the same Gospel'
"Whatever may be said about Justin's acquaintance with this
Gospel, its existence before 140 A.D. is incapable either of de
cisive or probable showing. The Johannine authorship has re-
a Canon of the Bible, p. 99. l Beuss and Kuehnen died in 1891.

146 CHAPTEB XX. THE THKORX REJECTS
ceded before the tide of moderiLCriticism ; and, though this tide
is arbitrary at times, it is here irresistible. Apologists should
abstain from strong assertions," etc.
"Reuss had only ventured to fix an inferior limit for
the date, but Davidson went so far as to fix a superior
limit (which would be necessarily the death-blow to the
Johannine authorship), and even to intimate that the
tide of critical knowledge on this point was irresistible.
At the same time he warned apologists against strong
assertions, from which it is least fair to conclude that he
was not conscious of having over-stated his own case !"
But, says Prof. Harris, neither of these statements
will bear repetition in view of the additions that have
been made to our documentary knowledge ; the only
thing that will bear repeating is Reuss' admission that
the "universal recognition of the book by the Church
immediately" after the time of Theophilus "would be in
explicable did it not reach back much further. " The
external testimony to St. John's Gospel, says Prof. Har
ris, does not begin with Theophilus, nor even with Ta
tian, who is historically his senior ; it is no longer law
ful to say that, anterior to Theophilus, the external evi
dence is practically non-existent ; and it is extremely
doubtful whether any person, who is even moderately
acquainted with the subject, would to-day fix the lower
limit for St. John's Gospel at the year 140, to say noth
ing of turning the lower limit into an upper limit. This
has come about partly by the magnificent reasoning of
Bish op Lightfoot,and principally by the coming to light

TRADITIONAL EVIDENCE. 147
of the Harmony of Tatian in two different forms. The
very existence of the Harmony was denied in the
strongest and most categorical terms by such negative
critics as Renan and the author of "Supernatural Reli
gion," against whom Lightfoot wrote.
Its discovery shows that Tatian was so well ac
quainted with the Fourth Gospel as to have transcribed
the whole of it at least once, and to have carefully ex
amined the relation of the contained narratives to that
given in the Synoptic Gospels. Tatian had quoted
John's words in another and a well-known work of his,'
but the negative critics called all these quotations in
question, throwing the testimony overboard on the
ground of internal probabilities, and in the interest of
their theory. The author of "Supernatural Religion" for
instance devotes six pages to the demonstration that the
passages referred to have nothing to do with the Fourth
Gospel. If it is possible for an early Christian writer, pro
foundly acquainted with John's Gospel, which he had at
least once written off with his own hand, to compose a
religious treatise which would fail to convince critics in
later ages that he had any acquaintance with John's
Gospel at all, and a treatise which would be entirely
thrown overboard as unreliable external testimony, un
worthy of consideration, how much greater must the
temptation be in the Old Testament field, where external
testimony is more scarce, and inconvenient corrobora-
1 Apology to the Greeks.

148 CHAPTER XX. BEJECTS.
tive discoveries are less likely to be made, to the nega
tive critics, to throw external traditional testimony over
board as unreliable, on the ground of internal proba
bilities, and in the interest of a theory. And this illu
sion of the negative theory, in throwing overboard ex
ternal testimony,can scarcely be overestimated, when we
rememberthat in the case of Tatian and John's Gospel,
Tatian had actually made verbatim quotations from
John with whom nevertheless the negative critics stren
uously maintained he was unacquainted.
The newly discovered fragment of the Gospel accord
ing to Peter, another document that brings fresh and
unexpected evidence for the antiquity and authenticity of
John's Gospel, again shows the folly of casting aside
traditional evidence. For this Gospel must be much
later then John, because it aims at accommodating the
story to a well-developed theory of Messianic tradition,
which grew up in the post-apostolic age, and which the
older authentic Gospels do not reflect. This is the opin
ion not merely of Prof. Harris, but of Prof. J. H.
Thayer, of the Harvard Divinity School, who writes:
"Half a century of discussion is swept away by the re
cent discovery at a stroke. Brief as is the recovered
fragment, it attests indubitably all four of our canoni
cal books." The going back of the date of John's Gos
pel, and enforced admission of quotations that were
formerly thrown overboard must, says Mr. Harris, be
very good news to the apologist, of whom he does not
profess to be one, and equally satisfactory to those who

ouB lobd's teaching. 149
like himself know from their experience as investigators,
"that the Catholic traditions have a peculiar habit of
justifying themselves against those that impugn them,"

150 weakness of

CHAPTER XXI.
T'HE Judgments of the Negative Critical Mind are
OtPree from Prejudice and Preposession. This
point would not be urged, if it were admitted. It is
tacitly denied in a certain tone assumed by the school in
referring to or dealing with the uninitiated. It is not
urged as a suggestion to modesty, but as a presumption
in favor of the school's fallibility.
The critical mind considers its reasonings, its investi
gatory apparatus, its modes of dealing with facts, its
scientific furniture, its power of insight and vision, its
points of view, its premises, and its results to be so su
perior, that opponents are out of range and out of date
in a contest with it.
If we concede to the school every advantage of newer
method, and of accurate detail machinery, — a conces
sion not necessary, — the school is still obliged to use, as
the ultimate decider and judge, the same old human
mind on which we all rely, and whose ineradicable lim
itations, and capacities for prejudice, narrowness and
mistake, are likely to vitiate the results of the negative
critical school as frequently as they do the results of any
other careful and powerful order of intellect. Moreover,
the very excellencies of the critical equipment from one

TfiB CRITICAL MIND. l5l
point of view, are defects from another point of view.
Kuehnen, for instance, was disqualified by his critical
bent for a proper appreciation of the forces of history
and of their movement.
Every type of mind has its own peculiar weaknesses and
dangers, and from a purely formal point of view is na
turally more accessible to one mode of argument than it
should be, and less accessible to another mode than it
should be. Thus Cheyne, quoting Pfleiderer, points
out a weakness in Ewald's mind, and, quoting Prof.
Oort, shows how that weakness led Ewald into a petitio
prineipii. So, on the other hand, the weakness of Prof.
Cheyne's own judgment might be pointed out, especially
as shown in his most recent work. And— what is more
to the purpose — the weaknesses of the whole school as
such may be indicated. They are those naturally inher
ent in the critical type of mind.
There are prepossessions against the established,
against the traditional, and against all external author
ity. There are prepossessions in favor of revolution and
radicalism and liberalism. There is a constitutional draw
ing towards the more free and spiritual side of things.
There is the exaggerated estimate of the value of a new,
or an "advanced" theory, when proposed as an explana
tion of objective realities. There is an illusion, very
common in the scientific mind, that a hypothesis ac
cepted by a whole group of scholars, because it works
pretty well with the facts and accords with the common
Zeitgeist, is really a part of the constitution and course

152 CHAPTER XXI. WEAKNESS OF
of history, though in fact it may still be a thing float
ing at almost every essential point. There is the same
temptation to "prineipii petitio" for critical purposes,
which arises in the ardent or artistic mind for rhetorical
purposes. There is the same inability to see weakness
in the line of one's own special instincts, that exists in
other types.
In opposing each other, these critics have no hesita
tion in charging each other with being the victim of the
defect of some fundamental mental quality, which is
able to interfere with the solid value of results. For in
stance, Cheyne, in criticising Robertson Smith, says,
"He appears to me to be too much of a prey to the love
simplicity." On the other hand, Robertson Smith- be
lieves that Cheyne himself is "fanciful." Now if men
tal qualities in the critic, and not objective facts in the
record, are the sources of a critic's conclusions, as here
acknowledged between two of them, the same thing may
be true as between one type or class of mind, and
another type or class.
But still worse for the negative school. Canon Cheyne
in answering the charge that he is "fanciful," himself
confesses to the nature of the fabric of which the "posi
tive" and sure conclusions of the negative school cannot
avoid being built.' He says: That my view is 'fanci
ful,' should be no objection to a historical student like
1 It Is not to the use of this kind of fabric that we here object
but to the constant and cool assumption that this is the kind of
stuff out ot which certainly flows, and that this fabric t's history.

THE CRITICAL MIND. 153
the author. There are as Milton has told us two kinds
of fancy: the nobler kind some of us prefer to call
'imagination.' Professor Smith, as we have seen, is
himself not devoid of this priceless gift, without which
there is no piecing together the scattered fragments of
history, no vivifying the lifeless conclusions of a cold
criticism." So that after all the "cold criticism" depends for con
structive strength upon a warm imagination, and the re
sult is not stronger than the weakest of the defects in
that imagination. And after all the very fundamentals
in what the negative theory regards as settled and sure,
are bound together by the glue pf imagination, so long
as external evidence is lacking, and may in the future
fall entirely into pieces. "These ....
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air
And the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces
shall dissolve ;
And 
Leave not a rack behind."
What Cheyne says of Ewald may to some extent be
said of the whole critical school. He says, "Much that
Ewald in his later years considered himself to have set
tled, has now become very properly the subject of de
bate." The same is true of his remark on Hitzig:
"The application of that method of criticism, which
seeks to determine the date of a book from internal
characteristics alone, led him to many results, especially

154 THE CRITICAL MIND,
in his work on the Psalms, which are not likely to hold
their ground," and his other remark on Hitzig, may be
applied to the fundamental position of the very best of
the higher critics. "Asa 'higher critic' he errs ....
he forgets the necessary limits of human knowledge. "

INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 155

CHAPTER XXII.
'TTHE whole Theory of the Pentateuch, from be
ginning to end,and in every particular, excepting the
a priori introduction of the principle of natural develop
ment, is dependent entirely upon internal evidence.
There is no other evidence for the post-exilian compo
sition of the Pentateuch. Not one tittle of external
historical testimony is alleged for the list of authors,
Jehovists, Elohists, and Redactors, whom the critical
world has learned to know so well. The exceeding
weight of this consideration ii frequently forgotten.
Whatever external evidence there is, in the frequent
statements of the work itself, in the references of sub
sequent literature, in tradition, in the testimony of
prophets, apostles and Christ, is all in the other direc
tion. Internal evidence has a very important function. ^ Dif
ferences and discrepancies and contradictions — if they
are proven to be really such — may be very damaging to
the credibility and truthfulness of those who in times
gone by were in a position to bequeathe us objective and
external testimony. But internal evidence, while it is
a very useful instrument in tearing structure down, is a
1 Compare page 29.

156 CHAPTEb XXII. RELIANCE ON
very delusive thing on which to lay the foundations of
new structure. It is valuable for being always suggest
ive of theories, including both true and false. It is in
valuable in incidental confirmation of an already posi
tively established theory. But it is a very dangerous and
flimsy thing on which to entirely rest a new theory. The
difficulties in the case are so great that there are many
presumptions against it, to one in its favor. Yet it is
only by the use of this evidence that the Pentateuch can
be cut up and parceled out among the supposed various
early and later writers, who are said to have had a hand
in its composition. Prof. Matthew Leitch, of Belfast,
speaking on this point, says :
"To divide a book into two or three parts and assign
each to a separate author, judging solely by internal evi
dence, might in certain circumstances be possible, but it
is very difficult. Shakespeare in some of his plays has
worked up the writings of older dramatists, and it is
very difficult to decide what is Shakespeare's own and
what is taken from others. No one is able to do it with
any certainty unless he has some external evidence to
guide him. And no one would attempt it, judging
merely by style and phraseology if he has only brief
scraps and extracts of the writing used. He must have
long and varied passages if he is to judge by style at all.
Yet here are critics who can judge of the style and
phraseology of a single verse, or half verse, and assign
it with confidence to an author of whom they know lit
tle or nothing. They can tell not only what parts of

INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 157
lost documents were adopted by the compiler, but what
were passed over. They can split up a small book like
the Pentateuch into fragments, and assign them to above
a dozen otherwise unknown authors. Wellhausen act
ually divides the Hexateuoh among twenty-two different
authors and redactors, and Kuenen, among at least eigh
teen. It would be far more suitable to have only four or
five. But the critic is obliged by the necessities of his
theory to add on Elohist to Blohist and redactor to re
dactor. A passage, for instance, which by his usual
criteria is assigned to the Elohist, is found to have im
bedded in it the name Jehovah, and so he must bring in
a Jehovist redactor for the word or the clause that con
tains it. Again, a passage which has the criteria of one
redactor is found to have a word or clause that the critic
has shown elsewhere cannot have been used by him, and so
he has to bring in a second or third redactor. It will not,
therefore, do to say, with our British adopters of
these theories, "I will accept Wellhausen's four or
five authors, but not his twenty- two." You are obliged
for the same reasons for which you accept his five, to ac
cept his twenty-two. He himself sees that, carrying out
the principles that are essential to his theory, and judg
ing by the criteria which have guided him all through
his work, he is obliged to add document to document.
You have no right to repudiate the fundamental princi
ples of your theory only when they lead you into absur
dities. And surely there is absurdity enough to condemn
any theory in the supposition that a book like the Penta-

158 CHAPTER XXII. INTEBNAL EVIDENCE.
teuch, which has vindicated its literary unity and power
ful individuality by winning its way through charm of
style and matter to the hearts of young and old through
out a hundred generations, is the result of the artificial
combination of heterogeneous documents from different
centuries patched together by half a dozen unknown
compilers." Moreover, if the Pentateuch were a mosaic of earlier
fragments, one might feel that there ought to be at
least some trace of the original documents from which
the fragments were taken. If any of the unused frag
ments had been found, and the used fragments were seen
to fit precisely into them, the theory would have had
something on which to rest.
We shall see that internal evidence of the kind offered
for the composite authorship of the Pentateuch might
be devised to prove the composite authorship of almost
any piece of narrative writing in the world, and we might
subjoin, for instance, a critical analysis of say the parable
of the Sower, showing how it must have been written by
two authors, one redactor and two sub-redactors, if there
were sufficient space,

RECKLESS ASSUMPTIONS. 159

CHAPTER XXIII.
•T'HE negative theory is obliged to introduce a
large number of reckless internal assumptions
in order to make its hypotheses meet the case. The fact
that there are already over thirty different proposed
theories of reconstructing the Old Testament text, and
of parceling out the various porticos to the original
writers, and their still later redactors, though not as
damaging as at first sight it appears to be, yet of itself
shows how subjective and uncertain the methods of
such critical analysis must be. But each of these
theories finds its own set of difficulties to solve, and ob
stacles to overcome, in order to cut up and fit the text
into its own point of view. To get rid of these trouble
some difficulties and obstacles there is a really reckless
assumption of the presence of redactors and sub-redac
tors and interpolaters of the manuscripts. Only by such a
method can refractory portions be thrown into a differ
ent, especially a later age.
The negative criticism deals thus, also with whole
books of the Bible, changing authors and dates with
ease and inconsistency. "It would seem as if the books
of the Bible were pieces on the chessboard, which may
be placed anywhere in time," to fit the plan of the critic.

160 CHAPTEB XXIII. INCONSISTENCY.
Negative critics, not less than Christian apologists, have
shown a disposition to change things to fit according to
a priori judgments. Prof. Sayce remarks of the former,
"As regards their historical conclusions I am very much
at issue with them. I think they have endeavored to
demolish the history contained in the Old Testament
upon most insufficient evidence, and in accordance with
a method which could not, and would not be applied to
secular history."
The fact that a new theory shifts its ground a number
of times is not necessarily against it. It may each time
be approximating nearer the truth. But in the case be-
. fore us, the large increase of the subjective assumptions
above referred to, with every succeeding change rightly
raises presumptions against it. The original document
ary hypothesis could not hold its ground and was aban
doned, and Vater's fragmentary hopothesis arose. This
died away, and the supplemental hypothesis of Von Boh
len and De Wette succeeded it. But their hypothesis
succumbed to its difficulties and the new documentary
theory was invented. By this time the analysis has be
come exceedingly complicated, the supposed documents
and fragments being delimited verse by verse, and some
times even word by word.
The theory now assumes not only that there are several
great documents, some earlier and some later, composing
the Pentateuch, but that in the course of centuries un
known individuals have so altered and patched the Histor
ical books of the Old Testament that it is sometimes im-

INCONSISTENCY. 161
possible to divide the supposed original documents from
each other, and from additions by later writers. It as
sumes that the order of events has been disturbed. It
assumes that events really distinct have been fused to
gether and mistaken for one and the same. It assumes
that statements which are misleading have been inserted
with the view of harmonizing what cannot iu fact be rec
onciled. It assumes that traditions have been dealt with
very freely by successive writers, and been warped from_
their proper original intent by the mistaken efforts of re
dactors. It assumes that this meaning has been seriously
altered in repeated instances, and creates a presumption
that changes have been freely made in other places
which can now no longer be detected.

A T the same time the theory fails to show why the
^^ redactors who altered so freely, did not make
more consistent work of their reconstructions. If the
originals are to be suspected for their inconsistencies, the
reconstructions ought to be an improvement in the mat-

162 CHAPTER XXIII. INCONSISTENCY
ter of consistency. ' But they are not. They are not
only at variance with each other in their statements re
specting numerous particulars, thus invalidating each
other's testimony, and showing that they are mutually
inconsistent, but they are very fragmentary and in
complete. The internal difficulties of the supposed
original sources are many and great.
Thus the new theory lays all stress on the "Levitical
code" code (P) which was written in the time of Ezra.
Now it has been shown that this legislation thus thrown
together by the new theory is just precisely not a code.
"It treats the same topic in various places. What is
laid down in one section is supplemented in another at
a distance from it, or is repeated with no essential
change, or is replaced by something different. 'This
treatment by repetitions, digressions, dis-memberments,
and insertions is not the exception so much as the rule,
and gives the Mosaic legislation the interspersed and
1 "The vast army of German commentators, with Mr. Leaf
and others in England, dissect every book, exhibiting here a
fragment of an older lay, there the work of a rhapsode ; here
the additions of alater poet, there the intrusions of an interpo
lator. They fight like fiends among themselves as to what por
tion is old, what new, what genuine, what false. There is little
consistency, there are hundreds of flat contradictions among
the exponents of the Higher Criticism. Their ideas are some
times even ludicrous .... Among other pleasing circumstances
Pick's Had makes Agamemnon, unarmed, in cloak and slippers,
rush into the fray, where we presently find him fighting with a
spear and protected by complete armor, This is by way of re
storing the original consistency."— Andrew Lang on "Homer."

INCONSIITENCT. 163
fragmentary character of a painted window, broken and
patched together without design.' If Ezra or the priests
of the post-exilic period regarded themselves as author
ized to codify and complete the earlier legislation, what
possible reason could they have had for leaving it in this
disjointed, confused, and MK-codified state ? 'Can any
one conceive a priestly conclave, with nothing else to do,
and ample time in which to do it, turning out such a
piece of work as this for the practical guidance of a
restored community?' "
•\tET THE negative theory Rejects the Penta
teuchal legislation because It is not digested
into one self-consistent code, "as might be expected if
it all belonged to one period, and sprang from a common
source." The theory holds that the Pentateuchal legis
lation could not have been all the work of Moses and
his times because it contains repetitions, incongruities
and contradictions.
There are four separate and satisfactory replies to this
position, each of which shows that the argument proves
the contrary of the theory's inference from it.
In the first place after the new theory has itself made
selection of a part of the Pentateuch, and declared it to
be from Ezra and the school of the scribes, who had
time to construct a consistent whole, the part turns out
to be full of variations and inconsistencies. The ground
of the negative criticism's rejection of the Pentateuch is
untenable by its pwn advocates' demonstration, after

164 CHAPTEB XXV. DISCEEPANCY
they have had a choice of the matter to which it is to be
applied. In the second place, it is not during a time of social
peace, quiet and reflection, that a priesthood with either
muchor little intelligence would oiiginate aworkof this
kind. A work, with want of order, with repetitions not
identical, with incongruities, with facts difficult to harmo
nize is not a work of the school or the study. It could
only be the product of daily journals for instance, or the
union of many documents considered worthy of too much
respect to be altered at all, even to better the form of it.
In the third place, discrepancies nearly always occur,
in the narratives of intelligent and truthful men con
cerning famous events of recent occurrence ; or in the
sworn testimony of truthful witnesses to recent events,
and how much more would that naturally be the case in
such an ancient and primitive document containing in
compressed form, narratives of such great and compli
cated character. In a recent periodical the most dis
tinguished newspaper correspondent of Europe, describ
ing the defeat of Napoleon the Third at Sedan, points
out that while there is an agreement of the various nar
ratives as to the salient facts connected with the sur
render and defeat of the French army, yet there are
"hopeless and bewildering discrepancies in regard to de
tails," even as these are reported by eyewitnesses, in
cluding Bismarck, General Sheridan and others. If then
testimony of fifteen years standing has bewildering va
riations and yet it does not invalidate either the event or

And AUTHENTICITY. 165
the narratives, how muph less is that a sufficient cause
for dismembering and repudiating narratives and testi
mony of the greatest antiquity.
In the fourth place, the variations in the pentateuchal
narratives and legislation are largely, perhaps entirely,
explainable from the nature of the case itself. If there are
several distinct bodies of law, which both differ in the
matters to which they severally relate, and also contain
divergent regulations concerning the same matter, we
must not fail to bear in mind that there were different
occasions upon which they were prepared, and different
ends which they were respectively designed to answer.
For instance, that detailed regulations are given in
Leviticus respecting matters not alluded to at all in Deu
teronomy, or only summarily referred to there, is not be
cause the former is a subsequent development from the
latter, or because it belongs to a period when a new class
of subjects engaged popular attention. It belonged to
the priests to conduct the ceremonial. While it was im
portant for the people to be instructed how to distin^
guish clean and unclean meats^ ^ since this entered into
their daily life, it was sufficient in respect to leprosy,
for instance, to admonish them in general' to heed
the injunction already given to the priests, in Leviticus,
It was enough for the people to be told where to bring
their various offerings^ and that the animal must be with-
I Deut. 14.3 pp. comp. Lev. 11.
» Deut. 24. 8.
» Deut. 12. 6.

166 CHAPTER XXIII. DISCREPANCY
out blemish. But the specifications respecting the offer
ings* and the ritual to be observed, ' were entrusted to the
priests. «
Again, it was quite natural that some modifications of
pre-existing laws should be made in Deuteronomy after
the lapse of nearly forty years, whether with the view of
rendering them more explicit, ' for the sake of a further
extension of the same principle, ' or because rendered
necessary by the transition from the wilderness to Ca
naan. = No objection of any moment can be drawn from
the fact thatmany of the laws are framed with reference to
the condition of the people after they should be settled in
Canaan ; for in most cases their very terms* imply that
this was prospective. '
Again, some laws have been represented as mutually
inconsistent, which really relate to distinct matters, and
supplement, instead of contradicting each other. Thus
the titles of Deut. 12. 17 ff., l4. 23 ff. are additional to
those of Num. 18. 24. Deut. 18. 3, is distinct from Lev.
7. 34. Num. 4. 3, belongs to the transportation of the
tabernacle, and 8. 24, to its ordinary ministration. °
* Lev. 22. 19-25.
e Lev. chapters 1-7.
» Prof. W. H. Green.
1 Ex. 21. 2 ff . comp. Deut. 23. 19, 20, etc.
a Ex. 23. 10 ff. comp. Deut. 16. 1 fl.
> Lev. 17. 3, 4; comp. Deut. 12. 15, etc. The omission ot Lev.
11. 21, 22 from Deut. 14.
4 Lev. 14. 34, 25. 1 ; Deut. 12. 1, 19. 14.
• riot. 'W.H. Green.

AND AUTHENTICITY. 167
It is thus easy to see that the theory in rejecting the
legislation because of its variation fails to perceive that
these are actually amongst the strongest proofs of its
naturalness and historicity. •
3 Even if there were actual inconsistencies in the narrative,
or errancy in the writings, that fact would not constitute any
real argument, for the composite or against, the Mosaic author
ship. Speaking of the errors in Homer, Mr. Lang says, "All
writers fall into such errors. Thackeray makes Master Francis
"Clavering grow, in six years, from the age of five to that of
thirteen. He says, in the first number of "Pendennis," that
Arthur's mother is still alive ; he kills her in his seventeenth
number. He gives Mrs. Bungay two difEerent Christian names
in two consecutive pages. In the "Antiquary" Scott makes the
sun set in the east. All these,and a thousand similar slips,the Ger
mans, if they found them in Homer, would account for as 'inter
polations.' Now, Homer, whether he could or could not write,
had no proof-sheets, no revises, and no James Ballantyna to
mark his proofs with minute comments and inquiries."

163 SINGLE PASSAGES

CHAPTER XXIV.
npHE negative theory deals violently with many
passages, either in our exegetical or in a critical
sense, to make the records agree with its hy
pothesis. For instance, one of the main points of the
new theory is that in the olden times sacrifices were of
fered on the high places, and the tabernacle worship was
unknown. It would therefore be greatly to the interest
of the new view if a passage could be found in that
part of the Pentateuch which it declares to be old,
which permits or sanctions sacrifices at any locality in
stead of in one place. Now there is a place in the
twentieth chapter of Exodus, which directs that the
people shall make an altar of earth (not of stone) for sac
riflces, and adds, "In all places where I record my name
I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee."
In reality the passage forbids an arbitrary choice of
place of sacrifice, and, while it does not exclude a plu
rality of such places, it neither presupposes nor de
mands them. And another passage in the same section,
23. 17, commands all the males to appear before the
Lord three times a year, and seems to presuppose a cen
tralization of the worship. ^
' Frof. W. H. Green.

SINGLE PASSAGES. 169
Yet the new theory says the first passage means noth
ing more than that the people did not want the place
of communion between heaven and earth to be
looked upon as having been chosen arbitrarily ; but that
they regarded it as chosen in some way (!) by God him
self. Again the picture of Ezra, as given in the books of
Ezra and Nehemiah, and by tradition, does not at all
accord with the picture which the new theory draws, and
which must read into the narrative what is not there, and
do violence to it otherwise.
Again, in order to overthrow a proof of the law of in
heritance which prevailed among the priests of the line of
Aaron, the false conclusion is drawn by Wellhausen from
1 Sam. 2. 27ff.,that Zadok was the "first of an absolutely
new line," and was neither of a Levite, nor of the line of
Aaron. But the divine threat is made only against Eli's
house, and not against the entire house of his father.
Still again, the difference in the aim of the law and the
prophets is ignored. So also the moral character of the
ceremonial law is ignored. It is assumed that the proph
ets were opposed to the observance of the sacrificial rit
ual. This is not so. They were opposed to practises of
the people in connection with this observance.
Still, again, the distinction between the prophets of
the northern kingdom, who prophesy more against the
introduction of heathen rites, and the southern kingdom, >
who prophesy more against an external service, is ig
nored.

170 SINGLE PASSAflES.
So the book of Job is put after Jeremiah, though Job
1. 5 does not fit within the new theory of the history of of
ferings. Ps. 40. 6, is put after the exile, though if it be so
late, the mention of sin offerings in Amos 5 and Jeremiah
7 does not exclude the existence of the law of offerings at
an earlier period. But if Psalm 40 was written before
the exile, then the mention of sin offerings occurs before
Ezekiel.

NON-AUTHENTICITY. 171

CHAPTER XXV.
npHB negative criticism asks us to assume that
the Writings are Not Authentic, where a Better
Theory is possible. According to the negative criticism
the writers of the exile went to the greatest pains to
tinge their productions with the colouring of a remote
time. They attempted a reproduction of the ancient
phraseology and of the archaic type of doctrine, and
they worked their material into a minute conformity to
the local and historical circumstances of the time.
The negative criticism claims that it is able to get back
to the real facts, by an elaborate critical process. By dis
entangling the several strata of writings and subject
ing them to a searching comparative analysis; by discern
ing and weighing the points in which they agree and
those in which they differ, the negative critics are posi
tive that they have ascertained, from out of the mass of
conflicting testimony, how much can be relied upon as
true, how much has a certain measure of probability,
and how much must be rejected altogether, i
I "I confess that I think poets better judges than professors,
of poetical matters. But we probably have the people, as well
as the poets, except Coleridge, on our side. We see the forest ;
the critics cannot see the forest for the trees  For one, as

172 CHAPTEB XXV. AUTHENTICITY
The fact is that the negative criticism makes a great
blunder in treating the material of literature as if it were
essentially one with the material of physical science.
"The grouping and classification, the telling of the
links of cause and effect, which are so helpful— indeed,
absolutely essential— to the fruitful study of geology or
chemistry, can be applied with profit to the study of lit
erature only by a student who remembers the essential
difference in the nature of the facts which have to be
dealt with. The various authors of a well-marked pe
riod (say, the period of The Renaissance and Reformat
tion) have much in common, just as the inembers of a
group of stratified rocks or of vegetable alkaloids have
much in common ; but it is clearly impossible to general
ize with the same confidence or to define with the same
exactitude in the case of the first as in the case of the
a reader of poetry, I can believe in almost anything more
readily than in the contradictory, the inappropriate and pedan
tic set of notions which make up much of the Higher Criticism.
Where Shelley said that Homer truly began to be himself, in the
glorious flnal book of the Iliad, notably in the last, Peppmueller
discovers 'the work of a mere imitator, who could hardly write
a single line, unless he had a passage of the Iliad or Odyssey
from which to copy it.' Are we to hesitate between Shelley and
Peppmueller ? . . These things are enough to make one despair of
the Higher Criticism. But Homer, could he hear them, would
only smile, as of old with Lucian he smiled at his ancient critics
in the Islands of the Blessed. 'Which of the pieces considered
unauthentic did you write ?' asked Lucian in this interview.
'AU of them!' answered the happy spirit of Homer."— Andrew
Lang.

' AND NON-AUTHENTICITY. 17S
other two. The action of a glacier on the rocks sub
jected to its abrasion must needs have a uniformity
which cannot be predicated of the action of a great pub
lic event upon the men brought within the range of its
influence ; because, though there is something that may
be called individual in a rook or in a salt, the individual
ity of a man is a much more complex affair, which has
to be reckoned with after a very different fashion. The
flood of the French Revolution landed Wordsworth in a
calm conservatism; it landed Hazlitt in vehement radi
calism ; on Keats and Lamb it seemed to have no influ
ence whatever ; and yet every one of these four men was
a noteworthy product of his period, "^ and according to
the method of negative critical science, th^y ought to
bear a common impress.
The old theory, that the books are authentic, is far
more natural, and less open to vital objection, than this
one by which it is to be supplanted. If to-day a printed
book were found which professed to be by a certain
author, and which subsequent works, bound up with it,
also sustained in the claim of authorship, the fact that
there were anonymous footnotes, and annotations and
explanations, even though the latter were from a later
pen and anachronistic, would not at all cause or justify
the conclusion that the main work was an unauthentic
forgery. And so the fact that in Deuteronomy, for in
stance, are found some later editorial and explanatory
observations of a minor character, does not at all justify
i.The Spectator. Nov. 11, 1893.

174 CHAPTEB XXV. AUTHENTICITY
the conclusion that the main part of the book is not
from the author it itself assumes, and whose name it
bore in the time of Joshua^ of the Judges, ' of David
and Solomon,* of Amaziah,* of Josiah,* on the first re
turn of the exiles,^ and in the time of the second return
of the exiles. '
The critics who postulate interpolations at their own
convenience and discover evidences of numerous writings
pieced together, single words and phrd,ses inserted here
and there, passages transposed, added, or omitted, can
not consistently object to a theory which necessitates a
few minor suppositions, when they take liberty to them
selves for a hundred radical suppositions. Which is
most probable— that editorial additions should be in
serted in an ancient book for the sake of explanation, or
adaptation to modern circumstances, or that interpola
tions and changes of the most varied and radical char
acter should be made to cause a book of this kind to ap
pear older than it really is.'
But, worse yet, if the Pentateuch is not authentic, but
post-exilic, the whole general historical setting must be
set down as an invention, and one without adequate ei-
1 1. T, 8.
J 3. 4.
s 1 Kings, 2. 3. 2 Kings, 21. 8.
* 2 Kings, 14, 6.
6 2 Kings, 2. 8 ; 23. 24, 25.
« Ez. 3. 2.
1 Neh. 8. 1.
• Prof. C. M. Mead.

AND NON-AUTHENTICITY. 175
planation. i Why, for instance, should the Levitical
laws have been uniformly worded as if designed for life
in an encampment, and not as if Israel were established
in Canaan. What was the object of manufacturing
such a story as the one about Moses searching for the
goat of the sin-offering ?* If there never was a taber
nacle or offering of incense, the story of Korah, Dothan
and Abiram' could not have happened. What would
the people think of such stories, when the Pentateuch
was presented at the later time. On the "legal fiction"
theory, they would be senseless and useless, and without
any intelligible purpose. And, besides, if the story of
Korah was invented, it would have been an insult to the
descendants of Korah, who had attained an honorable
place in the later Jewish church. So, on this point, there
is the strongest possible internal and circumstantial evi
dence that the Levitical law is not post-exilic.
Another additional, and equally strong consideration
against the post-exilian theory is found in the peculiar
relation of the Israelitish nation to these books. As
George Ebers says, "The events of the exodus were too
firmly impressed on the memory of the Hebrews, the
1 "For the creation of a master- work of literature," says
Matthew Arnold, "two powers must concur,— the power of the
mornent and the power of the man : the man is not enough with
out the moment." The negative theory fails entirely in provid.
Ing the latter factor, and it does not even provide a satisfactory
power of the man."
> Lev. 16. 16-20.
< Num.16.

176 CHAPTEB XXV. AUTHENTICITY.
Bible too often refers to them, and especially the recol
lection of Sinai, which the wanderers touched, appears
too early in their history, and is too distinct, to be con
sidered merely the fiction of later generations.
"Besides this, the Israelitish nation was too high-
spirited, was too proud of its dignity as the chosen peo
ple, to have ever allowed its spiritual leaders to repre
sent it as former slaves and serfs of a neighboring peo
ple, if the recollection of their sojourn in Egypt, andithe
exodus, had not been kept alive in their own midst."

DOUBLE EVENTS. 177

CHAPTER XXVI.
'TpHE negative theory assumes that the same or
similar things will not happen twice in the
same history ; and that they will not be described
twice, from different points of view, in a single record.
The fact is that both of these peculiarities are true to
human nature, to literature, and to life. How often is
the same fact repeated in conversation, in writings of
various kinds, and in legal records. And on the other
hand, how frequently do strange things happen two or
three times over at different periods and in a slightly dif
ferent manner to the same individual. The aphorisms
' 'Truth is stranger than fiction' ' and ' 'It is the unexpected
that happens," and "What doubles itself, triples itself,"
bear testimony to this fact. ^
1 Just after I wrote these words, the family physician, com
ing in to attend a sick one in my house, reports that he cannot
remain long, for he has been sent for by two women, each of
whom have fallen down] stairs, and broken their legs, at the
same time, one in the northern and the other in the southern
part of town. On subsequent inquiry I learned that one of the
women had dislocated her knee cap, the other suffered chiefly
from contusions ; that one had fallen down from a step ladder,
and the other down the cellar stairs, and both about the same
time. Here ;is a double event, very unusual, fn a small place.

178 CHAPTEB XXVI. DOUBLE EVENTS.
But in dealing with the Old Testament, critics at once
assume that two distinct events, if they have certain
features in common, are thereby proved not to be two,
but are in reality one and the same event. , They do this
on the ground of a certain measure of correspondence,
and as though history never repeated itself. Having used
the correspondence thus, they use the differences, not to
show that the events are distinct, but that there are
several varying accounts of the one one event. They,
, further, infer that as the same writer would not have
written such variations of the same event, there must be
two different writers. And, hence, again, the book con
taining these accounts, could not have been written by
The correspondences are numerous. Both persons are women.
Both were injured by a fall. Both fell aiiTie same hour. Both
injured the leg. Both suffered great pain. Both had the same
physician. Both sent for him at the same time. The variations
are also very noticeable. One lived in the northern, the other
in the southern part of town. One fell down the cellar stairs,
the other down a step-ladder. One injured herself through con
tusions, the other by dislocating the knee cap. When the
chronicles of this town come to be written, there must in this
Instance be a record of a double event, occurring at the same
time, with many correspondences, and some striking variations.
But when the Higher Criticism of thousands of years later
goes over the record.the critics will stumble at it. They will say:
"Impossible. There was but one fall, one woman, one leg in
jured. But we have here a combination by a redactor of several
inconsistent traditional accounts of the same event, originally
recorded in different documents, and as they do not agree, there
is probably only a grain of truth at the bottom of the story, or it
may be entirely fabulous !"

DOUBLE EVENTS. 179
one person but is made up from a number of separate
documents, each diverse from others and at variance with
them. Thus, for example, it is assumed that the Bible opens
with such a double document, in the records of creation.
But there are not two records of creation. The first
chapter of Genesis deals with the world, at large and all
that it contains. The second chapter deals with the
garden of Eden and the relations of the first human
pair. The first section gives an all-comprehending ac
count of the creation, in the order of time. The second
section is not arranged in the order of time, but starts at
the end of the second day's work, and shows how the
earth, upon whiph no vegetation had begun, was formed
into a dwelling place for man. It has neither the same
plan, nor the same aim as the first section, but tries to
show how the earth was prepared ior man. Bach has its
own respective theme, treated in its own individual and
natural style, and there is no reason for regarding them
as two varying and discordant accounts of the same event.
Thus, again, Abraham twice alleged to an Egyptian
king that Sarah was his sister. The new critics say
there- could have been only one such transaction, and
that we must regard the two narratives as varying ac
counts of the same event. But why could there have
been only one such transaction. A man who acts once
in a certain way, under certain circumstances, is surely
liable or tempted to act the same way again under a re
currence of the game circumstances. And it is very pos-

180 CHAPTEB XXVI. DOUBLE EVENTS.
sible for the same circumstances to have recurred in this
instance. Another such double record is inferred in the case of
the deluge. The critics lay stress on the fact that in 6.
19 two beasts of every sort are to be taken into the ark,
while in 7. 1-5 seven of every clean beast are prescribed.
But there is no discordance here. The first instruction
was given over a century before the time, when partic
ulars were not necessary, it being simply stated that the
animals should be preserved by pairs. The second in
struction was given just before the animals were about
to be collected, and it was added that in the case of
clean beasts used for sacrifice, not one pair, but seven
pairs, should be preserved.
Still another example is found in the case of Abraham
and Isaac who are each said to have made a covenant
with the Philistine king Abimilech,in respect to wells of
water at Beersheba. The critics say that these are vary
ing accounts of the same transaction, and what the one
tradition ascribed to Abraham, the other ascribed to Isaac.
But why should we come to such a conclusion ? The
transaction is so natural, and so important in all patri
archal life, that it was likely to recur again and again and
again. That both treated with Abimilech at different
periods of time, does not weigh against two transactions,
for Abimilech was the permanent title of the Philistine
king, as Pharoah was the permaneut designation of the
Egyptian king. It is more natural that both Abraham

CHAPTEB XXVI. DOUBLE EVENTS. 18l
and Isaac made such a covenant, than that only one of
them did so.
Another illustration of the slender foundation of good
judgment on which the analysis of these double records
rest, is the case of the promise of a son to Sarah. This
promise is twice described. But that is natural. In
Gen. 17. 16-19 we simply have the first intimation that the
the promised seed was to be Sarah's child. Gen. 18 :
10-14 belongs to an event that occurred later.
So, if there were space, one might proceed through
the Pentateuch and take up all the cases of supposed
double record, and find even from internal evidence alone
that the critical hypothesis is doubtful and inconclusive.
But the new theory has a still heavier burden upon it
in this matter. It not only assumes a single transaction
on the ground of resemblance in a number of particulars,
but it does so in defiance of the explicit statement of the
record. It sets the direct testimony of the sacred histo
rian aside. It sets up its own uncertain judgment on
the internal evidence as a certainty, and at the same time
sets aside the historian as being in error.

DOUBLE NAEBATIVES.

CHAPTER XXVII.
TpHE negative theory assumes that any writing
which can be Decomposed into Two or more
continuous and self-consistent Narratives, is a Com
pilation of those narriatves. By extracting all the
double and triple records, and all the different points of
view of the same subject from a historical work, and
then sorting them according to their likenesses into two
or three lots, and piecing each of the lots together into a
narrative, one can decompose almost any work of this
nature into "original" documents. If there are any
parts left over, which do not fit into any particular lot
very well, those parts may be assigned to one of the re
dactors or editors, as the connecting link by which he
united the several lots into one. If, on the other hand,
there are gaps in the connection in any one of these
pieced up documents, there is a place where the original
document contained matter that is now missing, be
cause the redactor in cutting up the document into parts
and intertwining it with parts of other documents, failed
to use or insert the matter in any place, and so it was
not preserved from loss.
This is the only possible way to decompose a book on
Internal evidence. How insecure it is, can be seen with-

DOUBLE nabbatiVes. 183
out reflection. A certain Professor sarcastically decom-
•
posed the book of Romans, whose unity is not doubted,
on this very plan. Another Professor '¦ is certain that
Knight's History of England could be thus decomposed.
One strand could be extricated which, taken by itself,
might quite well be named, A History of English Liter
ature. Another would read well as, A History of the
Christian Church in England. Still another could be
disentangled which would unfold the historical tale of
the English colonies. Still another original document
would treat of England's Civil and Foreign Wars. And
a flnal one would describe the progress of the English
people in the fine and useful arts and the effects thereby
produced on their social condition. Here are five origi-
inal documents, prettily delimited. Going back to
ancient history, the Professor says he could decompose
Csesar' s Commentaries on the Gallic War into four simi
lar documents. If the same pains, scholarship and learn
ing were put upon Csesar's narrative as have been put
upon the Mosaic writings, no doubt the conclusion that
Csesar never wrote the Commentaries, might be made
as imposing as the conclusion that Moses did not
write the Pentateuch. And if, in spite of that conclu
sion, our judgment tells ns that Csesar, politician, ob
server, scholar, soldier and historian, was just the man to
have written the whole himself ; so similarly it is possible
that our judgment may tell us that, in spite of the nega
tive conclusion of the post-exilian origin of the Penta-
1 Prof. Breckenridge.

l84 CHAPTEB Xrvil. double NAEBATIVE.
teuch, Moses, acquainted with all the learning of the
Egyptians, liberator of an enslaved people, legislator,
founder of religious institutions, soldier, historian, was
just the man to write what the records have always said
he did write.

SlMILABITY OF STYLE. 186

CHAPTER XXVIII.
npHE negative theory assumes that, in two com
pared writings. Similarity of Style assures
Identity of Authorship.
This is a fallacy. It is more easy for two authors, if
they have the same order of mind, the same subject and
thought, the same training, the same atmosphere and en
vironment, the same common fund of information, to
have some striking resemblances and similarities, than to
avoid them.
An illustration of the viciousness of the application of
this fallacy, is the attempt on the part of the higher
criticism, by Ignatius Donelly, in his "The Great
Cryptogram," and by others, to prove that there never
was a Shakespeare and that the latter's plays were writ
ten by Francis Bacon.
It appears that Bacon kept a commonplace book,
which is now in the British Museum and which contains
1655 entries. Many of the suggestive and striking
phrases, proverbs, aphorisms, metaphors and quaint
turns of expression jotted down in it are also found in
the plays of the traditional Shakespeare. Mrs. Pott
counts 4,403 instances of reproduction, "some of them
in more or less covert form. " They appear to a limited

186 CHAPTEB XXVIII. SlMILABITY OP THOUSHT.
extent in Bacon's prose, but they were his "particular
storehouse for the composition of the plays."
For instance, "two of these entries appear in a single
sentence in Romeo aud Juliet. One is the unusual
phrase, 'golden sleep,' and the second, the new word
'uproused.' "To one familiar with the laws of chance,"
says the critic of the new school, "these coincidences
will have nearly the force of mathematical demonstra
tion." Many other coincidences, even more amusing, and so
absurd as to constitute a rich satire on the methods of
the modern Higher Criticism, are also cited in proof of
the negative theory. To the strongest ones, shown in
the following comparative table, the critic prefixes the
statement that "Peculiarities of thought, style and dic
tion are more important in a contested case of author
ship than the name of the title page."

FROM SHAKESPEAEB.
To thine own self be true
And it must f ollow,as the night
the day.
Thou canst not then be false to
any man,— Hamlet, 1. 3.
Losers will have leave
To ease their stomachs with
their bitter tongues. —
Titus Andronicus, iii.l.
The ivy which had hid my
princely trunk.
And sucked my verdure out
on't.— Tempest, 1.2.
Brother, you have a vice of
m'ercy in you.
Which better fits a lion than a
man. — Troilus and Cres-
sida, V. 3.

FROM BACON.
Be so true to thyself as thou
be not false to others.—
Essay of Wisdom.

Always let losers have their
words.— T/ie Promus.
It was ordained that this win d-
ing-ivy of a Plantagenet
should kill the tree itself.
—History Henry VII.
For of lions it is said that their
fury ceaseth toward any
thing that yieldeth and
prostrateth itself  Of
Charity.

With this internal evidence we must take that of the

SlMILABITY OP STYLE. l87
cryptogram, and also the following points of circumstan
tial evidence. Bacon's high birth, his aristocratic con
nections, his projects for philosophical reform, his aspira
tions for ofiicial honors and employment, and his fear of
compromising himself at Court, would have caused him
to shrink from openly producing plays for the theatre of
the day, and have compelled him to write them anony
mously. Again, Sir Toby Matthew, receiving "a great
and noble token of favor" from Bacon, wrote to him :
" The most prodigious wit that I ever knew, of my
nation and of this side of the sea, is of your lordship's
name, though he be known by another." There is no
reason, says the new theory, why the token presented
was not the folio edition of the Shakspeare plays.
Finally, Bacon was known to be the most original, im
aginative and learned man of his time, while of Shak
speare we know little. Prom this evidence the Higher
or Literary Criticism arrives at a conclusive demonstra
tion that there never was a Shakspeare 1
The Higher Criticism makes extensive use of this line
of evidence in Biblical fields. It combines the internal
and the circumstantial, or failing in the latter, relies on
the internal alone, to prove that a writing could not be
the product of its purported author. Its facts in some
instances make a case that is far more feeble than the
case made out against Shakspeare, referred to above.
Indeed, it goes to the length of separating out parts
of single writings, in a group of writings, and of assign
ing the parts to various unknown authors on the strength

188 CHAPTEB XXVIII. SIMILARITY OP STYLE.
of internal literary evidence alone. Thus it says, in
comparing parts of the Old Testament, wherever, in
certain writings, we find a certain free, flowing and
picturesque style, excelling in the power of delineating
life and character, in ease, grace and directness of narra
tion, in delicacy and truthfulness of dialogue, in forcible
portrayal of personality, and in lack of recurring phrases,
then we may be sure that these parts are the product of
one redactor's pen, JE.
On the other hand, it says, where we find an unornate,
measured, precise style, with frequent recurrence of
stereotyped phrases, prosaic utterance, deflnite propor
tions and flgures,sytematic arrangement and concrete de
tail, whether the writings be found in Genesis, ^ Exodus,
Leviticus, Chronicles or Ezekiel, there we may be sure
that they are all the product of another redactor's pen, P.
The same principle is applied with equal confidence and
riskiness to the Psalms and the prophetical writings.
.1 See Prof. B. F. Weidner on Genesis, Studies II and III.

DISSIMILAB STYLE. 189

CHAPTER XXIX.
'T'HE negative theory assumes that Dissimilar
Style assures Diverse Authorship. It takes
for granted that because an Old Testament writer has
a characteristic style and vocabulary, he could have had
no different one in a different writing, and that all writ
ings differing from this recognized characteristic style,
could not have been produced by him, but must be as
signed to another. It allows him no spontaneity or ver
satility in style. If he diverges but a hair breadth from
what the critic considers the writer's characteristic
manner, a redactor is at once brought in to account for
the divergency.
When men judge the Bible from purely literary stan
dards, it should at least be treated fairly, in accordance
with those standards. In every age and literature, au
thors show the influence on them of circumstances, of
surroundings, of their own change of character and life.
Some authors display surprisingly contradictory traits of
style in different parts of their writings. "If history
had not given unimpeachable witness, could we believe
that the author of 'The Cid' was the author of 'Otho
and Attila.' " If we had no other guide but that of our
own personal literary sense, would we not be ready to

190 CHAPTEB XXIX. DISSIMILAB STYLE.
laugh at the very idea that certain authors wrote what
they actually did ?
Who would suppose that the youth who in a forgotten
little volume, in 1844, echoed the voices of Byron, Scott,
and Moore, would two years later be writing a book of
travels' in genuine prose, peerless as to popularity, and
without a trace of sentimentalism. Or thai, twenty years
later the unstudied freshness of "Views Afoot" would be
transformed into the polished prose in which "Egypt
and Ireland" is written. Or, that the author of these
travels which tell us of scenery and external things, was
also the author of those charming private letters in which
he puts all that he has to say of the men and women
whose friendship he had gained in going over the world.
Or, that the same man was a daily newspaper corre
spondent, a public lecturer, an editor of books of biog
raphy, a composer of prefaces, all in simple, clear, good
English ; and a literary critic whose compact and learped
criticisms are the most precious portion of his prose la.-
bor, and whose reviews in later years were so catholic,
so correct of canon and exact in detail as to be models.
Or that he was also the author of those picturesque
pioneer paintings of the new Eldorado in the far West
in 1849, entitled "Calafornian Ballads".; and that a few
years later his voice would be sounding from the far
East in those vivid and harmonious "Poems of the
Orient," so redolent of the life and sentiment of the
lands depicted, that in them we hear the rich and lan
guorous notes of oriental exuberance, and see the verg-

DISSIMILAB STYLE. 191
ing skies of Egypt, the Desert, the Syrian Coast, Da
mascus and Persia. Who would dream that this author
would then tum to chaste and simple home scenes of
rural life in "The Pennsylvania Farmer," and "The
Quaker Widow;" and that he, a Quaker born and bred,
would write ballads founded on our Civil War, and drift
ing to the Hindoo mythological realm evolve a faultless
idyl celebrating the legend of the coming of Camadeva.
Or that he also looked to the cold and dreary land of the
Norse and produced a pastoral poem of Norway which
is said to excel in interest and finish every idyl in Eng
lish, of similar length, except Evangeline. Or that then
finally he would put forth a series of serio-comic papers,
revealing abundant humor and talent for parody and
the burlesque.
Who would believe that he would be the one too to so
teach himself the classics that, according to our greatest
living literary critic, he was more infused with the an
tique sentiment than many a learned Theban, his "Hy-
las," for instance, being a classic, its strong blank verse
being rendered liquid and soft by feminine endings, its
Dorian grace being infused with just enough sentiment
to make it effective in modern times.
Or that, still more surprisingly, he in addition also
mastered the German language and style, writing in it,
and thinking in it, until it became a native tongue with
him, his translation of Goethe's Faust being so great and
so quickly done that the literary world at first refused

193 CHAPTEB XXIX. DISSIMILAB STYLE.
to believe that he was not humbugging it ;i and his Eng
lish style becoming so affected by the change in his mode
of thought that it now seemed involved, and touched
with a metaphysical vagueness even in his lyrical writing.
To cap the climax of the critic-in-the-corner's aston
ishment, he began to write novels, which sold largely.
He turned to the drama, taking his theme from Joe
Smith and the Mormons. He expressed his views on
theology in "The Masque of the Gods." And, finally,
he wrote and in person recited the "Centennial Ode" at
the Old State House in Philadelphia, on July Fourth,
1876. He was only a country boy, a farmer's son: he became
a cosmopolitan. He was a Quaker : he became a leader
of sesthetic thought in New Tork. He was a poet : he
became minister of thd United States to Germany and re
sided in Berlin. And every phase of his life and thought
was reflected in his writings.
What shall we say to these things ? They sound like
romance. They a/re history. If Bayard Taylor in our
own day and under our own eye has given us an illus
tration of the possibilities in variety and range and al
most contradiction of style and subject, and aspect, that
is far greater in compass than any that is claimed, by
even the most conservative Biblical scholar, for any of
the writers of the Old Testament; can we not see how
1 It became the dream of his life to write the biography of
Groethe and of Schiller. He made extended researches for that
purpose.

DISSIMILAR STYLE. 193
foolish it is for the negative critics to say that a Moses
or a David, whose history and education and oppor
tunities were equally romantic, must be limited to one
single quality of style, all variety having been added by
redactors. Truly there is nothing more deceptive than
internal literary characteristics as a criterion of author
ship; and if Bayard Taylor had been in Moses' place, and
his writings had contained the inspired supernatural
features of Moses' writings, the Higher Criticism would
now be proving with positive certainty, from internal
criteria, that Taylor was a Myth !
The applicable objections that may be brought against
this illustration will, if searched to their inner essence,
but conflrm its validity. Diversity of styles in different
productions, at different periods, can be admitted, and
yet a single production, it may be urged, must have a
necessary unity of style, possible to be detected. But
it is not necessary to assume that the Pentateuch is a
single production, or that it was written all at one period.
And even in a very short section, or within the unity of
a single literary form, there may be the greatest variety
of form and style. If Moses were as versatile as Oliver
Wendell Holmes — and why should he not be — he could
show the most opposite contrasts of thought and style
in close juxtaposition, or even in alternate lines. The
supposed interblending of styles, even if it should become
necessary to concede that the style is not itself a unity and
could not arise naturally from the diversity of subject
matter to be treated, would not be an objection, Moses
may have been bis own blender.

194 CHAPTEB XXIX. ANALOGY.
'T*HERE can be no objection by the negative critics
to the use of analogy, by way of illustration, as
applied to the Old Testament, from other literatures and
writings and authors, in the foregoing pages. For it is
on analogy that the negative system is built. And the
analogy is not simply by way of illustration, but it is
the foundation. That the Old Testament religion must
be analogous to other religions ; that the Old Testament
Writings cannot be exceptional, in their origin, from-
other writings ; that the principle of development opera
ting in the physical world and in the history of the race,
must extend by analogy to the History of Israel, this is
the centre and core of the negative theory. And it is
but analogy. Moreover the critics are accustomed to
refer to other writings, to Homer, to the sagas, and
formerly to the Vedas, as analogies by way of illustra
tion, and they cannot really complain if their own
method is fairly turned against them.
I N estimating the critical value of Internal Evidence,
in the foregoing pages, we have examined, in a series,
the literary principles of probability, inconsistency,
fairness to single passages, double events, double narra
tives, single authorship, and diverse authorship.
The negative theory fails to note that the application
of all such internal canons, on either side, must ever be
subjective, and sometimes arbitrary, depending on the
shifting insights of the individual mind and moment.
We have seen, for instance, that there is no external

INTEBNAL EVIDENCE. 195
landmark for the list of authors, Jehovists, Elohists,
etc., or for the demarcation of the fragments that are
said to have come from them. What reliable judgment
can be passed upon the original form and authorship of
those documents and fragments ? If further undiscov
ered changes and unsuspected alterations are still
among the possibilities, and if unreal conjectural emen-
dators may be "summoned up to clear difiioulties and
stumbling blocks out of the path of the hypothesis, ' '
what actual result can it arrive at ? Canon Driver him
self admits^ that "the analysis is frequently uncertain,
and, will, perhaps, always continue so." Much of it is
an impossibility. "Moses may have used documents.
But he has so woven them inextricably into the texture
of an original work, that they cannot now be separated.
He may have used scribes as Bezaleel used carpenters
and goldsmiths. But if so, all the material used has
been combined by the force of one great mind inspired
for the work, so that every attempt to separate the ma
terials is in vain, the completed work coming down to
us fused by the power and stamped with the authority of
Moses, the mau of God." 9
UT Internal Evidence, the only and chosen witness

B

for the negative theory, when we come to examine
its testimony, presents some general considerations of
which the new theory fails to note the significance, and
which as we shall see in the next chapters, may turn out
to be damaging evidence against it.
1 "Introduction," p xiii.

196 GENEEAL CONSISTENCY.

CHAPTER xxx.
npHE negative theory fails to note the force of
the argument from general internal consistency.
Take the Pentateuch. It is a strong presumption in its
favor, that the whole, as a whole, forms a unit in plan,
purpose and theme. In spite of such divergencies as the
details of history and of actual life ever verify, the book
is not an artificial construction, but an organic growth.
Its laws are interwoven in the historic background, and
there is no intimation that they ever existed separately.
The Book of Deuteronomy consists of three addresses
by Moses to the people and an historical appendix.
"These addresses are intimately related to one another
and to the laws which are included in the second ad
dress; the aim of the whole being to urge Israel to obey
these laws. The style and language are identical ; one
spirit reig^ throughout, and like recurring phrases fre
quently reappear. The objections to the unity of the
main body of the book, and to Moses as its author, are
of the most trivial description. In the appendix, Moses
is expressly said to have written the song, and to have
spoken the blessing. That he did not write chapter
thirty-four is plain from its contents.
"The laws in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, are so

CHAPTEB XXX. GENEEAL CONSISTENCY. 197
intimately blended with the history as to be inseparable.
Whoever wrote the one must have written the other like
wise. And Genesis is plainly conceived and written as
introductory to the Mosaic history and legislation. One
consistent topic and method of treatment is pursued
throughout the Pentateuch ; the genealogies are contin
uous, and mutually supplementary ; a consistent chro
nology is maintained ; there are implications and allu
sions in one portion to what is found in other portions
by way of anticipation or reminiscence, which bind all
together." Let us turn from the Pentateuch to the Psalms.
There are Psalms in which all the events of the
exodus and the history of Israel as far as the first
king, are recalled. What rational principle allows their
composition to be assigned to a period eight or nine cen
turies further on ? "These form a large number whose
date would be irrevocably fixed, if it was a question of
any other book than the Bible." Then there are nu
merous Psalms in which royalty plays an elevated and
prevailing part. Could thes'e have been written centuries
after the kings had disappeared ; in the very centuries
when it is supposed the Jews were given to satire against
kings ? ^
The chief arguments for the post-exilian date of Dav
idic Psalms virtually rest upon the improbability, that
"the versatile, condottiere, chieftan, and king" i com
posed such spiritual and saintly songs as those attributed
n 'Cheyne.

198 CHAPTEB Xxx. GBNEBAL CONSISTENCY.
to him. At the same time negative critics have not hes
itated to hold that the Psalms are "the war songs of the
Maccabees." So that "at one time we are told that
these sacred hymns are irreconcilable with the military
character of David ; and, again, that they form the
hymn-book of a. people always under arms!"
It is true beyond the possibility of argument that Da
vid was a warrior king. But it is not entirely true that
he was a warrior by nature. War was forced upon him.
He was for a long time "the player of the harp who
charmed Saul, and stilled the latter's frenzy by his song
and music." There have been many other great men who
combined arms and song. The military cares of Fred
erick the Great did not prevent his cultivation of the po
etic art, and we Americans have had a general of
whom it was said that "His pen is greater than his
sword." Is it at all strange that the king, who danced
and played on the harp before the holy ark, who was the
restorer of the sacred ceremonies and of liturgical song,
should have composed or caused to be composed a great
number of songs ? Many of those attributed to him fall in
so completely with the circumstances which are said to
have occasioned them that they cannot be torn apart ex
cept in an arbitrary way." For instance, the 132d
Psalm, where David speaks of himself and swears that
he will not enter his palace until he has found a place of
habitation for the God of Jacob, — can it be imagined that
it was composed at another time, and of all times, two
or three centuries before our era ? And then there is the

GENEEAL CONSISTENCY. 19d
eulogy on the death of Saul and Jonathan as well as the
hymn of 3d Samuel 7, composed by David.
It must not be forgotten also that our acquaintance
with David's history may be incomplete ;^ that he may
have stood in situations similar to those in which others
were placed in later ages ; and that he may have given
expression to Israelitish thoughts, which, though not of
general human interest, did not change with the chang
ing times. ^
In the case of the Historical Books, if we take such an
account as that of the procession that escorted the ark
to Jerusalem as given in Samuel, and compare it with
the account in Chronicles, we shall find, not incompati
bility, but two great complementary types of history,
"that which leans to epic narrative, and the scientific
history that makes selection of details upon some prin
ciple,— in the case of Chronicles, with a view to their
bearing upon the priestly service. "^
On the whole the argument from internal consistency
militates against the theory of a post-exilian pious fraud,
unheard of in the history of the world. The nature of
the books said to have been written then is incompati
ble with the state of Asiatic civilization after Cyrus.
1 Dr. E. Koenlg of Kostock, who in his very recent work on
"Introduction to the Old Testament" verges again more toward
traditional beliefs.
I Prof. B. G. Moulton.

200 LITEBABY DEVELOPMENT.

CHAPTER XXXI.
npHE negative theory fails to note the true drift of
the argument from kind of subject, nature of
thought, progress of style and literary development.
One would not put the Nibelungen Lied, the Chroni-
cies of Proissart and the Tales of Chaucer down as the
product of the reflective and philosophical writers of the
last century. Tet that is about what the new theory
does in respect to the writings of the Old Testament. In
any other literature we would expect first the national
epic, then the national lyric, and then the philosophical
and critical eras. But here, the magnificent epics of
Genesis and Exodus are considered the result of a scribe's
or a whole school's constructing an artificial and ingeni
ous piecework in the very latest period of Israel's his
tory. It seems to us impossible that this should be so —
that the kind of subject, the nature of thought and
method of literary development should be so inverted
and unnatural. Examine the narration of the Plagues
of Egypt, for instance. They occur in their epic and
archaean form in the eight chapters of Exodus. Then
ages after, they are reproduced in lyric form by the
Psalmist ; ^ and finally they appear in a picturesque mod-
1 78. i2; 105. 23.

LITEBABY DEVELOPMENT. 201
ern form in the book of Wisdom. " In Exodus, "the
successive physical convulsions pass before us like a
moving panorama, and against this ever-darkening back
ground are coming more and more into relief two heroic
figures,— Pharaoh with the hardening heart, and Moses
the wonder-working deliverer, — until the whole finds a
double climax in Pharaoh with his hosts overthrown in
the Red Sea, and Moses leading the delivered Israelites
in a song of triumph. In the Psalms we again come
npon the plagues of Egypt. But now the description is
lyric ; each incident appears artistically diminished until
it is no more than a link in a chain of providence ; each
plague is told in a clause, with only the lyric rhythm to
convey the march of events. A third account is found
in the Book of Wisdom. Here the reverent curiosity of
a later age has ventured to read into the reticence of the
earlier narrative a whole array of terrible details. Where
Exodus spoke of a "darkness^ that might be felt," the
author of Wisdom imagines all that the imprisoned
Egyptians felt in the overpowering dark : the strange
apparitions, the sad visions with heavy countenance, the
sound of falling noises, the dread of the very air which
could on no side be avoided, and themselves to them
selves more dreadful than the darkness. Thus on this
one topic we have three literary styles perfectly illus
trated ; and no more possibility of controversy in the
whole than if we were listening to Handel's oratorio of
Israel in Egypt."*
a 11.5-26. 17.1-18.
( J>rot, B.G-. Moulton.

203 CHAPTEB XXXI. LITEBABY DEVELOPMENT.
Prof. Margoliouth, of the University of Oxford, a most
brilliant Semitic scholar, arguing against the posi
tions, and replying to the attacks, of Cheyne, Driver,
Neubauer and Noldenke,' maintains from a study of the
original language of the book of Ecclesiasticus, that
the original language of this book of the Apocrypha,
written about 300 B. C, which was then "the classical
language of Jerusalem, and the medium for prayer and
philosophical and religious instruction and speculation' '
is so different from that of the books of the Old Testa
ment" in its philosophical and religious terms, in its
idioms and particles as well as in its grammar and
structure, that between the language of Ecclesiasticus
and that of the books of the Old Testament there must
be centuries— nay, there must lie, in most cases, the
deep waters of the captivity, the grave of the Old He
brew and the Old Israel, and the womb of the New He
brew and the New Israel." If he be right, not only the
post-exilian Pentateuch and the Maccabean Psalms, but
the Babylonian Isaiah, and the second-century Daniel,
will be impossibilities. In any case the riddle would still
remain, how the best religious lyrics of all antiquity
were written at a time when Judaism was a downward
tendency, and when there were neither great men to
write nor great events to evoke such lyrics.
That the Psalm-book is only the expression of the re-
Ugious experience of Israel in the Persian, Greek and
Maccabean periods, is conspicuously improbable. "Ptol
emy Philadelphus in Psalm Ixxii is a poor substitute for

LITEBABY DEVELOPMENT. 203
Solomon as a type of the coming Messiah,, and few will
make Psalm ex centre around Simon the Maccabee, an
apocryphal character, in opposition to the plain teaching
of our Divine Master." It is impossible to go into the
many special difiaculties encountered by the new theory
in this view of the PsalmS. Dr. Koenig, in bis recent
work referred to before, comes back to the Davidic origin
of a number of the Psalms: "The point within the tra
ditional seventy-three at which we can say 'the prayers
of David the Son of Jesse are ended' is uncertain."
The existence of Maccabean psalms is almost denied.
But the new theory cannot afford such a denial. It
n^eds to assume the late origin of the Psalms to bolster
up "the great post-Exile Jewish church" of which it
makes so much, and of which we know soJ.ittle. The
psal ms"are^eeded to be "a monument of the best relig
ious ideas of that church."^ It cannot afford to have
them earlier, because it needs to find in the earlier days
"too germinal" a condition to appropriate the advanced
religious ideas of the Psalms. The real ground for as
signing so late a date is not the use of certain names for
God, but it is the necessity of consistency in maintain
ing the idea of religious development, and the criteria
laid- down by Cheyne for determining Maccabean Psalms,
if there were space to discuss them,, would be found ex
ceedingly light and vague either in their essence or in
their applicability, for such historical criticism, especi
ally when it involves such results.
1 Cheyne.

204 CHAPTEB XXXI. LtTEEABV DEVELOPMENT.
'T'HE negative theory misinterprets the true drift of
the argument from the use of language, con
structions, and linguistic forms. Any profitable dis
cussion of the views of the new theory from a mere lin
guistic point of view, is not possible, on either side,owing
to the state of the Hebrew text. Many books require to be
written on the subject, and it will be years before textual
questions can be regarded as settled, even from a nega
tive point of view. Internal evidence from mere verbal
comparison has always proved precarious, and in this
instance it is still more so. Canon Driver has shown, in his
work on Samuel, how much must be done in the matter
of lower criticism. Only where there is better assur
ance as to the purity of the text can there be a solid
foundation for the higher criticism.
It may be said, however, that the general argument
from language is not in favor of the new theory. "The
language of the Pentateuch is throughout the Hebrew of
the purest, with no trace of later words, or forms, or
constructions, or of the chaldaeisms of the exile. There
are certain archaisms which are peculiar to it, and which
it always uses, rather than the forms of later develop
ment. "^ In wielding the linguistic argument, on the
other side, it must be remembered that a form which oc
curs in prose only in late Hebrew might conceivably be
used in poetry at a far earlier period. The shorter form
of the first person pronoun, for example, the frequent
use of which in prose is considered an indication of late-
1 Prof. W. H. Green.

LITEBABY DEVELOPMENT. 205
ness, may possibly have been used under certain circum
stances in the poetic diction of comparatively early times.
In general, when a supposed late form occurs in a writing
which,by its own account of itself, ought to be of earlier
date, the presence of the form does not by itself prove the
lateness of the origin. "The fact that theform appears in
a passage of whose early date there is some historical evi
dence is proof of some weight that the form itself is as
early as the passage."

206 WBITING BEPOBE MOSES.

CHAPTER XXXII.
'TpHE negative theory assumes a primitive rudeness
in the age of the Exodus, and a lack of culture
in its leaders, which history now disproves. With our
present knowledge of the age of Moses, it would be a
strange thing to be accounted for, if Moses had led Israel
out of Egypt, and given laws, and established a new na
tion, without putting anything into writing.
The original main pillar of the new theory was the as
sumption that writing was unknown to the Israelites in
the age of the Exodus. But the establishment of the
proof that the art of writing was known a thousand years
before ' Moses; yes two thousand years before » Moses;
that it was common in Egypt before the Exodus, and
practised in Palestine among the Hittites as early as
Abraham, and in the home ' of Abraham earlier still,
has rendered it necessary for the new theory to abandon
all the work done for it on the supposition of the com
paratively late introduction of the art of writing among
the Hebrews.
1 The Gudea Inscriptions in Babylonia, discussed by Pinches.
' Inscriptions of Sargon I, assigned to 3800. B. C.
, Discoveries at NlfEer.

CHAPTEB XXXII. WEITING BEPOBB MOSES. 307
Even after abandoning this position, the new theory is
not out of the toils. Its principle of gradual evolution
requires a low state of rude and primitive beginnings at
the start, and recent historical discoveries do not cor
roborate such an assumption. All ardhaeologists agree
that with the earliest monuments man appears before us
with language fully formed. Never afterwards are the
signs of language more beautifully shaped and chiseled
than on the oldest Gudea statue in Babylonia, on the nu
merous diorite statues of Tello; on the granite and lime
stone of the tablet of Senoferw; of the pyramids of Unas,
Pepi, Mirinri, of the tomb of Ti in Egypt. The long
and many inscriptions of Tello and of the pyramids show
the language capable of expressing all religious thought,
rich in the terms of settled, civilized, refined life, abun
dant in geographical names, and speaking of precious
woods and minerals as of common possessions." Here
is a full development of literature and civilization,before
Israel left Egypt. And it is entirely against the primi
tive evolution and gradual development hypothesis of
Israelitish liturature, which is the very foundation of the
negative criticism.
Up to 1880 there were many attempts to trace the evo
lution of the religion of Egypt; but by the opening of
the inscribed pyramids in 1881 all historical ground was
taken from these speculations — for these inscriptions dis
play all the main doctrines of the Egyptian religion fully
elaborated. This again is against the primitive evolution
and gradual development hypothesis of the Israelitish

208 WBITING BEPOBE MOSES.
religion, to establish which is the reason of existence of
the negative criticism.
All scholars agree that the art of Tello in Babylonia
and of the pyramid times in Egypt was the highest art
ever reached in these lands: their earliest art was their
best. It shows "a mastery of all details, an ease and
grace of handling, a refinement of conception never at
tained again in the centuries of these people. The
statues of Tello, the intaglios of early Clialdea, the sta
tues and bas-reliefs of early Egypt, the pyramids, enor
mous in mass, yet with exquisitely finished, inscribed,
painted inner passages and chambers ; the tomb of Ti at
Sakpara, with its wealth of sharp-cut letters, all bear
witness to this fact." And this fact is the direct reverse
of the general presumption upon which the negative
criticism relies and proceeds.
And even development critics themselves are obliged
to admit that "there is nothing known of Egypt either
by its records or in its traditions, that goes to show a
history that antedated a high state of civilization."
Thus Dr. Edward Meyer^ says: "Whoever undertakes
to study the ancient history of China or Egypt expect
ing to receive information about the gradual improve
ment of civilization, or to become acquainted with
movements that throw light upon its development, will
be greatly disappointed. It is a complete, yea even a su
perior, standard of development of government, of art,
and of religion, that we meet with in the ancient mon
uments of Egypt."
1 Geschichte d. alten Egyptens, p 2. Berlin, 1877.

CHAPTEB XXXII. WBITING BEPOBE MOSES. 309
Besides the writings of the monuments, we have also
the writings of the re-discovered manuscripts. Since 1885
and 1886 we have a critical edition of the Book of the
Dead, "the Bible of the Old Egyptians" from about
1700 to 1200 B. C. We now know that even before
Moses' day, before the eighteenth dynasty, there was a
sacred text in Egypt being handed down, and that this
text was scrupulously copied by succeeding generation.-!
of copyists. 1 No less than seventy-seven different man
uscripts of this book, which consists of one hundred and
eighty prayers, magical formulas, etc., have been found,
and collated.
One of the vital premises of the negative theory is
that "before 600-400 B. C, men cared little for, and
took the greatest liberties with, their sacred texts." But
these manuscripts prove the very opposite. Brugsch
says, "Every change- of the words of the text was as
vigorously excluded as the change of the ancient
Egyptian form of the year."* Maspero says, They
"have oome to us without many interpolations." Prof.
Erman of Berlin says, "If we have hitherto believed that
1 When the pyramid of Unas,of the fifth dynasty, was opened
in 1881, a series of chapters of this book was found in it. This
same series of chapters had also been found on a tablet of the
•ra of the thirteenth dynasty at Abydos, and also on one of the
halls of the era of the eighteenth dynasty at Thebes. Here
then, before the age of Moses we have a sealed pyramid holding
one copy for 1700 years while the same text was being faithfully
copied and preserved during all that time in other eras and lo
calities. 1 Quoted by Frot Osgood.

210 WBITING BEPOBB MOSES.
the immense literature of the Dead arose gradually dur
ing the long history of the Egyptian people, and that it
must be possible to follow the development; . . we can
hold that idea no longer. This literature was made in an
epoch that lies almost beyond our historical knowledge,
and later times did no more than pass it on."
"If the Hebrews, living between and in constant touch
with Babylonia and Egypt, carefully copied and pre
served from interpolation their sacred books from the
days of Moses, or long before, they were only following
a custom prevalent from hoar antiquity among the
heathen nations around them, and pre-eminently in
Egypt, where they grew to be a nation, and from which
they had just come out. If the Hebrews believed that
they possessed the very words of the one true God, they
had far greater reason to guard their treasure than the
heathen had." '
Not only was all this the case before Moses' day, but
history and poetry and novel-writing were cultivated in
Egypt, and literature was reckoned one of the most hon
orable of professions centuries before the date of the Ex
odus. If the Egyptians had a rich literature, why should
not the Jews, who were always open to foreign influences,
have imitated them in this regard, and especially Moses,
who had been brought up in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians ?
"Moses is expressly said, not only to have written
laws, but in two instances at least, historical incidents as
» Prof H. Osgood.

CHAPTEB XXXII. WBITING BEPOBB MOSES. 211
well, which shows both that matters designed for per
manent preservation were committed to writing, and
that Moses was the proper person to do it. The state
ment respecting Amalek was to be written for 'a me
morial in the book,' which suggests a continuous work
that Moses was preparing, or had in contemplation."
That the explicit mention of writing in these instances
does not justify the inference that he wrote nothing
further, is plain from the analogy of Is. 30. 8 ; Jer. 30. 3;
Ezek. 43. 11 ; Hab. 2. 3."i
1 Prof. W. H. Green.

212 DISCOVEBIES IN

CHAPTER XXXIII.
'T'HE post-exilian theory is improbable in view of
* the recent discoveries in Egyptology and As
syriology. It should not be beyond the power of ration
alistic scholars to recall their proudly-taken position of
"twenty years ago. The then prevailing spirit of agnostic
science, applying its positive methods to the early periods
of secular and sacred history, entirely swept away, as
untrustworthy myth, a great part of what had hitherto
been received as credible ancient history. Greek history
was declared to be a blank before the epoch of Peisis-
tratos, or even before Herodotos and Thukydides, and
the history of Rome was said to begin with its capture by
the Gauls. "What the higher critics had so successfully
demolished was again built up by the spade of the exca
vator and the patient skill of the decipherer. Schliemann,
strong in a belief which no amount of skilful dialectic
could shake, dug up the ruins of Troy and Mykenae and
Tiryns, and demonstrated that the old tales about the
culture of the Akhaean princes were not so far from the
truth. "^ Further East, and nearer the cradle of man
kind, entire civilizations have been revealed to the gaze
of this generation. "Records belonging to periods from
I Frof. Geo. H. Schodde.

EGYPTOLOGY AND ASStBIOLOQY. 2lS
which we are separated by an abyss of thousands of
years have been rescued from oblivion. The Egypt of
the Pharoah's has come to life again, and the Babylon
of Semiramis and Nebuchadnezzar, the Assyria of Sar
gon and Sardanapalus, rise like phantoms from their
graves." ,
The literature thus unearthed exceeds in compass the
whole of the Old Testament. As a help in historical in
vestigation it can almost rival the Greek and Latin clas
sics. M. Menant maintains that the texts already dis
covered in Egypt and Assyria would fill five hundred
octavo volumes. Only a year or two ago a clay litera
ture of over two thousand tablets was excavated at the
temple of Bel at Niffer, ranging in date from 3,000 to
1,^00 B. C, with a stamped brick well preserved of the
Babylonian king who reigned in the north about 3,750
B. C.
This extensive literature, not merely of the time of
Moses, but from the days of Abraham and Jacob, pro
duced by the peoples of the "two rivers," with whom Is
rael came into contact, and to whom they were tied by
descent, language and customs, is now stored in the
world's great museums, and is being studied by Egypt
ologists and Assyriologists of all nationalities. One re
sult, is their agreement on the facts already pointed out
in our last chapter, facts that, so far, completely over
turn the gradual development theory of primitive art and
civilization. 1 Prof. Morris Jaitrow, ]r.

214 EGYPTOLOGY AND ASSYEIOLOGY.
Another result is that the general course of events in
Babylonia and Assyria have become clear. "We have
histories of Assyrian kings who up to a short time ago
were known only by name. The lists of the occupants of
the Babylonian and Assyrian thrones are now virtually
complete, onward from the fifteenth century before our era.
We know know far more of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon
than we do of their contemporaries, Hezekiah and Man
asseh of Judea; of earlier times we have at least as copi
ous records as of the early days of Greece and Rome"
and if the hopes of the present are fulfilled, in another
fifty years our knowledge of Assyria and Babylonia bida
fair to rival in completeness what we know of the middle
ages.'" A third result is the information that at the earliest
known age of man. Babylonia and Egypt both civilized,
were intimately acquainted, and in commercial exchange
with the Sinaitic peninsula and the Syrian coast.
The earliest monument of Egypt is not found in Egypt,
but in the Wady Magherah of the Sinaitic Peninsula.
On the other hand, the materials for the statues of Tello
were brought to thi; Euphrates from the Sinaitic Penin
sula. We know that two hundred years before the ex
odus there was constant intercourse between Baby
lonia and Egypt. The embassadors would write their
official letters and reports in the ordinary Babylonian
script. In Egypt not only the priests, but the kings de
pended largely on written documents. The Egyptian
1 Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., in Century Magazine, January ,1894,

CHAPTEB XXXIII. DISCOVEBIES IN 215
state was "a well-ordered bureaucracy"' In the middle
and later empires there is a "clerk of the court, 'the
royal writer of truth' as he likes to be called, who keeps
the minutes,"'- and draws up the record of the criminal
case to be submitted to the king. The thousands of
correspondence tablets unearthed recently in Tel-el-Am-
arna show that the Pharoahs carried on an extensive ex
change of letters and official writings with scores of
cities and kingdoms in Western Asia.
Moreover, in Southern Arabia, Dr. Edward Glaser
has found over one thousand inscriptions dating back to
1500 B. C, and earlier, which not only confirm the ex
istence of a Sabean kingdom there, and make the visit of
the Queen of Sheba possible, but also make it certain
that at that period the peoples of Western Asia were any
thing but unlettered nations.
Now the negative theory rests upon the supposition
that the authorship of so large a work as the Pentateuch
at so early a date is a historical impossibility. But here
we have abundant and independent witneses, after the
negative critic's own heart, though not to his taste, prov
ing that long before the era of Moses, literature flourished
throughout Egypt and the whole of Southeastern Asia;
that all the nations that surrounded the Israelites of that
period possessed and used letters, and that consequently
the most natural thing in the world is, not that Israel
had no literature, but that she should have an extensive
literature. The composition of the Pentateuch by Moses
1 Prof. H. v. Hilprecht.

Jl6 CHAPTEB XXXIII. DISCOVEBIES IN
accordingly stands in the best possible connection with
its own historical background.
The negative critics are naturally rasped by these
things, and do not relish the prospect of being left high
and dry by an ebb tide. Canon Cheyne shows this de
cidedly in his remarks, in his recent work, on Sayce and
Ramsay. He fully admits that "until Schrader and
Sayce arose. Old Testament critics did not pay much at
tention to Assyriology," and that Kuehnen did not give
enough attention to it, and that Wellhausen and Robert
son Smith in former years displayed an excessive distrust
of the study. He claims that now the theory has "ab
sorbed' all the facts of value in the case. In other
words, the negative theory ignored the results of Egyp.
tian and Assyrian research at first, and now reluctantly
admits them, as far as they do not clash with the precon
ceived premises, fundamental to the existence, of the
negative theory. And even now, with some of the old
arrogance, Cheyne writes, "That Mr. Pinches should
have come forward on the side of conservatism .... is
of no significance. . . . The same remark probably
applies to Mr. Flinders Petrie."'
But "as in the case of Greek history, so too in that of
Israelitish history, the period of critical demolition is at
an end, and it is time for the archaeologist to reconstruct
the fallen edifice." While he, no more than the classical
archaeologist, cannot corroborate evefy statement, he can
still show that the materials on which the history of
* F.366.

ASSYEIOLOGY 217
Israel has been based, are historical and not mythical
materials, going back in time to an early age, which the
negative theory always declared to be impossible.
The Assyrian tablets, from the land from which Abra
ham came, and of the seventh century B. C, contain an
extra biblical account of the creation. "The similarity
between the two descriptions extends even to a partial
identity of expressions, for the same word tehom occurs
in both the cuneiform tablet and in Genesis with the
signification 'deep.' .... The fragments accord with
the biblical narrative in two essential particulars.v Both
accounts assume a chaotic condition prior to the crea
tion. Secondly, the creation proceeds in both according
to a certain system, the heavenly bodies, for example,
forming a distinct division, the animals another."'
These same tablets contain an account of the flood,
"equivalent practically to an identity with the biblical
version. The variations are slight, and effect only such
minor points as the measurement of the ark, the contin
uance of the flood, and the sending out of the birds.
Besides this, the biblical narrative is somewhat more
elaborate, and gives details concerning the animals. . . .
In the cuneiform record the dire decree is simply a whim
of the gods ; in the Bible the Deluge is sent as a punish
ment of wrong-doing. . . . The cuneiform story ends as
it began — with caprice ; the reconciliation of Bel is as
capricious as his anger. The Bible begins with the pro-
1 Frof. M. Jastrow, Jr.

218 ChapTbb Xxxiii. discoVkeies
mulgation of righteousness, and closes with the con
firmation of law."'
In an inscription on a stone found by an American
traveler, Wilbour, at Luxor, a singular confirmation of
the historical character of the story of Joseph has
been discovered. In this, mention is mide of seven
years of want and of the attempt of a sorcerer to ban
ish the calamity. BruscH-Bey, declares that "notwith
standing the mythical character of the contents, the
stone of Luxor is for all time a valuable extra^Biblical
evidence of the existence of the seven years of famine
in the days of Joseph."
In connection with the Exodus, the location of the
land of Goshen is established beyond a doubt. It is
known that at the period just preceeding the exodus, the
land of Goshen was full of Semitic people. This is
proved by the fact that Hebrew words were mixed
with the Egyptian vocabulary at this time, and that
there were Hebrew geographical designations of the re
gion of Goshen. In the papyrus Sallier I, Semitic pas
toral tribes are expressly mentioned as roaming all over
Goshen, and are those of whom it is said, "And a mixed
multitude went up also with them."^
The Gudea inscriptions, at least a thousand years be
fore Moses, say, with other things, that slaves were
given a seven days holiday and festival, "thus not fore
shadowing the time of Moses, but showing that the di-
1 Prof . Jastrow.
X £x. 12. 38.

IN EGYPTOLOGY. 219
vision of time by seven was known many centuries
earlier than Moses, which indeed is implied in the crea
tion story. ^ There was a subject people of Egypt in the
time of the Pharoahs of the Bxodus. They are figured on
the monuments of Rameses II and Meneptah I as foreign
slaves, engaged in building, and compelled to carry
brick, having taskmasters over them. «
In 1883, Pithom Suocoth, one of the "store-cities"
built by the forced labor of Hebrew colonists in the
time of the oppression, was discovered by M. Naville.
Situated near the border of the land, it is a halting
place of caravans and armies marching toward the east.
In the same year the Zoan of the Bible was unearthed
by Mr. Petrie. A year later Naukratis and other historic
sites in Goshen were discovered by the same explorer.
These and further corroborating identifications* actually
locate the route of the Israelites to the Red Sea, and
forward. We cannot enter into the large matter of the
Pharoahs of the Exodus, except to say that shortly
after the Exodus, Palestine itself was lost to the
Egyptians, and therefore no mention is made of the,
Pharaonic power in the biblical narratives which relate
to the conquest of the promised land by the Hebrews.
From the Assyrian monuments we know that by the
twelfth century B. C, the Assyrian king had established
a Wm. Hayes Ward.
» The name of these people, Aperu, has been pronounced by
George Ebers to be the same word as Hebrew,in spite of several
difiicultles against the derivation.
* See also "Kadesh-Barnea" by H. Clay Trumbull.

2t0 CHAPTEB XXXIII. DISCOVEBIES.
his power over the lands of the Mediterranean. In the
ninth century the army of Shalmaneser II was arrayed
against Benhadad and Hazael, Syrian princes well known
to us from the Books of Kings. An Assyrian monu
ment seven feet high informs us that in the Syrian army
were "2,000 chariots aud 10,000 horsemen of Ahab of
Israel." We are also told that "there were three years
in which there was no war between Aram and Israel."
Prom this time on down there are references to facts
mentioned in the Books of Kings, together with the
the names Israel, Judea, Jerusalem, and such names of
the Jewish kings as Jehu, Ahaz, Hoshea and Hezekiah,
in a very wonderful manner. Of Nebuchadnezzar, we
have a large number of inscriptions. When the annals
of his military expeditions shall be fouud, "we shall no
doubt read of his expedition against Judea, of the at
tack upon Jerusalem, of the destruction of the city, of
the capture of King Jehoiachin, and of the carrying
away of Judeans to 'the waters of Babylon.' "'
'T'HERE is probably no other book in the world which
at first stood so alone in its historical statements ;
and which at last was so confirmed in them,at indepeud-

1 Prof. Jastrow. We have quoted from this author partly be
cause of the lucidity of his statements and the recent date of
his writing, and also that the facts might not be suspected
of being coloured in the interest of orthodoxy. For he is him
self a follower of the negative theory, that being the theory in
which his Hebrew descent and rationalistic views can most
easily be combined.

ANCIENT HISTOBY. 321
ent points, centuries apart, by an actual resurrection of
the buried past.
And yet in spite of these witnesses coming from the
grave to testify for the Old Testament,the human reason
is not ready to believe. Said Dives to Abraham, "If
one went to them from the dead, they will repent.' '
Abraham replied, "If they hear not Moses and the
prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose
from the dead."
It is true that the Ingersollian infidelity, in regard to
the Old Testament, is doomed. But the rationalistic
mind will survive. It will still be explaining the Old
Testament as real history indeed, but as history mixed
with myth. It especially objects to the Levitical Sys
tem. For here is the root of the doctrine of expiatory
sacrifice, culminating in Christ. And he who does not
believe that a supernatural expiatory sacrifice lever took
place on the cross, is bound to use his best endeavours to
cut the whole prophetical foreshadowing of that sacri
fice out of the Old Testament, by attributing the origin
of it to a pious fraud of tbe priests. And, more broadly,
he who does not believe in a direct entrance of the di
vine into the constitution and course of nature, but attri
butes everything to evolution, is compelled to attempt to
explain all Old Testament supernatural events as myths.
Is such an explanation tenable ?
Attempting to determine dates and authors from a cor
respondence between historical surroundings and internal

222 CHAPTEB XXXIII. PENTATEUCHAL
evidence, the negative theory has not noted that the ac
curate correspondences between the external sur
roundings and internal details, between the natural
life and life depicted in the writings, overturn the
hypothesis of Fraud and that Myth.
If a great part of the Pentateuch was written by the
waters of Babylon, over a thousand years after the ex
odus, where — apart from the priestly preponderance* —
are the internal historical earmarks that betray the fact.
Every blade in the field points away from Babylon, and
toward the desert and the land of Egypt. Both the
Laws, and the Scenes, and the accurate Topography, and
the Sinaitic centre, and the characters of the Pentateuch
are incompatible with the idea of fraud or myth.
A LL the Laws, scattered through Exodus, Leviticus
and Numbers, which are assumed to have been
written so late and so far in the east, bear the impress
of the age and the region in which they themselves
claim to have been written. The occasion, the circum-
cnmstances, and the facts connected with their actual
observance in the time of Moses, are in many cases re
corded in detail.
"The law of the passover was given when each father
of a family was priest in his own house ; and atonement
could be made, by sprinkling the doorposts. The minute
details respecting the construction of the tabernacle and
' This is entirely an assumption, but does not here enter
into the question.

LAWS AND SCENES. 223
its vessels, and respecting their transportation through
the wilderness, sufliciently vouch for their authenticity.
The laws respecting offerings contemplate Aaron and his
sons as the officiating priests. The law of leprosy has
to do with a camp and with tents. The law of the day
of atonement was given after the death of Nadab and
Abihu, and contemplates Aaron as the celebrant, and
the wilderness as the place of observance. The law that
no animal except wild game should be slain for food,
whether 'in the camp' or 'out of the camp,' unless it
was offered at the door of the tabernacle, would have
been preposterous, and impossible of execution, in Ca
naan.' The law of the red heifer is directed to Eleazar
the priest, and respects the camp of Israel, and dwellers
in tents. The terms in which the laws are drawn up
make it evident that they were not only enacted in the
wilderness, but that they must have been committed to
writing at that time. Had they been preserved orally,
changes would insensibly have been made in their lan
guage, to adapt them to be altered situation of the peo
ple in alater age, when settled in Canaan, and occupying
fixed abodes, and when Aaron and Eleazar were no
longer the priests."
A LL the Scenes in the Pentateuch are so soberly and
¦^^ accurately drawn to nature and to life, that the
explanation of myth or of pious fabrication are ex
cluded The Levitical law corresponds closely with its
external scenes, and the whole story corresponds natur-

224 CHAPTEB XXXIII. PBNTATEDCHAL
ally with its Egyptian surroundings. The physical ge
ography and natural products, the races and social cus
toms, the spirit of the age, the historical associations,
the conduct of war and nature of fortifications, the
character of Pharoah, the ark, the bathing of the
princess, the very atmosphere of the story, shows that
its author and the giver of the Levitical law had an inti
mate acquaintance with Egypt and the desert. This fa
miliarity with Egyptian objects and institutions could
scarcely have been possessed by anyone not a resident in
the country. If Exodus was written in Babylon, would
there have been any reason for forbidding the Jews to
imitate the religious usages of Egypt, so far away !
And the Egypt which is so accurately delineated is
not the Egypt of the time of the exile or of the kings of
Israel, but the Egypt of the date of Moses. If the Pen
tateuch was written during the exile, we must suppose
that the writer devoted himself to the study of the his
tory and archaeology of Egypt of a thousand years be
fore his day, and projected himself so thoroughly into
the spirit of the distant times in a foreign country, that
when he came to write of them he moves among all the
thousand details of ancient Egyptian life with easy and
confident step, and never makes a stumble.
'TPHE accurate description of the Topography of Egypt
and the wilderness show that the author must have
had a knowledge of these countries, such as one without the
vicissitudes in the life of a Moses, could hardly possess.
In the scenes of desert life, contrasting with Egypt,

SCENES AND TOPOGEAPHY. 825
every line is true to nature. The maidens at the well
watering their flocks; driven away by the rough shep
herds, who treated women as inferiors ; the welcome of
Moses to the tents of the sheik, their father ; his mar
riage to one of the daughters ; and seeing that he brought
no dowry, his consequent subordination to Jethro, — all
this was properly and distinctly Arabian. In Egypt on
the other hand, the water was drawn up from the river
and its canals; the people were not nomadic but agricul
tural. The thought of shifting encampments, according
to the transient fluctuating supply of water, upon which
the life of the flocks depended, leading Moses to some
spring-clad wady near Horeb was an incident that came
not into the mind of one who never lived in the desert.
"These pictures of desert life are like the photographs
of the Sinaitic peninsula taken by the ordnance survey."
The greatest revelation of the Old Testament is asso
ciated with Mt. Sinai. The Book of the Covenant was
drawn up there. Canaan, the dearest land on earth to
the Babylonian Jew, is scarcely mentioned. Jerusa
lem, and Mt. Zion, which the Babylonian Jew prized
above his chief joy, are not mentioned at all. If the
Sinaitic revelation was a myth, the faith of latter-day
Israel in it is unexplainable, as the scene is altogether
outside of the territory of Israel, "the holy land to which
as the critics tell us, Jehovah and his worship were so
strictly bound. No reason can be given why this most
sacred transaction, which lay at the basis of the entire
history and worship of Israel, should have been referred

326 CHAPTEB XXXIII. PBNTATEDCHAL
to this remote point in the desert, away from the sacred
soil of Canaan, away from every patriarchal association,
away from every spot that was venerated in the past or
that was hallowed or resorted to^in the present, unless
that was the place where it actually occurred. That
laws flrst issued in Jehovah's name in Canaan should be
attributed to this mountain in the wilderness, with which
Jehovah had no special connection before or since, is in
conceivable, "r
The negative theory cannot explain these continuous
annals of a most serious and historical character, of a
people living for centuries with one of the most civilized
nations of antiquity, whose leader is thoroughly edu
cated in that wisdom, who frees the people and leaves
them a code of laws corresponding with the circum
stances and necessities of the case, and with the external
historical surroundings, which laws are righteous beyond
those of any other nation in the world, and which Jesus
Christ, the supernatural Son of God, claimed that He
came to fulfll, all forming a part of the only strictly
historical narrative of events beginning where the world
began. Still less, if these annals are Myths, can it explain the
Characters of the Pentateuch. ' The characters in the
Norse and Germanic and Classical and Oriental myth-
1 Prot. W. H. Green.
« It there is anything at all of the nature ot idealization in
the Old Testament, certainly we would look most of all for
some trace of it in the Old Testament Characters.

SCENES AND CHAEACTBES. 337
ologies are not characters. They are characterizations of
certain qualities. Or, as human beings, they are heroes.
From all of the mythologies, there cannot be extracted
a single character like that of Adam or Abraham or
Moses. Charles Reade says, that the twenty-four books
devoted by Homer to Ulysses, have not engraved "the
much enduring man" on our heart. The heroes uf
Homer's epjcs are immortal in our libraries, but dead in
our lives. "Now take the two little books called Sam
uel. The writer is not a great master like Homer and
Virgil. But the characters that rise from the historical
strokes of that rude pen are solid. . . Yet this writer
had no monopoly in ancient Palestine: he shares it with
about sixteen other historians."
It is true that the negative theory explains tbe differ
ence between these characters and those iu the mythol
ogies by saying that the Hebrew nation was a nation of
high moral ideals and ideas. But just therein lies the
vital weakness of the theory. For it cannot explain the
fact that in spite of the high moral ideals of the earlier
prophetical writers, aud still more in spite of the strict
ceremonial precepts of the later compilers, the heroes of
earlier ages, even the grandest and most national ones,
are not idealized. Neither the pre-esilian prophet, nor
the precise post-exilian legalist, who had no compunc
tions in suppressing what was not to his purpose, or in
committing a pious fraud for the common public good,
at all smoothed down the teirible sins of the greatest
characters.

338 CHAPTEE XXXIII. PENTATEUCHAL
Noah became disgracefully drunk. Abraham per
suaded his wife to pass as his sister. Moses gave way to
an unworthy flt of passion. David was guilty of adultery
and murder. Solomon was an idolater and wrought
folly. Just the ones of whom Israel was the proudest,
and through whom the Hebrews had to teach their child
ren righteousness, were fatally unflt to be set up as
models. Do myths of a "moral" and "righteous" na
tion "grow" in that way ? Do you suppose that if the
Pentateuch had been written to impress and reform the
compaon people, by some legalists of the exile ; or if it
has been interpolated and revised by a learned committee
of Ezra's scribes, with the express object of piously de
ceiving the people into obedience to it, that we should
ever have heard of Noah's drunkenness, of Abraham's
deception, of Lot's disgrace, of Jacob's chfeating !
Even to-day some politic historians and moralists would
advise the suppression of these facts on grounds of the
public good. But those strict formalists, who accord
ing to the negative theory, were piously writing entirely
with an eye to effect, and did not scruple to revise and re
model history to flt what they regarded as the needs and
great emergency of the present, when they came to such
an incident in the mythical tradition, would unani
mously have concluded, '-There is no use in saying any
thing about that. It will do no good. It will hurt the
cause greatly. It is something the people better not
know." Let us take a crucial case — the story of Samson. There

CHAEACTBES NOT MYTHICAL. 329
is SO much that is extraordinary in his life and exploits;
the coincidences between events in his history and cur
rent classical legends of the mythical Hercules are so re
markable that he is an unusually good specimen for the
negative theory to cite.
But Prof. Blaikie, in a recent article, has shown why
the character of Samson cannot be explained as a myth.
"Myths are subject to laws and conditions, and have
marked features that differentiate them from history ;
they are usually directed to glorify their hero, whom at
last they place virtually, if not formally, in the ranks of
the gods. In the Hebrew story of Samson, on the other
hand, there is an utter want of harmony between the
supernatural element and the character of the hero.
The twofold annunciation of his birth might have been
expected to herald the appearance of a servant of God,
lofty in charactet. But in Samson we are surprised, if
not shocked, at the wild, rollicking life, the uncouth
methods even of delivering his people, and the savagery
which marks his exploits. So far from his showing
anything of the solemn dignity of the prophet, he is
wanting even in the gravity of a responsible citizen.
The most extreme rationalist would find it impossible to
reconcile, as the creation of a poetic fancy, an annuncia
tion so spiritual with a career so carnal. Then, too, his
consecration as a Nazarite is another circumstance, in
compatible with the idea of a mythical origin. So far
from his fulfilling the ideal of that office, his ordinary
demeanour, except in the matter of abstinence from the

230 CHAPTEB XXXIII. CHAEACTEBS NOT A MYTH.
fruit of the vine, outraged it A third point where any
legend-theory must fail is, to explain the peculiar na
ture of the service which Samson rendered to his coun
try. Personally, he does not seem to have hated the
Philistines, but rather the contrary. When he attacks
them it is in revenge for some personal injury. This
would not excite the spirit of legend, or create a desire
to make a hero of the performer. A strong man that in
return for personal injuries had inflicted much havoc on
a people with whom he was usually on friendly terras, is
not the man round whose memory ihe spirit of admira
tion, love, and honour rises to its utmost height. There
must be more of the disposition to identify himself with
his people, more ordinary forgetfulness of self, to rouse
the legendary spirit. A fourth conclusive argument
against the legendary theory is its incompatibility with
the treatment received by Samson from the tribe of
Judah, So far from being roused by his example, they
blamed him for irritating their foes,aiid actually had the
meanness to lay hold of him, that they might deliver
him to the Philistines. 'Would anything like this ever
have occurred to a maker of myths ? What glory could
such legends bring either to the hero or to the nation ?
The rejection of Samson by the tribe of Judah was a
greater ignominy than his having his eyes put out by the
Philistines, or his being called to make sport for them
at their feast. It spoiled his public life, and reduced
him to the position of one who had only showed how

A 8DPEENATUBAL EEVELATION. SSl
great things he might have done if he had been properly
supported by his nation."
There is a vast difference between a religion of myth,
and a religion of divine inspiration. "The Old Testa
ment religion, like the Christian, did not oome forth out
of humanity, according to the mere law of natural
spiritual development. It rightly regards itself as called
into existence by God ... by the clear separation of
this one people from the life of the other peoples of
the world  Indeed, the natural life . of Israel,
where it follows its own promptings, comes constantly
into conflict with the religion of the Old Testament.
Hence it can be explained only by revelation, i. e. by the
fact that God raised up for this people, men who pos
sessed religious truth not as a result of human wisdom
and intellectual labour,"' nor as a result of mystical in
sight, and through whom God gave us in the Scriptures,
"an infallible and inerrant guide for all the purposes for
which God has given us a revelation."
There are, persons whom no new theory of the Bibli
cal writings can ever disturb. They are those who are
sure that they have been redeemed. from sin, death and
the power of the devil with Christ's holy aud precious
blood, and with his innocent sufferings and death. In
their own experience they have known the need and the
power of the blood of the Lamb. No amount of learn
ing and no number of witnesses can shake their faith.
They have in their own heart a witness for the very thing
1 Herman Schultz.

232
which is the negative critic's stumbling block and rock
of offense in the Old Testament, namely the presence of
the supernatural.' They know that they are "new
creatures in Christ Jesus," and that the presence of su
pernatural power has made them such.
There are other persons who can be completely capti
vated by such a theory. Over a large class of minds it
has attained a power like, says Delitzsch, the spell of
Hartmann's Philosophy of the Unonsoious. There are
still other persons whom it will entirely unsettle and
confuse. And there are others who will greet any release
from the Bible with gladness. On the whole, the his
tory of such movements in the Christian Church shows
that they do present harm, but through the struggle
they inaugurate and the examination they necessitate,
they in the end further the cause of Him who is the
same. Yesterday, To-day, Forever.
1 Stearns: The Evidence of Christian Experience.

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