Returning to the long-held traditional view

 

 

Preferring P. J. Wiseman to un-wise JEDP

 

Part Three:

Returning to the long-held traditional view

 

 

 

“The Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch has until very recent times been accepted without question by both Jews and Christians. Such acceptance, coming down to us in unbroken line from the earliest times of which we have any information, gives it the support of what is called general consent, which, while perhaps not absolutely conclusive, compels those who would discredit it to produce incontrovertible opposing evidence. But the evidence which the critics produce in this case is wholly circumstantial, consisting of inferences derived from a literary analysis of the documents and from the application of a discredited evolutionary theory concerning the development of human institutions.”

 

George Frederick Wright

 

 

 

The following refutation of the JEDP theory, of which I give only the beginning and the conclusion, has been taken from the biblical site, Blue Letter Bible:

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/torrey_ra/fundamentals/02.cfm

The full article is worth reading.

 

For a P. J. Wiseman-based refutation of JEDP, see my:

 

Tracing the Hand of Moses in Genesis

 

https://www.academia.edu/8175774/Tracing_the_Hand_of_Moses_in_Genesis

 

 

 

THE MOSAIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH

By Professor George Frederick Wright, D. D., LL. D.,
Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

 

During the last quarter of a century an influential school of critics has deluged the world with articles and volumes attempting to prove that the Pentateuch did not originate during the time of Moses, and that most of the laws attributed to him did not come into existence until several centuries after his death, and many of them not till the time of Ezekiel. By these critics the patriarchs are relegated to the realm of myth or dim legend and the history of the Pentateuch generally is discredited. In answering these destructive contentions and defending the history which they discredit we can do no better than to give a brief summary of the arguments of Mr. Harold M. Wiener, a young orthodox Jew, who is both a well established barrister in London, and a scholar of the widest attainments. What he has written upon the subject during the last ten years would fill a thousand octavo pages; while our condensation must be limited to less than twenty. In approaching the subject it comes in place to consider

 

1. THE BURDEN OF PROOF

 

The Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch has until very recent times been accepted without question by both Jews and Christians. Such acceptance, coming down to us in unbroken line from the earliest times of which we have any information, gives it the support of what is called general consent, which, while perhaps not absolutely conclusive, compels those who would discredit it to produce incontrovertible opposing evidence.

But the evidence which the critics produce in this case is wholly circumstantial, consisting of inferences derived from a literary analysis of the documents and from the application of a discredited evolutionary theory concerning the development of human institutions.

 

2. FAILURE OF THE ARGUMENT FROM LITERARY ANALYSIS

 

(a) Evidence of Textual Criticism.

It is an instructive commentary upon the scholarly pretensions of this whole school of critics that, without adequate examination of the facts, they have based their analysis of the Pentateuch upon the text which is found in our ordinary Hebrew Bibles. While the students of the New Testament have expended an immense amount of effort in the comparison of manuscripts, and versions, and quotations to determine the original text, these Old Testament critics have done scarcely anything in that direction. This is certainly a most unscholarly proceeding, yet it is admitted to be the fact by a higher critic of no less eminence than Principal J. Skinner of Cambridge, England, who has been compelled to write: "I do not happen to know of any work which deals exhaustively with the subject, the determination of the original Hebrew texts from the critical standpoints."

Now the fact is that while the current Hebrew text, known as the Massoretic, was not established until about the seventh century A.D., we have abundant material with which to compare it and carry us back to that current a thousand years nearer the time of the original composition of the books.

 

• (1) The Greek translation known as the Septuagint was made from Hebrew manuscripts current two or three centuries before the Christian era. It is from this version that most of the quotations in the New Testament are made. Of the 350 quotations from the Old Testament in the New, 300, while differing more or less from the Massoretic text, do not differ materially from the Septuagint.
• (2) The Samaritans early broke away from the Jews and began the transmission of a Hebrew text of the Pentateuch on an independent line which has continued down to the present day.
• (3) Besides this, three other Greek versions were made long before the establishment of the Massoretic text. The most important of these was one by Aquila, who was so punctilious that he transliterated the word Jehovah in the old Hebrew characters, instead of translating it by the Greek word meaning Lord as was done in the Septuagint.
• (4) Early Syriac material often provides much information concerning the original Hebrew text.
• (5) The translation into Latin known as the Vulgate preceded the Massoretic text by some centuries, and was made by Jerome, who was noted as a Hebrew scholar. But Augustine thought it sacrilegious not to be content with the Septuagint.

 

All this material furnishes ample ground for correcting in minor particulars the current Hebrew text; and this can be done on well established scientific principles which largely eliminate conjectural emendations. This argument has been elaborated by a number of scholars, notably by Dahse, one of the most brilliant of Germany's younger scholars, first in the "Archiv fuer Religions-Wissenschaft" for 1903, pp. 305-319, and again in an article which will appear in the "Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift" for this year; and he is following up his attack on the critical theories with an important book entitled, "Textkritische Materialien zur Hexateuchfrage," which will shortly be published in Germany. Although so long a time has elapsed since the publication of his first article on the subject, and in spite of the fact that it attracted world-wide attention and has often been referred to since, no German critic has yet produced an answer to it. In England and America Dr. Redpath and Mr. Wiener have driven home the argument. (See Wiener's "Essays in Pentateuchal Criticism", and "Origin of the Pentateuch.")

On bringing the light of this evidence to bear upon the subject some remarkable results are brought out, the most important of which relate to the very foundation upon which the theories concerning the fragmentary character of the Pentateuch are based.

 

….

 

4. THE POSITIVE EVIDENCE

 

Before proceeding to give in conclusion a brief summary of the circumstantial evidence supporting the ordinary belief in the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch it is important to define the term. By it we do not mean that Moses wrote all the Pentateuch with his own hand, or that there were no editorial additions made after his death. Moses was the author of the Pentateuchal Code, as Napoleon was of the code which goes under his name. Apparently the Book of Genesis is largely made up from existing documents, of which the history of the expedition of Amraphel in Genesis 14 is a noted specimen; while the account of Moses' death, and a few other passages are evidently later editorial additions. But these are not enough to affect the general proposition. The Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is supported by the following, among other weighty considerations:

 

• 1. The Mosaic era was a literary epoch in the world's history when such Codes were common. It would have been strange if such a leader had not produced a code of laws. The Tel-el-Amarna tablets and the Code of Hammurabi testify to the literary habits of the time.
   
  Damien Mackey’s comment: The era of King Hammurabi of Babylon well post-dates the Mosaïc era. See my article:
   
  Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as Contemporaries of Solomon
   
  https://www.academia.edu/35404463/Hammurabi_and_Zimri-Lim_as_Contemporaries_of_Solomon
   
  Likewise, the Tell el-Amarna era well post-dates the Mosaïc era - and is later, too, than the era of Hammurabi. See e.g. my article:
   
  King Ahab in El Amarna
   
  https://www.academia.edu/34875766/King_Ahab_in_El_Amarna
   
  Professor Wright continues:
   
• 2. The Pentateuch so perfectly reflects the conditions in Egypt at the period assigned to it that it is difficult to believe that it was a literary product of a later age.
• 3. Its representation of life in the wilderness is so perfect and so many of its laws are adapted only to that life that it is incredible that literary men a thousand years later should have imagined it.
• 4. The laws themselves bear indubitable marks of adaptation to the stage of national development to which they are ascribed. It was the study of Maine's works on ancient law that set Mr. Wiener out upon his re-investigation of the subject.
• 5. The little use that is made of the sanctions of a future life is, as Bishop Warburton ably argued, evidence of an early date and of a peculiar Divine effort to guard the Israelites against the contamination of Egyptian ideas upon the subject.
• 6. The omission of the hen from the lists of clean and unclean birds is incredible if these lists were made late in the nation's history after that domestic fowl had been introduced from India.
• 7. As A. C. Robinson showed in Volume VII of this series it is incredible that there should have been no intimation in the Pentateuch of the existence of Jerusalem, or of the use of music in the liturgy, nor any use of the phrase, "Lord of Hosts," unless the compilation had been completed before the time of David.
• 8. The subordination of the miraculous elements in the Pentateuch to the critical junctures in the nation's development is such as could be obtained only in genuine history.
• 9. The whole representation conforms to the true law of historical development. Nations do not rise by virtue of inherent resident forces, but through the struggles of great leaders enlightened directly from on high or by contact with others who have already been enlightened.
   

The defender of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch has no occasion to quail in presence of the critics who deny that authorship and discredit its history. He may boldly challenge their scholarship, deny their conclusions, resent their arrogance, and hold on to his confidence in the well authenticated historical evidence which sufficed for those who first accepted it. ….