Yet it was not until the publication by Astruc (1753) of what has since become known as the hypothesis of documents that the contrary belief of the post-:Mosnio origin of the Penta.teuch was able to make progress; but since then it has advanced with gigantic and rapid strides, more particularly in Germany, where it hns enlisted in it:s propagation and defence a brilliant arrny of talentr-gifted and able writers, who have expended on its demonstration and elucidation research the most minute and painstak~ng, ratiocination the most elaborate and careful, critical acumen the most penetrating and dexterous, eloquence the most o.ttraotive and engaging, not to speak of imagination the most wonderful and imposing. Among its advocates must be reckoned many of the most distinguii;hed scholars of the present century. Nor cnn it be alleged that it is absolutely devoid of at least seemingly weighty considerations to advance in its support. That an opinion which has secured the allegiance of authorities so eminent as Tuch, Knobel, Hupfeld, De Wette, Bohlen, Bleek, Delitzsch, Ewald, Graf, Kuenen, W ellhausen, and others, should have nothing in the shape of evidence to produce in its behalf is simply incredible, Accordingly, it will be the aim of this investigation in the first place to examine the more important of those arguments which are commonly advanced in proof of the post-Mosaic or late author- ship of the Pentateach, and in the second place to review the principal of those considerations which by the advocates of the popular belief are still regarded ae sufficient to establish the claim of Moses to the honour of having composed the first five books of the Old Test.ament Scriptures. •
I. Considerations which are commonly regarded as supporting the post-Mosaic or late authorship of the Pentateuch. 1. THE SEEMING COMPOSITE STBU<mraE o:r THE NABBATIVE. While the unity of the Pentateuch regarded 1i.e a whole is too palpable to be either denied or' ignored; by critics of a certain school that is usually ascribed not to the circumstance of its having issued from one mind, which one would have imagined to be the natural nnd obvious inference, but to the literary genius of a late writer in the time of Saul (Stihelin) or of Josiah (De Wette, Knobel, Bleek), about the end of the seventh century D. c. (Kuenen), or at all events before the destruction of Jerusalem (Ewald), or even posterior to the Exile (Hartmnnn, Bohlen, Wellhausen), who, hnving founll certain ancient records that had descended from- primitive times, worked them up into the present Pentatench. The original hypothesis of Astruc related solely to Genesis, which he conjectured had been put together from two principal documents, with the assistance of ten smaller memoirs-a speculation in which he had been forestalled by Vitringa, Clericus, and Richard Simon, who all assumed written sources for the first book of Moses ; but with greater boldness the theory which he adopted with regard to Genesis has since been applied to the entire Pentuteuch, and the pro- cess of disintegration and dismemberment carried forward with such zeal by the rationalistic criticism of Germany, that the pre-existing documents have now become so numerous and fragmentary, that it is fairly open to consideration whether· a greater miracle is not involved in the compilation of the present Pentateuch out of such dujecta 'l1l,f/1T/P1'a than in its original compoSJlion by the hand of Moses. Amid the manifold conflicting theories which have b1 en propounded by successive advocates of this hypothesis, one point can be detected m which all are pretty generally agreed, and indeed it is the kernel of the hypotl; isis, viz., that of the ancient records, or source writings, the principal were a narrati re of primitive history from the pen of an unknown composer who Las been styled the Elehist, from his exclusivo employ- ment, at leD.1:1t in the earlier porti1Jn of his ,, ork, of that name for the Deity, and Q 'fIIE AUTIIORSJIIP OF 'rim PENTATEUCH. iri