as spuriom,; while, according to the Clolnentine HomiliM (iii. 47), tho llrcsent Pentateuch was written 1Lfter Moses' death. There does not appear, however, to have been any serious questioning on the subject of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole, or of Genesis as a part of that larger work, until the six• teenth century, when it began to be insinuated by Mnsius (157 4), Spinoza (1670), and Anton Van Dale (1696 ), that not Moses, the Hebrew lawgiver, but Ezra, the priest-prophet of the Restoration, was the first composer of those parts of sacred Scripture. The publication of Astruc's views in 1753 gave a decided impulse to the science of historic criticism, which in course of time resulted in the wide- spread acceptance by Biblical scholars of the opinion that, while containing a slight substratum of Mosaic legislation, the present Pentateuch is not the work of the Hebrew lawgiver, but of an unknown writer belonging to a later period who made tISe of pre-existing documents, of which the principal were the Elohistic and J ehovistic memoirs already referred to. At the present monient this view extensively prevails in both England and Germany. At the same time, consist- ency requires it to be stated that, in the minds of those ~ho have rejected the Mosaic authorship of the Book of Origins, the most hopeless perplexity reigns as to the person to whom that honour should be assigned. It is vain to look for anything like unanimity of sentiment among modern students of the higher historic criticism concerning the authorship and date of composition of the two principal documents or source writings (Quellenschriften), as Bleek designates them, out of whicb. the first fifth of the Peritateuch was manufac- tured. In the judgment of Astrnc and Eichhorn, the documents referred to were pre-Mosaic, and the Book of Genesis was the handiwork of Moses ; but so safe and reasonable a solution of the authorship of Genesis has long been left behind by their scholars, the composition of the earliest or fundamental docu- ment being assigned by Sta.helin to an unknown writer in the times of the Judges (Colenso suggests Samuel as the anonymous Elohist), by Bleek to a his- torian who flourished in the time of Saul, by Killiech to a contemporary of David, by Ewald to a brilliant Levite in the age of Solomon, by De W ette to an author in the time of the Kings, and by Bohlen to a literary artist who wrote as late as the captivity, or even later-the J ehovist or Supplementer in each case writing at e period considerably posterior. .Accordingly, where such diversity of sentiment exists, the Biblical student may fairly hesitate to reject the pre- Reformation doctrine of the Mosaic authorship of Genesis, and all the more that it is still supported by such excellent names as those of Sack, Hengstenberg, Havernick, Ranke, Dreschler, Baumgarten, Kurtz, Keil, and others, and is not 80 entirely destitute of evidence as is sometimes alleged. 1. Without attaching the.t importance to the direct testimony of the Pentateuch to its Mosaic author- ship which it seems to possess in the eyes of some apologists (Exod. xvii. 14, xxiv. 3, 4, and Nwn. :uxiii. 2 can scarcely be pressed to mean more than that Moses composed the different writings of which they speak; while Deµt. xvii. 18, 19; xxviii. 58, 61; xxix. 19, 20, 27; xx.x. 10; xxxi. 9-11, 24--,-26 do TFIE BOOK OF GF:NESIS. vii
not appear so conclusively to astiort the composition Ly .Musc3 of the entire law, as understood by Jewi~h tradition, as to preclude the opinion that the paesage11 in question only refer to the Mosaic legislation proper), it may be maintained that the number and character of the direct references in the subsequent Hebrew Sc1·iptures to the Pentateuch as the work of Moses are such as to involve the truth of his claim to be regarded as its author (cf. Josh. i. 7, 8; viii. 31; xxiii. 6; xxiv. 26 ; 1 Kings ii. 3; viii. 9, 53 ; 2 Kings x. 31; xi. 12 ; 1 Chron. xvi. 40 ; 2 Chron. xii. 1 ; Ezra iii. 2 ; vi. 18 ; N eh. i. 7 ; viii. 1 ; Dan. ix. 11, 13 for the historical books ; and vid. the poetical and prophetic writings pa,.~sim ). In every one of these Scriptures there is a clear recognition of the Pentateuch os having been in existence at a time prior to their composition, i. e. from the days of Joshua onward; in which case its only conceivable author was the celebrated lawgiver of the Hebrews. 2. It is allied to this to say that the his- torical development of the theocratic nation is inconceivable except upon the hypothesis of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and therefore of Genegis, To imagine that the complicated system of the Mosaic institute gradually took shape, and perpetuated itself through several centuries, working itself in, by slow degrees, to the national life and conscience, without any accredited his- torical documents, in such a way that when at length the history of the nation came to be written, it should by every separate writer be judged necessary to misrepresent the facts of the case, by promulgating the belief that their great national institutions were the outcome of a previously-recorded writing from the hand of Moses, rather than that that writing (so-called by Moses) was the free historic product of their institutions-to accept this as the true solution of the inter-relation between Hebrew literature and Hebrew life is to make a far greater demand upon the historic faculty than to believe that the Pentateuch came first from Moses, and the national character and life were framed and moulded by the Pentateuch. 3. Then there is the fact that the Mosaic author- ship of the Pentateuch, and therefore of Genesis, was im.iversally recognised by Jewish sects and parties-by Pharisees, and Sadducees, and Essenes; by ..A.leJ:- andrian as well as by Palestinian Jews ; and by the Samaritans as well as by the inhabitants of J udrea. 4. The testimony of Christ and his apostles lends its weight to this conclusion ( cf. Matt. xi.x. 7 ; Mark xii. 19; Luke x:xiv. 27, 44; John i. 45; v. 46, 47; Acts xv. 21; Rom. x. 5). Even Bleek with sufficient candour admits that this was the view entertained at the time of Christ•_and his apostles, as Philo and Josephus expressly testify ; and the force of this aclmission is not rendered nugatory by the oft-quoted dicta that neither Christ nor his apostles came into the world to teach criticism (Clericus), and that faith in Christ cannot set limits to critical inquiries (De Watte); for, as Hermann Witsius justly observes, it is quite true that neither Christ nor his apostles were critical scholars (critici doctares) in the modern acceptation of the term; but they were certainly teachers of the truth (doctores ve1-itatis) who did not come into the world to fortify popular errors by their authority. 5. An lNTRODUCTtON TO