RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Hexateuch
last directions and events at Sinai; x. 11-xxii. 1, from Sinai to Moab (the spying out of the promised land and the murmuring of the people, the insurrections of Korah and of Dathan and Abiram, the gathering of the people in Kadesh, the death of Miriam and Aaron, three pieces of poetry); xxii. 2xxxvi., occurrences and laws in Moab (Balaam, numbering of the people, summary of haltingplaces). (5) Deuteronomy: i.-iv. 43, introductory addresses of Moses; iv. 44-xxvi., the second address (repetition of the decalogue, directions to fear, love, and worship God alone, the central sanctuary, unclean foods, judgment at the central sanctuary and the law of the king, priests, levites and prophets, prayers and tithes); xxvii.-xxx., final address (direction to write the words of the law in plaster on great stones, blessings and cursings); xxxi.-xxxiv, end of the life and work of Moses (command to read the law every seventh year to the assemblies of people at the feast of tabernacles, the Song of Moses, the last words of Moses). (6) Joshua: i.-vi. recounts the crossing of the Jordan and the capture of Jericho; vii.-viii., the capture of Ai; ix.-x., the war in South Palestine; xi., the war in North Palestine; xii., recapitulation; xiii.-xxi., partition of the land among the tribes; xxii., dismissal of the trans-Jordanic tribes; xxiii.-xxiv., final exhortations of Joshua, his death and burial.
In the time of Jesus and the Apostles the Pentateuch was certainly regarded as the work of Moses (Mark xii. 19; John viii. 5), and from 3. External this point of view the expressions of Testimony the Lord and his disciples regarding to the " the law " are made (Jesus in Matt. Authorship, viii. 4; Mark xii. 26; Luke xvi. 29; John v. 45; Peter in Acts iii. 22; Paul in Rom. ix. 15X; For the view in the Apocrypha cf. II Mace. i. 29, vii. 26. For earlier times this same view is indicated as regnant in Ezra vi. 18; Neh. xiii. 1. In the prophetical writings the name of Moses as attached to the law occurs only Mai. iv. 4, and the expression there does not necessarily involve authorship. The passages in the books of Kings where occur the phrases " the law of Moses " and " the law-book of Moses " relate only to Deuteronomy, I Kings ii. 2-4; II Kings xiv. 6 (II Kings xviii. 6, 12, xxi. 8, xxiii. 25 designate the law as given by God through Moses). Moses' name appears in Psalms lxxvii., xcix., cv., cvi., but in these passages is not associated with literary activity. Moses gives no testimony for his authorship of the whole, since Ex. xvii. 14, xxiv. 4, 7, xxxiv. 27, and Num. xxxiii. 2 concern only portions, while Deut. xxxi. refers only to the law in Deuteronomy. External testimony is therefore inconclusive. Regarding the citations from the New Testament it is to be remarked that they testify simply to the current opinion of the times. Were they an essential part of the authoritative teaching of the New Testament they would be decisive in themselves, and any introduction of further proof would be a setting aside of the authority of the Lord and his disciples. But none of the advocates of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch who have made themselves acquainted with the difficulties. and development of
the question have gone so far as to assert that the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is conclusively decided by the manner in which the books are referred to by the Lord and his apostles and that no further proof is required. A remarkable exception was the late William Henry Green of Princeton (q.v.).
From the contents, and especially from the composition of the Pentateuch, reasons appear which show that the Pentateuch is neither 4. Internal by Moses nor by a contemporary, nor Testimony, indeed the work of one hand. (1) Moses would not have written concerning his own Egyptian name as the passage Ex. ii. 10 is worded; moreover, he would have called by their proper names both the king's daughter who rescued him and the Pharaoh of the oppression and of the exodus, while in the Pentateuch Pharaoh is used as though it were a proper narne';T he would have made known the identity of Reguel and Jethro, would not have mentioned ,the Cushite woman in the manner of Num. xii. 1;[ and he can not have written the conclusion of the genealogy found in Ex. vi. 26-27 (2)/ Numerous geographical, archeological, and historical details indicate post-Mosaic times. Such are the mention of Hormah, Num. xxi.3;Deut.i.44; and the villages of Jair , Deut . iii . 14 (cf. Num. xxxii. 41; Josh. xiii. 30; Judges x. 4). The passage which cites the Book of the Wars of Yahweh, Num. xxi. 14-15, must be post-Mosaic, since the contemporaries of Moses who were led across the Arnon did not need a testimony that this river was in their time the northern border of Moab. The summary of stations in Num. xxxiii., even though with Ewald verses 36b-41a are put after verse 30a, gives no clear picture of the journey through the wilderness; moreover, it is strange that Kadesh is mentioned only once, though elsewhere it is stated that the Israelites were there in the second and in the fortieth year. (3) That the Pentateuch is not by one hand, but a cbmposite, follows from the fact that there is a lack of relationship between parts which; were they by the same author, would have been brought into express connection by crossreference. How strongly the reader of Gen. xxvi. is reminded of Gen. xx.-xxi., where the similar experiences of Abraham and Isaac are recorded! And yet the later narrative contains no reference to that containing the earlier event. With reference to Genesis, this objection may be answered by the supposition that Moses employed earlier sources, as Campegius Vitringa supposed regarding the relation of Gen. ii. 4 sqq. to Gen. i. 1— ii. 3. But the same phenomenon is met in Exodus. There are two reports of the call of Moses; and while they are not contradictory, they in no way cross-refer. Moses could be considered the author of two reports, but there would be needed a later hand to bring them together. And further examination shows that the second report belongs to P, while the first is a composite of the work of E and J. Difference of authorship here is indicated both by linguistic differences and by other peculiarities; and just this difference in presentation is, as will be shown, a weighty ground for holding to the compositeness of the Pentateuch.
Hexateuch