THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
For a long time students were uncertainly groping for an answer to the question how to decide concerning the origin of the Pentateuch, 5. Early for the right key to the problem had Theories of not yet been found. For two thousand Composi- years the Mosaic authorship was maintion. tained, the early synagogue following the books of Ezra and Nehemiah in this position (except in certain small particulars, cf . M. Eisenstadt, Ueber Bibelkritik in der talmudischen Litteratur, Frankfort, 1895), and this way of thinking was followed by the synagogue of the Middle Ages, except in certain particulars (Isaac ibn Jasos. cf. JE,v\. 623; Abraham ibn Ezra, cf. JE, vi. 520-524). The Church Fathers also regarded Moses as the author in spite of the quite common supposition based on IV Ezra xiv., that Ezra, inspired by God, restored in their entirety the Holy Scriptures which had been lost during the Babylonian exile. Andreas Bodenstein, of Carlstadt (Libellus de canonicis scripturis, Wittenberg, 1520), regarded the law as Mosaic, but doubted whether the thread of narration was the same, because in the narrative of the death and burial of Moses the method of expression differs not at all from what precedes. Many after Bodenstein questioned individual passages, so that in the eighteenth century there gradually grew up the " interpolation hypothesis." Many objections against Mosaic authorship were disposed of on the hypothesis of retouching or change (such as is suggested by the passage Gen. xii. 6, " the Canaanite was then in the land "), but by no means all. The " fragment hypothesis," originated by Alexander Geddes in England, and taken over in Germany by J. S. Vater, did not long maintain itself, for against the disconnection manifest in many places was the fact that numerous and longer passages were mutually connected. Through similarity of language and of notions in Genesis, particularly in passages where the name Elohim is employed, there was formed the idea, in the minds of J. J. Stahelin, F Bleek, and F Tuch, of a " supplementary hypothesis." An Elohim document, beginning with Gen. i. 1, named the foundation document, was filled out from a later document, the Yahwistic, by the addition of selections and remarks which were not entirely consistent. While this hypothesis seemed to meet many difficulties, the character of the long connected pieces proved that J was once an independent work alongside P, e.g., in the story of the flood, while sometimes J takes rank as the work which is supplemented from the narrative of P.
The French physician Jean Astruc (1684-1766), by a literary analysis of Gen. i.-Ex. ii., turned Pentateuchal criticism into a new channel. 6. Develop- Using the divine names as a criterion, ment of the he set the pieces containing the name Document- Elohim in a column designated A, ary those containing the name Yahweh in
Hypothesis, a column B, and other pieces also apart, and regarded A and B as originally complete and independent narratives. He thought that Moses had used the arrangement in columns and that later copyists had brought all
together into one column and so destroyed the order. A was regarded as the work of Levi with the use of an older document, but Ex. i.-ii. by Amram, the father of Moses. The Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch was maintained by Astruc. In this way he thought he had solved chronological difficulties and those arising from duplication in Genesis. Astruc 's idea was introduced into Germany by J. G. Eichhorn and given a better basis by the proof that the two chief documents were further differentiated by linguistic peculiarities. H. Ewald recognized that P and J were traceable not only as far as the first chapters of Exodus, but also in other books, and F Tuch showed that they were recognizable even in Joshua. As early as 1822 F Bleek had remarked upon the original relationship of Joshua to the Pentateuchal narrative, of which it formed the conclusion. The special position of Deuteronomy was recognized as early as 1806 by W M. L. de Wette. H. Hupfeld followed K. D. Ilgen in proving that Elohim was used by two documents. K. H. Graf showed that Lev. xviixxvi. were to be discriminated by many individualities from the priestly document, and indicated a fifth document (to which the name " Holiness Code " was attached by A. Klostermann because the characteristic of this body of laws is the designation of God as holy, and emphasis is laid upon Israel's duty also to be holy). Still later analysis was carried farther by those who were not contented with the five sources, at least three documents were " discovered " in the J sections, two in the E sections, two in D, and four in P (Wellhausen's designation for the chronological thread in P was Q = quatuor fcederum liber, though only three covenants are mentioned, with Noah, Abraham, and Moses, not one with Adam). And it is assumed that these documents had been subjected to recensions before their incorporation into the Hexateuch, though the question of how far this can be recognized is not satisfactorily answered. It is very probable that into the Priest Code, which has special interest for the law of ritual, additions were interjected, and attempts have been made to determine these, though the certainty and value of these attempts is open to question. That the original Deuteronomy up to and during its inclusion in the Hexateuch did not escape change is certainly probable; but the attempt to use the employment of the singular and plural numbers as means of discrimination seems unpromising. As an example of the minuteness attempted in analytical investigation, the results of C. Steuernagel's work may be given. The law-book of Josiah was put together from two documents, PI and Sg; PI has three sources, of which one is again resolvable into two originals; similar principal and auxiliary documents are discovered in Sg. Against the discrimination of J into two or more sources, growing more prevalent nevertheless, cf. E. Konig's Eirileitung in das Alte Testament (Bonn, 1893), pp. 197-200.
Justification of the analysis is attained by a careful reading even of a good translation of the following examples, in which the composition out of at least two sources is recognizable. The history of the flood and of Noah: P is in Gen. vi. 9-22,