PENTATEUCH. 



171 



form or left that for their successors to do is an open 

 question until it is settled by evidence. Their claim 

 to authorship would not be in the least impaired if it 

 could be shown that the writings were collected into a 

 whole, and parts of them written, by men of the gen- 

 eration that had been associated with Moses and 

 Joshua, and had survived them. Whether their claim 

 to authorship would be impaired on some theory that 

 dated the collection of the writings yet later would de- 

 pend somewhat on the details of the theory. This last 

 question, however, it is hardly worth while to discuss, 

 unless upon inquiry other views are found to be 

 untenable. 



The following proposition would perhaps be accepted 

 in common by all advocates of the Mosaic authorship 

 of the Pentateuch, though many of them would regard 

 it as stating only a part of the truth : The Hexateuchal 

 writings were produced in part by Moses and Joshua, 

 and in part by other men under their influence, and 

 were substantially completed within the lifetime of 

 men who were associated with Moses and Joshua in 

 public affairs. In opposition to this, living scholars 

 who deny the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch 

 generally hold that the legislation of Deuteronomy was 

 written in the times of King Josiah, and the other 

 parts of the Hexateuch, some earlier and some later 

 than this. These two propositions are not exhaustive 

 of the question ; but, if we examine the evidence bear- 

 ing upon them, we shall not merely argue the question 

 they present, but shall touch most of the points of 

 interest that properly belong to this supplementary 

 article. 



I. The, Direct Testimony, and the Reasons Alleged 

 Against it. To begin with, the direct testimony in the 

 case is very abundant, and no one disputes that it is 

 altogether to the effect that Moses is the author of the 

 Pentateuch. The Rabbinical writings, Josephus, Philo, 

 the Alexandrian Jewish literature, the Apocrypha, 

 are explicit on this point, and often full in details ; 

 they betray hardly any difference of opinion, except as 

 to whether Moses wrote the account of his own death, 

 as well as the rest of the Pentateuch. The books of 

 the Old and New Testaments are equally full, though 

 Bomewhat less explicit. There is no room to exhibit 

 this testimony here, and no need to do so. One line 

 of it can be readily examined by looking up in the 

 Concordances of the Bible and in the indexes of the 

 other books what is said concerning "the book," "the 

 law," " Muses." A moderately full presentation of 

 the Biblical direct testimony may be found in such 

 works as those of Stebbins, Harman (see titles in 

 literature at end), or Essayi on Pentatenchnl Crit- 

 icism, Nos. v., vi., vii., viii., xi. A considerable num- 

 ber of the passages are cited in the article BIBLE, in 

 this work. 



The Biblical testimony in this matter differs from 

 that of the Jewish and Christian tradition outside the 

 Bible, in that it never speaks of the Mosaic books as 

 being five in number, and, except in the Hexateuch 

 itself, mentions no details as to the writing of the 

 books by Moses. But the books of the New Testa- 

 ment and the later books of the Old Testament so cite 

 and refer to tin; Pentateuchal writings as to leave no 

 doubt that those are the writings with which they 

 connect the name of Moses. Further, they do -not 

 confine themselves to such mention of Moses as mijrht 

 merely indicate that he is the most prominent person 

 of the times described in the writings ; they explicitly 

 attribute authorship to him : " Him of whom Muses 

 . . . did write" (John i. 45), "For he wrote of me" 

 (John v. 46), "tor the hardness of your heart he 

 wrote " (Mark x. 5), " If ye believe not his writings " 

 (John v. 47), " The book of the law of the Lord by the 

 hand of Moses" (2 Chron. xxxiv. 14), and very many 

 similar passages. In Deuteronomy Moses is said to 

 have written what is there called "the book of the 

 law," xxxi. 9-13, 24-27. Many details are given as to 

 the use to be made of this book of the law, and the 



use actually made of it by Joshua (Josh. i. 7, 8, xxii. 

 5. viii. 34, 35, Dent. xvii. 18, 19). We are told that 

 Joshua wrote in it, long after the death of Moses 

 (Josh. xxiv. 25-28). There are mentioned a long list 

 of items of sacred writing, by Moses or by Moses and 

 Joshua, either in this book of the law, or additional to 

 it, but in either case constituting a part of the. present 

 contents of the Hexateuch (Deut. xxxii. 44, etc., 

 xxvii. 2-8, xxviii. 58-61, 69 [xxix. 1], xxix. 19, 20 [20, 

 21], XXX. 10, Num. xxxiii. 1-3, Ex. xxiv. 3-8, xxxiv. 

 27, xvii. 14, etc.). It is doubtless true that the phrase 

 "book of the law" in these passages is not equiva- 

 lent in meaning to the word Pentateuch ; in some 

 cases it indicates a short section only, and in at least 

 one instance (Josh. xxiv. 26) it includes post-Mosaic 

 writing done by Joshua ; but the testimony is distinct 

 to the fact of the production by Moses and Joshua of 

 a large body of sacred literature, mostly identifiable 

 with the contents of our present Hexateuch. This 

 fact must be allowed to interpret what is said in the 

 other books. Taken at its face value, we seem to have 

 here nothing less than a continuous line of testimony 

 from the times of Moses down. 



Whether the fact thus testified to is really something 

 less than that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, we will 

 consider presently. It is at least beyond dispute that 

 the testimony, as it stands, represents the written law 

 of Moses, specifically including the Deuteronomic 

 legislation, as in existence for centuries before Josiahj 

 and in this flatly contradicts the main proposition of 

 the critics who deny the Mosaic authorship. See for 

 instance 2 Kings xiv. 6, cf. Deut. xxiv. 16. See also 

 1 Kings ii. 3, cf. Deut. xxix. 9 ; 1 .Kings viii. 53, 56, 

 57, cf. Deut. passim; 1 Kings viii. 9, cf. Deut. x. 

 2, 5, and many like instances. 



if this evidence will stand, it is by itself sufficient 

 and decisive. Those who regard it as indecisive 

 use mainly four arguments against it. First, they 

 deny that the testimony means all that it is claimed to 

 mean. Secondly, they claim that the texts which con- 

 tain it are mixed and corrupt, so that they must first 

 be sifted, often to the extent of entire reconstruction, 

 before we accept their evidence. Thirdly, they say 

 that the testimony in its present form, and largely in 

 its more original forms, is the work of men who lived 

 long after the alleged events, who failed to distinguish 

 between stories and facts, who did not sift the infor- 

 mation that came to them, who were deficient in the 

 so-called historic sense, and were incorrect observers 

 and reporters of events : and that the testimony must 

 therefore be regarded as largely unhistorical. Fourthly, 

 they say of the claims made in the Hexateuch itself, 

 and of the parts of the testimony that stand or fall 

 with these, that they are intentionally fictional not 

 necessarily "untruthful, but a legal fiction devised for a 

 purpose, and to be interpreted accordingly. These 

 arguments, it will be observed, are capable of being so 

 pushed as to antagonize one another. The men who 

 use them use them in very unlike proportions, and in 

 a spirit ranging from that of reverent devoutness to 

 the extreme opposite. 



1. There can be no doubt that the first of these 

 arguments represents a logical process that is some 

 times of great value. It is very often true that a 

 statement does not mean all that we understand it to 

 mean. Dr. Francis Brown has shown (Journal of t/if 

 Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, 1882, p. 

 95) that the testimony of the New Testament to the 

 authorship of the various books of the Old Testament 

 do not go as far as many imagine, and that many 

 passages commonly held to be explicit testimonies to 

 authorship might possibly be otherwise understood, 

 provided there be sufficient reasons against the com- 

 mon understanding of them. This process of mini- 

 mizing the meaning of statements, to prevent conflict, 

 is legitimate, in its own proper use. Nevertheless, 

 the true law of evidence is that statements are to be 

 understood in their natural meaning, except as de- 



