is;;] OLD TESTAMENT STUDY IN 1876 381 



of the speeches of Elihu.&quot; The second essay is much the 

 most complete comparison of the language of Elihu with 

 that of other parts of the poem which has hitherto been 

 instituted ; and the results, ingeniously tabulated in a 

 statistical form, will certainly modify current opinion. 

 The author goes no further than to claim as proved that 

 in point of language it is perfectly possible that Elihu s 

 speeches are a genuine part of the book. In the first 

 essay the argument that the plan of the book would be 

 incomplete without Elihu is interwoven somewhat to the 

 disadvantage of the reader, with a refutation of the very 

 extreme theory of the original form of the book advanced 

 by Studer in the Jahrbiicher fur prot. Theologie, 1875. 

 To these German contributions is to be added the Dutch 

 commentary, Ret Boek Job vertaald en verklaard, door 

 J. C. Matthes (Groningen: Wolters. Part i., 1876, Parts 

 ii. and iii., 1877. To be completed in ten parts), which 

 is no mere revision of the author s earlier commentary, 

 but a new work. The exposition is lucid and scholarly, 

 and the survey of current views is both full and clear. 



Wellhausen s contributions to the criticism of the 

 Pentateuch and Joshua in the Jahrbb. fur Deutsche 

 Theologie, 1876 (Hft. III. and IV.), extend only to the 

 historical parts of these books. I cannot attempt to 

 explain in a few words the results of a long and com 

 plicated examination of details. The main interest lies 

 in the analysis of the documents which, since Hupfeld, 

 have been known by the names of the Jhvhist and younger 

 Elohist, though the epithet younger is probably a mis 

 nomer. These documents, which our critic names J 

 and E, were as he holds fused together in a single context 

 JE by a third author who, in some parts (especially in the 

 account of the legislation at Sinai), added new matter of 

 his own. A much later redactor combined the work thus 

 produced with the document which Wellhausen calls Q or 

 Vierbundesbuch, which is what older critics call the book 

 of origins, or of the elder Elohist. Another important 



