606 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1879 



action by Hezekiah the book of Deuteronomy would 

 be unintelligible. The task of remodelling the whole 

 religious life of the nation to fit in with the abolition of 

 local altars could hardly be undertaken in such detail 

 until the problem to which Deuteronomy is addressed 

 had emerged in a practical form. 



Space forbids me to dwell on other topics in the history 

 of cultus. I may direct special notice to the discussions 

 on the use of incense, on the offering of the first-born, 

 and on the notion of atonement, and to several excellent 

 incidental contributions to exegesis and text criticism. 

 But why is Wellhausen so sceptical as to the sense 

 obliterare for kapper (Isa. xxviii. 18) ? In the Harklean 

 Syriac kapper = e/cpuroreiv, John xi. 2, xii. 3, xiii. 5. See also 

 Syro-hex. Ep. Jer. 13, 24 ; and Hoffman s Bar Ali, 5924. 



The second part of the volume is a critical history 

 of the Pentateuch and historical books directed to show 

 that the successive phases of historical tradition in Israel 

 run parallel to the successive developments of the sacred 

 ordinances. The latest phase is found in the Chronicles, 

 and is thoroughly saturated with the unhistorical spirit 

 of the priestly legislation. The main source used by the 

 author was a Midrash (in the ordinary Jewish sense of 

 the word) based on the canonical book of Kings. The 

 older books are complex in structure. The final redaction 

 is akin to Deuteronomy, is prior to the priestly law and 

 based on the teaching of the great prophets. Behind 

 the redaction are older elements prior to the recognition of 

 any written Torah. Nay, as we go down to the earliest 

 strata of the narrative, we get beyond the influence even 

 of the prophetic ideas, and find ourselves in contact with 

 a na ive habit of thought such as the earliest religious 

 ordinances of Israel presuppose. The only part of the 

 narrative of the earlier prophets which shows any in 

 fluence of the priestly law is i Kings vi.-viii., where 

 interpolations and corrections can be traced. 



Perhaps Wellhausen has exaggerated the extent of 



