AND THE PRESENT STATE OF CRITICISM. 



eighth century before Christ requires justification. He himself 

 regards the Elohistic element as the oldest, and assigns it to 

 the later part of the time of the Judges. But a more important 

 point is that, in his opinion, both the Elohistic and Jehovistic 

 portions are shown, alike by indirect and direct quotations, to 

 rest upon still older materials. Even if those materials were 

 handed down by memory only, they would still, in view of 

 what the well-known capacity cf memory was in ancient times, 

 be of great historical value. But since the discovery of Ham- 

 murabi's Code of Laws, the supposition which was once main- 

 tained, and which even Delitzsch still mentions, that the 

 Israelites at the time of Moses were an illiterate people, " has 

 lost the last gleam of probability." Abraham himself came 

 from a land in which writing was in general use, and was so 

 generally understood, that marriage laws in the Code presumed 

 the use of written marriage contracts. Consequently it is 

 both possible and probable that, even in the period before 

 Moses, records were made of important experiences ; at least 

 brief notices of genealogies or acquisitions, such as of the Cave 

 of Macpelah. It is evident, from such points as the mention 

 of the former names of places, that the people had a keen sense for 

 ancient reminiscences ; they quote old records like " the book of 

 the Wars of the Lord " (Num. xxi, 14), or " the book of Jasher." 

 The trustworthiness of the records is still further shown by state- 

 ments which correspond in a remarkable and independent mamier 

 to facts which have only lately become kno\vn. Thus in the 

 table of the nations, in Gen. x, 8-12, two races are distinguished 

 in Babylon, and recent discoveries have shown that this corre- 

 sponds to the facts. It is another curious point that the 

 Chaldseans are not mentioned. " It did not escape the observant 

 eye of the Israelites that it was only later that the Chaldseans 

 played an important part in Babylonia." It is thus, says 

 Konig, a false " dogma of many modern writers, as of Delitzsch 

 himself, that the Hebrew historical books are of no value except 

 when they are confirmed by other sources. Every other tradition 

 is to be treated as having authority ; but not the Hebrew. 

 What gross injustice ! " It will thus be seen that, while 

 adhering to the current hypothesis of the four strata of the 

 Pentateuch, Konig urges confidently the antiquity and historic 

 value of the materials which are embodied in them. He 

 repudiates, for instance, Delitzsch's assumption that the account 



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