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VEX. ARCHDEACON WILLIAM SINCLAIR^ D.D.^ ON 



which points to a later date : though it does not follow that there 

 may not have been minor modifications and adjustments after." 



Professor Orr on the Priestly Writing. 



With regard to the Priestly Writing, it is recognized that 

 there is a writing, partly historical and partly legislative, 

 running through the Pentateuch and Joshua, which, from its 

 linguistic and othei' traits, has been variously described in the 

 course of opinion as the Primary Document, the First Elohist, 

 the Priestly Writing, the Priests' Code, or simply P. At first 

 the whole of the Elohim matter was ascribed to the Priestly 

 Writing : but when it was seen that the greater part of this 

 matter had a closer affinity to the Jehovah transcriber, it was 

 removed from P. and attributed to J. J'rofessor Orr gives good 

 reasons for believing that in the Genesis and other narratives 

 the work ot" the Priestly Writer is not independent, complete 

 and separate, but rather a framework to the Jehovah and 

 Elohim matter. His arguments are strongly and clearly 

 conclusive (1) that Genesis, as we have it, is a unity ; (2) that 

 the unity is destroyed by breaking it up into separately existing 

 Jehovah, Elohim and Priestly Docinnents ; (3) that the unity is 

 too close to be the work of a redactor piecing together such 

 separate documents : ^4) that to secure the unity, we do not 

 need to go beyond the book we have ; i.e., what the Priestly 

 Writer lacks, the Jehovah matter supplies, and vice versci. In 

 brief, whatever the number of pens employed, the phenomena 

 would seem to point, not to late irresponsible redaction, but to 

 singleness of plan, and co-operation of effort in the original 

 production. 



The Mosaic Character of the Pentoieuch. 



On the whole Pentatettch, Professor Orr inclines to the view 

 of essential Mosaic character in origin, though there may have 

 been repeated editions and redactions. 



" In the collation and preparation of the materials for this work — 

 some of them perhaps reaching back into pre-Mosaic times — and 

 the laying of the foundations of the existing narratives, to which 

 Moses by his own compositions, according to constant tradition, 

 lent the initial impulse, many hands and minds may have 

 co-operated, and may have continued to co-operate, after the 

 master-mind was removed, but unity of purpose and will gave a 

 corresponding unity to the product of their labours. So far from 

 such a view being obsolete, or disproved by modern criticism, we 

 hold that internal indications, external evidence, and the circum- 



