PRINCIPLES OF THE CRITICISM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 235 



and his attacks on the current theory have been appearing 

 quarter after quarter in its pages. Dr. Skinner complains of 

 Mr. Wiener's vehemence, of his " superheated invective " ; and it 

 must be owned that his tone has been sometimes unfortunate. 

 But one consideration must be borne in mind in this respect, 

 which Dr. Skinner and his colleagues do not seem adequately to 

 appreciate. Mr. Wiener is not solely, nor perhaps primarily, 

 concerned with a mere critical controversy. It is no wonder if 

 he feels and writes with the vehemence of one who is contending 

 pro aris et focis. It is surprising that the modern critics should 

 not realize that the theory they are asserting is absolutely 

 destructive of the whole Jewish religion. I believe myself that 

 it is also incompatible with the logical defence of the Christian 

 religion, though this consequence is denied by its adherents. But 

 the Jewish rehgion is absolutely dependent on the belief that 

 the Torah was given by God to Moses ; and if it could be estab- 

 lished by criticism that the great mass of it, at all events, was 

 not given to Moses at all, the very basis of Jewish worship, 

 Jewish law, and Jewish life would be destroyed. I have 

 always wondered that Jewish authorities have not been more 

 prominent in resisting theories so destructive of their position. 

 The late Chief Eabbi, indeed, Dr. Adler, was good enough to 

 send me a work by Dr. Hoffmann of Berhn, entitled Instanzen, 

 against the Wellhausen hypothesis, and it contains arguments 

 of the greatest weight, which I have never seen adequately 

 answered. But it would be natural that Jews alone could 

 adequately apprehend the force or weakness of criticisms of 

 their laws and institutions, and Mr. Wiener's observations have 

 certainly exposed grave mistakes on the part of critics in their 

 discussion of the law^s in the Pentateuch. Some vehemence on 

 this subject is neither unnatural nor altogether unbecoming in an 

 earnest Jew, and Dr. Skinner and his friends would show, good 

 feeling if they treated Mr. Wiener with more consideration. 



Another powerful opposition to the critical hypothesis has 

 lately been opened in the Bibliotheca Sacra by two articles in 

 the January and April numbers entitled " A Layman's View^ of 

 the Critical Theory," in which it is urged that the whole theory 

 is inconsistent with Oriental methods of thought and litera- 

 ture. I will refer to this argument at a later point. But I 

 would first draw attention to the arguments which have at 

 length ehcited some reply in England on behalf of the 

 critical theories. Their most recent and fullest statement is to 

 be found in the work just published by Dahse, a German 

 Pastor, entitled Textkritische Materialien zur Hexateiichfrage. Ten 



