MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 



33 



§ 1. Indications of Unity. 

 {a) Concession of Opponents. 

 We may begin bv noticing that even those who maintain 

 that the Pentateuch is composite have to recognize in it a certain 

 kind of unity. They hold, indeed, that there were originally 

 several independent " sources,'' but the facts of the case and 

 of the subsequent history compel them to postulate that these 

 have been " combined — interwoven, welded, or fused — into 

 a compact whole, much as the materials of an edifice, originally 

 separate, have been united by the skill of the builder. They 

 admit that the whole bears the impress of a single mind, only 

 they maintain that it was the mind of a " Kedactor,'' not that 

 of an author. 



(b) External Evidence. 

 In the nature of the case there can be little external evidence, 

 yet there is some. 



(i) For centuries the custodians of the work, the Jews, have 

 known it by a single name, " the Torah " — ^the Law. The other 

 designation occasionally used, — The Five Fifths of the Law " 

 (nnin •''t^n^in nti^Dn),— shows that they regarded each 

 of the divisions as a necessary part of a single whole. 



(ii) The testimonies of Josephus and Philo show clearly that 

 they regarded the work as a five-fold unit ; and the history 

 of the Septuagint and the existence of the Samaritan Pentateuch 

 further show that, as far back as we can trace it, the work was 

 looked on as unique and separate from all other Hebrew 

 literature. 



(iii) The ancient titles given to these books point in the same 

 direction. As is well known, in Hebrew the books are dis- 

 tinguished by words taken from the opening verse ; in Greek 

 they have descriptive titles summarizing the subject of the 

 volume. Whichever of these may be the more ancient usage, 

 they point to a distinction from the other books of the Old 

 Testament. 



As regards the Hebrew, the only other books distinguished 

 by the opening word are Proverbs and Lamentations. Now 



Mishlay ( while being the first word in Proverbs, is also 



a title descriptive of the contents ; and the opening phrase from 

 which the designation of Lamentations is taken, is in itself an 

 extended title, Aychah (Tl^^^). The fact that there is an 

 alternative title Kinoth (r\'1^*'p, Laments), is really a confirma- 



