MOSAIC ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. 



41 



that animals known in Africa have been substituted where the 

 meaning of the Hebrew was unknown. These and a good 

 many more facts suggest that the writings were already ancient 

 in the middle of the third century B.C., and that many words 

 had become obsolete. 



It is, however, true that similar mistranslations are found in 

 other parts of the Old Testament, as in the titles of the Psalms, 

 and therefore these facts alone w^ould not suffice to prove that 

 the Pentateuch was of any greater antiquity, 



(ii) The existence of the Samaritan Pentateuch forbids us 

 to place the work later than 420 B.C., and quite possibly may 

 push it a century or two further back. 



(iii) The evidence of the other books of the Old Testament 

 would carry the Pentateuch back to a time before Jeremiah, 

 before Hosea, before Solomon or David, even to the time of 

 Joshua, for Josh, xviii, 1 testifies to the setting up of the Tent 

 of Meeting at Shiloh, and Josh, xxii, 9-20 to the unlawfulness 

 of any altar for sacrifice except that at Shiloh. 



These evidences the critics disallow, sometimes attaching a 

 difierent meaning to words or phrases (e.g., insisting that 

 Torak does not mean a written law, but " oral direction ; 

 or that the Tent of Meeting in Joshua was not P's Tabernacle, 

 but JE's " simple tent ; sometimes by contending that such 

 passages are late interpolations. 



It has to be remembered, however, that these interpretations 

 and contentions are largely, if not entirely, dependent on the 

 previous analysis. The critics have not begun by deciding 

 against these passages on independent grounds, and therefore 

 left them out of count. They first decided that certain parts 

 of the Pentateuch were of late date, and then, on grounds fur- 

 nished by their analysis, have explained away or excised the 

 passages in later books which militated against their conclusions. 

 But when the question at issue is whether any part of the 

 Pentateuch is of late date, the evidence of the other books ought 

 to be allowed its full weight. 



(6) Linguistic Peculiarities. 



The use in the Pentateuch of the form ^"^n for both 

 masculine and feminine of the pronoun is well known. 



Both Dr. Driver and Mr. Chapman argue that, as Arabic, 

 Aramaic, and Ethiopic have the distinction between hu* and hi^ 

 in sound, this must be " part of the common stock of the Semitic 



