been exercised on the full literary results of the critical theory. And Dr. Orr deceives himself if he imagines that that flimsy hypothesis will either neutralise the force of the arguments that have carried criticism past the barren eccentricities of Klostermann, or save what he chooses to consider the 'essential Mosaicity' of the Pent
Professor Eerdmans of Leiden, in a series of recent publications, has announced his secession from the Graf-Wellhausen school, and commenced to lay down the programme of a new era in OT criticism (Hibb. Journ. vii. [1909], 813 ff.). His Komposition der Genesis (1908) gives a foretaste of his literary method; and certainly the procedure is drastic enough. The divine names are absolutely misleading as a criterion of authorship; and the distinction between P and JE goes overboard along with that between J and E. Criticism is thus thrown back into its original chaos, out of which Ee. proceeds to evoke a new kosmos. His one positive principle is the recognition of a polytheistic background behind the traditions, which has been obscured in various degrees by the later monotheistic interpretation. By the help of this principle, he distinguishes four stages in the development of the tradition. (1) The first is represented by remnants of the original undiluted polytheism, where Yahwe does not appear at all; e.g. 351-7; the Israel-recension of the Joseph-stories; the groundwork of chs. 1. 20. 281-9 69-917. (2) Legends which recognise Yahwe as one among many gods; 4. 918-27 22. 27. 2811-22 29. 30. 31. 39. (3) In the third stage, polytheistic legends are transferred to Yahwe as the only God: 2. 3. 61-8 71-5 820-22 111-9 16. 18. 19 24. 2519-34 26. (4) Late additions of purely monotheistic complexion: 151-6 17. 359-15 483-6. Now, we are quite prepared to find traces of all these stages of religion in the Genesis-narratives, if they can be proved; and, indeed, all of them except the second are recognised by recent critics. But while any serious attempt to determine the age of the legends from their contents rather than from their literary features is to be welcomed, it is difficult to perceive the distinctions on which Ee.'s classification is based, or to admit that, for example, ch. 17 is one whit more monotheistic than 20 or 27, or 24. In any case, on Ee.'s own showing, the classification affords no clue to the composition and history of the book. In order to get a start, he has to fall back on the acknowledged literary distinction between a Jacob-recension and an Israel-recension of the Joseph-narratives (on this see p. 439 below). Since the former begins אלה תלדות יעקב, it is considered to have formed part of a comprehensive history of the patriarchs, commencing with Adam (51), set in a framework of Tôlĕdôth. This is the groundwork of Genesis. It is destitute of monotheistic colouring (it contains,
of in the words cited is simply the question whether the three documents, P, E, and J, were combined by a single redaction, or whether two of them were first put together and afterwards united with the third. Dr. Orr, on the other hand, is thinking of "the labours of original composers, working with a common aim and towards a common end" (375). If everything beyond this is conjectural (376), there is nothing but conjecture in the whole construction.
