entire plan of the law, and is therefore to be regarded as original. For even the three central books, which contain a continuous history of the establishment of the theocracy, are divided into three by the fact, that the middle portion, the third book of the Pentateuch, is separated from the other two, not only by its contents, but also by its introduction, Gen. 1:1, and its concluding formula, Gen. 27:34.
§3. Origin and Date of the Books of Moses.
The five books of Moses occupy the first place in the canon of the Old Testament, not merely on account of their peculiar character as the foundation and norm of all the rest, but also because of their actual date, as being the oldest writings in the canon, and the groundwork of the whole of the Old Testament literature; all the historical, prophetic, and poetical works of the Israelites subsequent to the Mosaic era pointing back to the law of Moses as their primary source and type, and assuming the existence not merely of the law itself, but also of a book of the law, of precisely the character and form of the five books of Moses. In all the other historical books of the Old Testament not a single trace is to be found of any progressive expansion of, or subsequent additions to, the statutes and laws of Israel; for the account contained in 2Ki. 22 and 2Ch. 34. of the discovery of the book of the law, i.e., of the copy placed by the side of the ark, cannot be construed, without a wilful perversion of the words, into a historical proof, that the Pentateuch or the book of Deuteronomy was composed at that time, or that it was then brought to light for the first time.[1]
- ↑ Vaihinger seeks to give probability to Ewald’s idea of the progressive growth of the Mosaic legislation, and also of the Pentateuch, during a period of nine or ten centuries, by the following argument: — “We observe in the law-books of the ancient Parsees, in the Zendavesta, and in the historical writings of India and Arabia, that it was a custom in the East to supplement the earlier works, and after a lapse of time to reconstruct them, so that whilst the root remained, the old stock was pruned and supplanted by a new one. Later editors constantly brought new streams to the old, until eventually the circle of legends and histories was closed, refined, and transfigured. Now, as the Israelites belonged to the same great family as the rest of the Oriental nations (sic! so that the Parsees and Hindoos are Semitic!), and had almost everything in common with them so far as dress, manners, and customs were concerned, there is ground for the supposition, that their literature followed the same course” (Herzog’s Cycl.). But to this we reply, that the literature of a nation is not an outward thing to be put on and worn like a dress, or adopted like some particular custom or habit, until something more convenient of acceptable induces a change; and that there is a considerable difference between Polytheism and heathen mythology on the one hand, and Monotheism and revealed religion on the other, which forbids us to determine the origin of the religious writings of the Israelites by the standard of the Indian Veda and Purana, or the different portions of the Zendavesta.
