to the average man that only a very Stalwart of Traditionalism could, in the face of such facts, continue to affirm, with the antique scholar who duly instructs divinity students in the Episcopal Church"Nothing is more certain than that this book was written by Moses."1

1Horne. Intro. Old Test., ii. 511.

CHAPTER III.

THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH, AND THE RECONSTRUCTION WROUGHT BY THE NEW

CRITICISM.

IF Moses did not write the Pentateuch, who, then, did write the works which make up the five-fold book, and when were they written? Questions, these, much easier to ask than to answer. In truth, we do not know at all the names of its authors, though we have a little more approach to reasonable certitude as to the age of its leading documents, and of its final revision. As it stands before us, it is the result of a long growth. It embodies the labors of many unknown hands, each working over the rich store of material furnished by the traditions of a great race. As says Matthew Arnold"To that collection many an old book had given up. its treasures and then itself vanished forever. Many voices were blended there, unknown voices, speaking out of the early dawn."1 We may picture this growth somewhat as follows:

'God and the Bible, page 161, chapter iv., § III.

71

I.

Far back in the early days of the Hebrew tribes, oral traditions circulated among the people, told from father to son in family gatherings, and recited in the festivals of the clans. Later in the history of the people we find their writers alluding to this original fount of historic knowledge: "Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask thy father and he will shew thee, thy elders and they will tell thee." 1 "Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation." The seventy-eighth Psalm, which recites the history of the people from the Exodus onward to the age of David, opens this patriotic narration by ascribing its data to tradition :

"2

'Give ear, O my people, to my law :
"Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
"I will open my mouth in a parable:

"I will utter dark sayings of old,
"Which we have heard and known,
"And our fathers have told us."

Among the contents of these oral traditions may have been the great group of primeval sagas, which the early Hebrews doubtless learned before their migration from the borders of Chaldea; where Semitic and Accadian civilizations had, even in those 2 Joel, i. 3.

1 Deut. xxxii. 7.

dim distances of antiquity, elaborated the crude forms of these myths, poetically picturing the mysteries of the beginnings. Among these household words would certainly have been found stories of the great ancestors of the tribes-Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and in later times Moses. In these tales, the shadows which may well have been originally cast by rarely noble men would naturally have grown continually greater and more imposing. The forms of these heroic patriarchs, looming ever larger through the mist of time, and seen through the roseate atmosphere of wonder in which a child-people lived, must inevitably have drawn upon themselves the weird drapery of legend. With these memories of real men, there must have mingled reminiscences of the clans and tribes themselves; which in the early days of communism constituted the real social units. Thus the persons of the patriarchs must have somewhat merged in the larger figures of tribal personalities. These central forms of a people's admiration and reverence would furnish the crystallizing centres for the rich and varied creations of a youthful people's imagination, which without such permanent figures in the heart of a race would dissolve in forgetfulness. Poetic personifications of nature would shape themselves around these colossal forms, strangely confusing fact and fancy for later generations.1 Great

1

Dr. Peters points out a striking exemplification of this process in Medieval story; the interweaving of the Niebelungen-Lied with Bur

deeds, by whomsoever wrought, would gravitate to these heroes of the people, and weave themselves into the fabric of their histories. The folk-lore of the villages of Israel would mix up all these incongruous elements of tradition in its usual way, and thus, with entire unconsciousness, real heroes would be represented as doing most unreal marvels. Thus the people's oral traditions would come, in after time, to present grotesque blendings of historic. memories, of spiritual truths, of poetic imaginations, of patriotic exaggerations and of superstitious wonderings. But, as handled fondly by a fresh and vigorous race, the poetic instinct of a primitive people would play about these oral stories, slowly fashioning them into artistic lines, despite their incongruous materials, and breathing into them the grace and charm of life. Many bodies of such traditions would be preserved in Israel's archives of memory; each tribe having its own rendering of some of these stories, in which inter-tribal relationships were involved, and its own special tribal tales.

Justice was originally administered among the Hebrews, as among other peoples, by the HouseFathers; and then, in the development of the race, successively, by the tribal Sheikhs, the Elders of the people, selected for that purpose, and by the Priests of the local oracles. To these primitive Judges the

gundian history, where the proof that nature-myths and historic facts have been worked in together is well nigh perfect.