IX.I.

IX.I.1.  Eberhard Schrader mentions, in his Introduction to the Old Testament, that Graf assigns the legislation of the middle books of the Pentateuch to the period after the exile; but he does not give the least idea of the arguments on which that position is built up, simply dismissing it with the remark, that “even critical analysis enters its veto” against it.  Even critical analysis?  How does it manage that?  How can it prove that the one and sole cultus, worked out on every side to a great system, the denaturalising of the sacrifices and festivals, the distinction between the priests and Levites, and the autonomous hierarchy, are older than the Deuteronomic reform?  Schrader’s meaning is perhaps, that while the signs collected by a comparison of the sources as bearing on the history of worship show the order of succession to be Jehovist, Deuteronomy, Priestly Code, other signs of a more formal and literary nature would show the Priestly Code to be entitled to the first place, or at any rate not the last, and that the latter kind of evidence is of as much force as the former.  Were this so, the scales would be equally balanced, and the question would not admit of a decision.  But this awkward situation would only occur if the arguments of a literary nature to be urged on that side really balanced those belonging to the substance of the case which plead for Graf’s hypothesis.  In discussing the composition of the Hexateuch, 1

******************************************** 1.  Jahrb.  Deutsche Theol., 1876, p. 392 seq, 531 seq; 1877, p. 407 seq. *********************************************

I have shown, following in the steps of other scholars, that this is by no means the case; and for the sake of completeness I will here repeat the principal points of that discussion.

IX.I.2.  It is asserted that the historical situation of Deuteronomy is based not only on the Jehovistic, but also on the Priestly narrative.  Deuteronomy proper (chaps. xii.-xxvi.) contains scarcely any historical matter, but before Moses comes to the business in hand, we have two introductions, chapter v.-xi. and chapter i.-iv., to explain the situation in which he promulgates “this Torah” shortly before his death.  We are in the Amorite kingdom, east of the Jordan, which has already been conquered.  The forty years’ wanderings are about to close:  the passage to the land of Canaan, for which this legislation is intended, is just approaching.  Till this time, we hear in chapter v. 9, 10, the only law was that which is binding in all circumstances, and was therefore promulgated by God Himself from Horeb, the Law of the Ten Words on that occasion.  The people deprecated any further direct revelation by Jehovah, and commissioned Moses to be their representative; and he accordingly betook himself to the sacred mount, stayed there forty days and forty nights, and received the two tables of the decalogue, and besides them the