THE PENTATEUCH
The Old Testament begins with a comprehensive historical work,
reaching from the creation of the world to the fall of the kingdom of
Judah (586 B.C.), which in the Hebrew Bible is divided into nine books
(Genesis-Kings). The Jews made a greater division at the end of the
fifth book (Deuteronomy) and treated the first five books (the
Pentateuch) as a unit, with a character and name of its own, the Law.
The names of the several books in our Bibles are derived from the
Greek version, and indicate in a general way the subject of the book,
or, more exactly, the subject with which it begins: Genesis, the
creation of the world; Exodus, the escape from Egypt; Leviticus, the
priests' book; Numbers, the census of the tribes; Deuteronomy, the
second legislation, or the recapitulation of the law.
The three middle books of the Pentateuch (Exodus-Numbers) are more
closely connected with one another than with the preceding and
following books (Genesis, Deuteronomy); in fact, they form a whole
which is only for convenience in handling divided into parts. In these
books narrative and legislation are somewhat unequally represented.
Exod. 1-19 is almost all narrative, as are also c. 24, and cc. 32-34;
the story is picked up again in Num. 10, what lies between is wholly
legislative; in Num. 10-27, 28-36, narrative and laws alternate, the
latter predominating. It is evident that from the author's point of
view the narrative was primarily a historical setting for the Mosaic
legislation.
Deuteronomy begins with a brief retrospect (Deut. 1-3) of the
movements of the Israelites from the time they left the Mount of God
till they arrived in the Plains of Moab, the lifetime of a whole
generation. There, as they are about to cross the Jordan to possess
the Land of Promise, Moses delivers to them the law which they shall
observe in the land, and with many exhortations and warnings urges
them to be faithful to their religion with its distinctive worship and
morals. Thus Deuteronomy also presents itself essentially as
legislation.
The history of the Israelite tribes opens with the account of the
oppression in Egypt, the introduction to the story of deliverance. Its
antecedents are found in the Book of Genesis, the migration of Jacob
and his sons from Palestine to Egypt several generations earlier in a
time of famine; and this in turn is but the last chapter in the
patriarchal story which begins with the migration of Abraham from
Syria or Babylonia to Palestine. Gen. 1-11 tells of creation and first
men; the great flood; the dispersion of the peoples, with a
genealogical table showing the affinities of the several races and
another tracing the descent of Abraham in direct line from Shem the
son of Noah. But even in Genesis the interest in the law manifests
itself in various ways, such as the sanction of the sabbath, the
prohibition of blood, and the introduction of circumcision.
In regarding the whole Pentateuch as Law, or, to express it more
accurately, as a revelation of the principles and observances of
religion, the Jews were, therefore, doing no violence to the character
and spirit of these books; and in ascribing them to Moses they were
only extending to the whole the authorship which is asserted in
particular of many of the laws, and especially of the impressive
exhortations in Deuteronomy which form the climactic close of his work
as a legislator.
It was early observed, however, that there are numerous expressions in
the Pentateuch which assume the settlement of Israel in Canaan and
look back to the age of Moses as to a somewhat remote past: Gen.
xxxvi. 31, for example, implies the existence of the Israelite
monarchy. In the seventeenth century such anachronisms were bandied
about a good deal, but, inasmuch as they were all brief clauses which
might well be notes or glosses by scribes, they proved nothing about
the age of the main text. The controversy sharpened the eyes of the
critics, and many more conclusive facts were brought to light, which
proved that the Pentateuch was not the product of one author nor of
one age, and that, whatever part Moses may be conceived to have had in
it, much must be ascribed to later writers. No methodical attempt had
been made, however, to distinguish its different strata, or to
discover the sources from which it was compiled. This was first
undertaken by an eminent French physician, Jean Astruc, who in 1753
published the results of his investigations under the modest title
"Conjectures concerning the Original Memoirs which it appears that
Moses used in compiling the Book of Genesis." Astruc's analysis was
suggested by peculiar phenomena in the use of the divine names in
Genesis, and he was led to the hypothesis that Moses had for the
primeval and patriarchal history two principal sources, one of which
employed consistently the proper name Jehovah, the other the
appellative Elohim (God). The two narratives were in large part
parallel, and when they were united in one continuous narrative,
repetitions, contradictions, and chronological difficulties were
created which disappear when the sources are separated and recombined
in their original sequence.
This is not the place for a history of criticism: it must suffice to
say that, as the result of the labours of many scholars in the last
century and a half upon the problem of the sources and composition of
the Pentateuch, historians are now generally agreed that four main
sources are to be recognized, of which three run, in varying
proportion, from Genesis to Numbers and reappear in Joshua, while the
fourth is found in Deuteronomy and Joshua only.