as to its Mosaic origin; secondly, as to the historic character of its narratives.

As to the Mosaic origin there are three principal views:

1. The party denies the Mosaic origin altogether, or except in regard to a few very small portions. At the head of the party stands De Wette, who, after making some retractions in the last edition of his Einleitung (Introduction) $ 149, admits only that the poetic fragments in Num. XXI, are certainly from Moses, that among the laws many may be ancient and genuine, though these cannot now be distinguished, and that the decalogue in its present shape cannot be from Moses, since we have it in a two-fold form. With De Wette, agree Hartmann, von Bohlen and Vatke. This last writer even rejects the genuineness of the pieces in Num. XXI, which De Wette had admitted. Whether Gesenius is to be reckoned to this party, or to which one he belongs, is uncertain. To judge by a remark made in the 10th edition of his Smaller Grammar, 1831, preface: "it is yet matter of controversy whether the Pentateuch was wholly or partially written by Moses," he seems now to repent of the positiveness with which he supported the results of Vater and. De Wette (in his Geschichte d. Heb. Sprache u. Schrift(History of the Heb. language and writing.) If only the fatal miracles and prophecies, and the choleric Jewish God were out of the way! Then one might yield himself freely to the impressions he receives as an historian and philologian. How strong these impressions in favor of the genuineness of the Pentateuch must be, appears from the fact that they could not be effaced by doctrinal assumptions of which the author, standing where he does, could not divest himself. The admission just quoted does his open heartedness all honor.

2. Others maintain the Mosaic origin of very considerable and important portions of the Pentateuch. At the head of these is Eichhorn, who in the first edition of his Einleitung, maintained the genuineness of the whole, with the exception of a few interpolations: but in his last edition, modified his view, so as to maintain that the Pentateuch consists principally of pieces written partly by Moses and partly by some of his contemporaries, and that these were made up into one whole, with many additions, by a later compiler, probably between the times of Joshua and Samuel (s. 334.) The reason of this change in his opinions was (see s. XXXVII.) that he despaired of getting over the many difficulties which the Pentateuch

offered to his doctrinal opinions, by mere explanations. He expresses this despair with the greatest openness (s. 255); where he says in reference to the accounts of the Egyptian plagues: "If Moses the agent had himself written these accounts, the shape in which we now have them would indeed be a riddle." Thus the denial of the genuineness goes, as a general rule, only so far as doctrinal opinions come into play.Staudlin also belongs here-who, without wishing to decide upon the historical parts, which, as he then stood, must have been as repulsive in a doctrinal point of view, as they were attractive in a historical, maintained with great zeal the Mosaic origin of the laws. This he did, first, in his two Commentationes de legum Mosaicarum momento et ingenio, collectione et effectibus, Gött. 1796, 1797, afterwards in his Geschichte d. Sittenlehre Jesu, Bd. 1. s. 118 ff. and finally in the treatise, Die Aechtheit d. Mosaischen Gesetze vertheidgt. (The genuineness of the laws of Moses defended,) in Ammon's und Bertholdt's Journal, Th. 3. s. 225 ff. s. 337 ff. and Th. 4. s. 1 ff. s. 113 ff. where he (s. 113 ff.) declares the discourses in Deuteronomy to be genuine. The candid man clearly saw that the hostility to the Pentateuch was based upon very different ground than that of historico-critical argument. He remarks, Th. 3. s. 281, "The hatred of the Bible cherished by many of our day has undeniably prevailed extensively in the criticism of the Bible." He has set a good example by making a beginning at applying the results of the late investigations on ancient Egypt to the question of the genuineness of the Pentateuch. He has indeed only made a beginning; for he did not go to the original sources, but only made a careful use of what he found in Heeren's Ideen. The last treatise above referred to is especially useful. That he lacked a deep and adequate understanding of the Pentateuch is indeed manifest from remarks like the following (Th. 4. s. 15): "It is certainly strange that circumcision was not practised in the wilderness. It was perhaps thought that while they were wandering there, it would be prejudicial to health." Had the author understood the import of circumcision, and its relation to the covenant, which made it improper and impossible to allow it to that reprobate race, he would have left this shallow and external explanation for Clericus and his imitators.-Here also belongs Herbst, who on account of his Observationes quaedam de Pent. quatuor librorum posterior, auctore et editore, Ellu

rangen 1817, (reprinted in t. I. of the Commentationes theol. of Rosenmüller, Fuldner and Maurer), has been very erroneously reckoned by some among the defenders of the genuineness of the entire Pentateuch. After all the objections which he makes to the inodern criticism, he still cannot bring himself to forsake it entirely. His reverence for the protestant-rationalist leaders is entirely too great. He makes a low bow whenever he mentions one of their names, and humbly begs to be pardoned for his boldness in contradicting them in many things. The fragmentary character of the Pentateuch the nowτov yevdos of the modern criticism, he still holds fast. According to him, scattered writings of Moses were digested into one whole by some later compiler, and furnished with additions so numerous and important that Jahn's hypothesis of mere glosses does not meet the case. To avoid the reproach of a studium novitatis, he supposes this compiler to have been Ezra. In this he thinks he has the authority of the fathers; whose assertions however as to what Ezra had to do with the Pentateuch have, as we shall show at another time, an entirely different meaning from that maintained by him, Vater, von Bohlen and others. What the author has contributed towards the defence of what he considers of Mosaic origin, is not important. He shows everywhere great shallowness of explanation. Thus for example, the difference of language between Deuteronomy and the other books is accounted for from the long time intervening between their composition. We do not doubt that the worthy author, lately deceased, would, had he lived, have gone beyond the ground taken in this treatise, which, considered as a youthful work, deserves great credit.-Finally we must place here Bleek, who has given us his contributions to investigations on the Pentateuch in two articles, the first in Rosenmüller's Bibl. exeg. Repert. Bd. 1. Leipzig. 1824, s. 1 ff., the second in the Studien und Kritiken 1831. s. 488 ff. According to the second of these, in which an important advance is observable, the result is, that the law contained in the Pentateuch is, in its whole spirit and character, truly Mosaic; and that, not only in regard to the more general moral precepts, but also in regard to the special Levitical laws concerning sacrifices and purifications, which make so large a part of the whole; also that the necessary inference from this is that these books are in their general character truly historical-that these laws suppose just such circumstances and relations of the Jewish people as the historiVOL. XII. No. 32.

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cal parts of the books present to us, (s. 501 ff.) This result is so much more important as it is based entirely on internal grounds, just where the opposers think themselves strongest. What a different face the matter will have when to the internal evidences, which have thus just begun to be used in favor of the Pentateuch, the external are also added.* A programm by

*It is a part of the influence of the great principle of subjectivity, that external evidence has in these times been much undervalued, and internal evidence regarded as the only valid kind of proof. See on this subject the remarks of Kleinert in his Aechtheit des Jesaias, s. LXXXVI ff. The consequence of this denial of the true relation of external and internal evidence to each other, has lately been illustrated by some striking cases. If Hamaker, Gesenius, and others had, at first, and before going any further, required the French Marquis to show the stone with the inscriptio nuper in Cyrenaica reperta, which he pretended to have in his possession, then the relation of laughing and being laughed at, would have been exactly reversed. Gesenius would then have at once discovered what he first perceived post festum, that the pretended Phoenician language of the inscription was nothing but Maltese-Arabic gibberish. Had Gesenius, instead of inquiring how the proper names in the pretended Sanchoniathon agreed with those in his Phoenician inscriptions, insisted upon seeing the Greek manuscript of Sanchoniathon, he would not have found it necessary to confess, (in the Preuss. Staats-Zeitung,) after painful experience, that it is very dangerous to rely upon internal evidence alone. May this experience produce some fruit also for his biblico-critical labors; and this the rather, because it was in this department that he formed the bad habit which has proved so fatal to him in that of profane lite

rature.

It would be no more than right, for those who in regard to the Bible pronounce at once their decisions, grounded upon internal evidence alone, to try their infallibility of judgment on anonymous productions of the present day, which afford also much more materials for proof of this kind. The author knows beforehand how they would succeed, from the great experience he has had in connection with the paper which he edits. The latest case is that of Prof. Baur, who with such confidence, and against all external evidence, denies the Epistles to the Philippians, Timothy, and Titus, to be Paul's, and those ascribed to Peter to be his, and with the same coufidence ascribes to the editor the article “on the future character of our theology," referring to the manifest coincidence of ideas with those of the introductory remarks. And now first, after the author has made the assurance that the article does not belong to him, will the acute critic perceive the difference of style and other characteristics, between the article and those remarks. A very striking proof of the deceptive

Bleek against von Bohlen, said to have lately appeared, the writer has not yet seen.

3. Others maintain the genuineness of the Pentateuch in its present form. Many however admit scattered glosses of a later date, and others suppose more important interpolations to have been made. Among these last Jahn especially goes so far as to expose his cause to its opposers. It needs not to be mentioned, after the historical development made in the preceding pages, that all these defenders of the genuineness, however they may differ in their ecclesiastical connections, theological ness of internal evidence is afforded by the book K. L. Reinhold's Leben und Lit. Wirken, von E. Reinhold, (Jena, 1825). It is there said, s. 161, "Scarcely had the work 'Kritik der Offenbarung' appeared, (in Königsberg, spring of 1792, anonymous,) when it was announced in the Intelligenzblatte der Allg. Lit. Zeitung, with the remark, 'Every one who has read even the smallest of those writings by which the Königsberg philosopher [Kant] has acquired immortal merits as a benefactor of the human race, will at once recognize the great author of this work.' Hufeland, Prof. of Jurisprudence at Jena, and associate editor of the A. L. Z., tnade the same assertion in a review written with great warinth, A. L. Z. 1792, Nr. 190, 191. When now Kant announced in the Intelligenzblatte of that paper, Nr. 102, that the author was Fichte, a candidate of theology, who was for a short time in the preceding year at Königsberg, Hufeland in the Intelligenzblatte d. A. L. Z. 1792, Nr. 133, declared by way of explanation, that all the lovers of Kant's philosophy at Jena, including eight academical teachers, as well as almost all friends and enemies of this philosophy in Germany, had had the same opinion of the book, because of its coincidence with Kant's writings not only in style but the whole train of thought. Fichte afterwards wrote another anonymous book, Beytrag zur Berichtigung der Urtheile über die Franz. Revolution." According to a letter which he wrote to Reinhold, he had no fear of being discovered as the author, "since not one of our critics will ascribe the language of that book to the author of the work on revelation." "I confidently expected," he continues, “that this argument would be used, if the publisher should give any hints about the true author, and I have not been mistaken. O that the uncertainty of this source of reasoning might, or rather, for the sake of the incognito of well-meaning writers, that it might not be discovered. As Kant was not author of the book on revelation, I was charged with skilfully imitating his style-now I should be charged with skilfully dissembling my own; and yet I suppose I could write five or six other books on different subjects, in no one of which any of our common judges of style could find the style of the preceding one, and that without my having this in the least in view when writing them."