The Globe-republican. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1889-1910, 1894-12-07
Educational items from The Soule COL
lege Advance, Dodge City, Kansas
1.-THE MOSAIC AUTHORSHIP OF
THE PENTATEUCH."

taught and is now affirmed by most
learned and competent men that
Moses wrote the Pentateuch substan-
tally as it has been preserved in the
Hebrew Scriptures.
Many have thought that while
Moses may have furnished more or
less of the material of which the first
five books of the Bible are composed,
they must have been put into their
present form by later hand. Other
scholastic investigation of the pres
ent day has endeavored to prove that
Moses had very little to do with the
work which bears his name, and
some claim that the Pentateuch was
not the work of Moses at all. While
it would be very interesting to ex-
anime into the reasons that these
men advance for not accepting the
Mosaic authorship, the time and
space at our command will permit
only cursory glance at the grounds
for such rejection.
l. It is affirmed that from liter
airy point of view the Pentateuch can
not be the work of any one writer,
least of all Moses, but that it is of
composite origin, formed by the COM
bination of different writings, which
were themselves produced long pos
terror to the Mosaic age.
A remarkable alteration was long
ago observed in the words Elohim
and Yahweh in the early chapters of
Genesis. So frequently has our at
tention been called to these passages
and this theory that / need only say
that the prevailing theory among EN-
inent European critics is that there
were two Elohists, a Jehovist, and a
SO called Deuteronomist; that the
earliest of these writer's wrote six or
seven centuries after the time of
Moses, and the latest perhaps one
thousand years after the same date,
recording such legends as had up to
that time been received. Others adj
nit the existence of such distinct
writer's, but despite the date assigned
to them.
It is claimed that each of these
writer's has his own characteristic
style and mode of thought by which
the paragraphs and classes belonging
to him may be recognized, and when
these are singled out and put togeth-
er they form us many distinct nara
tives or documents, which are nearly
or quite continuous.
The original source can thus be
which, combined by some
editor OF redacteur, constitute the Pen
tateuch us we now have it. The chi
terra by which these alleged docu-
ments are distinguished are of a sub
tie and complicated character. and
the conclusions based upon them are
10 my mind questionable. In the
brief space at our disposal we can
net discuss the merits and dement's
of these theories. But even allowing
that the Pentateuch was compiled
from antecedent documents, the age
of these documents would still be an
open question. It has not been sat
isfactorily proven that they are post
Mosaic. For all that appears Moses
himself might have been the compil-
er, or the compilation might have
been made under his supervision or
direction. And even though few
paragraphs could be proven to be
post-Mosiac, this would surely dem
onstrate that such paragraphs could
not have belonged to the Pentateuch
as it came from the pen Of Moses, not
that the work, as a whole, did not
proceed from him.
2. Another theory of authorship
is found in the relation subsisting
between the three codes of law which
it contains, namely, that found in the
Book of the Covenant, which is the
brightest and simplest and the most
primitive. This was followed by the
Denteronomic law, which is more
fully developed; and in turn by the
Priest Code, which is the most com
plicated and elaborate of all, and
hence the latest in the series. It is
maintained that these are SO diverse
in character, and so inconsistent with
one another in their respective pro
visions that they can not have origi
mated at one time or proceeded from
any one legislator; they must belong
to distinct periods and represent sue
cessiye growth stages in the growth
of the national institutions.
Does the fact that these differences
exist prove that more than one auth
or wrote these laws? Is it strange
that an author writing at different
times and under different conditions
and for different purposes should
change his style to suit those differ
ent conditions?
That the Book of the Covenant is
So brief and elementary in matters of