Prolegomena to the History of Israel
to the
TRANSLATED FR0M THE GERMAN, UNDER THE AUTHOR'S SUPERVISION, by J. SUTHERLAND BLACK, M.A., and ALLAN MENZIES, B.D.
with a preface by PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH.
The work which forms the greater part of the present volume first appeared in 1878 under the title History of Israel. By J. Wellhausen. In two volumes. Volume I. The book produced a great impression throughout Europe, and its main thesis, that the Mosaic history is not the starting-point for the history of ancient Israel, but for the history of Judaism, was felt to be so powerfully maintained that many of the leading Hebrew teachers of Germany who had till then stood aloof from the so-called Grafian hypothesis —the doctrine, that is, that the Levitical Law and connected parts of the Pentateuch were not written till after the fall of the kingdom of Judah, and that the Pentateuch in its present compass was not publicly accepted as authoritative till the reformation of Ezra—declared themselves convinced by Wellhausen's arguments. Before 1878 the Grafian hypothesis was neglected or treated as a paradox in most German universities, although some individual scholars of great name were known to have reached by independent inquiry similar views to those for which Graf was the recognised sponsor, and although in Holland the writings of Professor Kuenen, who has been aptly termed Graf's goel, had shown in an admirable and conclusive manner that the objections usually taken to Graf's arguments did not touch the substance of the thesis for which he contended.
Since 1878, partly through the growing influence of Kuenen, but mainly through the impression produced by Wellhausen's book, all this has been changed. Almost every younger scholar of mark is on the side of Vatke and Reuss, Lagarde and Graf, Kuenen and Wellhausen, and the renewed interest in Old Testament study which is making itself felt throughout all the schools of Europe must be traced almost entirely to the stimulus derived from a new view of the history of the Law which sets all Old Testament problems in a new light.
Julius Wellhausen
---
P R E F A C E.
TRANSLATORS' NOTE.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION—
CHAPTER II. SACRIFICE—
CHAPTER III. THE SACRED FEASTS—
CHAP. IV. THE PRIESTS AND THE LEVITES—
CHAPTER V. THE ENDOWMENT OF THE CLERGY—
B. HISTORY OF TRADITION.
CHAPTER VII. JUDGES, SAMUEL, AND KINGS—
CHAPTER VIII. THE NARRATIVE OF THE HEXATEUCH—
C. ISRAEL AND JUDAISM.
CHAPTER X. THE ORAL AND THE WRITTEN TORAH—
CHAPTER XI. THE THEOCRACY AS IDEA AND AS INSTITUTION—
I S R A E L.
INTRODUCTION.
A. HISTORY OF THE ORDINANCES OF WORSHIP.
CHAPTER I. THE PLACE OF WORSHIP.
I.III.
CHAPTER II. SACRIFICE.
II.II.
II.III.
CHAPTER III. THE SACRED FEASTS.
III.III.
III.IV. [.1?]
IV.II.
IV.III.
CHAPTER V. THE ENDOWMENT OF THE CLERGY.
V.I.
V.II.
B. HISTORY OF TRADITION.
CHAPTER VI. CHRONICLES
VI.I.
VI.II.
VI.III.
CHAPTER VII. JUDGES, SAMUEL, AND KINGS.
VII.I.
VII.II.
Chapter xviii. 6 seq. manifests tendency in a bad sense, even apart from the additions of the Masoretic text. Here Saul's enmity against David is carried back to the very beginning of their relations together, and even his friendship is represented as dissembled hatred. All the honours with which the king covers his armour-bearer are interpreted as practices to get rid of him. He makes him his son-in-law in order to expose him to deadly danger in his efforts to procure the hundred foreskins of the Philistines which were the price of the daughter. The connection cannot dispense with xviii. 6 seq, but at the same time it is beyond doubt that the venomous way of interpreting the facts is a mark of later revision. For Saul here practices his perfidies with the cognisance of his servants, who must therefore have been well aware of his disposition towards David; but the old narrator proceeds on the opposite assumption, that his hatred appeared all at once, and that David had been held by all up to that time to be one of the king's favourite servants: cf. xxi. 2-xxii. 14 seq., not to speak of chapter xx. And this alone agrees with the nature of Saul as it is everywhere described to us.
VI.III.
CHAPTER VIII. THE NARRATIVE OF THE HEXATEUCH.
VIII.I.
VIII.II.
VIII.III.
C. ISRAEL AND JUDAISM.
CHAPTER IX. CONCLUSION OF THE CRITICISM OF THE LAW.
IX.I.
IX.II.
IX.III.
CHAPTER X. THE ORAL AND THE WRITTEN TORAH.
X.I.
X.II.
CHAPTER XI. THE THEOCRACY AS IDEA AND AS INSTITUTION.
XI.I.
XI.II.
ISRAEL
I S R A E L.
2. THE SETTLEMENT IN PALESTINE.
3. THE FOUNDATION OF THE KINGDOM, AND THE FIRST THREE KINGS.
4. FROM JEROBOAM I. TO JEROBOAM II.
5. GOD, THE WORLD, AND THE LIFE OF MEN IN OLD ISRAEL.
6. THE FALL OF SAMARIA.
7. THE DELIVERANCE OF JUDAH.
8. THE PROPHETIC REFORMATION.
9. JEREMIAH AND THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.
10. THE CAPTIVITY AND THE RESTORATION
11. JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY.
12. THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD.
13. THE HASMONAEANS.
14. HEROD AND THE ROMANS.
I5. THE RABBINS.
16. THE JEWISH DISPERSION.