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.
CHAPTER IV
CHARACTER OF THE SOURCES: GENESIS
Of the four main sources of the Pentateuch and Joshua, two are easily recognizable, and may be distinguished with certainty in almost any combination. The Book of Deuteronomy, though itself a composite work, constitutes a whole, with a characteristic religious point of view and marked peculiarities of language and style. The strand akin to it in Joshua is not always so easy to discriminate from additions and editorial retouchings in one of the other sources; but since these are of approximately the same age, the difficulty is, from the historian's point of view, not of very serious moment.
The second source, more closely interwoven in the narrative of Genesis-Numbers, and Joshua, has also such strongly marked peculiarities, not only in religious ideas and in phraseology and style, but in its whole conception and treatment of the history, that it stands out in salient contrast to any surroundings in which it may occur. Its interest is concentrated on the origin of the sacred institutions of Israel, especially on the priesthood, the worship, and the distinctive religious customs of the people, for which reason it is commonly called the "priestly" history and law.
The two remaining sources resemble each other much more closely in religious conceptions, in language, and in their representation of the history, so that, where their closely parallel narratives are intimately interwoven to make one continuous and harmonious story, it is often impossible to unravel them. As far as Exod. iii. 14 one of them employs the name Elohim for God, while the other uses Jehovah from the beginning (see Gen. iv. 26), and this difference frequently serves as a first clue; but editors and copyists have so often, purposely or thoughtlessly, interchanged the names of God that it is by no means a decisive criterion. From Exod. 3 on, this criterion fails altogether. Closer acquaintance with the two sources discovers, under all their similarity, individual peculiarities by which they can ordinarily be recognized. Frequently, also, the connection of the story itself, references or allusions to incidents already recounted and preparation for events subsequently to be narrated, serve to identify passages with one or the other.