Prolegomena to the History of Israel

by Julius Wellhausen

— Footnote 1. Cf. <I.III.2. ad fin., IV.III.3., V.II.1., VII.II.2.>. This is the reason why the strata of the tradition require to be compared as carefully as those of the law. — Footnote

An argument which is the very opposite of this is also urged. The fact is insisted on that the laws of the Priestly Code are actually attested everywhere in the practice of the historical period; that there were always sacrifices and festivals, priests and purifications, and everything of the kind in early Israel. These statements must, though this seems scarcely possible, proceed on the assumption that on Graf's hypothesis the whole cultus was invented all at once by the Priestly Code, and only introduced after the exile. But the defenders of Graf's hypothesis do not go so far as to believe that the Israelite cultus entered the world of a sudden,—as little by Ezekiel or by Ezra as by Moses,—else why should they be accused of Darwinism by Zoeckler and Delitzsch? They merely consider that the works of the law were done before the law, that there is a difference between traditional usage and formulated law, and that even where this difference appears to be only in form it yet has a material basis, being connected with the centralisation of the worship and the hierocracy which that centralisation called into existence. Here also the important point is not the matter, but the spirit which is behind it, and may everywhere be recognised as the spirit of the age at one period or another. /2/

— Footnote 2. Comp. <II.III., III.III.1.> — Footnote

All these objections, meanwhile, labour under the same defect, namely, that they leave out of view that which is the real point at issue. The point is not to prove that the Mosaic law was not in force in the period before the exile. There are in the Pentateuch three strata of law and three strata of tradition, and the problem is to place them in their true historical order. So far as the Jehovist and Deuteronomy are concerned, the problem has found a solution which may be said to be accepted universally, and all that remains is to apply to the Priestly Code also the procedure by which the succession and the date of these two works has been determined—that procedure consisting in the comparison of them with the ascertained facts of Israelite history. /3/

— Footnote 3. The method is stated in the introduction: and special pains are taken to bring it out distinctly in the first chapter, that about the place of worship. — Footnote

One would imagine that this could not be objected to. But objections have been raised; the procedure which, when applied to Deuteronomy, is called historico-critical method, is called, when applied to the Priestly Code, construction of history. But history, it is well known, has always to be constructed: the order, Priestly Code, Jehovist, Deuteronomy, is not a thing handed down by tradition or prescribed by the nature of the case, but a hypothesis as yet only a score of years old or thereby, the reasons for which were somewhat incomprehensible, so that people have forgotten them and begun to regard the hypothesis as something objective, partaking of the character of dogma. The question is whether one constructs well or ill. Count Baudissin thinks a grave warning necessary of a certain danger, that, namely, of an exaggerated application of logic: that the laws follow each other in a certain order logically, he says, does not prove that they appeared in the same order in history. But it is not for the sake of logical sequence that we consider the development which began with the prophets to have issued finally in the laws of cultus; and those who set out from "sound human reason" have generally forced the reverse process of this on the history, in spite of the traces which have come down to us, and which point the other way. /1/

— Footnote 1. And it would not be surprising when we consider the whole character of the polemic against Graf's hypothesis, if the next objection should be the very opposite of the above, viz. that it is not able to construct the history. — Footnote

After laboriously collecting the data offered by the historical and prophetical books, we constructed a sketch of the Israelite history of worship; we then compared the Pentateuch with this sketch, and recognised that one element of the Pentateuch bore a definite relation to this phase of the history of worship, and another element of the Pentateuch to that phase of it. This is not putting logic in the place of historical investigation. The new doctrine of the irrationality of what exists is surely not to be pushed so far, as that we should regard the correspondence between an element of the law and a particular phase of the history as a reason for placing the two as far as possible asunder. At least this principle would have to be applied to the Jehovist and Deuteronomy too, and not to the Priestly Code only. What is right in the one case is fair in the other too; a little logic unfortunately is almost unavoidable.

Not everything that I have brought forward in the history of the cultus and the tradition, is a proof of the hypothesis; there is much that serves merely to explain phenomena at the basis of the hypothesis, and cannot be used as proving it. This is a matter of course. My procedure has intentionally differed from that of Graf in this respect. He brought forward his arguments somewhat unconnectedly, not seeking to change the general view which prevailed of the history of Israel. For this reason he made no impression on the majority of those who study these subjects; they did not see into the root of the matter, they could still regard the system as unshaken, and the numerous attacks on details of it as unimportant. I differ from Graf chiefly in this, that I always go back to the centralisation of the cultus, and deduce from it the particular divergences. My whole position is contained in my first chapter: there I have placed in a clear light that which is of such importance for Israelite history, namely, the part taken by the prophetical party in the great metamorphosis of the worship, which by no means came about of itself. Again I attach much more weight than Graf did to the change of ruling ideas which runs parallel with the change in the institutions and usages of worship; this has been shown mostly in the second part of the present work. Almost more important to me than the phenomena themselves, are the presuppositions which lie behind them.

Not everything that we have hitherto discussed proves, or is meant to prove, Graf's hypothesis. On the other hand, however, there is abundance of evidence, which has not yet been noticed. To discuss it all in detail, would take another book: in this work only a selection can be with all brevity indicated, if the limits are not to be transgressed which are imposed by the essentially historical character of these prolegomena. In these discussions the Pro will as a rule naturally suggest itself in the refutation of the Contra.