Prolegomena to the History of Israel

by Julius Wellhausen

IX.I.

IX.I.1. Eberhard Schrader mentions, in his Introduction to the Old Testament, that Graf assigns the legislation of the middle books of the Pentateuch to the period after the exile; but he does not give the least idea of the arguments on which that position is built up, simply dismissing it with the remark, that "even critical analysis enters its veto" against it. Even critical analysis? How does it manage that? How can it prove that the one and sole cultus, worked out on every side to a great system, the denaturalising of the sacrifices and festivals, the distinction between the priests and Levites, and the autonomous hierarchy, are older than the Deuteronomic reform? Schrader's meaning is perhaps, that while the signs collected by a comparison of the sources as bearing on the history of worship show the order of succession to be Jehovist, Deuteronomy, Priestly Code, other signs of a more formal and literary nature would show the Priestly Code to be entitled to the first place, or at any rate not the last, and that the latter kind of evidence is of as much force as the former. Were this so, the scales would be equally balanced, and the question would not admit of a decision. But this awkward situation would only occur if the arguments of a literary nature to be urged on that side really balanced those belonging to the substance of the case which plead for Graf's hypothesis. In discussing the composition of the Hexateuch, /1/

— Footnote
1. Jahrb. Deutsche Theol., 1876, p. 392 seq, 531 seq; 1877,
p. 407 seq.
— Footnote

I have shown, following in the steps of other scholars, that this is by no means the case; and for the sake of completeness I will here repeat the principal points of that discussion.

IX.I.2. It is asserted that the historical situation of Deuteronomy is based not only on the Jehovistic, but also on the Priestly narrative. Deuteronomy proper (chaps. xii.-xxvi.) contains scarcely any historical matter, but before Moses comes to the business in hand, we have two introductions, chapter v.-xi. and chapter i.-iv., to explain the situation in which he promulgates "this Torah" shortly before his death. We are in the Amorite kingdom, east of the Jordan, which has already been conquered. The forty years' wanderings are about to close: the passage to the land of Canaan, for which this legislation is intended, is just approaching. Till this time, we hear in chapter v. 9, 10, the only law was that which is binding in all circumstances, and was therefore promulgated by God Himself from Horeb, the Law of the Ten Words on that occasion. The people deprecated any further direct revelation by Jehovah, and commissioned Moses to be their representative; and he accordingly betook himself to the sacred mount, stayed there forty days and forty nights, and received the two tables of the decalogue, and besides them the statutes and laws which now, forty years after, he is on the point of publishing, as they will come into force at the settlement. In the meantime the golden calf had been made down below; and when Moses descended from the mount, in his anger he broke the tables and destroyed the idol. Then he betook himself for a second period of forty days and nights to the mount, pleaded for mercy for the people and for Aaron; and after he had made, according to divine command, two new tables and a wooden chest for them, Jehovah once more wrote down exactly what stood on the tables which were broken. On this occasion, it is remarked in x. 8 seq., the Levites received their appointment as priests.

This is evidently a reproduction of the Jehovistic narrative, Exodus xix. xx. xxiv. xxxii-xxxiv. The Priestly Code, on the contrary, is entirely ignored. Deuteronomy knows only two laws, the decalogue, which the people received, and the statutes and judgments which Moses received, at Mount Horeb. They were both given at the same time, one directly after the other: but only the decalogue had till now been made public. Where is the whole wilderness-legislation as given from the tabernacle? Is it not denying the very notion of its existence, that Moses only publishes the Torah at the passage into the Holy Land, because it has application and force for that land, and not for the wilderness? Apart from the fact that the Deuteronomist, according to chapter xii., knew nothing of a Mosaic central sanctuary, can he have read what we now read between Exodus xxiv. and xxxii.? He passes over all that is there inserted from the Priestly Code. Noldeke finds, it is true, /1 /

— Footnote 1. Jahrbb. fuer prot. Theologie, 1875, p. 350. — Footnote

a reminiscence of that code in the ark of acacia wood, Deuteronomy x. 1. But the ark is here spoken of in a connection which answers exactly to that of the Jehovist (Exod xxxii. xxxiii.), and is quite inconsistent with that, of the Priestly Code (Exodus xxv. seq.). It is only instituted after the erection of the golden calf, not at the very beginning of the divine revelation, as the foundation-stone of the theocracy. True, the ark is not mentioned in JE, Exodus xxxiii., as we now have it, but in the next Jehovistic piece (Numbers x. 33) it suddenly appears, and there must have been some statement in the work as to how it came there. The tabernacle also appears ready set up in xxxiii. 7, without any foregoing account of its erection. The institution of the ark as well as the erection of the tabernacle must have been narrated between xxxiii. 6 and 7, and then omitted by the present editor of the Pentateuch from the necessity of paying some regard to Q, Exodus xxv.; that this is the case many other considerations also tend to prove. /2/

— Footnote— Footnote 2. Without the ark there is no use of the tabernacle, and the distinction in Exodus xxxiii. which is treated as one of importance, between the representation (Mal'ak) of Jehovah and Jehovah Himself, has no meaning. By making an image the Israelites showed that they could not do without a sensible representation of the Deity, and Jehovah therefore gave them the ark instead of the calf. — Footnote— Footnote

That the Deuteronomist found JE in a more complete form, before it was worked up with Q, than that in which we have it after the working up, is not such a difficult assumption that one should be driven into utter impossibilities in order to avoid it. For according to Noldeke either the author of Deuteronomy v.-xi. had before him the Pentateuch as it now is, and was enabled, very curiously, to sift out JE from it, or he used JE as an independent work, but read Q as well, only in such a way that his general view was in no way influenced by that of the priestly work, but on the contrary contradicts it entirely and yet unconsciously—since his work leaves no opening for a ritual legislation given side by side with the Decalogue, and that ritual legislation is the whole sum and substance of the Priestly Code. To such a dilemma are we to make up our minds, because one trait or another of the Deuteronomic narrative cannot be traced in JE as we now have it, and is preserved in Q? Does this amount, in the circumstances, to a proof that such traits were derived from that source? Must not some regard in fairness be paid to the ensemble of the question ?