Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/538

512 Jehovah s relation with Israel as a whole, and to the sacred history. This centralization, indeed, was not the work of the Priestly Code but of the prophets ; but in the Code we find all its consequences fully developed, while even in Deuteronomy the prdcess is still quite in an early stage. Jewish practice after the exile is guided by the Priestly Code, not in every detail, but quite unquestionably in its main features. In the time of Christ no one thought of any other kind of Passover than that prescribed in the Code ; the paschal lamb had obliterated all recollection of the sacrifice of the firstlings. The conclusions which we have reached by comparing the successive strata of the laws are confirmed by a com parison of the several stages of the historical tradition embodied in the Pentateuch. The several threads of nar rative which run side by side in the Pentateuch are so distinct in point of form that critics were long disposed to assume that in point of substance also they are independ ent narratives, without mutual relation. This, however, is highly improbable on general considerations, and is seen to be quite impossible when regard is paid to the close correspondence of the several sources in regard to the arrangement of the historical matter they contain. It is because the arrangement is so similar in all the narratives that it was possible to weave them together into one book ; and besides this we find a close agreement in many notable points of detail. Here too analysis does not exhaust the task of the critic ; a subsequent synthesis is required. When he has separated out the individual documents the critic has still to examine their mutual relations, to com prehend them as phases in a living process, and in this way to trace the gradual development of the Hebrew historical tradition. In the present article, however, we cannot say anything of the way in which the Deuteronomist views the Hebrew history, nor shall we attempt to char acterize the differences between the two sources of the Jehovist, but limit ourselves to a general comparison be tween the Jehovistic narrative and that of the Priestly Code. Narra- Bleek and his school viewed it as a great merit of the lives of latter narrative that it strictly observes the difference Jehovist between various ages, mixes nothing Mosaic with the Priestly patriarchal period, and in the Mosaic history never forgets Code con- that the scene lies in the wilderness of wandering. They trasted. also took it as a mark of fidelity to authentic sources that the Code contains so many dry lists, such a mass of un important numbers and names, such exact technical descriptions of details which could have no interest for posterity. Against this view Colenso, in the first part of his Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically examined (Lond., 1862), proved that just those parts of the Hexa- teuch which contain the most precise details, and so have the air of authentic documents, are least consistent with the laws of possibility. Colenso, Avhen he wrote, had no thought of the several sources of the Hexateuch, but this only makes it the more remarkable that his criticisms mainly affect the Priestly Code. Noldeke followed Colenso with clearer insight, and determined the character and value of the priestly narrative by tracing all through it an artificial construction and a fictitious character. In fact the supposed marks of historical accuracy and depend ence on authentic records are quite out of place in such a narrative as that of the Pentateuch, the substance of which is not historical but legendary. This legendary character is always manifest both in the form and in the substance of the narrative of the Jehovist ; his stories of the patriarchs and of Moses are just such as might have been gathered from popular tradition. With him the general plan of the history is still quite loose ; the individual stories are the important thing, and they have a truly living individuality. They have always a local connexion, and we can still often see what motives lie at the root of them ; but even when we do not understand these legends they lose none of their charm ; for they breathe a sweet poetic fragrance, and in them heaven and earth are magically blended into one. The Priestly Code, on the other hand, dwells as little as possible on the details of the several stories ; the pearls are stripped off in order that the thread on which they were strung may be properly seen. Love and hate and all the passions, angels, miracles, and theo- phanies, local and historical allusions, disappear ; the old narrative shrivels into a sort of genealogical scheme, a bare scaffolding to support a pragmatic construction of the connexion and progress of the sacred history. But in legendary narrative connexion is a very secondary matter ; indeed it is only brought in when the several legends are collected and written down. When, therefore, the Priestly Code makes the connexion the chief thing, it is clear that it has lost all touch of the original sources and starting- points of the legends. It does not, therefore, draw from oral tradition but from books ; its dry excerpts can have no other source than a tradition already fixed in writing. In point of fact it simply draws on the Jehovistic narrative. The order in which that narrative disposed the popular legends is here made the essential thing ; the arrange ment, which in the Jehovist was still quite subordinate to the details, is here brought into the foreground ; the old order of events is strictly adhered to, but is so em phasized as to become the one important thing in the history. It obviously was the intention of the priestly narrator to give by this treatment the historical quint essence of his materials, freed of all superfluous additions. At the same time, he has used all means to dress up the old naive traditions into a learned history. Sorely against its real character, he forces it into a chronological system, which he carries through without a break from Adam to Joshua. Whenever he can he patches the story with things that have the air of authoritative documents, great lists of subjects without predicates, of numbers and names which could never have been handed down orally without being put in writing, and introduces a spurious air of learned research in the most unsuitable places. Finally, he rationalizes the history after the standard of his own religious ideas and general culture ; above all, he shapes it so that it forms a framework, and at the same time a gradual preparation for the Mosaic law. With the spirit of the legend, in which the Jehovist still lives, he has nothing in common, and so he forces it into conformity with a point of view entirely different from its own. The greater part of the narratives of the Pentateuch cannot he measured by an historical standard ; but within certain limits that standard can be applied to the epical age of Moses and Joshua. Thus we can apply historical criticism to the several versions of the way in which the tribes of Israel got possession of the land of Canaan. The priestly narrator represents all Canaan as reduced to a tabula rasa, and then makes the masterless and unpeopled land be divided by lot. The first lot falls to Judah, then come Manasseh and Ephraim, then Benjamin and Simeon, and lastly the five northerly tribes, Zebnlon, Issachar, Ashcr, Naphtali, Dan. " These are the inheritances which Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun and the heads of the tribes of Israel apportioned by lot at Shiloh before Jehovah at the door of the tabernacle." According to the Jehovist (Josh. xiv. 6) Judah and Joseph seem to have had their portions assigned to them while the Israelite headquarters were still at Gilgal but not by lot and to have gone forth from Gilgal to take possession of them. A good deal later the rest of the land was divided by lot to the remaining tribes at Shiloh, or perhaps, in the original form of the narrative, at Shechem (Josh, xviii. 2-10) ; Joshua casts the lots and makes the assignments alone, Kleazar is not associated with him. The abso lute uniformity in the method of the division of the land to all the tribes is in some degree given up in this account ; it is still more stnmgly contradicted by the important chapter, Judges i. Fragments of this chapter are found also in the book of Joshua, and there is no doubt that it belongs to the Jehovistic group of narra-