INTRODUCTION
furnishes for a comparative study of the traditions encircling the names and events of the period from Josiah to the Samaritan schism. Jos. is the earliest witness to E; the relationship is unmistakable as regards material and even language (Eichhorn, Einleit. Apokr. [1795], 347 seqq. Treuenfels, Der Orient [1850–1]; H. Bloch, Quellen d. Fl. Jos. [1879], 69 seqq.). There are several points of agreement with GA as against GB (Thackeray, 762b), and also with GL; Torrey (103) assigns the text an intermediate position. Unfortunately, Jos. is often extremely paraphrastic, and is therefore no safe guide for restoring the original of E. None the less, it is noteworthy that he is without the faults of E i. 29, 34 seq., he presupposes a text more complete and older than that in vi. 18, viii. 55, he uses a slightly different version of iii. (see Büchler, 64, 100), and, while obviously harmonizing in some places, elsewhere presents singular divergences or additions which do not appear to be arbitrary. In particular, his treatment of the stories of E and N is highly suggestive (see appendix to note on ix. 55). Besides utilizing the canonical sources (Jer., Dan., Est.), he has had access (as in Est.) to other Jewish traditions (see on vii. 15), and possessed some acquaintance with external history (see p. 11, and on i. 25). But although Jos. is not a direct witness to E's text—and G. Hölscher has suggested that he made use of Alexander Polyhistor (Quellen d. Jos. [1904], 36, 43 seqq., 51)—he testifies to the authority of E's history, and it is unnecessary to assume (Swete, Thackeray, Bayer, 140) that he used it simply because it was written in good Greek.
(e) Date and place. While Jos. is evidence for the earlier existence of E, it is not certain that it then had precisely its present form. As a translation the linguistic features suggest that it belongs to the time of the old Greek translation of Daniel, and was perhaps due to the same translator (Torrey, 84 seq.). The date of the original is bound up with that of Chron.-Ez.-Neh., and must be some time after 333 B.C. The Persian period was past, and its history had become obscure, the identity of Darius and Apame (iv. 29) was forgotten, and the points of contact with Dan. and Est. (not necessarily in their present form), would suggest the late Greek age. The problem also involves the question whether iii. i–v. 6 is a secondary insertion or part of the original compilation, and this naturally affects the discussion of the home of the book (see pp. 29, 32). Although the section seems to some scholars to point to the influence of Alexandrian thought and philosophy (Lupton, André, Thackeray, Volz), to others it is Palestinian (Zunz), or not necessarily Alexandrian (Torrey). The identification of Apame speaks for Egypt or Antioch; the knowledge of the topography of Jerusalem (v. 47, ix. 38) is not that of the compiler or translator but of his source, and therefore cannot be claimed to support a Palestinian home. Egypt is suggested by the free irony in iii., iv., the unveiled women (iv. 18), the references to navigation (iv. 15, 23), and piracy (v. 27), and elsewhere by the use of Coelesyria (see ii. 17). Thackeray (7620) compares the 'friends' of the king (viii. 26; E G σύμβουλοι) with the 'first friends' who were third in scale of the courtiers at Alexandria, and with ἂν φαίνηται σοι (ii. 21, not in E) the phrase ἐὰν φαίνηται in Aristeas and frequently in Egyptian papyri. In so far as these data point to Egypt one may recall the interest in history-writing among the Hellenists Demetrios, Eupolemos, Artapanos, Alexander Polyhistor and others.
(f) English versions. It may be added that the old Geneva Bible, according to Lupton (6), is 'in some respects closer to the Greek than that of 1611'. Various improvements to the A.V. are suggested by Ball in the Variorum Apocrypha, and even the R.V. is not such an advance as might have been anticipated. Note, for example, the archaic 'Artaxerxes his letters' (ii. 30), 'cousin' (iii. 7), 'Jewry' (v. 7), and the gliding over of the obscurities of an imperfect G in viii. 8, and especially in the concluding words, ix. 55.
§ 4. Problems of Literary and Historical Criticism.
I. The Period.
The problems of E and its relation to E-N involve that more complete and continuous series Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah which is united by sequence of contents and the recurrence throughout of similar features of language, interest, standpoint, and compilation. The 'chronicler's history'[1] of the post-exilic period deals with the fall of Jerusalem (586 B.C.), the return from exile under Zerubbabel and Jeshua, the reorganization of the Jewish people, the restoration of the Temple and
- ↑ By 'chronicler' is meant the hand which, by writing, compiling, or revising, brought the three consecutive books into practically their present form. Owing to the complexity of the compilation the term may not be an adequate one, but there seems no reason to doubt that there has been a single editorial process at some stage in the literary growth (the objections of Jampel, i. 108, 112, 115 seqq., and Davies, 16 are unnecessary). In any case, historical criticism cannot start from the untrustworthiness of Chronicles, and minimize the extent of the 'chronicler' in E-N (Davies, 16 seq.), or exaggerate it (Torrey, 145 seqq., on the E-story), or assume that all other records are necessarily relatively superior (so apparently Meyer, Entstehung). See below, pp. 1719.
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