PENTATEUCH
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PENTATEUCH
regard to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.
Not that they agree with the contentions of our mod-
ern Biblical criticism; but they show that to-day's
Pentateuchal problems were not wholly unknown to
Catholic scholars, and that the Mosaic authorship of
the Pentateuch as determined by the Biblical Com-
mission is no concession forced on the Church by
unbelieving Bible students.
C. Voice of Internal Evidence. — The possibility of producing a written record at the time of Moses is no longer contested. The art of writing was known long before the time of the great lawgiver, and was exten- sively practised both in Egypt and Babylon. As to the Israelites, Flinders Petrie infers from certain Sem- itic inscriptions found in 190.5 on the Sinaitic penin- sula, that they kept written accounts of their national history from the time of their captivity under Ramses II. The Tell-el-Amarna tablets show that the lan- guage of Babylon was in a way the official language at the time of Moses, known in Western Asia, Palestine, and Egypt; the finds of Taanek have confirmed this fact. But it cannot be inferred from this that the Egyptians and Israelites employed this sacred or official language among themselves and in their reli- gious documents (cf. Benzinger, "Hebraische Archa- ologie", 2nd ed., Tubingen, 1907, p. 172 sqq.). It is not merely the possibility of writing at the time of Moses and the question of language that confronts us here; there is the further problem of the kind of written signs used in the Mosaic documents. The hieroglyphic and cuneiform signs were widely em- ployed at that early date; the oldest inscriptions written in alphabetical characters date only from the ninth century B. c. But there can hardly be any doubt as to the higher antiquity of alphabetic writing, and there seems to be nothing to prevent our extending it back to the time of Moses. Finally, the Code of Ham- murabi, discovered in Susa in 1901 by the French expedition funded by Mr. and Mrs. Dieulafoy, shows that even in pre-Mosaic times legal enactments were committed to, and preserved in, %vriting; for the Code antedates Moses some five centuries, and contains about 282 regulations concerning various contingen- cies in the civic life.
Thus far it has been shown negatively that an his- toric and legal document claiming to be written at the time of Moses involves no antecedent improbability of its authenticity. But the internal characteristics of the Pentateuch show also positively that the work is at least probably Mosaic. It is true tliat the Pentateuch contains no express declaration of its entire Mosaic authorship; but even the most exacting of critics will hardly require such testimony. It is practically lack- ing in all other books, whether sacred or profane. On the other hand, it has already been shown that four distinct passages of the Pentateuch are expressly ascribed to the authorship of Moses. Deut., xxxi, 24-9, is especially to be noted ; for it knows that Moses wrote the "words of this law in a volume" and com- manded it to be placed in the ark of the covenant as a testimony against the people who have been so rebel- lious during the lawgiver's life and will "do wickedly " after his death. Again, a number of legal sections, though not explicitly ascribed to the writing of Moses, are distinctly derived from Moses as the lawgiver. Besides, many of the Pentateuchal laws bear evidence of their origin in the desert; hence they too lay an indirect claim to Mosaic origin. What has been said of a number of Pentateuchal laws is equally true of several historical sections. These contain in the Book of Numbers, for instance, so many names and num- bers that they must have been handed down in writ- ing. Unless the critics can bring irrefutable evidence showing that in these sections we have only fiction, they must grant that these historical details were written down in contemporary documents, and not transmitted by mere oral tradition. Moreover, Hom-
mel (Die altisraelitische tlberlieferung in inschrift-
licher Beleuchtung, p. 302) has shown that the names
in the lists of the Book of Numbers bear the character
of the Arabian names of the second millennium before
Christ, and can have originated only in the time of
Moses, though it must be admitted that the text of
certain portions, e. g.. Num., xiii, has suffered in its
transmission. We need not remind the reader that
numerous Pentateuchal laws and data imply the con-
ditions of a nomadic life of Israel. Finally, both the
author of the Pentateuch and its first readers must
have been more familiar with the topography and
the social conditions of Egypt and with the Sinaitic
peninsula than with the land of Chanaan. Cf., e. g.,
Deut., viii, 7-10; xi, 10 sqq. These internal charac-
teristics of the Pentateuch have been developed at
greater length by Smith, "The Book of Moses or the
Pentateuch in its Authorship, Credibility, and Civil-
isation", London, 1868; Vigouroux, "La Bible et les
di5couvertes modernes", 6th ed., Paris, 1896, I, 4.53-
80; II, 1-213, 529-47, 586-91; Idem, "Les Livres
Saints et la critique rationaliste", Paris, 1902, III,
28-46, 79-99, 122-6; Heyes, "Bibel und iEgypten",
Miinster, 1904, p. 142; Cornely, "Introductio spe-
cialis in histor. Vet. Test, libros", I, Paris, 1887, pp.
57-60; Poole, "Ancient Egypt" in "Contemporary
Review", March, 1879, pp. 757-9.
D. Ecclesiastical Decisions. — In accordance with the voice of the triple argument thus far advanced for the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, the Biblical Commission on 27 June, 1906, answered a series of questions concerning this subject in the following way:
(1) The arguments accumulated by the critics to impugn the Mosaic authenticity of the sacred books designated by the name Pentateuch are not of such weight as to give us the right, after setting aside numerous passages of both Testaments taken collec- tively, the continuous consensus of the Jewish people, the constant tradition of the Church, and internal indications derived from the text itself, to maintain that these books have not Moses as their author, but are compiled from sources for the greatest part later than the Mosaic age.
(2) The Mosaic authenticity of the Pentateuch does not necessarily require such a redaction of the whole work as to render it absolutely imperative to maintain that Moses wrote all and everything with his own hand or dictatetl it to his secretaries; the hypothesis of those can bo admitted who believe that he entrusted the composition of the work itself, conceived by him under the influence of Divine inspiration, to others, but in such a way that they were to express faithfully his own thoughts, were to write nothing against his will, were to omit nothmg; and that finally the work thus produced should be approved by the same Moses, its principal and inspired author, and published under his name.
(3) It may be granted without prejudice to the Mosaic authenticity of the Pentateuch, that Moses employed sources in the production of his work, i. e., written documents or oral traditions, from which he may have drawn a number of things in accordance with the end he had in view and under the influence of Divine inspiration, and inserted them in his work either literally or according to their sense, in an abbre- viated or amplified form.
(4) The substantial Mosaic authenticity and integ- rity of the Pentateuch remains intact if it be granted that in the long course of centuries the work has suf- fered several modifications, as: post-Mosaic additions either appended by an inspired author or inserted into the text as glosses and explanations; the translation of certain words and forms out of an antiquated lan- guage into the recent form of sjicech; finally, wrong readings due to the fault of transcribers, which one may investigate and pass sentence on according to the laws of criticism.
