the Puritan era. Let us begin with its main literary factor, which, though not the creation of this era, is its most influential heritage. II The Completed Pentateuch. As designating the book that Ezra brought up with him from Babylon, we have thus far assumed merely the Biblical name, "the book of the law of Moses, which Jehovah had commanded to Israel" (cf. Neh. viii, 1). It was indeed that, but it was more. The law in its more specific sense, as being the first element applied to conditions in Jerusalem, was at once recognized as the book's characterizing feature. But along with its various codes (for there were several) were given detailed accounts of its origin, motive, and occasion, a spacious historical setting in fact, beginning with primitive and patriarchal times and extending continuously to the death of Moses. In other words, it is quite certain that Ezra's book was the completed Pentateuch, or five books of Moses, which the Jews later called "the five fifths of the law." NOTE. The name Pentateuch" (from Greek penta, pente, "five," and teuchos, lit. "tool" or implement," later "book"), which was adopted by Christian scholars as early as Tertullian and Origen, merely recognizes the first five books of the Bible as the Jews did in their "five fifths of the law." The word has been supplanted in modern critical scholarship by the term " Hexateuch" (hex, hexa), the Book of Joshua being added on account of its source relations, similar to those of the Pentateuch. For the legal and literary relations, however, the fivebook division, ending with the completed Law and the death of the great Lawgiver and Prophet, yields a more natural and logical classification. The book that Ezra brought from Babylon, functioning as the completed Law of Moses, was not so much a new book as a new edition adapted to new needs and uses. From unknown periods its component parts had been in the making; had responded in their times to contemporary conditions and produced contemporary effects. That is why its new effect in Ezra's time was so pronounced and immediate. It struck, so to speak, the native chord Question of Sources and of Judaism, in harmony with its deep national Authorship spirit and idea. Hence its power to act from that time forth as an organic whole, a potent and unitary factor in the cultural life of the Jews. The evident fact, however, that its subject matter is so composite, with peculiar traits of style differentiating its various parts, has in modern times wrought to obscure its unitary and homogeneous effect. The Pentateuch problem, with its prevailing assumption that Moses was not the author of any part of it, has in his place put numerous theories and conjectures of sources, dates, authors, redactors, and the like, theories the exploitation of which has produced a prodigious amount of ink-shed. This problem was the first and perhaps greatest battleground of the so-called Higher Criticism; for which reason we cannot well evade it, though it concerns us only indirectly. Some of its results will remain, whether they will bulk so large as once seemed likely or not. Now that the battle has passed on to other issues we need only remark here that it is rather an academic than a vital matter, dealing with externalities of the like of which the people of Ezra's time, to whom the completed Law first came, had not the smallest heed or conception. To them this history, with its venerable covenants and its motived ordinances, was as if the voice of the great Lawgiver himself were sounding across the centuries to them. Accordingly their book meant infinitely more to them than if they had been critically minded. They thought and acted as if their ancient records were authentic. It did not occur to them to call things in question. Nor had it so occurred to Ezra. So far as appears, his work was not creative and original but editorial, the work of the scholar and scribe. In dealing with his composite material his was the genius of selection, coordination, proportion, and on the whole we cannot forbear to call it masterly. It is his distinction to have unearthed and assembled these divers deposits of story, genealogy, ritual, statistic, and statute, and to have fused them together into a single continuous narrative, a motived and organized history. Of this work no trait is more conspicuous than his conscientious fidelity to the integrity of his sources, his care to reproduce the ancient writings just as they were, without attempting to reconcile discrepancies or determine degrees of authenticity. That is why they preserve their old-time flavor, why, indeed, modern students can dissect them at all. NOTE. Several general subjects relating to the formative period of the Biblical literature, already discussed, derive their significance for the most part from the stories of the Pentateuch. How that literature reflects the genius of a specially gifted race we have considered, pp. 31-33. What inherited fund of ideas the Israelites had on their entrance to Canaan we have traced in outline, pp. 46–56. What main lines of source story, with their alleged elements of folk tale, myth, and legend, are held by modern scholars to underlie the early Biblical narratives, we have discussed, pp. 109-123. See also pp. 70, 71. Without going into the conjectural minutiæ of the Pentateuch problem we may note two strains of literary treatment A Twofold rather intimately blended together yet quite clearly separable. These are largely represented, especially before the deliverance from Egypt, in the different elements of source story already outlined.1 In the first, which flows along in artless and limpid personal narrative, we trace the so-called Jehovistic and Elohistic elements, which for our purpose may be regarded as one underlying tissue. In the second, wherein the treatment is more formal and systematic, we trace the so-called Priestly and Deuteronomic elements, which, true to the scholarly impulse, are concerned with ordered historical annals, 1 See above, pp. 109–114. with their scribal framework of chronology, genealogy, tabulation, and the like. The difference between these two lines of treatment doubtless goes back to their respective derivations from oral and written sources, the latter probably being largely cuneiform, as was the ancient manner of permanent record. NOTE. For remarks on the distinction between the spoken and the written elements of Biblical tradition, see above, pp. 13–16. An outline sketch of the Pentateuch story is given above, on pages 108, 109. Let us note, in some leading features of these two strains, how they interact with each other to form the literary tissue identified with the mind of Moses. Pre-Mosaic In the underlying current of J and E narratives leading up to the covenant at Sinai we read the simple ideas of primitive and patriarchal life, before the period Web of Per- of organic law and cultus was inaugurated, and sonal Story while as yet human nature was, as it were, exploring the rudiments of custom and character. As to style, this line of narrative, meant for common people, is pitched in the folk tone adapted to the common mind, and as to substance, it moves among domestic and family affairs. Beginning (Gen. ii) with the primitive conjugal pair and their spiritual equipment for life, it narrates their ominous and doubtful outset, Life's business being just the terrible choice, and the lawless conduct, through generations, of their headstrong offspring (Adam to Noah); goes onward through the experiences of a family line steadied and elevated by a high motive and loyalty (Abraham and the patriarchs); until at length we find them, a goodly circle of tribal chiefs, receiving the dying blessing of their father, the grandson of Abraham. Here the web of familiar story is broken for a period of some four hundred and thirty years (cf. Ex. xii, 40), and resumed in a less continuous way. This whole pre-Mosaic line is full of native simplicity and charm, with a haunting symbolism, as it were a lesson without the pose of the teacher, in every event. I have called it personal because for the most part it centers in notable personages, a succession of ancient worthies, whose lives were pivotal for the normal and wholesome progress of mankind. Not that they are set up as models; their personality is portrayed in its native worth and weakness, its spiritual clearness and dimness, as it reacts on the inner issues of life. In a beadroll of these worthies drawn up by a New Testament writer (see Heb. xi) the common motive and ideal that actuated all their lives, giving a noble meaning to this line of biography, is named faith, and honored as a sturdy confidence and courage which girded them to press onward toward their soul's home (cf. Heb. xi, 14) without attaining, yet without flinching. We need not try to better this interpretation. It names the stimulating and refining power that one feels in reading these stories of the early Semitic world. It is the forward reach of an aspiring humanity. Historic Closely inwoven from the beginning with this web of personal story, and supplementary of it, are sections and passages in another vein and coloring, to which Merging of Material into sections has been given the name of the Priestly element (P). Why so called will appear later. This element bears the marks of the scholar and scribe. Its style is to a degree grave and formal, the finest specimen of it being the first chapter of Genesis, whose sublimity is rather of the subject matter than of the style. Through the rest of this book, however, this element is quite intercalary, supplying as it does the chronological and genealogical framework on which the web of story is unfolded. In the Book This function of it is made a marked feature. Introduced at the fitting chronological intervals. it goes according to a series of "generations" (toledoth, lit. 'begettings"), which, beginning on the cosmic scale of the heavens and the earth, gradually draw in the created masses of Genesis ་་ |