It is sometimes said that Eerdmans has overthrown the Wellhausen position. He agrees with the critical school in only one or two points. He recognizes that the Code of the Covenant (Ex. 2022-2333) is a separate and ancient collection of laws; he accepts De Wette's view of Dt. as introducing centralization of worship in 621; and he regards the Pentateuch as composite and mostly late. But he denies the unity of either J, E, or P in any sense; holds that many passages universally regarded as composite are really unified; denies the existence of stylistic and literary differences among the "documents"; and for his general conception returns to a sort of combination of Vater's Fragmentary Hypothesis and Stähelin's Supplementary Hypothesis.

According to Eerdmans, the word "Elohim" (God) is to be treated as a plural (esp. in Gn.), and is indicative of polytheism in Israel down to 621. He is in no sense a defender of the traditional view, except that the "E" Decalogue and CC may be Mosaic. He attacks everyone that has preceded him. No one is on the right track. In almost every direction previous thought must be abandoned and entirely new hypotheses created.

On the surface such a view has little to commend it. Nevertheless, Eerdmans repays careful study. He makes many brilliant and suggestive exegetical conjectures, and, after all, is not so utterly far from the established view as one might infer. In many passages he agrees with the critical analysis both as to the fact of composition and as to grouping of verses. For example, in Genesis, he separates all of the "P" material from "JE" except 14 verses and 6 half verses (cf. Eichrodt). This is a remarkable tribute to the correctness of the critical results. In the latter part of Gn. and the first of Ex. he finds a "Jacob recension" which is polytheistic (dated 933-700), and an "Israel recension," which has pre-Deuteronomic, postDeuteronomic and postexilic elements. These recensions do not correspond to J, E, or P, but the subdivisions of each often follow the lines of cleavage agreed on by criticism.

"P" he subdivides into "learned," postexilic glosses (here agreeing with the critical dating in many cases) and valuable

preexilic tradition (which many, if not most, critics are disposed to recognize in P).

Eerdmans is a great scholar, and at many points his views are taken into account. But the frequent expression "all scholars agree" in this volume always makes a tacit exception of Eerdmans, unless he is specifically mentioned.

Note on the Spelling of the Divine Name "Jehovah.”

The name of God in Hebrew consists of four consonants, JHVH or YHWH. This "tetragrammaton" was viewed by the Jews as too holy to pronounce, and instead they said "The Lord" (hence the usage of the King James Version). This led them to spell JHVH with the vowels belonging to the word "Lord" (in Hebrew Adonai); thus arose the traditional vocalization, Jehovah.

Scholars are agreed that the name never was pronounced thus in Hebrew, and an attempt is generally made to spell it more nearly in accordance with ancient Hebrew practice. Many English and American scholars prefer Yahweh; others, Jahweh; Peters uses Yahaweh; many others, including most Germans, write Jahwe or Jahve. This last form, Jahve, is probably to be preferred. J should be retained because there is not sufficient original distinction between J and Y to warrant a change from the traditional initial consonant of Jehovah; the final h should be dropped because it is silent, and has no true consonantal function.

Nevertheless, in order to avoid inconsistency with the American Standard Version, the form "Jehovah" will be retained in this book; except that in the derivatives, the forms "Jahvist" and "Jahvistic" will be used, to avoid confusion with Wellhausen's "Jehovist," who is Rje, not J.

CHAPTER I

J: THE JAHVISTIC OR JUDEAN NARRATIVE

1. LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS.

va. Is J a Literary Unity?

There is substantial agreement with reference to the chief contents of J. But there is difference among scholars as to whether the J literature was all written by one man at one time, or whether it was written by different men animated, on the whole, by similar ideals, and using closely related forms of expression.

It is obvious that J as it stands in the following text is not a smooth, perfectly connected, unified narrative. This fact is in a large measure accounted for by the various processes of editing ("redaction") through which the document has passed. Most critics agree that J experienced certain changes before it was united with E; and, in particular, Rje, while preserving a remarkably large proportion of the material of J and E as they lay before him, naturally made harmonistic changes in each (some of which we can no longer detect) and omitted portions now of J, and now of E, where the two documents ran parallel, or where their material did not suit his purpose. Hence we should not expect to find a perfect unity in the J that criticism has restored. We have now only a fragmentary, incomplete J (though remarkably connected and unified!); the problem is: Does this J presuppose that it came from one original book, written by one man, or does it represent the work of several hands?

All are agreed that J did not compose his narrative out of his imagination. He certainly drew on ancient oral tradition (as Gunkel in particular has emphasized); and probably also used certain literary sources.

All are also agreed that there are many more or less important variations and inconsistencies within J (cf. Gn. 426 with 43.13).

Some insist that these variations are wholly due to the fact that the author was drawing on different traditions. These critics are so impressed by the unity of J that they believe it easier to account for one man's using varying traditions (sagas) than for a school's writing with such remarkable unanimity of spirit and literary style. Kittel has been the great advocate of the unity of J, whom he regards as "a personality of the first rank, a man of decided moral and religious uniqueness." So also Sellin, who says that J as a whole is the work of "a quite definitely stamped literary and absolutely artistic personality." B. Luther shares this opinion. Smend approximates closely to it, for his J2 is the great literary personality that dominates the present form of the J material. Eichrodt also agrees; he says, "We must (in order to give greater consistency to the source theory) bring out more clearly the picture of the authors standing behind the various books, and thus reveal each source as the purposive work of a literary personality."

But the majority of critics lay more stress on the complexity of J and its apparent contradictions. Especially in Gn. 2-11 do most scholars (since Kuenen and Budde) trace a J2 distinguished from J1. This leads Budde to call J and E "comprehensive, contemporaneous, literary schools." Gunkel believes that in so far as any one man gave the document its present form, he has been guided by the tradition more than he has shaped it independently. J for Gunkel is a collection of cognate traditions, not a free composition stamped in every part with the author's own spirit and ideas. Cornill says that the unity of J must be unconditionally denied; and Steuernagel declares that J consists of a large number of relatively independent sections. A. Lods speaks of a school, not an author (SB.).

However, the acceptance of the second view does not exclude the possibility of some one personality as the dominating spirit in the school, either at its outset (so Wellhausen) or at its climax (Smend).

Summarizing the situation with reference to the problem of unity, we may say that J is not a completely smooth and consecutive narrative, written at one time, but it is (with certain