are quite as inexplicable as the same phenomena in the Pentateuch. Delitzsch tabulates the usage of the different names in the five books of the Psalms respectively as follows:—

Without entering into this curious question at present, the following positions can certainly be maintained :

1. In the Psalms, and therefore in all probability in the Pentateuch too, the use of the names Elohim and Jehovah is not reducible to a question of writers nor of dates. The same writer used different names at different times; different writers used different names at the same time; the same writer used different names at the same time. David wrote Jehovistic as well as Elohistic psalms in his youth; and Elohistic as well as Jehovistic in his old age. For instance, Ps. xxxiv.,.“ when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech," is purely Jehovistic, the name actually occurring sixteen times; while Ps. li., relating to the matter of Bathsheba, is purely Elohistic. Again, Ps. lvii., “where he fled from Saul in the cave," is purely Elohistic; while Ps. lix. of the same era is half and half, and Ps. xviii., apparently of the same date, is purely Jehovistic. And even the 90th Psalm, of which there is no cause to doubt the Mosaic authorship, is Jehovistic, while the Psalms of Asaph, David's contemporary, are Elohistic.

2. Further it is evident, in conformity with the above peculiar phenomena, that two processes went on with regard to these names simultaneously; original Jehovistic pieces such as the song of Deborah, which continental criticism unanimously accepts as genuine, were altered into Elohistic, as appears from Ps. Ixviii.; while on the other hand pieces originally Elohistic became transformed into Jehovistic. Compare Ps. cviii. with Ps. lx.

3. Most evident of all is it that the Psalms of David, even the earliest, are not conceivable without taking into account the prolonged influence of a written law; e. g., Leviticus, in which the names Jehovah and Elohim are both used. Cf. Davidson's Introd., i. p. 51.

How these things are to be explained passes knowledge. Some will form their theory, and the wiser will be content to profess nescience. Hupfeld has said that the position that the divine names indicate diversity of authorship is one of the surest gains of modern criticism. While admitting that no tolerable explanation of the usage has been proposed from any other quarter, the theory of diversity of authorship seems to us to rest on the most barefaced begging of the question. For,

1. Surely to affirm that the use of two divine names is significant of two authors is a gross petitio. It is to assume that the names are identical in meaning; that were they so like God and "Deity," the same writer could not employ both; that there is no other way of explaining the usage-and all without even examining the question.

2. If it be said the passage Ex. vi.-" by my name Jehovah was I not known to them "-implies that the name was first made known to Moses-this also is a gross petitio, even a double one. For it assumes, first of all, that such interpretation of the passage is correct, which it cannot be ; and it assumes that this interpretation, if correct, is credible against the whole testimony of Genesis, which puts the name in the mouth of Eve and the Patriarchs from Noah downwards; and these critics know how much more valuable such silent involuntary testimony is, than any more formal declaration of a writer whose motives for making it are quite unknown to us, and need not be considered too high. On what principle are we to believe this single statement, and throw discredit over a widely extended history?

3. If it be said that the two things, though of little weight separately, have considerable when put together, we reply: two things which are each worth nothing when taken alone, are both worth nothing when added together.

4. If it be further argued, as it is, that the divine names in question are always surrounded by a specific circle of ideas and manner of phraseology accompanying each name distinctively, and that this demonstrates difference of authorship, we reply again, that even if the assertion in question were based on truth, the conclusion drawn from it is a petitio; and further, that the assertion so made is hardly to any extent true. The fact that a peculiar phraseology does not encircle the two names respectively, but surrounds sometimes one and sometimes another, has led to the curious development of the theory that there were two writers employing the name Elohim, one of whom, however, used the phraseology, and moved among the ideas peculiar to the person who employed the name Jehovah. It is only in the fundamental document or elder Elohist's outline that anything like a peculiar terminology is apparent. And that this is to some extent the case no sensible Hebraist will deny, though it has always to be remembered, when we see use made of this fact in the disruptive criticism, that the process is usually circular-a certain phraseology being tentatively assumed to define the limits of the documents, and then proclamation made that the documents are distinguished by broadly marked phraseology. But even were all that is said of phraseology and ideas true, it would be to beg the question to conclude diversity

of authorship from such a fact. For if the names be of distinct, and one of very deep significance, as they are, each will appear floating in a distinct atmosphere of thoughts, conveyed in necessarily very divergent words. But we concede that no theory fully explains the use of the names, nor of the setting in which they appear. Only we maintain that the theory which explains the usage by means of different writers is beset with graver difficulties than those it comes to relieve. The question is one not unlike the question of the manner of composition of the three synoptical gospels. Speculation falls back exhausted before the arduous height it has to climb.

Now only two hypotheses may be said to have much claim to support-first, that which assumes the presence of two hands, an Elohist who projected an outline, and a Jehovist who supplemented and filled it in; and second, that which assumes four writers, an elder Elohist who projected the work as before, a younger Elohist independent of the former who gave a life of the Patriarchs, a Jehovist independent of both who began at the creation, and a Redactor, who united the three documents, with the necessary alterations to avoid sheer contradiction and present a narration reasonably connected. The first view is defended by Delitzsch and Kurtz, by the latter chiefly, out of deference to the former. Colenso is inclined to adopt the theory, of course with important deviations as to trustworthiness of the narrative and era of the authors. It is now generally admitted by all the best heads on the continent that the theory in this form is not tenable; that on the same principles by which two writers are assumed, at least three if not four must be assumed. Even Delitzsch practically concedes this. Hence all the profoundest Hebraists except Ewald (like Ephraim, a wild ass keeping by himself), Knobel, Hupfeld, and their followers, such as Boehmer there and Davidson here, abandon it in behalf of the quadruple authorship. By a fundamental law of the theory, Elohistic ideas ought to accompany the name Elohim, but too frequently this name occurs like a drifted boulder embedded in Jehovistic strata. Hence a new wing must be added to the hypothesis; there was a second writer who employed the name Elohim, but standing nearer the Jehovist in time and development of religious ideas, he used much of his thought and phraseology. Once more, it sometimes happened that peculiar Jehovistic veins of thought and language were found to streak and variegate the most undoubted Elohistic formations. The final addition was put to the hypothesis : the editor is the author of these fragments; writing not earlier than towards the time of the captivity, he was familiar with both names and both circles of religious thought, and he employs them all indifferently.

Thus the theory, amidst conflict and assault, has perfected itself. Wherever it presented an assailable point it put out a new defence, until now it is impregnable, because it has a hypothesis to meet every possible objection. Its present form appears thus::

Elder Elohist.-Here we find the name Elohim and Elohistic ideas to Exod. vi. Jehovah and Elohistic ideas thereafter. Younger Elohist.-Elohim and Jehovistic ideas throughout. Jehovist.-Jehovah and Jehovistic ideas throughout. Elohim and Jehovistic ideas throughout.

Redactor. All sorts of names throughout. All sorts of ideas throughout.

is

This exhausts the possibilities of a theory. No conceivable objection can tell against a fabric of this construction. If we say, Here is Elohim with Jehovistic formulas, the answer is ready: The passage likely belongs to the junior Elohist, possibly to the Jehovist, who not unfrequently uses the name Elohim. If we say, Here is Jehovah with Elohistic formulas, the answer equally ready. If the passage occur after Exod. vi., it may be referred to the elder Elohist; if before, as Gen. xvii. 1, it must be an interpolation of the Redactor's. In short, the theory is perfect, and by perfecting it has destroyed itself, because nothing is peculiar to anything. Allow us to make any supposition regarding the Pentateuch, and to meet objections as they rose by a new supposition, and we could infallibly prove our first hypothesis.

D.

ART. IX.-Rudelbach on Inspiration.'

The Doctrine of the Inspiration of Holy Scripture, with reference to the most recent investigations of the Subject by Schleiermacher, Twesten, and Steudel, historico-apologetically and dogmatically developed. By A. G. RUDELBACH.

CHAPTER I

HISTORICO-APOLOGETIC SECTION.-GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

"IN Christianity"-so a theologian expresses himself, whose system is regarded by far the most of those who have to do with the science of our time as the living commencement of a thorough reformation of dogmatic theology-"the idea of inspiration is a thoroughly subordinate one; for it is not applied

This Article appeared at the commencement of Rudelbach's Zeitscrift für Lutherische Theologie, and has been much referred to since.-ED. B. & F. E. R.

to Christ, nay, not even to the apostles (with whom rather everything is traced back to the instruction of Christ), but to the apostolic writings; and if, then, it be undeniable that the church of the Lord existed almost two hundred years before Scripture obtained its peculiar validity, there would be really nothing more wonderful than to give inspiration the first place in Christianity." This sentence of Schleiermacher's,* whatever be its value in other respects, is exactly suited to place us in the midst of the conflict with respect to the church-doctrine of inspiration, which we seek, first of all, as our starting-point. For, apart from the certainly wonderful demand which runs through that system, that Christianity and Judaism, the Old and New Testaments, the prophetic and apostolic writings, are to be looked upon by Christians as two heterogeneous religious factors a view which, consistently carried out, would touch the boundaries of Marcionism-is it not clear, that by that assertion the Christian Church is placed in conflict with itself, and that in a cardinal point? Or would Schleiermacher, or will one of his scholars, be able to dispute with us, that the first act of the witnessing church, so far as we know it, was just the joyful assent to the whole testimony of Jesus and the apostles? that even without reference to the closing of the canon, it was firmly held in all its leading points as Scripture inspired by God in the first two centuries? that in the organic formation of this complex of divine revelations, which from the beginning were laid in Scripture, one side of the peculiar activity of the most ancient church consisted, which was just as hearty and strong in this conviction as in that of a continuous activity of the Holy Ghost, out of whose infinite fulness these first testimonies were taken and brought to light? And if we go back to the original ground, that of the Testament itselfin which the whole church is not only described as it was founded, but also foreshadowed according to its development up to the last time, similarly to the picture of the tabernacle which God shewed to Moses upon the mount (Exod. xxv. 40)is the relation at all a different one? Is not the equality of the Old Testament with the New, as respects their divine origin, so established by the utterances of Jesus and his apostles, that the Lord not only attached his discourse and development to it (Luke v. 17-21), but would have the rays of his divine human person and of his deeds discerned therein? (Luke xxiv. 25, 27; John v. 39.) And with respect to the apostles, as often as they describe the features of their Lord and Master, do they not postulate these in innumerable passages as a fulfilment of what had been before written, so that,

Der Christliche Glaube, 1 Bd. (Berlin, 1827), s. 113.