BS 1213 A5 1893 V. 2 PREFACE THE long delay in the issue of this second and concluding volume scarcely admits of any apology, though I may plead in partial excuse increase of work different in kind and a multitude of distractions. The delay has not been without compensation, for it has enabled me to take advantage of much excellent literature which has appeared on the Hexateuch in particular, and on the O. T. and Semitic literature in general, during the last five or six years. These views In the light of these later investigations, I have been able, as I hope, to make some improvements in detail, and to supply certain deficiencies. On the main points my position remains unaltered. I still believe that the views advocated by Kuenen, Wellhausen, Robertson Smith, and Dr. Driver are in substance established as the foundation of all subsequent inquiry. must be tried on their own merits. It is true that Lachmann's dissection of the Iliad into some eighteen ballads has long since been abandoned by sober critics; it is also true that Baur's reconstruction of early Christian history is demonstrably untenable. But surely it is strange logic which argues, as some have argued, that because Homeric and N. T. scholars have erred, therefore Wellhausen's analysis of the Hexateuch is worthless. One has only to remember the difference which metre makes, not to speak of the fact that the Iliad is a great achievement of literary art, to see that there never could be any exact parallel between theories on the composition of the Iliad and the Hexateuch. The Greeks attained perfection in the unity which they gave to their classical works as a whole. Hebrew literature never attained perfection on so great a scale. It would be barbarous in the highest degree to analyse Thucydides as we justly claim to analyse the Hexateuch or the books of Samuel, or to deny the unity of authorship in the plays of Sophocles, though scholars, with scarcely an exception, confidently assert that the 'Book of Isaiah' was written by several hands and at very diverse times. Again, even on the most negative hypothesis, the N. T. documents date from a period comparatively near to our Lord's time. They are few indeed who will now make a similar claim for the documents of the Pentateuch in relation to Moses. Lastly, every O. T. scholar worthy of the name will welcome, as such scholars always have welcomed, the assured results of archæological research. But archæologists as well as critics must be tried by the old test, Tantum valet, quantum probat. And if critics should acquaint themselves (as they do) with the results of archæology, may we not remind certain archæologists that they are bound to know what the methods and theories of O. T. critics really are before they set themselves to the work of refutation? While, however, I have seen no reason, after careful study of such writers as Professor Sayce or Professor Hommel, for abandoning the lessons learnt from Kuenen and Wellhausen, I may, perhaps be allowed to express my deepening conviction that Israel was the subject of a divine guidance, in the strictest sense supernatural and unique, till He came to whom the law and the prophets alike bear witness, and who is the 'express image of His Father's glory.' It only remains to thank Mr. T. G. Law, of the Signet Library, for his unfailing kindness, and in particular for the trouble he has taken in revising the proofs. W. E. ADDIS. NOTTINGHAM, Easter, 1898. The following is a list of some among the books which had not appeared or had not reached me when writing Vol. I., and which have been used in the present volume. Bäntsch, Bundesbuch, 1892. Heiligkeits-gesetz, 1893. Steuernagel, Rahmen des Deuteronomiums, 1894. Entstehung des Deuteronomischen Gesetzes, 1896. Wellhausen, Hexateuch und Histor. Bücher, 1889. Kuenen, Gesammelte Abhandlungen übersetzt von Budde, 1894. Bacon, Triple Tradition of Exodus, 1894. Holzinger, Einleitung in den Hexateuch, 1893. Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, 1892. Driver, Introduction to O. T., 1891. Cornill, Einleit. in das A. T. Kautzsch, Alte Testament, 1894. Driver and White, Hebrew Text of Leviticus, 1894. Strack Kurzgefasster Kommentar on Hexateuch, 1894. Montet, Le Deuteronome, 1891. Wellhausen, Reste des arabischen Heidenthums (second edition), 1897; Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte, 1894. |