Pentateuch

PENTATEUCH. - A great narrative and legislative work, which occupies the first place among the books that make up the Bible, composed of "five volumes": Genesis (v.), Exodus (v.), Leviticus (v.), Numbers (v.), Deuteronomy (v.).

I. NAME, SUBJECT

Already in documents dating back to the 4th century B.C. the book is called Tôrâh, hat-Tôrâh "(the) law" (Neh. 8:2), a name that remained in common Hebrew usage (Lk. 10:26); less often "Book of Moses," "Moses" (ibid. 8:1; 13:1; Lk. 16:29). In Greek ecclesiastical usage from the 2nd century A.D. onward (Origen, In Io., 13, 16) the name (ἡ) Πεντάτευος prevailed, which in itself is an adjective meaning "the (book, βίβλος) in five parts" (τεῦχος, "case" for keeping a scroll, and "volume"); thus among the Latins Pentateuchus, already from Tertullian (C. Marc., 1, 10).

In the biblical canon of the Council of Trent (Denz-U, 784) it says: "5 (books) of Moses." This is because the work, since antiquity, has been divided into 5 parts, which among the Jews were named after the first words of each, whereas in the Greek version (and from there in the Vulgate and in modern languages) they were designated on the basis of their content.

The P. begins with the creation of the world and of man and continues with the first manifestations of history and its great developments up to the time of Moses, especially from the religious point of view, which may be called that of Revelation. It narrates how, as a consequence of sin, despite providential care and extraordinary punishments, humanity increasingly turned away from God, and how God chose Abraham as the depositary of the ancient revelations and of other new ones made to him; how the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Egypt became a people, which under the guidance of Moses (v.) organized itself civilly and religiously and, through long vicissitudes, came to settle in its historical home, Canaan. The importance of the book lies in this vision of human origins and of the election of Israel, as the history of the insertion of the divine into the human and the transmission of the true faith in God until the death of Moses, the great prophet and lawgiver.

The historical material, with few exceptions, is arranged chronologically. From Ex. 20 begins the series of laws, which, in large and small sections, are interspersed throughout the narrative: they form one of the most imposing legal complexes of the ancient East, in which the entire life of a people in civil, economic, judicial and religious-cultural matters is regulated, on a basis of moderately conservative tendency, immensely superior to the prescriptions of all other codes of the East for the recognition of the rights of the person as against those of the community and for a certain sense of humanitarian moderation in the penal field, with notable provisions of an assistance nature for the propertyless and the weak.

II. AUTHOR

Already the name "book," or "law of Moses," or simply "Moses" (v.), which the ancients gave to the Pentateuch, shows what their opinion was regarding its author.

In the book itself there is found from time to time the explicit attribution to Moses of some part: after the victory over the Amalekites Moses received from God the order to "write this in a book for a memorial" (Ex. 17:14); later he "wrote" (ibid. 24:4) the laws of the "code of the Covenant" and the "terms of the Covenant" (ibid. 34:27), "recorded" the stages of the advance into Transjordan (Num. 33:2), "wrote" and "delivered to the Levites" a "law," which in the context seems to be the whole of Deuteronomy (Deut. 31:9, 24); he "wrote" the "canticle" that bears his name (ibid. 31:22). The aforementioned designation of the book as the work of Moses, varied in several forms, belongs to the whole biblical tradition: "Book of the Law of Moses" (Josh. 8:31; 23:6; 2 Kings 14:6); "Book of Moses" (2 Kings 2:3; 2 Chron. 35:12; Ezra 6:18; Neh. 13:1); practically equivalent to it are those of "Book of the Law of the Lord given through Moses" (2 Chron. 34:14), "Law of Moses" (2 Chron. 23:18; Bar. 2:2; Dan. 9:11, 13); a particular prescription of the Pentateuch (Lev. 26:14; Deut. 28:15) is recalled as "the law that God commanded to be written by Moses" (Bar. 2:28 ff.).

The same situation is reflected in the New Testament: Jesus speaks of the "Book of Moses" (Mark 12:26), of the "Law of Moses," etc.; he refers to prescriptions of the Pentateuch as commands of Moses (Matt. 8:4; 19:8); he declares that Moses "wrote of him," but the Jews do not believe in him, because they do not believe even the "writings" (γράμματα) of Moses (John 5:46 ff.). To prescriptions of the Pentateuch as of Moses the contemporaries of Christ likewise appeal: the Pharisees (Matt. 19:7; John 8:5; Acts 6:14), the Sadducees (Matt. 22:24), the disciples (John 1:45). The conviction passes to the Apostles (Acts 3:22; Rom. 10:5, 19; 1 Cor. 9:9 etc.) and to the first believers (Acts 7:37; 28:23).

The Fathers too speak in such a way as to let it be understood that they share the common idea that the first five books of the Bible are by Moses; nor do they suspect that it could be otherwise. The rejection of the Mosaic authenticity of the Pentateuch made by certain heretics (Nazarenes, Manichaeans), for doctrinal rather than critical reasons (cf. Homil. Ps.-Clementinae, 3, 47; St. Epiphanius, Adv. haer., 18, 1; 33, 4; 66, 42), seemed a ridiculous extravagance. The phrase of St. Jerome (C. Helv., 7): "sive Moysen dicere volueris auctorem Pentateuchi, sive Esdram eiusdem instauratorem operis, non recuso" does not in the least call the question into doubt, any more than the legend (the apocryphon 2 Ezra 14:18 ff.) to which it refers.

The value of these testimonies, including those of Christ and the Apostles themselves, is first of all of a historico-critical character: they give proof of the continuity of a tradition that goes back to the time to which the book is attributed, so that serious consideration is owed to them also from the point of view of historical methodology. Note should be taken of the categorical and peaceful character of the common conviction, without hesitations and without contrary affirmations, although it was well known that the end of Deuteronomy, in which the death of Moses himself is narrated, is by another inspired author (without the text having felt the need to declare it), and other small parts are by other authors.

It is well to set aside all those expressions whose validity could be weakened by other explanations: for example, when there is talk of the "book of Moses," but evidently the Pentateuch is meant, the book known under the name of Moses (2 Chron. 34:14). There remain the passages in which is explicitly expressed the conviction that Moses wrote determined portions: in these cases it is not a matter of adaptations by the sacred writer to current turns of phrase, but of acceptance and approval of the statement: Moses wrote this. That a "proposition of faith" then arises from this seems undeniable. This is the case of Ex. 17:14; 24:4; 34:27; Num. 33:2; Deut. 31:9, 24, for the respective passages (Ex. 17:8-13; 20-23; etc.), in particular the "Canticle" (Deut. 31:22).

If the extent of the writing guaranteed as Mosaic is broadened, by critical rigor one must proceed more cautiously: this is the case of Deut. 31:9 in favor of "this law": the whole of Deuteronomy? As it now stands? In other cases there is a generic guarantee: the words of Jesus in John 5:45-47, affirming the existence in the Pentateuch of some messianic prophecy (direct or typical, it is not specified), say that such prophecy is a testimony for Jesus himself on the part of Moses (who is placed in the same passage alongside two other witnesses, whom certainly books cannot replace: John the Baptist and the Father: Jn. 5:32-35, 36-38), who says that Moses "wrote" (aorist: the past activity of a writer; otherwise the book "has it written," perfect).

It is evident, however, that the synthetic observation of the whole complex of the tradition also teaches something, as testimony in favor of the proposition "the P. is the work of Moses." In the face of the difficulties set forth by criticism, Catholics have had to seek what limits may be placed on the obvious sense of that affirmation. When the Hebrews and later the Christians placed the name of Moses alongside a citation from the P., they were more or less intentionally invoking an authority. The Hebrews, speaking of "Law," referred to its juridical content (religious and civil). But the book is also, in its narrative parts, a religious document, norm and source of the monotheistic religion, the authentic text of the teachings revealed by God: and it was to this especially that Christianity referred. Therefore the traditional persuasion of the attribution of the P. to Moses has a "necessary and sufficient" reference to the condition of this book as a "text containing such revelations guaranteed by way of hagiographic inspiration by Moses." It is especially fitting to pay attention to the "sufficient" aspect. The testimonies require attributing to Moses a collaboration such that he may be held responsible for the affirmations made in the P., but they do not require recognizing in him a direct personal composition, except for the particular points already mentioned. But the difficulties that Catholics encounter in the face of the modern critical problem do not consist in this (Responses of the Pontifical Biblical Commission of 27 June 1906 On the Mosaic authenticity of the P., N. II: Ench. Bibl., Rome 1927, n. 175).

At the time of the decree of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, while it was admitted that Moses could have made use of collaborators who worked under his guidance, expressing all and only what he intended, the P. was implicitly referred to as a single work. Today it is commonly thought that it would not be in conflict with theological principles to admit that at the death of Moses there was no P. in the current sense, but that there existed the writings, the work of Moses (in the strict or broad sense stated above), which later converged, entirely and substantially by themselves, into what was the P. What is important is that the content of the P. be recognized as Mosaic, the revelations it contains based on the authority of Moses.

To this conclusion, again in the "necessary and sufficient" sense, the internal proofs for the Mosaic authenticity of the P. also lead, an authenticity of substance and to some extent of form, which the treatise writers have collected (e.g., A. Bea [v. bibl.], pp. 21-24), and which are continually increasing thanks to archaeological and literary studies: that is, that complex of indications that betray the hand of the writer contemporary with the events and many times of the protagonist himself, Moses, and reveal the adherence of the narrative to the course of events, as is naturally to be expected in an account that is continually brought up to date (e.g., the abundance of documents for periods of prosperity and the scarcity for difficult ones: v. NUMERI).

The error of criticism, more than in the search for distinct sources or literary units in the P., lies in the refusal to trace the book, or its "sources," back to Moses himself, thus emptying the tradition of all its content, the tradition that refers the fundamental revealed doctrines of that book to the authority of the great Leader and Prophet.

III. CRITICISM

The criticism of the P. has been one of the central problems of biblical science for about a century, as shown by quite instructive overall studies (A. Bea, J. Coppens). The Protestant B. Witter (1711), the Catholics J. Astruc (1753) and A. Geddes (late 18th century) noted in the text of Genesis certain differences that pointed toward the distinction of "documents."

But true systematic criticism, with important deductions, came only with the appearance of the "theory of the (two) documents" (J. G. Eichhorn, d. 1827: he distinguished in Genesis two documents, roughly corresponding to the future J and P), that of the "supplements" (M. C. De Wette, d. 1843: among other things he refers the composition of Deuteronomy to the reform of Josiah), that of the "fragments and complements" (G. A. Ewald, d. 1875, who however changed his opinion several times; then Fr. Bleek; J. F. C. Tuch, etc.), with a tendency of the first to prevail, through the work of numerous adherents, who subsequently reshaped it in various forms (H. Hupfeld; A. Kuenen; K. H. Graf; etc.).

In its "classical" form it is linked to the name of J. Wellhausen (d. 1918), who expounded it especially in the works Die Composition des Hexateuchs (the Hexateuch [v.] is the P. plus the book of Joshua, involved in the same fate), of which the 3rd ed. is from 1899, and Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (6th ed. 1927).

To formulate it Wellhausen turned to account ideas that came also from fields other than those of exegesis and historical criticism. From Hegelian philosophy, then universally professed, came the principle of cultural and religious evolutionism, according to which Israel, like all other ancient peoples, "had to" pass from the nomadic phase to the agricultural one and then to that of commercial and artisan activity, and, correspondingly as regards religion, from a complex of animistic and fetishistic practices to polytheism, then to a monolatry, which still later was theorized into true and proper monotheism. Almost absolutely skeptical about the historical value of the biblical books and in general of ancient traditions, Wellhausen refused to take into account in the historical development any intervention that escapes documentary control.

These principles, applied to the historical-literary development of the Bible and of the religious civilization that they outline, in union with the critical "proofs," expressed with much philological and historical-comparative erudition, led to a representation of ancient Israel entirely different from the traditional one. The initiators of Israelite monotheism would have been the prophets, and their writings the oldest texts of the Bible. The P., which through a fiction not entirely disinterested on the part of the dominant class was attributed to Moses, a semi-legendary figure of whom history can say almost nothing, results from the fusion of four different writings, of different epochs, none earlier than the 9th century, besides minor redactional parts and the "Code of the Covenant" (Ex. 20, 24-23, 19) of the 9th century: the Yahwist history (J) of ca. 850 and the Elohist one (E) of ca. 770 (so called from the names Jahweh and 'Elōhim with which they respectively designate God), combined together around 650 (JE); Deuteronomy (D), composed at the end of the 7th century, promulgated as "rediscovered" (pious fraud) in 620, which became the norm for a vast revision of the writings already existing, among them JE itself; the "Priestly Code" (P = Priesterkodex), a narrative and legislative book, containing various groups of narratives and laws of a cultic character, among which the oldest is the "Code of Holiness," now in Lev. 17-26, recast with JE through a long labor, which around 445, at the time of Nehemiah's reform, ended in what was later the Tārāh.

Wellhausen also described the character of the individual "sources," which in the present P. are scattered in passages and fragments here and there. The narrative of J, which begins from the origins, is simple, primitive; more reflective in character is the account of E, which begins from Abraham. D represents a religious and legislative deepening with respect to J and E, the fruit of prophetic preaching, but a product of the "Deuteronomic" activity is, besides the present book as much as of the P., a general revision of the writings already existing, among them the one that previously contained J and E fused together. From the activity of the priestly circles of the exile, who worked in view of the future restoration on new foundations, arose the vast historical-legislative writing P, which was in substance the basis of the future P., the complex JE having been inserted into it as into a canvas; this represents the maximum of speculation and also formally presents itself as evolved (schemes, genealogies, technical formulary of religion and cult).

In the distinction of the sources various internal criteria were applied, especially the following three: a) The difference in the use of the divine names Jahweh and 'Elōhim: in Genesis and in Exodus up to ch. 6 the two names are found with a slight prevalence of the second (145 J, 165 E, 20 JE); in the rest of the P. almost only the first (1244 J, 20 E, 1 JE), with certain regularities in distribution. The interpretation given by Wellhausenism as regards Genesis is that J, supposing the name Jahweh known from the beginning of humanity (Gen. 4, 26), uses it throughout the narrative, while E and P before the revelation of Ex. 3, 14 suppose that name unknown and therefore use 'Elōhim.

b) Language and vocabulary: the various documents have different lexical, grammatical and stylistic preferences and reveal Aramaic linguistic influences to a different degree (the lists offered by Wellhausen have been complicated and lengthened by later scholars): e.g., "I" is expressed mostly by 'anōkhī in the oldest, always by 'ānī in P; "maidservant" is līfāh in J, 'āmāh in E; the pre-Israelite Palestinian inhabitants are "Canaanites" for J, "Amorites" for E; "to beget" is jāhāh for J, hōlāh for P, etc. Proper to P are bārā' "to create," nāphel "person," etc.; P has Aramaizing forms to the maximum degree.

c) The "doublets": it is observed that there are passages or episodes repeated two (or three) times, with differences of detail, not of substance: in the work of compilation the two or three forms were at times kept distinct (in immediate contact or not), at times fused together, but in such a way that analysis allows the various distinct elements to be recognized. As parallels that remained distinct are indicated the accounts of creation (Gen. 1, 1-2, 4a and 2, 4b-24), of God's covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15 and 17), of the manna and the quail (Ex. 16 and Num. 11), etc. From the fusion of duplicates result the accounts of the Flood (Gen. 6-8), of the plagues of Egypt (Ex. 7-9), etc. These passages were offered by different sources, which had collected them already differentiated by tradition. This argument was indicated by criticism as decisive for demonstrating that the P. is not the work of Moses, because certainly Moses would not have used different accounts at least to report the facts in which he himself had taken part as protagonist.

Wellhausen immediately found great consensus among scholars, many of whom collaborated to define his doctrine more precisely, to deepen it, to resolve difficulties. For example, there soon arose the impossibility for Wellhausenism of explaining how Jahweh "became" a transcendental, moral, universal divinity, the one God of the universe, in comparison with colleagues so much more powerful as Marduk, Ashur, Amon: and K. Budde responded by appealing to the character proper to Jahweh of a divinity not imposed, but freely chosen on the part of a people, as the "covenant" shows, one of those profoundly human acts that found the spiritual life of humanity; but already the conservative Protestant E. König refuted this paralogism, showing first of all that Jahweh is not chosen, but is he who chooses a people for himself.

The influence that the theory exercised for several decades from its appearance was very great, penetrating the introductions (C. Steuernagel, C. H. Cornil, partially E. König), inspiring the commentaries of the period (W. Nowack, K. Marti, the Internat. crit. commentary, etc.), the studies of biblical theology (A. Schulz, W. Smend, B. Stade, E. Kautzsch, A. Bertholet), and the histories of Israel.

Assent did not always remain so full: there were important reactions, regarding general principles, such as that of religious evolution, especially regarding the general reconstruction of the history of the ancient East (the great weak point of Wellhausen's system, a typical "armchair" scholar, lay in the comparison with archaeological data) and the delineation of biblical-Israelite religious and cultural development. In particular, scholars of various tendencies (and here various great Catholic masters honourably enrolled themselves, on whom cf. A. Bea, pp. 34-36; J. Goettberger [v. bibl.], pp. 75-78), demonstrated that in the P. the presence of laws and memories certainly Mosaic was undeniable; many arguments adduced by Wellhausen were without value, because the facts alleged had to be interpreted in a different way.

The insistence on the critical reading of the Bible and the absorption of all attention in these arid problems of origins and sources at a certain point reached saturation and engendered nausea. There were those who proclaimed it openly both from the fields of general culture and among biblicists, calling for a return to spiritual and also precisely religious problems and values. The possibility of gathering fruits from a century of studies on the whole ancient East, its religions and literatures, conditioned the rise of the new exegetical currents, closely imbued with the methods "of the history of religions" and "of form history" (v.).

For some decades no one has professed Wellhausenism any longer in its form of half a century ago. It has not, however, been replaced by a system that is substantially traditionalist: at bottom non-Catholics remain Wellhausenians, though each in his own way: among the living, Th. H. Robinson, J. Hempel, O. Eissfeldt, W. Rudolph, have brought to the system even important retouchings, reservations, explicit denials of particulars, but also further advances along the path of dissections. Thus, to cite a few examples, after much discussion on the unity of J, it ended by distinguishing it into two (J1, J2), called by Eissfeldt L (the "lay" source, because devoid of "priestly" ideas, composed in the age of David, ca. 950, with more ancient elements) and J (in which are found parts once assigned to the additions of J plus E); P also was subdivided (G. von Rad) and the remaining documents; meanwhile a new absolute and relative chronology was being studied (E. König places E at the head of the series); much uncertainty reigns over the unity and date of D. More recently it was denied that E had narrative elements (P. Volz - W. Rudolph), with important anti-Wellhausenian consequences; individual studies attacked the validity of the critical philological arguments. J. Engnell, with others of the "Uppsala school", rejects the ancient methods of literary criticism of the P. as "desperate".

A. Weiser and A. Bentzen follow Wellhausen in substance, but depart from him in not a few applications and conclusions. Bentzen prefers to speak of "strata" rather than of "documents" in the P. and recognizes that the new generation is sceptical before the documentary hypothesis.

It can be said that today the general conception of the history of Israel and of its religious development has drawn closer to the traditional one in many points, by force of archaeological documentation. To consider Israel descending from prehistoric origins, today better known, one forms a judgment quite different from that which one reaches in climbing backwards, which was rather the disposition of spirit of the old scholars: Israel appears in full light of history; beneath Deuteronomy and the Priestly Code there are archaic elements, which the discoveries of Oriental codes invite one to backdate in a sense fully favourable to tradition. For the literary fact, on the other hand, one can point only to a fervour of researches, not reducible to unity. New analyses of the texts are made, new methods are attempted to make a history of them, unfortunately sometimes pursuing fleeting shadows of oral traditions and hypothetical religious ideologies of initiates, but often with excellent positive results. The work of W. F. Albright on monotheism from the Stone Age to Christianity (1940) is an indication of a profound revolution that has taken place in the consciences of many scholars. Much progress has been made regarding the laws: it is admitted that they result from the elaboration of an ancient fundamental writing. For the narrative parts, on the other hand, the hypothesis of several parallel threads, which would best account for the structure of the P., mostly continues.

The division of the sources and their chronology remains the true point of dissent between the two opposing tendencies, integral Wellhausenism and rigid conservatism, and the field on which on both sides mutual attenuations and concessions have been recorded in attempts at rapprochement.

a) The conservative tendency has first of all sifted the critical arguments recalled, considerably reducing their importance. The criterion of the divine names is much weakened by the objections offered by the state of the text (the distribution of the two names in the Hebrew and in the ancient translations is not uniform) and by exegesis: the use of one name in preference to another is revealed sometimes as conditioned by psychological, linguistic, theological motives (A. Bea, p. 54 ff.), so much so that many scholars of today make only reference to this argument by way of confirmation. The criterion of linguistic differences has also been breached. In other books within and outside the Bible, certainly by a single author, one catches at times insistent preferences for determined words. Many times the different subject matter (e.g., narratives with a different purpose, different laws) imposed varied words; or the different words indicate a diversity of things, that is, they are apparent synonymies, precise expressions that it was obligatory to distinguish (one thing are the Amorites, another the Canaanites; another is fīfīhāh, another 'āmāh). In this regard many observations to be considered as acquired are in the work of U. Cassuto (v. bibl.). Also regarding "doublets" there has been exaggeration, both in their assignment (sometimes they are different things, as in the case of the three wives of the patriarchs in danger: Gen. 12, 1 ff.; 20, 1 ff.; 26, 7 ff.), and in their interpretation. Legislative doublets represent successive dispositions that are repeated or modified. In the case of "fused" doublets one must be cautious for another reason: perhaps the distinction is undue. In the account of the Babylonian flood in the Gilgamesh poem, tablet XI, there are found data that correspond to J and to P (A. Šanda [v. bibl.], p. 82).

b) Therefore many authors do not adhere to the theory of the division of the sources, thinking instead that the work that remained at the death of Moses was already unitary and that the differences noted are of so limited an extent that their explanation can be sought elsewhere than in a difference of origin. The decree of 1906, without expressing a doctrine on the matter (since it deals directly with Mosaic authenticity) and without imposing or suggesting any particular theory, implicitly directed the attention of scholars to the fact of the different collaborators, the different written and oral sources, the later additions. It has also been observed that Oriental literary art reveals the existence of a technique that imposed given artistic procedures for various "genres" (just as among the Greek tragedians a language tinged with Dorisms was fixed, certain attitudes of thought were obligatory for the choruses, while the spoken parts were in the Athenian dialect; and if they referred to epic cycles they contained Ionisms); but the application of this consideration to the case of the P. [Pentateuch] brings no advantage. For reasons of respect for tradition, others hold to its substantial unity, resorting to theories of fragments and complements (J. Goettsberger, P. Heinisch). Still others hold to the primitive unity of the work, but in a condition that is not known, because the present book results from the reworking of different forms assumed by the primitive text through different transmissions and revisions (A. Vaccari; v. GENESI).

c) There is also an intermediate position, represented with divergences by exegetes of different inspiration, which consists in distinguishing, so to speak, between a line of right and a line of fact. E. Sellin, critic and archaeologist, after many fluctuations along a line of increasing approach to tradition, while substantially holding to the distinction of the documents (with other scholars he gives importance to a hypothetical connection of the composition of the histories of the P. with different cultic uses, sanctuaries, etc.), observes that these are not entities so individuated that it is possible to isolate them: an isolation that must necessarily result before one proceeds to further conclusions. To this idea one may approximate that of those Catholic authors who, while not inclined to admit the documents, nevertheless do not deny the possibility of their existence; they deny instead that there is any means of recognizing them integrally (e.g., H. Höpfl, Introductio in Vet. Test., 1st ed., Rome 1921, p. 50). This intermediate position has given Catholic authors the possibility of assuming as a working hypothesis the theory of division and of considering its foundations and consequences under every aspect: a work whose usefulness cannot be overlooked.

d) Nevertheless it must be pointed out at once that the position of those exegetes is not contrary to Catholic requirements either, who with certain qualifications, avoiding first of all the impossible divisions into half-verses, limiting themselves to giving as certain the distinction in passages of well-individuated physiognomy, have believed they could accept as demonstrated a distinction of sources for Genesis and the whole P.

Should there follow from the observations of factual data, and disregarding erroneous reconstructions, a substantial agreement on the recognition of a certain number of truly distinct and well-individuated documents, the authority of tradition with all the value it represents would not be belied. In order to advance in this hypothesis, one will have to fix how much of the Mosaic element is recognized in the individual documents ("authenticity"): this principle can never be abandoned, for the two reasons noted of theological authority and of the general value that must be recognized in tradition in a sound historical methodology. It seems that the thought expressed by J. Touzard in his well-known article (v. bibl., col. 724 ff., condemned as containing unsafe doctrines on 23 Apr. 1920) was precisely defective in this part.

The system sketched by M.-J. Lagrange in the documentary hypothesis, limited to Genesis, harmonized with Catholic requirements of respect for tradition, retains a general indicative value for its affirmations of principle. The "doublets" seem to be something congenital to the Hebrew spirit, which appears not to explain itself well except by using different ways of saying the same thing; when it is a matter of laws, the obvious explanation is the union of two texts of the same disposition varied in the actual will of the legislator at two different moments; but if it is a matter of history, in the cases in which the double version must really be proved, it is more natural to think of writings originally different, even if by the same author. To the difference of two historical-theological visions, one Elohist and one Yahwist, the Bible offers the parallel in the notice of the introduction by revelation at a given moment of the name Yahweh, as a specification of the generic Semitic 'Elóhim, with which transition the documents can be related. The reasons that have induced authoritative modern critics to raise the chronology of J and E up to the age of David and Solomon, because it is natural that nationalist activity should seek support in ancient promises and divine rights, hold much more for the time of Moses, who was leading his tribes to the conquest of a homeland. There is no reason to deny to Moses the other texts, with the reservations of developments and additions permitted by Catholic principles.

For this explanation, or others, in the documentary hypothesis, one must avoid all theories that are not reconcilable with inspiration and that refer to objections which, though in a different form, are also found in the hypothesis of the pure and simple substantial authenticity of a single work written by Moses; e.g., that the conception of the divine is opposed (but to a certain extent it may be admitted to be different) in J, E, P; that the knowledge of Canaan that the documents show (less markedly in E than in J) is of people who already reside there. This second difficulty is not insuperable: the knowledge of Canaan in E, J, P is that which can be had by neighbors who travel on camel-back or on horseback. Even today at 'Ammón one finds local common folk ready to act as guides throughout the whole country on both sides of the Jordan. One must stay a little in Palestine to realize how small it is! Then the Hebrews came from Egypt, where there was a long experience of expeditions toward the north: instructive, e.g., is the case of Seir (v.), about which in Egypt, according to the recent interpretation of an ancient hieroglyphic text, such notions could be had as to advise the Hebrews of Moses to take the route that is told in Deut. 2:8 ff. (cf. J. Janssen, in Biblica, 15 [1934], p. 538).

Once these general difficulties are overcome, one will have to seek for the individual sources a dating that allows one to recognize in them the Mosaic essential that they contain. Just as the path chosen by critics to explain the particularities of the documents, that of holding them to be the work of different authors, is not the only one and in comparison with tradition is false, so the chronological differentiation among them can be made to correspond to different epochs of the time of Moses. For this too one can proceed along the path left open by the decree of 1906: the collaborators of the leader would have worked on different works at different times and with ever new aims. One must give prominence to the testimonies of the P. itself on the parts written by Moses; to the references of the most ancient prophets to laws and traditions as known, recognized, widespread (thus Hos. 8:12, which speaks of a great quantity of written Töröth; Amos 2:8, which clearly refers to Deut. 24:12; etc.). An attempt in this direction is that indicated in the cited article of M.-J. Lagrange (for Genesis), which indicates the placement of E and J in the direct activity of Moses and shows that P must be attributed to Moses, first of all insofar as it is a resumption of the material of the two preceding ones.

The most serious difficulties for the dating in Wellhausenism were created by Deuteronomy, which was presented as the theoretical statement of the principles applied in the reform of Josiah (v.). But precisely on this point the system has received strong refutations at the hands of many scholars (W. Eichrodt, W. Staerk, A. C. Welch, T. Oestreicher, E. Sellin, G. Von Rad), who postulate at least earlier dates, deny that Deuteronomy is the code that was the starting point for a reconstruction according to the priestly ideal, and deny that there is between Deuteronomy and the reform of Josiah the relationship supposed to be so close as to consider the two phenomena perfectly coincident.

IV. ECCLESIASTICAL DIRECTIVES

An important point of comparison, not only theologically, for every doctrine concerning the problem of the Pentateuch remains the aforementioned decree of the Pontifical Biblical Commission of 27 June 1906 on the "Mosaic authenticity of the Pentateuch" (Ench. Bibl., op. cit., nos. 174-76). It comprises four points in the form of answers to doubts, but it can be summarized in two: the affirmation of the Mosaic authenticity of the Pentateuch, denying that the book as a whole can be passed off as a collection of writings later than Moses; the clarification of the concept of Mosaic authenticity, saying that it does not imply personal and direct composition by the author, does not exclude the use of written and oral sources of information, nor does it exclude later modifications and even additions. On the current meaning of the decree and the groundlessness of the accusations that have been made against it, cf. J. Coppens, Histoire... (v. bibl.), pp. 171-94. The current directives of the ecclesiastical magisterium are expressed in the letter of the Pontifical Biblical Commission (16 Jan. 1948) to Card. E. C. Suhard, archbishop of Paris, signed by the secretary J. M. Vosté (AAS, 40 [1948], pp. 45-48).

The following problems remain debated, in large part even among Catholics themselves: the general conception of the historical-literary development of Israel, as it is represented in the Bible; the sense of Mosaic authenticity; the division and chronology of the sources; the historiographical method applied in the Pentateuch.

The reference to tradition is to be defined in comparison with the notion of Mosaic authenticity, which recurs in ecclesiastical documents and in ordinary Catholic studies. The decree of 1906, by defining that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch through the exclusion of theories that derive this book from writings later than him, and on the other hand by admitting that Moses may have made use of the work of others, extends the notion of author to that of "responsible." The same extension applies to any earlier literary units (written and oral traditions) received into the Pentateuch. Thus the definition of authenticity is broadened well beyond the sense that the term has at first sight. A rational application of it opens the way to the resolution of many problems, including that of the division of the sources and their dating. For this reason many authors have sought to explain and develop it. There are those who have concluded that the second and third answers intend a "substantial authenticity," or of content, rather than a "literary authenticity," or of formal procedures. The letter of the Pontifical Biblical Commission to Card. E. C. Suhard of 16 Jan. 1948 (AAS, 40 [1948], pp. 45-48) invites Catholic scholars to investigate the question more thoroughly. This document is authentically interpreted by the encyclical Humani generis (AAS, 42 [1950], p. 576). With reference to the laws, it does not seem that this conception should present notable difficulties: many nations of Europe still have the "Napoleonic code," yet it is known that upon the Napoleonic foundation so many new elements have been added that update the law according to the libertarian principles that the famous leader wished affirmed in his legislation. Naturally, for the expression to be correct, it is necessary that the ancient foundation really be preserved (in the Mosaic case one is certain of this, if for no other reason than what tradition and comparative Oriental law teach) and that the new developments truly be deduced from the general principles preserved (the internal coherence of the Hebrew laws also bears witness to this). What matters most, others have said, is the principle "du caractère fondamental du mosaïsme et de l'évolution du droit israélite dans son esprit et dans sa ligne" (H. Dumeste, cited by J. Coppens [v. bibl.], p. 187). In a broader sense some would also include genuinely new developments, but entirely coherent with the traditional part, just as doctrines that are not expressed in the works of the Aquinate but are in close harmony with his thought could be regarded as authentically Thomist: the case of the Pentateuch is somewhat different, but one can also say that good legislation is always an ordered development of general principles and particular applications, as in a logical system of thought.

For the narratives, the possibilities of a benevolent interpretation for criticism seem fewer, but they are not excluded. Among Catholics the most advanced seems to be P. Heinisch: in his esteemed commentaries on the Pentateuch he denies to Moses an impressive sum of laws and also of narrative sections; and he gives the judgment that was already that of G. Hoberg and then of A. Allgeier: "The Pentateuch is the product of the religious development within the people who were the depositary of Revelation,
from Moses down to the time after the Babylonian exile, on the foundation
of the dispositions fixed in writing by Moses" (Bibliche
Zeitgesch., Freiburg im Br. 1937, p. 60; cf. pp. 49-66).
In this too the Mosaic guarantee for some passages is direct, for others it is taught by the internal characteristics, for reasons at least of coherence.

In the conception of the development of Israelite history within the framework of ancient history, the path in the direction of the traditional theses has been continuous: the progress of archaeology has been a growing confirmation of the historical data of the Bible. The thesis, expressed or latent in all Wellhausenian writings, of Israelite historical-religious evolutionism, from a primordial polydemonistic phase up to the legalistic-cultic form, is not justified by the facts. It is not true that at the outset there is always a more backward religious form: on the contrary, it is true that all religious cultures more or less clearly show at the beginning the idea of a supreme God. Moreover, the Hebrews at their historical origins, emerging from the Semitic stock, were not primitives.

In matters of religion Israel was incomparably superior to the surrounding conditions. In Hebrew there is no trace of a nominal formation to say "goddess." The study of the religions of Babylon and Egypt has confirmed the unique character of the Hebrew religion. "Independent" scholars confess that at the origins there must be the "charism," the "inspired personality," and they conclude with a reference full of reserve to Ex. 3:14 ff. and 19:5-22. No scholar, even a non-Catholic, after the works, for example, of H. Gunkel on the prophets, could any longer attribute to prophetism the invention of Hebrew monotheism. Nor is it true that civilization in general is on a constant ascending line.

The studies of archaeology and ancient history have especially shown that Israel is not isolated in civilization. Comparison with the traditions of other peoples confers the greatest confidence on the biblical ones. The discovery of the Oriental codes, some of them several centuries earlier than Moses (in recent years to the code of Hammurabi have been added the more ancient ones of the kings Lipit-Ishtar and Bilalama), has shown that the Mosaic body of laws, which Wellhausen lowered to the exile (6th century B.C.), reveals archaic elements and that it is not at all anachronistic for the era to which the Bible assigns it. The discovery of the existence of alphabetic writing (v. ALFABETO) precisely in the region of Sinai and in Canaan, and in such conditions as to make it understood that well before the end of the 2nd millennium it was widely diffused (the specimens preserved are accidental), shows the cultured Moses not only in the possibility, but in the probability of having made use of it. And perhaps the use of writing on the part of Moses is to be connected with the use already existing within the patriarchal family (which, it is worth recalling, was not a "primitive" people) from the passage into Canaan and Egypt onward, a hypothetical use, but one that the circumstances recalled render entirely plausible.

The Pentateuch would not have been attributed to Moses if at least its core were not in some way his; and on the other hand, the reference to the personality of a legislator, at least in its essentials, is imposed by the character of that code, strictly theocratic, which cannot be conceived as an anonymous systematization of existing customs. As for the ritual part, the judgments of critics are so discordant (cf. A. Bea, in Biblica, 16 [1935], p. 190) that they inspire no confidence; to consider that part too within the complex of the Töräh, as tradition does, therefore remains the best course.

All this vindicates those scholars who advocate, in biblical studies as well, as the devotees of classical and medieval philology have already done, an ever more respectful return to the patriarchal and Mosaic traditions (A. Bea, ibid., p. 199). Progress in this field will have useful counterparts in the literary field as well, in which the question of the Pentateuch properly moves.

On the method applied in the Pentateuch, as somewhat in all the most ancient historical books of the Bible, one may say that important explanations have been acquired, to be kept in mind for interpretation, however one answers the question of origin: since the Pentateuch proves to be a book of a compilatory character even on the hypothesis of the strictest Mosaic authenticity, by reason of its use of information of various provenance (Decreto Pont. Comm. Bibl., n. III). In judging the historiography of the Old Testament, one must keep in mind "the limits and the cautions" recalled by the encyclical Humani generis (AAS, 42 [1950], p. 576 ff.).

The Catholic principles on inspiration affirm a human part in the drafting of the sacred book and attribute to the hagiographer the true condition of author. This human part is recognized in all that is a means of expressing the divine thought: therefore the language with its possible idioms, the complex of ideas that form a custom or a civilization, and, what matters here, the literary technique. The procedures that in the present mentality an honest and truthful historiography must follow were not judged in the same way by the ancient Orientals, who, when they found a notice written and approved it, could take it up without citing its source.

I. Guidi (L'historiographie chez les Sémites, in Revue biblique, 15 [1906], pp. 509-19) pointed out the sources, which he identified, of Arabic narratives used at second hand with adaptations of details, sometimes done with a skill worthy of admiration. The linking between different passages involves the elements of joining, which have more a literary than a historical function. This consideration may be among those useful for illustrating point IV of the decree of 1906. Analogous is the case of the "doublets": when the Semitic writer found himself before two accounts of the same event with different details, if he had no reason to prefer one, he merged them preserving the elements proper to each or reported both. But this he did precisely out of scruple for historical truth: attachment to tradition moved him to do so. Respect for the written testimony made him preserve what it reported: the teaching lies in the whole.

These criteria also serve to justify the "later additions," which even Catholic exegesis admits in the Pentateuch and at times even in notable extensions, groups of several verses with a complete sense. Some hold that on a documentary hypothesis the insertion of such phrases and passages by inspired men is easier to understand than on the hypothesis of insertion into a book already made and recognized: unless one wishes to suppose that those passages were added to the book of Moses because there was no other containing the ancient traditions and laws. Let these suffice as examples: Deut. 17, 14-20 (law of the king: cf. I Sam. 8, especially vv. 6-9, 18 and I Sam. 10, 25, according to which the "statute of the kingdom" was written by Samuel); Ex. 16, 35 (which, if it is by Moses, was added at the end of his life); Num. 32, 41-42; Gen. 36, 31-43 (cf. v. 31); Deut. 4, 41 ff.; 19, 7; elements of Deut. 14 and 26; etc.

Moreover, to these later additions, on which Catholic criticism brings all its attention and diligence, out of the respect due to the sacred book "cum omnibus suis partibus," recognizing in them the guarantee of inspiration, are not entrusted those fundamental doctrinal data that make the Pentateuch the first great stage of written Revelation, the most distant foundation of the faith, the necessary presupposition of the Gospel. Even the principal revelations of the Pentateuch are in a certain way in the light of Christ: the presupposition from which the messianism of the Jewish expectation and of the Christian realization develops and which gives to Christ's mission the meaning of reparation and reconciliation, redemption, λύτρωσις, is in Gen. 3, 15. Likewise in exclusively Mosaic parts are found those primordial revelatory teachings of monotheism, of creation, of the fundamental moral law, of the Decalogue (v.), from which in all its breadth appears the unique importance of this book for the faith of the Christian and its contribution to the religious development of humanity.

Giovanni Rinaldi