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Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch Higher Criticism.qxp:Higher Criticism.Quark 5 12 2008 00:58 Page 1 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH BY William Henry Green Higher Criticism.qxp:Higher Criticism.Quark 5 12 2008 00:58 Page 3 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH by William Henry Green D.D., LL.D LATE PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL AND OLD TESTAMENT LITERATURE IN PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY Quinta Press Weston Rhyn 2003 Higher Criticism.qxp:Higher Criticism.Quark 5 12 2008 00:58 Page 4 Quinta Press Meadow View, Weston Rhyn, Oswestry, Shropshire, England, SY10 7RN The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch first published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1895. First Quinta Press edition 2003 Layout © Qyuinta Press 2003. Set in 10pt on 12 pt New Baskerville ISBN 1 897856 xx x Higher Criticism.qxp:Higher Criticism.Quark 5 12 2008 00:58 Page 5 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH THE HIGHER CRITCISM OF THE PENTATEUCH WILLIAM HENRY GREEN, D.D., LLD. Professor of Oriental and Old Testament Literature in Princeton Theological Seminary Introduction by RONALD YOUNGBLOOD INTRODUCTION ITH the publication of Julius Wellhausen’s Die Composition Wdes Hexateuchs (1876) and Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (1878), the liberal higher criticism of the Pentateuch reached its structural and philosophical zenith. Improvements (so called) and modifications would be made in future years, of course. But the documentary hypothesis with respect to Pentateuchal origins would be forever linked with the name of its most brilliant exponent, so much so that the theory itself would become popularly known as the ‘Wellhausen hypothesis’. 5 Higher Criticism.qxp:Higher Criticism.Quark 5 12 2008 00:58 Page 6 It is to the credit of Baker Book House, then, that they have chosen the centenary year of the first edition of Wellhausen’s Geschichte to reissue one of its most incisive rebuttals, The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch by William Henry Green. A widely accepted conservative response to Wellhausen from the outset, Green’s Criticism is a closely reasoned critique that still awaits a decisive rejoinder. The book is spare in argument as well as length, but its genius lies precisely in its conciseness. Green has met Wellhausen on his own ground and has answered him, point by point, with devastating effectiveness. Like Wellhausen, William Henry Green (1825–1896) was a scholar of formidable talent and prodigious industry. Educated at Lafayette College and Princeton Theological Seminary, Green taught Hebrew at Princeton from 1846 to 1849. He was the pastor of Central Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, from 1849 to 1851 and then returned to teach Oriental and Old Testament literature at Princeton for the last forty-five years of his life. He chaired the American Old Testament Company of the Anglo- American Bible Revision Committee. Because vi teaching was his first love, he declined to become president of Princeton College when the position was offered to him in 1868. Among his many writings the best-known volumes are perhaps his commentary on the Song of Solomon in the series edited by JP Lange (1870), The Argument of the Book of Job Unfolded (1874), Prophets and Prophecy (1888), The Old Testament Canon (1889), The Unity of the Book of Genesis (1895), a two-volume General Introduction to the Old Testament (published posthumously, 1898–1899) and, of course, The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch (1895), considered by many to be his magnum opus. 6 Higher Criticism.qxp:Higher Criticism.Quark 5 12 2008 00:58 Page 7 proof reading draft–1 7 While the final paragraph of hisCriticism issues a gentle (if pointed) warning to evangelical scholars, Green was not afraid of the term higher criticism as suchapter He defended it as a methodological tool while at the same time deploring its perversion (pp. xx–xxi). Nor did he fear the presence of a limited number of post-Mosaica in the Pentateuch, as long as they were not attributed to those sections that specifically claimed to originate with Moses (pp. 51–52). But he attacked the unwarranted presuppositions and erroneous conclusions of the documentary hypothesis with relentless thoroughness. Perhaps more than any other evangelical of his generation he demonstrated the fact that wholly satisfactory, conservative answers could be given to questions being raised by liberal higher critics with respect to the origin and nature of the Pentateuch. More than eighty years of discussion and debate have taken place since Green’s classic confrontations, and the reader may wish to be brought up to date before perusing the Criticism itself. Many surveys are available, some by conservatives and some by liberals.1 While both conservative and liberal treatments 1 See, for example, the following: RK Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1969), pp. 3–82, 495–541; GJ Wenham, ‘Trends in Pentateuchal Criticism Since 1950’, TSF Bulletin 70 (Autumn 1974): 1–6; Gleason L Archer, Jr., A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago, Moody, 1964), pp. 73–165; EB Smick, ‘Pentateuch’, in The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, ed. Merrill C Tenney, 5 vols. (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1975), 4:674–92; H.F. ii exude competence and confidence, ‘flux’ with respect to the current status of Pentateuchal studies and ‘caution’ concerning formerly ‘assured results’ are characteristic watchwords on both sides. And now to our own brief survey. In agreement with Green, James Orr set forth the dangers inherent in the documentary hypothesis by pointing out that it is, ‘neither in its methods nor in its results, entitled to the unqualified confidence often claimed Higher Criticism.qxp:Higher Criticism.Quark 5 12 2008 00:58 Page 8 8 The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch for it … it rests on erroneous fundamental principles, is eaten through with subjectivity, and must, if carried out to its logical issues—to which, happily, very many do not carry it—prove subversive to our Christian faith.’2 Needless to say, not all scholars have shared that viewpoint. Many, in fact, have been eager to add to the JEDP series that Wellhausen canonised a fifth document (at the very least). Otto Eissfeldt insisted that J contains a ‘lay’ (L) source, reflecting the nomadic, Rechabite ideal, showing hostility to the Canaanite way of life, and originating during the time of Elijah (ninth century B.C.). Robert H. Keiffer preferred to see in parts of Genesis an Edomite source, which he called S (for ‘south’ or ‘Seir’). Georg Fohrer took Eissfeldt to task for his ‘inaccurate’ terminology, and posited in Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers an N (‘Nomadic’) source whose ‘basic attitude … is determined by the concepts of (semi)nomadic Israelite Hahn, Old Testament in Modern Research (Philadelphia, Muhlenberg, 1954), pp. 1–43, 185– 225; John Bright, ‘Modern Study of Old Testament Literature’, in The Bible and The Ancient Near Fast: Essays in Honor of William Foxwell Albright, ed. G. Ernest Wright (Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1961), pp. 13–31 (esp. 13–25); C.R. North, ‘Pentateuchal Criticism’, in The Old Testament and Modern Study: A Generation of Discovery and Research, ed. H.H. Rowley (New York, Oxford University, 1951 ), pp. 48–83; N.E. Wagner, ‘Pentateuchal Criticism: No Clear Future’, Canadian Journal of Theology, 13 (1967): 225–32; and R.J. Coggins, ‘A Century of Pentateuchal Criticism’, Church Quarterly Review, 166 (1965): 149–61, 413–25. 2 The Problem of the Old Testament Considered with Reference to Recent Criticism (New York, Scribner, 1906), p. xv. viii groups’.3 But although adherence to the JEDP framework remains widespread among liberal Old Testament scholars, proposed additions to the basic four documents have found only limited acceptance. In fact, the number ‘four’ itself is no longer sacrosanct among protagonists of the documentary hypothesis. Paul Volz and Wilhelm Rudolph have stated that there is no valid basis for making out a separate E-source, seriously questioned the validity of maintaining the existence of E and P as storytellers, made them at best an editor (E) and a legislator (P), and affirmed only Higher Criticism.qxp:Higher Criticism.Quark 5 12 2008 00:58 Page 9 proof reading draft–1 9 J as an author.4 Distinguishing the joins and seams between the ‘documents’ has also become increasingly difficult since the pioneering work of Hermann Gunkel, who in his form-critical (form geschichtlich) approach to the Old Testament stressed the life situation (Sitz im Leben) and literary type (Gattung) of each pericope in Genesis (with obvious implications for the rest of the Pentateuch as well).5 Along with Gunkel, members of the so-called ‘Uppsala school’ have emphasised the role of oral tradition in the transmission of biblical literature. This too tends to obscure the neat distinctions between J, E, D, and P (although the oral-tradition approach is not without problems of its own, as its critics are quick to demonstrate). One of Uppsala’s foremost representatives, Ivan Engnell, has asserted that the ‘P work’ (Genesis-Numbers) and the ‘D work’ or ‘Deuteronomic history’ (Deuteronomy-2 Kings) were written down in postexilic times but based on oral traditions. Repetitions, duplications, and the like are to be explained not by different ‘documents’ but by the ‘epic law of iteration’ in oral transmission.6 3 Eissfeldt, Hexateuch-Synopse (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1922); Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (New York, Harper, 1941); Fohrer, Introduction to the Old Testament, trans. David E. Green (Nashville, Abingdon, 1968), p. 160. 4 Der Elohist als Erzähler ein Irrweg der Pentateuchkritik: An der Genesis Erläutert (Giessen, Töpelmann, 1933). 5 Die Sagen der Genesis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1901). 6 A Rigid Scrutiny: Critical Essays on the Old Testament, ed. and trans. ix While we may applaud Engnell’s conservative attitude toward the Masoretic text and his refusal to impose our modern Western ideas of composition and compilation on ancient Near Eastern literature, the oral-transmission theory with respect to the Old Testament is unproven and, in the very nature of the case, improvable.
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