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MOSES and the LAW by EDUARD NIELSEN Copenhagen I Two

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MOSES and the LAW by EDUARD NIELSEN Copenhagen I Two MOSES AND THE LAW by EDUARD NIELSEN Copenhagen I Two tendencies have been prevailing in the critical study of the Pentateuch concerning the impact of Moses on ancient Israel's earliest history. One tendency aimed at devaluating the Moses-tradition almost to the verge of eliminating him from the magnificent gallery of historic persons described in the Old Testament. Its most persist- ent advocates were Eduard Meyer and Gustav H61scher 1). The other tendency was to preserve as far as possible the Moses-tradition as historical source material. This more conservative approach can be discerned from the works of several Jewish, Catholic and Protestant scholars of today and yesterday, and, although most predominant in Anglo-American research, it is also well known in Continental and Scandinavian research. To previous generations of scholars the combination of a literary- critical analysis with a general idea of the Israelite people's spiritual and cultural development stimulated a certain scepticism as to Moses' role as a law-giver, although this point was of paramount importance in Jewish orthodoxy. The four sources of the Pentateuch, the Yahwist, the Elohist, and the Deuteronomic and Priestly codes all contributed to a description of the earlier history of Israel and of Moses, but only the two more recent sources, Deuteronomy (from the end of the 7th century) and the Priestly code (from the exilic-post-exilic period), incorporate to the full extent the law material in their works. In D, for example, it is stated that the Law was delivered by Moses and writ- ten down immediately before his death, before the people, by way of Moab, entered into the land of Canaan under Joshua. P, on the other 1) Ed. Meyer, Die Israeliten und ihre Nacbbarstdmme (Halle, 1906), pp. 72-89. G. H61scher, Geschichtsschreibungin Israel (Lund, 1952), p. 83: "Mose ist jeden- falls eine historische Gestalt. Sein Name legt nahe, dass er von I-Ierkunft Agypter war. Naheres ist nicht auszumachen". Except that he was the only Levite, "den wir aus der Geschichte kennen" (82). 88 hand, says that Moses, whilst on Mount Sinai, received not only the tablets of the Ten Commandments, but also a code of laws concerning the Tent of the Presence, the cult, the offerings, cleanliness and uncleanliness, the feasts etc. In the two older sources, J and E, the stress is on the narrative. The Book of the Covenant (Ex. xx 22-xxiii 33) is law material and may be ascribed to E. In J the law material, if any exists at all, should be looked for in the few cultic regulations of Ex. xxxiv which were called the "cultic" or "ritual decalogue" 2). So, if the relative chronology of the four sources could be relied upon, it was remarkable how Moses had become increasingly involved in the legislation of ancient Israel: J (9th century): hardly more than half a chapter E (8th century): 3 2 chapters (4, if including the Ten Commandments) D (7th century): 15-16 chapters (Dtn. xii-xxv or xii-xxvi) P (6th-5th cent): more than 70 chapters. A close examination of the narratives of the historical books and the texts of the Prophet might be instrumental in throwing light upon Israel's spiritual development, but it would not encourage the impression of a people that lived their lives under the impact of the Mosaic Law as we know it; the prophets made no plain references to it whatsoever. Nowhere in their accusations, their judgements, their sermons, or their instructions to the people did they refer unambig- uously to a Mosaic Law. In the only, relatively direct, allusion to Moses in a pre-exilic prophet, he is not referred to by name, and noth- ing is said of him as a law-giver: "By a prophet Yahweh brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet it was preserved" (Hosea xii 14, Engl. Bible xii 13) 3). Scholars of the past claimed that the law material did not increase till after the days of the great prophets, i.e. Amos and Hosea in the Northern Kingdom, Isaiah and Micah in the Kingdom of Judah. Law material as such did not become an intrinsic part of the Prophet- ic literature till the height of the Deuteronomistic period, as it will appear from the Books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Hence it was main- tained that the prophets preceded the Law, and the assumption that the 2) The ritual decalogue was discovered by Goethe. Zw0 wichtige,bisher unerörtete biblischeFragen, zum erstenmal gründlich beantavortet. Von einem Landgeistlichemin Schwaben(Lindau am Godensee, 1773), and rediscovered by J. Wellhausen, Die Compositiondes Hexateucbs etc. (Berlin, 1885 ; 2nd impr. 1889), p. 87, n. 2, and pp. 327-32. 3) Micah vi 4-5 is almost certainly a later insertion in the text of Micah. .
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