Books: Prolegomena to the History of Israel

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P R O L E G O M E N A

to the

HISTORY OF ISRAEL.

WITH A REPRINT OF THE ARTICLE "ISRAEL"
FROM THE "ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA."

by

JULIUS WELLHAUSEN,
PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
MARBURG.

TRANSLATED FR0M THE GERMAN, UNDER THE AUTHOR'S SUPERVISION,
by
J. SUTHERLAND BLACK, M.A.,
and
ALLAN MENZIES, B.D.

with a preface by
PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH.

P R E F A C E.

The work which forms the greater part of the present volume first
appeared in 1878 under the title "History of Israel. By J.
Wellhausen. In two volumes. Volume I." The book produced a great
impression throughout Europe, and its main thesis, that "the Mosaic
history is not the starting-point for the history of ancient
Israel, but for the history of Judaism," was felt to be so
powerfully maintained that many of the leading Hebrew teachers of
Germany who had till then stood aloof from the so-called "Grafian
hypothesis"--the doctrine, that is, that the Levitical Law and
connected parts of the Pentateuch were not written till after the
fall of the kingdom of Judah, and that the Pentateuch in its
present compass was not publicly accepted as authoritative till
the reformation of Ezra--declared themselves convinced by
Wellhausen's arguments. Before 1878 the Grafian hypothesis was
neglected or treated as a paradox in most German universities,
although some individual scholars of great name were known to have
reached by independent inquiry similar views to those for which
Graf was the recognised sponsor, and although in Holland the
writings of Professor Kuenen, who has been aptly termed Graf's
goel, had shown in an admirable and conclusive manner that the
objections usually taken to Graf's arguments did not touch the
substance of the thesis for which he contended.
Since 1878, partly through the growing influence of Kuenen, but
mainly through the impression produced by Wellhausen's book, all
this has been changed. Almost every younger scholar of mark is on
the side of Vatke and Reuss, Lagarde and Graf, Kuenen and
Wellhausen, and the renewed interest in Old Testament study which
is making itself felt throughout all the schools of Europe must be
traced almost entirely to the stimulus derived from a new view of
the history of the Law which sets all Old Testament problems in a
new light.

Our author, who since 1878 had been largely engaged in the study
of other parts of Semitic antiquity, has not yet given to the world
his promised second volume. But the first volume was a complete
book in itself; the plan was to reserve the whole narrative of the
history of Israel for vol.ii., so that vol.i. was entirely
occupied in laying the critical foundations on which alone a real
history of the Hebrew nation could be built. Accordingly, the
second edition of the History, vol.i., appeared in 1883 (Berlin,
Reimer), under the new title of "Prolegomena to the History of
Israel." In this form it is professedly, as it really was before,
a complete and self-contained work; and this is the form of which
a translation, carefully revised by the author, is now offered to
the public.

All English readers interested in the Old Testament will certainly
be grateful to the translators and publishers for a volume which in
its German garb has already produced so profound an impression on
the scholarship of Europe; and even in this country the author's
name is too well known to make it necessary to introduce him at
length to a new public. But the title of the book has a somewhat
unfamiliar sound to English ears, and may be apt to suggest a
series of dry and learned dissertations meant only for Hebrew
scholars. It is worth while therefore to point out in a few words
that this would be quite a false impression; that the matters with
which Professor Wellhausen deals are such as no intelligent student
of the Old Testament can afford to neglect; and that the present
volume gives the English reader, for the first time, an
opportunity to form his own judgment on questions which are within
the scope of any one who reads the English Bible carefully and is
able to think clearly, and without prejudice, about its contents.
The history of Israel is part of the history of the faith by
which we live, the New Testament cannot be rightly understood
without understanding the Old, and the main reason why so many
parts of the Old Testament are practically a sealed book even to
thoughtful people is simply that they have not the historical key
to the interpretation of that wonderful literature.

The Old Testament does not furnish a history of Israel, though it
supplies the materials from which such a history can be
constructed. For example, the narrative of Kings gives but the
merest outline of the events that preceded the fall of Samaria; to
understand the inner history of thc time we must fill up this
outline with the aid of the prophets Amos and Hosea. But the more
the Old Testament has been studied, the more plain has it become
that for many parts of the history something more is needed than
merely to read each part of the narrative books in connection with
the other books that illustrate the same period. The Historical
Books and the Pentateuch are themselves very composite structures,
in which old narratives occur imbedded in later compilations, and
groups of old laws are overlaid by ordinances of comparatively
recent date. Now, to take one point only, but that the most
important, it must plainly make a vast difference to our whole
view of the providential course of Israel's history if it appear
that instead of the whole Pentateuchal law having been given to
Israel before the tribes crossed the Jordan, that law really grew
up little by little from its Mosaic germ, and did not attain its
present form till the Israelites were the captives or the subjects
of a foreign power. This is what the new school of Pentateuch
criticism undertakes to prove, and it does so in a way that should
interest every one. For in the course of the argument it appears
that the plain natural sense of the old history has constantly
been distorted by the false presuppositions with which we have
been accustomed to approach it--that having a false idea of the
legal and religious culture of the Hebrews when they first entered
Canaan, we continually miss the point of the most interesting
parts of the subsequent story, and above all fail to understand the
great work accomplished by the prophets in destroying Old Israel
and preparing the way first for Judaism and then for the Gospel.
These surely are inquiries which no conscientious student of the
Bible can afford to ignore.

The process of disentangling the twisted skein of tradition is
necessarily a very delicate and complicated one, and involves
certain operations for which special scholarship is indispensable.
Historical criticism is a comparatively modern science, and in its
application to this, as to other histories, it has made many false
and uncertain steps. But in this, as in other sciences, when the
truth has been reached it can generally be presented in a
comparatively simple form, and the main positions can be justified
even to the general reader by methods much less complicated, and
much more lucid, than those originally followed by the
investigators themselves. The modern view as to the age of the
Pentateuchal law, which is the key to the right understanding of
the History of Israel, has been reached by a mass of
investigations and discussions of which no satisfactory general
account has ever been laid before the English reader. Indeed, even
on the Continent, where the subject has been much more studied than
among us, Professor Wellhausen's book was the first complete and
sustained argument which took up the question in all its
historical bearings.

More recently Professor Kuenen of Leyden, whose discussions of
the more complicated questions of Pentateuch analysis are perhaps
the finest things that modern criticism can show, has brought out
the second edition of the first volume of his Onderzoek, and when
this appears in English, as it is soon to do, our Hebrew students
will have in their hands an admirable manual of what I may call
the anatomy of the Pentateuch, in which they can follow from
chapter to chapter the process by which the Pentateuch grew to its
present form. But for the mass of Bible-readers such detailed
analysis will always be too difficult. What every one can
understand and ought to try to master, is the broad historical
aspect of the matter. And this the present volume sets forth in a
way that must be full of interest to every one who has tasted the
intense pleasure of following institutions and ideas in their
growth, and who has faith enough to see the hand of God as clearly
in a long providential development as in a sudden miracle.

The reader will find that every part of the "Prolegomena" is
instinct with historical interest, and contributes something to a
vivid realisation of what Old Israel really was, and why it has
so great a part in the history of spiritual faith. In the first
essay of the Prolegomena a complete picture is given of the
history of the ordinances of worship in Israel, and the
sacrifices, the feasts, the priesthood, are all set in a fresh
light. The second essay, the history of what the Israelites
themselves believed and recorded about their past, will perhaps to
some readers seem less inviting, and may perhaps best be read
after perusal of the article, reprinted from the "Encyclopaedia
Britannica", which stands at the close of the volume and affords a
general view of the course of the history of Israel, as our author
constructs it on the basis of the researches in his Prolegomena.
The essay on Israel and Judaism with which the Prolegomena close,
may in like manner be profitably compared with sect. II of the
appended sketch--a section which is not taken directly from the
"Encyclopaedia", but translated from the German edition of the
article "Israel", where the subject is expanded by the author.
Here the reader will learn how close are the bonds that connect
the critical study of the Old Testament with the deepest and
unchanging problems of living faith.

W. ROBERTSON SMITH.

TRANSLATORS' NOTE.

Pages 237 [chapter IV . 3] to 425 [end] of the "Prolegomena"
and section II of "Israel" are translated by Mr. Menzies;
for the rest of the volume Mr. Black is responsible.
Both desire to express their indebtedness to Professor Robertson Smith
for many valuable suggestions made as the sheets were passing
through the press.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PROLEGOMENA.

INTRODUCTION--

1. Is the Law the starting-point for the history of ancient
Israel or for that of Judaism ? The latter possibility
is not precluded a priori by the history of the Canon. Reasons
for considering it. De Wette, George, Vatke, Reuss, Graf

2. The three strata of the Pentateuch: Deuteronomy, Priestly
Code, Jehovist

3. The question is as to the Priestly Code and its historical
position. Method of the investigation

A. HISTORY OF WORSHIP.

CHAPTER I. THE PLACE OF WORSHIP--

I.I.1. The historical and prophetical books show no trace in Hebrew
antiquity of a sanctuary of exclusive legitimacy

I.I.2. Polemic of the prophets against the sanctuaries.
Fall of Samaria. Reformation of Josiah

I.I.3. Influence of the Babylonian exile

I.II.1. The Jehovist (JE) sanctions a multiplicity of altars

I.II.2. Deuteronomy (D) demands local unity of worship

I.II.3. The Priestly Code (RQ) presupposes that unity, and transfers
it, by means of the Tabernacle, to primitive times

I.III.1. The tabernacle, as a central sanctuary and dwelling
for the ark, can nowhere be found in the historical tradition

I.III.2. Noldeke's view untenable

CHAPTER II. SACRIFICE--

II.I.1. The ritual is according to RQ the main subject of the Mosaic
legislation, according to JE it is pre-Mosaic usage;
in RQ the point is How, according to JE and D To Whom,
it is offered

II.I.2. The historical books agree with JE; the prophets down to
Ezekiel contradict RQ

II.II.1. Material innovations in RQ. Preliminary remarks on the
notion, contents, mode of offering, and propitiatory effects of
sacrifice.

II.II.2. Material and ideal refinement of the offerings in RQ

II.II.3. The sacrificial meal gives way to holocausts

II.II.4. Development of the trespass-offering.

II.III.1. The centralisation of worship at Jerusalem destroyed
the connection of sacrifice with the natural occasions of life,
so that it lost its original character

CHAPTER III. THE SACRED FEASTS--

III.I.1. In JE and D there is a rotation of three festivals. Easter
and Pentecost mark the beginning and the end of the corn-harvest,
and the autumn feast the vintage and the bringing home the corn
from the threshing-floor. With the feast of unleavened bread
(Massoth) is conjoined, especially in D, the feast of the
sacrifice of the male firstborn of cattle (Pesah).

III.I.2. The feasts based on the offering of firstlings of the field and
of the herd. Significance of the land and of agriculture for religion

III.II.1. In the historical and prophetical books, the autumn feast
only is distinctly attested, and it is the most important in JE
and D also: of the others there are only faint traces .

III.II.2. But the nature of the festivals is the same as in JE and D

III.III.1. In RQ the feasts have lost their reference to harvest
and the first fruits; and this essentially changes their
nature

III.III.2. The metamorphosis was due to the centralisation of worship,
and may he traced down through Deuteronomy and Ezekiel to RQ,

III.III.3. To the three festivals RQ adds the great day of atonement,
which arose out of the fast-days of the exile

III.IV.1. The Sabbath, which is connected with the new moon, was
originally a lunar festival
Exaggeration of the Sabbath rest in the Priestly Code

III.IV.2. Sabbatical year, and year of Jubilee

CHAP. IV. THE PRIESTS AND THE LEVITES--

IV.I.1. According to Ezek. xliv., only the Levites of Jerusalem,
the sons of Zadok, are to continue priests in the new
Jerusalem; the other Levites are to be degraded to their servants
and denuded of their priestly rights. According to RQ
the Levites never possessed the priestly right, but only
the sons of Aaron

IV.I.2. These answer to the sons of Zadok

IV.II.1. In the earliest period of the history of Israel there is no
distinction between clergy and laity. Every one may
slaughter and sacrifice; there are professional priests only at the
great sanctuaries. Priestly families at Sihiloh and Dan.

No setting apart of what is holy

IV.II.2. Royal temples of the kings; priests at them as royal officials

IV.II.3. Importance of the North-Israelite priesthood in the time of the
kings

IV.II.4. The family of Zadok at Jerusalem

IV.III.1. In the oldest part of JE there are no priests; no Aaron
by the side of Moses

IV.III.2. In D the Levites are priests. They occur in that character,
not to speak of Judges xviii. seq., only in the literature
of the exile. Their descent from Moses or Aaron. The spiritual
and the secular tribe of Levi. Difficulty of bringing them together

IV.III.3. Consolidation of the spiritual tribe in RQ; separation of
priests and Levites. Further development of the clergy after the
exile. The high priest as head of the theocracy

CHAPTER V. THE ENDOWMENT OF THE CLERGY--

V.I.1. The sacrificial dues raised in RQ

V.I.2. The firstlings were turned into contributions to the priests,
and doubled in amount

V.II.1. Levitical towns

V.II.2. The historical situation underlying the priestly pretensions
in RQ

B. HISTORY OF TRADITION.

CHAPTER VI. CHRONICLES--

VI.I.1. David becomes Saul's successor without any exertion, all
Israel being already on his side, namely, the priests and Levites

Distortion of the original story of the bringing of the ark
to Jerusalem. Omission of unedifying incidents in David's life

VI.I.2. Preparation for the building of the temple. Delight of the
narrator in numbers and names. Inconsistency with 1Kings i, ii.

Picture of David in Chronicles

VI.I.3. Solomon's sacrifice at the tabernacle at Gibeah. Building
of the temple. Retouching of the original narrative

VI.II.1. Estimate of the relation between Judah and Israel; the
Israelites do not belong to the temple, nor, consequently,
to the theocracy

VI.II.2. Levitical idealising of Judah. View taken of those acts of
rulers in the temple-worship which the books of Kings condemn or
approve. Inconsistencies with the narrative of the sources;
importation of priests and Levites.

VI.II.3. Divine pragmatism of the sacred history, and its results

VI.II.4. The books of Kings obviously present throughout

VI.III.1. The genealogical registers of I Chron.i-ix The ten tribes

VI.III.2. Judah and Levi

VI.III.3. Chronicles had no other sources for the period before the exile
than the historical books preserved to us in the Canon.
The diversity of historical view is due to the influence of the law,
especially the Priestly Code. The Midrash

CHAPTER VII. JUDGES, SAMUEL, AND KINGS--

VII.I.1. The formula on which the book of Judges is constructed
in point of chronology and of religion

VII.I.2. Its relation to the stem of the tradition. Judg. xix.-xxi.

VI.II.3. Occasional additions to the original narratives

VII.I.4. Difference of religious attitude in the latter

VII.II.1. Chronological and religious formulas in the books of Samuel

VII.II.2. The stories of the rise of the monarchy and the elevation
of Saul entirely recast

VII.II.3. Saul's relation to Samuel

VII.II.4. The narrative of David's youth
The view taken of Samuel may be regarded as a measure of the growth
of the tradition Saul and David

VII.III.1. The last religious chronological revision of the books of
Kings. Similar in kind to that of Judges and Samuel
Its standpoint Judaean and Deuteronomistic

VII.III.2. Its relation to the materials received from tradition

VII.III.3. Differences of sentiment in the sources

VII.III.4. In Chronicles the history of ancient Israel is recast
in accordance with the ideas of the Priestly Code; in the
older historical books it is judged according to the standard of
Deuteronomy

CHAPTER VIII. THE NARRATIVE OF THE HEXATEUCH--

VIII.I.1. Genesis i. and Genesis ii. iii.

VIII.I.2. Genesis iv.-xi.

VIII.I.3. The primitive world-history in JE and in Q

VIII.II.1. The history of the patriarchs in JE

VIII.II.2. The history of the patriarchs in Q

VIII.II.3. Periods, numbers, covenants, sacrifices in the patriarchal
age in Q

VIII.III.1. The Mosaic history in JE and in Q

VII.III.2. Comparison of the various narratives

VII.III.3. Conclusion .

C. ISRAEL AND JUDAISM.

CHAPTER IX. CONCLUSION OF THE CRITICISM OF THE LAW--

IX.I.1. The veto of critical analysis

IX.I.2. The historical presuppositions of Deuteronomy

IX.I.3. The Deuteronomistic revision does not extend over the Priestly
Code

IX.II.1. The final revision of the Hexateuch proceeds from the
Priestly Code, as we see from Leviticus xvii. seq.

IX.II.2. Examination of Leviticus xxvi.

IX.II.3. R cannnot be separated from RQ

IX.III<.1.> The language of the Priestly Code

CHAPTER X. THE ORAL AND THE WRITTEN TORAH--

X.I.1. No written law in ancient Israel. The Decalogue

X.I.2. The Torah of Jehovah in the mouth of priests and prophets

X.I.3. View of revelation in Jeremiah, Zechariah, and the writer
of Isa. xl.-lxvi.

X.II.1. Deuteronomy was the first law in our sense of the word.
It obtains authority during the exile. End of prophecy

X.II.2. The reforming legislation supplemented by that of the
restoration. The usages of worship codified and systematised by
Ezekiel and his successors. The Priestly Code--its introduction
by Ezra

X.II.3. The Torah the basis of the Canon. Extension of the notion
originally attached to the Torah to the other books

CHAPTER XI. THE THEOCRACY AS IDEA AND AS INSTITUTION--

XI.I.1. Freshness and naturalness of early Israelite history

XI.I.2. Rise of the state. Relation of Religion and of the Deity
to the life of state and nation.

XI.I.3. The Messianic theocracy of the older prophets is built
up on the foundations afforded by the actunl community
of their time

XI.I.4. The idea of the covenant

XI.II.1. Foundation of the theocratic constitution under the foreign
domination

XI.II.2. The law and the prophets.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

I S R A E L.

1. The beginnings of the nation

2. The settlement in Palestine.

3. The foundation of the kingdom, and the first three kings

4. From Jeroboam I. to Jeroboam II.

5. God, the world, and the life of men in Old Israel

6. The fall of Samaria

7. The deliverance of Judah

8. The prophetic reformation .

9. Jeremiah and the destruction of Jerusalem .

10. The captivity and the restoration

11. ]udaism and Christianity

12. The Hellenistic period

13. The Hasmonaeans

14. Herod and the Romans

15. The Rabbins

16. The Jewish Dispersion

INTRODUCTION.

In the following pages it is proposed to discuss the place in
history of the "law of Moses;" more precisely, the question to be
considered is whether that law is the starting-point for the
history of ancient Israel, or not rather for that of Judaism, ie.,
of the religious communion which survived the destruction of the
nation by the Assyrians and Chaldaeans.

I. It is an opinion very extensively held that the great mass of
the books of the Old Testament not only relate to the pre-exilic
period, but date from it. According to this view, they are
remnants of the literature of ancient Israel which the Jews rescued
as a heritage from the past, and on which they continued to
subsist in the decay of independent intellectual life. In
dogmatic theology Judaism is a mere empty chasm over which one
springs from the Old Testament to the New; and even where this
estimate is modified, the belief still prevails in a general way
that the Judaism which received the books of Scripture into the
canon had, as a rule, nothing to do with their production. But the
exceptions to this principle which are conceded as regards the
second and third divisions of the Hebrew canon cannot be called so
very slight. Of the Hagiograpba, by far the larger portion is
demonstrably post-exilic, and no part demonstrably older than
the exile. Daniel comes as far down as the Maccabaean wars, and
Esther is perhaps even later. Of the prophetical literature a very
appreciable fraction is later than the fall of the Hebrew kingdom;
and the associated historical books (the "earlier prophets" of the
Hebrew canon) date, in the form in which we now possess them, from
a period subsequent to the death of Jeconiah, who must have
survived the year 560 B.C. for some time. Making all allowance
for the older sources utilised, and to a large extent transcribed
word for word, in Judges, Samuel, and Kings, we find that apart
from the Pentateuch the preexilic portion of the Old Testament
amounts in bulk to little more than the half of the entire volume.
All the rest belongs to the later period, and it includes not
merely the feeble after-growths of a failing vegetation, but also
productions of the vigour and originality of Isa. xl.lxvi. and
Ps.Ixxiii.

We come then to the Law. Here, as for most parts of the Old
Testament, we have no express information as to the author and date
of composition, and to get even approximately at the truth we are
shut up to the use of such data as can be derived from an analysis
of the contents, taken in conjunction with what we may happen to
know from other sources as to the course of Israel's history. But
the habit has been to assume that the historical period to be
considered in this connection ends with the Babylonian exile as
certainly as it begins with the exodus from Egypt. At first sight
this assumption seems to be justified by the history of the
canon; it was the Law that first became canonical through the
influence of Ezra and Nehemiah; the Prophets became so
considerably later, and the Hagiographa last of all. Now it is
not unnatural, from the chronological order in which these writings
were received into the canon, to proceed to an inference as to
their approximate relative age, and so not only to place the
Prophets before the Hagiographa, but also the five books of Moses
before the Prophets. If the Prophets are for the most part older
than the exile, how much more so the Law! But however trustworthy
such a mode of comparison may be when applied to the middle as
contrasted with the latest portion of the canon, it is not at all
to be relied on when the first part is contrasted with the other
two. The very idea of canonicity was originally associated with
the Torah, and was only afterwards extended to the other books,
which slowly and by a gradual process acquired a certain measure
of the validity given to the Torah by a single public and formal
act, through which it was introduced at once as the Magna Charta of
the Jewish communion (Nehemiah viii.-x.) In their case the canonical--
that is, legal--character was not intrinsic, but was only
subsequently acquired; there must therefore have been some
interval, and there may have been a very long one, between the
date of their origin and that of their receiving public sanction.
To the Law, on the other hand, the canonical character is much more
essential, and serious difficulties beset the assumption that the
Law of Moses came into existence at a period long before the exile,
aml did not attain the force of law until many centuries
afterwards, and in totally different circumstances from those
under which it had arisen. At least the fact that a collection
claiming public recognition as an ecclesiastical book should have
attained such recognition earlier than other writings which make no
such claim is no proof of superior antiquity.