Founders of Old Testament criticism, biographical, descriptive, and critical studies

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Preface

The present volume contains a- series of pictures of eminent Old Testament critics from the beginning of the critical movement to the present day, with an attempt in each case to estimate the services of the subject of the picture. It is hoped that it may be not only interesting but instructive, and may tend to remove some current mistakes and misconceptions. Let me mention a few of these. Criticism, it is said by some, is a recent invention ; it is arrogant to pretend that it has reached any final or even approximate results. Criticism, say others, is of purely German origin ; it is foolish to import what has no roots in our own mental history. Criticism, says yet another school of writers, is purely rationalistic ; it has no interest in, and can be of no considerable service to, positive theological truth. Criticism, say a few other respected but isolated observers, is narrow in its methods ; it goes on grinding for ever at the same mill, and needs an almost complete reconstruction. In particular, according to these censors, it dreads archaeology, and it is time for sober English-

VI PREFACE.

men to strike out a new method, which will have the additional advantage of being theologically safe.

All these statements are, I believe, based on unfortunate misconceptions, which are best removed by throwing as much light as possible on the history of criticism. To do this adequately would of course be a work of immense labour, nor have I leisure to attempt it. But I venture to hope that the present series of studies may be a small contribution towards the future history, and that the personal elements in the studies may give them a certain value even after the history has been accomplished. For it is not unimportant to notice how the intellectual phases and material surroundings of a writer have affected his criticism. We may see thus how natural and inevitable his course was, and how pardonable were his errors ; we may also gather from his life both warnings and encouragements. I have taken special pains to make this clear in the cases of Ewald, who for a time, almost seemed to have been annexed by liberal English theology, and of De Wette. And the whole series is concluded by a survey of the present state of Old Testament criticism, without which indeed the volume would have lacked much of any practical helpfulness which it may possess.

Let me explain. The last three chapters, though more predominantly critical thg-n the preceding ones, are by no means an excrescence. The survey of criticism which they contain is not mechanically attached to the sketches of critics, but grows natur-

PREFACE. Vll

ally out of a personal study of one of the most blameless and devoted of living scholars. It is an attempt to supply a want which is constantly being brought before me. Introductory works are happily multiplying among us, but on the whole they scarcely give an adequate idea of the actual position of Old Testament problems (especially outside the Hexateuch), and yet, if we all cautiously limit ourselves by the requirements of beginners, our students will be in danger of contracting a somewhat insular and provincial spirit.

The series of studies, which I have thus endeavoured to round off, is far from being as complete as I could have wished. Historically indeed it is continuous, but from an international point of view some plausible complaints may be urged against it. There is but one Dutch critic who is sketched, viz. Kuenen; but one French-writing critic, viz. Reuss ; nor are any of the actually living and working German critics (except Schrader, who has now quitted the field of the " higher criticism ") either described or criticized. The reasons for these omissions are however not far to seek. Some limitation of the range of the volume was necessary. Prof. S. I. Curtiss had already treated of the earlier precursors of criticism (including Simon and Astruc), and an able young French scholar, M. Alexandre Westphal, had given an equally accurate and interesting sketch of Hexateuch criticism.^ With

•1 Les sources du Pentateuque. Tom. I. Le probl^me littdraire, Paris, 1888.

Viii PREFACE.

regard to German and Dutch critics, I must confess to a feeling of profound sadness at the losses of the last few years ; the unexpected deaths of Riehm, Kuenen, and Lagarde seemed to check my pen in Its progress. It is true, a similar excuse cannot be offered to French critical workers. But I hope that scholars like Bruston, Piepenring, and Westphal (who work under conditions in some respects analogous to our own) will accept the assurance of my warm interest in their researches, and my expectation of happy results from them for international Biblical criticism.^

Friendliest greetings also to all British, American, -and Australian fellow-workers! Whether we will it or no, we must all be in some sense English, and it is orte of our most characteristic features that we look to the practical results of scientific research. We cannot be mere historical or literary critics ; we feel that we must contribute, each in his degree, to the construction of an improved Christian apologetic for our own age. Happily, this is not now an exclusively English characteristic ; the same consciousness of Christian duty is visible in representative German critics, such as Hermann Schultz, author of Old Testament Theology, Let us see to it that, while our German kinsfolk are learning to be more practical in their theology, we on our side become not less apt

^ For a list of continental as well as British and American critical writers, see part 6 of Appendix to Briggs's The Bible^ the Churchy and the Reason (T, & T. Clark, 1892), pupils in the spirit and in the methods of critical inquiry. For sound Biblical criticism is neither German nor English, neither Lutheran, nor Anglican, nor Presbyterian, but international and interconfessional. It has a great history behind it, and a still greater one may, let us hope, be before it.

During my absence in Egypt the correction of the proofs has been kindly undertaken by Mr. G. Buchanan Gray, B.A., Lecturer in Hebrew and the Old Testament in Mansfield College, Oxford.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. THE PRECURSORS IN ENGLAND : WARBURTON,

LOWTH/ GEDDES t. I

Chapter I. The Precursors In England — Warburton, Lowth, Geddes

A WELL-KNOWN and honoured representative of progressive German orthodoxy (J. A. Dorner) has set a fine example of historical candour by admitting the obligations of his country to a much-disliked form of English heterodoxy. He says that English Deism, which found so many apt disciples in Germany, ** by clearing away dead matter, prepared the way for a reconstruction of theology from the very depths of the heart's beliefs, and also subjected man's nature to stricter observation." ^ This, however, as it appears to me, is a' very inadequate description of facts. It was not merely a new constructive stage of

^ History of Protestant Theology^ E. T., ii. ^T. For the influence of Deism on Germany, see Tholuck {Vermischte Schriften^ Bd. ii.) and Lechler {Gesck, des englischen Deismus).

B

2 FOUNDERS OF OLD TEStXmENT CRITICISM.

German theoretic theology, and a keener psychological investigation, for which Deism helped to prepare the way, but also a great movement, which has in our own day become in a strict sense international, concerned with the literary and historical criticism of the Scriptures. Beyond all doubt, the Biblical discussions which abound in the works of the Deists and their opponents contributed in no slight degree to the development of that semi-apologetic criticism of the Old Testament, of which J. D. Michaelis, and in some degree even Eichhorn, were leading representatives. Transitory as the Deism of Toland and Collins was, it achieved the distinction, not only of calling forth Bishop Butler's Analogy, hut of influencing or stimulating a number of eminent German scholars of various theological colours, among whom I must not omit to mention the earliest great New Testament critic, J. G. Semler (1725 — 1791). It is indeed singular that Deism should have passed away in England without having produced a great critical movement among ourselves. If Deuteronomy be, as M. Westphal rightly claims that it is, "Ariadne's thread in the labyrinth of Pentateuch criticism,'* it is strange that an English theological writer, who saw (for the first time) that this Book was a product of the seventh century,^ should not have been prompted

^ Parvish, Inquiry into the Jewish and Christian Revelations (Lond. 1739)) P- 324, referred to by Kleinert {Das Deuteronomium^ &c., 1872, p. 3). De Wette's epoch-making dissertation on the origin of Deuteronomy was not published till 1S05.

WARBU RTON — LOWTH. 3

by his good genius to follow up his advantage. But in point of fact there are but three isolated English scholars_who appear to h ave sh o wn any tale nt or inclination for a criticism of the Old Testament whic h is notlnerel^TconceTnedwith various read ings of the text — viz. Bishop Warbnrton, Bishop Lowth, and Dr. Alexander Geddes ; and of these the only one who can properly be called a founder of criticism is the third.

I have first to speak of William Warburton and Robert Lowth. The former was a born pamphleteer and controversialist, and had neither the learning nor the seriousness requisite for the founder of a critical school ; he limited himself to throwing out hints on Job and on the Song of Songs in his correspondence with Lowth, which his friend rejected with disdain, but which so far as Job is concerned he himself manfully defended in his Divine Legation of Moses, The latter (Lowth) was, for his time, a considerable scholar, but in theology he clung (like Kennicott) to the traditional orthodoxy. Hence he feh^constrained to insist on the allegorical character of the Song of Songs, and to maintain the extreme antiquity of the Book of Job. And yet even this circumspect bishop fully admits that the prophets spoke primarily to the men of their own time (see e,g. his exposition of Isa, vii. 14),^ and this admission contains the promise of'

^ Cheyne, Prophecies of Isaiah^ ii. 277. In England the influence of Lowth was chiefly felt in textual criticism (see Blayney's /tf/v;«zrt^ (i7S4),and Newcome's Esektel {i'jZ%). The the cautiously bold criticism of Eichhorn and Ewald. Both th.t Isaiah (1778) and the Lectures De sacr&poesi Hebrmorum (1753) were translated into German, and, enriched with Koppe's notes on the one and with those of Michaelis on the other, were among the revolutionary influences of that unsettled age in Germany. The third member of our trio is, from any point of view, an interesting phenomenon. Alexander Geddes was born of Roman Catholic parents in Banffshire in 1737, and studied at the Scottish College at Paris, his chief teacher of Hebrew being Ladvocat, Professor at the, Sorbonne. For some years Geddes led a simple and studious life as priest of a Roman Catholic congregation near Aberdeen, and from Aberdeen University he received the honorary distinction of a LL.D. degree. Difficulties having arisen from his liberal opinions, he came to London, where he became a notable figure in society, owing to his union of deep learning with wit and liberal opinions. Crabbe Robinson of course met him ; he speaks of Geddes's striking appearance, which reminded him of Herder.i But again his liberal views, expressed with uncompromising frankness, brought Geddes into suspicion of heterodoxy, and without the help of his munificent patron, Lord Petre, he would scarcely have maintained his position. He himself,

study of the literary aspects of the 01d= Testament' made no progress ; Lowth was a voxclantantis in deserto^ so far as England was concerned. ^ Diary^ i. 113.

GEDDES. 5

however, never swerved from his allegiance to his ancestral faith, and promoted the cause of moderate and reasonable orthodoxy by a courteous letter to Dr. Priestley, in which he argued that the divinity of Jesus Christ was in some sense held by the ante- Nicene fathers. His great life-work, moreover, was one from which all Christian Churches might have profited — viz. the preparation of a new translation of the Bible with explanatory notes, and so much critical help as appeared necessary for educated and thoughtful readers. In 1786 he published a Prospectus of this work ; in 1787 a letter to the Bishop of London (Lowth) on the same subject, and in 1788 (in folio) proposals for printing this new version by subscription. He had much support from influential clergymen (notably Lowth and Kennicott), and in 1792 the first volume appeared, with a dedication to Lord Petre.^ In the pre face^ ji owever, he committed himself to critical views of the origin of the Pentateuch, and both Roman Catholics and Protestants opened their batteries upon him. He was; in fact, before his time, and knowing what he did of the temper of the Anglican bishops and the universities,^ he should perhaps have seen the wisdom of reserving his critical views for a separate work. Vol. ii., continuing the work as far as Chronicles, appeared, under the patronage of

^ The title is as follows : The Holy Bible, or the Books accounted sacred by Jews and Christians^ faithfully translated from corrected Texts of the Originals^ with Various Readings^ Explanatory Notes, and Critical Remarks.

^ See his letter to Eichhorn (Appendix to Memoir), the Duchess of Gloucester, in 1797, but found no more, friendly^ reception. The undaunted scholar, however, brought out a new worjc in 1800, entitled Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures, corresponding with a new Translation of the Bible, but paid the penalty. He was suspended from his ecclesiastical functions— a lighter penalty, at any- rate, than a poor Bavarian priest (Isenbiehl) had paid in 1778 for offering a critical interpretation of Isa. vii. 14. He died in 1802, leaving a nearly-finished translation of the Book of Psalms,^ and found a competent biographer in John Mason Good, the highly-cultured translator of the Song of Songs.

The plan of Geddes's translation is admirable: as to its execution it would be ungenerous to make much of shortcomings which were inevitable a century ago. Even in the matter of style, one may venture to think that Geddes's ideal of a popular and comprehensible English was a better one than that of the learned Bishop Lowth, To say the least, he deserves to be had in honour as an early worker at the still unsolved problem of Bible-translation. But it is as a pioneer, and to some extent founder of criticism, that he chiefly interests us here. He Wcis recognized by Eichhorn as " almost the only person " whose opinion on his own works he could listen to with respect,^

1 This was published in 1807.

GEDDES. 7

and his Critical Remarks were partly translated into German, partly expanded by J. S. Vater in his Commentary on the Pentateuch (1802-5), and so gave rise to what is commonly called the Geddes- Vater hypothesis. The following passages will probably interest the reader, as containing Geddes's chief critical conclusions. They are taken from the preface to vol. i. of his Bible (pp. xviii — xix).

" It has been well observed by Michaelis that all external testimony is here of little avail : it is from intrinsic evidence only that we must derive our proofs. Now, from intrinsic evidence, three things to me seem indubitable. istly. The Pentateuch, in its present form, was not written by Moses. 2dly, It was written in the land of Chanaan, and most probably at Jerusalem, 3dly, It could not be written before the reign of David, nor after that of Hezekiah. The long pacific reign of Solomon (the Augustan age of Judaea) is the period to which I would refer it : yet, I confess, there are some m.arks of a posterior date, or at least of posterior interpolation.

"But although I am inclined to believe that the Pentateuch was reduced into its present form in the reign of Solomon, I am fully persuad ed that it was compiled fr om ancient docume nts, some ol which w ere coeva TyJith M oses, an d some ^ ven anterior to Moses. Whether all these were written records, or many of

„us, nosti, ut adeo nemo facile ad judicium tarn asquius quam rectius ferendum cog;itari possit," — Letter to Geddes {Memoir^ P-543)- them only oral traditions, it would be rash to determine, -'. . Moses, who had been taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians, most probably was the first Hebrew writer, or the first who applied writing to historical composition. From his journals a great part of the Pentateuch seems to have been compiled. Whether he were also the original author of the Hebrew cosmogony, and of the history prior to his own days, I would neither confidently assert, nor positively deny. He certainly may have been the original author or compiler; and may have drawn the whole or a part of his cosmogony and general history, both before and after the deluge, from the archives of Egypt : and those original materials, collected first by Moses, may have been worked up into their present form by the compiler of the Pentateuch, in the reign of Solomon. But it is also possible, and I think more probable, that the latter was the first collector; and collected from such documents as he could find, either among his own people, or among the neighbouring nations.

" Some modern writers, indeed, allowing Moses to be the author of the Pentateuch, maintain that he composed the book of Genesis from two different written documents ; which they have attempted to distinguish by respective characteristics. Although I really look upon this as the 'work of ya:«^, and will elsewhere endeavour to prove it to be so, I am not so self-sufficient as to imagine that I may not be in the wrong, or that they may not be in the right. The

GEDDES. 9

reader who wishes to see the arguments on which they ground their assertion, may ^consult Astruc or Eichhorn."

Now, ahhough this rejection of the "Document-hypothesis " of Eichhorn (the details of which Geddes proceeds to give) is not in itself a proof of sagacity, yet Westphal seems to me too warm in his invective against the " Geddes- Vater theory," or the "Fragment-hypothesis," as an ill-judged return to the crude ideas of Spinoza. The more correct view is certainly that given by Mr, Addis, whose words I have the more pleasure in quoting, because of the justice which he has done on an earlier page to Geddes, not only as a scholar but as a man.

" The * Fragment-theory ' was in some respects an advance upon Astruc and Eichhorn. It extended the investigation from Genesis and the beginning of Exodus to the whole Pentateuch, and ceased to assume that the only documents in the Pentateuch were documents used by Moses. It argued, with justice, that the Pentateuch is composed of sections, some of which had no original connection with each other, and that even the documents which use the word Elohim or Yahweh may be, and are, of various origin. It failed to see that the su^osed * fragments ' might, on closer inspection, form themselves into two or three documents," ^

Nor can it be said that Vater was wholly blind to

^ The Documents of the Hexateuch^ vol.- i, Introd. p. xxvii.

the evidence which led Astruc and Eichhorn to form the Document-theory. Vater expressly says that though the fragments of which the Pentateuch is composed had originally no connection, yet it is not impossible that some fragments of the same book ,may come from the same author, and he is willing to group his fragments in two great families — the Elohistic and the Jehovistic. Ilgen too, whom Westphal praises at the expense of Vater, maintains -(as we shall see) that the contents of the three documents of Genesis are derived from as many as seventeen different sources. Two rn ore sh ort quotations from Vater's inspirer Geddes may be added, to illustrate his criticism oTthe contents of Genesis.

"I will not pretend to say that [its history] is entirely unmixed with the leaven of the heroic ages. Let the father of Hebrew be tried by the same rules , of criticism as Greek history."

" Why might not the Hebrews have their mythology as well as other nations ? and why might not their mythologists contrive or improve a system of cosmogony as well as those of Chaldeea, or Egypt, or Greece, or Italy, or Persia, or Hindostan ?"

So then, in realistic as well as literary criticism Geddes is a convinced adherent of the principles of Eichhorn, from whom however, being a man of great intellectual independence, he does not scruple to differ upon occasion (e.g: on the meaning of Gen. iii,). That he has a claim to be reckoned among the founders of criticism, may be seen, not only

GEDDES. 1 1

from his influence on Vater, but by comparing him with our one em inent K nglish pi on eer of criti cisni, Thoma s Hob bes.^ It is painful to think that the seed which Geddes sowed fell, so far as England was concerned, on barren ground. What is the cause of this ? Geddes, as we have seen, was no Deist, and, though a Roman Catholic, was socially and intellectually on a level with the best English Protestants. Any one who would seek to answer this question would find — to apply some words of Mark Pattison — " that he had undertaken a perplexing but not altogether profitless inquiry " ^

At any rate, whether we can explain it or not, there are no more Englishmen to mention among the

^ Hobbes was the firstroodem writer who denied the Mo saic originofthe Pentateuch as a_whole o n c ritical gro unds. The view expressed'by siegiried, that te borrowed from Spinoza, is not in itself unplausible, since the theologico-political system of the Leviathan has points of affinity with that of Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-poliiicus^ but is opposed to chronology, the former work having b een p ublished inr 1651, nineteen years before Spinoza's great_work appeared.* That the English philosopher borrowed from Ibn Ezra (as seems to be suggested in Bacon's Genesis of Genesis^ Introd. p. xxiv) is of course not absolutely impossible, but considering Hobbes's singular originality, is hardly probable. That Spinoza borrowed from Hobbes is also possible, but most improbable, the indebtedness of the great Jewish thinker being rather to Jewish than to Western writers (putting aside Descartes). [The passages in Hobbes are — Leviathan^ part 3, ch, xxxiii. ; and in Spinoza, . Tract. theol.-poUt., ch. viii., " De origine Pentateuch! " ; see also ch. vii., " De interpretatione Scripturae," and comp. Siegfried, Spinoza als Kritiker und AusUger des Alten Testaments (Berl. 1867).]

* Essays and Reviews (ed. 1869, p. 398).

founders or precursors of Old Testament criticism until we come to our own time. Indeed, I have only given these sketches of Warburton, Lowth, and Geddes because they were natives of Great Britain. Were I to linger over the continental pioneers of criticism-— Ear uch Spi noza, the lonely Jewish thinker of Amsterdam ; Richard Simon, the learned Oratorian of Paris ; Jean Leclerc, the French-Swiss Hebraist adopted by the Amsterdam Remonstrants ; and especially Jean Astruc, professor of "^medicine in various French collies, — I should exceed the limits of this work, and enter into competition with an excellent American writer who has given us a monograph on the early critics of the Pentateuch, Dr. S. I. Curtiss of Chicago.^

^ See his " Sketches of Pentateuch Criticism," Bibliotheca Sacra^ Jan. and Oct. 1884, and comp. the parallel portions of WestphaPs able work referred to in my preface. On Richard Simon see also Bernus, R, Simon et son histoire critique (Lausanne, 1869), and a rdsumd in the Revue des deux mondes.

CHAPTER IL

THE OPENING OF METHODICAL CRITICISM IN GERMANY— EICHHORN AND ILGEN.

My own series of portraits of Old Testament critics begins with J. G. Eichhorn, whom, for reasons which I will give presently, I venture to call t he founder o f mo dern Old Testam ent criticism. I wish to show that he was not merely a "dry rationalist" as Mr. Addis represents, but a man of many-sided culture, and not without Church-feeling, a friend of science, and also a servant of religion, sensitive to the best influences of his time, though not in advance of his age. Eichhorn was born Oct i6, 1752, and was the son of a pastor in a small principality now absorbed in the kingdom of Wurtemberg. At Easter 1770 he went to Gottingen, where the wise liberality of our George IL, stimulated by his minister Munchhausen, had founded (in 1734) the famous Georgia Augusta university. There it was only natural that he should be profoundly affected by the genius loci. The spirit of classical literature and of historical research, equally with that of a moderate orthodox theology, could not fail to pass into his sensitive mind. These were all subjects which Miinchhausen as a statesman desired to foster, and they were cultivated with pre-eminent success in the old Gottingpn university. In theology Eichhorn had' among his teachers J. D, Michaelis, the Biblical scholar, and Walch, the not-yet-forgotten Church historian ; classical philology- he studied under Heyne, who admitted him into his Seminar, and obtained for him in 1774 his first appointment as rector of the gymnasium at Ohrdruff, in the duchy of Gotha.

How Eichhorn came to be smitten with the love of the East, it is not so easy to say. But the titles of his earliest works (from 1774 onwards) sufficiently prove that Mohammedan history, and Arabic and Syriac literature, were the favourite subjects of _the young graduate, and this accounts for the fact that in 1775 he was appointed professor of Oriental languages in the university of Jena, where in the preceding year he had already taken his doctor's degree. Hence it was not merely as a theologian (this he could not help being, for theology was then in the atmosphere) but as an Orientalist that he approached the study of the Old 'Testament. I would ask the readerTo take special notice of this fact, because Eichhorn set the tone to his successors, by whom the Hebrew Scriptures were constantly treated, not merely as the vehicle of a revelation, but as in form Oriental books, to be interpreted in accorciance with the habits of mind of Semitic peoples. (It is from Eichhorn and his more celebrated friend Herder that the custom of referring to the " Orientalism " of the Scriptures is mainly derived.) I must not pause here to defend or explain this " Orientalizing " of books which the traditional orthodoxy had been accustomed to regard as in all senses unique. The best defence and explanation is to refer, not to the first tentative and faulty efforts of Eichhorn and Herder, but to works of our own time (belonging to different schools), which may be "known and read of all men." It would be possible, no doubt, to gather from Eichhorn explanations of miraculous narratives, and of difficult passages of prophecy, which strike even critics who are no apologists as immature and arbitrary. But this only shows that he is a beginner in the arduous work of entering into the ideas and circumstances of the Biblical writers, and that he sometimes forgets that, on his own theory, there is a divine element in the Bible which no other hterature contains in anything like the same degree. And if Eichhorn was sometimes unjust to Biblical narratives and prophecies, not only in his books, but in his academical lectures, yet this was the error of a good and Christian man, who was in his own way an apologist,^ and whose reverent spirit could not but

^ Comp. Bertheau, art. "Eichhorn," in Herzog-Plitt, Realencyclopddie^ Bd. iv. ; Westphal, Les sources^ &c., i. 120. How great was the need of critical apologists may be gathered from the appendix to the Wolfenbiittel Fragments published after Lessing's death in 1787, in which; while admitting the Mosaic redaction of the Pentateuch, Reimarus inveighs passionately against the author or compiler. That Eichhorn was equal to the task' of defending Biblical religion against its foes, cannot indeed be maintained (see Bleek, Introduction (by Venables), § 8). His neutralize any evil influence from his intellectual mistake. An early biographer in fact assures us that "faith in that which is holy even in the miracles of the Bible was never shattered by Eichhorn in any youthful mind." ^

Eichhorn, as we have seen, went to Jena in 1775. It was an event of great importance, both for his theological and for his general culture. Seldom has there been a theologian of such a width of interests as Eichhorn, and we can hardly help ascribing this to the varied intellectual stimulus which Jena at that time supplied. In that very same year another young man of promise entered the little duchy of Saxe Weimar : it was Goethe, And in the autumn of the following year, a slightly older man, destined to great things, followed his friend Goethe: it was Herder, who had accepted the office of Court Preacher and General Superintendent at Weimar, That Eichhorn took a keen interest in the literary movement of the time, is certain from his later works on the history of literature. It was his hope to contribute to the winning back of the educated classes to religion, and he may well have thought that in order to do this he must drink full draughts of general culture. In this enterprise he found a natural ally in Herder, who was a theologian among the littirateurs^ as

pupil Ewald was at any rate better equipped, both critically and religiously ; for he too was proud to be an *' apologist."