Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 075:300 (Oct 1918)
Article: “The Sources Of The Hexateuch.”
Author: Harold M. Wiener

“The Sources Of The Hexateuch.”

Harold M. Wiener

London, England.

It is impossible to do justice to this book1 without making large allowances for the extraordinary mentality of the advocates of the documentary criticism. No careful and impartial person who examines their work critically can fail to be impressed with the fact that they stand on a different plane from ordinary mortals, and that their initial assumptions exclude the methods by which in all scientific inquiries truth is sought and established. The rest of us would not dream of taking up definite attitudes on disputed points without satisfying ourselves of the soundness of what we proposed to state, but a higher critic feels himself absolved from any such duty. Indeed, he will go further, and make statements that are entirely contrary to fact on matters where there is no dispute. This must be the explanation of the paragraph on page 15:—

“Specific mention should be made of Wiener and Dahse, who hold that the analysis is impossible on account of the uncertainty of the MT (Hebrew text of the OT) as compared with the LXX (Greek translations). They insist that the LXX proves the use of the divine name to be no safe criterion for the separation of the sources (which critics would generally admit). But Wiener and Dahse have not published a systematic study of the analysis, so that their views are not accessible for the present purpose.”

How far is the last sentence true? “The Origin of the Pentateuch “was translated into German by Dahse, and con-

BSac 75:300 (Oct 1918) p. 595

sequently represents in large measure the views of us both. This is entirely ignored, as are, also, my “Essays in Pentateuchal Criticism,” “Pentateuchal Studies,” “Studies in Biblical Law,” and all my papers in the Bibliotheca Sacra and other Reviews to which Dahse refers so frequently in his writings. So, too, are all my articles in “Murray’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary” and “The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia,” except only the article “Pentateuch,” which Brightman quotes. If he has read the whole of that article he has had ample notice of the existence of a body of writings which would have made it impossible for any impartial seeker after truth to write the paragraph cited.

A volume of this kind ranges over too many points to be dealt with exhaustively in the course of a critical note, and it is the less necessary to treat them in detail because Bright-man will find that the foundations of his positions have been utterly demolished in the writings named. His light-hearted ignorance of my work is so thoroughgoing that he apparently thinks that I have published nothing about Skinner’s “Genesis “or Driver’s 1914 edition or McNeile’s “Exodus”2 or Sellin or Steuernagel! With Skinner’s reply to me and my rejoinders he is, of course, equally unacquainted. His attitude, therefore, is chiefly interesting for two reasons: On the one hand, it shows how completely writers of his type allow themselves to be dominated by a few authors and technical journals without ever attempting to consider any other side of a case. On the other, it proves that, given a sufficiently resolute policy, even they can be made to hear some faint echo of the truth; for. though he is unacquainted with the controversy in which Skinner was the protagonist and of the part played in it by the Bibliotheca Sacra, he has somehow managed to discover that it is dangerous to rely any longer on Astruc’s clue. He even quotes with approval a German suckling-scholar who ‘calls dependence on this criterion the “baby-shoes” of criticism that need to be taken o...