Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 75:297 (Jan 1918)
Article: The Unity Of The Pentateuch.
Author: W. H. Griffith Thomas

BSac 75:297 (Jan 1918) p. 150

The Unity Of The Pentateuch.1

W. H. Griffith Thomas.

Toronto, Out.

Readers of this Review will be familiar with the inroads made during recent years into the critical position on the Old Testament, especially on the Pentateuch. So serious have these been that Principal Sir George Adam Smith has been compelled to admit that questions are still open which were thought to have been settled twenty years ago. And now comes another examination of the problem by a thoroughly competent writer. First, a word or two as to his qualifications. He is the grandson of the great Hebrew scholar, Dr. Alexander McCaul; the son of parents both of whom were well versed in Jewish matters; himself born in the Holy Land, and brought into touch thereby with Oriental life from childhood; and for years past a student and teacher of the Old Testament. These facts will show his exceptional advantages, and the present work is the outcome of many years’ thorough study.

The purpose is stated to be “An Examination of the Higher Critical Theory as to the Composite Nature of the Pentateuch.” It consists of two main parts, the first examining the Evidence and the second stating Objections to critical methods and results. The book opens with a careful statement of the question at issue. Critics are agreed that the composite nature of the Pentateuch is one of the “assured results “of modern scholarship, the dates covering over five hundred years. Rut at the outset Mr. Finn reminds his readers that so complicated a theory as is put forth by criticism must be based on the clearest evidence, especially as there is no trace of the existence of a single one of these various authors and documents. Indeed, the critical view is “a theory upon a theory.” Even the most conservative writer would be ready to admit the possibility of several sources without denying the Mosaic origin, for while “it is one thing

BSac 75:297 (Jan 1918) p. 151

to show that the Pentateuch can be resolved into separate documents; it is another thing to show that these documents must belong to the periods to which they have been assigned” (p. 4). Then comes the inquiry whether the evidence bears out the critical contention; and it is rightly urged that the onus of proof rests on the critics, because not only are they attacking long-established beliefs, but they are maintaining that their view is the only one compatible with the facts (p. 4). Each critical point is thereupon subjected to a thorough examination, starting with the usage of the Divine names, which has always been the basis of the Higher Criticism, and, though Sir George Adam Smith has frankly admitted that this is too precarious a matter from which t...