therefore, by no means necessarily come down to the times of Salmanassar, when Judah's relation and disposition towards Assyria was totally altered. The supposition that the author wrote in the kingdom of Judah is most strongly favoured by the arrangement of the words of Balaam, which concern especially the relation of Edom to Israel; for not Moab or Ammon, but Edom, always remained in the closest connection with Judah in the times after Solomon. To the temple-hill Moriah, moreover, we are directed by the form that the ancient legend of the sacrifice of Isaac here assumes (Gen. xxii. 1-14). The story inserted as an episode in Gen. xxxviii. does not, indeed, originate in a very favourable disposition towards the house of David and its progenitors; but at times sentiments might be formed which diverged, to some extent, from the ordinary opinions-sentiments which could expand themselves nowhere more readily and innocently than in the domain of the primitive history by a semi-facetious treatment of an ancient legend. b.) The author certainly used for his great elaboration of the primitive history all the sources that passed in his time for authorities. These were in the main the above-described works, and perhaps a few others besides, that we can trace with less distinctness. He especially bases his history upon the Book of Origins, beginning with its noble introduction (Gen. i. 1-ii. 4), and confining himself throughout the whole history to the frame supplied by that work to chronology. He mostly only works up the older sources into one another, without adding much new matter of his own. But in the first place, the flow of his own exposition naturally expands more freely where he finds a fitting occasion to pursue the ideas which were characterised above as peculiar to him. And secondly, having thus brought together such various matter from the most manifold literary sources, he endeavours at the same time to give it a more living connection and more comprehensive arrangement by throwing in a dash of stronger light on certain passages. An accurate observation of the manner in which he conducts this introduces us to the actual workshop of his labours. It may be remarked that at the commencement of a new section he likes to exhaust in a single great picture all the great things that can be said or thought about a hero or any considerable phenomenon in history, thus See the recent remarks on this point in the Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen for 1863, p. 637 sqq. That in Num. xxiv. 19, they (city) must be Jerusalem, I have already shown elsewhere; see Jahrbücher der Biblischen Wissenschaft, xi. p. 202. 2 As for instance, what is said in Gen. iii. 20, iv. 1, about Eve, may have been taken from some work unknown to us see Jahrbücher der Wissenschaft, ii. p. 165. leading, by a brilliant introduction in a prophetic spirit, into further details. In this, according to some indications, the previous narrator had prepared the way for him; but he carries this mode of description further and with superior art. So in Abraham's life he exhibits a striking prophetic picture at the head of each of its three sections (Gen. xii. 1-3, xv., and xxii. 1-19); similarly Isaac's life is reached by a descent from an elevation (Gen. xxvi. 1, 5); the same thing is done for Jacob's life by the prophetic hue of the story of his dream (Gen. xxviii. 10-22); and in the case of Moses similarly an exceedingly brilliant introduction leads on to his prophetic appearance (Exod. iii. sq.). Now many things that this narrator puts in this prominent position had been mentioned in the earlier chronicles at a later occasion, as for example the covenant with Abraham, which is described in chap. xv. in the most brilliant colours, but which, according to the ancient arrangement, did not occur till chap. xvii., where it is fortunately retained by the last narrator. Accordingly this peculiarity in the narrator is intimately connected with another: filled as he is by the contents of the history of a given period, he generally likes to bring in all the most important circumstances as near to the beginning as possible, and sometimes at the commencement of a new section knits a regular epic or, to speak more correctly, prophetic knot; but afterwards lets the older sources of history speak for themselves, in so far as he accepts them. This peculiarity may be traced into the utmost details; it is repeated on the small as on the large scale. As he first describes the corruptness of the earth (Gen. vi. 1-8), intending to return thence by a fitting transition to his ancient historical authority, and as after the Flood he gives a short preliminary description after his own fashion (Gen. viii. 20-22) of the renewed blessedness of Noah (Gen. ix.), so he inserts some notices of Ishmael's history, which occurs in chap. xxi. and xxv. 18, at the earliest possible occasion in chap. xvi. 7-14; and by an epic artifice indicates the main point of the dispute between Esau and Jacob as early as xxv. 22 34, and gives the explanation of the name Jahve (Ex. vi. 2 sq.), according to his fashion, preliminarily in Ex. iii. 1316. Such transpositions, rendered possible by the fluctuating nature of legend, occurred occasionally even in the earlier writers. The later narrators generally transposed an event from a later to an earlier position: but details will be better discussed in their place in the history. Similarly in Joshua's life the narrator only gives a few lengthy descriptions at the outset, especially in Josh. ii., iii. sq., v. 13, vi., and viii. If we consider this our narrator's peculiar method of treating his subject, we shall find it to be probable that the transpositions in the Book of Origins, mentioned on page 87 sq., are due to him. Whilst elaborating that ancient work in the manner described into a new one, and leaving out or transposing much of it (which will be shown more fully below), he may at first have determined on leaving out various passages of the Book of Origins, but subsequently have fortunately supplied the omission at a later place. And the circumstance that these transposed passages are always transposed to a later, not to an earlier position, leads necessarily to the assumption that we have here not the effect of chance or a multitude of hands, but the habit of a single reviser. On a smaller scale we see the same thing in the old Book of Kings or the present Books of Samuel. The author has evidently entirely omitted much from the authorities that lay before him. This is self-evident upon a closer understanding of the relics of ancient works received by him; occasionally a great abridgment of the fuller narrations of earlier works is very perceptible in such fragmentary recapitulating sentences as those about the Titans of the original world in Gen. vi., 1-4; other omissions and contractions can be with certainty discovered only by a sharper insight into the subject and the origin of the extant narratives. For the very reason that the author wished to condense so many and such various sources into a single readable work, he had to leave out much in order to avoid having too many repetitions and too evident contrasts. Although this compiler unmistakably worked up and blended together the very various matter which he held worthy of insertion, yet it is equally certain that he did not deem perfect uniformity necessary in the matter he inserted. He was evidently determined mainly by the importance of a passage from the earlier books whether to insert or to omit it, or to abridge it more or less. Of slight repetitions and unprominent contradictions in the contents of the narrative he was but little afraid; still less of variety in the mere use of language. He preserves accordingly in the passages which he repeats from older books the diversity of the names of God, Elohim and Jahve, in the main quite as from the above remarks he must have received it, though, agreeably to the progress of his time, he himself calls God Jahve by preference. Only here and there, especially on occasion of transitions, as in Gen. ii. 4, xvii. 1, he As I have lately shown in Jahrbücher der Biblischen Wissenschaft, ii. p. 163, 164, by an instructive example. puts the name Jahve in the midst of the words of an old work. But it seems as if, through the constant compilation of passages in which the names for God varied, the employment of these names themselves had imperceptibly grown more familiar to the author. He does not call God Jahve so exclusively as the Fourth Narrator; and in the history of Moses he prepares the way for the explanation of the name Jahve by a sort of emulation of the Book of Origins. He therefore calls God Elohim for a time, until the decisive moment (Ex. iii. 4-15, 18); and, as if he would bring prominently forward at the outset of the whole work that the two names in their ultimate significance are intrinsically but one, and that Jahve is only more definite than Elohim, he of himself adds to the one name Jahve the other Elohim, in the first passage which he borrows from the Fourth Narrator, Gen. ii. 5, iii.,' but abolishes this cumbrous reduplication of appellations from the commencement of the new fragment Gen. iv., and thenceforward calls God always by a single name. He especially likes to call God by the lower name when speaking of mere manifestation by dreams, as if any divine agency were adequate to produce the effect; but in other connections also, as in Gen. iv. 25, &c. 2 c.) As regards the extent of the works of this narrator (not including the third and fourth narrators), he cannot be proved to have brought down the history beyond the death of Joshua ;3 on the contrary, everything goes to prove that that event formed his conclusion. For though the oldest book of history, described on p. 68 sqq., had embraced also the times of the Judges, and the Book of Origins, according to p. 76 sqq., had narrated some facts down to the first age of the monarchy, yet the last chapters of these books might easily have been severed from A special proof of this is given just before, in Gen. ii. 4, where he similarly appends Jahve to Elohim; see Jahrbücher, ii. P. 164. Gen. xxii. 1-3, xlvi. 2; Num. xxii. 9 $qq., compared with 8. At the utmost it might be objected that in Josh. vi. 26 there was a direct allusion to an event which took place under king Ahab, the fulfilment of which is given in 1 Kings xvi. 34; and therefore that the author intended here at once to write down its fulfilment also, and consequently to carry down the history to Ahab's time. But rather, it only follows from this that the Third or Fourth Narrator found a narrative existing similar to that in 1 Kings xvi. 34, and could therefore allude to it in the life of Joshua: in fact, the short notice in Josh. vi. 26 is an in dependent and nowise necessary addition. In 1 Kings xvi. 34, also, the mention of the event is equally brief and isolated; but from this only follows that these two last narrators, the historian of the primeval history and that of the monarchy, took this event out of an earlier writing, where it was undoubtedly presented in its entire freshness and completeness. The event itself, however, is too incidental and insignificant to serve in any way as a connecting link between the primeval history and that of the monarchy. The last author, according to Deut. xxxi. 16-22, only mentioned at the close that after the age of Joshua Israel fell away from Jahve; but this may have been briefly observed; and we now actually find in Josh. xxiv. 31 some words which may have suggested the remark. the rest and elaborated into later books treating only of the history after Moses and Joshua. For, as Moses and Joshua had concluded the greatest epoch of the early history, their death was certainly more and more regarded during the progress of the monarchical period as the great boundary-line of the ancient and the modern age. Agreeably to this, as will soon appear more clearly, a very different style of historical composition was developed for each of these two all-comprehending periods. 4. The Deuteronomist: last modification of the Book of However freely the above-described Fourth Narrator treats the primitive history, he nowhere betrays a legislative aim; for, on the one occasion when he delivers laws (Ex. xxxiv. 10-26), he does so only in his habitual emulation of older works, to expound the Decalogue and its origin after his own fashion. Equally far removed is the last of the just-described prophetic narrators from any peculiar legislative aim: but later ages are the rather indebted to him for having preserved the important legislative portion of the Book of Origins almost uncurtailed, and thus, by admission into his work, having perhaps saved them from total oblivion. He is, indeed, very fond of introducing prophetic words, but in a purely poetic garb and always in the midst of circumstantial narration. But this literary employment upon the primitive history, which had been kept up so long, and yet had never led to real historical investigation, at length bursts its last bounds and advances a step further. It begins to regard the consecrated ground of this history as merely matter for prophetic and legislative purposes; and herein it was evidently confirmed by the other tendencies of the age. For not only did the power of prophecy approach its slow but irrepressible fall at the end of the eighth century, but the later ages, weighed down by the aggravated burden of circumstances, felt themselves more and more impotent to carry out any serious improvement of the national life. But as literary activity was still constantly progressing, and taking a hold upon the prophetic and legislative subject-matter, which was constant in proportion as the outward national life was estranged from such subjects, this literary activity attached itself most readily to the consecrated domain of the primitive history; Moses and his age being regarded as the great originators of both tendencies, so that every passage |