173409393-thenewtestamenta00neosuoft.pdf

FROM-THE- LIBRARYOFTRINITYCOLLEGETORDNTO

From the Library ofSamuel L. Pollard

Given by his family

THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THEPENTATEUCH

THE NEW TESTAMENTAND THE PENTATEUCH

BY

C. F. NOSGEN, D.D.PROFESSOR IN ROSTOCK

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMANBY C. H. IRWIN, M.A.

LONDONTHE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY

4, BOUVERIE STREET ; Sc 65, ST. PAUL S CHURCHYARD, E.C.

1905

P7

! 1-

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f A M r\ 4

CONTENTS

PAGE

TRANSLATOR S PREFACE 7

AUTHOR S PREFACE . . . .9INTRODUCTION . 11

CHAPTER

I. THE NEW TESTAMENT ATTITUDE TOTHE LAW . 37

II. THE NEW TESTAMENT USE OF THEPENTATEUCH AS HISTORY . . 78

III. THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE MOSAICAUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH . 102

INDEX . 121

TRANSLATOR S PREFACE

following particulars about the-*- author of this work may be ofinterest to English readers.Born in 1835, Professor Nosgen is the son

of a missionary of the London Society forPromoting Christianity among the Jews,who was ordained by Bishop Blomfieldand laboured first in London and afterwards in Prussia.He studied at the University of Berlin,

and was a pupil of Tholuck and Hengsten-berg. It was the latter who speciallydetermined young Nosgen s attitude to theOld Testament.Ordained in 1859 as a pastor of the

National Church of Prussia, he began in1863 to devote himself to original NewTestament studies, in opposition to the

Christology of Beyschlag and H. Holtz-manii s books. His first published work

Translator s Preface

was Christ the Son of God and Son ofMan (Gotha, 1869). Then followed severalarticles on the sources, plan, and historicityof Luke s Gospel in Studien u. Kritiken.In 1882 appeared his Commentary on theActs.

In 1883 he was appointed Professor ofNew Testament exegesis in the Universityof Rostock. Since then he has been permanent co-editor of the TheologischesLiteraturblatt. He wrote the first partof Strack and Zoeckler s abridged Commentary on the Neiv Testament (Matt., Mark,and Luke). In 1891 and 1893 appearedthe first and second volumes of his Historyof the New Testament Revelation. Thiswas followed in 1899 by his History of theDoctrine of the Holy Spirit, and in 1901

by his Evangelical Doctrine of Justificationby Faith, besides many smaller treatisesand articles.

PREFACE

THEauthor was induced by a request

which reached him from Englandin 1896 to make the inquiry, the resultof which appears in the following pages,as previously in the Evangelische Kirchen-

zeitung (1898, No. 20 et seq.}. Without thishe would hardly have undertaken it, remoteas it was from his studies at that time.After the conclusion of the latter, there wasno reason for withholding it, and the kind

co-operation of all concerned made thisspecial edition also possible.There is an almost universal tendency

nowadays, as soon as the older methodof proving a tenet of the Church has beenshown to break down in view of moderndiscoveries, to give up at once the particular idea itself. It is clear that sufficient

account is not taken of the direction inwhich evangelical theology is being led,

10 Preface

and must be led, by abandoning in this

way one position after another.By this treatise the author would, there

fore, especially desire to stimulate thesearch for a new method of proving thevalue of Christ s testimony and that of His

apostles to the worth of the Pentateuch.

May God grant that these pages mayinduce many to revise their modern viewabout thoughtlessly adopting the fashionof the day in regard to the opinions ofJesus on Old Testament matters. For in

many aspects the question at issue is muchmore than a literary one, as some wouldrepresent it.

INTRODUCTION

f MO discuss the statements of Jesus and The view of-*- His apostles about Old Testament theology,books like the Pentateuch seems to moderntheology a matter of absolutely no importance. The idea in many circles isthat for strict historical investigation,the assumption that Jesus passed no judgment on the canon of the Old Testamentdifferent from that of those around Him,is as self-evident as the other facts thatHe spoke the same language and wore thesame dress as they did. 1 For Jesus andHis apostles even the ideas which in thejudgment of to-day are erroneous, were nottherefore errors. Ideas which the generations hand down to one another must not

1

E.g., Baldensperger, Theol. Lit.-Ztg., 1896, No. 21,p. 340; and Sellin, Beitrager, 1886, 1, p. 8, n. 2.Valeton: Chris tus und das A.T., 1896, p. 28.

11

12 The N.T. and the Pentateuch

be rashly called errors. Unless in one sown time one is able to receive enlightenment from others about particular points,his views on these points cannot be callederroneous.

Some even go so far as to assert that itwas necessary for Jesus to err in that wayin order that He might fulfil His work asSaviour. 1 In such statements there is a

grain of truth, which in the eyes of manylends an alluring glamour to the proof ofthem. That is to say, Jesus, as a teacherof the people, could only speak after theirfashion. As one who became man twentycenturies ago, He could not deal with OldTestament literature and criticism in themanner of our century, even though His

knowledge of the Scriptures far surpassedthat of the scribes of His time (Matt. xxii.

46). And if there had been then any possibility of His pursuing historical inquiryin any way, the call, which claimed Himcompletely, to become a Saviour of His

people and of the whole world, would have

absolutely prevented Him from availingHimself of it. The task laid upon Himby the Father of seeking and saving the

Meinhold: Jesus und das A.T., Freiburg, 1896,p. 7.

Introduction 13

world of sinners was as far as heavenitself above the circles likely to be at allinterested in questions of this kind andtheir bearings.The knowledge for which Jesus must

have been concerned to gain an entrancein order to further His redemptive work,related so exclusively to the innermost

questions of the heart, that He Himselfnever once found occasion in His discoursesto enter upon the subjects of the Divineplan of redemption afterwards discussed

by St. Paul (Rom. ix.-xi.). His educationaland redemptive standpoints, therefore,excluded still more any reference to such

subjects as might divert the attention ofHis contemporaries farther than was

already the case, from the one thingneedful, or perplex their hearts. The complete absorption of Jesus in the fulfilmentof His Father s will (John iv. 32) leavesno room for the supposition that duringHis active work, and even during Hisinner preparation for it, questions which

merely touched the fringe of the task Hehad undertaken at any time entered Hismind and thought, intensely as these werecontinually directed to all that concernedthe kingdom of God. The same is true


of His apostles. Whoever has, like Peter(Acts iii.) or Paul (Acts xvii.), to discuss thefundamental questions which excite andmove men s minds within his mission-field,cannot, if he understands the human heartat all, think of first inquiring, with thosewhom he wants and ought to convert,whether the foundation on which his

preaching is based is secure. For the veryappearance of personal uncertainty begetscontinuously fresh doubts.

Any one who would show himself in anydegree capable of historical criticism inthis field of Bible study must prove it bynever assuming that Jesus in His judgmenton the Old Testament, and therefore alsoon the Pentateuch, accommodated Himselfat all to His time and kept back knowledgein respect to the Scriptures of the OldTestament for Himself in private, in orderto leave it to the Holy Spirit to lead His

disciples to a right knowledge on thesepoints. And if it were so, then it wouldnot be clear why the Holy Spirit shouldhave delayed these disclosures until the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries inorder that by means of them God sTroAu/xeowf KCU TroXurpoTrwc XaAfTv, to whichthe Epistle to the Hebrews (i. 1) so ener-

Introduction 15

getically refers, should be for the firsttime really illuminating. 1

But surely the personal veracity of Jesus. Reservationirreconcilable

as Witsius 2 has maintained in opposition with ourto Clerikus, would be irreconcilable with veracity.such a measure of reservation in regardto the truth about what was considered byHis contemporaries as the law of Moses,and still more as the law of God. Besides,Jesus must, with the most perfect dissimulation, have completely avoided the slightestappearance of His knowledge of the in

feriority of the law, even though onlyin some of its parts. Even in regard tothe Sabbath, the only point at issuebetween Jesus and the Pharisees was, asHe showed them from the Scriptures (Matt.xii. 1-8), the measure of Sabbath strictness

required by the latter.It is quite useless to attempt to prove in John xvi. 12,

His discourses a trace of such reservation. 3 bearing onIt is only necessary to observe the con-

the ^u stion-

: So Driver, Introduction to the Literature of tlieOld Testament, Fourth Edition, Preface p. xvii. ; and,agreeing with him, Geyser, Eef. Kirchen Ztg., 1896,No. 40.

- Miscellanea sacra, I., p. 94.3 Comp. E. Konig, Einleitung in s A.T., 34, 4; and

Kahler: Ueber die Bereclitigung der Kritik des A.T.,p. 18.


nexion of the statement, I have yet manythings to say unto you, but ye cannot bearthem now (John xvi. 12, 13), with thereference to the redemptive character ofChrist s death and the approaching reproofof the world by the Holy Spirit in thefarewell discourse of John xvi., in orderto perceive that this statement no morerefers to the historical circumstances of theOld Testament canon than the knowingall things

1

promised to Christians in con

sequence of the expected anointing (1 Johnii. 20-27

;Jer. xxxi. 34) extends beyond the

limits of the personal saving knowledgenecessary for each individual. Moreover,Jesus so often connects Moses with thelaw, and attaches so much weight to Histestimony in it, that some passages of theSermon on the Mount, in which portionsof the Pentateuch are quoted without aclear reference to Moses, can only arbi

trarily be adduced as an indication thatJesus admitted a non-Mosaic element inthe Pentateuch. Even after Pentecost, sofar as the New Testament shows, none ofthe apostles ever suggested that theirMaster had passed any judgment on thelaw which differed essentially from thatwhich the Jewish people was accustomed

Introduction 17

to hold regarding it. They kept altogetherin the track of the predominant pronouncements of Jesus.Does it, then, follow from what has here

been adduced that the judgment of Jesusand His apostles is really of no consequence, and without striking significancefor the theology and historical inquiry ofChristians ? l Are the latter, therefore,

really justified in coming to a conclusionwithout regard to the opinions expressedby Jesus and His mentally powerful witnesses, merely on the ground of hypotheses(at least problematical, if not incapableof proof) about the development of theHebrew language and religion hypotheseswhich result from doubtful analogies inmore modern languages, and in purely

1 The words and historical inquiry of Christiansare deliberately added above. For the form and method,cultivated in our time, of historical inquiry in the abstractdoes not come at all under review, but only the application of it not in the naturalistic sense, but on the

part of those who recognise in Christ the Saviour ofthemselves and of the world. That is the point whichis constantly obscured, but on which all depends,whether one who believes on Christ can rightly apply tohistorical events and appearances in the sphere of theprocess of Divine revelation in the Old Testament rulesand axioms which are deduced from purely naturalisticpremisses.

2

18 The NT. and the Pentateuch

natural religions ? Are they justified, whenforming a judgment in this sphere, inattaching no more weight to the opinionof Christ and His apostles than wouldbe given in scientific matters to the

opinion of the first century of the Christian era ? J No one will, after due consideration, decide to give an affirmativeanswer to these questions who perceivesnot merely in the New Testament, but alsoin the Old, a special Divine preparationfor a true development of religious lifein Adam s race, and an educationalpreparation for Christ the revealer andmediator of perfect fellowship with God.For he will, therefore, recognise a specificdifference between the manner in whichthe religion of Israel arose and deepened,often opposing the instincts of the people,and the way in which the natural religionsof all the heathen nations developed. Andhe who thus judges, concerns himself, informing an opinion about Old Testament

development, not with psychological andnational problems, but with Trvtv^ariKa( spiritual things, 1 Cor. ii. 13, 15), even

though they may be (.irtjeia ( l earthly things,John iii. 12) ; and in regard to the right

1

Comp. Valeton, as above.

Introduction 19

appreciation of these the saying of Jesusin John iii. 8 still holds good. The decisionrests in the last resort, not with literaryand practical criticism in the modern sense,but with that spiritual criticism to whichfollowing Jesus and His instructions (seeLuke ix. 35) His apostles with one accordappeal (1 Cor. xii. 13 ; 1 John iv. 1 ; 1 Thess.v. 21). Jesus, on the evidence of the NewTestament, publicly exercised such criticismon all persons who surrounded Him (Johnii. 24). It is, therefore, incredible that Heshould not have impartially exercised it onthe circumstances, writings, and persons ofthe past, and even on the law which wasregarded as of authority in Israel. This wasat that time, among the Jews, surroundedwith a mass of such TrapaSoo-ete ( traditions,Mark vii. 3, 5, 8, 9, &c.) that the majority ofthe people scarcely knew it without them.Jesus could not, therefore, take up anattitude towards the law without exercisingcriticism on that which was known to themajority only as what was said to them ofold time (Matt. v. 21, and frequently), andlaying down as the revealer of God howmuch in the written and oral tradition ofHis people was of God and how much frommen, separating these elements by the


discernment bestowed upon Him in Hisspiritual perfection.

If no such spiritual criticism were foundin relation to the Old Testament in theattitude and teaching of Jesus and Hisapostles, it would be passing strange. Forthe apostles demand of every Christian inthis connexion practised spiritual senses

(Heb. v. 14). They would, therefore, beinconsistent with themselves. But they donot travel in the traditional track without

being themselves clearly convinced. Jesus,as a matter of fact, arouses in His dis

ciples doubts regarding Old Testamentideas which are in conflict with His action(Luke ix. 55). He vindicates the law andthe prophets against His enemies, but at thesame time He emphasises their harmony(Matt. xii. 7). Paul considers the natureof the law from all sides, raising thequestion r( ovv Ipovfttv ; 6 VG//OC ojua/orm (Rom.vii. 7). He further enjoins the rejection ofpernicious old wives fables (1 Tim. iv. 7),while, on the authority of Tit. i. 14 and1 Tim. i. 4, there is no doubt that Hisexhortation refers to subjects connectedwith the Old Testament. I Peter, too,guards against the idea that he had

1 Comp. Hofmann and Weiss on these passages.

Introduction 21

followed cunningly-devised fables (2 Pet.i. 16). The fact that the apostolic originof both passages is called in question bycriticism in no way prejudices the use heremade of them. For if even post-apostolicwriters down to the middle of the secondcentury, and later, 1 notwithstanding theattachment of the time to the tradition ofthe elders, still possessed a clear consciousness of the Christian duty of exercisingsuch spiritual criticism on the pre-Christianmaterial handed down to them by tradition,there would be in this very fact the clearestproof that such spiritual criticism wasexercised by the founders of Christianityon the Jewish tradition which surroundedand enfolded the Old Testament.The importance of the criticism which

Jesus and His witnesses in the New Testament directed to the Old Testament, andespecially to its law, and the result of thiswhich we find in the canon of the NewTestament, must be obvious to every one.In vindicating this we do not proceed

upon any particular Christological assumptions. That is to say, our argument wouldappear appropriate for all who followed

1 See Hancock, Altchristliche LiteraturgescJiichte ii.,pp. 1, 470, 472.

22 The NT, and the Pentateuch

another Christology. But this alone wouldnot lead us to think it inexpedient. Werather take into consideration the fact thateven the most positive Christology cannotsucceed in exactly determining, a pi~iori, towhat extent the redemptive life-work ofChrist limited and made dormant, duringHis earthly career, the exercise of Divine

qualities in accordance with His own willand His power over Himself. It is true, itwould not be difficult to formulate fromthe premisses indicated a general definition ;but it is only very uncertain steps thatlead from this to concrete and particulardelineations which satisfy on all sideshistorical accuracy. J Such a definition,

1 The Church s Christology, which I myself havealways defended (see my Christ, the Son of Man andSon of God, 1889), receives from the above no smallconfirmation. For that God was manifest in the fleshcould only be incorrectly described by St. Paul as amystery (secret), great without controversy, if it were

possible for us men to penetrate the relationshipof Godhead and manhood in Christ into its finestramifications, and to illuminate His spiritual life by ourdogmatic reflections as with Rontgen rays. The simplefaith of the Christian does not err if, on such questionsas that which is before us, it contents itself with anappeal to the omniscience of the Incarnate Son of God(as Beyer: Das erste BucJi Moses und die vier Evang.,1895, p. 25) ; but he must do so in full consciousness ofthe scope and effect of his argument.

Introduction 23

however, does not here concern us. It

seems, therefore, both necessary and appropriate to the question which lies before usto study the effects alone, and not thecauses.

But it is in a misleading way that, inanswering questions like that now before usJesus is often exclusively regarded even

though only tacitly, and with the additionof epithets of a different bearing as a

religious genius. In other words, this

happens when the impression is conveyedof accepting His declarations about the

religious inner life, while His judgmentabout the history, circumstances, andposition of Israel are most sharply dis

joined from them as not normal. 1 By

If it seems easier, on other Christological assumptions,to give a complete account of the measure of knowledge, this arises merely from the fact that as soon as thehistorical personality of Jesus is studied, the Godheadhitherto recognised in Christ is disregarded, and He isconsidered only as i/>i\6e ArOpuvos, who is regarded atthe most as a prophet, but usually only as a religiousgenius. Even then the effort is often scarcely made toobserve, and constantly to take account of, the relationof the powers of the human soul in the personality ofJesus. For then it would be seen how much remainsindefinable even by psychology, and that the Church sChristology is by no means put out of court.

1 Even in Kahler s Jesus uncl das A.T. (p. 41 and foil.)we find these sentences following one another quite


Even if Jesuswere only areligiousgenius, Hisjudgment onthe O.T.would stillhave apeculiarvalue.

this method an alluring appearance issuccessfully given to statements about thenon-significance of the utterances of Jesusin regard to the Old Testament Scriptures,as well as of the Pentateuch, in the eyes of

many who are not accustomed, or are notanxious, to look more closely into the

subject.And yet that separation itself would not

be entirely justified if Jesus had not beensomething more than a religious genius ormighty man. In this case no question ofrevelation could arise, as indeed is oftenassumed, but only the suggestion of anintensified religious self-consciousness andan intuitive penetration into the intellectual and spiritual religious life of men.

thoughtlessly : His infallibility with which He revealsthe Father (John xvii. 4, 5) does not, indeed, arise fromHis knowledge of the world ; nay, His infallible judgment about the things of the world flows from His perfectacquaintance with His God and Father. And later, onthe same page : If there are, perhaps, inaccuracies inHis statements about Nature, they do not prejudice thetruth of His testimony about God. Kahler, when hewrote this in sequence, had clearly not taken intoaccount the extent to which he thereby surrenders the

unity of the spiritual personality of Jesus, and limits, ina doubtful way, the normal attitude of Jesus even in

religious things. For he who follows the discourses ofJesus will perceive in Him a surprisingly exact andsensible empirical observation of Nature.

Introduction 25

For even then His spiritual judgment onthe character, contents, truthfulness, andorigin of the Old Testament law must havea much higher value than that of all thoseof whose faith He became the founder. Itrequires only a little candour in self-observation and a little attention to the psychological process of individual men to perceiveto what a thorough and far-reaching extentthe religious attitude and depth influencenot only the sharpness of the moral judgment and the corresponding conduct, butalso the more intense method of pronouncing judgment on historical and naturalsubjects. The more deeply, for example,we are penetrated with the knowledgethat God is a living God, the less is itpossible for us to conceive of the originof man s existence and the functionsof his spiritual life only as products orresultants of chemical-physical and therefore (although not capable of experimentaldemonstration) purely material processes.For the same reason the less is it possiblefor us to attribute the interweaving of thehistorical factors in the world s progressexclusively to casual coincidences, which tothe empirical observation can only appearaccidental. Moreover, not only does the


judgment of the deeply-moved religiousman become totally different, but his wholeway of regarding things becomes in allcases, where the subject is not one forempirical verification alone, less mechanicaland external, and therefore more living,more deep, and more true. Similarly itwill not be an unusual experience to manythat minds deeply penetrated by the Gospel,though otherwise of very simple culture,often hit the mark much more directly,where a difficult moral judgment aboutpersons or circumstances is required, thaneven those thus trained, who, on account oftheir additional knowledge of psychologicaland other possibilities, feel themselvescompelled to give the question moredetailed consideration. But this teachesus that the purer and stronger any one slife with God, the more not only his willbut his power of perception is peculiarlysharpened and becomes capable of animmediate activity which operates analo

gously to that of moral and aesthetic tact.From the application of such observations

to the person of the Lord Jesus it thereforefollows, even if He could be regarded merelyas a religious genius par excellence, that in

consequence of His singular relationship to

Introduction 27

God, 110 matter how completely His judgment in its external aspect must be a

product of His time, He must have beenexalted not only above that of His contem

poraries, but also above that of all men.But this purified vision of Jesus must have

proclaimed itself especially in His attitudeto everything which relates to the life inand with God, and therefore to all manifestations of the religious life before Him,so far as in writings and historical eventsit had appeared on His horizon. He couldnot, therefore, in connexion with the

religious life of the generation of His owntime who surrounded Him, refrain fromexamining its literature also so far as itwas accessible to Him, and therefore, aboveall, the Old Testament with its moral andreligious contents, and the purity of itsdescription of the religious life, fromexamining the homogeneity with His

spirit of the spirit which proclaimed itselfin it, i.e., its godlikeness. This was in Hiscase a direct result of His individual

spiritual life. The result of this appearsin His attitude to the leaders and the

prevailing tendency among the Jews.For this very reason the attitude whichHe adopted towards the Old Testament,


His use and recognition of it, cannot beattributed to an accommodation to thecurrent judgment of His generation ; itwas due rather to the personal innerestimate of Jesus Himself.

If we add that as a matter of fact nosimilar use of any of the apocryphal Scriptures or of the pre-Christian pseudepigraphscan be pointed out, though His use of themwould not have been unnatural when weconsider His intercourse with all sections ofthe people, it is clear that Jesus adoptedquite a different attitude to Jewish literature of the latter class from that which He

adopted to the Old Testament. And fromthis difference in use the difference in the

judgment pronounced by Jesus on the kindof spirit prevailing in them is most clearlyshown. It is wrong, therefore, to representthe opinion of Jesus on the character ofthe Law as a revelation, as the outcome ofthe Jewish and synagogue tradition, andto regard events, the recurrence of whichJesus expects for Himself, such as John i.51, as manifestations of Old Testrmentfetichism dressed up by tradition, as ifJesus had had any sympathy for what wasso alien from His spirit. But we will not

anticipate.

Introduction 29

So far we have only argued e concessis. But Jesus wasmore than a

No one who does not treat the New religiousTestament sources with absolute arbitrariness can remain in the position of wishingto see in Jesus only a religious genius.Every historical treatment which pays evenmoderate regard to the sources must startfrom the position that, according to Hisown testimony about Himself, Jesusclaimed to be the messenger of God, the

perfect revealer of true fellowship withGod and of the Divine purpose of salvation,and to be accepted as such. All earlierbearers of the Divine life to Israel, Jesus,without doubt, regards only as those whohad to prepare for His labours, but Heregards Himself as the One called by Godto finish that work (Matt. xi. 13, 27 ; John x.1 and foil., 8). His work alone it is to bringto His people the kingdom of God (Matt. iv.12 ; Luke xi. 20 ; John xviii. 36, 37).In these and similar utterances about

Himself, as well as in His claim to be theMessiah, there is by no means merely amode of thought which looks back overthe past, and an evident insight into theprogress of all earthly things, findingexpression in words suited to the time ofJesus, as some, in downright rationalistic


fashion, have recently dared to maintain

again. Nay, the whole bearing of Jesus is

unmistakably influenced by the consciousness, to which He gives the most frankexpression in the parable of John x. 1-14,that in Him has come the perfect, finalrevealer of God and mediator of salvationand life for Israel as well as for all thosewho are not of that fold. And it is subjectto the observation and recognition of thisclaim of our Lord to be simply the One whoperfectly knows, proclaims, and judges thelife which is from and in God, for thesending of whom God Himself has carefully prepared everything in His guidanceof the world and especially of Israel, thatthe attitude of Jesus to the Pentateuch, andthe use He made of it, must be estimatedon the part of theology and historicalscience. Only then do we truly appreciatethe person and voice of Jesus in accordancewith their prominent position in the historyof religion and value them at their actualworth.

Two axioms With such recognition of Jesus as thefollow fromChrist s claim perfect and final bearer of the Divineto be Divine. , . , ,.

revelation of salvation, two axioms, in

regard to the judgment on the OldTestament, are directly associated.

Introduction 31

In the fact that Jesus represents Himselfas the conclusion, divinely intended andprepared for, of the revelation of salvationmade in part to Israel, lies first of all theproof that the religious life of humanity, likethe world itself, did not develop merely outof itself, autonomously, but that it is onlyin consequence of God s continual processof revelation that the knowledge of Divinetruth made such progress in Israel asappears in the Old Testament. Only inthe event of a preparatory revelation witha conscious purpose having been made toIsrael, could Jesus have considered Himselfas sent to bring the conclusion of it to His

people. We are again compelled to emphasise this at a time when in many circlesthe ideas of development of the religiousfaculty and a revelation from God are notkept separate, and the saving truth onwhich Christianity is founded is conceivedand treated only as the product of a naturalevolution of the religious disposition of

humanity, not as an integral part of therevelation of Divine grace.

If this, however, is kept in view, then asecond point is at once established alongwith it. Jesus, as the finisher of the Divinerevelation which had been made to Israel,


must have studied and rightly estimatedthe previous stages of it as made known inthe Old Testament, in their sequence andinward relation to one another. But, therefore also, He must have intuitively penetrated and estimated the integrity andtruth of the Scriptures which attest them.He could not, consequently, allow to passas a Divine revelation anything which wasalien from the purpose and way of salvationalready revealed by God ; and that whichmight only have been invented and devisedby men in their own self-interest he couldnot recognise as divinely-given prophecy, oras a type appointed by God of the revelation now being completed in Himself.

Still less could He regard and vindicateas a Divine experiment whatever was

ethically out of harmony with Himself,or even quote and apply it as Scripture andGod s word, and leave His disciples unenlightened as to its intrinsically untruenature. His claim to be the true revealerof God would break down if such mistakesin spiritual and ethical estimate could bebrought home to Him. The merely partialillumination of messengers of revelationlike Nathan, Elijah, Jeremiah, and evenPeter and Paul (Acts xxiii. 3, 5), renders the

Introduction 33

appearance of such mistakes in their cases

explicable and intelligible. For Jesus andHis claim to be the perfect revealer of God,who alone knows the Father, as the Fatherknows Him there would be in them a self-disavowal of the most decided kind. Thecanons for estimating His appreciation of,and His utterances about, the Old Testament, and especially the Pentateuch,deduced from the vocation claimed byJesus for Himself, can scarcely be doubtedor regarded as prejudicial to Christianity. 1

Even if regard is had to what has been .,spiritualestimate of

1 These canons will not be touched by those given ^^^ mustby Kahler (as above, p. 23) against the assertion of the be a factorauthority of Christ for the view of the Pentateuch which in the case,is customary in the Church. Since they are founded on

purely historical and psychological reasons, they can onlybe disputed in the event of a denial of the Biblical ideaof revelation. If God, indeed, can only work like the Godof Pantheism in the soul of man and its manifestations ;and if, therefore, we had only to speak of a progress ofhuman knowledge limited in its very nature, then ourjudgment would be quite different, and Jesus would haveto be regarded as perhaps a superior link in the chainof humanity. Even the uncertainty of our knowledgeof the testimony of Jesus an uncertainty emphasisedby Kahler (p. 24) in a very surprising degree does notcome into consideration in the application of the canonsabove laid down. For in the following examinationof the attitude of Christ to the Pentateuch single statements will seldom be urged, and then only those of

unquestionable authenticity.3


brought forward up to this point, the statements of Jesus and His apostles about thePentateuch cannot certainly be treated inthe philosophical-critical sense as externaltestimonies to it. It is not on accountof their historical knowledge that their

judgment about it is under consideration,so that there is nothing to be said aboutthe value of their external evidence. Buttheir spiritual estimate of the Pentateuch

certainly must be considered on all sides

by theology and every historical inquirywhich does not deny Christ. From a dueappreciation of this arises the obligationupon Christian science to test the historical -

critical view prevailing at each periodabout the place, history, and value of thePentateuch by the way in which Christ andHis apostles esteem it, and to measure theirreal truth by it. It must be settled andconsidered to what extent the historicaland literary criticism applied to the Pentateuch in any age, and therefore also in ours,can be reconciled with the opinion of Christand His apostles on the Pentateuch as codeof laws, historical book, and personal testimony of Moses, arising as that opinion didfrom their being filled with the Spirit andguided as it was by that influence.

Introduction 35

The distinction between a vindication ofthe statements of Christ and His apostlesas external evidences, and a regard for theirspiritual valuation of the Pentateuch, will,

perhaps, not be accepted by some. Butthis, as we showed, on account of the

spiritual significance of Christ and Hisapostles, cannot be ignored on Christian

ground, for we have no right, because ofan incorrectness in the form of the appealhitherto made to the testimony of the NewTestament on the part of many, to demandthat it shall be entirely set aside. This can

only be done if we are determined to breakwith all idea of a Divine revelation, andthe absolute superiority of Jesus and His

apostles in regard to their estimate of

spiritual things, in order, without further

trimming with the traditional dogmaticconceptions and tendencies, to regard Jesusof Nazareth as merely a child of His time,whose superiority to His generationscarcely clear to Himself consists in His

thorough conception of religion as aninward thing alone (cf. Wellhausen, Isr. u.jud. Gesch., 3rd ed., 1897). But if weare not willing to give up to such anti-Christian radicalism the mastery in Christian theology, we can only regret that the


attempt to give weight to Christ s opinionin our judgment of the Pentateuchalcriticism current at the time has not been

long since made quite explicitly on the partof Old Testament theologians.

stages in the j^ w{n readily be recognised as appro-followingdiscussion. priate if, in the examination here under

taken, we start with the attitude of Jesusto the law as the foundation of the previousreligious life in Israel, and then take intoconsideration the treatment and use byJesus of the beginnings of the history of

redemption as communicated in the Pentateuch, in order finally to be able to speakof the appeal of Jesus to the testimonyof Moses to Him and His preaching. Thethree points indicated are undoubtedlyrecognised elements in the preaching andteaching of Jesus and His apostles, and thesequence in which I have placed them hasthis recommendation, that it proceeds fromthe general to the particular. Moreover,it is in harmony with the relation of theapostles to Jesus if the statements of the

former are always taken into considerationwhere this seems most serviceable for thecompletion of what has been proclaimed byChrist Himself.

CHAPTER I

THE NEW TESTAMENT ATTITUDE TO THELAW

DURINGthe activity of Christ and Attitude ofJesus to the

His apostles the institutions of the law.Israelitish legal religion, the foundationof which was the Pentateuch, were still inthe fullest vigour. The New Testamentwitnesses, therefore, could neither teachnor work without taking up a positionin regard to the Pentateuch, and revealingtheir estimate and appreciation of the OldTestament law. Now there is no doubtthat they fully recognised it as the vojuoe(thorah) given by God as the authoritativebasis of the old covenant. Until the re

proaches made later against Stephen(Acts vi. 11) and Paul (Acts xxi. 21), whichwe may at once leave out of consideration,this was admitted even by the opponentsof the Gospel. A complaint against Jesus


in this respect must have appeared to theJews absolutely meaningless. Otherwise atthe time of His condemnation they wouldnot have sought false witnesses againstHim, and preferred before Pilate the political charge, and would not have condemnedHim merely on account of the blasphemywhich was supposed to be implied in Hisdescription of Himself as Son of God. Justas little did the scribes and Pharisees findin Christ s treatment of the precepts of thelaw in His Sermon on the Mount (Matt.v. 20 et seq.) an offence against Moses andhis law. It must, therefore, have been clearto all that the polemic of Jesus did not

apply to the law itself, but only to the

application of it by Jewish teachers. 1For this inquiry, this external vindication

of the law on the part of Jesus and Hisapostles is really of much less importance

1 It would not, indeed, have been possible to be clearabout this, if the tendency of Jesus to relax the law hadnot been to its utmost point free from Jewish analogies(so H. Holtzmann, Neutestamentl. theol., ii., p. 146), andif the preaching of Jesus appeared merely as the com

pletion of Jewish development from the time of the

prophets, so that the account of it simply belongedto the full presentation of what went before, as a con

necting link with Christianity (Stade : Zeitschrift /. Th.u. K., 1893, p. 31 et seq.}

The N.T. Attitude to the Law 39

than its inward appreciation, of which theformer is at the most a symptom.Let us examine more closely. Jesus, He regards

then, has above all clearly expressed His thg p^p^tfull acknowledgment of the law as an- as on ,the ,f same level.pointed by God (Matt. v. 17 ; vii. 12 ; Lukexvi. 17). In view of the present dispositionto represent the law as inferior in valueto the prophetic religion, it is here speciallyimportant to observe that He treats lawand prophets as entirely homogeneous andquite on a level with each other as instructions and revelations of God. The lawis described by Him as a proclamation ofthe Divine will absolutely in harmony withthe prophetic pronouncement, when hesays : Therefore all things whatsoever yewould that men should do to you, doye even so to them ; for this is the law andthe prophets (Matt. vii. 12). But, further,Jesus emphasises the complete harmonyof His own preaching and activity with thelaw as well as with the prophets. For Hedescribes it as His mission to introduce

everywhere the obedience and fulfilmentof both, which was till then still lackingin Israel (Matt. v. 17). Confessedly, however, the attitude of the Jews to both wassenseless and contradictory. They neglected


the preaching of the prophets, and thoughtthat they had honoured them sufficientlyif they decorated their graves (Matt,xxiii. 29). On the other hand, they wereproud of the possession of the law, and

clung in a pseudo-theocratic self-consciousness to the letter that killeth (John v. 16).This compelled Jesus at the very beginningof His ministry to take His stand in theSermon on the Mount against such falsetreatment and interpretation of the law.An attack of this kind on the treatmentof the law in use among His people forcenturies might easily give rise to falseideas of His attitude to the law.

Argument In order to combat this in advance, Jesusv. 17-19. had to state in the Sermon on the Mount,

before that attack, that it was His Messianicwork to bring to fulfilment and completionthat which was required, prepared for, andmade prominent bythe law and the prophets,and to assert His acknowledgment of thelaw in its entire scope and in its internalstructure, even to the most minute detail,as the eternally authoritative word of God.We only need to consider this culminatingpoint of the statement (Matt. v. 17-19) inorder to perceive that Jesus meant therebyto express not the permanent obligation of


each individual sentence of the Pentateuchal

law, but the authority of the latter as an

inwardly coherent declaration of the willof God on those things which truly pleaseHim in the whole sphere of human conduct.Not merely the smallest letter, but eventhe sign (qeri), which serves to distinguishsimilar letters, does He declare to beimperishable and of eternal significance.But no one who considers on the one

hand the treatment of the law by Jesuselsewhere and His statement in John iv.22-24, and on the other hand His wholemethod of setting forth the subjects withwhich He wished to deal, can doubt thatour Lord only expressed Himself as He didin Matt. v. 18, 19 in order to represent thelaw as a whole, including its most minuteenactments, as one inviolable unity, whichmust be grasped as such in order to a rightunderstanding of the will of God, and is ofthe highest importance for the doing of it.But at the same time, of course, He wishesto indicate by that expression that it is notpermissible by a distinction between smalland great commandments, as was popularamong the Jews, arbitrarily to set aside apart of it as no consequence for our relation

to God. The inward harmony of the will


of God revealed in the law, which Jesusexpressed in this way, is attested by one ofHis apostles, James, when, in his Epistle(ii. 10), he reminds his hearers that whosoever shall offend in one point is guiltyof all.

If we were to take the 18th verse withabsolute literalness, then it would becomea hyperbole which would be proved absurdby every mistake in the manuscripts of thelaw, such as must have crept in at all times.The expression in Matt. v. 17 et seq., takenin the sense indicated, does not point in anyway to a contradiction in the consciousnessof Jesus, as has been recently maintained

again on many sides. 1 What Jesus means

1 We should have thought that it must be apparenteven to a moderate intelligence that the authority ofJesus even in regard to the inner religious life of menwould be absolutely incompatible with such an idea.That is to say, if as a born Israelite He was not even sofar clear about His relation to the law that, on the onehand, He could express its authority absolutely, and onthe other hand could actually attempt to invalidate itsteaching, then His religious ideas were so confused thatHe can only incorrectly be regarded as one who was to bethe founder of the Christian religion, the religion which,with the fullest clearness and definiteness, alone lays stresson the inward character of the religious life and conduct.Then it only remains to regard the phenomena ofreligious development as taking place since the beginningof our era, according to the Darwinian scheme of the


thereby isr

only to make the fulfilment ofthe law consist in such an observance of

Dutch writer Loman and his followers, and to assumethat it was only with difficulty and tardiness thatChristianity broke loose from the trappings of theJewish legal religion and the external religiousness ofthe other peoples of antiquity. This would be moreacceptable than any view which assumes on the part ofJesus Himself a want of clearness about His purpose,such as is really evident when it is said that Jesus hadnot foreseen the development of His Church as carriedout by Paul (Bovon, Theol. du nouv. Test., p. 396 et seq. ;comp. also B. Weiss, Bibl. Theol. , sec. 24 d.). Evenmore acceptable, when He is credited with cherishing aninward contradiction in His religious ideas which everywhere paralyses His reforming activity (thus Keim,Gesch. Jes., ii., pp. 263-267 ; and recently Baldensperger,Jesu Predigt in ilirem Gegensatz zum Judenthum, 1892,p. 136; H. Holtzmann, Bibl, Theol. , i., pp. 138, 151, andesp. 157 et seq,) would be the assumption that inMatt. v. 18, 19 we had, perhaps, an ancient Jewish-Christian interpolation (Klopper, Zeitschr.f. wiss. Theol.,1896, p. 1 et seq.). This conjecture, however, cannot byany means be regarded as well founded or even probable.For the twentieth verse begins with a yap, which indicatesan antecedent thought, such as is found only in verses18, 19, but not in verse 17. With the latter, verse 20 hasso little connexion that H. Holtzmann describes verse 17as merely the superscription of the section verses 21-40.That is to say, while verse 20 can very well be understood as the thesis which is expanded in verse 21 et seq.,it can by no means serve as a reason for the announcement of the mission of Jesus to fulfil the law and theprophets, verse 17. But verse 20 does certainly serve toelucidate the assertion that every abrogation of the law,even if it were only the actual setting aside of the most

trifling legal enactment, as was the natural result with


it as makes actual and real the will ofGod expressed in it, according to its mostinward intention, embracing the wholesphere of human life and existence. Jesusdemands of the disciples of the kingdomthat they be perfect, as their Father inheaven is perfect (Matt. v. 48), and thatthey do what is good and perfect and acceptable (comp. Rom. xii. 2). For it isonly in this way that God s fundamentalrequirement of His people is fulfilled. Yeshall be holy, for I ain holy (Lev. xix. 2 ;Ex. xix. 5, 6 ; Comp. Dillmann, Attestl. TheoL,p. 422). This requirement is brought tothe attention and continual experience ofthe Israelites in the law by the fact that thisenters into all the details of their whole lifeand national existence, and brings to plasticexpression their destiny, to be amid theheathen nations a people holy to God. Itis just because the aim of the law is directedto that purpose that Paul says of it as awhole as well as of its particular command-

the scribes of that time just because of their exclusiveregard to the external and their mistaken demand forthe first and great commandment (comp. Matt. v. 17 ;xxii. 36) is in an insurmountable opposition to God swill. No link in the chain of thought of Matt. v. 17-20can therefore be omitted if the passage is to remainintelligible.


ments (6 v6fj,og as well as ?j tvroX?/), that it is

holy and just and good (Rom. vii. 12-14),whilst he elsewhere describes its empiricaleffect upon sinful men as of quite a differentkind (Rom. vii. 13 ; 2 Cor. iii. 6).

This estimation of the law as spiritual 2?ethe Prophets(TrvEUfiemicocs Rom. vii. 14) puts in the clearest really

light the already-mentioned equalisation ofthe law and the prophets in that utteranceof the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere.They are to Christ and His apostles in theirinmost nature really homogeneous ; theyare both entirely and equally homogeneouswith the nature of God, which Jesus describes as irvtv/na (John iv. 24). Thereforethe mission of Jesus can only bear the samerelation to both ; He must bring forth tofulfilment.

In a very similar way Jesus describes inother passages also the relation of His workto both. In His speech about the Baptist(Matt. xi. 13) He observes that all theprophets and the law were witnesses ofGod

(irpo{]Ttvcrav) until John, i.e., until thetime when the coming of the kingdom ofGod was prepared for by this new Elijah(Mai. iv. 5). Jesus thus attributes to thelaw the same preparatory work in relationto His mission as He attributes to the


prophets. In this utterance, however, it ismentioned in the second place because it is

only in the light of the prophets as its true

interpreters that it could perform its prophetic preparatory mission, and not withthe merely literal and unspiritual conception of the scribes of that time. For thistreated it as a code of purely external

judicial and ceremonial enactment.Even after His resurrection Jesus ad

hered in His teaching to the equalisationof the law with the prophets, as is provedby Luke xxiv. 44.

The teaching And this very conception of the law onApostles on the part of Jesus as equal to the prophets

quaiftyof the m ^ne fumess of its reference to Him haslaw. been adopted by the apostles. In proof of

this there is the familiar statement of St.

Paul;

Christ our passover is sacrificed for

us (1 Cor. v. 7) ; and, even more strikingstill, the evayyeXiov irvtvfjiaTtKov with the remark of its author in John xix. 36. For inthis passage Ex. xii. 46 and Num. ix. 12

(not Ps. xxxiv. 20) are quoted, because inthem the sparing of the true Paschal Lambwas fore-ordained, just as Zech. ii. 10 predicted the conduct of the Jews. Hence thePassover Lamb was for St. John, even in itsmost minute particulars, a prophetic type


of Christ, whose death was appointed as adeath for the people. 1

1

According to Meinhold, the apostles, indeed, werethus far behind Christ Himself. For he writes (Jesusund das A.T., p. 69 et seq.) : And Christ, in whom Godwas well pleased, sets Himself far above these legal enactments (in reference to sacrifice). He went muchfarther than the prophets. The whole law of ritual,continues this writer, which claims to be the serviceof God, has for Him no religious meaning at all. AndMeinhold finds the proof of this assertion in the singlefact that it is nowhere recorded of Jesus in the Gospelsthat He had a sacrifice offered for Himself (sic I) andHis disciples. Even if we here put quite out of viewthe question whether the fact that Jesus refrained fromsacrifice, so far as it was not a thank-offering to the

Father, may not be quite easily explained by the natureof His sinless person, yet Meinhold s inference from agiven fact becomes only an argumentum e silentio,which, in view of the notorious disregard of the domestic and private life of Jesus and His disciples in ourGospels, proves really less than nothing. But this is notquite the position. For, according to Matt. xvii. 24,Jesus pays the temple-tax, which stood on a par withthe sacrifices, lest He might give offence, although Heknew that, as the Son of God, He was not under obligation to pay it. He would, therefore, act similarly inregard to sacrifices, so far as they had no individual ordirect reference to His person. If Christ had set Himself in opposition to the law in the eyes of a peoplewho observed it so strictly, by ostentatious non-observance of the sacrificial ritual, it would be quiteinexplicable that no reproach on that score was everuttered, while there was so frequently rnurniuringsagainst His actions. Moreover, Christ would not havebeen able to address to the multitude the challenge inJohn viii. 46 if He might expect to hear from their

48 The N.T. and the PentateuchTheeducationalandpreparatorycharacter ofthe law.

In the last-mentioned utterance of Jesus

(Matt. xi. 13), however, the time of theprophetic meaning of the law is limited tothe period which ended with the appearanceof the Baptist. Thus a historical form isassigned to the law i.e., one which is calculated for a particular people and theirreligious training. That which is mostindividual in the law forms, consequently,its temporary and transient side, in whichthe good and acceptable and perfect willof God found at that time an impressiveand effective expression for the Jewishpeople, exclusively for that period, in the

preparation of Israel for the coming of thekingdom of God, which was connected withthe person of Christ. Jesus has elsewherealso alluded to this educational, and there-

midst the reproach, so serious in the eyes of the Jews,of neglecting all sacrifice. This would have drawn uponHim in a still higher degree than the neglect of thefasts, which were merely matters of custom, the chargeof being a despiser of the law. Hence the surely significant silence of the Gospels about any reproach ofthis kind tells against Meinhold s a priori assumption.This is also disproved by the part which Jesus took inthe observance of the festival rites, as in those of theFeast of Tabernacles (John vii. 37), which were connected with the sacrificial worship, and the exhortationof Jesus to His contemporaries in Matt. v. 38, which

prescribed, not merely by way of concession, theTO dwpov tiri TO Qvaia. equally valuable in all its parts, and

produced by the same Divine Spirit, is stillmore clear from the instructive use, peculiarto them all, of the historical statements ofall parts of the Pentateuch.

The critical analysis compels the dissectors of the latter to allow historical

statements to be woven into the different

legislations in a way which is little inharmony with the aim of these. 1 The

recognition of these in the New Testamentas accounts of the Divine leadings and thefacts of redemption carries with it the

recognition that there is in all sections

of the Pentateuch a narrative of equal1

Cf. Kautzsch, as above, 1, 78 et seq., 159 et seq.78

The Pentateuch as History 79

authority. It is true that, in order tomake the critical rejection of the historicalcharacter of many of these narrativesappear more acceptable to the simplereader of the Bible, the assertion has

recently been put forward that there arenot many Old Testament facts alluded toin the New Testament. 1 In reference tothe Pentateuch, the audacity of this assertion is, to say the least of it, surprising.For the New Testament takes up wholeperiods of history touched on in the Penta

teuch, from the Creation (Gen. i. 1, 27, P ;Matt. xix. 4 ; Heb. xi. 3 ; Gen. ii. 2, P, andHeb. iv. 4),2 to the death of Moses (Deut. xxxiv.5

;2 Pet. ii. 16

;Jude ver. 9), and discusses

them. Even such as have a direct andconspicuous bearing upon the redemptivehistory of Israel, such as the rejection ofIshmael (Gen. xxv. 10, 12, E ; Gal. iv. 30),Rebecca s twin-birth (Gen. xxv. 22, 23, J ;Rom. ix. 9), the crossing of the Red Sea(Ex. xiii. 21, xiv. 12, J E and E P ; 1 Cor. x.2), the lifting up of the serpent in the

1 M. Kahler, Jesus und das A.T., p. 56.2 The letters J E, D P, &c., affixed from this on to the

passages of the Pentateuch, refer to the various allegedoriginal documents to which they belong, and areintended to make it clear that not one of these has evenby accident been unnoticed.


This usederivesimportancefrom theirspiritualperception.

wilderness (Num. xxi. 9, J E ; John iii. 14),and even Balaam s talking ass (Num. xxii.25, J E ; 2 Pet. ii. 15, 16), are applied in theNew Testament as speaking facts.

Even though, therefore, all historicalcriticism in the modern sense of the wordwas as far from the minds of Jesus andHis disciples as literary criticism was, andtheir acceptance of any particular historical

part of the Pentateuch on such groundswas not to be thought of, yet we are not

justified in regarding the fact of theconstant use of the historical narrativesof the Pentateuch as of no more importance than the uncritical acceptance onthe part of their contemporaries of the

history handed down as sacred. The clearperception, already emphasised, in theNew Testament authors, of the fact thatold wives tales and cunningly-devisedfables are not suitable to serve as the

foundation of the New Testament message(1 Tim. iv. 7 ; 2 Pet. i 16), proves them tobe disposed and determined to find out and

reject, from that which was merely handeddown by popular tradition, what wasinvented, untrue in fact, prompted by a

purpose, and in conflict with the knowledge


of the true God. A religious and moralsense of truth, and a spiritual perceptionof what was intrinsically untrue andunworthy of God, were, therefore, livingand active in them.

We must now, however, keep clearly in A late originview that the parts of the Pentateuch Pentateuchaccepted by criticism are alleged to date JjMJwistentfrom the eleventh, ninth, and especially the credibility of

. .

its historicalsixth century B.C., and their compilation is statements.said to have been completed by a series ofhands. Thus narratives of late originabout the times of Moses and the patriarchscould not have a much higher value thanthe fables which grew up around them inthe synagogue tradition of the last centuriesbefore Christ. If any of Meinhold s assertions is correct, it is that in which x heopposes the mediating theologians andtheir attempts to hold the truth and credi-

1 Jesus und das A.T., p. 121 et seq. Few wouldbe prepared to help themselves as a late Lutherantheologian of some consequence did. He was disposedto reconcile the historical inaccuracy of the narratives ofGenesis, which he was willing to give up, with theinfallibility of God s word, which he maintained, by thesupposition that the history of the patriarchs is relatedin the Pentateuch as God wanted it to be related, andnot as it actually happened.

6


bility of the matter of the Pentateuch

notwithstanding the late origin of itssources, and says that if, on the groundsof literary criticism, Deuteronomy, andabove all the Priestly Code, be dated at620 and 590 B.C. that is, a thousand yearsand more after the events narrated thereinno credibility can be attributed to their

historical statements. The popular movements which swept like a deluge over theintervening period make this absolutelyimprobable. There is no conceivable

explanation of how it happened that,amid the changing fortunes of the Jewishpeople, a tradition transmitted in it formore than a thousand years escaped thefate of being essentially and seriouslydimmed and disfigured, which befel thetradition of other nations, even Eastern

ones, in much shorter time. The piouswish to rescue as much as possible of thesacred history will never give the rightto make such an unfounded assumptionappear credible in the case of Israel. Noscientific axiom can be founded on thewishes of the heart.The injunction impressed upon the

conscience of all Christians by Christand His apostles, Trvtv/nariKa


(1 Cor. ii. 13 ; 1 John iv. 1 ; 1Thess. v. 21), is, however, specially bindingon themselves in relation to the historywhich they find in the Old Testament.And since they themselves proclaimedWhere the Spirit of the Lord is, there is

liberty"

(2 Cor. iii. 17), there is neitherreason nor right to attribute to them anyhesitation in regard to the Old Testament

past, to treat it in their own manner of

trying the spirits and to convince themselves of its inherent truth. Such a testingmust of necessity have been made by them,and St. Paul s assurance, But I trust yeshall know that we are not reprobates(2 Cor. xiii. 6), will be verified in this aspectalso.

But the way in which the New Testament oidTestamentuses the Pentateuchal narratives, treating are^atedthem as records of facts, is of still greater j? the NewTestamentweight. For not only do the New Testa- as recordsment witnesses regard the events as awhole as appropriate and important forsaving knowledge and for the strengtheningof faith, but they ta,ke the same view oftheir particular incidents and the statementof them.

It is true that the very opposite has


recently been maintained, 1 though this, itis true, was done with the well-intentioned

purpose of making it appear more acceptable to believers, by such an estimate ofthe New Testament view of the OldTestament narratives, to consider that theevents related in the Old Testament

1 So Kahler, as above, p. 52 et seq. In the abstract,as we may here remark parenthetically, we need not beafraid of the application of the idea of legend (Ger.Sage) to Old Testament narratives. For it is permissiblein case legend is understood as the description of a

particular kind of popular narrative. That God madeuse of legend in this sense of the word, when He desiredto make known to the nations at the correspondingstage of culture, orally or in writing His historical dealingwith their fathers, is in harmony with His mode ofprocedure at all times. He always talks with men towhom He reveals Himself, in the way suited to theirunderstanding. The use of the legendary form, therefore, is no more strange than the use of the epistolaryform in the New Testament. But if the idea of legendis understood in the sense of an unhistorical, fictitiousembellishment of an event, then its application to theOld Testament is suspicious. It is, therefore, of little

advantage merely to hold with Wellhausen (Israel, undjild Gesch., iii., p. 89 et seq.) that Moses is a figure inthe world s history, but not the founder of Old Testament monotheism, because that is to pronounce ajudgment on the historical value of the history contained in the Pentateuch. But to apply to what isthere related the formula actual to faith, but unhistoricto historical science, is merely to venture into the fieldof keeping two sets of books such as only bankrupts doin practical life, and produces neither scientific clearnessnor firmness in faith.


belonged to the pre-historic age, and were,therefore, not regulated by historicalscience. And, further, as the narrativesof them, consequently, belonged to legend,the poetic and fictitious must, therefore, bemixed up with them, which as such wouldhave to be abandoned by the science ofhistory. Eliminations of this kind, however, can only appear more tolerable tofaith on the assumption that the NewTestament has laid no stress on the particular incidents in the course of history.But even apart from its consequencesalready drawn by the other side in referenceto the Gospel history, this way of arrangingmatters with criticism seems to me abso

lutely impracticable. Besides, to followit is directly forbidden by the NewTestament.

Let us take the less important first. Allthe speeches of Jesus and His apostles cometo us only in summary reports. Even theepistles have naturally a concise method ofdealing with subjects ; they assume oralinstructions, and only enter upon the discussion of the principal points. The non-attention to details of the Old Testamentnarratives in the New Testament may


therefore be explained, so far as it appears,by the nature of the New Testamentwritings. Hence the reference to thealmost constant disregard of details inthem is an invalid argumentum e silentio.For we have no thorough and exact reportsof the oral instruction and the practicaldiscourses of the apostles. In such condensed summaries as Heb. xi. and xii. andActs vii. no preacher even to-day whokeeps his aim in view will go into detailsas he does when he uses one Old Testamentnarrative in particular for edification andinstruction. Even if the assertion which ismade were really correct, it would onlyhave apparent force. But and this is themore important and convincing for us itis not by any means a fact.Only some of the instances which prove

this, while also indicating with what clearand full consciousness the particular quotations are made in the New Testament, shallhere be mentioned first, in order then toshow in a very special case the full weight

New of the method of New Testament referenceto t*he Pentateuchal history.

lay stress on According to the special purpose of thisdetails of OldTestament book, we shall show by quotations of thenarra ives.

Pentateuch alone that the New Testament


witnesses pay attention even to particularstatements and features. In the discoursesof Jesus the blood of Abel (Matt, xxiii. 35),the marrying of the people in the days ofNoah (Matt. xxiv. 38), Lot s wife (Luke xvii.28, 32), and the eating of manna in thewilderness (John vi. 49) are recalled. Petercasually mentions the dress of Sarah (1 Pet.iii. 5, 6), the promise of the blessing of thenations in Abraham s seed (Acts iii. 25).Paul bases impressive and comforting exhortations on the relation of Hagar toSarah (Gal. iv. 30), and the description ofthe bearer of the blessing who was promisedto Abraham as the seed (Gal. iii. 16). Inboth allusions the Apostle of the Gentileshas admittedly laid such special emphasison the particular Old Testament word thatthe reproach of rabbinical literalism hasbeen repeatedly brought against him byexegesis. Plainly, therefore, there is nolack of use of particular points of thePentateuchal narratives in the New Testament.

But these particular statements of the Details arPentateuchal history are esteemed by our evidences ofLord and His apostles as valid evidencesnot merely of the thought and conduct of


men, but also of God s dealing with them.Their estimate is not a casual matter, butis the result of conscious thought and afundamental conception. For Paul, in

mentioning the several trangressions ofIsrael in the wilderness and their punishment by God, expresses himself clearlyabout the revelation of these special incidents. He writes in I Cor. x. 11, Nowall these things happened unto them forensamples ; and they are written for ouradmonition. So, too, he sums up the

particular features of the Old Testamentnarratives in the general judgment expressed by him in Rom. xv. 4 on the OldTestament : Whatsoever things werewritten aforetime were written for our

learning ; as in Rom. iv. 9 he describes a

single word of Genesis as spoken andwritten, not only for Abraham s sake butalso for ours.

Such a vindication of the Old Testamentnarratives and their individual incidents asactual revelations of the dealing of Godwith men and of the prefigurative faithof the patriarchs was only possible toChrist and His apostles as must be emphasised again and again if and becausethey did not appear to them fictitious


narratives (old wives fables), but historical

facts, and if the Spirit of God ruling inthemselves recognised what was relatedas worthy of God s character and purpose.But if the Pentateuch were to any extent contrast of

.

Pentateuchat all a product of poetic legend, and ot with Olda mental tendency which weakened the Apocrypha.prophetic faith in God, it would, like theOld Testament apocrypha, have mademistakes in various points which, as acaricature of God who is a Spirit could nothave been approved of by Jesus and Hisapostles, or used by them for the instructionof believers. Christ Himself, like the Spiritwho guides into all truth, promised andsent by Him to the apostles, must in thatcase have here and there protested andtestified against anything which was notof the truth. But where do we find in theNew Testament even a trace of such arejection of what is related in the OldTestament as contrary to the Spirit of God ?On the contrary, our Lord appears on one importance

,, j ., , , . . of Christ soccasion in the most decided and signm- words incant manner on behalf of the permanentauthority of the history attested in thePentateuch. For, as in the discussion withthe Pharisees about the great commandment (Matt. xxii. 34-40) He proclaims, by


His conjunction of Deut. vi. 5 with Lev.xix. 18, His equal appreciation of all partsof the Pentateuchal legislation ; so in thediscussion with their Sadducee rivals (Matt.xxii. 23-33) He bears a still more strikingtestimony to the inward truth of thePentateuchal history. The credibility ofthis section of the Gospel is not questionedon any side, and its value is, therefore, notentirely ignored in the more recent treatiseson the relation of Jesus to the Old Testament. Yet in our judgment the importantbearing of what is there asserted andattested by Jesus has not been in anydirection adequately considered or madeprominent. 1

In relation to the question here discussedthe variations in the report of the words ofJesus in Mark xii. 18-27, and Luke xx. 37-40, from the account of them in the firstGospel are of no importance. There can

scarcely be any suggestion of uncertaintyabout the words of Christ in this passage,such as has been excessively made lately,partly in the interest of the increasing

1

Cf. Valeton : Christus und das A.T., p. 38; M.Kahler : Jesus und das A.T., pp. 46, 48. Meinholdalone, so far as I can see, in his one-sided glance atwhat is agreeable to him, has not thought this passageworthy of any attention.


denial of the truth of the discourses ofJesus after the manner of Bolten (1792),partly from little faith, with appeal totheir Hebrew or Aramaic origin, emphasisedlong since by Frz. Delitzsch. Only onevariation in the three texts requires consideration. For Matthew, with his usualterseness in the description of detail, represents Jesus as merely referring to the sayingof God mentioned in Exod. iii. 16 (TO pi\Btvvfj.lv airb TOV dtov Xiyovrot;}. Mark, on theother hand, names definitely the book ofMoses as the source of the Divine saying(ev rr\ j3tj3Xtjj MWIKTEWC ETTI TOV jSarov, TTOJ?tiTTtv avT(jj 6 0eoe \ly "* 6 as a limited self-revelation of

acceptance of God, is evidence not only of the actualtruth of the history of Moses and his leading of Israel, but also of the absoluteerroneousness of the modern assumption *of the unhistoricity of the persons of the

patriarchs, as they are described in Genesis.Whilst according to the modern historyof religion Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob arenot historical personages at all,2 Jesus, in

spite of His absolute knowledge of theFather (Matt. xi. 27), according to whichHe regards it as settled that God is notthe God of the dead but of the living(Matt. xxii. 32), appeals to that descriptionof God by Himself, in order to deduce fromit that those three patriarchs, whose GodGod declared Himself to be, are still livingand not dead. He ascribes to them,accordingly, a continued individual exis

tence, though in the form of angels.Jesus, therefore, cannot regard the three

patriarchs introduced to us in Genesis as

J

Cf. Smend: AlttestL Beligionsgesch., p. 98.2

Cf. Meinhold : Wider den Kleinglaulen, p. 12 et seq.,esp. p. 17,


types of the pre-Mosaic stages of Israelitishfaith in God, but only as individual godlymen. The assertion of the continuedeternal existence of the three patriarchsin the utterance recognised by Jesus asthe self-revelation of God does not merelyconfirm, however, the historical existenceat one time of the three persons named.For the holy God could only call Himselftheir God if, during their earthly life, theyhad lived under His guidance, held fast byfaith, and in a walk with Him and in Hissight. But by far the greater part ofGenesis contains only accounts of the

origin, growth, and confirmation of the

patriarchs life of faith. Whatever else ismentioned is limited to the outward formof their life, so far as that depended on theconditions prevailing at the time.Hence Paul follows his Lord in this also, st - Paul

(Rom. iv. 9)that, in Rom. iv. 9 et seq., he draws infer- accepts theences from the result recorded in Genesis narrative asof the reception of the promise of blessing(Gen. xv. 6) and circumcision (Gen. xvii. 7)as to the foundation of Abraham s positionunder grace. And he therefore uses andexpounds that which is recorded aboutAbraham s faith, not as an instructivemyth, but as a historical occurrence which

7


guarantees God s dealings for all time. Ifthe narratives of Genesis were nothing butthe mythical symbols of the despair, hope,and faith of a whole people, in which itonly embodied its experience in poetic formand followed it, 1 then the argument ofJesus and His apostle would be utterlyinvalid and useless. Then the modernphysical and spiritual descendants of thoseSadducees and Judaisers with whom Jesusand St. Paul had to do would be quitejustified in rejecting as of no authority thedoctrinal statements of both, inasmuch asthey rested on mythical phantoms and noton facts. Unfavourably though such inferences are regarded in our day, yet it is

important to point out here firmly that onthis point there is only one course or theother. Either we must recognise that themodern treatment of the Pentateuch isutterly inconsistent with the assertion byJesus and His apostles of the inward truthof the history related in it, or we can no

longer find in the New Testament Scriptures, to use the latest theological phraseology, the classical expression of our faith.2

1 So Smend, as above.2 So Valeton, as above, p. iv. Cf. Kriiger : Das Dogma

vom N.T,


For it is vain to claim, on the one hand,the same mode of faith with the men ofthe New Testament, and, on the other hand,to imagine that we can refuse to base ourfaith in God for it is scarcely possible tospeak of more than this on the sameDivine proofs as they do. Whateverposition we assume, in this connexion alsowe cannot get past the words of Christ :He that is not with Me is against Me(Luke xi. 23).

The whole of the New Testament, with Harmony ofChrist at its head, asserts the inward truth History in theand perfect harmony with God both of the Pentateucn -historical and legislative parts of the Pentateuch in the way which we have stated.The acceptance of the truthfulness of whatis narrated about Moses and the patriarchsgoes so far that even the very words whichare there put into God s mouth are regarded and used as really spoken by Himself. Thus the Pentateuch, in respect ofits entire contents, has the recognition andthe testimony of the New Testament in itsfavour. 1 But this must prevent us from

1 Meinhold (Jesus u. d. A.T,, pp. 8, 9) really concedesthis. Yet he is only willing to perceive in all such utterances that Jesus occupied in all things the position of His


wishing to settle the origin of the Pentateuch in the fashion of the modern hypo-

time, in order to argue from this that, to honour the

authority of Jesus, we should be compelled to accept asa whole the entire historical conception of His time.Although Meinhold s inner self visibly struggles againstthis, yet he has lost in his conclusions all perception ofthe difference between the spiritual personality of Jesusand the banal ideas of His contemporaries. He forgetsthat two persons may do the same thing, and yet that itis not therefore the same.But even apart from this, this mode of estimating

Jesus is utterly unjust and unjustifiable. It is veryclear, from the Sermon on the Mount, the controversialdiscussions, and many other passages, that Jesus didnot share the entire conception of the Jews in religiousmatters, but stood in an attitude of complete mentaland spiritual independence towards it, and approved and

rejected according to His own judgment what seemed todeserve either.

Now, since Meinhold in his writings holds the criticismof Jesus on the religious ideas of His time to be normal,because it suits him, he only shows unscientific prejudicewhen he tries to thrust aside as merely the outcome ofthe spirit of His time, because it does not suit him, whatever Jesus, according to His own judgment, accepts andshares of those ideas. For either Jesus in the fulness ofHis mind surpasses the religious thought, feeling, andjudgment of His time, and therefore also its estimate ofthe religious past of His people, or else there was nothingin Him which raised Him essentially above the peopleof His race a position reached by Wellhausen andH. Holtzmann in their statements of what was accomplished by Jesus and nothing entitles Him to pass forthe high priest and apostle of a new creed -(Heb. iii. 1).One must have no conception at all of the influence of acomplete life in God upon a man s whole personality if


thesis of sources and history of religion,unless we want arbitrarily to shut ourselves up to the credibility of a thousand-

year-old tradition, partly popular, partly

priestly, among a people who during manycenturies were often stirred to the verydepths.

This leads us to the third question hereto be considered the testimony of theNew Testament in regard to Moses as theauthor of the Pentateuch.

he can assume for a moment that a man thus filled didnot regard pre-Christian ideas and experiences verydifferently from all who stood only under the influenceof their national life.

CHAPTER III

A preliminary-ry the discussion of this last point of our

admission.

inquiry we cannot, of course, be in theleast unmindful of the admission made atthe beginning, that in many passages ofthe New Testament Moses is spoken of insuch a way that his name appears at firstsight to be used merely as descriptive ofthe book of the law traditionally ascribedto him. In such a mode of speech, arisingfrom the judgment of a much later age,there can, of course, in itself be no proof forthe Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch. Butnot less uncritical than the overlooking ofthis obvious position, would it be not toconsider whether in some of the NewTestament passages referred to Moses isnot spoken of in such a way that it is clearthat Jesus and His apostles recognised in

102

The Mosaic Authorship 103

him the bearer of the revelation of thelegislative covenant of God with Israel,who was called also of God to serve as thepermanent witness to this people of thefuture mediator of perfect salvation. Butthat would have become for him the workof a witness which he could only performby a written statement of his testimony suchas we have in the Pentateuch.

A passage in which Moses is plainly Matt. xxu.*24 attests

represented and recognised as such a pre- the personalChristian messenger of revelation is just

^ P

the very one which has been already Exodus.

established as an evidence for the historicalvalue of the Pentateuch, Matt. xxii. 24.For since Jesus recognises the inner truthof the theophany of Ex. iii., and representsGod as having there revealed Himself toMoses in His nature and as God of hisfathers, He also recognises the consequentinstallation of Moses as the deliverer of his

people and as the medium for the revelation of the choice of them from among allnations. Jesus, however, also proclaimsthereby that the personality of Mosesrecorded and made prominent in thePentateuch has been really established assuch for Him with His Divine knowledge


and He regards his place in the history ofredemption as entrusted to him by God.Even this does not exhaust the meaningof Christ s utterance.But it is worth while next to follow up

the similar estimate of the position ofMoses in the history of redemption in therest of the New Testament. The recognition and appreciation of it, not as anadjunct of the traditional excessive regardfor the Thorah as fountain of all wisdom,but in consequence of the spiritual estimation of a personality which meets thereader in the records of the Pentateuch, is

already seen from the frequent referenceto the events of his life, above emphasised.For even apart from those summaries ofhis life given with a special purpose inHeb. xi. and Acts vii., almost all thefeatures of the activity of Moses are mentioned as those which present and approvethemselves to the spiritual vision of thewitnesses for Jesus as bearing unmistakably the stamp of the Divine influence. 1

This regard is paid, however, not so muchto the man Moses as to his work in theeconomy of redemption and his relation to

1

Cf. the analogous opinion of Volck in his treatise,Heilige ScJirift und Kritik, p. 54.

The Mosaic Authorship 105

Christ, as it was assigned to him by God sgracious government. The conceptionswhich regulate all the references to the

history of Moses in the New Testament arespecially seen in two apostolic utterances,the character of which is an assurance that

they did not arise from merely traditionalviews.In the first of these the author of the Heb. ill. i-e,

a further

Epistle to the Hebrews (iii. 1-6) institutes testimony toa comparison between Christ and Moses, inorder to argue from the higher position of ^ tne Divine

revelation.the former in the economy of redemption(v. 6, ov OIKOQ ECT/WSV 7j/itf) that the faith of

Christians must hold the more firmly andthe more joyfully to Christ. On the onehand he emphasises, it is true, the honourof Moses before God and with men, attributing it to his faithfulness, but on theother he defines his position to Christ, theson ruling over the whole house, only asthat of a servant appointed for the housewhose work it was to bear testimony ofthose things which were to be revealed.For the sequence of words in Heb. iii. 5demands the close connexion of the words

6cHere the want of any more minute definitionof rwv XaA]0r/crojue i;wi> forbids us to think of


it as meaning anything else than thatwhich Moses, after God had communicatedit to His servant face to face (Num. xii. 8),was to communicate to Israel in regard totheir life and conduct as the people of God.The calling of Moses is thus preciselydenned, to be the faithful medium of theDivine legislation for all Israel.

By the remark that Christians areChrist s house, the clause EV ciX^ T

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