CHAPTER II THE MOSAIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH BY PROFESSOR GEORGE FREDERICK WRIGHT, D. D., LL. D., OBERLIN COLLEGE, OBERLIN, OHIO During the last quarter of a century an influential school of critics has deluged the world with articles and volumes at tempting to prove that the Pentateuch did not originate dur ing the,time of Moses, and that most of the laws attributed to him did not come into existence until several centuries after his death, and many of them not till the time of Ezekiel. By these critics the patriarchs are relegated to the realm of myth or dim legend and the history of the Pentateuch generally is discredited. In answering these destructive contentions and defending the history which they discredit we can do no bet ter than to give a brief summary of the arguments of Mr. Harold M. Wiener, a young orthodox Jew, who is both a well established barrister in London, and a scholar of the widest attainments. What he has written upon the subject during the last ten years would fill a thousand octavo pages; while our condensation must be limited to less than twenty. In approach ing the subject it comes in place to consider I. THE BURDEN OF PROOF The Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch has until very recent times been accepted without question by both Jews and Christians.. Such acceptance, coming down to us in un broken line from the earliest times of which we have any information, gives it the support of what is called general consent, which, while perhaps not absolutely conclusive, com pels those who would discredit it to produce incontrovertible opposing evidence. But the evidence which the critics produce 10
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