HEXATEUCH (heks'5.-trik), (Gr. n, six, and TeUxor, a book), the first six books of the Old Testa ment.
Many questions have ariscn concerning the six books which are included in the above term, and great liberties have been taken in the direc tion of speculations upon this subject. Results are. one thing and scientific results arc quite an other. There is a form of Higher Criticism which claims to seek "the solution of all ques tions relating to origin, forin and value of lit erature" chiefly by the examinations of internal phenomena, and especially claims to be able to reconstruct and rearrange compositions, to re dctermine authorship, revise statements and re arrange dates of the several portions of thc Hexa teuch.
(1) Principles of Scientific Criticism. Sci ence, however, consists in the exact observation of certain facts, and a careful interpretation of them without prejudice under the following prin ciples or laws of thought : 1. Facts must be observed, not assumed.
2. They must be observed without pre-judg ment.
3. All relevant principles must be considered. .4. There must be no forcing of facts by either rejection or assertion.
5. There must be logical inductions from the whole body of facts, and thcse deductions must be unhampered by theories, and unconfuted by grave exceptions.
6. There must be a substantial agreement in conclusions which exclude conflicting explana tions.
How far the criticism in question has con formed to these principles of science will appear from even the casual notice of certain points which brevity requires.
(2) 'Unwarranted Assumptions. In order to harmonize the facts with certain theories, it is necessary to make unwarranted assumptions, and subordinate methods arc often employed, which it is difficult to justify in the light of sciencc : i. Some critics assume the privilege of re constructing narratives at their own discretion, and they make peremptory challenge of words and phrases which they claim belong to redactors. This process is too common to require an ex ample.
2. They deny the plain statements of the nar rative, as when Wellhausen pronounces Abraham to lie "a free creation of unconscious art." 3. They transplant words, phrases. sentences and long paragraphs hither and thither. abso lutely without restriction, and assign them to certain writers, which they denominate either J. E. or P.
4. With the same freedom. and for the same purpose, they assert the former existence and loss of considerable portions of the work of these hypothetical writers.
5. They claim the right to identify two trans actions which the narratives make entirely dis tinct, and they also disintegrate a single trans action into two, and in each case they claim to find contradictions or proofs of diverse author ship.
When these results are obtained by speculation, by the forcing of facts, and by unwarranted as sumptions without proof, we must inquire where in such methods differ from that of the mine, who introduces ore into his claim by arti ficial methods, or those of the chemist who adul terates a product before analysis? (3) Varied Results. But even under these principles and processes, there is very little agree ment in results, and there is scarcely one im portant theory which has been advanced by the so-called Higher Critics which has not been more or less discredited by some other member of the same school. This system allows the great
est diversity of opinion on the one hand, and a general copying from each other at the same time.
Dr. Briggs epitomizes "a general agreement of the ablest biblical scholars" as to the follow ing writers: viz., P., J., E., D. and three redactors. making seven, but in the same treatise he finds it "necessary to distinguish" five more, making twelve.
Conlin specifies no less than eighteen writers and editors of the Hexateuch. Wellhausen wants twenty- more, while Dillmann, the strongest scholar of them all, sturdily rejects seven or eight of these imaginary personages; for who could surely distinguish the various parts of the work which might have been done by twenty, twelve, or even six, writers in one composition which was fairly vvell combined? The whole literary public has been unable to identify the portions of a collaborated novel which was prepared by even two writers, and that, too, in a vernacular whose every shade of meaning was familiar to the critics. What, then, can we think of the success of an effort of this kind after centuries have intervened, and the tongue in which the work was written has be come practically a dead langvage? (4) The Polychrome Bible. The only way in which the Polychrome Bible can furnish its variegated texts is by assigning each book to a single editor. It may be doubted whether Pro fessor Cheyne could find seven scholars of high repute in England, America or Germany who would fully accept his dismemberment of Isaiah into more than one hundred and sixty fragments. with scores of transpositions, numerous lacuna. and rejections, together with the assignment of some twenty dates, ranging over a period of four hundred and sixty-five years. A very striking pecnliarity meets us also in the fact that. after this elaborate specification of sources. the fahric which has been so laborionsly constructed is de molished at a stroke by some of the leaders of the enterprise, when they declare the alleged writers to be, not individuals. but processes ex tending through long periods. Some notice should he taken of the liberty which is used in alleging glosses, later text changes, and erroneous statements, in order to maintain the recent theo ries as to the tribe of Levi and the priesthood, the history of the law and the sanctuary. but for such particulars there must be a resort to more extended discussions. (See "The Veracity of the Pentateuch," by Dr. Samuel Colcord Bartlett, p. 328.) (5) Assigned Dates. In regard to the as signed dates of the alleged constituents of the Hexateuch, it may be said that although there are constderable differences, still there is more or less agreement in the tendency to bring them down to a period some five hundred years later than AIoses to the Exile, and even later, with allowances for fragments of earlier origin.