Pentateuch Sentence Examples

The Priestly Writer in the Pentateuch also a p pears to be acquainted with this doctrine; it is the first of four ages which begins with the Creation and ends with the Deluge.

Modern criticism of the history of Sabbath observance among the Hebrews has done nothing more than follow out these arguments in detail, and show that the result is in agreement with what is known as to the dates of the several component parts of the Pentateuch.

The traditional view that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch in its present form, would make this the earliest monument of Hebrew literature.

The Pentateuch (or Hexateuch) was finally completed in its present form at some time before 400 B.C. The latest parts of the Old Testament are the books of Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah (c. 330 B.C.), Ecclesiastes and Esther (3rd century) and Daniel, composed either in the 3rd century or according to some views as late as the time of Antiochus Epiphanes (c. 168 B.C.).

Yet he contrived to write his great commentary on the Pentateuch and other books of the Bible, treatises on philosophy (as the Yesodh mora), astronomy, mathematics, grammar (translation of Ilayyu j), besides a Diwan.

Though put into the form of a commentary on the Pentateuch, it is really an exposition of the kabbalistic view of the universe, and incidentally shows considerable acquaintance with the natural science of the time.

It was Moses Mendelssohn's German translation of the Pentateuch (1 7 80 - 1 793) which marked the new spirit, while the views of his opponents belong to a bygone age.

The documents underlying the Pentateuch and book of Joshua, represented by the ciphers J, E, D and P, are assumed to have been drawn up in the chronological order in which those ciphers are here set down, and the period of their composition extends from the 9th century B.C., in which the earlier portions of J were written, to the 5th century B.C., in which P finally took shape.

The Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis, that the hierarchical law in its complete form in the Pentateuch stands at the close and not at the beginning of biblical history, that this mature Judaism was the fruit of the 5th century B.C. and not a divinely appointed institution at the exodus (nearly ten centuries previously), has won the recognition of almost all Old Testament scholars.

Maintaining that the position of the Pentateuch alone explains the books which follow, conservative writers concede that it is composite, has had some literary history, and has suffered some revision in the post-exilic age.

What book Ezra really brought from Babylon is uncertain; the writer, it seems, is merely narrating the introduction of the Law ascribed to Moses, even as a predecessor has recounted the discovery of the Book of the Law, the Deuteronomic code subsequently included in the Pentateuch.

The canon of Scripture was decided in accordance with the touchstone of the Pentateuch.

Mendelssohn's translation of the Pentateuch into German with a new commentary by himself and others introduced the Jews to more modern ways of thinking.

Besides the New Testament, the Pentateuch and Jonah, it is believed that he finished in prison the section of the Old Testament extending from Joshua to Chronicles.

Demaus, William Tyndale (London, 1871); also the Introduction to Mombert's critical reprint of Tyndale's Pentateuch (New York, 1884), where a bibliography is given.

He studied theology, and won his doctor's degree by an edition of thirty-four chapters of Genesis from the Arabic version of the Samaritan Pentateuch.

In 1857 he undertook with other scholars a Theologisch-homiletisches Bibelwerk, to which he contributed commentaries on the first four books of the Pentateuch, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Revelation.

Nevertheless, he was opposed to Colenso's criticism of the Bible, and replied to it in The Pentateuch and the Elohistic Psalms (1863), written from a conservative standpoint.

The higher criticism sees, in these successive enactments of the various codes included in the Pentateuch (q.v.), a development in the character of the festival.

The existence, therefore, of much variation in the practice of the festival in historic times is scarcely proved by the seeming variations of the enactments concerning it in the Pentateuch.

The festival is certainly an agricultural one, and is so termed in the Pentateuch.

All these views have, however, been cast in the shade by more recent investigations based on minute literary analysis of the Pentateuch, begun by Graf, continued by Kuenen, and culminating in the work of Wellhausen and Robertson Smith.

This view claims to determine the respective ages and relative chronological position of the various passages in which the Passover is referred to in the Pentateuch, and assumes that each successive stratum represents the practice in ancient Israel at the time of composition, laying great stress upon omissions as implying non-existence.

His Literary Remains, edited by Lady Strangford, were published in 1874, consisting of nineteen papers on such subjects as "The Talmud," "Islam," "Semitic Culture," "Egypt, Ancient and Modern," "Semitic Languages," "The Targums," "The Samaritan Pentateuch," and "Arabic Poetry."

The first, on the 27th of June 1906, affirmed, with some significant but unworkable reservations, the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; and the second (29th of May 1907) strenuously maintained the Apostolic Zebedean authorship of the fourth Gospel, and the strictly historical character of the events and speeches recorded therein.

Berulle encouraged Descartes' philosophical studies, and it was through him that the Samaritan Pentateuch, recently brought over from Constantinople, was inserted in Lejay's Polyglot Bible.

As regards the dates and historical interpretation of the Psalms, all older discussions, even those of Ewald, are in great measure antiquated by recent progress in Pentateuch criticism and the history of the canon, and an entirely fresh treatment of the Psalter by a sober critical commentator is urgently needed.

He still, however, held the accepted view, that the Elohistic narratives formed part of the Grundschrift and therefore belonged to the oldest portions of the Pentateuch.

Of these the former contains only portions of the Pentateuch,' and is therefore usually designated the Fragmentary (Jerusalem) Targum.

In regard to the source of the two Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch, we must accept the conclusion of Bassfreund 4 that they both derived their variants from a complete Targum Jerushalmi.

In the same edition are collected the various fragments of the Targum Jerushalmi, which are to be found in the early editions of the Pentateuch and in part also in various manuscripts.

On the latter view, which finds its main support in the intrinsic difficulties of the narrative, it is scarcely possible to avoid the conclusion that the chapter is one of the latest additions to the Pentateuch (Wellhausen and many others)."

If, then, an Egyptian inscription of the XIXth dynasty had come to hand in which the names of Joseph and Moses, and the deeds of the Israelites as a subject people who finally escaped from bondage by crossing the Red Sea, were recorded in hieroglyphic characters, such a monument would have been hailed with enthusiastic delight by every champion of the Pentateuch, and a wave of supreme satisfaction would have passed over all Christendom.

The ordinary literal interpretation is more probable; but it does not follow that the authors of the Pentateuch intended the story to be taken as historical in its details.

His subsequent works were dissertations on the origin of alphabetical writing (Die Erfindung der Buchstabenschrift, 1801), on the antiquity of the Codex Vaticanus (1810), and on ancient mythology (Ober den Mythos der alten Volker, 1812); a new interpretation of the Song of Solomon (Das hohe Lied in einer noch unversuchten Deutung, 1813), to the effect that the lover represents King Hezekiah, while by his beloved is intended the remnant left in Israel after the deportation of the ten tribes; and treatises on the indissoluble character of the matrimonial bond (De conjugii christiani vinculo indissolubili commentatio exegetica, 1816) and on the Alexandrian version of the Pentateuch (1818).

The centre of religious life was no longer the living prophetic word but the ordinances of the Pentateuch and the liturgical service of the sanctuary..

But most critics hold that the chronicler also drew directly from the canonical books of Samuel and Kings as he apparently did from the Pentateuch.

The influence of the Hebrew priesthood on the thought and organization of Christendom was the influence not of a living institution, for it hardly began till after the fall of the Temple, but of the theory embodied in the later parts of the Pentateuch.

The Tarn (or " Law "), corresponding to our " Pentateuch " (5 books).

Sometimes, for instance, the excerpts from the older documents form long and complete narratives; in other cases (as in the account of the Flood) they consist of a number of short passages, taken alternately from two older narratives, and dovetailed together to make a continuous story; in the books of Judges and Kings the compiler has fitted together a series of older narratives in a framework supplied by himself; the Pentateuch and book of Joshua (which form a literary whole, and are now often spoken of together as the Hexateuch) have passed through more stages than the books just mentioned, and their literary structure is more complex.

Sufficient proof of this statement is furnished by the Samaritan Pentateuch and the versions, more especially the Septuagint.

We further possess a Samaritan Targum of the Pentateuch written in the Samaritan dialect, a variety of western Aramaic, and also an Arabic translation of the five books of the law; the latter dating perhaps from the 11th century A.D.

The Samaritan Pentateuch agrees with the Septuagint version in many passages, but its chief importance lies in the proof which it affords as to the substantial agreement of our present text of the Pentateuch, apart from certain intentional changes,' with that which was promulgated by Ezra.

The name Septuagint, strictly speaking, only applies to the translation of the Pentateuch, but it was afterwards extended to include the other books of the Old Testament as they were translated.

Capellus drew conclusions from such important facts as the occurrence of variations in the two Hebrew texts of passages found twice in the Old Testament itself, and the variations brought to light by a comparison of the Jewish and Samaritan texts of the Pentateuch, the Hebrew text and the Septuagint, the Hebrew text and New Testament quotations from the Old Testament.

In so far as it is possible to recover the Hebrew text from which the Greek version was made, it is possible to recover a form of the Hebrew text current about 280 B.C. in the case of the Pentateuch, some time before loo B.C. in the case of most of the rest of the Old Testament.

Carlstadt again definitely denied the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch on the ground that Moses could not have written the account of his own death and yet that Deut.

The suggestion that the last chapter only, not the whole Pentateuch, was written later, is met by Hobbes by reference to Gen.

Hobbes argues in the case of the Pentateuch that two authors are distinguishable - Moses and a much later compiler and editor.

Hobbes, drew attention in particular to the confused mixture of law and narrative in the Pentateuch, the occurrence of duplicate narratives and chronological incongruities.

Father Simon in his Histoire critique du Vieux Testament (1682) also argues that the Pentateuch is the work of more than one author, and makes an important advance towards a systematic analysis of the separate elements by observing that the style varies, being sometimes very curt and sometimes very copious " although the variety of the matter does not require it."

For subsequent developments, and the fruitful results of documentary analysis as applied to the Pentateuch and other composite books, which cannot be dealt with in any detail here, reference must be made to the special articles on the books of the Old Testament.

He carries through, as Astruc had done, the analysis of Genesis into (primarily) two documents; he draws the distinction between the Priests' Code, of the middle books of the Pentateuch, and Deuteronomy, the people's law book; and admits that even the books that follow Genesis consist of different documents, many incomplete and fragmentary (whence the theory became known as the " Fragment-hypothesis "), but all the work of Moses and some of his contemporaries.

These principles he applied to the Old Testament, firstly to the Books of Chronicles, and then to the Pentateuch.

In the criticism of the Pentateuch his most influential and enduring contributions to criticism are his proof that Deuteronomy is a work of the 7th century B.C., and his insistence that the theory of the Mosaic origin of all the institutions described in the Pentateuch is incompatible with the history of Israel as described in the historical books, Judges, Samuel and Kings.

Dean Stanley owed something to Ewald and spoke warmly of him, but the Preface to the History of the Jewish Church in which he does so bears eloquent testimony to the general attitude towards Old Testament criticism in 1862, of which we have further proof in the almost unanimous disapprobation and far-spread horror with which Colenso's Pentateuch, pt.

Any documentary analysis of the Pentateuch may be right or wrong; but archaeology contributes nothing either one way or another as to the answer.

It is also to be noted that in the Samaritan text of the Pentateuch, and in the LXX., the figures, especially in the period from the Creation to the birth of Abraham, differ considerably from those given in the Hebrew, yielding in Sam.

But the sermons or discourses of the homiletic Midrashim are classified according to the reading of the Pentateuch in the Synagogue, either the three year cycle, or else according to the sections of the Pentateuch and Prophetical books assigned to special and ordinary Sabbaths and festival days.

It covers the Pentateuch (1st ed., Constantinople, 1512) and the " Five Rolls " (Pesaro, 1519; the whole printed first at Venice, 1545); Germ.

But the great prophets disallowed this claim, and the distinction which they draw between true prophecy and divination is recognized not only in the prophetical law of Deuteronomy but in earlier parts of the Pentateuch and historical books.

In recent times therefore advance in the understanding of the prophets has moved on pari passu with the higher criticism, especially the criticism of the Pentateuch, and with the general study of Hebrew history; and most works on the subject prior to Ewald must be regarded as quite antiquated except for the light they cast on detailed points of exegesis.

Other works by Hirsch were Horeb, and commentaries on the Pentateuch and Psalms. These are marked by much originality, but their exegesis is fanciful.

According to his own statement in De vetere testamento, written about loco, he had at that period translated the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Kings, Job, Esther, Judith and the Maccabees.

Dietrich, iElfric's most competent biographer (Niedner's, Zeitschrift fiir historische Theologie, 1855-1856), looks upon the Pentateuch, Joshua and Judges as a continuation of his Lives of Saints, including as they do in a series of narratives the Old Testament saints.

In 1530, however, the whole of the Pentateuch was printed in Marburg by Hans Luft; it is provided with prefaces and marginal annotations of a strongly controversial character.

Thus the Pentateuch and the New Testament were reprinted from Tyndale's translations of 1530 and 1535 respectively, with very slight variations; See Dr Ginsburg's information to Mr Tedder, D.N.B.

He wrote commentaries on the Pentateuch and some other parts of the Scriptures.

Among these last may be noted his argument against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, his views as to the manner in which the five books were composed, his opinions (singularly free for the time in which he lived) on the subject of inspiration in general, and particularly as to the inspiration of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles.

Certain peculiarities in the language of the Pentateuch (xm for N ' r wn for rngv), which used to be regarded as archaisms, are to be explained as purely orthographical.

The first instalment of his commentary on the Pentateuch was Exodus (1855); this was followed by Genesis (1858) and Leviticus in two parts (1867-1872).

De Wette has been described by Julius Wellhausen as "the epoch-making opener of the historical criticism of the Pentateuch."

In Hebrew literature the Pentateuch, the historical books and the prophets alike contain scanty but precious information regarding Egypt.

He wrote a number of popular hymns, partly original, partly translations; translated the Pentateuch from the Hebrew; and published (1536) a collection of sermons embodying the reformed doctrine and destined for the use of clergy and laity.

The first Jew to suggest emendations to the text of the Hebrew Bible, he edited Isaiah (1856-1867), and wrote a commentary on the Pentateuch (1871).

The historical and prophetical books and the Pentateuch are wholly concerned with the nation.

Comparatively little is said of it in the Pentateuch and the prophetical and historical books.

Its thought, differing so widely from that of the prophets and the Pentateuch, is most naturally referred to the period when the Jews came into intimate intellectual contact with the non-Semitic world, and particularly with the Greeks (philosophical influence is not to be looked for from Persia).

This latter ascription is altogether unfounded, the real author of this mystical commentary on the Pentateuch being Moses of Leon.

The priestly system, as represented in the Pentateuch, is not fitted for the desert, where its initiation is ascribed, but on independent internal critical grounds belongs to the post-exilic age, where it stands at the head of further developments.

On the other hand, it is known that it was being diligently, copied by Assur-bani-pal's scribes (7th century B.C.), and in view of the circumstances of the Assyrian domination, it is probable that, so far as Palestinian economic conditions permitted, a legislation more progressive than the Pentateuch Paltistinas Erdgeruch in der Israel.

On literary-historical grounds the Pentateuch in its present form is post-exilic, posterior to the old monarchies and to the ideals of the earlier prophetical writings.

It must not be denied that the recollection of some invasion may have been greatly idealized by late writers, but it happens that there were important immigrations and internal movements in the 8th-6th centuries, that is to say, immediately preceding the post-exilic age, when this composite account in the Pentateuch and Joshua reached its present form.

The ecclesiastical rivalries have left their mark in the Pentateuch and (the later) Chronicles, and the Samaritan secession appears to have coloured even the book of Kings.

The course of development between the recognition of the supremacy of the Pentateuch and the actual writing down of the Mishnah and Gemara can be traced only in broad lines.

But it was evidently written as the close of the book, and perhaps to complete the number of five divisions, after the model of the Pentateuch; which would bring it below the date of Ezra (457 B.C.).

Here, again, the theology was further developed, and an attempt made to annul the old dualism by envisaging both Ormuzd and Ahriman as emanations of an original principle of infinite time (Zervan), a doctrine which long enjoyed official validity under the Sassanids till, in the reign of Chosroes I., the sect of Zervanites was pronounced heretical.i But, above all, the ritual and the doctrine of purity were elaborated and expanded, and there was evolved a complete and detailed system of casuistry, dealing with all things allowed and forbidden, the forms of pollution and the expiation for each, &c., which, in its arid and spiritles1 monotony vividly recalls the similar prescriptions in the Pentateuch.

The Targum on both passages has " book of the law," an explanation which is followed by the chief Jewish commentators, making the incidents the fulfilment of passages in the Pentateuch.

A minute study of the text shows that it attests an independent form of the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch.

To be more exact, our book represents some form of the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch midway between the forms presupposed by the Septuagint and the Syriac; for it agrees more frequently with the Septuagint, or with combinations into which the Septuagint enters, than with 1 In the Ethiopic Version in xxi.

Blount adopted and expanded Hobbes's arguments against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; and, mainly in the words of Burnet's Archeologiae philosophicae, he asserts the total inconsistency of the Mosaic Hexaemeron with the Copernican theory of the heavens, dwelling with emphasis on the impossibility of admitting the view developed in Genesis, that the earth is the most important part of the universe.

The Samaritan Pentateuch stands alongside the Hebrew in parallel columns.

The Pentateuch, together with Joshua, Judges and Ruth, with which it is usually united in Greek MSS., makes up the Octateuch; the Pentateuch and Joshua together have recently been named the Hexateuch.

On the critical questions arising from the Pentateuch or Hexateuch, see Bible and the articles on the several books.

Colenso's Commentary on the Romans in 1861, Wilberforce endeavoured to induce the author to hold a private conference with him; but after the publication of the first two parts of the Pentateuch Critically Examined he drew up the address of the bishops which called on Colenso to resign his bishopric. In 1867 he framed the first Report of the Ritualistic Commission, in which coercive measures against ritualism were discountenanced by the use of the word "restrain" instead of "abolish" or "prohibit."

By his editio princeps of the Samaritan Pentateuch and Targum, in the Paris Polyglott, he gave the first impulse in Europe to the study of this dialect, which he acquired without a teacher (framing a grammar for himself) by the study of MSS.

Like the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the VIegilloth, the Pirke Aboth, this work was divided into five parts, with the critical discussion of which we shall deal below.

His chief work, the Commentary on the Pentateuch, is distinguished by originality and charm.

Jacob also wrote two commentaries on the Pentateuch.

These recognize two altars, which by the authors of this portion of the Pentateuch are placed from the first in the tabernacle in the wilderness - a theory which is inconsistent with the other evidences of the nature of the earlier Hebrew worship, to which we have just alluded.

The only other provision about fasting in the Pentateuch is of a regulative nature, Numb.

No corroboration has, however, been found for Foxe's statement that in 1529 he was at Hamburg assisting Tyndale in his translation of the Pentateuch.

In the 17th century the characteristics which so clearly mark off Deuteronomy from the other four books of the Pentateuch were frankly recognized, but the most advanced critics of that age were inclined to pronounce it the earliest and most authentic of the five.

Hence Leviticus, so far from belonging to an earlier stratum of the Pentateuch than Deuteronomy, as de Wette thought, must belong to a much later stratum, and be at least exilic, if not post-exilic.

The fact that it is legislative as well as hortatory is enough to prove this, for most of the laws it contains are found elsewhere in the Pentateuch, sometimes in less developed, sometimes in more developed forms, a fact which is conclusive proof of prolonged historical development.

The book differs from the Pentateuch or Torah in the absence of legal matter, and in its intimate connexion with the narrative in the books which follow.

For an exhaustive detailed study has revealed many signs of diversity of authorship which combine to show that the book is due to the incorporation of older material in two main redactions; one deeply imbued with the language and thought of Deuteronomy itself (D), the other of the post-exilic priestly circle (P) which gave the Pentateuch its present form.

These give further bibliographical information, for which see also the articles on the books of the Pentateuch.

It is the first of the five books (the Pentateuch), or, with the inclusion of Joshua, of the six (the Hexateuch), which cover the history of the Hebrews to their occupation of Canaan.

According to this, Genesis is a post-exilic work composed of a post-exilic priestly source (P) and non-priestly earlier sources which differ markedly from P in language, style and religious standpoint, but much less markedly from one and another.6 These sources can be traced elsewhere in the Pentateuch and Joshua, and P itself is related to the post-exilic works Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah.

On internal grounds it appears that the Pentateuch and Joshua, as they now read, virtually come in between an older history by "Deuteronomic" compilers (easily recognizable in Judges and Kings), and the later treatment of the monarchy in Chronicles, where tie influence of the circle which produced P and the present Mosaic legislation is quite discernible.

The conclusion that P's narratives and laws in the Pentateuch are post-exilic was found by biblical scholars to be a necessary correction to the original hypothesis of Graf (1866) that P's narratives were to be retained (with J and E) at an early date.

But when once revision or rewriting is conceded, there is absolutely no guarantee that the present Pentateuch is in any way identical with the five books which tradition ascribed to Moses (q.v.), and the necessity for a comprehensive critical investigation of the present contents makes itself felt.2 Literature.

His commentary on the Pentateuch, in particular, has been printed in hundreds of editions; it is still to Jews the most beloved of all commentaries on the Mosaic books.

Rashi's commentary on the Bible has been translated into Latin by Breithaupt (1710-1714); and into German (Pentateuch) by Dukes (1833-38) and others.

A critical edition of Rashi's Pentateuch commentary was published by A Berliner (2nd ed., 1905).

The truth of his views he rests, rather strangely, on the argument that Moses, the writer of the Pentateuch, lived long before Homer, whom he regards as the earliest Greek religious writer, and to prove this he quotes a series of synchronisms, which were made use of by many subsequent chronologers, including probably Julius Africanus, who in turn was used by Eusebius.

Oehler admitted the composite authorship of the Pentateuch and the Book of Isaiah, and did much to counteract the antipathy against the Old Testament that had been fostered by Schleiermacher.

He saw that the second part of Isaiah differs from the first not only in style but in date; that the grammar and the history of the Pentateuch are posterior to the time of Moses; that the book of Daniel is clearly apocryphal.

There is in fact no clear evidence of the existence of a distinction between priests and Levites in any Hebrew writing demonstrably earlier than the Deuteronomic stage, although, even as the Pentateuch contains ordinances which have been carried back by means of a "legal convention" to the days of Moses, writers have occasionally altered earlier records of the history to agree with later standpoints.'

The references to it in the Pentateuch are confined to rough geographical indications of the latitude of the transJordanic camp of the Israelites in Moab before their crossing of the river.

The reverence felt for the canonized Torah or law (the Pentateuch or so-called five books of Moses) grew even into worship. Of this spirit we find clear expression in some of the later psalms, e.g.

In the older Jewish literature the name is applied to the whole body of received religious doctrine with the exception of the Pentateuch, thus including the Prophets and Hagiographa as well as the oral traditions ultimately embodied in the Mishnah.'

In the final compilation, or perhaps in a subsequent redaction, some alterations were made in the original order, some notes were added describing the circumstances in which various psalms had been composed, and lastly, in order to assimilate the outward form of the Psalter to that of the Pentateuch, the three collections were divided into five books.

Targums On The Pentateuch (t) The so-called Targum of Onkelos admittedly owes its name to a mistaken reference in the Babylonian Talmud."

A further task is to estimate the value of this literature as evidence for the history of Israel, to determine, as far as possible, whether such parts of the literature as are contemporary with the time described present correct, or whether in any respect one-sided or biased or otherwise incorrect, descriptions; and again, how far the literature that relates the story of long past periods has drawn upon trustworthy records, and how far it is possible to extract historical truth from traditions (such as those of the Pentateuch) that present, owing to the gradual accretions and modifications of intervening generations, a composite picture of the period described, or from a work such as Chronicles, which narrates the past under the influence of the conception that the institutions and ideas of the present must have been established and current in the past; all this falls under Historical Criticism, which, on its constructive side, must avail itself of all available and well-sifted evidence, whether derived from the Old Testament or elsewhere, for its presentation of the history of Israel - its ultimate purpose.

Thus it is to Luther a matter of indifference whether or not Moses wrote the Pentateuch; the books of Chronicles he definitely pronounces less credible than those of Kings, and he considers that the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Hosea probably owe their present form to later hands.

On examination, the authors of anticritica are generally found to disown, tacitly or openly, the first of these alternatives; for example, Prof. Sayce, who frequently takes the field against the " higher criticism," and denies, without, however, disproving, the validity of the literary analysis of the Hexateuch, nevertheless himself asserts that " no one can study the Pentateuch.

Indeed, since the Samaritans subsequently accepted the Pentateuch, and claimed to inherit the ancestral traditions of the Israelite tribes, it is of no little value in the study of Palestinian history to observe the manner in which this people of singularly mixed origin so thoroughly assimilated itself to the land and at first was virtually a Jewish sect.

Mendelssohn added a new section to this chapter by his German translation of the Pentateuch and other parts of the Bible.

His greatest work is the commentary on the Pentateuch in opposition to Maimonides and Ibn Ezra.

Gersonides was also the author of a commentary on the Pentateuch and other exegetical and scientific works.

He issued Le Psautier de David (1525), and was appointed royal librarian at Blois (1526); his version of the Pentateuch appeared two years later.

In later Jewish custom the one-year cycle of reading of sections from the Pentateuch ends on the concluding day of Tabernacles, which is therefore known as the Rejoicing of the Law (Simhat Torah).

Exegesis of this sort is not the characteristic of any single circle, people or century; unscientific methods of biblical interpretation have prevailed from Philo's treatment of the Pentateuch to modern apologetic interpretations of Genesis, ch.

These discrepancies however are chiefly of interest in their bearing upon the problem of the Pentateuch, and really throw little light upon the origin of the two feasts connected together under the name of the Passover, to which the present remarks must be mainly confined.

The Ark of the Law, in the Jewish synagogue, is a chest or cupboard containing the scrolls of the Torah (Pentateuch), and is placed against or in the wall in the direction of Jerusalem.

Like the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Megilloth and the Pirke Aboth, this work was divided into five parts, which, as we shall notice presently, spring from five different sources.

It appeared in the English Bible in Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch (1530), and is found in all English Protestant versions of the 16th century except that of Coverdale ('' 1 535) In the Authorized Version of 161 i it occurs in Exod.

They possess - not in Hebrew, of which they are altogether ignorant, but in Ethiopic (or Geez)- the canonical and apocryphal books of the Old Testament; a volume of extracts from the Pentateuch, with comments given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai; the Te-e-sa-sa Sanbat, or laws of the Sabbath; the Ardit, a book of secrets revealed to twelve saints, which is used as a charm against disease; lives of Abraham, Moses, &c.; and a translation of Josephus called Sana Aihud.

The ritual books of our Pentateuch were not then in existence, and the sacrificial cult might be treated with contempt as not authoritative.