1 That is, from the time of Julius Wellhausen's Die Composition des Hexateuchs (first published: Berlin 1876-77; 2nd ed.: 1885; 3rd ed.:1889; reprint 1963) and his Geschichte Israels vol. I (1878), reissued as Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israel (Berlin 1883). An English translation of that reissue soon became a standard work of reference: Prolegomena to the History of Israel, with a preface by W. Robertson Smith (d. 1894), translation by Allan Menzies and J. Sutherland Black (Edinburgh 1885; reprint Cleveland 1957). Robertson Smith had favorably reviewed Geschichte Israels I in 1879; Wellhausen dedicated later reprints of Die Composition to the memory of Robertson Smith. See T.O. Beidelman, W. Robertson Smith and the Sociological Study of Religion (Chicago 1974): 31–2, 54, 76; Rudolf Smend, From Astruc to Zimmerli: Old Testament Scholarship in three Centuries, translated by Margaret Kohl (Tübingen 2007): 91–102. – The continuing influence of the English edition of Wellhausen's Prolegomena is illustrated well by Maynard P. Maidman, “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob meet Newton, Darwin, and Wellhausen,” BAR 32.3 (2006): 58–64 & nt. 11.

2 Joseph Blenkinsopp, The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible (New York 1992). Blenkinsopp's discussion of “The Nineteenth Century from de Wette to Wellhausen” (pp. 4-12) covers much of the scholarly ground we tread in this introduction, but with different emphases. Blenkinsopp discusses well de Wette's role in the development of the “documentary hypothesis”. William M. Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book (Cambridge 2004): 10–11, provides a useful summary of the early stages of the “higher criticism” (Astruc through Wellhausen); his summary is indebted to J.C. O'Neill's contribution, “Biblical criticism B: Renaissance criticism”, in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, David Noel Freedman, ed. (New York 1992) I: 728. – As J. Schmid observed, de Wette's research on the composition of Deut is one of the foundations of 19th century critical study of the composition of the Pentateuch. See Schmid's entry on de Wette, in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche [LThK], Josef Höfer and Karl Rahner, eds., 11 vols. (Freiburg 1957-67): 3 (1959): 315. For a similar positive appreciation, see J. Blenkinsopp, Alexa Suelzer, and J.S. Kselman, in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, R. E. Brown, J.A. Fitzmyer, and R.E. Murphy, eds. (Saddle River, NJ 1990): 95 & 1117–8. – John W. Rogerson, W.M.L. de Wette: Founder of Modern Biblical Criticism: An Intellectual Biography (Sheffield 1992), provides a reliable introduction to de Wette and a range of his academic associates and the historical and intellectual context within which they lived. Rogerson's intellectual biography, as with his entry on de Wette in the Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters, Donald K. McKim, ed. (Downers Grove, IL 1998): 298–302, demonstrates his first-hand knowledge of the original texts. Rogerson appreciated that de Wette's suggestion of Deuteronomy as the “book of law” discovered in the temple at the time of Josiah's reforms (2 Kgs 22:8) appeared solely in de Wette's dissertation as a suggestive footnote (see below, de Wette's note 5). Rogerson's 1992 biography of de Wette expands on his discussion in Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century: England and Germany (London 1984): 28–49. – Thomas Albert Howard, Religion and the Rise of Historicism. W.M.L. de Wette, Jacob Burckhardt, and the Theological Origins of Nineteenth-Century Historical Consciousness (Cambridge 2000), offers a discussion of the ways in which the art historian and Renaissance scholar Jacob Burckhardt and other 19th century German historians were influenced by de Wette's historical methodology. Howard demonstrates well the theological background (perhaps more profound than commonly assumed) of the critical currents of 19th century German historicism. The impact of Protestant theology on German universities is discussed in Howard's Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern University (Oxford 2006).

3 Several of de Wette's writings were translated into English in the 19th century: see Howard (2000): 179 nt. 3, but not his dissertation. Rogerson (1992): 40–42 reliably summarizes the dissertation, a summary used by Howard (2000): 37–43.

4 The distinction in Enlightenment scholarship seems to belong to Samuel Parvish, Inquiry into the Jewish and Christian Revelations. Wherein all the prophecies relating to the Jewish Messiah are considered, and compared with the person and character of Jesus Christ, and the times of the gospel; the authority of the canon of Scripture; and the nature and use of miracles, &c.; in a dialogue between an Indian and a Christian (London 1739): 324. In earlier literature, a putatively Mosaic Deuteronomy was identified with Josiah's book by Jerome Comm in Ez ad 1.1; Chrysostom In Matth. hom. 9; Procopius Comm. in IV. Reg. 22; Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 42 (“Of Power Ecclesiastical”); and, according to, J. Hempel, also Gotthold Lessing (ZAW 51 [1933]: 299 n 1).

5 For informed and bibliographically-rich discussions of scholarly criticism of the Pentateuch from (esp.) Wellhausen forward, see E. Nicholson, The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen (Oxford 1998); Anselm Hagedorn, “Taking the Pentateuch to the Twenty-First Century,” The Expository Times 119.2 (2007): 53–58, and Eckart Otto, “The Pivotal Meaning of Pentateuch Research for a History of Israelite and Jewish Religion and Society,” in South African Perspectives on the Pentateuch Between Synchrony and Diachrony, “Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 463”, J. LeRoux and E. Otto, eds. (London and New York 2007): 29–54.

6 Especially on the identification of Deut as the “book of the law” of Kgs 22:8-23.20 (e.g., Jack R. Lundbom, “The Lawbook of the Josianic Reform,” CBQ 38 [1976]: 293–302) and on the centralization of the cult of Yahweh at Jerusalem (e.g., Gordon J. Wenham, “Deuteronomy and the Central Sanctuary,” Tyndale Bulletin 22 [1971]: 103–18). For relevant archaeological evidence, see Andrew G. Vaughn and Ann E. Killebrew, eds., Jerusalem in Bible and Archaeology. The First Temple Period (Atlanta 2003).

7 Masius, Josuae imperatoris historia illustrate atque explicate (Antwerp 1574); see also Bodenstein, De canonicis scripturis libellus (Wittenberg 1520); Sixtus, Bibliotheca sancta ex praecipuis ecclesiae catholicae autoribus collecta et in octo libris digesta (Venice 1566); Bento Pereira, Commentariorum et disputationum in Genesim (4 vols.; Lyon 1594-1600); Jacques Bronfrère, Pentateuchus Mosis commentario illustratus (Antwerp 1625).

8 We have used the critical edition, with introduction and notes, by Pierre Gibert, Conjectures sur la Genèse (Paris: Éditions Noěsis 2003); see also Eamonn O'Doherty, “The Conjectures of Jean Astruc, 1753,” CBQ 15 (1953): 300–4. On Astruc's life and publications, see Janet Doe, “Jean Astruc (1684-1766): A biographical and bibliographical study,” Journal of the History of Medicine 15 (1960): 184–97; Gilbert (2003): 15–36; Rudolf Smend, “Jean Astruc: A physician as a biblical scholar,” in Sacred Conjectures: the context and legacy of Robert Lowth and Jean Astruc, “Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies, 457”, John Jarick, ed., (London and New York 2007): 157–73. See also Smend's sketch of Astruc's life and scholarly career, in From Astruc to Zimmerli (2007): 1–14.

9 Astruc's notion of a volumen with four separate columns is not as peculiar a proposal as it may seem. The great 3rd century CE Christian scholar Origen redacted a six-column edition of the OT: this “hexapla” apparently contained the Hebrew text, a transliteration of that text into Greek, the Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, and the received text of the Septuagint. See, in brief, Clavis Patrum Graecorum I., ed. M. Geerard (Turnhout 1983): 174-77-53 #1500; Joseph W. Trigg, Origen, “The Early Church Fathers” (London 1998):16; detailed discussion in Pierre Nautin, Origène. Sa vie et son œuvre (Paris 1977): 303–61. In addition, the example of Tatian's Diatessaron seems to have suggested itself to Astruc as a text derived by scribal synthesis from four distinguishable, synoptic sources, as his comparison to the gospels would indicate. See, in brief, Clavis Patrum Graecorum I., ed. M. Geerard (Turnhout 1983): 44–53 #1106.

10 In Jura Israelitarum in Palaestinam Terram Chananaeam Commentatione in Genesin: Perpetua sic demonstrata ut Idiomatis authentici nativus sensus fideliter delegatur, Mosis Autoris primaeva intentio sollicite definiatur, adeoque Corpus doctrinae et juris Cum antiquissimum, tum consummatissimum tandem eruatur. Accedit in Paginarum Fronte Ipse Textus Hebraeus cum Versione Latina (Hildesheim 1711): A. Lods, “Un précurseur allemand de Jean Astruc: Henning Bernhard Witter,” ZAW N.F. 2 (1925): 134–135.

11 The ten sources (= mémoires originaux) in addition to A (#1) and B (#2) Astruc identified in Gen and Exod are: #3: repetitive verses in the flood narrative (Gen 7:20 & 23); repetitive verses in patriarchal narratives (e.g., in the tale of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob: Gen 30:3, 34:2, 34:25); #4: patriarchal legends containing no divine names; #5: Gen 14: narrative of the “war of the five cities”, where Abraham plays a role distinct from his persona elsewhere in Gen; #6: Gen 19:30-38: the tale of Lot's daughters' incestuous actions and the origins of the Moabites and Ammonites; #7: Gen 22:20-24: descendants of Nahor, brother of Abraham; #8: Gen 25:12-19: genealogy of Ishmael; #9: Gen 34: the basic tale of Dinah, daughter of Jacob (cf. #3); two different mémoires concerning Esau: #10: Gen 26:34-35 & 28: 6-9: Esau's marriages; #11: Gen 36: Esau's descendants; #12: Gen 36:20-30: descendants of Seir the Horite. For discussion of Astruc's methodology, see Aulikki Nahkola, “The Mémoires of Moses and the genesis of method in biblical criticism: Astruc's contribution,” in Sacred Conjectures (above, note 8): 204–19.

12 See Astruc's summary in Gilbert (2003): Conjectures III, 395–401.

13 The (anonymous) translation of Astruc appeared in 1783: Smend, in Sacred Conjectures (above, note 6): 165. Hans-Joachim Kraus, Geschichte der historisch-kritischen Erforschung des Alten Testaments, 2nd ed. (Duisburg 1969): 103–13 (Salomo Semler); 133–43 (Eichhorn). See also Howard (2000): 35–36. Eichhorn was Professor at Jena from 1755 to 1788, then Professor at Göttingen, 1788-1827. See Rudolf Smend, “Johann Gottfried Eichhorn,” in Smend, Deutsche Alttestamentler in drei Jahrhunderten (Göttingen 1989): 25–37. For Eichhorn's use of Astruc (and his extension of Astruc's finding of “Jehovist” and “Elohist” sources), see, in brief, Smend, From Astruc to Zimmerli (2007): 12–13.

14 Eichhorn's works on (e.g.) Islamic numismatics, De rei nummariae apud Arabas initiis (1776) and pre-Islamic economy, Geschichte des Ostindischen Handels vor Mohammed (1775), are still fundamental. Along with Herder, Eichhorn may be said to have had a fundamental influence on scholars' taking Biblical materials to be specimens of Semitic, rather than Western, writing. Curiously, his principle disciple (and the first scholar to whom his chair was offered), Gesenius, often deferred in matters of general Semitics and especially comparative grammar to Eichhorn's eventual successor, and Wellhausen's iconic model, Heinrich Ewald.

15 Prospectus of a New Translation of the Holy Bible from corrected Texts of the Originals, compared with the Ancient Versions. With Various Readings, Explanatory Notes and Critical Observations (London 1786); Proposals for printing by subscription a New Translation of the Holy Bible (London 1788).

16 The Holy Bible; or the Books accounted sacred by Jews and Christians; otherwise called the Books of the Old and New Covenants. I (London 1792). Volume II appeared in 1797, with Judges, Kings, Chronicles, Ruth and the Prayer of Manasseh.

17 “The long pacific reign of Solomon (the Augustan age of Judaea) is the period to which I would refer it; yet, I confess, there are some marks of a posterior date or at least of posterior interpolation …” (Holy Bible I xviii-xix). Geddes goes on to argue that traditions up to the time of Moses were orally preserved and that Moses kept a travelogue and wrote some of the laws.

18 Volume I, Containing remarks on the Pentatuech, by the Rev. Alexander Geddes (London).

19 J. S. Vater, Commentar ueber den Pentateuch mit Einleitungen zu den einzelnen Abschnitten, der eingeschalteten Uebersetzung von Dr. Alexander Geddes's merkwuerdigeren, critischen und exegetischen Anmerkungen, und einer Abhandlung ueber Moses und die Verfasser des Pentateuchs. 3 vols. (Halle 1802–1805).

20 As with Astruc and Eichhorn as representatives of the documentary school, Ilgen comes under attack in Commentar: 696ff.

21 Karl David Ilgen, Die Urkunden des ersten Buchs von Moses in ihrer Urgestalt zum bessern Verständnis und richtigern Gebrauch derselben in ihrer gegenwärtigen Form aus dem Hebräischen mit kritischen Anmerkungen und Nachweisungen auch einer Abhandlung über die Trennung der Urkunden (Halle 1798). This was published as the first part of the overarching work, never brought to completion, entitled Die Urkunden des Jerusalemischen Tempelarchivs in ihrer Urgestalt als Beytrag zur Berichtigung der Geschichte der Religion und Politik aus dem Hebräischen mit kritischen und erklärenden Anmerkungen auch mancherley dazu gehörigen Abhandlungen, under which name the volume is usually cited.

22 Hermann Hupfeld, Die Quellen der Genesis und die Art ihrer Zusammenhang von neuem untersucht (Berlin: Wiegandt & Grieben 1853), and pp. viii–x on Ilgen.

23 For de Wette's family background and early years, see Rogerson (1992): 14–18; Howard (2000): 25–6.

24 See especially Rogerson (1992): 19-63 and Howard (2000): 23–50 on de Wette's education and academic career to 1810, when he left Jena, at Schleiermacher's invitation, to join the theology faculty at Berlin. For a more detailed discussion, see R. Smend, W.M.L. de Wettes Arbeit am Alten und Neuen Testament (1958), now to be supplemented with Rogerson (1992), Kraus (1969):174–80, and Smend, From Astruc to Zimmerli (2007): 43–56. Additional discussion and bibliography in Horst Dietrich Preuss, Old Testament Theology, 2 vols. (Louisville 1995-96): I: 2-4 & 270 nt.12. J. Schmid's entry on de Wette, in LThK 3 (1959): 315, contains biographical details and a useful bibliography, but curiously says nothing of de Wette's dissertation or of his role in the evolution of the “documentary hypothesis”.

25 De Wette's dissertation might have been aptly entitled “Prolegomenon”, for de Wette's essay of 1804 preceded his precise, scholarly translation of the OT (1809-12), followed by his translation of the NT (1814). Those translations were well-received, reaching a 4th edition in 1858, with a reprint in 1886. For an estimate of the value of these translations, see Bernhard Dammermann, in Cambridge History of the Bible vol. 3, S.L. Greenslade, ed. (1963): 341. On de Wette's research on other biblical texts, see Eckart Otto, “A Hidden Truth Behind the Text: At a Turning Point in Biblical Scholarship Two Hundred Years After De Wette's Dissertatio Critico-exegetica,” in South African Perspectives on the Pentateuch Between Synchrony and Diachrony, “Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 463”, J. LeRoux and E. Otto, eds. (London and New York 2007): 19–28.

26 Ilgen's “Elohist” and “Yahwist” sources correspond better with what would be identified generally as the “P(riestly)” source. On Ilgen, see Kraus (1969): 154–55; Rogerson (1984): 20–22; Jean Louis Ska, “The Yahwist, a hero with a thousand faces. A chapter in the history of modern exegesis,” in Abschied vom Jahwisten. Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion, J.C. Gertz, K. Schmid, and M. Witte, eds. (Berlin 2002): 1–24.

27 Rudolf Smend, Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wettes Arbeit am Alten und am Neuen Testament. (Basel 1958): esp. 29–30; see also Ernst Staehelin, Dewettiana, Forschungen und Texte zu Wilhelm Martine Leberecht de Wettes Leven und Werk. Studien zur Geschichte der Wissenschaft in Basel, II (1956).

28 See especially his citation of Vater, Commentar 2.458ff. in Beiträge 1.266n., with the statement that Deuteronomy, too, consists of fragments.

29 Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament I. Kritischer Versuch über die Glaubwürdigkeit der Bücher der Chronik mit Hinsicht auf die Geschichte der Mosaischen Bücher und Gesetzgebung (Halle 1806); II. Kritik der israelitischen Geschichte (1807).

30 Beiträge I: 159–161, 182, 266–273, 277, 283–89, 299 (cf. 136ff.).

31 Possible alternative inferences are that the author of Kings thought it was lost after the time of Amaziah, which, however, founders on de Wette's case as to the diction surrounding the discovery, and on the question of the time in which it was lost; or, that Amaziah acted according to a conception that was at one with Mosaic law, without necessarily enjoying the benefit of knowing a written text of it. The latter possibility suggests an authoritative, academic oral tradition, something far from alien to Near Eastern cultures generally.

32 False prophecy is treated differently (chap. 18, esp. vv.21-22) than apostatic proselytization (esp. ch. 13), but Deuteronomy's suppression of competition in the mantic arts has mainly to do with Yhwhistic, rather than apostatic, divination.

33 The term is that of F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, MA 1973).

34 See R. E. Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York 1986); The Bible with Sources Revealed (New York 2003). Other contemporary adherents to the Hezekian dating mainly include scholars related to the Kaufmann school, such as Menahem Haran.

35 Von Bohlen, Genesis historisch-kritisch erläutert, in the same year (1835) argued that Deuteronomy was published under Josiah, but the rest of Pentateuch only in the exile or later. J. J. Staehelin, in Untersuchungen über den Pentateuch, die Bücher Joshua, Richter, Samuelis und Könige (Berlin 1843), would argue the presence of two key narrative historical sources running from Genesis to Kings, to be dated to the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah respectively, before an exilic re-edition of the whole.

36 E.g., de Wette, Lehrbuch der historisch kritischen Einleitung in die Bible, Alten und Neuen Testaments Part 1, Die Einleitung in das Alte Testament enhaltend. 2nd ed. (Berlin 1822): 216 – even if, he concedes, the clarity of the evidence declines after Exodus 6.

37 Hermann Hupfeld, Die Quellen der Genesis und die Art ihrer Zusammensetzung von neuem Untersucht (Berlin 1853).

38 Vatke (1806-1882), Die biblische Theologie wissenschaftlich dargestellt I. Die Religion des Alten Testaments nach den kanonischen Büchern entwickelt. Part 1. Vatke was one of several scholars who undertook a revisionist history of the development of Israelite culture working from de Wette as amended for the purpose. See also C. P. W. Gramberg, Kritische Geschichte der Religionsideen des Alten Testaments. I. Hierarchie und Kultus (Berlin 1829); J. F. L. George, Die älteren jüdischen Feste mit einer Kritik der Gesetzgebung des Pentateuchs (Berlin 1835). Theodor Nöldeke (1836-1930) studied at Göttingen under Heinrich August Georg Ewald (1803-75), whose comprehensive knowledge of (and writings on) ancient Israel was frequently praised, and whose history and seminars professedly fired Wellhausen's imagination and ambitions. Nöldeke was professor at Kiel from 1864 to 68, then at Strassburg, 1872-1906. For additional information on Vatke and Nöldeke, see Kraus (1969): 194–99; LThK 3 (1959): 1262–3; 7 (1962): 1019; Hagedorn (2007): 54–5.

39 See Wellhausen's attempt to sort out the various, previous alphabetical designations of Pentateuchal sources in Die Composition des Hexateuchs (1889/1963): 1–2. On Wellhausen and his work, see especially R. Smend, Julius Wellhausen: Ein Bahnbrecher in drei Disziplinen (Munich 2006); Kraus (1969): 255–74; John Van Seters, “An Ironic Circle: Wellhausen and the Rise of Redaction Criticism,” ZAW 115 (2003): 487–500.

40 Wellhausen on Astruc: Prolegomena (English edition): 7. See also Smend, From Astruc to Zimmerli (Tübingen 2007): 13–14.

41 Wellhausen, Die Composition 3rd edition (1889/1963): 186-208. The compliment (186 nt. 2): “Die de Wette'sche Dissertation (1805) steht bei weitem nicht auf der Höhe der glänzenden Beiträge”, comes in the context of credit for priority and praise generously heaped on Vater, and is, perhaps unconsciously, double-edged: is the adverbial phrase or the verb negated?

42 J. Pedersen (“Die Auffassung vom Alten Testament,” ZAW 49 [1931] 161–81 actually stigmatizes Wellhausen as merely Vatke redivivus.

43 For recent discussion of Deut, see (e.g.) Duane L. Christensen, “Deuteronomy in Modern Research: Approaches and Issues,” in A Song of Power and the Power of Song: Essays on the Book of Deuteronomy, “Sources for Biblical and Theological Study, 3”, D. L. Christensen, ed. (Winona Lake, IN 1993): 3–17, and the studies of Eckart Otto, notably: “Deuteronomium und Pentateuch: Aspekte der gegenwärtigen Debatte,” ZAR 6 (2000): 341–74, and, in greater detail, E. Otto, Das Deuteronomium im Pentateuch und Hexateuch: Studien zur Literaturgeschichte von Pentateuch und Hexateuch im Lichte das Deuteronomiumrahmens, “Forschungen zum Alten Testament, 30” (Tübingen 2000).

44 See, for example, Moshe Weinfeld, “Deuteronomy: The Present State of the Inquiry,” JBL 86 (1967): 249–62. On this, as on other issues, Weinfeld attributes more to de Wette than the latter argued; see also A.C. Welch, The Code of Deuteronomy (London 1924): 57.

45 Latin text translated as reprinted in W.M.L. de Wette, Opuscula Theologica, ed. 2 (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1830): 149–68. The original submission was apparently entitled Dissertatio criticaexegetica qua Deuteronomium a prioribus Pentateuchi libris diversum …, or at least has been cited as such variously.

46 De Wette refers to Eichhorn: Einleitung 2.405-406, 417, 427-428, for example. For Eichhorn, Deuteronomy was Moses's abstract of the material from Exodus through Numbers (2.411-413), although there were multiple sources to be found in the latter (2.395ff.) as well.

47 [= de Wette N. 1] The reference is, in particular, to Ilgen, but does not exclude Eichhorn and his interlocutors, such as Otmar.

48 Nonetheless, those who have investigated critically the sources of Genesis have, from the time the book was made public, emended, extended and even perverted this opinion in a variety of ways. See the full discussion in Schumann, In l. Genes. hebr. et gr. (L. 829) Prolegg., pp. 53–68.

49 Note that this observation validates the view, e.g., of Friedman, The Exile and Biblical Narrative (Chico, CA 1981), against that of Cross (Canaanite Myth), that P cannot have been a redactorial layer attributable to the editor of the Pentateuch, since P, replacing JE, would hardly have written the end of Numbers in this way knowing that he was about to append Deuteronomy to it. In fact, P's own “Deuteronomy” in Num 27-36 seems to reflect, if not Deuteronomy itself, a tradition of such a second law-giving by Moses.

50 De Wette was thinking not of Tacitus' essay on Roman rhetoric, the Dialogus de oratoribus, but of the orations the historian composed for his historical works. See, for example (and notably), Tacitus' concise version (Annals 11.24) of the emperor Claudius'extant (and verbose) speech to the Roman senate, in 48 CE: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 13.1668 = H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae 3 vols. (Leipzig 1892-1916), vol. I (1892): # 212; translations in Frank F. Abbot & A.C. Johnson, Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire (Princeton 1926): 50; A.C. Johnson, P.R. Coleman-Norton, F.C. Bourne, Ancient Roman Statutes (Princeton 1961): 175. See also A. N. Sherwin White, The Roman Citizenship, ed. 2 (Oxford 1973): 237–40.

51 This is a phrase to which the respondent called attention (perhaps along with the opening sentence) as reflecting hyperbole: see de Wette's footnote 3.

52 [= de Wette N. 2] These synonyms also occur in the earlier books, but rarely together, and, for the most part, only two at once.

53 [= de Wette N. 3] In a previous edition, I had written “in numberless places”, which exaggeration the most learned Ulrich, who did not think it unworthy to play the role of my devil's advocate [at my doctoral disputation], criticized those statements which he deemed facetious and overly-clever. He ordered an enormous concordance to be brought to the podium. Turning the pages of that work, he pointed out just how often this locution occurred.

54 The equivalent phrase was known to de Wette in 1 Kgs 11:27, but was only later to appear in the Siloam inscription (KAI 189:1).

55 [= de Wette N. 4] It is irrelevant whether or not he had before him the books [of the Pentateuch] as we now have them. He was certainly acquainted with and had read the specific sources from which those books were composed. [Compare de Wette's discussion below, section 6 of the Dissertatio, on the differences between Deut 1-3 and the Pentateuchal source material for them.]

56 Note the emphasis, as discussed above, of a uniform sequence of development leading to the rabbinic structures of Judaism, particularly, of course, the doctrine of centralized worship.

57 That Deuteronomy traces the exclusivity of the prophetic institution, especially as a national office, back to the experience at Sinai is rarely noted after de Wette's treatment. See below.

58 The interiorization that characterizes Deuteronomy of course did not escape notice among Protestant scholars in particular in the 18th and 19th centuries.

59 [= de Wette N. 5] That the various laws of the Pentateuch reflect different periods of time can be demonstrated from this doctrine of the place for sacrifice. For not only is the law in Leviticus, which orders sacrifices to be presented before the tabernacle, earlier than the laws in our book concerning a single place, to be chosen from among all the tribes, but this law [in Leviticus] does not seem to be primitive and Mosaic, but rather to have been introduced at a later time. For the law of Exodus 20:21f. [MT: Exod 20:24-25] stands out, wherein no admonishment whatsoever is expressed about a single sacrificial place; indeed, on the contrary, it is permitted, and certainly not prohibited, to offer sacrifices in many places. [Note de Wette's presupposition of cultural progression in the relative dating of E (Covenant Code prologue) and P, both of them here taken as fragments in de Wette's Elohistic Grundschrift.] – This is the law: “Make for me an earthen altar so that you may sacrifice on it your burnt offerings, your peace offerings, from your flock and your herd. In every place where I shall order the remembrance of my name to be proclaimed, I shall come to you and be gracious unto you. But if, however, you will make for me an altar of stones, do not construct it of cut stones etc” [Exod 20:24-25]. – The law clearly says that God can be worshiped in many places; and the objection that the discussion in this passage concerns the tabernacle is specious rather than honest: because insofar as it will have been movable and free of any fixed location, to that extent a single place might actually be indicated by these multiple locations: but the text speaks not at all about that fixed, public cult of the tabernacle, but of altars (plural, deliberately) that must be erected. Those who defend the antiquity of the Pentateuch certainly will say that this law was promulgated before the establishment of the tabernacle; we, however, who are convinced that [this law] arose in a later era and was compiled from many sources, cannot acquiesce in that explanation. History clearly shows that there was a time when the Hebrews were wont to erect altars to offer sacrifices to their God, wherever it was pleasing – as was the custom of the Homeric Greeks. [For discussion illustrating (and demonstrating) de Wette's comparative point, see Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, MA. 1985): 24–34, 66–73.] – Samuel, Saul, David, and Solomon made dedications on the cultic high places whenever an opportunity presented itself; that this cultic practice was not displeasing to Yhwh is apparent from the myth in which it is related that Yhwh appeared benevolently to Solomon while sleeping, after sacrifices had been made on the high place of Gibeon (I Kgs 3[:4-15]). – This custom of making sacrifices on the high places was considered sacrilegious at a later time, but the practice had become so ingrained that Josiah was able to thoroughly eliminate it [2 Kgs 23], as admonished by Deuteronomy – this [book] having been discovered in the temple at the time (that the code of laws found by the priest Hilkia (2 Kgs 22) was our Deuteronomy one may conclude by a far from improbable conjecture [NOTE: Here is the passage in which de Wette suggests the identification of Deuteronomy with Josiah's Book of the Torah.]). Our book openly discloses that the law in Leviticus about offering sacrifices solely before the tabernacle did not originate with Moses, when it represents Moses as saying in Deuteronomy 12:8: “Then not all those things will be permitted you which are now permitted you, where each of us lives in accord with his own judgment.” That is, the text speaks of sacrifices not being offered except in that single place. By these words, the book clearly states that in the Mosaic era, the right to perform religious observances was unrestricted: for if the law of Leviticus had already at that time been promulgated, Moses would not have been able to say that the Israelites had previously lived up to that point “in accord with their own judgment”. Our book appears either not to have known that law or, certainly, not to have related it to the Mosaic era. [The resonance of this point through later source-criticism stems from its implication that D did not know P, licensing the inference that P was a later creation.]

60 For Karl David Ilgen, see also above, at endnote 21; for H.E. Gottlob Paulus, see above, in our discussion of Alexander Geddes (endnote 18).

61 Without reading too much into this passage, it appears that de Wette appreciated, in a way that many subsequent scholars have not, the extent to which the restriction of the mantic arts to a single institution, and a single national office (“a prophet like you [Moses]”), was inextricably integral to the dynamics of cult centralization. The elements of the latter are: a monarchy that is alligatus legibus, a limited priestly franchise, and, the suppression of mantic techniques other than “prophecy”, which is to say, in de Wette's terms, that the family-based and rural divination of the past, heavily tied to the ancestors, was now brought under state (or hierarchical) control.

62 Vater's assault on Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch in Commentar 5:16-681 takes into account not just the Samaritan materials but also later citations and historical circumstances as reflected particularly in the books of Samuel and Kings. We take this opportunity to express our appreciation and gratitude to Ms Deirdre Fulton, Dr. Anselm C. Hagedorn, and Prof. Gary N. Knoppers for critical comment, bibliographic advice, and encouragement.