Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/71



MT does reproduce with substantial accuracy the characteristics of the original autographs. At present that assumption can only be tested by the success or failure of the analysis based on it. It is idle to speculate on what would have happened if Astruc and his successors had been compelled to operate with G instead of MT; but it is a rational surmise that in that case criticism would still have arrived, by a more laborious route, at very much the positions it occupies to-day.

The next great step towards the modern documentary theory of the Pent. was Hupfeld's demonstration that is not peculiar to one document, but to two; so that under the name Elohist two different writers had previously been confused. It is obvious, of course, that in this inquiry the divine names afford no guidance; yet by observing finer marks of style, and the connexion of the narrative, Hupfeld succeeded in proving to the ultimate satisfaction of all critics that there was a second Elohistic source (now called E), closely parallel and akin to the Yahwistic (J), and that both J and E had once been independent consecutive narratives. An important part of the work was a more accurate delimitation of the first Elohist (now called the Priestly Code: P), whose outlines were then first drawn with a clearness to which later investigation has had little to add.

Though Hupfeld's work was confined to Genesis, it had results of the utmost consequence for the criticism of the Pent. as a whole. In par