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 PENTATEUCH

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PENTATEUCH

five books is a question not yet finally settled. Some regard the division as antedating the Septuagint trans- lation; others attribute it to the authors of this trans- lation; St. Jerome was ot opinion (Ep. 52, ad Paulin., 8; P. L., XXII, 54.5) that St. Paul alluded to such a division into five books in I Cor., xiv, 19; at any rate, Philo and Josephus are familiar with the division now in question ("De Abrahamo", I; "Cont. Apion.", I, 8). However ancient may be the custom of dividing the initial portion of the Old Testament into five parts, the early Jews had no name indicating the partition. They called this part of the Bible hdttorah (the law), or torah (law), or sepher hiittorah (book of the law), from the nature of its contents (Jos., viii, 3-1; i, 8; lEsdr., X, 3; II Esdr., viii, 2, 3, U; x, 35, 37; II Par., XXV, 4); they named it torath IVIosheh (law of Moses), eepher Mosheh (book of Moses), sepher tordth Mosh6h (book of the law of Moses) on account of its author- ship (Jos., viii, 31, 32; xxiii, 6; III Kings, ii, 3; IV Kings, xiv, 16; xxiii, 25; Dan., ix, 11; I Esdr., iii, 2; vi, IS; II Esdr., viii, 1; xiii, 1; etc.); finally, the Divine origin of the Mosaic Law was implied in the names: law of Yahweh (I Esdr., vii, 10; etc.), law of God (II Esdr., viii, 18; etc.), book of the law of Yah- weh (II Par., xvii, 9; etc.), book of the law of God (Jos., xxiv, 26; etc.). The word law in the foregoing expressions has been rendered by vd/Mos, with or with- out the article, in the Septuagint version. The New Testament refers to the Mosaic law in various ways: the law (Matt., v, 17; Rom., ii, 12; etc.); the law of Moses (Luke, ii, 22; xxiv, 44; Acts, xxviii, 23); the book of Moses (Mark, xii, 26); or simply, Moses (Luke, xxiv, 27; Acts, xv, 21). Even the Talmud and the older Rabbinic writings call the first part of the Bible the book of the law, while in Aramaic it is simply termed law (cf. Buxtorf, "Lexicon Chaldaicum Tal- mudicum Rabbinicum", 791, 983; Levy, "Chal- daisches Worterbuch", 268, 16; Aicher, "Das Alte Testament in der Mischna", Freiburg, 1906, p. 16).

The Greek name vevTaTevxis, implying a division of the law into five parts, occurs for the first time about A. D. 150-75 in the letter to Flora by the Valentinian Ptolemy (cf . St. Epiphan., "Ha?r.", XXXIII, iv; P. G., XLI, 560). An earlier occurrence of the name was supposed to exist in a passage of Hippolytus where the Psalter is called kuI aird dXXoi- Trti'TdTfuxoi' (cf. edition of de Lagarde, Leipzig and London, 1858, p. 193) ; but the passage has been found to belong to Epiphanius (cf. "Hippolytus" in "Die griechischen Schriftsteller der erstendrei Jahrhunderte", Leipzig, 1897, 1. 1, 143). The name is used again by Origen (Comment, in Ev. Jo., t. II; P. G., XIV, 192; cf. P. G., XIII, 444), St. Athanasius (Ep. ad Marcellin., 5; P. G., XXVII, 12), and several times by St. Epiphanius (De mensur. et ponderib., 4, 6; P. G., XLIII, 244). In Latin, Tertul- lian uses the masculine form Penlaleuchus (Adv. Marcion., I, 10; P. L., II, 257), while St. Isidore of Seville prefers the neuter Pentateuchum (Etym., VI, ii, 1, 2; P. L., LXXXII, 230). The analogous forms Octateuch, Heptateuch, and Hexateuch have been used to refer to the first eight, seven, and six books of the Bible respectively. The Rabbinic writers adopted the expre.ssion "the five-fifths of the law" or simply "the five-fifths" to denote the five books of the Penta- teuch.

Both the Palestinian and the Alexandrian Jews had distinct names for each of the five books of the Penta- teuch. In Palestine, the opening words of the several books served as their titles; hence we have the names: bereshlth, we'elleh shemoth or simply shemoth, wdyyiqra, wiiyedhiibber, and 'elleh hdddebarim or simply debarim. Though these were the ordinary Hebrew titles of the successive Pentateuchal books, certain Rabbinic writers denote the last three accord- ing to their contents; they called the third book tordth kohdnira, or law of priests; the fourth, hora(?sh hdpplqqftdhim, or book of census; the fifth, mishneh

thorah, or repetition of the law. The Alexandrian Jews derived their Greek names of the five books from the contents of either the whole or the begin- ning of each division. Thus the first book is called T^if€(Tis Kda/xov or simply Tifcats- the second, 'E^oSoj AiyuTTTov or'E?o6os; the third, AeueiriKiy or AewTu^x; the fourth, 'Apiff/ioi ; and the fifth, Aci/T-fpo^A/iioc. These names passed from the Septuagint into the Latin Vulgate, and from this into most of the transla- tions of the Vulgate. 'ApW/ioi however was replaced by the Latin equivalent Numeri, while the other names retained their form.

II. Analysis. — The contents of the Pentateuch are partly of an historical, partly of a legal character. They give us the history of the Chosen People from the creation of the world to the death of Moses, and acquaint us too with the civil and religious legislation of the Israelites during the Ufe of their great lawgiver. Genesis may be considered as the introduction to the other four books; it contains the early history down to the preparation of Israel's exit from Egypt. Deu- teronomy, consisting mainly of discourses, is practi- cally a summary repetition of the Mosaic legislation, and concludes also the history of the people under the leadership of Moses. The three intervening books consider the wanderings of Israel in the desert and the successive legal enactments. Each of these three great divi'iions has its own special introduction (Gen., i, 1-ii, 3; Ex., i, 1-i, 7; Deut., i, 1-5); and since the subject matter distinguishes Leviticus from Exodus and Numbers, not to mention the literary termina- tions of the tliird and fourth books (Lev., xxvii, 34; Num., xxvi, 13), the present form of the Pentateuch exhibits both a literary unity and a division into five minor parts.

A. Genesis. — The Book of Genesis prepares the reader for the Pentateuchal legislation ; it tells us how God chose a particular family to keep His Revelation, and how he trained the Chosen People to fulfil its mission. From the nature of its contents the book consists of two rather unequal parts; cc. i-xi present the features of a general history, while cc. xii-1 con- tain the particular history of the Chosen People. By a literary device, each of these parts is subdivided into five sections differing in length. The sections are in- troduced by the phrase 'elleh tholedhoth (these are the generations) or its variant zeh sepher loledholh (this is the book of the generations). "Generations", how- ever, is only the etymological meaning of the Hebrew loledhoih; in its context the formula can hardly sig- nify a mere genealogical table, for it is neither pre- ceded nor followed by such tables. As early Oriental history usually begins with genealogical records, and consists to a large extent of such records, one naturally interprets the above introductory formula and its variant as meaning, "this is the history" or "this is the book of the history." History in these phrases is not to be understood as a narrative resting on folklore, as Fr. von Hummelauer beheves ("Exegetisches zur Inspirationsfrage, Biblische Studien", Freiburg, 1904,

IX, 4, pp. 26-32); but as a record based on gene- alogies. Moreover, the introductory formula often refers back to some principal feature of the preced- ing section, thus forming a transition and connexion between the successive parts. Gen., v, 1, e. g., refers back to Gen., ii, 7 sqq.; vi, 9 to v, 29 sqq. and vi, 8;

X, 1 to ix, 18, 19; etc. Finally, the sacred writer deals very briefly with the non-chosen families or tribes, and he always considers them before the chosen branch of the family. He treats of Cain before he speaks of Seth; similarly, Cham and Japhet precede Sem; the rest of Sem's posterity precedes Abraham; Ismael precedes Isaac; Esau precedes Jacob.

Bearing in mind these general outlines of the con- tents and the literary structure of Genesis, we shall easily understand the following analytical table.

Inlroduclion, Gen., i, 1-ii, 3, consists of the Hex-