▼Vaihinger seeks to give probability to Ewald’s idea of the progressive growth of the Mosaic legislation, and also of the Pentateuch, during a period of nine or ten centuries, by the following argument: — “We observe in the law-books of the ancient Parsees, in the Zendavesta, and in the historical writings of India and Arabia, that it was a custom in the East to supplement the earlier works, and after a lapse of time to reconstruct them, so that whilst the root remained, the old stock was pruned and supplanted by a new one. Later editors constantly brought new streams to the old, until eventually the circle of legends and histories was closed, refined, and transfigured. Now, as the Israelites belonged to the same great family as the rest of the Oriental nations (sic! so that the Parsees and Hindoos are Semitic!), and had almost everything in common with them so far as dress, manners, and customs were concerned, there is ground for the supposition, that their literature followed the same course” (Herzog’s Cycl.). But to this we reply, that the literature of a nation is not an outward thing to be put on and worn like a dress, or adopted like some particular custom or habit, until something more convenient of acceptable induces a change; and that there is a considerable difference between Polytheism and heathen mythology on the one hand, and Monotheism and revealed religion on the other, which forbids us to determine the origin of the religious writings of the Israelites by the standard of the Indian Veda and Purana, or the different portions of the Zendavesta.

▼Yet we never find in these words of Moses, or in the Pentateuch generally, the name Jehovah Sabaoth, which was unknown in the Mosaic age, but was current as early as the time of Samuel and David, and so favourite a name with all the prophets.

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Cf. Hävernick’s Introduction, and the opinions of the Rabbins on Deu. 31:9 and Deu. 31:24 in Meyer’s adnotatt. ad Seder Olam. But as Delitzsch still maintains that Deu. 31:9ff. merely proves that the book of Deuteronomy was written byMoses, and observes in support of this, that at the time of the second temple it was an undoubted custom to read that book alone at the feast of Tabernacles in the year of release, as is evident from Sota, c. 7, and a passage of Sifri (one of the earliest Midrashim of the school of Rab, born c. 165, d. 247), quoted by Rashi on Sota 41, we will give a literal translation of the two passages for the benefit of those who may not possess the books themselves, that they may judge for themselves what ground there is for this opinion. The passage from the Sota is headed, sectio regis quomodo, i.e., sectio a Rege praelegenda, quibus ritibus recitata est, and runs thus: — “Transacta festivitatis tabernaculorum prima die, completo jam septimo anno et octavo ineunte, parabant Regi suggestum ligneum in Atrio, huic insidebat juxta illud: a fine septem annorum, etc. (Deu. 31:10). Tum Aedituus (more correctly, diaconus Synagogae) sumto libro legis tradidit eum Primaria coetus (synagogae), hic porrigebat eum Antistiti, Antistes Summo Sacerdoti, Summus Sacerdos denique exhibebat ipsum regi. Rex autem stans eum accipiebat, verum praelegens consedit.” Then follows a Haggada on a reading of King Agrippa’s, and it proceeds: — “Praelegit vero (rex) ab initio Deuteronomii usque ad illa: Audi Israel (c. 4, 4), quae et ipse praelegit. Tum subjecit (ex. c. 11, 13): Eritque si serio auscultaveritis, etc. Dehinc (ex. c. 14, 22): Fideliter decimato, etc. Postea (ex. c. 26, 22): Cum absolveritis dare omnes decimas, etc. Deinde sectionem de Rege (quae habetur, c. 17, 14ff.). Denique benedictiones et exsecrationes (ex. cc. 27 et 28) usque dum totam illam sectionem finiret.” But how can a mere tradition of the Talmud like this, respecting the formalities with which the king was to read certain sections of the Thorah on the second day of the feast of Tabernacles, be adduced as a proof that in the year of release the book of Deuteronomy alone, or certain extracts from it, were read to the assembled people? Even if this rule was connected with the Mosaic command in Deu. 31:10, or derived from it, it does not follow in the remotest degree, that either by ancient or modern Judaism the public reading of the Thorah appointed byMoses was restricted to this one reading of the king’s. And even if the precept in the Talmud was so understood or interpreted by certain Rabbins, the other passage quoted by Delitzsch from Sifri in support of his opinion, proves that this was not the prevailing view of the Jewish synagogue, or of modern Judaism. The passage runs thus: “He (the king) shall write TJzOHA HRFWtOHA HNEŠiMI TJE. He shall so this himself, for he is not to use his ancestor’s copy. Mishneh in itself means nothing more than Thorah Mishneh (Deuteronomy). How do I know that the other words of the Thorah were to be written also? This is evident from the Scriptures, which add, ‘to do all the words of this law.’ But if this be the case, why is it called Mishneh Thorah? Because there would be a transformation of the law.

Others say that on the day of assembly Deuteronomy alone was read.” From this passage of the ancient Midrash we learn, indeed, that many of the Rabbins were of opinion, that at the feast of Tabernacles in the sabbatical year, the book of Deuteronomy only was to be read, but that the author himself was of a different opinion; and, notwithstanding the fact that he thought the expressionMishneh Thorah must be understood as applying to the Deuterosis of the law, still maintained that the law, of which the king was to have a copy taken, was not only Deuteronomy, but the whole of the Pentateuch, and that he endeavoured to establish this opinion by a strange but truly rabbinical interpretation of the word Mishneh as denoting a transformation of the law.

▼The weakness of the argument against the Mosaic authorship of the Thorah, founded upon the account of the death and burial of Moses, may be seen from the analogous case cited by Hengstenberg in his Dissertations on the Pentateuch. In the last book of the Commentarii de statu religionis et republicae Carolo V. Caesare, by J. Sleidanus, the account of Charles having abdicated and sailed to Spain is followed, without any break, by the words: “Octobris die ultimo Joannes Sleidanus, J. U. L., vir et propter eximias animi dotes et singularem doctrinam omni laude dignus, Argentorati e vita decedit, atque ibidem honorifice sepelitur.” This account of the death and burial of Sleidan is given in every edition of his Commentarii, containing the 26th book, which the author added to the 25 books of the first edition of April 1555, for the purpose of bringing down the life of Charles V. to his abdication in September 1556. Even in the very first edition, Argentorati 1558, it is added without a break, and inserted in the table of contents as an integral part of the book, without the least intimation that it is by a different hand. “No doubt the writer thought that it was quite unnecessary to distinguish himself from the author of the work, as everybody would know that a man could not possibly write an account of his own death and burial.” Yet any one who should appeal to this as a proof that Sleidan was not the author of the Commentarii, would make himself ridiculous in the eyes of every student of history.

▼According to Berosus and Syncellus, the Chaldean myth represents the “All” as consisting of darkness and water, filled with monstrous creatures, and ruled by a woman, Markaya, or  ̔Ομόρωκα (? Ocean). Bel divided the darkness, and cut the woman into two halves, of which he formed the heaven and the earth; he then cut off his own head, and from the drops of blood men were formed. - According to the Phoenician myth of Sanchuniathon, the beginning of the All was a movement of dark air, and a dark, turbid chaos. By the union of the spirit with the All, Μώτ, i.e., slime, was formed, from which every seed of creation and the universe was developed; and the heavens were made in the form of an egg, from which the sun and moon, the stars and constellations, sprang. By the heating of the earth and sea there arose winds, clouds and rain, lightning and thunder, the roaring of which wakened up sensitive beings, so that living creatures of both sexes moved in the waters and upon the earth. In another passage Sanchuniathon represents Κολπία (probably פּיח קול, the moaning of the wind) and his wife Βάαυ (bohu) as producing Αὶών and πρωτόγονος, two mortal men, from whom sprang Γένος and Γενεά, the inhabitants of Phoenicia. - It is well known from Hesiod’s theogony how the Grecian myth represents the gods as coming into existence at the same time as the world. The numerous inventions of the Indians, again, all agree in this, that they picture the origin of the world as an emanation from the absolute, through Brahma’s thinking, or through the contemplation of a primeval being called Tad (it). - Buddhism also acknowledges no God as creator of the world, teaches no creation, but simply describes the origin of the world and the beings that inhabit it as the necessary consequence of former acts performed by these beings themselves.

▼According to the Etruscan saga, which Suidas quotes from a historian, who was a “παῤαὐτοῖς (the Tyrrhenians) ἔμπειρος ἀνήρ (therefore not a native),” God created the world in six periods of one thousand years each: in the first, the heavens and the earth; in the second, the firmament; in the third, the sea and other waters of the earth; in the fourth, sun moon, and stars; in the fifth, the beasts of the air, the water, and the land; in the sixth, men. The world will last twelve thousand years, the human race six thousand. - According to the saga of the Zend in Avesta, the supreme Being Ormuzd created the visible world by his word in six periods or thousands of years: (1) the heaven, with the stars; (2) the water on the earth, with the clouds; (3) the earth, with the mountain Alborj and the other mountains; (4) the trees; (5) the beasts, which sprang from the primeval beast; (6) men, the first of whom was Kajomorts. Every one of these separate creations is celebrated by a festival. The world will last twelve thousand years.