line of investigation. Hitherto the only important corrections
I have received have been those of Kuenen in his Contributions
to the Criticism of the Pentateuch and Joshua, published in the Leyden
Theologisch Tijdschrift; but these are altogether welcome,
inasmuch as they only free my own fundamental view from some
relics of the old leaven of a mechanical separation of sources
which had continued to adhere to it. For what Kuenen points out
is, that certain elements assigned by me to the Elohist are not
fragments of a once independent whole, but interpolated and
parasitic additions. What effect this demonstration may have on
the judgment we form of the Elohist himself is as yet uncertain.
In the following pages the Jehovistic history-book is denoted by
the symbol JE, its Jehovistic part by J, and the Elohistic by E;
the "main stock" pure and simple, which is distinguished by its
systematising history and is seen unalloyed in Genesis, is called
the Book of the Four Covenants and is symbolised by Q; for the
"main stock" as a whole (as modified by an editorial process) the
title of Priestly Code and the symbol RQ (Q and Revisers) are
employed.
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Now the Law, whose historical position we have to determine,
is the so-called "main stack," which, both by its contents
and by its origin, is entitled to be called the Priestly
Code, and will accordingly be so designated. The Priestly Code
preponderates over the rest of the legislation in force, as well as
in bulk; in all matters of primary importance it is the normal
and final authority. It was according to the mode furnished by it
that the Jews under Ezra ordered their sacred community, and upon it
are formed our conceptions of the Mosaic theocracy, with the