Swartzentrover.com | Macdill - <b>Daniel: The Key To Prophetic Revelation</b> - Part II

The Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch

By D. Macdill

Part II - Objections Considered

Chapter 4

CLAIMED ALLOTOPISMS

It is claimed that there are in the Pentateuch passages that were written in places where Moses at the time was not, and could not have been. The objector reasons as follows: According to the import of some passages in the Pentateuch, the author at the time of writing was in a certain place or country; but Moses at that particular time was in another place or country; therefore, Moses did not write these passages. Principal Cave calls these geographical arguments anatropisms. We prefer to call them allotopisms. They are a legitimate mode of reasoning. If an allotopism can be established, it is conclusive, like an alibi in a criminal case in court.

I. An argument of the above kind is founded on the words "beyond Jordan," as found in various passages of Deuteronomy. The rendering in the Authorized Version is generally "on this side," or, "on the other side," but sometimes "beyond." It is maintained by the critics that the rendering ought to be "beyond Jordan," as it generally is in the Revised Version. The argument is as follows: In Deuteronomy Moses and the Israelites are spoken of as being beyond Jordan, when they were east of the Jordan." These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel beyond Jordan in the wilderness."¹ Now Moses, at the time he is spoken of as being "beyond Jordan," was in east Palestine. If, then, the writer of this passage speaks from his own geographical standpoint, he was at the time of writing in west Palestine. In that case the writer must have been some other than Moses. The question, then, is. Does the writer use the phrase "beyond Jordan" with reference to his own geographical position at the time of writing? Voltaire assumes that he does: "Comment Moïse aurait-il appelé villes au delà du Jourdan les villes qui à son égard étaient en decà?"² ("How could Moses call cities on this side Jordan the cities beyond Jordan?")

This objection, and the assumption on which it is based, have often been stated, but never improved, by later critics. They assume that the phrase translated "on this side Jordan" in Deuteronomy, Authorized Version, and "beyond Jordan" in the Revised Version, is employed by the writer to designate the side of Jordan opposite to the place occupied by himself at the time of writing, and that the meaning of the phrase can be determined only by our knowing whether the writer was on the east or west side of the Jordan. A little honest exegesis, however, is sufficient to show that the phrase translated "beyond Jordan" has no reference to the writer's geographical standpoint. It will not be denied that it literally means "at the crossing of Jordan." It might well be rendered at the side of, or beside, Jordan. Instead of relying on this phrase itself, or his own geographical location, to indicate which side of the Jordan is meant, the writer makes his meaning known by additional words or phrases, unless it is made clear by the context; thus:' ' On this side Jordan [at the crossing of, or beside, Jordan] in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red sea, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab'';³ "on this side [beside] Jordan, in the land of Moab";⁴ "on this side [beside] Jordan, from the river of Arnon unto mount Hermon; (which Herman the Sidonians call Sirion, and the Amorites call it Shenir'')⁵ " which the Lord your God hath given them beyond [beside] Jordan."⁶ Here the meaning is indicated by the preceding context, in which the possession of the two and a half tribes is located on the one side of the Jordan, and that of the nine tribes impliedly on the other. "Let me go over [cross] and see the good land that is beyond [beside] Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon";⁷ "Then Moses severed three cities on this side [beside] Jordan, toward the sun-rising";⁸ "on this side [beside] Jordan, in the valley over against Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon";⁹ "which were on this side [beside] Jordan, toward the sun-rising";¹⁰ "and all the plain on this side [beside] Jordan eastward, even unto the sea of the plain, under the springs of Pisgah";¹¹ "Are they not on the other side [beside] Jordan, by the way where the sun goeth down, in the land of the Canaanites?"¹²

Thus, in the ten cases in which the author of Deuteronomy employs the phrase which in the English version is sometimes translated "on this side Jordan," and sometimes "beyond Jordan," never once does he depend on the phrase itself, nor upon his own geographical position, to indicate which side of the Jordan is meant, but always on added words or phrases, or on the context. In the one case in which no words or phrases are added to complete the meaning, the context makes it sufficiently plain that it is the western side of Jordan that is referred to.¹³

The same is true of this phrase as used elsewhere. Thus in Numbers: "On this side [beside] Jordan eastward'';¹⁴ "on this side [beside] Jordan near Jericho eastward, toward the sun-rising.''¹⁵ The use of this phrase in the Book of Joshua is precisely the same. Taking the rendering of the Revisionists, we have the following: "beyond Jordan toward the sun-rising";¹⁶ "beyond Jordan westward";¹⁷ "beyond Jordan. . . on all the shore of the great sea";¹⁸ "beyond Jordan toward the sunrising";¹⁹ "beyond Jordan westward";²⁰ "beyond Jordan eastward";²¹ "beyond the Jordan at Jericho eastward";²² "beyond Jordan westward."²³

It is thus shown that the phrase translated in both the Authorized and Revised versions sometimes "beyond Jordan," and sometimes "on this side Jordan," gives no information as to whether the object to which it is applied was on the east or west side of that river, and hence does not indicate the locality of the writer. In every case it is shown which side of the Jordan is meant by additional words or phrases, as "east," "west," "sun-rising," "going down of the sun," "land of Moab," "coasts of the great sea," "in the wilderness over against the Red sea," "from Arnon to Hermon," or by the context.

Further, both Moses and Joshua are represented, while in east Palestine, as calling it "beber hayarden " (בְּעֵ֣בֶר הַיַדֵּ֑ן). x²⁴

One of the following conclusions is inevitable: Either (1) this phrase means merely beside, and not beyond; or (2) Moses and Joshua committed a grammatical blunder very often in the use of it: or (3) the writers of Deuteronomy and the Book of Joshua committed a literary blunder in putting this phrase into their mouths; or (4) this phrase is used by both the speakers and the writers as a proper name for east Palestine, like cisalpine Gaul by the ancient Romans. But the second and third hypotheses are inadmissible, and according to either of the other, two the objection to the Mosaic authorship is baseless.

2. Another example of allotopism is found in those passages which refer to the cardinal points of the compass west and south.

In the Pentateuch, Yam (יָֽם), the sea, is put for west, and Negeb (נֶֽגֶב), the desert, for south. But when Moses and the Israelites were in Egypt, at Sinai, and in the wilderness, the Mediterranean was not to the west of them, nor the Negeb to the south. It is hence argued that the Pentateuch could not have been written in Egypt, at Sinai, or in the wilderness, and therefore not by Moses.

If, like the analysts, we were disposed to deal in hypotheses, we might suppose that Moses, writing the Pentateuch in the wilderness, designated the points of the compass in accordance with his geographical position and surroundings, and that after he came to eastern Palestine, in revising his books, he adapted his nomenclature of the points of the compass to the modes of thought and speech prevalent in that region. Our analytic advocates could not with self-consistency object to the supposition of such revision and redaction.

But our reply is that it is to be presumed that Moses and the Israelites in Egypt and the wilderness used Yam for west and Negeb for south, just as their forefathers did in Palestine. The Hebrew was a fully formed language before Jacob went down into Egypt. Abraham brought it with him from Ur of the Chaldees, and he found the Canaanites speaking the same language as himself. Sayce testifies that the old Babylonian and Assyrian languages were as similar to that of the Old Testament as two modern dialects in English are to each other,²⁵ and that the language of Canaan differed but little from Hebrew.²⁶ Accordingly, the Hebrews and Canaanites, in their intercourse with each other, had no need of interpreters.²⁷ The Hebrew was therefore an old and well-established language before the migration to Egypt. The Hebrews took that language with them into Egypt and continued to speak it there. In that language Yam means west and Negeb means south. No doubt, Moses and the Israelites, while in Egypt and the wilderness, expressed themselves in this way, because it was in accordance with well-established Hebrew usage. Julius Caesar did not cease to speak of transalpine Gaul when he crossed the Alps, nor is it necessary for the modern traveler to cease speaking of the Orient when he reaches India or Japan. In after times the Hebrews did not change their mode of speech when they went out of their own country. The captives in Babylonia continued to use Yam for west and Negeb for south, as is shown by the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Psalm and the prophecies of Ezekiel and Daniel. To be consistent, the critics should maintain that Ezekiel and Daniel wrote in Palestine.

Palestine, with Yam on the west and the Negeb on the south, was not unknown to the Israelites, or at least to Moses, in Egypt. Thothmes III., king of Egypt, conquered Canaan 1600 B.C., a century or more before the exodus.²⁸ Gibeah, Migdol, Merom, Megiddo, and other towns made familiar by the Pentateuchal history, twenty-five in all, are named in the list of places that submitted to the conqueror. Mention is made of the Negeb, or southern district. The Pharaohs kept possession of Canaan until the time of Moses. Rameses II., the Pharaoh of the oppression, had a long struggle with the Hittites for the possession of Canaan. A line of Egyptian fortresses was established as far north as Damascus. Thus a knowledge of Canaan was kept up among the Egyptians in the time of Moses. The tablets give an account of the travels of an Egyptian mohar in Palestine, in these times, describing how he went in his chariot to Gebal, Sarepta, Sidon, Hazor, Tabor, Hamath, and other cities; how he had his clothes stolen one night, and how at another time he had a wheel of his chariot broken, and was necessitated to have it repaired at a blacksmith shop.²⁹

Thus in the time of Moses there were frequent communications between Egypt and Canaan and adjoining and tributary provinces. Thus, too, there was much to remind Moses of the land of his ancestors and to preserve in him the remembrance and love of his mother tongue, with its idioms and peculiar forms.

The matter, then, stands thus: In the Hebrew language, spoken in Canaan before the time of Abraham, Yam designated the west, and Negeb the south; the Israelites in Egypt continued to use their native language; the Hebrew was the mother tongue of Moses, as well as of the Israelites in general; hence, to him and to them, whether they were in Goshen, or at Sinai, or near to Palestine, or whatever their geographic position might be, Yam meant the west, and Negeb the south. Hence the use of these words in this sense in the Pentateuch does not indicate the locality of the author at the time of writing.