ing Mosaic, was not known till
the time of Josiah. This theory he founded on 2 Kings xxii.; and ever
since, this chapter has been one of the recognized foci of Biblical
criticism. The only other single chapter of the Bible which is
responsible for having brought about a somewhat similar revolution in
critical opinion is Ezek. xliv. From this chapter, some seventy years
after de Wette's discovery, Wellhausen with equal acumen inferred that
Leviticus was not known to Ezekiel, the priest, and therefore could not
have been in existence in his day; for had Leviticus been the recognized
Law-book of his nation Ezekiel could not have represented as a
degradation the very position which that Law-book described as a special
honour conferred on the Levites by Yahweh himself. Hence Leviticus, so
far from belonging to an earlier stratum of the Pentateuch than
Deuteronomy, as de Wette thought, must belong to a much later stratum,
and be at least exilic, if not post-exilic.

The title "Deuteronomy" is due to a mistranslation by the Septuagint of
the clause in chap. xvii. 18, rendered "and he shall write out for
himself this Deuteronomy." The Hebrew really means "and he [the king]
shall write out for himself a copy of this law," where there is not the
slightest suggestion that the author intended to describe "this law"
delivered on the plains of Moab as a second code in contradistinction to
the first code given on Sinai thirty-eight years earlier. Moreover the
phrase "this law" is so ambiguous as to raise a much greater difficulty
than that caused by the Greek mistranslation of the Hebrew word for
"copy." How much does "this law" include? It was long supposed to mean
the whole of our present Deuteronomy; indeed, it is on that supposition
that the traditional view of the Mosaic authorship is based. But the
context alone can determine the question; and that is often so ambiguous
that a sure inference is impossible. We may safely assert, however, that
nowhere need "this law" mean the whole book. In fact, it invariably
means very much less, and sometimes, as in xxvii. 3, 8, so little that
it could all be engraved in large letters on a few plastered stones set
up beside an altar.

Deuteronomy is not the work of any single writer but the result of a
long process of development. The fact that it is legislative as well as
hortatory is enough to prove this, for most of the laws it contains are
found elsewhere in the Pentateuch, sometimes in le