AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH.

The term Pentateuch is composed of the two Greek words, pente, five, and teuchos, which in later Alexandrine usage signified book.  It denotes, therefore, the collection of five books; or, the five books of the law considered as a whole.

1.  In our inquiries respecting the authorship of the Pentateuch, we begin with the undisputed fact that it existed in its present form in the days of Christ and his apostles, and had so existed from the time of Ezra.  When the translators of the Greek version, called the Septuagint, began their work, about 280 B.C., they found the Pentateuch as we now have it, and no one pretends that it had undergone any change between their day and that of Ezra, about 460 B.C.  It was universally ascribed to Moses as its author, and was called in common usage the law, or the law of Moses.

2.  That the authorship of the law in its written form is ascribed to Moses in the New Testament every one knows.  “The law was given by Moses;” “Did not Moses give you the law?” “Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me;” “For the hardness of your heart he,” Moses, “wrote you this precept;” “Master, Moses wrote unto us;” “What is written in the law? how readest thou?” etc.  Since now the whole collection of books was familiarly known to the people as the law, or the law of Moses, it is reasonable to infer that our Saviour and his apostles use these terms in the same comprehensive sense, unless there is a limitation given in the context.  Such a limitation the apostle Paul makes when he opposes to the Mosaic law the previous promise to Abraham:  “The covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.”  Gal. 3:17, and compare the following verses.  But in the following chapter Paul manifestly employs the words the law of the whole Pentateuch, to every part of which he, in common with the Jewish people, ascribed equal and divine authority:  “Tell me, ye that desire to be under law”—­under a system of law, the article being wanting in the original—­“do ye not hear the law?  For it is written, that Abraham had two sons; the one by a bond-maid, the other by a free woman,” etc., Gal. 4:21, seq., where the reference is to the narrative recorded in Genesis, as a part of the law.  So also in the following passage:  “Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath-day,” Acts 15:21; the term Moses necessarily means the law of Moses, as comprehending the whole Pentateuch, for it was that which was read in the synagogues.  Compare the words of Luke:  “After the reading of the law and the prophets,” Acts 13:15.  And in general, when Christ and his apostles speak of Moses or the law, without any limitation arising from the context, thus, “The law was given by Moses;” “They have Moses and the prophets,” etc., we are to understand them as referring to the Pentateuch as a whole, for such was the common usage of the Jewish people, and such must have been their apprehension of the meaning of the terms.