The Problem of the Pentateuch
A New Solution by Archaeological Methods
Description:... This book is a serious attempt to discredit the results of the labors of a multitude of scholars in many lands on the field of Pentateuchal criticism. Dr. Kyle seeks to do this on the basis of an exhaustive examination of the legislative part of the Pentateuch, in particular of the terse and mnemonic "judgments," of the descriptive "statutes," and of the hortatory Deuteronomy. But a critic can accept - practically all he urges with regard to these distinctions, without in the very least accepting his conclusion as to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. An immense array of facts both within and without the Pentateuch, which no adequate criticism can possibly ignore, renders such an authorship absolutely untenable. The mind which can assign the Book of Job to the patriarchal age (p. 210) or which can accept literally the view that certain commandments were "announced by the voice of God from the summit of the mountain" (p. 129, cf. p. 146) is a totally unmodern mind. The book is gravely disfigured by a long series of misspellings, some of which, like "decument" (for document) and "eqully," are manifestly slips, others, like "homogenious, voluminious, adherance, Sybbilene, Nazarite (for Nazirite), MacCawber," are almost inexcusable monstrosities. Such carelessness in a matter so elementary does not tend to strengthen one's confidence in the writers' competence to handle so complicated a theme as Pentateuchal criticism. It is not by work of this kind that the patient toil of nearly 170 years will be overthrown.
-The Homiletic Review, Vol. 81 [1921]
Show description