250 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1870- 



by the Israelites in the wilderness. 1 But the same critics 

 who gladly admit this very often maintain that the whole 

 description of the Mosaic tabernacle is a fancy-piece in 

 imitation of the arrangements of Solomon s temple. 

 This view, after various sporadic utterances on the part 

 of other critics, was set forth with much zeal and in 

 genuity by Graf in several publications, of which the 

 most accessible is his book Die geschichtlichen Bucher 

 des A.T. (Leipzig, 1866). The same view is warmly 

 supported, among other living critics, by Noldeke, 

 Untersuchungen zur Kritik des A.T., 1869, p. 12, and 

 by Kuenen, Godsdienst van Israel, 1869-70, ii. 75, etc. 

 Now, I have endeavoured throughout these lectures to 

 build upon ground which is historically undisputed, so 

 that you may see how much of the character of the Old 

 Testament dispensation stands on a basis that cannot 

 be shaken. I have endeavoured to give the lesson of 

 institutions which every one admits to have existed, 

 though every one, of course, does not recognise in them 

 the same spiritual religion. This is the case with the ark 

 itself. There are critics who are bold enough to overlook 

 altogether the witness that the ark with its tables of the 

 law bears to the moral and spiritual character of the 

 religion of Moses and to assume against the whole history 

 that the ark must originally, like the arks of heathen 

 nations, have contained something in the shape of tera- 

 phim or a holy image. 2 These are theories to which one 

 is not bound to give any consideration. They are utterly 

 devoid of anything like testimony in their favour, and 

 are wholly suggested by an a priori belief that all reli 

 gion was at first unspiritual. But when real historical 

 difficulties are brought forward such as seem to exist 



1 So among others Kuenen ; see his article in Theol. Tijdschrijt, 1872, 

 p. 660. Almost a solitary exception is Hupfeld ; see his (posthumous) 

 views on the subject communicated by Riehm, Stud. u. Krit., 1871, 

 p. 422. 



2 So Kuenen (as probable) : Godsdienst, i. 232 ; similarly Noldeke, 



P- 5i. 



