" THE MOSAIC CALENDAR." 



157 



Wten did this calendar originate ? The four last books of 

 the Pentateuch expressly assert that it originated at the Exodus. 

 Thus the book of Exodus takes up the sabbath and the sabbatic 

 year, the three great " Pilgrim " feasts, and the continual daily 

 burnt offering. The book of Leviticus does not expressly men- 

 tion the continual burnt offering, but adds the special rites of 

 the seventh m.onth, that is to say the Feast of Trumpets and 

 the Day of Atonement. It also adds directions for the Jubilee. 

 The book of Numbers adds the regulations for the new moon, 

 thus completing the scheme of the Mosaic Calendar, the whole of 

 which' is therefore referred to in this book. Deuteronomy gives 

 the law of the sabbath day, and of the sabbatic year, and enacts 

 the observance of the three " Pilgrim" feasts. 



Current theories, on the other hand, reject the idea that the 

 Mosaic Law was given in the wilderness, and divide it, as regards 

 its date, into three chief portions : — 



1. The Book of the Covenant, Exodus xx, 22-xxiii, 33. 

 This is assigned to an early date under the kings. 



2. Deuteronomy ; the book brought to the notice of King 

 Josiah by Hilkiah the priest, and supposed to have been written 

 not long before, or at earliest under the reign of Manasseh. 



3. The remainder of the Law as given in these four books is 

 generally entitled the Priestly Code, and is beheved to have taken 

 form long after the return from the Exile and the founding of 

 the second Temple. The mission of Nehemiah to Jerusalem, 

 B.C. 445, may be taken as a representative date. 



From the point of view of the Mosaic Calendar, as distinguished 

 from the Law in general, the Book of the Covenant gives the 

 sabbath day and the sabbatic year with the three great 

 " Pilgrim " feasts. Exactly the same items are given 

 in Deuteronomy. So far, therefore, these two books are of the 

 same epoch. Both the sabbath day and the sabbatic year are 

 ordained in them, and the three great annual feasts, Passover, 

 Pentecost, and Tabernacles. 



But these five details, though of immense importance, give 

 no means for forming a calendar, and indicate no method by 

 which the actual times of the three feasts of universal obhga- 

 tion were to be fixed. It is only by including the regulations 

 of the " Priestly Code " that we get the compact symmetry of 

 the whole Calendar. It is only in Numbers that the regulations 

 are given for the observance of the new moons which made 

 the framework of the Calendar ; it is only in Numbers and 



