ORIENTAL DISCOVERIES ON OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 43 



was possible ; it also indicates why it was given at that time and 

 by the hands of Moses. Canaan seems to have been under the 

 Hammurabi code. Egypt we know from ancient testimony had 

 also a written body of laws. Now, if the Israelites w^ere to 

 form a separate nationality — a people sundered from every 

 other, both by belief and by life — by what was their national, 

 social, and individual life to be regulated ? If they had retained 

 the Egyptian law, or adopted the Hammurabi code, they would 

 have lived in the same manner, and have continued on the same 

 level, as the nation from which they had just separated or as 

 the peoples into whose midst they were now to pass. It 

 was an absolute necessity, therefore, that Israel should 

 have its own code of laws. Otherwise the whole intent 

 of the Exodus would have been frustiated from the out- 

 set. 



Other facts have deepened the impression of the historical 

 character of the Pentateuch. The ceremonial laws, said to 

 have been given at Sinai, have a distinctly Egyptian character. 

 The circumstances stated in the history enable us to understand 

 why that should be so. The Israelites had just come forth from 

 Egypt after a sojourn in it of more than two centuries duration. 

 They had become habituated to Egyptian customs and ideas ; 

 and it was, consequently, unavoidable that, in providing them 

 with an elaborate religious ceremonial, Egyptian customs should 

 be to some extent reflected in the new religion. In other words, 

 the Israelites had to be legislated for as they then were. If, on 

 the other hand, present theories were correct, and these cere- 

 monial laws had really been elaborated in Babylon, their 

 Babylonian character would have been equally marked. But, 

 seeing that the Babylonian character is absent, and that the 

 presence of the Egyptian is undeniable, two conclusions seem to 

 be forced upon us. The Scripture account of the origin of the 

 Levitical Law is quite in accord with the fact ; and the 

 critical account of its origin is encumbered with enormous 

 difficulties. 



In the years 18G8 and 1869 a scientitic survey, conducted by 

 Sir Charles Wilson and others, was made of the Peninsula of 

 Sinai, with the result that the Scripture narrative of the sojourn 

 and of the marches of the Israelitish host was most strikingly 

 confirmed and illustrated. It is hardly conceivable that a bit 

 of fiction could have so fitted in with the results of a scientific 

 investigation ; and the investigators have left it on record that 

 they were strongly impressed by the conviction that the story 

 of the wilderness journey was a record of facts, and that the 



