IS THE SO-CALLED " PRIESTLY CODE " OF POST-EXILIC DATE? 77 



Christian faith and nioraUty. I have met with earnest beHevers 

 iu Revealed Religion, who have said to me that they did not 

 care at what time the various books of the Old Testament were 

 composed or compiled, because their contents were of such a 

 nature that they compel every pious and godly person to bow- 

 before them as the voice of the Eternal God. The critics, too, 

 have frequently endeavoured to gloss over the real tendencies of 

 their criticism by arguing that it leaves the value of Scripture 

 unimpaired or even enhanced by the light that is thrown upon 

 them. But is tliis so ? What is that " light " ? It reveals to 

 us, if the critics are to be believed, a volume which deliberately 

 and pei'severingly states what is untrue, because it has been 

 deliberately and perseveringly forged in the interests of false- 

 hood, which, in this particular case, happen to coincide with 

 the interests of true religion. Any intelligent man, reading the 

 Pentateuch as it stands, must feel that it distinctly asserts two 

 propositions : first, that Moses was the ultimate source of the 

 contents of that volume ; and next, that he and he alone was 

 the author of the civil and religious code which Israel has 

 handed down to subsequent ages. The critics tell us that both 

 these statements are false. I have no objection to concede that 

 " JE," as a portion of the volume is called, may claim to be 

 exempted from the accusation of deliberate falsehood. Its 

 authors may have collected to the best of their ability the 

 unwritten traditions they found existing in their respectiv^e 

 neighbourhoods some hundreds of years after the events 

 narrated are supposed to have occurred. But the critics at 

 least give us to understand that none of these traditions had 

 any solid foundation, and that in the main they must be 

 pronounced contrary to fact. And no excuse, at least, can be 

 made for the author of Deuteronomy and for " P." The former, 

 we are asked to believe, deliberately composed his book in the 

 name of Moses in the reign either of Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh 

 or Josiah, in order that he might lay the foundations of a 

 monotheism in which his forefathers had never believed, and 

 carefully smuggled his book into the Temple, in the hope that 

 it might be found there, and that this might lead to the idea 

 that it was really an ancient document ! So also we are asked 

 to accept the postulate that the author of the Priestly Code 

 knew perfectly well that Moses had not given the instructions 

 contained in Leviticus ; but so long as he could make the Jews 

 believe that he had done so, it did not matter in the least 

 whether his statements were true or false. Then again, we are 

 asked to take it for granted, that a large number of scribes gave 



