104 



PROFESSOR JAMES ORR^ D.D., ON THE 



pitched outside the camp, not within it ; the purpose is 

 revelation, rather than worship ; there is no ministering 

 priesthood, but Joshua alone has charge. Outside the 

 descriptions in P no trace of the elaborate " Tent of Meeting " 

 is discoverable. It is hence to be dismissed as unreal. This 

 is the view of the Mosaic tabernacle introduced by Graf, 

 Kuenen, and Wellhausen, and now found in almost every 

 critical text-book and Biblical Encyclopaedia that is published. 

 T need only refer as examples to the articles on the Tabernacle 

 in Hastings' Dictionaries of tlie Bihle (alike in four-volume and 

 one-volume dictionaries), and in the Encydo'pmlia Bihlica ; 

 and to the recently published Commentary on Exodus by 

 Dr. Driver, and Introduction to the Pentateuch by Dr. Chapman, 

 writers who would be regarded, presumably, as belonging to 

 the moderate wing of the school. 



The rejection of the historicity of the tabernacle rests, as 

 just said, in part on critical grounds — on the alleged late date 

 of the P writing, and the supposed conflict of its descriptions 

 with those in E — but far more on bi'oader considerations, 

 arising out of the conditions of the history, and the general 

 view taken of the religious development. The tabernacle 

 disappears as part of the total picture of the Mosaic age given 

 in the documents JE and P, but specially in P. That picture, 

 it is held, is late, legendary, and incredible. Eeligion had 

 not, it is affirmed, then attained the stage which made the 

 conception of such a tabernacle possible ; and the narratives, 

 when examined, show in every part their legendary and unhis- 

 torical character. To take only one point : the numbers of the 

 Israelites who are said to have left Egypt at the Exodus — 

 600,000 fighting men, implying a population of nearly 2,000,000 

 — are declared to be impossible, and still less possible is the 

 subsistence of such an immense multitude in the desert, which, 

 at the utmost, could not have sustained more than 5,000 

 or 6,000. Then the amount of precious metals, and the high 

 artistic skill, presupposed in the accounts of the making of the 

 tabernacle, are such as a multitude of trembling fugitives 

 cannot be conceived of as possessing. The simple weight 

 of the massive boards, pillars, and heavy sockets of silver 

 and bronze is beyond what the means of transport could 

 convey. Or think of the elaborate weaving and dyeing 

 operations and refined embroidery of fine linen implied in the 

 production of the coverings and hangings of the structure. 

 Putting all together, the case against the historicity of the 

 tabernacle is claimed to be complete. 



