HISTORICITY OF THE MOSAIC TABERNACLE. 



105 



It may seem then, as if, in venturing to challenge this array 

 of reasons for setting aside the tabernacle of the Exodus 

 account, I were undertaking an absolutely hopeless task. I do 

 not, however, myself feel that it is so ; and 1 shall leave you to 

 judge, when I have presented the other side, whether a ureat 

 deal more is not to be said for the historicity of this sacred 

 structure than the critical theories allow. 



The purely critical question I do not discuss in detail. So 

 far from admitting that the Levitical Code — the so-called 

 P Code — with its complex of laws, rites, and institutions, is a 

 production of the age after the exile, I believe this to be an 

 arbitrary and wholly preposterous conception, for which no 

 sound reasons have been adduced, and which ere long is bound 

 to be abandoned by thoughtful minds. Imagine Ezra producing 

 this Code of laws — a thing unheard of before — in presence of 

 the returned community of exiles at Jerusalem — a com- 

 munity deeply divided, disaffected, religiously faithless, and 

 in large measure opposed to the reforms of Ezra himself 

 and of Nehemiah — and obtaining from them without demur 

 the acceptance of its egregious historical statements, e.p., 

 that the Levites, unknown before Ezekiel, had been set apart 

 by Jehovah in the wilderness, and from time immemorial 

 had been richly endowed with cities, pasturages, and tithes, 

 and beyond this, the acceptance of its heavy and entirely new 

 financial burdens. I have, however, argued this fully elsewhere, 

 without ever seeing an answer to my argument, and do not 

 dwell upon it further now. 



Much more weight, I grant, belongs to the historical diffi- 

 culties, which here also I would only touch upon, as none of 

 them are new, and they have been discussed and appraised 

 times without number, without the rejection of the Mosaic 

 account following as a necessary consequence. It may be 

 observed that it is not the P document alone, but the JE 

 histories as well, which narrate the marvellous increase of the 

 people of Israel in Goshen, and the immense host that went out 

 at the Exodus ; they are pictured as leaving Egypt as an 

 orderly, marshalled host, spoiling the Egyptians of their wealth, 

 freely thrust upon them to secure their speedy departure ; their 

 marches, deliverances, and the provision made for them are 

 not figured as natural events, but as the result of the miraculous 

 guidance and bountiful care of Jehovah, their God and 

 Kedeemer ; the entire history is penetrated by a supernatural 

 element without which, it is freely admitted, it is not intelligible 

 at all, but which, if granted, is in keeping with both the 



