106 



PEOFESSOE JAMES OEE, D.D., OX THE 



antecedents and the consequents in the history of the nation, 

 and becomes part of an orderly sequence of cHvine events and 

 revekitions. 1 am not concerned, therefore, about scliemes even 

 for the reduction of the numbers, which do not seem to me 

 generally liappy, and have difficulties to encounter in the 

 consistency of representation in all parts of the narrative. To 

 reduce the numbers to say, 5,000 or 6.000 seems to me absurd ; 

 yet, unless this is done — if, e.g., you allow 20.000 or 30,000 — 

 the whole difficulty remains, for the desert, under present 

 conditions, is as incapable of naturally supporting that number 

 as it would be of supporting ten times as many. 



I leave these outer subjects to return to the narratives of the 

 tabernacle itself, and to ask whether there are not much 

 stronger reasons for accepting them as historical than there are 

 for rejecting them, as the critics do, in toto. 



The tabernacle, on the critical theory, was. as already said, a 

 creation of the exilian or post-exihan mind — part of a Code 

 intended to apply to the restored community of Israel. Eegarded 

 as fiction, it is an extraordinarily elaborate, detailed, and 

 minute piece of invention. Wellhausen cannot find language 

 strong enough to express his contempt for it. " Art products 

 of pedantry," he says, "... One would imagine that he 

 (the Priestly AVriter) was giving specifications to measurers for 

 estimates, or that he was writing for carpet-makers or 

 upliolsterers ... of a piece with tliis tendency is an 

 indescribable pedantry, l^elonging to the very being of the 

 Priestly Code. . . . Xor is it any sign of originaUty. 

 rather of senihty,'' etc. {Historii of Israel, pp. 337, 348, 350, 

 353). But now ask — What is the motive of this intolerable 

 web-spinning on the part of the Priestly Writer ? From the 

 point of view of the theory, it is to pro^dde a Code to be put in 

 force after the return from exile ; at least to furnish regulation 

 for worship in the new community. For this purpose could 

 anything be conceived less suitable tlian what was actually 

 produced i Instead of a Code for a new temple at Jerusalem, 

 everything takes the shape of a sanctuary and Code of laws for 

 the desert, where the conditions were totally different. The 

 portable tabernacle, with its curtains, coverings, regulations for 

 construction, placing, transport, etc., had no longer the semblance 

 of applicability, while the law providing that all sacrifices should 

 be offered at the door of the tabernacle lost all relevancy after 

 the relaxing rule of Deuteronomy xii, 15. On the theory of 

 fiction the tabernacle must be viewed as a construction wholly 

 in rhe air — a pure play of imagination fiom the motive r»f 



