The Fundamentals - 1917: Vol.1

153

Tabernacle its the W1lderness that is, the law of worship as recorded especially in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers-did not originate, or at all events did not make its appearance, until somewhere near the close of the Babylonian exile, or about the time when Ezra first appears in Jewish history. By thus removing all that part of the Pentateuch down the centuries, from the time of Moses to the time of Ezra, the critics are able not only to deny the Mosaic authorship of this Pentateuchal literature, but also to construct a scheme of their own by which all the separate "documents" into which they are accustomed to divide the t P ic e u n l t a a r te d u o ch cu c m a e n n b t e b p ei u n t g to s g in e g th le e d r i o n ut a a k n in d d d o e f sig w n h a o te le d ; a ea cc c o h rd p i a n r g to its date, authorship, and other peculiarities, such as the c te r u it c ic h s i s s up a p ll os t e or b n elo to ng pi t e o ce it s . , a Mnd or i e n o s v t e e r a , d in of th i i t s s w b a e y in t g he re P a e ll n y ta a connected, organic whole, such as the orthodox world has always conceived it to be, it is by this peculiar higher-critic method transformed into a mere patch-work, a disjointed a n ff ec a t i e r d , h w a i v th ing it n th o an m a o n re y o d t iv he in r e p a ie u c t e ho o r f ity hu o m r an ins li p te ir r a a t t i u o r n e c t o h n a t has come into being through the law of evolution. Such, however, is exactly what the critics would make of the Pentateuch, and indeed of much else in the Bible, if they could have their way. But now suppose that after all the old Mosaic Tabernacle d ce id ss r o e f al t ly he e c x r i i s t t i , ca w l h h a y t po eff th e e c s t is w ? ou I l t d w t o h u a l t d h a a b v s e olu u t p e o ly n f t r h u e st s r u a c te all attempts to carry this hypothesis successfully through. Such would necessarily be the result, because, first of all, if that portion of the Pentateuch which contains the ceremonial or Levitical law is transferred down to Ezra's time, the old Tabernacle, for the services of which this law was desi gn ed, must necessarily come with it. But then, in the second place, a really existing Tabernacle so far down the centuries, or long after the Temple at Jerusalem had been built and was regarded

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