The Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch 51 (Josh. 18: 1; Judges 18: 31s; 1 Sam. 2 : 24). The truth is that the destructive critics upon this point make a most humiliating mistake in repeatedly substituting "sanctuaries" for "altars," assuming that since there was a plurality of altars in the time of the Judges there was therefore a plurality of sanctuaries. They have completely misunderstood the permission given in Ex. 20: 24: "An altar of earth thou shalt make unto Me and shalt sacrifice thereon -thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen; in all places, A. V. ; [in every place, R. V.J, where I record My name I will come unto thee and I will bless thee. And if thou make Me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stones." In reading this pas sage we are likely to be misled by the erroneous translation. Where the revisers read i n "every place" and the authorized version in "all places" the correct translation is "in all the place" or "in the whole place." The word is in the singular number and has a definite article before it. The whole place referred to is Palestine, the Holy Land, where sacrifices such as the patriarchs had offered were always permitted to lay men, provided they made use only of an altar of earth or unhewn stones which was kept free from the adornments and accessories characteristic of heathen altars. These lay sac rifices were recognized in Deuteronomy as well as in Exodus. (Deut. 16: 21.) But altars of earth or unhewn stone, often used for the nonce only and having no connection with a temple of any sort, are not houses of God and will not be come such on being called sanctuaries by critics several thou sand years after they have fallen out of use. In accordance with this command and permission the Jews have always limited their sacrifices to the land of Palestine. When exiled to forei gn lands the Jews to this day have ceased to offer sacrifices. It is true that an experiment was made of setting up a sacrificial system in Egypt for a time by a certain portion of the exiles; but this was soon abandoned. Ultimately a synagogue system was established and worship
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