Some of these objections — those, e. g., as to the num- ber of the first-born, and the disproportionate smallness of the priesthood, have been met by anticipation in re- marks under Puiest and Levite. Others bearing upon the general veracity of the Pentateuch history it is im- possible to discuss here. See PENTArEucir. It will be sufficient to notice such as bear immediately upon the subject of this article. (1.) It may be said that this theory, like other similar theories as to the history of Christianity, adds to instead of diminishing difficulties and anomalies. It may be possible to make out plausi- bly that what purports to be the first period of an insti- tution is, with all its documents, the creation of the sec- ond ; but the question then comes. How are we to explain the existence of the second? The world rests upon aw elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, but the footing of the tortoise is at least somewhat insecure. (2.) What- ever may be the weight of the argument drawn from the alleged presence of the whole congregation at the door of the tabernacle tells with equal force against the historical existence of the Temple and the narrative of its dedication. There also, when the population num- bered some seven or eight millions (2 Sam. xxiv, 9), "all the men of Israel" (1 Kings viii, 2), "all the con- gregation" (ver. 5), "all the children of Israel" (ver. 63) were assembled, and the king " blessed" all the congre- gation (ver. 14, 55). (3.) There are, it is believed, un- designed touches indicating the nomadic life of the wil- derness. The wood employed for the tabernacle is not the sycamore of the valleys nor the cedar of Lebanon, as afterwards in the Temple, but the shittim of the Si- naitic peninsida. See Shittah-tkee ; Shittim. The abundance of fine linen points to Egypt, the seal or dol- phin skins (" badgers" in the A. V., but see Gesenius, s. V. nnri) to the shores of the Red Sea. See Bapger. The Levites are not to enter on their office till the age of thirty, as needing for their work as bearers a man's full strength (Numb, iv, 23, 30). Afterwards, when their duties are chiefiy those of singers and gatekeepers, they were to begin at twenty (1 Chron. xxiii, 24). Would a later history, again, have excluded the priestly tribe from all share in the structure of the tabernacle, and left it in the hands of mj'thical persons belonging to Judah, and to a tribe then so little prominent as that of Dan ? (4.) There remains the strong Egyptian stamp impressed upon well-nigh every part of the tabernacle and its ritual, and implied in other incidents. See Brazen Serpent; Levite; Priest; Urim andThum- MiM. Whatever bearing this may have on our views of the things themselves, it points, beyond all doidjt, to a time when the two nations had been brought into close contact, when not jewels of silver and gold only, but treasures of wisdom, art, knowledge, were " bor- rowed" by one people from the other. To what other period in the history before Samuel than that of the Exodus of the Pentateuch can we refer that intercourse?
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Wlion was it likely that a wild trilie, with difficulty keeping- its ground against neighboring nations, would have adopted such a complicated ritual from a system so alien to its own ? The facts wliich, when urged by Spencer, with or without a hostile purpose, were de- nounced as daring and dangerous and unsettling, are now seen to be witnesses to the anticpiity of the religion of Israel, and so to the substantial truth of the Jlosaic history. Tlicy are used <is such liy theologians who in various degrees enter their protest against the more destructive criticism of our own time (Hengstenberg, K<jiii)t and the Books of Moses; Stanley, Jeicish Church, lect. iv). (5.) We may, for a moment, put an imagi- narj' case. Let us suppose that the records of the Uld Test, had given us in 1 and "2 Sam. a history like that which men now seek to substitute for what is actually given, had represented Samuel as the tirst great preach- er of the worship of Elohim. Gad, or some later prophet, as introducing for the tirst time the name and worship of Jehovah, and that the Old Test, began with this (Colenso, pt. ii, ch. xxi). Let us then suppose that some old papyrus, freshly discovered, slowly deciphered, gave us the whole or the greater part of what we now find in Exodus and Numbers, that tliere was thus given an explanation both of the actual condition of the peo- ple and of the Egyptian element so largely intermingled with their ritual. Can we not imagine with what jidji- lant zeal the books of Samuel would then have been " criticalh' examined," what inconsistencies would have been detected in them, how eager men would have been to prove that Samuel had had credit given him for a work which was not his; that not he, but Moses, was the founder of the polity and creed of Israel; that the tabernacle on Zion, instead of coming fresh from David's creative mind, had been preceded by the humbler tab- ernacle in the wilderness?