The
Israelites could not have dwelt in tents; they were not armed; the
institution of the Passover, as described in the book of Exodus, was an
impossibility, the Israelites could not take cattle through the barren
country over which they passed; there is an incompatibility between the
supposed number of Israel and the predominance of wild beasts in
Palestine; the number of the first-born is irreconcilable with the
number of male adults; and the number of the priests at the exodus
cannot be harmonized with their duties, and with the provision made for
them.[193] These, with other difficulties chiefly of a numerical nature,
constitute the basis on which the Bishop builds his objections to the
historical character of Exodus as an integral part of the Pentateuch.
In order to determine the true quality of the Book of Genesis, he brings
out the old theory that the work had two writers, the _Elohist_ and the
_Jehovist_,--so called because of their separate use of a term for
Deity. The Elohist was the older, and his narrative was the ground-work
which the Jehovist used and upon which he constructed his own
additions.
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