[62] Exod. 12. 25; 13. 11; Lev. 14. 34; 19. 23; 23. 10; 25. 2; Num. 15. 2, 18; 35. 10; Deut. 7. 1; 12. 1, 10, 29; 17. 14; 18. 9; 26. 1.
[63] E.g., Deut. 4. 1, 5, 14; 5. 31; 6. 1, 18; 8. 1.
[64] E.g., Exod. 29. 14; Lev. 4. 12; 6. 11; 13. 46; 14. 3; 16. 26; 17. 3; Num. 5. 2; 19. 3, 14.
The wording, then, of all these laws bears unmistakable signs of contemporary origin. Of course, these signs may have been inserted in later laws to give them an air of genuineness, but they cannot be explained in any other way. Therefore the laws must be either of contemporary date, or else deliberate frauds. No innocent mistake in ascribing old laws to Moses, can possibly explain such language as this; either it was the natural result of the laws being genuine, or else it was adopted on purpose to mislead.
Nor can the difficulty be got over by introducing a number of compilers and editors. For each individual law, if it falsely claims to date from before the conquest of Canaan (and, as we have seen, numbers and numbers of laws do so claim, When ye be come into the land of Canaan, etc.), must have been made by someone. And this someone, though he really wrote it after the conquest of Canaan, must have inserted these words to make it appear that it was written before.
Practically, then, as just said, there are but two alternatives—that of genuine laws written in the time of Moses, and that of deliberate frauds. And bearing this in mind, we must ask, is it likely that men with such a passion for truth and righteousness as the Jewish prophets—men who themselves so denounced lying and deception in every form[65]—should have spent their time in composing such forgeries? Could they, moreover, have done it so skillfully, as the laws contain the strongest marks of genuineness; and could they have done it so successfully as never to have been detected at the time? This is the great moral difficulty in assigning these laws to a later age, and to many it seems insuperable.
[65] Jer. 8. 8; 14. 14; Ezek. 13. 7.
We have thus two very strong arguments in favour of an early date for the Pentateuch: one derived from its Egyptian references, the other from its Laws. The former shows that no Israelite in later times could have written the book; and the latter that he would not have done so, if he could.
(C.) The Theory of a Late Date.
We pass on now to the opposite theory, or that of a late date. According to this the Pentateuch, though no doubt containing older traditions, and fragments of older documents, was not written till many centuries after the death of Moses. And the four chief arguments in its favour are based on the language of the Pentateuch, its composite character, its laws being unknown in later times, and the finding of Deuteronomy in the reign of Josiah. We will examine each in turn.