The second part of A.N.R.'s assertion is really astonishing. It 1s the Alphabet of Higher Criticism that the so-called Priestly Code which is the groundwork of the Pentateuch, embracing parts of Genesis, about half of Exodus, and nearly the whole of Leviticus and Numbers, was not known to' the prophets, because they say so little about the sacrifices and ceremonies. As the Book of Deuteronomy which according to the critical theory was written in 625 B.C. does not betray a knowledge of the Priestly Code, it must not shave been in.existence even then. Again, the Babylonian stories of the creation and the flood resemble the account of Genesis, and there are similarities between the sacrificial system of the Bible and that of the Babylonians. Of course, it is natural that there should be points of contact between the Jews and the Babylonians for Abraham himself came from Babylon. But that cannot be, fur Wolf told us of a surety that the art of writing could not be older than the 7th, the utmost 8th pre-Christian centuries. Before that date neither the Jews, nor the Babylonians, nor Egyptians, knew how to write. Therefore, all records of events anterior to that date are pure fiction, and the only time the Jews could borrow from the Babylonians was during the exile. Therefore, the Priestly Cede (about three quarters of the Pentateuch) was written in Babylon at the time of the captivity, that is, 1,000 years after Moses. The statement Authorship of the Bible Two of Kautzsh (Literature of the Old Testament) bears repetition, for it is practically the pass-word to the higher critical school. He says. "The priestly history and law-book in the Pentateuch was the product of various priestly schools in the period between 500 ang 400 B.C., first in Babylon, then in Jerusalem". It is not to be supposed that the "various priestly schools" only wrote down old Palestinian practices.' For the main argument for post-exilic Priestly Code is that the prophets did not know its legislation. Therefore it must contain entirely new material. However, we need not speculate on the subject. Dillmann and Kittel make the position quite clear. They say: "It is a literary peculiarity of P. (that is the writer of the priestly code) to represent his ideal as already existing in the Mosaic age; hence from his representation of an institution it cannot be argued that it actually existed, but only that it was an object of his aims and claims". I took this quotation from Introduction to~Old_Testament Literature" by Canon Driver, an English Biblical scholar of note. The authors of the Priestly Code, then, borrowed from the Babylonians the stories of the creation
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