Here also the important point is not the matter, but the spirit
which is behind it, and may everywhere be recognised as the
spirit of the age at one period or another. /2/
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2. Comp.
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All these objections, meanwhile, labour under the same defect,
namely, that they leave out of view that which is the real point
at issue. The point is not to prove that the Mosaic law was not
in force in the period before the exile. There are in the
Pentateuch three strata of law and three strata of tradition, and
the problem is to place them in their true historical order. So
far as the Jehovist and Deuteronomy are concerned, the problem
has found a solution which may be said to be accepted
universally, and all that remains is to apply to the Priestly Code
also the procedure by which the succession and the date of these
two works has been determined--that procedure consisting in the
comparison of them with the ascertained facts of Israelite
history. /3/
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3. The method is stated in the introduction: and special pains are
taken to bring it out distinctly in the first chapter, that about
the place of worship.
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