This being assumed, we cannot treat
the legislative portion of the Pentateuch as a source from which
our knowledge of what Mosaism really was can be derived; for it
cannot in any sense be regarded as the starting-point of the
subsequent development. If it was the work of Moses, then we
must suppose it to have remained a dead letter for centuries,
and only through King Josiah and Ezra the scribe to have become
operative in the national history (compare sections 8 and 10).
The historical tradition which has reached us relating to the
period of the judges and of the kings of Israel is the main
source, though only of course in an indirect way, of our knowledge
of Mosaism. But within the Pentateuch itself also the historical
tradition about Moses (which admits of being distinguished, and
must carefully be separated, from the legislative, although the
latter often clothes itself in narrative form) is in its main
features manifestly trustworthy, and can only be explained as
resting on actual facts.
From the historical tradition, then, it is certain that Moses was
the founder of the Torah. But the legislative tradition cannot
tell us what were the positive contents of his Torah.
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