In fact it
can be shown that throughout the whole of the older period the
Torah was no finished legislative code, but consisted entirely
of the oral decisions and instructions of the priests, as a whole
it was potential only; what actually existed were the individual
sentences given by the priesthood as they were asked for. Thus
Moses was not regarded as the promulgator once for all of a
national constitution, but rather as the first to call into
activity the actual sense for law and justice, and to begin the
series of oral decisions which were continued after him by the
priests. He was the founder of the nation out of which the Torah
and prophecy came as later growths. He laid the basis of
Israel's subsequent peculiar individuality, not by any one formal
act, but in virtue of his having throughout the whole of his long
life been the people's leader, judge, and centre of union.
A correct conception of the manner in which the Torah was made by
him can be derived from the narrative contained in Exod. xviii.,
but not from the long section which follows, relating to the
Sinaitic covenant (chap. xix.
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