[1] "Genesis may be made up of various documents, and yet have been compiled by Moses; and the same thing is possible, even in the later books of the Pentateuch. If these could be successfully partitioned among different writers, on the score of variety in literary execution, why may not these have been engaged jointly with Moses himself in preparing each his appointed portion, and the whole have been finally reduced by Moses to its present form?... Why might not these continue their work, and record what occurred after Moses was taken away?"--Professor W. H. Green, _Schaff-Herzog Encyclopædia_; article, "The Pentateuch." We are willing to go further, and add that in the testimony of our Lord we find nothing which declares against the possibility of one or more redactions or revisions of the laws of Leviticus in post-Mosaic times, by one or more _inspired_ men; as, _e.g._, by Ezra, described (Ezra vii. 6) as "a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord, the God of Israel, had given;" to whom also ancient Jewish tradition attributes the final settlement of the Old Testament canon down to his time. Hence no words of Christ touch the question as to when the book of Leviticus received its present form, in respect of the order of its chapters, sections, and verses. This is a matter of quite secondary importance, and may be settled any way without prejudice to the Mosaic origin and authority of the laws it contains. Neither, in the last place, do the words of our Lord, carefully weighed, of necessity exclude even the possibility that such persons, acting under Divine direction and inspiration, may have first reduced some parts of the law given by Moses to writing;[2] or even, as an extreme supposition, may have entered here and there, under the unerring guidance of the Holy Ghost, prescriptions which, although new as to the letter, were none the less truly Mosaic, in that by necessary implication they were logically involved in the original code.[3] [2] "If it be proven that a record was committed to writing at a comparatively late date, it does not necessarily follow that the essential part has not been accurately handed down."--Professor Strack, _ibid._