So it is easily seen why the search of the Egyptologists for traces of the residence of the Children of Israel or the Hebrews in Egypt must be fruitless. If any Hebrew clan did stay there, its name is unknown, and the Egyptologists would not recognise it, even if they understood more of Hebraic antiquity. But in any case the search for the Pharaohs, under whom Israel entered and left Egypt, is a useless jugglery with dates and names; and it is also useless to attempt to discover the route by which Israel left Egypt. Tradition makes the institution of the Jewish religion on Mount Sinai contemporaneous with the emigration from Egypt; and it has been often surmised, especially by Egyptologists, that Moses imposed upon Israel elements of Egyptian theology. But there is no basis in fact for this theory. It is not known what the Hebrews may have borrowed from the Egyptians. Part of that which has been put under that category is entirely foreign to the old Jewish religion, and was gradually and spontaneously evolved, and the rest plays no part in it at all. It is especially absurd to attribute the idea of the unity of God to Egyptian influences. However, the worship of God which the Jews adopted at Sinai certainly was originally foreign to them. It is an error to suppose from the story that Moses represented himself to Israel as the ambassador of the God of their fathers, that he must have found among the people the faith of this one God. This theory would lessen the importance of Moses for the Old Testament religion. Like all founders of religion he endowed the people with a new creative idea which gave a fresh turn to their life, and this new idea was the worship of Jehovah as their ancestral God. For if we take away all that the worship of Israel gained upon the path it travelled in historical times, then, supposing such antiquity for the worship of Jehovah in Israel, there is left no fresh idea, from the adoption of which by the people a new epoch could date. Moses, then, would in the most favourable light be only a restorer or a reformer of the old Israelitish religion, and not the founder of a religion as he is rightly considered by priestly tradition. Two further points must be noted in this connection. In the first place, we know nothing of Israel’s worship before the time of Moses; not a single tradition exists of it. But this cannot be wondered at; and it may be observed elsewhere also that after the adoption of a higher religion, all recollection of an earlier form of worship not only dies out, but is designedly destroyed. Secondly, however, it should be noted that the worship of Jehovah may have been in a more imperfect and undeveloped form among the people from whom Moses borrowed it, than that in which he imposed it on his race.