In speaking of the Laws of Moses then, the use of the word Moses is not meant to imply any opinion or to prejudice any question as to the personality or history of the lawgiver or the date of the law. It is used solely as a convenient periphrasis for the current Hebrew lawgiver, just as Hammurabi may be taken as a periphrasis for the Babylonian legislator. That the Babylonian king originated all or even any of the laws enacted in his Code is not asserted. But the historical case of Hammurabi does remove all _a priori_ improbability that a Hebrew legislator could draw up a code of laws at a much later date. Further, it should make us beware of arguing anything from the absence of mention in such documents as have come down to us, for, until the excavation of his monuments, no one among modern scholars had guessed his name or surmised his existence. This analogy, while it forbids us to deny the existence of Moses, does not show that any or all of the laws ascribed to Moses were in any sense due to him. But that a leader in the position to which tradition assigned Moses could perfectly well promulgate a code of laws as full and complete as the whole Mosaic law, even for a people in the primitive state of society in which Israel is often supposed to have been at the Exodus, is obvious. He had only to avail himself of the knowledge of cuneiform, available at that time both in Canaan and in Egypt, and import copies of the Hammurabi Code from Babylonia if they were not at hand where he then was. He could exercise his judgement as to what would be suitable for his people, add what he chose, and reject what he disliked. That he did this or anything like it is not asserted, but it would be so natural for any one in his position then that we have no excuse for surprise if we should find indications of his having done exactly that. Still, nothing depends in our comparison of the Laws of Moses with the Code of Hammurabi on our knowledge of the personality or circumstances of Moses. Much would depend on how much of the Laws of Moses we should consider to be his. In a similar way, the use of such terms as the Book of the Covenant, Leviticus, or Deuteronomy, The Priestly Code, and the like, neither implies nor denies the appropriateness of the terms nor any adhesion to any theory of their source or date. They must be regarded as merely names for more or less definite pieces of legislation. That the balance of argument is in favour of assigning to them the extent usually assigned to them by Old Testament critics may be granted for purposes of comparison. It is an opinion which may not be shared by all. But it is not by any means essential to our comparison that any one of the views now held about any of them should be final.