I see no reason whatever to doubt that this is the essential fact. The theory of the destructive critics that this literature and this legislation was all produced in Palestine, about the eighth century before Christ, and palmed off upon the Jews as a pious fraud, does not bear investigation. In large portions of these laws we are constantly meeting with legal provisions and historical allusions that take us directly back to the time of the wandering in the wilderness, and cannot be explained on any other theory. "When," says Bleek, "we meet with laws which refer in their whole tenor to a state of things utterly unknown in the period subsequent to Moses, and to circumstances existing in the Mosaic age, and in that only, it is in the highest degree likely that these laws not only in their essential purport proceeded from Moses, but also that they were written down by Moses or at least in the Mosaic age. Of these laws which appear to carry with them such clear and exact traces of the Mosaic age, there are many occurring, especially in Leviticus, and also in Numbers and Exodus, which laws relate to situations and surrounding circumstances only existing whilst the people, as was the case in Moses' time, wandered in the wilderness and were dwellers in the close confinement of camps and tents." [Footnote: Vol. i. p. 212.] It is not necessary to draw out this evidence at length; I will only refer to a few out of scores of instances. The first seven chapters of Leviticus, containing laws regulating the burnt offerings and meat offerings, constantly assume that the people are in the camp and in the wilderness. The refuse of the beasts offered in sacrifice was to be carried out of the camp to the public ash heap, and burned. The law of the Great Day of Atonement (Lev. xvi.) is also full of allusions to the fact that the people were in camp; the scapegoat was to be driven into the wilderness, and the man who drove it out was to wash his clothes and bathe, and afterward come into the camp; the bullock and the goat, slain for the sacrifice, were to be carried forth without the camp; he who bears them forth must also wash himself before he returns to the camp. Large parts of the legislation concerning leprosy are full of the same incidental references to the fact that the people were dwelling in camp. There are also laws requiring that all the animals killed for food should be slaughtered before the door of the Tabernacle. There was a reason for this law; it was intended to guard against a debasing superstition; but how would it have been possible to obey it when the people were scattered all over the land of Palestine? It was adapted only to the time when they were dwelling in a camp in the wilderness. Besides, it must not be overlooked that in all this legislation "the priests are not at all referred to in general, but by name, as Aaron and his sons, or the sons of Aaron the priests."