umbered about two millions
of people, according to the assumption of the Biblical narrative. The
Israelites could not have dwelt in tents; they were not armed; the
institution of the Passover, as described in the book of Exodus, was an
impossibility, the Israelites could not take cattle through the barren
country over which they passed; there is an incompatibility between the
supposed number of Israel and the predominance of wild beasts in
Palestine; the number of the first-born is irreconcilable with the
number of male adults; and the number of the priests at the exodus
cannot be harmonized with their duties, and with the provision made for
them.[193] These, with other difficulties chiefly of a numerical nature,
constitute the basis on which the Bishop builds his objections to the
historical character of Exodus as an integral part of the Pentateuch.

In order to determine the true quality of the Book of Genesis, he brings
out the old theory that the work had two writers, the _Elohist_ and the
_Jehovist_,--so called because of their separate use of a term for
Deity. The Elohist was the older, and his narrative was the ground-work
which the Jehovist used and upon which he constructed his own
additions.[194] This Elohist account is defined to be "a series of
parables, based, as we have said, on legendary facts, though not
historically true."[195] The Pentateuch existed originally not as five
books, but as one; and it is possible that its quintuple division was
made in the time of Ezra. The writer of Chronicles was the same who
wrote the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, probably a Levite living after the
time of Nehemiah; the Chronicles were therefore written only four
hundred years before Christ; but the Chronicler must not be relied on
unless there is other evidence in support of his narrative. Exodus
could not have been written by Moses or any one of his contemporaries.
It is very probable that the Pentateuch generally was composed in a
later age than that of Moses or Joshua.[196] Samuel was most likely the
author of the Elohistic legends, which he left at his death in an
unfinished state, and which naturally fell into the hands of some one of
his disciples of the School of the Prophets, such, for instance, as
Nathan or Gad.[197]

Yet the writer of the Pentateuch must not be reproached for his errors
as much as those who would attribute to him infallible accuracy. He had
no idea that he was writing truth. "But," says the Bi