e shall lay
his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the
tabernacle of the congregation, and Aaron's sons the priests shall
sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about," Lev. iii. 1, 2._

_"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of
Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the
commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done,
... let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock
without blemish unto the Lord for a sin offering." Lev. iv. 1, 2, 3._

_"His truth endureth to all generations." Psa. c. 5._

Having considered the critical assault on the Pentateuch as a whole,
attention should be called to the special criticisms on the book of
Leviticus. A prominent representative of the school of critics affirmed
in his recent lectures at Long Beach, California, that the Hebrews had
no literature until their connection with the Babylonians while in
captivity, that their literature was developed during their agricultural
life while in Babylon. He affirmed that the sacrificial ritual of the
book of Leviticus had its roots in the heathen sacrifices growing out of
their false conception that their deities must be appeased by the
shedding of blood. The Levitical ritual was, therefore, never written
nor given by Moses. If this gentleman and the critics that hold with him
are correct, we must conclude with them that Moses never saw or heard of
our book of Leviticus.

In reply let it be said:

1. The denial of the existence of Hebrew literature prior to the exile
is thoroughly answered and set aside by the records discovered on the
Egyptian monuments and writings before and during Israel's bondage. Many
of the critics have found this criticism untenable, and have abandoned
it. They have been obliged to concede that Egyptian and Babylonian
literature existed long before the time of Moses. The best scholarship
of to-day affirms that "the discovery and first use of writing is
certainly as old as the time of Abraham." (See Schaff-Hergoz, Enc. Art.
Writing.)

2. If the Bible itself is not a fraud, writing was constantly in use in
the time of Moses. See:

(1) Exod. vii. 14: "The Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial
in a book."

(2) Exod. xxiv. 4: "And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord."

(3) Exod. xxxiv. 27: "And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these
words."

(4) Exod. xxxiv. 28: "And he (God