3.  But it may be said, Christ and his apostles did not speak as critics, but only in a popular way.  That they did not speak of the Pentateuch as critics, is certain.  They had no occasion for doing so, since no Jew doubted either its divine authority or its Mosaic authorship.  But when we consider, on the one side, with what unsparing severity our Lord set aside the traditions of the Pharisees as “the commandments of men,” and on the other, how he and his apostles ascribed equal divine authority to every part of the Pentateuch, as will be shown in the next chapter, and how unequivocally they sanctioned the universal belief that Moses was its author, we must acknowledge that we have the entire authority of the New Testament for its Mosaic authorship in every essential respect.  This is entirely consistent with the belief that inspired men, like Ezra, and perhaps also prophetical men of an earlier age, in setting forth revised copies of the Pentateuch, that is, copies which aimed to give the true text with as much accuracy as possible, may have added here and there explanatory clauses for the benefit of the readers of their day.  Such incidental clauses, added by men of God under the guidance of his Spirit, would not affect in the least the substance of the Pentateuch.  It would still remain in every practical sense the work of Moses, and be so regarded in the New Testament.

Whether there are, or are not, in the Pentateuch, such clauses added by a later hand, and not affecting either its essential contents or its Mosaic authorship, is an open question to be determined by impartial criticism.  At the present day editors carefully indicate their explanatory notes; but this was not the usage of high antiquity.  At the close of the book of Deuteronomy, for example, there is immediately added, without any explanatory remark, a notice of Moses’ death.  We are at liberty to assume, if we have cogent reasons for so doing, that brief explanatory clauses were sometimes interwoven into the Mosaic text; as, for example, the remark in Gen. 36:31, which is repeated in 1 Chron. 1:43, a book ascribed to Ezra; Exod. 16:35, 36, etc.

4.  Going back now to the days of the Restoration under Zerubbabel and his associates, about 536 B.C., we find that the very first act of the restored captives was to set up “the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt-offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God.”  The narrative goes on to specify that “they offered burnt-offerings thereon unto the Lord, even burnt-offerings morning and evening.  They kept also the feast of tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt-offerings by number, according to the custom, as the duty of every day required; and afterwards offered the continual burnt-offering, both of the new moons, and of all the set feasts of the Lord that were consecrated, and of every one that willingly offered a free-will offering unto the Lord.”  Ezra