THE EXODUS
it out. It would most likely have taken the very different form of Kings and Chronicles, which are annals founded on such registers and not registerial in form as these are.
On the other hand as a matter of textual criticism it is evident that copies of such register transmitted in two geographical groups Ephraemitic and Judaic say—"Midrashed" from time to time, after the fashion in which mediaeval manuscripts were provided with scholia, mutilated and restored, would furnish just the material which analysis shows that the editors found at hand for successive redactions about 800, 650, and 500 B.C.
Without dogmatism, therefore, but also without reserve, it may be said that from the standpoint of the care and transmission of written documents, the documents themselves show that their own statements as to their own preservation are true, i.e., that in substance and form many
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