The puzzles that confront the attentive reader of the Pentateuch are of two kinds: puzzles in the text, in its external form, and puzzles in its content. Both types have been completely separated from one another: those who sought to solve one often left the other behind without concern. For example, when biblical critics dissect the external text to uncover the basis of the first, breaking it down and treating it somewhat gruesomely with an anatomical knife, they calmly leave the second to the interpreters of the Mosaic cult laws. These interpreters, in turn, think of remnants of Egyptian institutions, religious models, the retention of popular opinions, statecraft, and perhaps even magnetism and electricity, unconcerned with phenomena that belong to another department.

The present work by Landauer deals with the history of the books of Moses, their symbolism, and their legislation. In further elaborations, the author explains the spirit and arrangement of the laws in detail as well as the spirit and arrangement of the laws in general.

This book is an unaltered reprint of the long out-of-print original edition from 1838.