Chapter 10 - 11 The Sacred Tent, P Summary and Analysis

Graf and Wellhausen base their argument that the P source wrote during the time of the second Temple on a pious fraud, where the Tabernacle is actually the second Temple. Part of the argument is based on the listed the dimensions of both the Temple and the Tabernacle. Friedman shows that there is no direct scaling of one to the other in terms of the three dimensions of length, width and height, but he does indicate that the Tabernacle is smaller than the first Temple. As for the second Temple, the Bible gives no dimensions. No directly stated dimensions of the Tabernacle are given either.

A key part of understanding how the Tabernacle was set up involves wooden frames that form the walls. Each frame is one and one-half cubits wide...