without further defining the term, Plaut concluded that either the institution was already well known at the time (as the Egyptians and Midianites had priests) or that the story was retrojected back from a later time that had long known priests and their job. Scholars found the priestly garments unrealistic, complex, and extravagant, hardly befitting a wilderness setting. Plaut concluded, however, that while the text likely contains embellishments from later times, there is little reason to doubt that it also reports traditions going back to Israel's earliest days. Reading in the instruction to make holy garments for Aaron and his sons “for glory and for beauty,” Umberto Cassuto explained that these were clothes that would indicate the degree of holiness in keeping with his high office. Nahum Sarna wrote that God ordained special attire for Aaron and his sons as insignia of office, so that the occupants of the sacred office could be distinguishable from the laity just as sacred space could be differentiated from profane space. Reading “for glory and for beauty” in , Richard Elliott Friedman argued that beauty is inspiring and valuable, and that religion is not the enemy of the senses. Sarna noted that makes no mention of footwear, as the priests officiated barefoot. Carol Meyers inferred that the priests wore no shoes on holy ground, noting that in , God told Moses to take off his shoes, for the place on which he stood was holy ground. Plaut reported that the priestly garments enumerated in are the direct antecedents of those used today in the Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches, whose priests—and especially bishops—wear similar robes when officiating. In the synagogue, the Torah scroll is similarly embellished and dressed in an embroidered mantle and crowned by pomegranates and bells. Noting that amid the description of the “glorious” priestly garments in is the warning in that Aaron might die, Walter Brueggemann wondered whether the text intends to convey the irony that one so well appointed was under threat of death. And Brueggemann noted that proceeds to (which he admitted came from a different textual tradition), and wondered whether the text means to convey that Aaron was seduced by his glorious adornment to act as he did in the incident of the Golden Calf. Brueggemann concluded that the affirmation and devastating critique of Aaron live close together in the text, teaching that the affirmation, the temptation, and