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CHAPTER II. ,
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TfIE RECENT T ES
1
TIM ,QNY OF ARCHAE
1
0LOGY TO
THE
SCRIPTURES. ·
• •
BY M ,. G. KYLE, D. D., LL. D., .
•
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•
EGYPTOLOGIST •
•
•
•
PROFESSOR
1
0F BIBLICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY,
XENIA
,S.EMINARY ,.
THEOLOGICAL
CONSULTING
.EDITOR OF THE RECORDS : OF
THE
PAST,
WASH-
•
•
•
INGTON, D. C •
· (The n·umber s in parenthese .s tl1r,ough ,out this article refer t,o the
notes at the end of the article.) ·
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INTRODUCTI .ON•
Recent is a
dangerousl ,y capacious
Word
to intro.st
to an
- .
archaeologist.
Anything this
side of the Day
of
P entec_ost is
re ,c,ent ·in
·bib:(.i,ia:l a.rch,aieology.
For this
review, ho,wever, ,
anything ,since 1904
is
accepted
to be,
in
a
general
wa,y, the
meaning of the ,
word rec ,ent. · · ·
R
1
ecent. test ,imony of
arc ,ha
1
eologyt may be
either
the
testi
rnon,y of
recent discoveries o~
recent
testimony of
form~r
dis
c,overi1s: ·· new
interpr ,etation,
if it ·
be
established
t :0
1
be
a
true interpr ,etation,
i,s
a ,discovery. For to · uncover is
not
al
ways,
to discover; indeed, the real
value
of · a
di.scovery
is not
its
emergence, but its significance,
and the discovery ·of its
rea1
.significance
is the
re,al
disc9very. · ·
The most
i1nportant testimony
to
the
Scriptures
of
this
five,
year
arch ,aeolo
1
gical
period
admits of sonte
clas,sification : ·
. .
I~ THE HISTORICAL
S,ETTING
Q,F THE P ATRIAR,CHAL1RE-
, CEPTION IN EGYPT.
The ,reception in Egypt accord
1
ed to Abraham and to J acoh
and
bis sons<
1
,
and
tl1e
elevation
of
Joseph
the~e<
2,
per-
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30
The Fu1idame 1tals.
•
emptori]y demand ,either
the
acknowledgment of a mythical
element in the stories,
0
1
r
the belief in
a
suitable historica 'l
set
ting therefor. Obscure, insignificant, p,rivate citizens are not
accorded such recognition .
at
a foreign and unfrien ,dly
c,ourt ..
While so
1
me have be,en
conceding
a mythical
el,ement
.in the
stories
cs>,
archae ,ology has uncovered to view such appropriate
historical setting that the
patriarchs .
are seen no.t to hav·e
been obscure, insignificant, private
citizens,
nor Zoan
a
foreign
and unfriendly court.
The , presence ,of the Sem:i.tic tongue in Hyksos' territory
•
has lo,ng been
known< );
from
still
earlier
than p,at.riarchal
times until much later, the Phoenicians, first cousins of the He-
•
brews,
di,d
the
forei,gn
b
1
usiness of the ,_ _ -ptians(
5
>, as
the
I
English,
t·h
1
e Germans, and
t.he
F ·rench do the foreign business
•
'
of the Chinese of today; and some familiarity, even sympa·
th,y,
with ·Semiti ,c religion has · been
strongl ,y
suspected from
the interview of
'the Hy'kso,s kings
with the
patriarchs<
1
>;
but
the discovery
in 1906'
7
',
by
Petrie,
0£ the great fortified
camp at Tel-el-Yehudiyeh set at rest,
in
the, main, the biblical.
question of the relation between the patriarchs and the Hyksos.
The abundance of
Hyks ,os scarabs and
the
almost total
ab
senc.e of all others mark the camp as certairily
a a:yksos ·
ca1np; the original
charact ,er
of
the fo·rtifications,
be,for-e
the Hyksos learned the builders' craft from the Egyptians,
shows them to
have
,depended upon the
bow
for def
en.se
and,
finally,
the name Hyksos, in the Egyptian :Haq Shashu'
10
·i
''Be ,douin
princes,''
brings
out,
sharp and
cl,ear,
~he harmonious
pie.tare of which
we
have
had .
glimpses
for a long
time, of
the
Hyksos
as · wandering
tribe·s
of
the
desert, of ''Upper
and
Lower Rutben''<
11
>;
i.e. Syria and Pal
1
estine, northern and
western
Ar.abia,J
''Bow pe,ople''(
12
> ,
a.s the
E ,
tians called
them, their traditional enemies as fa·r back as pyramid
·times<
13
).
Why, then,
shoul.d
not
the,
pa,triarchs have
b.ad
a
roy.al
re-
• •
ceptien in Egypt? They were tl1emselves also
the
heads
of
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Recent Testim.ony of A ·rchaeo.lo,gy
to
t,he
Scriptures.
31
•
wandering tribes of Upper and Lower Ruthen, in the
tongue
of
the ptians, Haq
S11as1u, Bedouin
princes ; and
,among
princes, a
prince i,s
a
prince,
however
small
his
principality.
So Abraham, the Bedouin princ
1
e, was accorded princely con- ·
si,deration at the Bedouin court in Egypt ; Joseph, the Bed.ouin
, ,s]a,ve,, became ag,ai:n the Be
1
douin prin
1
c,e,·
whe11
tl1e wis,dom of
God
with
him
and his rank by birtlt became
kno
1
wn.
And
I
Ja ,c
1
ob1
and his other
so11s
were
welcome,
with all their follow-
ers and their wealth, as a valuable acquisition to the court
i party, a,Jways harasse ,d by the re sti,ve ,and rebe llious native
, · Egyptians.
This does
not prove
racial identirf between.
the
1
Hykso .s an.d
the
patriarchs, but very close tribal reliati~nship ..
And thus every suspicion
o ·
a 1nythical element in the na~-.
rative of the reception accorded the patriarchs in Egypt dis
appears when archaeology has testified to tl1e true hi.storica1
•
setting.
II. THE HITTITE VINDICATION.
A second recent testimony of arcliaeologygiv,e·s us tlie'gr't lit
Hittite vindic,ation.
The Hittites
have
been,
in one
respect,
the
Trojans of Bible
his,to·ry·
i11
1
dee·d, the
inha ,bitants .
of
old ·
Troy
were scarcely more in need of a Schliemann to
vindica~e
their claim to reality than the Hittites of a Winckle,r.. .
In 1904 one
o,f
the foremost archaeologists of Europe saitl
to me: i,I do not believe there eve,r wer ,e s,uch people as .tne
· ~ittites, and I do not believe Kheta~ in the Egyptian inscrip
tions was meant for the
·name
Hittites ,,
We
will
allow
th.at
. archaeologist to be nameless now. But the ruins o,f Troy vin
dicated th,e right of her people to a place in
real
history, and
the ruins of Boghatz-KOi bid fair
to
afford a more striking
lindication of the Bible representation of the Hittites.
Only the preliminary announcement of Winckler s ~eat
treasury of
documents
from
Boghatz-Koi
has yet been ··
tnade.
T11e
complete unfo iding
1
0£
a I
ong-ec]ipsed gr·eat
national
history
is still awaited
impatiently.
But -enough has
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32
•
The
F utidamentals.
,
•
..
•
been publishe
1
d
to
redeem , this
people completely from their
half-mythical plight,
,and give
them a
firm place
in sober history
greater
than
i.magination
ha
1
d
ever fancied
for
th,em under the
stimulus of a~Y
hint
contained in
the Bible .
•
There has, been .brougl1.t
·to
li.ght
a
Hittite empire<
15
>
in
•
Asia Mino
1
r,
with central
power
and vassal
1
dependencies
round
about and with
tr
1
eaty rights on equal te :rms with the greatest
•
nations of
antiquity,
thus making
t ·1e
Hittite power
a
third
great p
1
owe,r
with. Ba.byl.011ia
a·nd
Egyp
1
t, as,
·was,
i.ndee'.
d,, f
1
ore
shado,ved in the
great
treaty
of
the
Hittites
with
Rame,ses II _,
inscribed on . 'the pro ,j'ecting
wi11g
of ·the south wall of the
•
Temple of Amon at Karnak<
10
>, though Rameses l tried s.o hard
to obscure the
fact.
1
The ruins ,
at
the village
of
Boghatz-K9i
•
are shown
also
to mark
the
location ,of the Hittite capital<
11
>,
and the unknown language on the cunei forin tablets recov,ered
the1·e to be the Hittit ,e tonguec
1
s>, while the cuneifor1n met,hod
of writing, as already upon
the
Amarna ta 'bIets<
11
>,so still mo.re
clear .ly
here,
is seen to have been
the
diplomatic script, and
in
good measure th
1
e Babylonian to have been
the
diplomatic
Ian·
gu~ge of
the ,
Orient in that
age.<
0
>. And the large admixtu ,re
•
of Babylonian words and
f
o,1·rns in these Hittite inscriptioqs
,open.s
the way
for the, r·eal d
1
ecipherment
o(
the
Hittite lan--
guage, and imagination can scarcely promise too much to
our hopes for the light which s
1
ttch a decipherment will th·row'
upon tl1e historical and
cultural
backgr ·ound of
the Bjble.
1
0 nly
one important
point
remains to be cleared
up,
the
relation between the Hittite language of these cuneifo1·1ntab~
lets
and
the language o,f'
the Hittit ·e hieroglyp ,bic
inscrip
tion
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Recent Testimo ny of Archaeology to the Scriptur es
33
III. THE PALESTI NIAN CIVILIZATION.
Other recent testimo ny of ar~haeology brings befor e us
the Palesti nian civilizatio n of the conquest period Palestinian
explorations within the last few years have yielded a start
ling
array of finds illustrating things 1nentioned in the Bible,
finds of the same things, finds of like things, and finds in har
tnony with thing s<
3
> Individual mention of them all is here
neither possible nor desirable. Of incomparably greater impor
tance than these individually intere sting relics of Canaanite
antiquity is the answer afforded by recent research to two
questions:
1. First in order, Does the Canaanite culture as revealed
by the excavations accord with the story of Israel at the con
quest as related in the Bible? How much of a break in culture
1
s required by the Bible account, and how much is revealed by
the excavations? For answer, we mu t find a standpoint
somewhere between that of the dilettante traveler in the land
of the microscopic scientist thousands of miles away. The
careful excavator in the field occupies that sane and safe mid
dle point of view. Petrie<
24
>
Bliss<
25
>
Macalister<
26
>, Schu
tnackerczn and Sellin<
8
>-the se are the men with whom to
Stand. And for light on the early civilization of Palestine, the
treat work of Macalister at Gezer stands easily first.
HISTORICAL VALUE OF POT TERY.
In determining this question of culture, too much impor
tance has been allowed to that e timate of time and chrono
logical order which is gained exclusively from the study of
Pottery. The pottery remain s are not to be undervalued, and
neither are they to be overvalued. Time is only one thing
that shows itself in similarit y or dissimilarity in pottery. Dif
ferent stages of civilization at different places at the same
titne,
and adaptation to an end either at the same tin1e or at
'Nidely different times, show them selves in pottery, and render
\tery uncertain any chronological deduction. And , still more,
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34
•
TJie Fundame11tals
•
available
material may result
in
the production
of
similar
pot-
tet}7 in two
very
diff e1·eni: civilizations arising one thousand
)·ears or
more apart. This civilization
of
pots,
as a
deciding
criterion, is not quite adequate, and is safe as a criterion at
all only wl1en carefully compared witl1 the testimony of loca
tion, intertribal relations, governmental domination, and liter
ary attainments.
These are the things,
i11
addition to the pots, which help
to
dete1·1ninc
indeed, which do determine ho\v mucl1 of
a
break in culture is
required by the Bible
account of the Co11-
quest, and l1ow much is shown by excavations. Since the
Israelites occupied the cities and towns and vineyards and
olive orchards of the Canaanites,
and
their
houses full of
all
good
thing£ <
29
>, had the same materials and in the main
the same purposes for pottery and would adopt methods of
cooking
suited
to
tl1e cot111t1·y,poke
the language of Ca
naan ,
and
were of the sa111e
ace
as
1nany
of the
people
of Canaan, intermarried, thougl1 against their law<
31
>,
with
the
people of
the land, and were continually chided
for
lapses
into the idolatry and sttper
titious
practices of the Canaan
ites,
nd,
in
short, ,vere greatly different
from
them only in
religion,
it
is
evident that
tl1e
onl) n1arked, immediate change
to be expected at the Conqttest is a change in religion, and
that any othe1· break in c11lture occasioned
by
the devastation
of ,var will be only a b1·eak in continuance of the same kind
of culture, evirlence of demolition poliation, and reconstruc ,
tion.
Exactly
such change in religion and interr11ption in cttl·
tttre at the
Conquest
period excavations sho\\ r.
RELIGIO 1\ rn CULTURE.
(a ) Tl1e rubbish at Gezer sho, v l1istory in distinct layers j
and the layers themsel\·es are in distinct groups<
33
> At tl1e
bottom are layers Canaanite not Semitic; above these, layer s
Semitic,
orite giving place to Jewish; and higher still,
lay
er s of
Jewish
cultt1re of
the
monarchy
and
later ti1nes.
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Rece1it
Testiniony
of A1 cJ1aeology
to t·lie Scriptitres. 35
•
(b) The closing up of tl1e great tunnel to tl1e spring with-
111
the fortifications at Gezer is placed
by
the layers of his-
tory
in the rubbish
heap at the period of
the
Conquest<
34
But when a great fortification is so ruined and the power it
represents so destroyed that it loses sight of its water-st1pply,
surely the
culture of the tin1e l1as
had
an interruption, thougl1
•
it
be not much changed. Then this tunnel, as a great engineer-
•
tng feat, is remarkable te timony to the advanced state of
ci,,ilization at the time of its con truction; but the more
ren1arkable the civilization it represents, the more terrible must
have been the disturbance of the ct1lture v.rhich caused it to
be ost and forgotten<
35
>.
( c) Again, tl1ere is appa1·ent a11 enlargement of tl1e popu
lated area of the city of Gezer by encroaching upon the Temple
area at the period of the Conquest <
6
>
showing at once tl1e
crowding into the
city
of the Israelites without
the
destruction
of tl1e Canaanites, as stated in the Bible, and a corresponding
decline in reverence for the saered inclosure of the High Place.
While, at a time corresponding to the early period of the Mon
arcl1y, there is a sudden decrease , of the populated area
co1·re
ponding to the destruction of the Canaanites in the city
b)
the
father
of
Solomon s
Egyptian wife<
38
>.
d) Of startling significance,
the
hypothetical Musri
Eg)
1)t
in N cr th Arabia concerning which it has been said <
39
>
the pat1·iarcl1s
descended thereto, the Israelites escaped
tl1ere
f rom, and a princess the1·eof Solomo11 mar1·ied, l1as been final
ly a11d
definitely discredited. For Gezer was
a
marriage
do\,yer of tl1at prince ss ,vhotn Solomon marr·ied
<
40
>, a por
tion of her
father s
dominion, and so a part of
the
supposed
Mttsri, if it ever existed, and if so, at Gezer, then, we shot1ld
fi11dso1ne evidence of this people and their civilizatio11. Of
St1cl1 there is not a trace. But, instead, we find from very
early times, but
especially
at this time,
Egyptian remains
in
great abundance<
41
>.
( e)
Indeed,
even
Egyptia11
refinement and luxuries were
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36
Tlze
Fundanic1ztals
not incongruous in the Palestine of the Conquest period. The
great rock-hewn, and rock-buiit cisterns at Taa11nek<
42
>,
the
remarkable
engineering
on the
tunnel
at
Gezer<
43
>,
the
great
forty-£ oot city wall in an Egyptian pictt1re of Canaanite
war<
4
•>,
he list of ricl1est Canaa 11te booty given
by
Thoth1nes
•
III.
<
45
>, the fine ceramic and bronze ute.:.1ilS and weapons
recovered from nearly ever y Palestinia11 e_~cavation<
16
>, and
the literary revelations of the marna tablet sc
47
,
together
with the reign of law seen by a comparison of the sc riptura l
account
with the Code of
Hammurabi, sl1ow<
9
> Ca11aa11ite
civilization of that period to be
f
t1lly equal to that of Egypt .
( f) Then the Bible glimpses of Canaanite practices and
the produets of Canaanite religion no\V uncovered e;~actly
agree. The mystery of the High Place of the Bible narrative,
with its sacred cave s, lies bare at Gezer and Taan11ek.
1 '1c
sacrifice of infants, probably first-born, and the foundati on
. and other sacrifices of children, either inf ant or partly grow
11,
•
appear .in all their ghastliness in various places at Gezer ancl
''practicaily all over the hill'' at Taannel(C
49
>.
(g) But the most ren1arkable te stimony of archaeol ogy
of this period is to the Scripture representations of the spirit,
ual monotheism of Is1·ael in its co11flict with
tl1e
horrible idola-
trous polythei sm of the Ca11aanites, the final overthro\V of tl1e
latter and the ultimate triumph of the former. The historf
of that conflict is as plai11ly written at Gezer in the gradt1al
decline of the High Place and giving way of the revolting sac'
rifice of children to the bowl and lamp deposit as it is in tl1e
inspired account of Joshua, Judges and Samuel. And the line
that marks off the territory of divine revelation in religioJl
•
from tl1e impinging heatheni sm round about is as disti11.ct a -
that line off the coast of Ne\vfoundland where the cold ,vaters
of the North beat against the warm life-giving flow of the Gt1lf
Strean1. The revelation of the pade in Palestine is making to
tand out every day more clearly tl1e revelation that God made
Tl1ere is no evidence of a purer religion growing up ottt of
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· I?ecent Testiniony of Archaeology to the Scriptures
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• •
•
tl1at
vile
culture, but rather of a purer religion coming down
and overwhelming it.
2. Another
and still more important question concerning
Palestine
civilization
is, Wha t was the source and
course
of the
dominant civilization and especially the religious
culture
re
flected in the Bible accou11tof the .millennium preceding and tl1e
millennium succeeding the birth of .Abraham? Was it from
without toward Canaan or from Canaan
outward?
Did Pal-
•
estine in her civilization and culture of those days, in much
or in all, but I'eflect Babylonia, or was sl1e a luminary ?
•
PALESTINE AND BABYLONIA.
•
The
revision
oi
views concerning Palestinian civilization
forced
by
recent excavations at once
puts
a bold interrogation
point to the opinion long accepted by many of the source and
course of re]igious influence during this f ormative period of
patriarchal history, and the time of
the working
out of
the
principles of Israel's religion into the practices of Israel's
life.
If
the Palestinian civilization during this per iod was
equal
to
that
of
Egypt,
and so certainly not inferior to that of Baby
lonia, ,then the opinion t11at the flow of religious influence was
then from Babylonia to Pa lestine must stand for its defense.
Here
arises the
newest
probletn of biblical archaeology.
And one of the most expert cuneiform scholars of the day,
Albert T. Clay<
3
>,has essayed this problem and anno,unces
a revolutionary solution of it by a new interpretation of well
known material as well as
the
interpretation of newly acqttired
material.
~he
solut ion is nothing less, indeed, than that in
~tead of
the
source of religious influence being Babylonia, and
its early
course from Babylonia into Palestine, exactly
the
~everse is true.
i'That
the Semitic Baby lonian religion is an
importation from Syria and Palestine (Amurru), that the crea
tion,
< eluge, ante-diluvian patriarchs, etc., of
tl1e Bab,ylonian
came .from . urru, instead of the Hebraic stories having come
from Babylonia,
as held
by
nearly all Semitic scholars.''
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T lze F t1ida1nc1itals
This is startling and far reaching in its consequences,
Clay s ,vork must be
put
to
tl1e
te t; and
so
it will be, before
it
can be finally accepted. It has, ho,vever, this initial advantage,
that it is in accord with the apparent self-consciousness of the
Scripture writers and, as ,ve have seen, exactly in the direction
i11 ,vhich recent discoveries in Palestinian civilization point.
IV. PALESTINE A ,.D EGYPT.
Again archaeology has of late fitr1iished illuminatioti of
certai1i
special qitestions
of
bot/1
Old atid New Testa1ne1it
•
•
•
criticism.
1. Light from Babylonia by L. W. King<
51
> of the
British Museum on the chronology of the first three dynasties
l1elps to deter·1nine the date of Harrunu .rabi, and so of Abra
I1am call and of the Exodtts, and, indeed, has introduced a
corrective element into the chronology of all subsequent his-
tory down to the time of David and exerts a far-reaching
influence upon many critical questions i~ which the chron-
ological element is vital.
SACRIFICE IN EGYPT.
2. Tl1e entire absence from the offerjngs of old Egyptian
religion of any of the great Pentateuchal ideas of sacrifice,
. ubstitution, atonement dedication, fellow hip, and, indeed,
of
almost every essential idea of real sacrifice, as clearly estab
lished by recent ,~ery exhaustive examination of the offering
scenes
<
52
>,
makes for the element of revelation in the Mosaic
ystem by delimiting the field of rationalistic speculation on the
Egyptian side. Egypt gave nothing to that system, for she
11adnothing to give. .
THE F UTURE LIFE I _ T H E PE TATEUCH.
3. Then
the grossly materiali tic character of
the E -
tian conception of the other ,vorld and of the future life, and
the fact, every day becoming clearer, that the so-called and
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.~ s?-much-talked-about resurrection
in tl1e
belief of the Egyp
,
tians was not a resurrection at all, but a resuscitation
to
the
,e: sa~e old life on ''oxen, geese,
bread,
wine, beer, and al good
Pentateuchal documents. For, whether they came from Mose s
when he bad just come from Egypt or are by some later author
attributed to Mo
1
ses, ,when
11e
had
just
come
from
Egypt, the
problem is the same :
Why
is tl1e idea of tl1e resurrection so
tion the 1de,a of · the resurrection at
tl1at
time, be£01 .e tl1e
,growth
of s,piritual j,,deas
of
Go
1
d ~nd of worship here, of the
11
other world and the future life
the~e, and
before
tl1e
people
r,
tJ under th
1
e influence of these new ideas had outgrown their
r
~gyptian
training, wo,uld have carried
over
into
Israel's
relig~
1ous
thinking all the low, degrading materialism of Egyptian
S' belief on this subject. The Mosaic system made no use
of
1
hiy
it
usable, and it kept
away £1·om
open presentation of the
subject
altogether, because that was the only way to get the
peopi]e
away
from Egypt's concep
1
tion of the subject ..
•
WELLHAUSEN' ,S MISTAKE.
.
,I 4. Tl1e discovery of the Aramaic papyri at Syenec
53
>
1i
tnade possible a new chapter in Old Testament criticism, raised .
l
portant points. Tolerable, though not perfect, identifications
are
made
out .for Bagoas, Governor of the Jews;
of
Josephus
and Diodorus; Sanballat, . of
Nehemiah and
Josephus; and
Jochanan,
of Nehemiah and Josephus. But more important
than
all
thes
1
e identifications is the information th,at the Jews
had,
at that period, built a temple and o,ffered
sacrifice
far
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The utidame1ttals.
of
the
foundation of his Pentateuchal criticism in
these
words:
''The returning
exiles
,vere thoroughly
imbued
with
the ideas
of Josiah's
reformation
and had no
thought
of
worshiping
except in Jerusalem. It cost them no sacrifice of
their
feel
ings to
leave
the ruined High
Places unbt1ilt.
From this
date,
all Jews understood, as a matter of course, that the one
God
l1ad
only
one
sanctuary. So much We 'llhausen. But here
is this petition of the J ,vs at Syene in the year 407 B. C. after
Nehemiah's return declaring that
they
had
built a
temple there
and established a
system
of ,vorship and of sacrifices, and evi
dencing also that they expected the approval of the Jews at
Jerusalem in rebuilding tl1at temple and
re-establishing
that
sacrificial ~ orship, and, what is more, received from the gov
ernor of the Jews permission so to do, a thing which, had it
been opposed
by
the Jews at Jerusalem \\
1
as utterly incon
sistent with the Jewish policy of the Persian Empire in
the
days of Nehemiah.
NEW TESTAME T GREEK.
5. Then the redating of the Hermetic writings<
6
~>
whereby
they are thrown back from the Christian era to
500-300
B. C. opens up a completely new source of critical mate
rial for tracing the rise and progress of theological terms
in the Alexandrian Greek of the New Testament. In a recent
letter from Petrie, who has written a little book on the sub
ject, he sums up the whole case, as he sees it, in these words:
11y position simply is that the current religious phrases and
ideas
of the
B.
C.
age must be
grasped
in or(jer to
under
stand the usages of religious language in which the New Tes
tament is written. And we can never kno\v the real motive of
.. re,v Testament ,vritings untii we kno\v how much is new
thought and ho,v mucn is cu rrent theology in terms of which
the E1t angelos is expressed. Whether or not all the new
dates for the \vritings sha ll be permitted to stand, and ~etrie's
point of
view be justified,
a
discussion
of the dates
and
a criti-
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cal examination of the Hermetic writings from the standpoint
of their corrected dates alone can determine ; but it is certain
that the products of the exa·mination cannot but be far-
reaching in their influence and in the il.lumination of the teach-
ings of Christ and the
Apo stles.
V. IDEN TIFICAT IONS ;
•
Last and more gener .ally, of recent testimony from arch
aeology to Scripture we mttst consider the identification .of
pl,aces, peop
1
les, and evients of the Bibl·e n.arrative.
For many
years archaeologists looked up helplessly
at
the
pinho ,]es in the pediment o,f the Parthenon, vainly speculating
about what might have
been
the important announcement
in·
bronze once fastened at those pinhole s. At last an ingenious
young
erican
student ca·ref
ull.Y
copied
the·
pinholes,
and
from -a study
of the collocation
divined at
last the
whole
im-
perial Roman decree
once
fastened there. So, isolated identi
fication of peoples, places, and events in the Bible may not
mea.n so
much; however
startling tl1eir
char.a
cter.,
they ·may
be.,
after all, only pinholes in the mosaic of Bible historyt but the
collocation of these identificatiotis, when many of them
have
been
found, indicates at last the whole pattern of the mosaic.
Now the progress of important identifications has of late
been very rapid. It will suffice oniy to mention those which
we have already studied for their intrinsic importance togeth
er with the long list of others within recent years. In 1874,
Cle1111ont-Ganneau discovered one
of
the boundary stones
of
Gezer<
1141
,
at which
place now
for
six.
years Mr.
R. A.
Stew ...
art Macalister has been uncovering the treasures of history
o
that Levitical city<
7
>; in 1906, Winckler discovered the Hit
tites at their capital city; in 1904-5, Schumacker explored
Megiddo; in 1900-02, Sellin, Taannek; Jericho has now
been
a~c1:1,ratelyocated .
by
Sellin
and the
foundations
of
her walls
laid
bare;
the Edotnites, long denied
existence in
patriarchal
times, have been given historical place in the time of Meremp ..
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Tlie F·z ndame1itals.
•
tah by tl1e papyrus Anasta sia ( j S) ; 11oab, for some time past
in
dispute, I identified beyond further
controversy
at Luxor
i11
1908, in an inscription of Rameses
II.,
before the time of tl1e
Exodus <
9
) ; while Hilprecht at ippur <
0
) , Glaser in Arabia
<
01
>
Petrie at Maghereh and along the route of the Exodus (
6 2
) ,
and
Reisner at Samaria have been adding a multitude of geograph
ical, ethnographical and historical identifications.
The completion of tl1e whole list of identifications i rap
idly approaching, and the collocation of these identifications
has given us anew, from entirely independent testimony of
archaeology, the ,vhole outline of the biblical narrative and
its surroundings, at
once
the
necessary
material for the his
torical imagination and the sure st foundation of apologetics ..
Fa11cy
for a moment that the peoples, places and events of the
wanderings of Ulys ses should be identified : all the strange
route
of
travel followed; ·the remarkable lands visited and
de
scribed, the curious creatures, half human and half monstrot1 s,
and even unmistakable traces of strange events, found, all jttst
as the poet imagined, what a tra11sformation in our views of
Homer 's great epic mu st take place Henceforth that romance
,vould be history. Let us reverse the process and fancy that
the peoples, places, and events of the Bible story were as lit
tle kno\vn from independent sources as the wanderings of
Uly sses; the intellectual temper of this age would unhesitat
ingly put the Bible story in the same mythical ategory in
which have always been the romance s of Homer. If it ,vere
po ssible to blot out biblical geography, biblical
ethnology, a11d
biblical history from the realm of
exact
knowledge, so
would
w·e fUt out the eyes of faith, hence£ orth our religion would be
blind, stone blind.
Thus the value of the rapid progress of · identificatio ns
appear s. It is the identificat ions which differentiate histo1·)r
from myth, geography from the ' 'land of nowhere," the rec
ord of event s from tale s of '' never ,vas," Scripture from
folk
lore,
and the Gospel of the Saviour of the world from the de-
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Recent Testimony of Arcliaeology to the Scriptures 43
lus·i
1
ons of hope. Ev,ery i
dentificati ,o·n limits by slo ·much the •
field of historical criticism. When t.he progress of identifica
tion shall reach comple tion, the wo,rk of historical criticism
will be finished. ·
CONCLUSION.
The present status of the tes.timony from archaeology to
Scrip
1
tt1re, as t·hese latest discoveries mak
1
e it to be, may be
point,ed out in a
f
e·w w,ords.
,.
N OT E1VOLUTION.
1. T he hi.story of civilizati ,on as everywhere illuminated
is fou11d
to be only partially that
of
the evolutionary theory
of ,early Israelite history, but very exactly
tl1at
of the biblical
•
narrative; that is to say, this history,
like
all history sacred or
profane, , shows at times,
f
1
or even a century or two,
st.eady
P·t ·ogress,1b,ut the regular, orderly progress
f
r,om tl1e most
pritnitive state of
society
toward the highest degree of civiliza
tion, which the evolutionary theory imperatively demands,
if
: it fulfill its intended 1nissio11, ails utterly. The best ancient
. work at Taannek is the earliest. From the cave dwell ·ers to
the
city
builders
at
Gezer
is no long, gentle evolution;
the
, early Amorite civilization leaps with rapid strides to the great
engine,ering · feats on the de,£ens.es and the water-works.
I Wherever it has been possible to
institute
comparison between
Palestine and Egypt, the Canaanite civilization in handicraft,
art, en.gineering, architecture, .and education has been found
to suffer only by that which climate, materials and location
r impose; in ·genius and in practical execution it is equal to that
of Egypt, and only eclipsed, before Graeco-Roman times, by
: the brief glory of the Solomonic period. .
r
;
•
HARMON~Y WITH SCRIPTURE.
•
2
1
• When
w
1
e come to loo k more narrowly a.t the ,de·tails, of
archaeological testimony, the historical
setting
thus afforded ·
for ·the events of the Bib1e narrative is seen to be exactly in
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, harmony
with
the narrative. This is very significant of
th«
· final
1
out ,come of res,ea1-.~h n early Bib,le hi,story. Be,cau · .
views of Scripture n1ust fina lly s.quare with the results o
archaeo logy; that is to say, with contemporaneous history, and
the archaeological
testi1nony
of these past five, years ,well in~
dica,tes
the present trend
toward the final
conclusion.
The;
. Bible narrative ·plainly interp ,r,et,ed at its f la~e value is e,very
where being
sustaine ,d, while,
of the
gr ,eat
critical theories
pr<
po
1
sing to take
Scripture
recording
events
of
that
ag
1
e at
,oth,e
than the face value, as
the illi.'e1.
,cy of early
Weste ,rn
Se·mitic
people, the rude nomadic barbarity of Palestin ,e and the De sert
in tl1,e patriarchal age, the patri ,archs not individual ,s bu't per~
J sonifications, the Desert ''Egypt, the gra~ual invasion of Pal-
estine, the naturalist ,ic origin of Is
1
rael's reli,gion,. the, incon·
sequence of Moses
as
a law-giver,
t'l1e
late authors ,hip
1
0£· tt1e
Pe ntateuch,
and a dozen others,
not
a single one
is being defi.
nitely
supported
b
1
y
t.he
results
of arcl1aeological re,search. In•
deed, reconstructing criticism hardly finds it worth while,
ot
th
1
e m,ost
part, to
look
to
archaeology fo :r
support. ·
. The recent testimony of archaeology to Scripture, like 311
such testimony that has gone before, is d,efinitely an
1
d unifontl'
ly f,avo,r·able. to th,e,Scriptures at their face ·,value, and not to the
Scriptures as recon structed by criticism,
•
AUTHORIT IES REFERRED 'TO ABOVE .
•
•
ABBREVI ATIONS US ,ED IN REFERENCES. ,
0. L. Z. Orientalistis ,chen Litterat11r-Zeitu ,ng.
Q. S. _ uarterly Stat ement o,f the Palestine Explora tion Sod.,
(.1)
(2)
(3)
ety, . .
REFERENCES.
Gep.
12
:10-20; 13 :1;
47 :1-12.
Gen. 41 :14-46.
•
Orr, ''Tl 1e Problem of the Old Testa1nent,''
p,p.
57-58,
quoting Schu ltz, Weilhausen, Kuenen,
W,
R.
Smith,
G. B. Gray, I-I. P.. Smith, F. H. Woods ,
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The Fundamental s.
•
(28) Sellin, T
1
el-Taannek, t'Denkschriften der Kaiserlicber,
Akademie in
Wien.''
(29) Deut. 6 :10-11;
Josh.
24
:13 ;· Neh.
9
:25.
(30) I,sa. 19:18,
( 31) E2ek. 16 :44-46; Det1t. 7 :3. .
( 32) Judges 2 :11-15; 3 :7; 8 :33-35; 1.8 :30-31~
(33) Macalis
1
ter, Q.
S.,
1903, pp. 8-9, 49.
(34) Macalister,Q.
S.,
1908,, p~ 17.
( 35) Vincent,
in
Q. S.,
1908, p. 228.
( 36) Macali lster, Q. s . 1903, p
1
• 49.
( 37) Ibid.
(38) I. Kings 9 :16.
•
•
I
•
(39) Winckler, Orientalistische Forsch ungen, Series I pp..
2:4-41.
(40) I. Kings 9 :1,6.
( 41) Macali5te·r,
Q.
S., 1903,
P-. .
309.
(42) Sellin., ''Tel-Ta ,annek,'' p. 92.
43,)
Macalister,
Q.
S., 1908,
Jan.-Apr.
(44) Petri
1
e,
''Deshasha,'' Plate I\ T.
.
(45) Birch, ''Records of the
Past, 1st
Series,
Vol.
IJ,
PI>
35-52, ''B ,att1e of Megid
1
do,.''
Also Lep .sius, ''Denk ...
maier.'' Abth. III.
Bl.
32, 31st, 30th, 30B, ''Aus
wahl,'' XII, L. 42-45. ·
( 46) Macalister-Vincent,
Q.
S., 1898-08. ·
(47) Budg ,e, '''Hist ,ory of Egypt,'' Vol. IV,
pp•.
184-241•
(48) Gen. 21-38. Ki11g, 'Code of Hammurabi_,, ,
( 49) Macalister, Q. S., 1903, ff. and ''Bible
Side
Lights g
Cl1ap.
III. Also Sellin,
''Tel-Taannek,''
pp.
96-97.
( 50) Clay, ''
Amurru, 'Th,e Ho1ne ,of the N or ·thern Semites.''
(51) King, ''Chronology of
the First
Three
Babylonian Dy
nasties .. '
( 52
1
)1
Kyle,
Recueil de Travaux, ''Egyptian Sacrifices~'' Vol .
.XXVII, ''Furth ,er Observations,'' Vol. XXXI. Bibli&-
theca Sacra, Apr., 190,5, pp. 3
1
23-33
1
6. .
•
( 53) Margoliouth,
''Expository Times,'' December,
1907.-
]
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(54)
(55)
(56)
57)
(5,8)
(59)
(60)
(61)
(62)
•
•
•
•
.
,
•
f
•
I
sephu ,s,
' Ant,iquiti)es,''
11 :7; D
1
1,adorns Siculus. Se
1
c. 3;
17-35. Neh. 13:28; 12:2,2; 2 Es dra s
,5:14.
Welll1ausen,
Ency.
Brit., Vol.
18,
p.
509
~
Petri
1
e, ''Person .al Religi
1
on
in Egyp ·t Be£ore
Chr.isti,an
ity. ' .
Clermont -Ganneau in ''Bible S.ide Lights, pil
22.
Macalister, ''Bible Side Light s.' Also Q. S., 1902-09.
MiiI]e,r, ''Asien un
1
d Europa.
•
Kyle,
Recueil
de .
Travaux,
\ T
ol.
XXX~
''Ethnic and
Geographical
Lists
of Ra1nese s II.
Hilp ·rech ,t, ' 'Exploratio
1
ns i11
B,,bylonia.
Weber, Forschungsre ,isen
Edo11ard
Glaser; also ''Stu
dien zur ·Siidarabiscl1en Altertun1 skunde,' ''
Webe,r·.
Petrie,
''R
1
esearch.es. in Sinai.' ''
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