THE RECENT TESTIMONY OF ARCHAEOLOGY
TO THE SCRIPTURES
BY
M.
G. KYLE, D. D., L. L. D.,
Egyptologist. Professor Of Biblical Archaeology, Xenia Theological
Seminary.
Consulting Editor Of The Records Of The Past, Washington, D.C.
INTRODUCTION
“Recent” is a dangerously capacious
word to entrust to an archaeologist. Anything this side of the Day of Pentecost
is “recent” in biblical archaeology. For this review, however, anything since
1904 is accepted to be, in a general way, the meaning of the word “recent.”
“Recent testimony of archaeology” may be either the testimony of recent
discoveries or recent testimony of former discoveries. A new interpretation, if
it be established to be a true interpretation, is a discovery. For to uncover
is not always to discover; indeed, the real value of a discovery is not its
emergence, but its significance, and the discovery of its real significance is
the real discovery.
The most important testimony to the
Scriptures of this five-year archaeological period admits of some
classification:
1. THE HISTORICAL SETTING OF THE
PATRIARCHAL RECEPTION IN EGYPT.
The reception in Egypt accorded to
Abraham and to Jacob and his sons (Genesis 12:10-20; 13:1; 47:1-12) and the elevation of Joseph
there(Genesis 41:14-46 ) peremptorily demand either the acknowledgment of a mythical element in
the stories, or the belief in a suitable historical setting thereof. Obscure,
insignificant, private citizens are not accorded such recognition at a foreign
and unfriendly court. While some have been conceding a mythical element in the
stories (Orr, “The Problem of the Old Testament,” pp. 57-58, quoting Schultz,
Wellhausen, Kuenen, W. R. Smith, G. B. Gray, H. P. Smith, F. H. Woods. ),
archaeology has uncovered to view such appropriate historical setting that the
patriarchs are seen not to have been obscure, insignificant, private citizens,
nor Zoan a foreign and unfriendly court.
The presence of the Semitic tongue
in Hyksos’ territory has long been known (Brugsch, “Egypt under the Pharaohs,”
Broderick edition, Chap. VI. ); from still earlier than patriarchal times until
much later, the Phoenicians, first cousins of the Hebrews, did the foreign
business of the Egyptians (Ibid.), as the English, the Germans, and the French
do the foreign business of the Chinese of today; and some familiarity, even
sympathy, with Semitic religion has been strongly suspected from the interview
of the Hyksos kings with the patriarchs (Genesis 41:25-39); but the discovery
in 1906 (Petrie, “Hyksos and Israelite Cities.”), by Petrie, of 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 Hyksos scarabs and the almost total absence of all others mark the camp as certainly
a Hyksos camp (Ibid, pp. 3 and 10, Plate IX ); the original character of the
fortifications, before the Hyksos
learned the builders’ craft from the Egyptians, shows them to have depended
upon the bow for defense (Ibid, pp. 5-9. Plates II, III, IV); and, finally, the
name Hyksos, in the Egyptian Haq Shashu (Budge, “History of Egypt,” Vol. III,
pp. 137-138) “Bedouin
princes,” brings out, sharp and clear, the harmonious picture of which we have
had glimpses for a long time, of the Hyksos as wandering tribes of the desert,
of “Upper and Lower Ruthen” (Kyle, Recueil de Travaux, Vol. XXX, “Geographic
and Ethnic Lists of Rameses II.”) i.e., Syria and Palestine, northern and
western Arabia, “Bow people” (Muller, “Asien und Europa.” 2tes Kapitel), as the
Egyptians called them, their traditional enemies as far back as pyramid times
(Ibid)
Why, then, should not the patriarchs
have had a royal reception in Egypt? They were themselves also the heads of
wandering tribes of “Upper and Lower Ruthen,” in the tongue of the Egyptians,
Haq Shashu, “Bedouin princes”; and among princes, a prince is a prince, however
small his principality. So Abraham, the Bedouin prince, was accorded princely
consideration at the Bedouin court in Egypt; Joseph, the Bedouin slave, became
again the Bedouin prince when the wisdom of God with him and his rank by birth
became known. And Jacob and his other sons were welcome, with all their
followers and their wealth, as a valuable acquisition to the court party,
always harassed by the restive and rebellious native Egyptians. This does not
prove racial identity between the Hyksos and the patriarchs, but very close
tribal relationship. And thus every suspicion of a mythical element in the
narrative of the reception accorded the patriarchs in Egypt disappears when
archaeology has testified to the true historical setting.
2. THE HITTITE VINDICATION
A second recent testimony of
archaeology gives us the great Hittite vindication. The Hittites have been, in
one respect, the Trojans of Bible history; indeed, the inhabitants of old Troy
were scarcely more in need of a Schliemann to vindicate their claim to reality
than the Hittites of a Winckler.
In 1904 one of the foremost
archaeologists of Europe said to me: “I do not believe there ever were such people
as the Hittites, and I do not believe ‘Kheta’ in the Egyptian inscriptions was
meant for the name Hittites.” We will allow that archaeologist to be nameless
now. But the ruins of Troy vindicated the right of her people to a place in
real history, and the ruins of Boghatz-Koi bid fair to afford a more striking
vindication of the Bible representation of the Hittites.
Only the preliminary announcement of
Winckler’s great treasury of documents from Boghatz-Koi has yet been made
(Winckler, O. L. Z., December 15, 1906). The complete unfolding of a
long-eclipsed great national history is still awaited impatiently. But enough
has been published to redeem this people completely from their half-mythical
plight, and give them a firm place in sober history greater than imagination
had ever fancied for them under the stimulus of any hint contained in the
Bible.
There has been brought to light a
Hittite empire (Ibid) in Asia Minor,
with central power and vassal dependencies round about and with treaty rights
on equal terms with the greatest nations of antiquity, thus making the Hittite
power a third great power with Babylonia and Egypt, as was, indeed,
foreshadowed in the great treaty of the Hittites with Rameses II., inscribed on
the projecting wing of the south wall of the Temple of Amon at Karnak
(Bouriant, Recueil de Travaux, Vol. XIII, pp. 15 ff.; Budge, “History of
Egypt,” Vol. V, pp. 48 ff.; Good- win, “Records of the Past,” 1st
Series, Vol. IV, pp. 25 ff.), though Rameses tried so hard to obscure the fact.
The ruins at the village of Boghatz-Koi are shown also to mark the location of
the Hittite capital (Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesselschaft: 1902, p.
5. Muller, Recueil de Travaux, Vol. VIII, 126 ff. Budge, “History of Egypt,” V,
30 ff.), and the unknown language on the cuneiform tablets recovered there to
be the Hittite tongue (Winckler, O. L. Z., December 15, 1906. (Sonderabzug, p.
15).), while the cuneiform method of writing, as already upon the Amarna
tablets (Ibid. (Sonderabzug, p. 22)), so still more clearly here, is seen to
have been the diplomatic script, and in good measure the Babylonian to have
been the diplomatic language of the Orient in that age (Conder. “Tel Amarna
Tablets.” Budge, “History of Egypt,” Vol. IV, pp.184-241.). And the large admixture
of Babylonian words and forms in these Hittite inscriptions opens the way for
the real decipherment of the Hittite language (Winckler, O. L. Z., December 15,
1906. Sonderabzug.), and imagination can scarcely promise too much to our hopes
for the light which such a decipherment will throw upon the historical and
cultural background of the Bible.
Only one important point remains to
be cleared up, the relation between the Hittite language of these cuneiform
tablets and the language of the Hittite hieroglyphic inscription (Messersmidt,
Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Ges-selchaft; Corpus, Unscrip. Het. — 1902).
That these were identical is probable; that the hieroglyphic inscriptions
represent an older form of the language, a kind of “Hieratic,” is possible;
that it was essentially different from the language of these tablets is
improbable. There has been the Hittite vindication; the complete illumination
of Hittite history is not likely to be long delayed.
3. THE PALESTINIAN CIVILIZATION
Other recent testimony of
archaeology brings before us the Palestinian civilization of the conquest
period. Palestinian explorations within the last few years have yielded a
startling array of “finds” illustrating things mentioned in the Bible, finds of
the same things, finds of like things, and finds in harmony with things
(Vincent, “Canaan.”) Individual mention of them all is here neither possible
nor desirable. Of incomparably greater importance than these individually
interesting 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 conquest as
related in the Bible? How much of a break in culture is required by the Bible
account, and how much is revealed by the excavations? For answer, we must 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 middle point of view. Petrie (Petrie,
“Lachish.”), Bliss (Bliss, “A Mound of Many Cities.”), Macalister (Macalister,
“Bible Side Lights from the Mound of Gezer.”), Schumacker (Schumacker,
“Excavations at Megiddo.”) and Sellin (Sellin, Tel-Taannek,
“Denkschriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie in Wien.”)— these are the men with
whom
to stand. And for light on the early
civilization of Palestine, the great work of Macalister at Gezer stands easily
first.
HISTORICAL VALUE OF POTTERY
In determining this question of
culture, too much importance has been allowed to that estimate of time and
chronological order which is gained exclusively from the study of pottery. The
pottery remains are not to be undervalued, and neither are they to be overvalued.
Time is only one thing that shows itself in similarity or dissimilarity in
pottery. Different stages of civilization at different places at the same time,
and adaptation to an end either at the same time or at widely different times,
show themselves in pottery, and render very uncertain any chronological
deduction. And, still more, available material may result in the production of
similar pots. Pottery in two very different civilizations arising one thousand
years or more apart. This civilization of pots, as a deciding criterion, is not
quite adequate, and is safe as a criterion at all only when carefully compared
with the testimony of location, intertribal relations, governmental domination,
and literary attainments.
These are the things, in addition to
the pots, which help to determine — indeed, which do determine how much of a
break in culture is required by the Bible account of the Conquest, and how 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 things” (Deuteronomy 6:10-11; Joshua 24:13; Nehemiah 9:25.), had the same
materials and in the main the same purposes for pottery and would adopt methods
of cooking suited to the country, spoke the “language of Canaan” (Isaiah
19:18.), and were of the same race as many of the people of Canaan,
intermarried, though against their law (Ezekiel 16:44-46; Deuteronomy 7:3.),
with the people of the land, and were continually chided for lapses into the
idolatry and superstitious practices of the Canaanites (Judges 2:11-15; 3:7;
8:33-35; 18:30-31.), and, in short, were greatly different from them only in
religion, it is evident that the only marked, immediate change to be expected
at the Conquest is a change in religion, and that any other break in culture
occasioned by the devastation of war will be only a break in continuance of the
same kind of culture, evidence of demolition, spoliation, and reconstruction.
Exactly such change in religion and interruption in culture at the Conquest
period excavations show.
RELIGION AND CULTURE
(a) The rubbish at Gezer shows history in distinct
layers, and the layers themselves are in distinct groups (Macalister, Q. S.,
1903, pp, 8-9,49.). At the bottom are layers Canaanite, not Semitic; above
these, layers Semitic, Amorite giving place to Jewish; and higher still, layers
of Jewish culture of the monarchy and later times.
(b) The closing up of the great tunnel to the
spring within the fortifications at Gezer is placed by the layers of history in
the rubbish heaps at the period of the Conquest (Macalister, Q. S., 1908, p. 17.) But when a great fortification is so ruined and the power it represents
so destroyed that it loses sight of its water-supply, surely the culture of the
time has had an interruption, though it be not much changed. Then this tunnel,
as a great engineering feat, is remarkable testimony to the
advanced state of civilization at
the time of its construction; but the more remarkable the civilization it
represents, the more terrible must have been the disturbance of the culture
which caused it to be lost and forgotten (Vincent, in Q. S., 1908, p. 228.).
(c) Again, there is apparent an enlargement of the
populated area of the city of Gezer by encroaching upon the Temple area at the
period of the Conquest (Macalister, Q. S., 1903, p. 49.), showing at once the
crowding into the city of the Israelites without the destruction of the
Canaanites, as stated in the Bible, and a
corresponding decline in reverence
for the sacred enclosure of the High Place. While, at a time corresponding to
the early period of the Monarchy ( Ibid.), there is a sudden decrease of the populated area corresponding
to the destruction of the Canaanites in the city by the father of Solomon’s
Egyptian wife (1 Kings 9:16.).
(d) Of startling significance, the hypothetical
Musri Egypt in North Arabia, concerning which it has been said (Winckler,
Orientalistische Forschungen, Series I, pp. 24-41.)the patriarchs descended
thereto, the Israelites escaped from there, and a princess thereof Solomon
married, has been finally and definitely discredited. For Gezer was a marriage
dower of that princess whom Solomon married (1 Kings 9:16.), a portion of her
father’s dominion, and so a part of the supposed Musri, if it ever existed, and
if so, at Gezer, then, we should find some evidence of this people and their
civilization. Of such there is not a trace. But, instead, we find from very
early times, but especially at this time, Egyptian remains in great abundance
(Macalister, Q. S., 1903, p. 309.).
(e) Indeed, even Egyptian refinement and luxuries
were not incongruous in the Palestine of the Conquest period. The great
rock-hewn, and rock-built cisterns at Taannek (Sellin, “Tel-Taannek,” p. 92.),
the remarkable engineering on the tunnel at Gezer (Macalister, Q. S., 1908,
Jan.-Apr.), the great forty-foot city wall in an Egyptian picture of Canaanite
war (Petrie, “Deshasha,” Plate IV.), the list of richest Canaanite booty given
by Thothmes III (Birch, “Records of the Past,” 1st Series, Vol. II, pp. 35-52,
“Battle of Megiddo.” Also Lepsius, “Denkmaler.” Abth. III. B1. 32, 31st, 30th,
30B, “Auswahl,” XII, L. 42-45.), the fine ceramic and bronze utensils and
weapons recovered from nearly every Palestinian excavation (Macalister-Vincent,
Q. S., 1898-08.), and the literary revelations of the Amarna tablets ( Budge, “History of Egypt,” Vol. IV,
pp. 184-241.), together with the reign of law seen by a comparison of the
scriptural account with the Code of Hammurabi, show (Genesis 21-38. King, “Code
of Hammurabi.”) Canaanite civilization of that period to be fully equal to that
of Egypt.
(f) Then the Bible glimpses of Canaanite practices
and the products of Canaanite religion now uncovered exactly agree. The mystery
of the High Place of the Bible narrative, with its sacred caves, lies bare at
Gezer and Taannek. The sacrifice of infants, probably first-born, and the
foundation and other
sacrifices of children, either infant or partly grown, appear in all their
ghastliness in various places at Gezer and “practically all over the hill” at
Taannek (Macalister, Q. S., 1903, ff., and “Bible Side Lights,” Chap. III. Also
Sellin, “Tel-Taannek,” pp. 96-97.).
(g) But the most remarkable testimony of
archaeology of this period is to the Scripture representations of the spiritual
monotheism of Israel in its conflict with the horrible idolatrous polytheism of
the Canaanites, the final overthrow of the latter and the ultimate triumph of
the former. The history of that conflict is as plainly written at Gezer in the
gradual decline of the High Place and giving way of the revolting sacrifice of
children to the bowl and lamp deposit as it is in the inspired account of
Joshua, Judges and Samuel. And the line that marks off the territory of divine
revelation in religion from the impinging heathenism round about is as distinct
as that line off the coast of Newfoundland where the cold waters of the North
beat against the warm life-giving flow of the Gulf Stream. The revelation of
the spade in Palestine is making to stand out every day more clearly the
revelation that God made. There is no evidence of a purer religion growing up
out of that vile culture, but rather of a purer religion coming down and
overwhelming it.
2. Another and still more important question
concerning Palestine civilization is, What was the source and course of the
dominant civilization and especially the religious culture reflected in the
Bible account of the millennium preceding and the millennium succeeding the
birth of Abraham? Was it from without toward Canaan or from Canaan outward? Did
Palestine in her civilization and culture of those days, in much or in all, but
reflect Babylonia, or was she a luminary?
PALESTINE AND BABYLONIA
The revision of 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 religious influence during this formative 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 period was equal to that of Egypt, and so certainly not inferior to that
of Babylonia, then the opinion that the flow of religious influence was then
from Babylonia to Palestine must stand for its defense. Here arises the newest
problem of biblical archaeology.
And one of the most expert cuneiform
scholars of the day, Albert T.Clay (Clay, “Amurru, The Home of the Northern
Semites.”), has essayed this problem and announces a revolutionary solution of
it by a new interpretation of well-known material as well as the interpretation
of newly acquired material. The solution is nothing less, indeed, than that
instead of the source of religious influence being Babylonia, and its early
course from Babylonia into Palestine, exactly the reverse is true, “That the
Semitic Babylonian religion is an importation from Syria and Palestine
(Amurru), that the creation, deluge, antediluvian patriarchs, etc., of the
Babylonian Came from Amurru, instead of the Hebraic stories having Come from
Babylonia, as held by nearly all Semitic scholars.”
This is startling and far reaching
in its consequences. Clay’s work must be put to the test; and so it will be,
before it can be finally accepted. It has, however, this initial advantage,
that it is in accord with the apparent self consciousness of the Scripture
writers and, as we have seen, exactly in the direction in which recent
discoveries in Palestinian civilization point.
4. PALESTINE AND EGYPT
Again archaeology has of late
furnished illumination of certain special questions of both Old and New
Testament criticism.
1. “Light from Babylonia” by L. W. King (King,
“Chronology of the First Three Babylonian Dynasties.”) of the British Museum on
the chronology of the first three dynasties helps to determine the date of
Hammurabi, and so of Abraham’s call and of the Exodus, and, indeed, has
introduced a corrective element into the chronology of all subsequent history
down to the time of David and exerts a far-reaching influence upon many
critical questions in which the chronological element is vital.
SACRIFICE IN EGYPT
2. The entire absence from the offerings of old
Egyptian religion of any of the great Pentateuchal ideas of sacrifice,
substitution, atonement, dedication, fellowship, and, indeed, of almost every
essential idea of real sacrifice, as clearly established by recent very
exhaustive examination of the offering scenes (Kyle, Recueil de Travaux.
“Egyptian Sacrifices.” Vol. XXVII, “Further Observations,” Vol. XXXI.
Bibliotheca Sacra, Apr., 1905, pp. 323-336.), makes for the element of
revelation in the Mosaic system by delimiting the field of rationalistic
speculation on the Egyptian side. Egypt gave nothing to that system, for she
had nothing to give.
THE FUTURE LIFE IN THE PENTATEUCH
3. Then the grossly materialistic character of the
Egyptian conception of the other world
and of the future life, and the fact, every day becoming clearer, that the
so-called and so-much-talked-about resurrection in the belief of the Egyptians
was not a resurrection at all, but a resuscitation to the same old life on
“oxen, geese, bread, wine, beer, and all good things,” is furnishing a most
complete solution of the problem of the obscurity of the idea of the
resurrection in the Pentateuchal documents. For, whether they came from Moses
when he had just come from Egypt or are by some later author attributed to
Moses, when he had just come from Egypt; the problem is the same: Why is the idea
of the resurrection so obscure in the Pentateuch? Now to have put forth in
revelation the idea of the resurrection at that time, before the growth of
spiritual ideas of God and of worship here, of the other world and the future
life there, and before the people under the influence of these new ideas had
outgrown their Egyptian training, would have carried over into Israel’s
religious thinking all the low, degrading materialism of Egyptian belief on
this subject. The Mosaic system made no use of Egyptian belief concerning the
future life because it was not by it usable, and it kept away from open
presentation of the subject altogether, because that was the only way to get
the people away from Egypt’s conception of the subject.
WELLHAUSEN’S MISTAKE
4. The discovery of the Aramaic papyri at Syene
(Margoliouth, “Expository Times,” December, 1907. Josephus, “Antiquities,”
11:7; Deadorus Siculus: Sec. 3; 17-35. Nehemiah 13:28; 12:22; 2 Esdras 5:14.) made possible a new chapter in Old
Testament criticism, raised to a high pitch hopes for contemporary testimony on
Old Testament history which hitherto hardly dared raise their heads, and
contributed positive evidence on a number of important 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 these
identifications is the information that the Jews had, at that period, built a
temple and offered sacrifice far from Jerusalem. Wellhausen (Wellhausen, Ency.
Brit., Vol. 18, p. 509.) lays down the first stone of the foundation of his
Pentateuchal criticism in these words: “The returning exiles were 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 feelings to leave the
ruined High Places un-rebuilt. From this date, all Jews understood, as a matter
of course, that the one God had only one sanctuary.” So much Wellhausen. But
here is this petition of the Jews 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 worship and of sacrifices, and evidencing also that they expected
the approval of the Jews at Jerusalem in rebuilding that temple and
re-establishing that sacrificial worship, and, what is more, received from the
governor of the Jews permission so to do, a thing which, had it been opposed by
the Jews at Jerusalem was utterly inconsistent with the Jewish policy of the
Persian Empire in the days of Nehemiah.
NEW TESTAMENT GREEK
5. Then the re-dating of the Hermetic writings
(Petrie, “Personal Religion in Egypt Before Christianity.”) whereby they are
thrown back from the Christian era to 500-300 B.C. opens up a completely new
source of critical material 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 subject, he sums up the whole
case, as he sees it, in these words: “My position simply is that the current
religious phrases and ideas of the B.C. age must be grasped in order to
understand the usages of religious language in which the New Testament is
written. And we Can never know the real motive of New Testament writings until
we know how much is new thought and how much is current theology in terms of
which the Euangelos is expressed.”
Whether or not all the new dates for
the writings shall be permitted to stand, and Petrie’s point of view be
justified, a discussion of the dates and a critical examination of the Hermetic
writings from the standpoint of their corrected dates alone can determine; but
it is certain that the products of the examination cannot but be far-reaching
in their influence and in the illumination of the teachings of Christ and the
Apostles.
5. IDENTIFICATIONS
Last and more generally, of recent
testimony from archaeology to Scripture we must consider the identification of places,
peoples, and events of the Bible narrative. For many years archaeologists
looked up helplessly at the pinholes in the pediment of the Parthenon, vainly
speculating about what might have been the important announcement in bronze
once fastened at those pinholes. At last an ingenious young American student
carefully copied the pinholes; and from a study of the collocation divined at
last the whole imperial Roman decree once fastened there. So, isolated
identification of peoples, places, and events in the Bible may not mean so
much; however startling their character, they may be, after all, only pinholes
in the mosaic of Bible history, but the collocation of these identifications,
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 only to mention
those which we have already studied for their intrinsic importance together
with the long list of others within recent years. In 1874, Clermont-Ganneau
discovered one of the boundary stones of Gezer (Clermont-Ganneau in “Bible Side Lights,” p.
22.) , at which place now for six years Mr. R. A. Stewart Macalister has been
uncovering the treasures of history of that Levitical city (Macalister, “Bible
Side Lights.” Also Q. S., 1902-09.); in 1906, Winckler discovered the Hittites
at their capital city; in 1904-1905, Schumacker explored Megiddo; in 1900-1902,
Sellin, Taannek; Jericho has now been accurately located by Sellin and the
foundations of her walls laid bare; the Edomites, long denied existence in
patriarchal times, have been given historical place in the time of Meremptah by
the papyrus Anastasia (Muller, “Asien und Europa.”); Moab, for some time past
in dispute, I identified beyond further controversy at Luxor in 1908, in an
inscription of Rameses II., before the time of the Exodus (Kyle, Recueil de
Travaux, Vol. XXX. “Ethnic and Geographical Lists of Rameses II.”); while
Hilprecht at Nippur (Hilprecht, “Explorations in Babylonia.”), Glaser in Arabia
(Weber, Forschungsreisen — Edouard Glaser; also “Studien zur Sudarabischen
Altertumskunde,” Weber.), Petrie at Maghereh and along the route of the Exodus
(Petrie, “Researches in Sinai.”), and Reisner at Samaria have been adding a
multitude of geographical, ethnographical and historical identifications.
The completion of the whole list of
identifications is rapidly approaching, and the collocation of these
identifications has given us anew, from entirely independent testimony of
archaeology, the whole outline of the biblical narrative and its surroundings,
at once the necessary material for the historical imagination and the surest
foundation of apologetics. Fancy for a moment that the peoples, places and
events of the wanderings of Ulysses should be identified: all the strange route
of travel followed; the remarkable lands visited and described, the curious
creatures, half human and half monstrous, and even unmistakable traces of
strange events, found, all just as the poet imagined, what a transformation in
our views of Homer’s great epic must take place! Henceforth that romance would
be history. Let us reverse the process and fancy that the peoples, places, and
events of the Bible story were as little known from independent sources as the
wanderings of Ulysses; the intellectual temper of this age would unhesitatingly
put the Bible story in the same mythical category in which have always been the
romances of Homer. If it were possible to blot out biblical geography, biblical
ethnology, and biblical history from the realm of exact knowledge, so would we
put out the eyes of faith, henceforth our religion would be blind, stone blind.
Thus the value of the rapid progress
of identifications appears. It is the identifications which differentiate
history from myth, geography from the “land of nowhere,” the record of events
from tales of “never was,” Scripture from folk-lore, and the Gospel of the
Saviour of the world from the
delusions of hope. Every identification limits by so much the field of
historical criticism. When the progress of identification shall reach
completion, the work of historical criticism will be finished.
CONCLUSION
The present status of the testimony
from archaeology to Scripture, as these latest discoveries make it to be, may
be pointed out in a few words.
NOT EVOLUTION
1. The history of civilization as everywhere
illuminated is found to be only partially that of the evolutionary theory of
early Israelite history, but very exactly that of the biblical narrative; that
is to say, this history, like all history sacred or profane, shows at times,
for even a century or two, steady progress, but the regular, orderly progress
from the most primitive state of society toward the highest degree of
civilization, which the evolutionary theory imperatively demands, if it fulfill
its intended mission, fails utterly.
The best ancient work at Taannek is
the earliest. From the cave dwellers to the city builders at Gezer is no long,
gentle evolution; the early Amorite civilization leaps with rapid strides to
the great engineering feats on the defenses and the water-works. Wherever it
has been possible to institute comparison between Palestine and Egypt, the
Canaanite civilization in handicraft, art, engineering, architecture, and
education has been found to suffer only by that which climate, materials and
location 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.
2. When we come to look more narrowly at the
details of archaeological testimony, the historical setting thus afforded for
the events of the Bible narrative is seen to be exactly in harmony with the
narrative. This is very significant of the final outcome of research in early
Bible history. Because views of Scripture must finally square with the results
of archaeology; that is to say, with contemporaneous history, and the
archaeological testimony of these past five years well indicates the present
trend toward the final conclusion. The Bible narrative plainly interpreted at
its face value is everywhere being sustained, while, of the great critical
theories proposing to take Scripture recording events of that age at other than
the face value, as the illiteracy of early Western Semitic people, the rude
nomadic barbarity of Palestine and the Desert in the patriarchal age, the
patriarchs not individuals but personifications, the Desert “Egypt,” the
gradual invasion of Palestine, the naturalistic origin of Israel’s religion,
the inconsequence of Moses as a law-giver, the late authorship of the
Pentateuch, and a dozen others, not a single One is being definitely supported
by the results of archaeological research. Indeed, reconstructing criticism
hardly finds it worth while, for the most part, to look to archaeology for
support.
The recent testimony of archaeology
to Scripture, like all such testimony that has gone before, is definitely and
uniformly favorable to the Scriptures at their face value, and not to the
Scriptures as reconstructed by criticism.
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