66
The Fundamentals The discovery was made by Egyptian peasants in 1887. There are more than three hundred tablets, which came from vari ous lands, including Babylonia and Palestine. Other finds have added their testimony to the fact that writing and the preservation of records were the peculiar passions of the an cient civilized world. Under the constraint of the overwhelm ing evidences, Professor Jordan writes as follows: "The question as to the age of writing never played a great part in the discussion." He falls back on the supposition that the nomadic life of the early Hebrews would prevent them from acquiring the art of writing. He treats us to such reasoning as the following: "If the fact that writing is very old is such a powerful argument when taken alone, it might enable you to prove that Alfred the Great wrote Shakespeare's plays." 2. It was easy to treat Abraham as a mythical figure when the early records of Babylonia were but little known. The entire coloring of those chapters of Genesis which refer to Mesopotamia could be regarded as the product of the imag ination. This is no longer the case. Thus Clay,* writing of Genesis 14, says: "The theory of the late origin of all the Hebrew Scriptures prompted the critics to declare this narra tive to be a pure invention of a later Hebrew writer. * * * The patriarchs were relegated to the region of myth and legend. * Abrahamwasmade a fictitious father of the Hebrews. * * Even the * political * situation was declared to be incon sistent with fact. * Weighing carefully the position taken by the critics in the light of what has been revealed through the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions, we find that the very foundations upon which their theories rest, with reference to the points that could be tested, totally dis appear. The truth is, that wherever any light has been thrown upon the subject through excavations, their hypotheses have invariably been found wanting." But the higher critics are *"Light on the Old Testament from Babel." 1907. Clay is Assistant Professor and Assistant Curator of the Babylonian Section, Depart ment of Archaeolo_gy, in the University of Pennsylvania.
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker