The Fundamentals - 1910: Vol.2

Recent Testimony of Archaeology to the Scriptures. 41 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 examination cannot but he far- reaching in their influence and in the illumination of the teach­ ings of Christ and the Apostles. V- IDENTIFICATIONS. Last and more generally, of recent testimony from arch­ aeology 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 im­ perial Roman decree once fastened there. So, isolated identi­ fication 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. I t will suffice only 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, Clermont-Ganneau discovered one of the boundary stones of Gezer<56), at which place now for six years Mr. R. A. Stew­ art Macalister has been uncovering the treasures of history of that Levitical city

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