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.
B lyl za a i rrz'e ta,1 E a tz' s
nd

E rty B vIe ./LIz ory.

BY

RO ES

IT

L,

{-

LI;..

OF LEIPZIG::

TRANSLATED FROII THE GBRIIAN BY

DM

CL

E,

A.

EDITED, WITH PREFACE, BY

D.

Third Edition, Enlarged.

LONDON:
soc
THU

Y F
RLA

PR
AVE

OTr
W.

CH
43.

TIA

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ED

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BRIGHTON: 129. NORfH STREET.

NE
ORK
S. G
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1908

PUBLISRED tIMID nIRECTIO. OJ' T1IE TRACT r.oKIII~'TE"

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AUTHOR'S PREFATORY NOTE TO THE

FIRST EDITION.
following discourse consists of an
Address delivered before a Conference and
now published at the special request of many.
I have availed myself of the opportunity of
seeing the work through the press to add
in the way of notes some confirmatory
illustl'ations.
THE

PREFACE TO THE THmD EDITION.

A NEW edition of this discourse, which was
delivered a few years ago, having been called
for, I have introduced into the text, in order
to avoid dislocating it too much, only a few
corrections and additions here and there, At
the end, however, will be found some new
matter referring to several more recent discoveries,

THE AUTHOR.
LElrzIG, May 8, 19o5.

A 2

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ENGLISH EDITOR'S PREFACE.

THE Lecture by Professor Kittel of Leipzig
. of which a translation is, with the author's
consent, published in the following pages, will
be found, it is believed, of peculiar interest
and value at the present moment. Great
attention has of late been directed to the
bearing of recent discoveries in ancient
Babylonia upon the sacred records in the
Book of Genesis. Under the title of Babel
and Bible Professor Friedrich Delitzsch has
endeavoured to persuade the public that the
early narratives in that Book, and the whole
conception of the world and of man's place in
it which Jews and Christians have learned
from them, are rea.lly derived from the Babylonian legends on the same subjects; and he
has pressed home the inevitable conclusion
from such a view that they cannot be regarded
as due to any Divine revelation. The Gel"IDan
Emperor, though he repudiates the Professor's

2.

286881

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PREFACE

. conclusions, has given cun'ency to his speculations by the special attention he has paid to
them, and there are eager endeavours in some
quarters to treat the main contentions of
Professor Delitzsch as established results of
scientific inquiry. In such circumstances
it becomes of great importance to learn
whether the conclusions of which Professor
Delitzsch has made himself the spokesman
are really accepted by the best authorities in
critical circles. He is a considerable authority
in Aflsyriology; but his name may carry
undue weight in the popular mind by recalling
the venerable authority of his father, the
eminent Professor Franz Delitzsch. The fact
is that his allegations have provoked a lively
controversy among German scholars; and the
lecture which is here translated will give the
English reader, in brief compass, a clear and
authoritative view of the opposition which,
on purely scientific grounds, is being offered
in Germany itself to the revolutionary views
in question.
Professor Kittel's name is well known and
honoured among all students of the higher
criticism of the Old Testament. He belongs
to the critical and historical school of which
the late Professor Dillmann of Berlin was the

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PREFACE

most eminent representative. He accepts the

current critical theories respecting the composition of the Pentateuch, but rejects, like
Dillmann, the radical transformation of
ancient Jewish history which is adopted by
the popular school of Wellhausen. He is
recognized, however, as in the first rank of
living critics, and his History of the Hebr6'l.L'B,
in which his critical and historical views are
embodied, was introduced to the English
pu hlic a few years ago in an English transla.tion with a. kindly Preface by Professor
Cheyne. "Certainly," said Professor Cheyne,
" the author's treatment of the traditions
respecting Moses and the Mosaic religion,
however much we may differ from his conclusions, is worthy of the most respectful
consideration," The English reader therefore
may he confident that, in listening to Professor
Kittel, he is in the hands of a critic whose
voice has a claim to be heard, in Germany as
well as in England, on this great controversy.
Now it will be found that this Leipzig Professor traverses in the most direct manner the
conclusions so loudly asserted by his brother
ProfeBBor in Berlin. Commencing with an
interesting comparison between the recent
excavations in Crete and those in Babylonia

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PREFACE

and Assyria, he shows that in both cases the

result is to establish the existence of a solid
historic background for the traditions which
have come down to us from a period which,
alike in Ol'eek and in Hebrew history, it has
been the custom to treat as prehistoric. The
l'esult has been at least to remove any presumption based on archaeological grounds
against the historic b'uth of the narratives of
the Patriarchs, But Professor Kittel proceeds
to expose the unreasonableness of the supposition, that the existence of a resemblance
between the Hebrew and Babylonian nan'atives of the Creation and the Flood is a proof
that the former were derived from the latter.
He forcibly points out that the most remarkable fact which results from the comparison is
not the resemblance but the difference between
the two, and he expresses his own conviction
that they represent entirely distinct traditions.
Considering that Abraham is represented as
coming into Canaan from Ur and Harran, it
seems gratuitous to suppose that the Hebrew
traditions were only acquired at a later date
from such sources as the Canaanite population,
and much more natural to think that they were
brought by Abraham himself. In short, as he
says (p. 50), "the Biblical conception of the

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PREFACE

universe, which constitutes a part of our faith,

and, in BO far as it does BO, is for us not a
Baby Ionian conception, but extremely ancient
knowledge, the result of experience, and by
this way revealed by God to man and preserved among His people."
The Tract Committee thought that it would
reassure the minds of thoughtful Churchmen
and students of Scripture to have these Bober
conclusions, which are substantially in harmony with the faith of the Church, submitted
to them on the authority of an eminent
German critic and historian of the time.
Such evidence will, in the present state of the
public mind, probably be thought of more
value than any controversial reply to Professor
Delitzsch by an English scholar or Churchman.
For this reason the Tract Committee have
thought it right to prmt a careful and complete
translation of Professor Kittel's pamphlet, although there are passages in it from which they
are obliged to dissent. They cannot follow Professor Kittel, for instance, in all the concessions
he makes to current criticism, or in his view
of 'the bearing of such a question as the
historic reality of Abraham, and the sacred
records about him, on the Christian faith. In
publishing such a pamphlet, they are perhaps

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PREFACE

'0

departing in some measure from their usua.l

practice. But English readers are at the
present time being somewhat browbeaten by
allegations of the practica.l unanimity of
GeI:lDan critics on these subjects; and there is
some danger lest preachers and people alike
should assume, from recent discussions in the
newspapers, that in scientific circles there is
only one' view of these questions. Professor
Kittel's statements, published 88 they are
here in their entirety, will prove that this is' a
complete mistake. His Lecture will show to
the English reader that in the highest circles
of criticism,even in Germany, there are scholars
who ma.i.ntain that nothing has yet been
established inconsistent with the truth of the
Patri.a.rchal narratives, or with the independent
and Divine origin of the sacred records of the
Creation and the flood; or, in the modest
but weighty phrase of Bishop Butler, that with
respect to the ancient belief of the Church on
these subjects, "it is not, however, so clear
a case that there is nothing in it."
HENRY WACE.
ST.

MICILUL'S, CoURILL,

Febncary, 1903.

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS

AND EARLY BIBLE HISTORY.
IT is a little over a hundred years since it
was the good fortune of a German scholar to
decipher 1 for the fit'st time a few of the cuneiform characters. No additional important
discoveries were made for another fifty years,
and a further period elapsed before any results
of scientific value could be reported.
The more it became evident that the discoveries in the distant East had a bearing on
the subjects and incidents in the Bible, the
greater grew the enthusiasm, especially in
England and America-the land of Bible
knowledge par etCellence, and also, if we may
say so, of Christian sensationalism. When,
therefore, George Smith was fortunate enough
to diseover, in the year 187~, cuneiform fragments containing an account of the Flood, the
expressions of delight beyond the Channel and
the Atlantic knew no bounds. Sermons from
the pulpit, and whole columns of the daily
press, were filled with accounts of the discovery,
and some began to look forward to the day
when not only would the Union Jack float from
the taffrail of a newly discovered and authentic
1 It was in September, 1802, that Grotefend brought
before the Gotlinger Gesellschajt der Wissenschtif/m the first
attempt at decipherment.

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1'UE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

Ark, but, what was of more importance, when

every doubt of the sceptical, and every sneer
of the mocker, in regard to the Bible, would
be utterly and inevitably confounded.
Seldom has the expression, "if these shall
hold their peace, the stones will cry out," been
more frequently employed and more grossly
misused than in the early days of the new learning. Thoughtful Christians were unable to find
a hearing when they sought to point out to the
enthusiasts that it would hardly be in keeping
with the method of Divine government to set
entirely aside the old saying, "They have Moses
llnd the Prophets, let them hear them," and
to separate the recognition of the truth of His
word from individual moral effort and faith.
A very different picture presents itself before our eyes to-day. A period of sobriety
and, in many cases, of depression has followed that of jubilation and enthusiasm. In
the family of Oriental studies, Assyriology is
the latest born. It need not be a matter of
wonder, therefOl'e, if in individual instances
the repl'esentatives of the new knowledge
should not always have been able to shake off
the childlike love of sensation. Formerly,
men were attracted to the study of the Monuments in the hope of finding arguments on
behalf of the Bible. Now, the contemporaries
of Nietzsche and Haeckel find there is a much

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

13

greater prospeet of attention belng directed

to the new leM'ning if it should succeed in
adducing evidence against both the Bible and
Christianity. Indeed, of late years, especially
on occasions which would assign something
more than their ol'dinary meaning to expressions of this kind, some scholars have ventured
on assertions which inevitably suggest that
the results of recent scientific research-and
especially of recent excavations-go to prove
that there can be "no greater aberration of
the human intellect" than belief in the Divine
Revelation of the Old Testament as manifested either in its monotheism, its prophets,
or in any other respects I,
Let us, therefore, bl'iefly inquire-sine ira
et 8tudio-how far we may expect to find help
from the Monuments, or how far we may have
to regal'd them as adverse to the Bible, One
result we may already regard as manifest.
As long as we do not expect too much from
external or merely human sources, our hopes
will not be readily disappointed; and on the
other hand, if we fear no ea1'thly foe, Babylon
and all its wOl'ks will not succeed in shaking
the rock on which our faith is based.
When I was a schoolboy, it was regarded
1 cr. Delitzscb, Babel una Bibel, Lecture II, ISt edit,
In a later edition Delitz8ch partly toned down bis
statement.

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14

THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

as the final verdict of scholarship that the

great Homeric Epic, in which the battles of
the Greeks before Troy are depicted, was entirely the outcome of the phantasy of a poet,
or of a body of singers. Then Schliemann,
a layman among scholars, appeared on the
scene, who set to work with his spade on
the site of Tl'OY, where no scholar of the
time would have dared to excavate without
imperilling his scientific reputation. I well
remember in my student-days how the scorn
of the whole body of the learned, and the
ridicule even of the comic papers, was
poured upon him when he came forward to
announce his discovery of Priam's- city, his
palace, and his treasures. For in those days
it was an article of belief with scholars that
our knowledge of the history of ancient
Greece practically began with Herodotus and
the time of the Persian wars.
To-day it is common ground in science
that the Greek expedition against Troy, not
of course in regard to particulars, but in
substance, was a fact, and that Tiryns, Mycenae, and Orchomenos were powerful states,
with a richly developed life and comparatively high culture, of which, through the
channel of historical tradition alone, only

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

faint and mythical knowledge had come down

to us. Only last Whitsuntide, when I was
returning after the holidays to Leipzig, I met
in the railway carriage a learned friend who
was on his way back from Crete, and who
had seen there the excavations undertaken by
Evans, and was able to boast that he had sat
upon the throne and in the palace of King
Minos, a monarch well remembered by us all
at school, and universally regarded by us as
the mere product of a myth I,
Why do I mention these things hm'e 1 Do
not be an-aid that I am going to lose myself
in the region of Greek antiquity, when our
concern is with Biblical and Babylonian,
I merely adduce these instances in order to
show how in every domain of ancien~ history,
even in the neutral region of classical antiquity, a revision of our previous judgements
has been required as soon as the spade has
begun to ~a.ke the place of, or at least to
1 Minos has been frequently regarded as a Cretan
god, also as a personification of Zeus, or again of the
Phoenician domination, and of Baal-Melkart or of Moonworship, or even as a Sun-god, though Curtius, it is true,
already recognized him as a figure standing "on the
threshold of history." It is readily seen how features of
the (Cretan) Sun-god were associated with the historical
king, and how he thus came to be raised to the position
of a son of the gods.

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

prepare the way for, the pen. Much that we

previously held, and seemed justified in holding as mythica.l, is now coming into the light
of history; and side by side with the already
mentioned Minos we have now, through the
latest discovered Assyrian inscriptions, come
to accept the historical existence of King
Midas of Phrygia, of whom we previously
knew little more than the mythical story of his
asses' ears, but who is now recognized as an
actual and worthy ruler of the eighth century
before Christ 1. Many other things which are
still unknown, or only imperfectly known,
will doubtless emerge into light before us,
and we may even now pronounce in regard
to this region the collective judgement, that
the ea.1'ly period of Greece, which previously,
and until quite lately as far as the time
before Herodotus and the Persian wars was
concerned, was involved in da.rkness, is coming
1 It is in complete agreement with what is to be explained further on that Midas continues at the present
time to be described briefly as an ancient divinity of the
Northern Greeks and Phrygians, more exactly (cf. his
riches) as "a blessing-scattering Nature-god in the
form of an animal, like SiIenus, and originally Dionysus,
a880Ciated with whom the Ass is not infrequently found.
To this ancient demon of vegetation," clc. Thus described in Roscher, Lexikon der gmch.-rilm.. Jlvthologie, ii.
col. 2961 et seq.

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

more and more into the light of history; and

periods of development, persons, events, and
circumstances which not long since were held
as absolutely prehistoric. are rising up unexpectedly before us, so that we shall soon know
more of Greece and the Islands in the second
Millennium before our era than some twenty
or twenty-five ye8J.'s ago we knew of the
former half of the first.
Now, it is in the second Millennium before
Christ that the early history of the people of
Israel falls. As we soo, from what has been
already said, that in regard to a region not far
distant from Palestine, a process is going on
which we may briefly describe as a reaction
against earlier negative judgements: as we
see the boundaries of our knowledge extending, our reliance on certain traditions
becoming more assured, while the foundations
themselves are unexpectedly demonstrated to
be capable of bearing more than had been
previously assumed-all this cannot but be of
the greatest significance for Biblical criticism.
According to all analogy, indeed, we may
henceforward expect that in the case of
Biblical science also, the stakes may be pushed
further forward and the cords much further
lengthened than anxious minds were prep8J.'ed
B

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

for, and that, too, without leaving the ground

of the historically possible and admissible.
If in the case of Hellas and the Islands the
second Millennium before Christ is no longer
absolutely a terra incognita, in all probability
the presumably older culture-field of Syria and
Palestine will be still less so.
This expectation, already justified on intrinsic grounds, has now been confirmed in
a striking manner by actual discoveries on
Eastern soil.
Since the illustrious Orientali~t and theologian of Gottingen, Heinrich Ewald, suggested that the names of the Patriarchs of
the Israelitish people are to be explained, in
a measure, as names of tribes, it has come
more and more to be regarded as proved
that the earliest traditions concerning the
Patriarchs and Tribes of Israel are merely
poetical presentations of myths-projections
of later history into the prehistoric past.
After an exhaustive literary criticism had
demonstrated that many portions of the
Hebrew legal and historical documents were
materially later than had previously been
supposed, the earlier and oldest tl'adition
seemed to be altogether deprived of an authentic basis, and, consequently, of the right

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

I9

to exist at all. How then are we to know

anything of ancient times, it may be asked, if
we have no documents 1
Who, indeed, would vouch for the fact that
writing was known at all in those ancient
days? It was doubted whether the use of
writing was known in Israel even as late as
the time of the Judges. It was then, moreover, observed that exactly at the epoch
when men had thought themselves justified
in fixing the obscure dawning of histOlic
times, there was a period in Israel of relatively
rude mannel'S and imperfect civilization-tbe
so-called time of the Judges. But supposing
, that the testimonies belong to a late date, and
that we have no written evidence from an
earlier period, what was more natural than
to assume. in aecordaI!ce with modern principles and the law of evolution, that we have
here to do, in fact, with the beginning of a
course of development, and that on the most
favourable supposition the times of the Judges
and of Saul coincided with the dawn of
Israelitish history, behind which stretched
the impenetrable and never-to-be-illumined
darkness of night 1
Everything thus seemed, and seems, to
contribute to establish the truth of the propo
B2.

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

sition~which is to-day, indeed, regarded as

almost the orthodox dogma ora truly scientific
theology-that the history of Israel really
begins in the time of the Judges and the early
Kings, behind which, on the most favourable
hypothesis, Moses still occupies a place, though
merely that of a dim and vague figure, ha.I.dly
within the province of history.
Here, too, it has been given to the spade to
throw light upon the question, and if to-day
it seems somewhat hazardous to discern a
similar result, nevertheless it is my confident
conviction that it will more and more assert
itself, and will be established more and
more triumphantly as our knowledge of the
ancient East advances. Already, as it would
seem, owing to the advance in our knowledge, the axe is laid to the real root of
the matter-to the ultimate and most.deeply
seated base of this whole conception, that
is, to the dogma of a continuous and
unbroken line of evolution. The latest excavations in Crete, to which allusion has
been already made, have brought. home to
the astonished eyes of the few who have
seen the material, for the most part still
undescribed, the startling fact that there, far
back in the second Millennium before Christ,
a creative art was in full activity, far excel-

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

21

ling in perfectioIl; tha.t which wa.s known in

the early Greek period. How are we to
interpret this phenomenon otherwise than on
the hypothesis that at an early period, previously regarded as pre-historic and outside
the domain of history altogether, in a region
in the closest relations with Greece. intellectual
development had already reached so high a
degree. of matUlity that it was capa.ble of
exhibiting an artistic activity of a distinct
c1a.ssica.l chara.~ter-and that, in the convulsionsof what was previously called the Early
Greek Period, this inheritance of an ancient
time was lost to the tribes of Greece and the
Islands, and that Hellas had to sta.rt afresh, in
the so-called archaic Greek art, on its path of
evolution,torea.ch a.t length in Phidias and
Praxiteles its highest triumph of artistic skill 1
In all probability the ancient East exhibited
the same degree of culture. The Berlin Museum
contains, in this respect, an extraordinarily
suggestive and splendidly sculptured head of
an ancient Sumerian priest-consequently a
representative of the most ancient period of
pre-Semitic Babylon. A similar impression is
produced by certain antiquities from Tello, especially a series of magnificent examples in the
Louvre in Paris. But, as a still more striking
example, I may point to two bronze gazelle-

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THE

BABYLON~N

EXCAVATIONS AND

heads in the possession of my friend Hilprecht

-the scientific leader of the richly-rewarded
Amerie&n exC&vations at Nippurl in Babylonia
-who himself discovered them. The surprising deliC&cy of execution, the noble beauty and
fidelity to nature by which these representations are characterized, must excite the rapture
of every one who sees them: they would, in my
judgement, do honour to the atelier of a Begas
or a Donndorf. The life-size example, which
is of wondrous beauty, is especially character.;
istic. They come down to us from the time
of Sargon I, and therefore belong, at the latest,
to the Fourth, perhaps even to the Fifth
Millennium before Christ. The material of
theSe figures, &8 determined by a thorough
chemie&l examination, consists of an alloy of
copper and antimony, without any admixture
of tin, and they consequently belong to the
period before the manufacture of genuine
bronze was known in Babylonia or elsewhere.
They excel, moreover, in & considerable measure, much ifnot all, that the later Babylonian
workshops have turned out 2.
1 Now called Ni1fer.
It is probably the Calneh of the
Bible,which the list of Nations (Gen. x) places among
the oldest cities of Babylon.
, For further information on the matter, see the
Transactions of the Berlin Anthropologische Gesellschaft,

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

23

And here, also, we can see, in my opinion,

no other explanation than that already given.
A degradation must have taken place-a
species of intellectual impoverishment-a retrograde movement, and a falling off from a
previous higher stage of cplture, but which was
again approached, and that too gradually and
by slow degrees 1. What becomes then of the
dogma of continuous development in the case
of Israel? and what kind of right have we to
assume that the rude customs and conceptions
of the period of the Judges represent absolutely
the beginning of the national life of Israel 1
But when once the foundation becomes insecure, the structures erected upon it are not
likely to remain ul.lshaken. One of the chief
supports of the latter is, as we have seen, the
now frequently reiterated assertion that the
Israelites of the time of Moses, before the
entrance into Canaan, were nothing more
19o1, Feb. 16, where the photographic reproduction of
the smaller example is given.
.
1 H. Winckler also seems quite lately to .represent a
similar view. See Babyl. Kultt4r, 19o2, p. 13. This work,
however, came only into my hands while these pages
were going through the press; while the view put forth
above had been expressed frequently by me, both publicly
and privately, as soon a8 I became acquainted with the
discovery in question; in the last instance at the Church
Conference at Meissen in the Spring of 19o2.

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

than a rude tribe of Nomads, destitute of all

higher culture, who had hitherto wandered
about in the Arabian wilderness, and whose
state of civilization and religious development
may be compared, in some respects, to the
present, 01' even the pre-Islamic, condition of
the Bedouin tribes of this region, and in
others to that of even the wildest nature-races
of the present day.
About twenty years ago this error was in a
certain measure excusable. It had been known
for along time that Egypt and Babylon were
in possession of a highly ancient civilization,
but of the early condition of Syria and Palestine, and of the desert regions on their borders,
extremely little was known. Our knowledge
was limited, for the most part, to what we
could infer from the Bible, namely, that the
pre-Israelite inhabitants of the Holy Landthe so-called Canaanites-excelled the invading Hebrews in the art of war and in
general culture, and that consequently they
became later on their instructors. We may
hence in some measure understand how the
conclusion was drawn, that Israel was then
still in the condition of an uncivilized
nomadic horde.
But, thanks to the Tel-el.Amarna tablets-

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

25

discovered in the beginning of I888-which

contaill a correspondence, condllcted in cuneiform writing, between the Pharaohs, Ameno phis III and IV (circ. 1400 B.C.), with
contemporary Eabylonian, Canaanite, and
other rulers and chiefs-we now possess a
fairly exact knowledge of the material and
intellectual environment in which the Is~
raelites found themselves in Canaan, and
out of which they came. We see from these
sources of information that the conception of
the Canaanites with which the Eible furnishes
us is entirely corl'ect, but that it must be
supplemented by this further fact, namely,
that the land was subject politically to
Egyptian rule, and intellectually to Babylonian influences. We find, moreover, from
these tablets, and frem other sources of information also, that there can be no ground
for the assumption that the Syro-Arabian, and
to some extent the Sinaitic-Arabian, desert
regions on the Palestine border were in the
same condition as they are to-day, or as they
were in the first centUlies of our era.
Arabia at that time was not simply a region
of Bedouins, a pasture land. It was, too, the
home of comparatively settled peoples, with
strongholds and towns, and warlike chiefs.

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

Their mode of living was by no means lacking

in advanced e6ucation and culture; but, on
the contrary, was thoroughly saturated with
the elements of Babylonian,. and no doubt
also of Egyptian, life and thought. Round
about them, in Syria and Palestine, a highly
developed civilization had been already in
active existence for at least a full thousand
years. It is impossible that the land adjoining these countries should have been in the
condition we find it in to-day, after subjection
for a thousand years to the rule of the Turk;
or such as it was in the time of Mohammed 1.
It is still more perverse, in the face of
such facts, to measure (as it has become
quite lately the fashion to do in regard to
the history and religious condition of early
Greece) the general and religious situation
of Israel at that time by the standard of
fetish-worshipping and totemistic savagesas if Israel or Greece were then at the same
stage of civilization as that of such barbaric
peoples and tlibes to-day, and their mode of
thought and morals were consequently to be
understood from those of the latter.
I will, in this connexion, adduce only one
consideration. If it is certain, as we learn
1

Compare Weber, Arabien vor d6m Islam, J90J.

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from the Tel-el-Ama.ma discovery, that an extensive epistolary literature existed in Canaan
and its neighbourhood about 1400 B. c., is it
1I.t all likely that Moses and his followersliving only a few days' journey away-should
remain perfectly uninfluenced by such knowledge and skill, and should not be able to
write 1 Does not rather the tradition that
Moses was lea.med "in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians" receive further confirmation, with
the addition, as we now know, "olthe Babylonians " as well-not in the sense that he
had Babylonians for his personal instructors,
but because Babylonian modes of thought,
and civilizing influences, along 'with Egyptian,
predominated in the region in which he lived.
One further consideration. We hear it
frequlntly repeated that the tradition of the
Israelite sojourn in Egypt is unhistorical,
because there was no room for a foreign
nomadic people in the thickly settled districts'
of that country, and, on the other hand, that
the tradition of Abraham's enteling into
Canaan is open to the same objection from
the point of .view of Palestine. But what
are we to say of such suggestions, in face of
the fact that the Inscriptions tell us of gradual
shirtings of peoples, and of the immigration of

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

wandering, that is nomadic. tribes, into the

civilized territories of the Euphrates, and that
the Tel-el-Amarna. tablets desClibe, exactly as
we find related of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
the intrusion of nomadic tribes into Palestine,
their moving to and fro among the settled
population, appearing now here and now
there, making peace or war with them, and,
as opportunity offered, forcing at the point of
the sword towns and districts to become their
. allies, and at length becoming settlers in the
land.
And.here, at the conclusion of this current
of thought, I am led to the consideration of
the aspect in which the Biblical Patriarchs are
presented. I shall not discuss here the argument now so favoured, that no people can
know its own original progenitor-that nations
do not take their oligin from persons, but
are formed by the coalescence of tribes and
kinsmen. How far this contention is true or
false cannot be determined from the inscriptions at first sight. I will content myself
here, therefore, with remarking that tribes of
the kind represented in Genesis, such as those
composed of the kinsmen of Abraham and
Jacob, need not, as we learn from the East
of to-day, consist of ~housa.nds of individuals.

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There are small. tribes and clans which number

only some two hundred souls, and in many
cases much fewet. The Turkish Government
has, in this connexion, lately prepared extremely instructive statistics concerning the
Bedouin tribes ofthe Jaulan and Hauran, and
also of the north-eastern t-erritory beyond the
Jordan 1. It appears moreover still the case
to-day, as it always was, that tribes, whether
great or small, either take their designation
from some district or region, or from some
distinguished sheikh or chief of whom they
reckon themselves the sons. Thus are to be.
most readily explained such modern designations as Beni Muhammed, Beni Abdallah,
Beni Abuhassan, Beni Aneze, Bani Shammar I,
1 Cf. Cornill, Guchichle II. Yolke8 Israel, p. S7 et seq., and
also the numbel"! in the ZBitschrift tI. deutsch. Palest. Yer.
xxiii, 58, which go as low ill some instances as SOO and
500.
, Shammar, the name of the powerful tribe occupying
to-day Mesopotamia and Babylon, is primarily that of
a mountain range in the interior of Arsbia, but in the
South Arabian inscriptions it appears, accordi.Jlg to
Hommel, as a personal name.
Cf. Hommel's essay
on Glaser's inscriptions (12S8 et seq.) in the FeBtschrift
far Ebers, lag7, p. ago The tribe came ultimately, therefore, from South Arabia, and took its origin from a man.
This is in keeping with tradition; cf. Zeitschrift II. deuCSch.
Palest. Yer. xxiii. 49 :-" The Aneze Bedouins who sprang
frOm 'Anaz Ibn Wa'il, and th~ Shammar Bedouins who

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

and also many Old Testament tribe-names

such as Bene Hamor, Bene Abiezer, Bene
Jerahmeel 1, Bene Caleb, &c., and, further back,
the designations Bene Jacob, Bene Joseph, and
Bene Israel, &c.
The more important consideration from our
point of view is, that it has now become the
custom to treat, without hesitation, such
names as Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, &c., partly
as tribe names, and their bearers at the same
time as unhistorica.l heroes eponymi who
never existed-partly to treat them offhand
.as ancient gods who had afterwards been
wrongly transformed into men. It was regarded as a great discovery when, some
fifteen years ago, in an Egyptian inscription of the time of the Pharaoh Thothmes III
(eire. 1500 B. c.) the names Jacob and Joseph
(in the forms Jacob~el and Joseph-e!) were
identified as designations of Palestinian tribes
or districts. Owing to the peculiarity of the
Egyptian language and of the mode of writing,
it remained, indeed, a mere possibility tha.t the
hieroglyphics containe~ these actual names.;
are descendants of the celebrated Shammar." Cf. ibid.
xxiv. 29, note. I.
I Cf. the name Jrl,lm in Ranke's PersonBlIl'Iamen in den
Urkunden dar Hammumbiteit (1902), p. 49.

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and, besides, several other intel'pretations

were conceivable; but the joy over the discovery was too great for the exercise of
cl'iticism. We know now that in ancient.
times Jacob was an ordinary personal name,
-and nothing more 1, in those eastern regions
fl'om which, according to Israelite tradition,
the Patriarchs came. Consequently his name,
and that of Joseph and of the other Fathers,
came to be used in precisely the same way
for the Patriarchs of Israel.
But what is the case in regard to Abraham 1 It is now considered a distinguishing
mark of modem scholarship to regard him as
a Moon-god. Do not Ur and Hal'l'an, celebrated seats of Babylonian and Assyrian
Moon-worship, stand in the closest relation
with his wanderings, and do not two goddesses
who are closely associated with the Moonworship of Harran, bear the names Sarah
(Sarrat'U) and Milcah (Malkat'U), that is, Queen
and Princess1 What can be mQre natural,
then, than that Abraham, the husband of this
Sarah, and the relation of this Milcah, should
be himself the Moon-god 1 This is the old,
oft-repeated tale, with additions, concerning
1 Ct. Johns' Deeds alld Documents, vol. iii, pp. 164, 407.
Hommel, Ancitmt Hebml/ Tmdition (Eng. Trans.), p. W3.

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TIlE BABYLONIAN EXOAVATIONS AND

t.heArabianDus&re8, who,some twenty years ago,

was put forward as the husband of a goddess
Sarah (Dhu in Arabic = Lord), that is, as identi.
caJ with Abl'aham; which sounded at the time
as a sort of joke of ancient history-I should
say of fable-inasmuch as it represented Sarah,
who even according to Genesis was somewhat
hasty-tempered, as asserting her wifely authority over her husband so far that she deprived
him even of his own designation, and caused
him to go down to history with her own name
only, as Dusares, that is, "Husband of Sarah."
Unfortunately for this hypothesis. it turned
out afterwards that this Arabian Sarah was no
goddess at all, but the name of a mountain.
But joking apart, what can be concluded from
such accidental coincidences in sound of some
names associated with the person of Abraham,
so long as it can be demonstrated that Biblical
tradition not only knows nothing of any divine
designation being involved in his name, or in
that of his family, or of any divine worship
being paid to him 1, but, on the contrary, that,
both in Israel and outside it, Abram in the form
Abiram 2, and, in the ancient home of Israel,
1 Note in what a clear and varied manner the worship
of heroes in Ancient Greece is attested, and consider if
it is possible that this should have vanished 80 utterly
out. of IsraeL
2 Johns, Deeds and Documents, iii. II7; Hommel, .Anmnt
Hebrew Tradition (Eng. version), p. 144.

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

Sarah 1 also, in the older form Sarai, as well as

Nahor 2; a kinsman of Abraham (Gen. ii. z3
et seq.), were actual pel'Sonal names 1
This point of view is supported by the fact
that in ancient times, and especially among
the Semites, it was not apparently the ordinary
course for gods to be made into men, but, on
the contrary, for men to be made into gods s.
Gudea, one of the earliest kings of Babylon,
was honoured later, as we now know, by
a temple and sacrifices. Sargon and other
kings are distinguished in the cuneiform script
by the designation for deity, and had thus
been elevated to gods. A similar custom obtained generally in Egypt, where the Pharaoh
caused himself to be directly addressed as the
Sun-god. It is even high1y probable that
gods such as Bel were regarded as having
1 Bezold, Catalogue, vol. i, p. 1156.
Milcah also appears
in the Insoription (Glaser), 11138 et seq. (See Hommel
in Ebers, p. 119.)
I Johns, op. cit. iii. 1117.
S For an interesting Egyptian example of this, see
K. Sathe, Imhotep, ein t:ergiJtlel'teT Mensch, &0., 19011. The
celebrated Greek poet Archilochus (circ. 650 B.O.) was in
subsequent times worshipped as a hero. There is even
in Arabia to-day a hero-worship. The latest instance
known to me is the celebrated Arabian traveller Burckhardt, who became a convert to Islamism, and has been
honoured since his death as a Saint (wert) (Zeitschr. d.
Deutsch. Pal. YeF. 1907. p. 190).

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

been buried, and as having thus died like

mortals, to be raised afterwards, through the
cult of the dead, to the position of deities.
So also it is highly probable that those enormous stepped towers of ancient Baby Ionia,
which served as observatories for the Chaldean astronomers and astrologers-and became perhaps the type for the Egyptian
pyramids-were Oliginally nothing more
than imposing burying-places, mausolea of
gods and of kings raised to divine dignity 1.
1 This comparison is instructively illustrated by the
case of lIarduk (or of Osiris in Egypt), owing to the solar
character of this deity. The setting of the sun is the
death of the god, who goes into Hades (Arallu) as his
grave, to rise again on the morrow, or in the Spring.
When the king dies, he proceeds, because he is a god,
to the departed god, who is regarded, however, as dwelling in the mountain of the gods above the under-world.
These towers are thus comprehensible as representatives
of the mountain ofthe gods, that is, of tombs of the gods.
The god is ideally represented as buried here, for people
pretend to see and honour his grave; but in reality it is
the tomb of a king. Apart even from the view that the
dead and buried god was once a man, the sequence of
thought is thus in 1\ certain measure rendered clearer. But
it is still a matter of question whether this representl\tion exhausts the meaning, and whether this line of
thought was the original one. In the case where the
god is regarded not simply as interred under the mountain
of the gods in Hades, but as buried in the tower, it would
appear that the grave indicates much more probably the

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In this manner may be explained the tomb

of Osiris, as well as the many tombs of
heroes to be found in various regions, the
explanation being independent of the consideration whether these represented actual
or supposed burying-places. I know of no
instances on tbe other hand, in Bible regions
and outside them, where it can be proved
satisfactorily that a god was transformed into
a man 1.. How would it be at a.ll possible to
actual tomb of an actual dead body, and thus that of
a man to whom divine dignity was given. It was only
at a later period, however early this period may have
been, that theory seems.to have associated Arallu with
the towers. Cf. note 1 on p. 36.
1 Where the names of gods are ascribed to men, this
is to be explained in the first instance (in historic time
at all events) as an example of hypocoristic shortening,
that is, of so-called pet-names. Thus are to be explained
such names as Marduk in Assyria, Gad in Israel; cf.
the Sanscrit Deva for Deva-datta and the German Theo
for Theodore. Agamemnon doubtless appears as a designation of Zeus in Greece, and may be thus regarded as
the actual name of an ancient deity. The same is the
ease with other names of early times, such as Erechtheus,
Menelaos, Helena (? SelAn!!), AchiIleus, Lycurgus (perhaps
-Zeus-Lykaios). But the factthat Lycurgus is spoken of,
probably at the same time, as an historic person calls
for consideration, and shows that we have here to do
with forms in which the mythological element is
secondary (heroes of myth in the first instance, and not
of a cult). It is probable that they were first raised to the
divine dignity, with changed designations, through the
C 2

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

explain the death of a. god, even of a. Sungod, or of a. god of the lower world, if not on
the assumption that he w80s in the last resort
a man, or a hero, raised to the position of
deity and worshipped in his tomb 11
The whole theory of a god called Abrah80m
is thus intrinsica.lly improbable. As we see,
on the other hand, that the wanderings of the
8oncestor of Isr80el through Ur and Harran
correspond with f8octs, th80t furthermore the
name Abraham W80s a. current personal designation in ancient times, and finally, that a
peculiarly important chapter of the Biblical
nalT8otive-Genesis xiv-in which Abraham
plays the chief part, hands down to us names
and circumstances which we may c~aim to be
historica.1, and which, moreover, are otherwise
cult of the dead, with which here also the ancient astral
religion may have been associated. Such forms as the
Dioscuroi, moreover, cannot be adduced as contrary instances. They do indeed appear in human form, but
always only all hoc, and are never really regarded as men.
The life and action of men, such as we find described in
the cases of Menelaos and Agamemnon, are never ascribed
to them.
1 Cf. the case of the tomb of Minos (son of Zeus), who
was slain in Sicily, which in Crete came later to be
regarded as the grave of Zeus, although containing the
bones of Minos. (See Helbig in Roscher's Lexicon, ii.
~)

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known to us only through ancient inscriptions, while they have disappeared elsewhere,
we al'e surely entitled to conclude thaJ; there
is a high probability that Abraham was an
actual historical personage in early Hebrew
times, and that,. even where the account presents imperfect details or partially obliterated
traces of the original circumstances, a correct
reminiscence has on the whole been preserved,
I am fully aware, indeed, that this of itself
is not sufficient to place the historical character
of Abraham beyond all doubt, A convincing
proof of this nature by exact historical methods remains yet to be furnished, in spite of
all that has been, and continues to be, insisted
upon: and I must recall, in this connexion,
the warning which I gave at the outset as
to exaggerated expectations, I do not, moreover, belong to those who make the maintenance of the personality of Abraham a
shibboleth of the Christian faith. But I a.m
all the more confident in declaring it as
my well-considered and scientific conviction
that, in the present state of our knowledge,
there is nothing to require us to regard
Abraham as a mythical or legendary figure,
but rather that many and strong arguments
speak clearly for the contrary. With this,

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Tm: BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

from the purely historical point of view, we

must, and may well, be content. If we would
look for further proofs-and why as Christian
men should we not seek them--they are to be
found in another domain, that of religion.
So much in regard to historical tradition
in the stricter sense. But I must not leave
the subject without emphasizing the fact that
what has been adduced represents only a
small part of the exuberantly rich material
which ensta. Biblical tradition, however, is
not merely historical in character; it is likewise
a tradition of religious conceptions and institutions. These religious elements, in fact, constitute an essential part of the Biblical idea of
the universe, from which we learn that God
created the world, that afterwards sin came
into it, and that when sin got the upper hand,
a great Hood broke over it; that God afterwards set apart for Himself amid the heathen
population a selected people, and granted to
this selected people a participation in the
pure knowledge of Himself.
Now it is precisely to this peculiar Biblical
conception of the universe that, from the
point of view of Babylon, any independent
existence is at present denied. On the contrary, what we had formerly regarded as dis-

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39

tillctive in the Biblical conception of the

universe has been lately claimed as really
Babylonian. There is, it is contended, nothjng peculiarly Biblical 01' Israclitish in the
scriptural tradition, nothing that is not BabyIonian; and all that we have appropriated
from it as a part of our religious belief is at
bottom outlandish mythology, Babylonian
heathenism, which we consequently ought to
get rid of as soon as possible.
But is it the case that what we have accepted about these mattei's is really a Babylonian conception of the universe 1 It is upon
this question, in my opinion, that the emphasis
lies; for that there are Babylonian elements
in our Biblical traditions, or at any rate
BabyIonian parallels to them, there can be
no doubt.
Assuming that the Biblical account of the
Creation and the Flood are uni versally known,
I confine myself to presenting here their
heathen parallels:" When on high the heavens were not yet
named, and below the firmament not yet designated . . . then were the gods formed"thus begins the Babylonian myth of Creation.
This beginning might really suffice, but let
us hear the continuation: "In the beginning

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

the chaotic waters, called Tiimat, held sway.

They were the enemies of order. As the gods
wished to create from these an orderly world,
Tiimat arose as a dragon against thelP.
Ignominious terror seized the gods, until
Marduk, the god of the Spring-sun, undertook
to battle with the monster and its companions.
He conquered H, cut the dragon into two
halves, and made out of one the heaven,
out of the other in like manner the earth,
upon which he then brought forth animals
and men 1."
Of the Flood we read an account, as part
of a great epic, which tells us of the hero
Oilgames, and aims at giving us information
respecting Life, Death, and Hereafter. The
account of the Flood, which possibly may
once have had an independent existence, occurs
in a mere episode, and is narrated to Oilgames by Ut-napistim 2 his grandfather, to
whose presence he had wandered in order to
obtain immortality. Ut-napistim, called also
Xisuthros, is the Biblical Noah. Accol'ding to
Cf. Keilinschr. Bt'bl., vi. 41, 547.
According to Ranke, op. cit., p. 14, Ud-Samas; the
name is thus perhaps Samas-Napistim. Cf. also Hommel,
Die allor. D8f1km. "tid d. A. T., 1902, p. 24. (Pinches reads
Pir-Napistim, Tr.)
1

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him the great gods, Bel at their head, had resolved to destroy mankind; but the water-god
~, through whom this was to be accomplished,
betrayed the plan to his favourite, and also told
him of a means of escape. He must build an
ark. And now follow, in the narrative, incidents which have a striking resemblance to,and
in many cases are in almost verbal coincidence
with, the account in Genesis. The waters
rise; he enters, along with his family, into
the ship; it is driven upon a high mountain,
Nizir; he sends out a dove, which, finding no
resting-place, returns, &c.
Even if it were possible-though hardly
with good reason-to remain doubtful on the
subject in reference to the story of Creation,
it is at least manifest that certain elements in
the account of the Flood al'e connected with
the Biblical narrative, This has been known
for a long time, and for many years past has
./ formed a subject for discussion in all our
theological lecture-rooms.
The only question we have to discuss is,
how is it to be explained 1 An easy answer
is ready at hand, The whole account, exactly
as it had been here written down, found its
way, it is alleged, to Canaan 1: here it was
1

Delitzsch, Babel "nil Bibel, p. 31,

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somewhat modified-to its disadvantage indeed-and thus arose the Biblical tradition. In
this case it is therefore natural, as has beel\
lately said with more daring than felicity,
that the Babylonian form should be the purer
and more primitive 1 j and hence it would
seem to be demonstrated that the early Biblehistory is nothing more than a fragment,
deplorably misunderstood and distorted out of
shape, bOlTowed from Babylonian Paganism.
This might perhaps be tenable, if the case
were one of a general agreement between the
two accounts, with some unimportant divergences or even misunderstandings; but not
when, as the case stands, the differences involved are in reality the most. essential part
of the matter. These differences show that we
are on entirely different ground, and that even
in instances where the words may be the same,
another and altogether different spirit breathes
in them. Weare in a sphere differing toto
coelo from that of Babylon-it is quite another
world; there it is the sphere of a heathen
nature-worship, with all its concomitants,
here it is that of a revealed and monotheistic
religion.
The beginning of the Babylonian Creation1

Delitzsch, Babel una Bibel, p. 29.

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epic sounds like an extract from Hesiod's

theogony. Cosmogony and theogony converge together; that is, the deity himself
comes into existence first; he is himself an
element of nature and arises with it and
from it. And furthermore, the creation of
the world is represented as the issue of
a conflict between the deity and opposing
nature, which is described as a dangerous adversary. This is the Babylonian view. -In
the other, on the contrary, the Spirit of Godthe creative Will and Omnipotent Word, appears as the sovel'eign Lord over Nature-and
there is nothing of opposition and conflict.
Bere, moreover, we have an act of grace,
haVing as its aim a long sacred history, and
not a nature-myth of the ocean and the vernal
sun I.
The same is the case with the account of
the Flood. In the one case, we have a fatal
judgement of Bel hanging over mankindno one knows exactly why: if they have
sinned, it is urged by the other gods in the
way of criticism, let the guilty and the guilty
1 Many think that we have here to do with a direct
opposition, as K6berle in the AUg. Ev.-Luth. Kirch. Zeit.,
1902, p. 627: ., They tell fables of Marduk's battle; he
endeavours to show how God, thtl only living God, ill
in truth the Creator."

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only be punished-and the rescue of a single

individual by the blind caprice of Eo.; in
the other, the holy ruling of a just Judge.
In the one case, discord and disunion among
the gods themselves, one of them endeavouring to outwit the others; the terror of the
gods as the waters rise-as dogs, it is said,
they crouch down, and Istar cries aloud for
fear, as a woman in travail; then, further on,
the animal-greed over the meat-offering-as
flies, it is said, they collect around the sacrifice-not to speak of many worse things contained in other places of the epic 1. On the
other hand, we have the dignified self-possession and the sacred calm of One, Who knows
that He must act as He does for the sake of
the holy standard which He Himself has given
to the world.
It will be seen at once from these considerations that we have to do with an independent
form, either brought to Canaan from Babylon,
or representing a tradition shared with the
latter by Israel, and thus in the last analysis
1 Events and circumstances which elsewhere are industriously veiled are broadly treated with too cynical
an openness for
feelings. Even if it were a matter
. of representing such things symbolically in a myth, the
method must appear strange. We may compare with
this the moral indignation at the conduct of Ham.

our

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45

derived from one original. According to the

first hypothesis, the tl'ansformation of the
received material implies at the same time a
thorough purifying and refining of it; Which
of the two hypotheses is correct cannot be
determined with absolute certainty.
But even if the former hypothesis be accepted, as many do, we have not done with
the matter by supposing-as Fried. Delitzsch
says in regard to the Biblical account of the
Creation-that the priestly Israelite scribe,
who transcribed the Babylonian epic, restricted himself to the removal of the mythological features 1. What a. purely external
representation of the circumstances I But even
assuming this to have been the course pursued,
the scribe was not content with merely putting
away these features, he disallowed them altogether; he laid strong hands upon his material,
reforming and reconstructing it; and there
can be no question that such a rejection or
complete transformation of mythological ideas
would imply a far more pregnant and original
ac~ of genius than that involved in their first
conception I.
But I am forced to reject this whole method
1

Delltzsch, op. cit., p. 34.

Cf. KOberle, op. cit., coL

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of representation, as though an Israelite or

Jewish priest had handled the Babylonian
records after the manner of a modem editor,
borrowing a piece here, omitting a passage
there, and supplying another in its place. It
may, indeed, have been the case, as certain
indications show 1, that. even in early times in
the far west, and thus also in Palestine, Babylonian records had been carefully studied 2;
and this, if a fact, may explain the presence
of verbal coincidences in the two traditionsthe Biblical and the Babylonian. Literary
activity, and for aught I know to the contrary, the student's closet, may perhaps
have thus influenced the formulating of the
documents; but the material and the spirit
which gave it shape did not proceed from
thence. It is also possible that those are
quite right who say that "the Babylonian
account made its way, exactly as it was
written down, to Canaan." Why should not
this be the case, considering the active mental
intercourse in these regions, and that too at a
very early date 1 But this does not solve the
1

Cf. Niebuhr, Die Amarnazeit, p. 4, and Delitzsch,op.

cit., p. 89.
II Genesis, chap. xiv., may be explained in the same
way.

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problem, for the phenomena in question remain unexplained.

This much is clear: with aU their points
of contact, the two traditions are so entirely
different, that we can only assume that each
of them must have had a long way to travel
from the time of their separation. Nothing
but an independent development, for centuries
long, of the two formerly united streams can
explain the phenomena. Here we come for
the first time into close contact with our
subject, and to a point where it becomes clear
that the student's closet and the editor's
table-even in the case in which their joint
action may have been possib1e-are insufficient
to explain the matter. No doubt we should
have at our disposal such a long course of
development if we could assume, as many
now do, _that the material had wandered far
and wide in the Tel-el-Amarna period, had
afterwards been recast in Israel, and been
reduced to writing later on in its new form 1.
I will not say that this explanation, which
receives support from other considerations,
is untenable, although it is attended with
the difficulty that Israel must in this case
1 This is the position taken up, in all essentials, Ly
Zimmern, Gunkel, Oettli, &0.

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

have obtained the material through the instrumentality of the Canaanites; a circumstance
which is not indeed without analogy, but
which, if assumed, is also exposed to objec<
tions, especially because on this hypothesis
the process becomes more complicated than
ever.
For this reason, I prefer for my P8ol-t another
solution.
If we may assume for certain-and no one
to-day really questions it-that the account of
the great Flood is based upon an actual occurrence, that is to say, was owing to the action
of a mighty cyclone breaking over the region
of the Euphrates; and if we know, moreover,
that the ancestors of Israel wandered from
that distant eastern telTitory into Canaan, we
have no need, in my opinion, to seek far for
the means which brought about the resemblance between the traditional inheritances of
both. On this ground then it is not even probable that Israel first became acquainted with
these conceptions of the Creation and the
Flood after the Tel-el-Amarna period, through
the instrumentality of the Canaanites, and only
after the Babylonian version had been reduced
to writing. They had long been known to
Israel, for the simple reason that they had

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

49

existed as an immemorial hroitage in the East,

and the Israelites had imported the substance
of them from their ancient home. Everything
tends to show that this ma.terial, whether found
in Babylon or in Israel, is very ancient1, and
the simplest explanation of its subsequently
distinctive forms in both countries is to be
found in the assumption, that both go back to
a. common original, from which, proceeding in
two streams, and subjected to independent
developments, they issue ~espectively in a
Nature-myth and in a Monotheistic religion
with an ethical base.
May we venture to push our researches
a step further back, and seek to discover this
earliest form, this common original ~ By an
historical method, No. This is an investigation which cannot be pursued to a definite
conclusion by historical means. Once more
we have arrived at the limits of our knowledge
and the threshold of our faith. We know
how faith answers the question; the justification of that answer cannot be thoroughly
1, According to Hommel (.A.ZWrie7lt. Dmkm. tiM das .A.. T.,
pp. 18, aI) the" Babylonian" account must have been
Chaldman; in any case the written record falls within
pre-Israelite times; it is now believed to come within the
twenty-first century before Christ. Cf. Zimmern, BI'bl,
"" ball. Urgesch., p. 5.

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

discussed hel'e.
This much, however, is
cel'tain: the Biblical conception of the universe, which constitutes a part of our faith,
in so far as it does so, is for us in its original
form not a Babylonian conception, but extremely ancient knowledge, the result of
experience, and by this way revealed by God
to man and presel'ved among His people. More
strictly speaking, it is acquired, partly from
the vicissitudes of the most ancient races, such
as the story of the Flood, and partly from
inferences 80lising from the divine consciousness imparted to them 1.
When the great Flood burst upon the people
it was in the eyes of those, who not only knew
1 I should like to point out that here I draw a sharp
distinction between what may be acquired from history
and that which transcends it. Strictly historical methods
may carry us a certain distance, and, as an historian, I go
no further.
Who is to prevent me, however, if, while consciously
insisting on the existence of this boundary.line, I deliber
ately venture to pass the region of historical certitude,
and to form my own ideas of what lies beyond it? I know
that these ideas of mine have no objective validity, in the
ordinary sense of the word; I know and admit that they
are an emanation of my subjective pel'ception, but at the
same time I recognize that this is not subjectivity in the
sense of a purely personal impression, but a "subjective"
perception in the highest senee of the word, since it con
tains the sum of my own personal experience of thing~
based on ethical and religious grounds,

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

51

of moon, sun, water, earth, and other natUI'M

objects as gods, but of God as a mighty unity,
ajudgement of this Unique One, whom they re~
cognized also as the creator of heaven and earth.
Whether such people actually existed, and
what may have been the nature of their
conception of God, are questions of which
the discussion would carry us far beyond
the aim we at present have in view, a.nd in
regard to which we could offer rather postu~
}ates of faith and science than trustworthy
results of careful investigation.
They would be postulates, neveltheless, not
offaith only, but of science as well; for science
also is tending towards the assumption that
Polytheism, and still cruder forms of heathen~
ism, were not original, but represent degenerate
phases of an originally higher conception of
God. For it is somewhat remarkable that even
the lower forms of heathenism-on the level
with or below Fetishism-give evidence of a
certain latent knowledge ofa higher and in.
divisible God I. Such a phenomenon requires
1 Cf. Wurm, R61igionsgeschichtlie1uJ Parallelsn :rum Allen
Test;, 1899 (in. Beilr. wr FOrder. cAristl. Theal.), pp. 18 et seq.,

where examples are also cited out ofWaitz and Chantepie

de la Saussaye; Volz, Mose (1907), p. 76. With regard
to "Allah" among the ancient Arab. cf. Von Orelli,
Re/igionsgesch., p. Suo

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TnE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

explanation. It must, moreover, be always

bome in mind that it is psychologically inconceivable that the lower forms of religion, which
are glibly assumed to be the original,-such
as Fetishism, Totemism, Animism, &c.,-could
have come into existence without the previous
conception of a higher power behind them, that
is, of God Himself. That a stick, or a stone, or
an animal could be regardcdasGod cannot have
been a primary, but only at most a secondary,
conception. It is certain that to primitive man
a stone in the first instance was a stone, wood
was wood, and animal, animal, and he could
see with his own eyes that these things had
no inherent power of themselves to make
alive, or kill, or produce growth. But when
once he had obtained the conception "God"
he might readily suffer it in the course of time
to degenerate, so that this Power, while it
is invisible, became associated in his mind
with visible things, such as trees, stones, or
animals. That conception, however, even when
it is attached t.o many visible forms of the
natural kingdom, will ultimately be an indivisible one, that of the power behind the
visible. In the words of the late F. Max
MUller-words often quoted and frequently
with contempt, but never yet refuted-e' the

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53

human mind would neVel' have conceived

the notion of gods, if it had not first of all
conceived the notion of God,"
The lower forms of religion are thus easily
intelligible as long as we regard them as
results of a process of degeneration, while
viewed as original phenomena they only admit of a forced explanation. As long, however,
as this original monotheistic religion cannot
be proved to have existed in the earliest times,
it can only, strictly speaking, be regarded
as a scientific hypothesis, which has, however,
this much in its favour, that, since without it
the phenomena. we have been considel'ing
would find no explanation, it can lay claim
to be a postulate of science.
If we might make this assumption the further
consequence follows, that these oldest Semitic
tribes brought with them from their home an
heritage, by the help of which they were able
to recognize God as the creator of the world,
. and to form a picture of the process by which
that world originated, and by means of which
also they could understand the Great Flood in
the mode it is presented to us in the Book of
Genesis. From the close, and even formaJ,
affinity with Babylonian tradition, moreover,
an actual contact with, and the exercise of

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TaE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

influence bYt the latter must be assumed,.

But this may have originated during the
sojourn in the Eastt or it may have been
acquired during the Wandering. The further shaping of the idea in detail would
then have been accomplished in dependence
upon thoughts and conceptions CUITent in
Babylon.
I am approaching the conclusion. " Pau]t
thou art beside thyse]f; much learning doth
make thee mad." Discoveries have something
intoxicating in their nature. When once accounts of the Creation and of the Flood had
been found in cuneiform, it was not surprising
that the appetite for discovery should grow,
until men soon began to believe that they
had discovered everything. The Fall of Man,
the Sabbath, the Ten Commandments, Aaron's
Blessing, nay, even the foundation of the
Biblical religion-the recognition of the Unity
of God and the name of the one God Himself,
Yahveh-all these we are told to regard as
borrowed from Babylon, or as having at any
rate received from thence their first inspiration. Permit me here to dwell in the briefest
way upon one or two points.
So far as the Fall is concerned, imagination
and the yearning for startling discoveries

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

SS

have played some of our investigators a bad

turn. Supposing even that the Babylonians,
with their knowledge of a 'free of Life and
a Garden of Eden watered by sacred streams,
had explained the origin of sin in the same
manner as Genesis iii, what could we con.
clude from it 1 From what has been already
said this need not excite in us any further
surprise. But if we find represented on an
inoffensive cylinder-seal, a tree-perhaps a
cedar-with two clothed figures standing
beneath it, of which one, if not both, is in
any case a god, and behind one of them
a serpent depicted-what can we deduce from
it 1 It may be possible to see in it the Tree
of Paradise, and consequently a scene in the
Garden of Eden, but in no circumstances
a representation of the Fall. The former of
thes~ assumptions is daring; the IMter, until
we know more, is absolutely unwarranted on
scientific grounds 1.
It was in like manner a very darmg asser
1 It is noteworthy that the Babylonians, in regard to
80 essential a point in the history of the Fall a8 the
origin of death, took quite a different view from that in
the Bible. What is contained in the Adapa-myth has
a point of contact with Genesis ii and iii only in as
far as it redects upon the mortality of mankind, but the
explanation given is totally different.

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THE BABYLONIAN EXOAVATIONS AND

tion, and productive of much confusion, to

which Delitzsch gave utterance in the flight
of his fancy, when he maintained" that we
owe, in the last analysis, the blessings of the
Sabbath- or Sunday-rest to the ancient civilized folk who dwelt on the Euphrates and
Tigris I." If this were the case, how remarkable it seems that the Israelites, when they
had later on an opportunity of studying
BabyIonian affairs at the fountain-head, should
have laid stress upon the fact that the observance of the Sabbath distinguished their own
race from the other nations I The author of
Isaiah lvi. 2-4 must have known, if anyone,
of the fact of a Babylonian Sabbath, if it had
-existed. How, therefore, could he regard the
observance of the Sabbath as a differentiating
feature of the people of the Covenant, and the
distinctiv~ mark of an accepted Proselyte
from heathenism ~

It is true indeed that, according to an ancient

calendar, every seventh day of one month and
of that succeeding it was a holy day, on which
certain occupations were forbidden. But it is
incorrect to say that these days were, without
more ado, regarded as days of rest in the Bible
sense, that is as set apart for the recreation
1

Delitzsch, op. cit., p. 29.

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EARLY BIBLE HISTQRY

57

of man and beast. The word, to which this

meaning is attributed, is to be understood
otherwise. It is in reality a question of propitiation and not of rest, and the appointed
abstinences have very little to do with the
Biblica.l Sabbath. It is decisive that "unlucky days" are here in question; where in
Israel is the Sabbath so described 1 It is
precisely the peculiar blessing of the Sabbath
as the day of rest, in which man and beast
obtain refreshment, that is lacking in the
Babylonian, whatever analogies thel'e may be
in other respects.
We come in conclusion to the questions of
Yahveh and Monotheism. With regard to the
former so much has been written 1 of late, that .
I restrict myself to saying only one or two
words. Some names of the Hammurabi period
have been so read as to include the name
of God, Yahvek (= Jehovah). But the reading itself is questionable in a high degree.
Even supposing that it is correct, it is highly
probable that the word Yahtwe is here a verb,
and that the name signifies "God is" or,
better, "God is active." But even if it could
be proved that the word Yahwe was used as
1 cr. my discussions in the Th601. Litt.-Blatt, 1902, Nos.
17 and 18.

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THE BABYLONIAN EXOAVATIONS AND

a. Divine na.me, wha.t would this imply in fa.ce

of the important character ascribed by Moses
to his God ~ It would indicate some N'Umen
on a par with many others, whose name would
probably have no point of contact with the
God of Moses, and whose worship in any case
could have ha.d nothing in common with that
of the latter.
For Babylon knew nothing of the Divine
worship of IsraelI. Where reference is made
in the Bible, especially in Deutero-Isa.ia.h,
to religious worship in Babylon, it is represented as nothing but the crudest Polytheism,
over which the prophet again and again pours
out the sharpest sa.rc&sm of his raillery. And
if we investigate those myths concerning the
Creation and the Flood, the same sort of
picture presents itself-brawlings of the gods
among themselves, terror and greed and the
lowest motives and passions are the order
of the day-not to speak-as it may have
been a foreign importation-of the strongly
developed belief in spirits and ghosts, of
which we have evidence in the abundant
incantation-literature. It is true that there
is to be found in certain prayers and in many
1 Cf. my discussions in the .A.l/gem. ElI,Lulh. Kirch. Zeit.,
19:3

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

personal names conceptions of a somewhat

higher character. It is possible that, within
the narrow mrcle of those who were endowed
with a higher spirituality, some may have
managed to emerge from tho morbid growth
of Polytheism, of which we have an instance
in Khuenaten in Egypt 1. But these at best
were nothing more than faint gropings after
Monotheism, speculations which contained an
approach to it, but which lacked the religious
force to enable it actually to break away
from Polytheism. The Unity of God, there-fore, is and remains the distinctive inheritance
of Israel.
Nothing could b~ more absurd than the
view that Israel bolTowed this knowledge
from Babylon. Why on this hypothesis, we
may ask, did the prophets of the Assyrian
and Babylonian epochs not direct the attention of their people, who were always inclined
to a multiplicity of gods, to this pa.ttern, if
it really existed 1 They were surely not so
narrow-minded as to neglect it. If there had
really been a conta.ct, and any result from
it, this must have occurred at an extremely
early date-at a time when the ancestors of
1 Cf. Winckler, Himmel.- UM Weltenbild der Bab., p.
al80 KOberle, '!P. cit., p. 63101 et seq.

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

Israel were detaching themselves from their

tlibal kinsfolk, and giving origin to that shoot
from the common Semitic stock which later
on grew up into the people of Israel. Here
however we al'e entering by anticipation upon
prehistoric times. For all this must have
been enacted long before Abraham, seeing
that in his time even the Biblical tradition
implies already a. strong tendency towards
Polytheism (Joshua xxiv. 15).
There is one problem whose solution would
welll'eward the cuneiform investigator, would
surpass a.l1 previous discoveries and excuse all
disillusions and false conclusions-and that
would be the discovery that in the grey dawn
of history there were actually men in existence
who still possessed in quiet serenity the inheritance of an exalted knowledge of God, which
had some time or other been imparted to mankind. For that stones, or trees, or even dead
men should have awakened in mankind the
earliest presentiment of God, or should have
attracted it to themselves, we cannot allow
ourselves to be persuaded, no matter how
frequently and how loudly this theory is
maintained 1 ; and such a view is disproved, at
1 No one will subscribe to the principle" that whatever is savage or barbarous in religion must be old. This

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

least as far as our field of inquiry is concerned,

by the prevalence of the relatively higher
Astral-Religion of the ancient Semites. But
beyond and above their Polytheistic starworship we can at present see nothing further
or higher-at least I can find no trustworthy
trace of it 1. To point the way in this inquiry
would far and away excel in value all the
investigations concerning" Babel and Bibel."
Ew Oriente luw is a phrase now frequently
is a major premiss that would play fearful havoc with our
chronology .. (F. Max Milller, Auld LafIfJ SI/fI6, 11399, p. 187).
1 Some beginnings have been made in this direction,
especially by Hommel, who in his Anciml Hebrew Tradition qf the O. Test. (Eng. trans.) brings to light many
remarkable facts. I cannot, however, go along with him
always in his deductions from these facts. Compare
also the same author's DBr Gestimdienst der aUen ..traber,
Munich, 1901, and also Ranke, Die Personennamen in den
Urkunden der Hammurabidflllaetie, Munich, 1902. The latter
tend to show, that under the influence of the worship of
the mild light of the stars (moon and planets) which was
received from the Arabs, a relatively high and pure conception of deity made itself felt among the early Semites,
and that even in ancient Babylon we encounter" a naive
and childlike trust in God" arising from this ancient
Semitic religion, in contradistinction to the superstitious
fear of innumerable Evil Spirits which prevailed among
the Sumerians (Ranke, op. cU., p. :al). Similar claims are
made for ancient India j cf. among recent authorities the
already cited Atela LafIfJ SlInIl, by F. lIax Milller, pp. q2
et seq. Compare in the same connexion Von Orelli,
Beligio'M(luchichte, p. 40:a j Wurm, op. cit., p. :as. .

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS

heard, and certainly a true one. But it becomes still truer when there is associated with
it another, "Lucerna pedibus mei8 Verbum
tuum," "Thy word is a. lantern to my feet,"
and especially when it leads to Him who is
able to say. ' Ego BUm lwx; muncli." "I am
the Light of the World."

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APPENDIX TO THIRD EDITION.

THE subjects here discussed have during

the laat few years received a fresh interest
from material newly discovered, not only in
Babylon and Assyria, but also in Palestine
and Egypt, and to some extent in Crete also.
I. To begin with Crete, the excavations
there have been vigorously carried onl and
have confirmed in every respect the results
previously obtained. The high stage of culture attained by the prae-Hellenistic inhabitants of Greece, and especially of the Greek
Archipelago and the islands of the Aegean,
has been made still more manifest. Whilst
at the time the first edition of the present
work appeared, Crete and the Greek Archipelago could be adduced, as instanced in the
preceding text" only in the way of analogy,
we can to-day in many respects follow clearly
the actual relations which subsisted between
Israel and Crete. We now know that the
Philistines, the coast people of South-western
Palestine, who influenced so strongly the history of Israel, had wandered from Asia Minor
and Crete to their later home. We know,
furthermore, that the plaatic art of Israel in
the time of Solomon had experienced through

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Al'PENDIX

the intervention of the Phoenicians a strong

Cretan influence 1.
Nay, we are able to assume, what is still
more important, that the specifically Israelite
method of regarding the Deity and of worshipping Him-which, in contradistinction from
the earliest cuItus of Canaan, was manifested
in the 'worship of a heavenly God through
burnt offel'ings-has its closest point of connexion, and, consequently, its truest a.na.logy,
with the worship of Crete as it was practised
somewhere about the middle of the Second
millennium before Chlist I.
The Bible account of the oldest representations of Deity among the early Israelites
receives through this circumstance a new light.
The distinction of the ancient Israelite Yahwe
from the Ca.na.a.nite Ba.a.l-with whom He was so
frequently confounded-and His pre-eminence
over the latter, stand forth here-in a still clearer
manner than ever before. If we compare,
moreover, the further development of both
religions, the immense superiority, in spite of
points of resemblance, of the Israelite worship
of God over that of Crete, or of the Greek
islands, cannot escape notice.
I See my book Studim IItr hebrc'iisc1len ArcMologis u.
ReligionsgesMichts (lgoS), p. tSg if.
a See op. cit. p. 114 if., 146 if.

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APPENDIX

2. In Egypt, likewise, documents of various

kinds have been forthcoming which have
an important bearing on biblical science.
Of great interest a.re a considerable number
of papyri in the Aramaic language found in
Upper Egypt. From these we learn the unexpected and astonishing fact that already
in the fifth C'.entury before our era large Jewish
colonies existed even in Upper Egypt. These
may have been offshoots from the Jewish
emigrants who, under the leadership of the
prophet Jeremiah, had gone down into Egypt.
Still more important in its bearing upon
the questions in hand is a quite recent discovery at Dendera.h in Middle Egypt.
We a.re all familia.r with the account, given
in the twenty-second and twenty-third chapters
of 2 Kings, of the discovery in the reign of
Josiah, King of Judah (621 B.C.), of the "Book
of the Law," ostensibly long lost, and of the
momentous consequences of this discovery
upon the development of the worship and religious life of Isra.el. The book was found during
the removal of rubbish arising from complete
structural restoration of the Temple, which had
been undertaken on account of its ruinous
condition from age, or partly because of the
desecration of the building by hea.then worship.
E

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APPENDIX

As the discovery of an ostensibly unknown

and lost book in an old wall, as here related,
seemed somewhat strange in the absence of
any direct analogy in its SUppOlt, there was
a general inclination to regard the whole story
as mythical, or to see in it a clever deception
practised on the king by crafty priests. The
former view is practically disposed of, and the
latter, in at least the force of its probability,
shaken, by the fact .that an entirely similar
event in ancient history has come to light
from late discoveries at Denderah.
Thothmes III (also called Tutmosis III),
a king otherwise well known to us from
Egyptian history, who flourished in the fifteenth century before our era, tells us himself
that during structural alterations in the holy
place of Denderah he had rediscovered in
a brick wall" the Great Rule '1 of the Temple.
By "the Great Rule" is evidently meant
nothing else than the sacrificial ritual, or
generally speaking" the Ceremonial Law" of
the celebrated temple of Denderah.
It must:have lain long unknown, andwas
found again in the manner here desmibedfurnishing thus a striking parallel to the
discovery of the Book of Deuteronomy in the
time of Josiah.

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APPENDIX

The question as to what ma.y have actually

occurred in the discovery and restoration of
the Mosaic Code, as desClibed in 2 Kings, cannot, of course, be disposed of without further
eonsidel'ation, but. an extremely important
and fresh aid towards solving that 'luestion
is here placed in our hands,
We are indebted also to Egypt for another,
no less important, di!3covery made not long
since. From the consideration of certain
peculiar references in the Old Testament
prophetical books to a coming age of peace
and blessedness, and to a personal bringer of
these benefits-in a word, to what we are
accustomed to call the Messianic propheciesa number of modern scholars had come to the
conclusion that these portions were by no
means to be ascribed to the prophets in whose
books we now read them, but were rather the
product of the later exilic, or post-exilic
period, They, and the whole Messianic conception in general, were inserted, purely
and simply, it is contended, in their present
context, as a distinctive product of that period
of Israel's history which is marked by the
downfall of the kingdom and the state, It
was, they maintain, only the fall of the earthly
and visible monarchy that had called forth
E 2

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APPENDIX

the hope of its glorious restol'ation and the

establishment of an ultra-tel'l'estrial kingdom,
Careful students strove in vain, with arguments of a literary 01' historical character, to
combat this new theory. It seemed as if the
majority of scholars were inclined, in spite of
every argument, to identify themselves with
the new views.
Just at this epoch a fresh discovery was
made in Egypt, which seemed at the first
glance calculated to furnish the deciding word
in this controversy which had been' now
raging among scholars ,for some years. It
was now made manifest that prophecies and
expectations of a similar kind had already
existed in Egypt at an early period, and that
there, too, in ancient days, after times of
serious calamity, deliverance had been looked
for through a divinely selected king, who
would bring with him the Golden Age 1:
It will be readily seen that a series of fresh
questions and riddles is thus furnished for
scientific investigation, What was the special
significance of this ancient Egyptian expectation 1 And how is it related to similar
. hopes, ascertained by numerous students to
1

H. O. Lange, in the Siizungsber, tl. Berlin. -Akad. II. Wissm.

1903, pp. 601 et seq.

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APPENDIX

ha.ve existed in Babylon at an eal'ly date,

with regard to a deliverance in a golden age 1
And as a consequence how are both of these
related to the Messianic expectations of 18rael1 .
Whatever may be the answer given to these
questions, I cannot but feel convinced that
the notion of a Saviour of the future, and of
this momentous futUl'e as introduced by Godin a word, the idea of a Messianic period, and
also ofa Messiah in Israel-was not the coincident product of an overthrQwn state, and
consequently the creation of a very late time.
3. If we look to Babylon our attention is
arrested by a recent discovery thei'e which,
in regard to our su~ject, transcends in value
all previous finds. I allude to the so-called
Code of Hammurabi. We can all remember
the excitement produced throughout the
Western world by the announcement that
a French expedition had discovered at the
Pe1'8ian Susa an extremely ancient Babylonian
Code, incised on a stone monument, which
had been hitherto overlooked. It was soon
perceived that the Code in question was that
. of the great Babylonian ruler Hammurabi,
who flourished some 2,000 ye&l'8 before our
era.. The importance of this discovel'y cannot
be overestimated.

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APPENDIX

Its value in the first instance is, of course,

in the domain of Assyrio-Babylonian history.
We come to realize from it, more evidently
than ever before, the condition of society, as
well as the legislative activity, of ancient
Babylon, and at the same time get an unexpected glance into many peculiarities of
civil and religious life and of manners in the
age of Hammul'abi. The chief significance
for us, however, of this newly found incised
Cede is, of course, in the Hght which it throws
on biblical history, and the help it gives to
a critical appreciation of biblical tradition.
The following is a rough outline of how
the case stands :The people of Israel alao, as is known,
possess the tradition of a law given to them
by Moses in early times. How much of the
Pentateuch-Law, which later tradition asclibed to Moses-not only as a legislator, but as
a writer-may go back to Moses 3S the actual
.codifier, is an open question. But the belief
and firm conviction that Moses was the lawgiver of Isra!'ll in early times, and that the
fundamental clements of the law-book ascribed
to him at a later date actually proceeded from
himself, have not only always been held in

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Israel itself, but have also on the facts of the

case a strong support.
This fundamental element has been long
recognized as consisting of the section which
we find in the so-ca.lled Decalogue and the
Book of the Covenant, that is, the 'ren Commandments and the short Code in Exodus
xx-xxiii, to which part of chapter xxxiv may
also belong. The ascription of this element to
the Mosaic, or immediately succeeding, epoch
is just the point that has been frequently
contested in modern times. The new critics
manifest here, as in otheJ. domains, an everincreasing inclination to ascribe what has
long been held as the product of an early
histOlic period to a relatively later, nay, much
later, date. A general doubt arose, not only
as to whether Moses was the actual giver of
these laws, but as to his having ever appeared
as a lawgivel' at all. Even those who had
committed themselves to the belief that Moses
was an actual pel'sonage came by degrees to
have serious scruples as to whether he was
the lawgiver of his time and the leader of his
people. They were inclined to satisfy themselves with the belief that he led his people
through the desert.
It was at this moment that out of the

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rubbish of ages there came into broad daylight this Babylonian Code, showing us that
there had existed in Babylon, long before the
appearance of Moses, a body of law which
not only in its mere existence furnished a
parallel to the Mosaic Law as far as its fundamental principles are concerned, but also in
its special exactions not a few important analogues to the Mosaic Book of the Covenant.
It offers no evidence, it is true, as to the
origin of the Book of the Covenant in the
Mosaic period or in early Israelite times.
The Law might, we may admit, have even
originated in the later Israelite peliod under
the influence of the Code of Hammurabi.
But seeing that we have other reasons for
ascribing a high antiquity to this Israelite
Code, and that furthermore the Tel-el-Amarna
tablets, as well as the closely connected recent
discoveries in the Holy Land, demonstrate
beyond question the strong influence of Babylon upon ancient Palestine and upon the
neighbouring countries, there is a strong presumption that Moses was already acquainted
with that Code-for a long time the state
law of the Palestinian provinces of the Babylonian Empire-if not in word, at least in
substance, if not in written form, at least as

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prescribed by the praxi8 of the Assyl'ia.n

peoples long under Ba.bylonia.n dominion, and
that he himself, in establishing a polity for
his own people, took it as a pattel'Il. Supposing this to be the case, there is nothing to
prevent our ascribing to Moses himself the
fundamental principles of the Law as we find
it in the Pentateuch of to-day ..
4. But even Palestine, the land of the Bible,
in its narrower interpretation, has been pressed
of late into the service of biblical science, and
made to contribute information concerning its
a.ncient history, a.nd that of its inhabitants. In
various districts of modern Palestine, the spade '
of the excavator has been actively at work
with fruitful results. Only a few of the most
importa.nt discoveries can be dealt with here.
Among the first regions to be attacked by
the explorer was, in the south country, the fortified l'oyal town of Gezer, on the borderland
between Judah and Philistia. It was a.n extra- .
ordinarily lucky hit of the Palestine E:x;ploration Fund to select this as a field for their
investigations. It was known, indeed, that
Gezer had played a part in pre-Israelite times,
that at a later peliod it was conquered for,
and presented to, Solomon by the Pharaoh
his father-in-law, and also that it was the

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theatre of memorable events in la.ter biblical

times: The explorer's expectations were not
disappointed. Dr. Macalister, the director of
the expedition, was successful in reconstructing, in its main features, a considerable part
of the history of the place for many centuries,
and in furnishing us with a general sketch of
its evolution from the earliest times to the
biblical period.
Stmilar results were obtained from the excavations undertaken in the middle region,
that is, those at Taana.ch. by Professor Sellin,
of Vienna-and at Megiddo, by the German
Palestine Society. In both sites it was possible
to restore once more the ancient city and
fortress, and even to lay bare, as in the case
of Gezer, the successive towns which, in the
course of centuries, had been built one over
the other.
The excavation~ at Ta.a.nach, moreover, wel~
attended by the fortunate circumstance that
a number of inscriptions in the form of clay
tablets belonging to ancient Ca.na.a.nite times,
and constituting a species of minor archives
of the city at a very early period, fell into the
hands of the explorers.
The importance of the results obtained from
excavations in Palestine up to the plesent,

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75

consists in this, that they reveal to our eyes

a fairly clear picture of Canaan as it was
before the arrival of the children of Israel,
and in the immediately succeeding period.
The value of this is recognized at least for
this great interval. We know now, approximately, what were the conditions, both political and religious, which the Israelites encountered on their invasion of the country, and
especially the dangers which threatened them
from a religious point of view.
Concerning all these things, we had in the
Bible itself merely hints. They are now
clearly and thoroughly substantiated.
From the clay tablets of Taanach, especiaJ.ly,
we have acquired what the Tel-el-Amama
tablets intimated, although not without question from many critics, namely, the proof that
Canaan, immediately before the invasion of
the lsJ.'8.elites, was under the strong spiritual
influence of Babylon. Correspondence was
conducted in the Babylonian language, while
from the beginning of Babylonian rule onward
the Babylonian spirit ruled in the land. When
we realize the cogency of the previous argu
ments as to the dominance of the Code of
Hammurabi in the ancient pre-Israelite Canaan,
we shall the more readily comprehend how

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easily that law might become known to Moses

and his contemporaries, and more especially
to the generation succeeding him, and how
certain injunctions, modified according to time
and place, might be borrowed from or supported by it.
Alongside Babylonian influences, Egyptian
also are manifest-preponderating especially
in the southern pOltion of the country-hoth
in regard to cult and civil life, thus corresponding completely with the fact that Canaan
a.t that time was nominally under Egyptian
l'ule.
A further important acquisition which we
owe to the spade is the much clearer view
we get of the tribal relations of Canaan, and
the religious pecu1iaI'ities .of its people, We
are by this means placed in the position for
the first time to realize the spu'itual forces
and political influences to which the Israelite
nation, and especially its religion, had to be
accommodated. We come here frequently upon
the traces of a race faI' excelling in antiquity
the inhabitants of Canaan. Whether this race
was Semitic, as the Canaanites were, is not
yet known for certain, and there are reasons
for considerable doubt as to the fact. Many
things go to show that they were the original

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77

inhabitants of the la.nd. They dwelt in caves,

a.nd most probably worshipped their gods
thereiri. They possibly believed in spirits of
the under-world, like the dead, and worshipped
them.
Following immediately a.fter them came
the Canaanites, a. branch of the Semitic race.
They wel'e in possession of the la.nd when it
was invaded by the Israelites, who had to
come to terms with them. Their gods were
not spirits of the under-world, but eal'thgods, worshipped in trees, walls, ~tones, 01'
even in the open country. They were the
deities of fruitfulness and of nascent life,
and were therefore regarded as the lords of
the earth and the bestowers of its gifts in
com, wine, oil, fl.a.x (Hosea ii. 7)-especially
as Baals and Astartes. The Israelites were
witnesses of their worship when they entered
the la.nd, and not unfrequently Yahwe, the
God who accompanied Israel in the desert and
from Sinai, and who was a super-terrestIial
deity, was degraded to their level and interchanged with them. The life-work of the
prophets from Samuel onwards was to fight
against this degradation of Yahwe and to
uphold Him to Israel, as opposed to the representations of Baal, in His simple yet seve.re
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and spiritual character. How continuous and

violent the contest was, how strong the
seductions of the Canaanite cult, with its
popular elements and its impressive sensuous
environment, is nowhere more forcibly brought
home to us than in the Palestine excavations,
which place before our eyes one after another
the traces of the long, almost exclusive, empire
of this worship in the Canaanite land.

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