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STUDIES
IN
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
STUDIES
IN
BIBLICAL
ARCHEOLOGY
BY
JOSEPH JACOBS
Corresponding
Member of
the
Royal Academy
of History, Madrid.
C^jgyra
"it,,
I)
CO.
LONDON
PRINTED BY WERTHEIMER, LEA & CIRCUS PLACE, LONDON WALL.
CO.,
liamp
i'
*>
To
S.
SCHECHTER,
Reader
in
Dear Schechter,
I
your
mine,
concern
is
spirit;
on the present occasion, with the outward forms or institutions of social life. Yet you yourself will be
the
first
to
confess,
fancy,
that
the
one
has
;
an
so
influence
may
like the
of the circle of
different
my
this
whose
address
have, at
times,
directed
letters
prefixed to
my
books.
seems to be the
I
least inappropriate
occasion on which
for
my
esteem
your
and head.
am
delighted that
versity a position
you have found in my old Unifrom which you can bring your genial
form
influence to
bear on the
who
race
New
Yours very
sincerely,
JOSEPH JACOBS.
PREFACE.
During
the
sole
English
paid
particular
These
attracted
I
some attention
at the
my
up to
date.
have
the
added at
my
a
review of
in
the
Athenaum,
as,
by
curious
chance,
happened to be the
earliest
criticism of that
im-
and owe
CONTENTS.
JAGE.
Introduction
I.
xi.
Recent Research
logy.
in Biblical Archaeo...
1
II.
Recent Research
Religion.
1890)
{Folk
-
in
Comparative
September,
Lore,
35
III.
Junior
Right
in Genesis.
{Arch. Rev.,
July, 1888)
48
in the
IV.
Old
64
May, 1889)
V.
104
VI.
Origin
...
of
...
Proverbs,
... ...
Chap. xxx.
123
VII.
Revised
May
Old Testament.
(Athenceum,
129
INTRODUCTION.
In reviewing
of regret at the
the
progress
of
Biblical
Archaeology
first
loss of Professor Robertson Smith. I have ventured to disagree with him on several points in
fail
to recognise the
more
especially
causes so great a
main a transplantation to English soil of Wellhausen, but more lately, especially in his "Burnett Lectures," he struck out a line which
His
earlier
work was
in the
Archaeology with the English Biblical methods of research in Anthropology. This was a union which I have been advocating for some years in the
connected
essays contained in the present volume.
My
advocacy
became less necessary when a master like Robertson Smith had taken up the cause. His death has left us the method as a legacy, but I fear we must wait long before the rightful heir to his work and his method can claim
the inheritance.
I.
1889-94.
five years to
xii
INTRODUCTION.
up the gaps in the Old Testament research to which
the
first essay contained in the following pages. edition of " Gesenius " now being published by
fill
I refer in
The new
Hebrew
lexico-
graphy up to the level of modern philological requirements. Yet even with its excessive and Teutonic condensation of material, it still falls short of a true " Thesaurus "; it is still a " Handworterbuch." Then
again, the ambitiously planned edition of the
Old Testatext
ment
Scriptures,
of
the
Hebrew
is
Scriptures.
The
plan
upon which
it is
conceived
different from that to which I had pointed as being the one needed in the present state of Old Testament research. Judging from the specimen volume, Professor
Siegfried's Job^
it
will add a
number of
ingenious, and in
some
emendations to the text. But it " will not contain the much needed " variorum conspectus " variae lectiones " derived from the versions and of the
cases, satisfactory
the commentators.
towards
This is the work still to be done which the new edition of the Septuagint by Professor Swete, and the new " Tromius " planned by
the ZTr-Septuagint has been
settled,
the text
or
which
lie at
the back of
it
remain enigmatical.
on the Text of
Samuel (Clar. Press, 1890), are sufficient to indicate how far we are yet off from an authentic text. Literary criticism seems now to have come to an end of its tether with regard to the " slicing " of the Hexateuch
;
the reconstructions
of Genesis
by Fripp and
INTRODUCTION.
exhaustive
xiii
work of Holzinger,
all
serve to
show
this
this.
They
all
confirm
my
contentionthat on
line
of
se
research
we
cannot solve the problem of the Hexateuch, so far as that problem is concerned with the development institutions
of the ancient Hebrews.
place
And
between
Professors
point in which
discussion.
my
me
to
my
decisive
of the higher
criticism.
Professor
Cheyne
Founders of the Old Testament Criticism (page 330), retorts that the higher criticism has always Professor used Archaeology, and that I am an amateur.
in his
Cheyne
I
what
should
Physical
Archaeology,
the
study of the
material remains of
man on
The
it
higher criticism
may
the
Robertson Smith
has
not
used
study of early institutions, on which subject, so far as I am aware, it is Professor Cheyne who is the amateur.
lished
am unaware that Professor Cheyne has pubanything showing that he has something novel to say on the separation of literary sources in the Pentateuch. On this point I can only claim that nearly fifteen years ago I had worked through Wellhausen's
Indeed, I
epoch-making
articles
in
xiv
INTRODUCTION.
specialist literature
fische Theologie and have followed the on the subject up to the present day.
Professor
Sayce
has
recently
as I
summed up
it,
all
that
have termed
has to say
on Biblical Antiquities in his The Higher Criticism and the Monuments (London 1893). This labours under the
:
and
still
less
who
the only
those of
MM.
Havet and
in the
who
are
scarcely dominating
influences
of
Hebrew Antiquity.
Professor
Sayce's
chief
shown
the
among
that the
The
and accurate form the most recent light from the ancient
monuments.
subject of
lished
series
Another
useful
summary of
the whole
Hebrew Archaeology
as
part of
forth
less
The book
no
than one hundred and fifty-two illustrations, showing the remarkable advance in our knowledge of the Physical
Archaeology of the Hebrews during recent years. But it must be owned that many of the illustrations are derived from Egypt, Syria, and Phoenicia rather than from Judaea. Still, the Holy Land itself is beginning to yield its
material treasures of the past under the competent guid-
INTRODUCTION.
the
xv
ance of Professor Flinders Petrie, whose excavations at ancient site of Lachish have performed much and
promised more.
confirmation
the Hebrews.
is
only a further
of the
comparative research in
on that of
is
Whenever
arises, his
of institutions
It
is
this
whose views on this subject, be they right or wrong, must be the point d'appui for research for many a long day to come. The only treatise which has appeared on Biblical Archaeology, considered in any way from the point of view advocated in these pages, is a booklet on Hebrew Idolatry and Superstition, its place in Folk-Lore, by Mr. E. Higgens (London, 1893). In this ingenious little
volume, in
order
to
in
differentiate
the
Canaanite
and
Hebrew elements
Biblical antiquities,
L.
Gomme
He
boldly seeks
Hebrew
ritual
temporary folk-lore of South India, Livonia, or even He attempts by this means to distinguish Devonshire.
and superstitious practices menOld Testament, those which had been introduced into Canaan by the Amorites and by the
among
tioned
in
Hittites,
as
well
as
those
common
to
Semitic tribes
including
the
Edomites.
Incidentally
he
contends
xvi
INTRODUCTION.
on which Professor
Robertson Smith laid such great stress {infra, p. 33), far from being the typical Semitic form of sacrifice
is
not Semitic
India,
at all, as
it
South
and
is
still
found
the
in
survival
even
in
England.
He
identifies
fire-worship
of Moloch
with the Amorites and the blond race of the IndoEuropean world generally, while the various forms of
divination,
witchcraft,
are
in
races
the
Old Testament
among
thus
various
of
will
be seen to raise
many
of
Mr. Fenton's
its
sketchiness.
He
follows, as
the
Gomme
in discrimina-
The
problem
is
probably
has
much more
account
complicated
of.
taken
There
is
an
assumption
of
the original
which evidence
still
Aryans in one case, and the Hebrews in the other, had no superstitions of their own. All probability, and a good deal of evidence is against the assumption that
everything idolatrous mentioned in the Old Testament,
was necessarily borrowed by the Hebrews from somebody else. Finally, Mr. Higgens would probably be the first to own that our knowledge of the distinction
of races in Palestine
is
still
knowledge of the
INTRODUCTION.
xvii
Notwithstanding these demurrers to Mr. Higgens' method and main position, I still welcome most cordially the appearance of his very suggestive pages, which show, at any rate, what is the class of problems which InstituArchaeology has to deal with in the case of the Hebrews, and, to a certain extent, what are the methods by which these problems can be solved. I do not think the time has even approached when we have sufficient
tional
materials
for
the
comparative treatment
but
of
Hebrew
on that
antiquity as
nations, of
line, I
contrasted
which we know
it
is
am
Comparative
since
Religion.
Nothing
has
ap-
peared
fessor
the publication of
Mr.
Fraser's and
Pro-
them
are
in
Robertson Smith's books in any way equal to importance. Work on this subject is now
specialist,
pre-eminently
brought before the world, as they were in the earlier stages of the study. The enormous extent of ground
over
which
can
this
subject
now
spreads
is
obviously
bringing forcibly
there
home
single
to
students
of the
the
day that
be no
Mythologies.
if
may
call
it
which
assigns
a certain
amount of uniqueness
After
all
Hebrews.
our
of the world
we
there
are
of course elsewhere,
but
the
difference
in
xviii
INTRODUCTION.
is
intensity
so
marked
sense
as
of kind.
of
moral Governor
Hebrews or
it
;
in
is
and
this
the two daughter-religions derived from what we of the Western world mean
by
religion.
How
to account for
is
its
;
special appearance
among
yet.
the
Hebrews
the problem
the solution
is
not
III.
it
first
Junior Right in Genesis. This paper, when appeared, gave rise to somewhat heated discusand the Academy.
In the former,
Rumsey, of King's College, brought forward some objections, of what I ventured to term
Professor Almaric
early
Sunday School type, against my statement that the heroes of the Hebrews were represented by tradition as the younger sons. Professor Rumsey seemed to regard the genealogies of Genesis as a sort of glorified Debrett, and could not conceive of them as successive growths of traditions about imaginary
a
necessary to modify
my
among
pages.
bauer put
me some shrewd
questions as to primogeniture
among
which
have taken
account in revising
my
essay.
IV.
Totem Clans
in
INTRODUCTION.
In reprinting
this
xix
it
essay
have added to
the
list
of
names derived from animals and plants in the Old Testament which form the basis of my discussion of the question raised by Mr. Robertson Smith, in the Journal of Philology, 1880. Professor Smith never explicitly disavowed the conclusions he came to in that essay, but in his work on Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, which appeared after my paper had been read (though before it was published), he implicitly abandoned two of the chief points to which I took objection. His book, which is practically an essay on the origin of the family among the Western Semites, has not a word to say about David as belonging to the Serpent Clan, and it puts an interpretation on the crucial passage in Ezekiel which robs it of any connection with a Totem Clan
organisation at so late a period.
He
back any Totemistic organisation of the Hebrews in prehistoric times, and thus in all directions confirms the
demurrers which
1880.
I
He now
con-
nects the
lope."
This,
substantiated,
would be an important
we
could
thus trace
them
to
all
back to two
(Leah).
am
unable
say
how
Professor
Robertson Smith's views in this direction have obtained Stade the adhesion of the few competent authorities.
appears
to accept them in his Geschichte, but both Wellhausen and Dillmann rejected the conclusions of the
xx
earlier
INTRODUCTION.
paper.
I
do not
know how
far
either
of these
I by the later that Wellobserve from an addendum to Benzinger hausen has recently dealt with the same subject as Professor Smith's book, in the Gottingen Nachrichten
scholars
book.
Die Ehe bet den Arabern. But as the British Museum, by a very short-sighted policy, does not as a
for 1893,
rule allow
one access to
is,
specialist journals
in the
first
two, that
in the
two most
how
far his
Robertson Smith.
stress
In discussing this question myself I was careful to lay upon the fact that the question was not one which could be determined by Hebrew evidence alone, or turned on the " if" of my first proposition in the summary of my results on page 94. " If Anthropology teaches that
the
Totemistic arrangement
development,"
),
is
necessary
stage
of
first
national
was
final
my
word
preamble of the
is still
Thesis
(p.
and the
science of Anthropology.
McLennan,
on which Robertson Smith's views were founded. Dr. Westermarck's History of Human Marriage has brought weighty objections against the too hasty acceptance of McLennan's views, so far at least as they relate to the
early
While
these are
still
sub
judice, his
In reporting,
as I
am
doing here,
in the
raised
INTRODUCTION.
of Anthropology
Professor
is
xxi
favourable
to
at
present
not so
Robertson Smith's views as it was when I originally wrote ; but I fancy it is only one of the usual swings of the pendulum of opinion, and shall not be surprised if both McLennan's original views and Robertson Smith's special application of them are taken up into the Science of Anthropology, though perhaps in some modified form as part of a wider induction.
V.
The Nethinim. I
as
my
be.
views on the
Nethinim, revolutionary
they
may
The
is
fact that
not one
which often opens its pages to essays on Biblical subjects may have something to do with this neglect, if it needs any explanation. Possibly, also, some of my excursions into the etymology of the personal names of the Nethinim may have deterred the professional Biblical critic, who is rather apt to assume that if any of your etymologies is wrong, nothing of your reasoning can
possibly be right.
this too
I
On
the present
occasion,
any
rate,
altogether independent
I
pointed out in
my
essay, the
Nethinim in the post-Biblical literature of the Jews, as evidenced by Talmud and Midrash, is by itself sufficient
to prove their originally degraded status.
Taking
they
into
Temple,
were
leads
at
once to the
the
conclusion
that
connected with
Kedishoth or sacred
prostitutes,
xxii
INTRODUCTION.
defiled
who
Exile.
the
precincts
of the
a
Temple up
to
the
The
speculation
may seem
somewhat unimportant
;
but
it
may have
nature
Hebrew
religion
by the Prophets.
in a
Human
Hebrew prophecy
being
regarded
is,
one of
natural
its
aspects, explained
by
the
as
reaction
against
thought
into
VI. Indian Origin of Proverbs XXX. I have it worth while to add to this volume an inquiry
the
literary
origin
of the
a
thirtieth
chapter
of
Proverbs
which formed
in
part
of a
more
elaborate
argument
my
was not
which
it
originally
am
parallels
once more before their notice. The remarkably close between several passages in that particular
of
chapter
Proverbs
appendix to the
Indian literature
book
which with
is
obviously
early
separate
very
portions
of
deserve
fuller
attention
than
have
the
VII. Revised Old Testament. My estimate in Athenaum of the revisers' version of the Old Testafirst
ment, the
criticism.
The
specialist
INTRODUCTION.
vision
xxiii
by no means
little
fully
the general
on the score of wanton change. So little indeed is the complaint on this score that the tendency is rather to refuse to see any striking
to complain
superiority over the Authorised Version. During the nine years that have elapsed since the appearance of the
version
it
This
books
is
on
this
ground alone
is
my
description of
is
the whole,
revised
margins,"
There
study
is
tendency
for
Biblical
more into the hands of to get more specialists. means, it would appear, that the This One of Bible is losing its appeal in modern life.
and
the
reasons
of this
is
significant
example of
the
Up
European institutions, like those of Bible, were based on agricultural and pastoral life. The Bible is a country book, modern life is town life. European institutions are, nowadays, based on an economic social condition, in which the dominating hence an ever widening gap factor is manufacture
century,
the
;
between the social conditions at the basis of Biblical The process life and those which rule modern society. social condition to another is of translation from one
xxiv
INTRODUCTION.
is
needed on the
lines
which
have
RECENT RESEARCH
To
IN BIBLICAL
1
ARCHAEOLOGY.
and stones,"
man
of bones
Testament
exercise
his
styled, the
Old
to
on
which
industry
and ingenuity.
a seal of
The
boundary
;
M. Clermont Ganneau
Phoenician,
age
jar,
which
is
probably
remnants of the Ophel Wall "that lieth out" (Neh. iii. 2 of the 26) this is the scanty yet complete list
remains of
is
obviously no
s
field
the study of
of
Hebrew
rightly
named
Biblical
Archaeology.
1
In
is
Testament.
2
cc.
iii.
and
iv.
[Mr.
be added.
See Introduction.]
An
Archaeology,
while doing excellent work in Assyriology and Egyptology, scarcely ever, by any chance, has anything to say about Biblical Archaeology.
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
At
first
no reason
to complain of any
want of activity in this field of research. So numerous have become the essays, the treatises, the reviews, and
even the special journals devoted to the subject, that
be impossible for
it
any one person to follow all that would done in the subject, or even in any branch of it, is being without some organisation by which these multifarious Bibliography, which in researches should be duly noted.
these
days
has
grown
to
be
the
scientia
conservatrix
at last
come
Many
is
made
work
that
For two or
Orientalist as
progress of
all
of Oriental research,
and
included
research
an
summary
of Old
Jabresbericbte became
from the pen of Prof. Siegfried. more and more "verspatet" in publication, and ceased after, I think, three issues. 1 This
fault is avoided by the excellent Theologische Jahresbericht^ which now always appears in the year following the
literature reviewed.
Celerity of reference
is
also afforded
by the book-lists of the Zeitschrift fur alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft^ edited by Prof. Stade and at the beginning of each year Prof. Zockler reviews the Old Testament
;
fur Kirchenrecent
Cheyne
his
usually appraises
work
1
in
unique combination of
The
a section devoted to O.
RECENT RESEARCH.
scholarship and literary insight.
purposes,
all
these reviews
quarterly
issues
of
the
come up
recorded,
within
three,
or
at
article,
is
no indication given of their relative value, and too little of their contents, but one soon acquires the bibliographer's instinct, and recognises the names from which good work may be anticipated ; while the amount and
character of the reviews
serve
as
which a book or
its
article receives
measure of
is
importance.
Yes,
Biblical
and we can now know definitely where we are in any branch of the subject. I have thought it would be of some interest to estimate the amount of literature chronicled by the
Bibliography 1
organised,
Orientalische
Bibliographie.
Taking
the
last
two
etc.,
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
Or
an average of two hundred books, articles, and reviews per quarter, or eight hundred a year, nearly
two-and-a-half
a
day,
not
to
speak
of the
articles,
or
less
directly
on
the
And
yet with
all
is
this activity I
have no hesitation in
whole range
condition as
has attracted
of scholarship
that
in
so
backward
a
it
I
is
book, but
Yet there is very little attempt as yet to on periods or on subjects. A Biblical scholar is supposed to be equally au fait with the problem of the Pentateuch, with the apocalypse of Daniel, with the book
sand years.
specialise
of Kings, and with Job. It is as if one should expect good work on the Sophoclean drama from an editor of the
Republic,
or
look
for
instruction
on Ovid from an
required for
authority
on Gaius.
The
qualifications
work
for post-Biblical
all
the
in
its list.
It
is
now
issued
Psalms
and Proverbs could be divided up into separate collections. Burke put the case well when he spoke of the Bible as " a most venerable but most multifarious
collection
economy
carried
RECENT RESEARCH.
one of these subjects are quite
required for another.
different
from those
As
Old
Testament
forty,
we
if
are at
present at a standstill
special
"indices verborum"
If one wants to
know
Ezekiel
the best, is by no one wants to get a general impression of the prophet's vocabulary and style, one can only work it out by oneself. 1 Then the lexicography of Hebrew is still represented most completely by Gesenius'
Fiirst's,
and
means
satisfactory; while if
more than half a century ago. Fancy Greek scholar content with the first edition of Passow, or a Latin one with Facciolati. And for proper names
Thesaurus, planned
last century, with their always faulty and often ludicrous etymologies, are our only aids in
the onomastica of
this
important subject.
it is
But
It
is
state of
Old Testament
a
scholarship
is
in
that
is
New
the
only within
for
determining one
Baer has also within the last twenty years brought out editions of separate books which give us an adequate idea of the Massoretic
edition of the Massora.
1
Notwithstanding
all
the literary activity of the past fifty years on the is no such thing as an " index verborum " of the
is
no edition of them
in
Hebrew,
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
it
is,
as
When we
we
shall still
off
from a text that can form a sure foundation for research into the Hebrew past, though the Massoretic text
will always represent the
Bible as
it
world.
But
there
is
yet
main versions of
this,
According and he
The
time seems
off before
we
And
can
logy
?
how
we hope
on firm ground
in Biblical Archaeo-
How
often have
of theory come
we not seen a whole scaffolding down headlong when one prop based on
is
was
tion
in
the
days
of
the
before
of the
texts.
Many
books,
e.g.,
Job,
are in as
bad a state as
the
Eumenides,
as
and though
on
1
Proverbs,
I
Wellhausen
on
Samuel,
have heard
it
bably the greatest Massorite that has ever lived, was unable to get a publisher
for a
Such
happen in
2
am
whom Hebrew
may
is still
in
which they
are born,
be expected to do
"
RECENT RESEARCH.
Bruston on the Psalms, Cornill on Ezekiel, there no adequate recognition of this primary need. It
characteristic that the only collection of the
y
is
is
most
plausible
emendations
offered
are
is
Printers' Bible.
arrived at in the interests of a author or opponent of a theory finds some passage which does not agree with his views ; he
generally
" tendency."
looks up the
is
The
LXX.
on the
point, and
is
corrupt.
What we want
textual criticism,
which
be conducted on definite and general principles based on the largest possible induction of the facts, and entirely
shall
indifferent
whether Wellhausen.
its
results
tell
for
Dillmann or
for
The
as
Archaeology has
be
emphasized, because
the past,
the
rests
when
this
much
emphasis
is
Of
course
it
too
much
to
period, but
trustworthy dates.
say
for
matter of
before the
fact,
certain within
happened in Judah or
While
what history of
?
we have worthy of
the
name
What
should
we
it
say
was
fertile
a disadvantage.
In
this
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
I.
died
in
1620 or 1660
As we want
Hitherto
we need
a Scaliger
we
The
of chronology, are
they are
all
and yet
adequate treatment of
Hebrew
of any antiquities.
of
Old Testament
literature given
above, the
proportion
whole
is
being
of our
This
characteristic
own times and of the present state of Biblical research. The amount of scholarship which is nowadays being
devoted
is
to
remarkable.
to the
Running through
first
the
table
for
of
con-
tributors
Encyclopaedia Britannica
example,
one
names
are,
in
contemporary
scholarship
devoted to
:
And
with reason
centuries
places
and towns
their
were, huge
documents that
preserve
more
completely than
all
we
possess,
through the any others. Round the knowledge of the past that thrown is mutual. In Biblical
identity
Holy Land
so
are practically
we may
term them.
Hence the
many
years
RECENT RESEARCH.
past in investigating
all
In that work the Palestine Exploration Fund has taken a foremost part, and though its work cannot yet be said to be ended, it is nevertheless true that
it set out to do some This may be divided into two great divisions the Map, or rather Ordnance Survey, of the Holy Land, with the Memoirs that illustrate it, and the identification of Biblical sites. The former is scarcely recent enough to be considered here, though
Holy Land.
it
the
almost
universal
praise
of geographical experts
for
is
sufficient
to indicate
that
Western
Palestine that
work
with
all.
What
of
greater praise
is
Somewhat
identification,
different
the case
a
work of
issued
which
useful
summary was
in 1888.
This enables
which we are indebted Fund. The results are somewhat meagre. The list of names and places includes some 1500 in the Old Testament and Apocrypha. Those which are claimed in the list as having been identified by those connected with the Fund, with more or less probability, amount
But of these only to 144, if I have calculated aright. the very large number of 97 are queried even by the suggestors, leaving only a nett accession of knowledge
amounting
to
47
sites
identified.
Of
course, the
cream
of the work of identification had been removed by the 1 admirable and thorough work of Robinson, and of
1
After
all,
considering
its
work
of
the
like
Fund
io
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
left
what he
Still it
names
are
must be confessed that the work of the Fund in is somewhat disappointing, especially as so much must have been hoped from it in this direction by its most enthusiastic supporters, the searchers The Committee, after " confirmations " of Holy Writ. however, have always denied any responsibility for this
this line of research
side
of
the
work of
first
their
officials,
who
have been
geographers
Meanwhile,
way of
identity of so
the remarkable
ancient names.
still
Many
exist,
Roman,
Exploration
Fund
of
anthropological
and
folk-lore notes
make up
Palestine society.
The
it
be again referred to
but
with
Some
and
assistance in
Assyriological
the
for
topography, 1
and
more
may
be
geo-
expected in
1
I use this
term
What name
are
we
to give to the
RECENT RESEARCH.
graphical
n
stages
horizon of the
Hebrews
at
different
of their contact with the greater monarchies surrounding them. Not much, however, has been done here since
Delitzsch and Lenormant, the former in his
too
Wo
lag das
much
fragment.
antiquities
Of
the
more
direct elucidation of
Hebrew
from the
Assyrian
recently
records,
Schrader's
well-known
"KAT,"
still
Englished by
this
Rev.
O. C. Whitehouse,
that
mark of Assyriological
alone
research.
from
to
quarter
we may
above.
expect a
logy
which
have
referred
Of
other
more
from
not
like
sporadic
contributions
to
Biblical
Archaeology
do
I
myself competent to
refer
speak. 1
But
would
to
to
Anthropological Institute,
if not entirely novel, have reached stages of development that constitute a new departure. These
which,
are papers
by Prof. R. Stuart-Poole (Journ. Anth. Inst., (ib., Nov., 1888), on the race-types found on the Egyptian and the Assy-
monuments
on
respectively.
The
direct bearing
of the
Israelites.
Mr.
dogmatism which is obviously not justified by the materials at hand for his most startling suggestion that the most characteristic racial marks of the Hebrews come
1
[A
useful
summary
of the
more recent
additions
from these
sources,
See Introduction.]
12
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
But
his
of
After
archaic
all is
said
and written,
little
life
Book
us.
to be of exceptional interest to
Hence the
literary
criticism of the
to
Bible must
Biblical Archaeology.
analysis that has
critical
No
as has
much "
slicing," to use a
term
of Mr. Gladstone's,
of
scholars.
far as
And
is concerned. De Wette, Ewald, Hupfeld, Kuenen, and Wellhausen, have each added his quota to the settlement of the question of attribution. 2 Every
known
one of
now
referred to
sources.
It
is
indeed
remarkable what
unanimity
now
prevails as
to
To
Here, again,
is
a point
Exploration
inhabitants
!
Fund may throw light. Collections of race-types of the present of Canaan may show the same kind of continuity as has been
p. 79).
lam
For
we should have
to
RECENT RESEARCH.
to justify
13
such confidence. The distinction of the Divine names " Elohim " and " Jahveh," which formed the starting-point of the whole investigation, only or mainly applies to Genesis, and in that book only applies generally and with exceptions. The linguistic tests
applied to distinguish the different sources are rendered
Hebrew
literature
And
the whole
method of
analysis
made
in the narratives, both in matter and form, may be due not to differences in written accounts, but to divergences in oral tradition. Much of the narrative portion is still
"JE," in which the Jahvist and Elohist seem inextricably mixed. It does not seem to have occurred to any investigator that these passages might have been written down by a narrator who was
attributed to
sources
familiar with, or
who had
The
which such frequent and such suspicious resort is made by the literary analysers, would then be natural additions of the first hand that put the stories on parchment. If
the brothers
Grimm,
would
have occurred. 1
of tradition
as
for divergences
;
much
one
but
it
accounts
much more
It
to read out,
couple of variants of a Greek myth to a set of intelligent schoolboys (using perhaps " Zeus " in one case and " Jupiter " in the other), and getting them
to reproduce the story
from memory
a short
time afterwards.
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
plausibly, as it seems to me, than the current views which make the various " redactors " suspiciously similar to a modern sub-editor with his shears and paste. Curiously enough, none of these investigators have taken
how
literary redactors
do proceed
when
of examples.
relations of
though the mediaeval chroniclers afford over-abundance To take an instance near at hand, the
Roger of Howden
of
to Benedict of
Peter-
instances
what
mean, where
the
later
"redactor" takes over the previous writer's work en bloc, adding to it, but not " slicing " it about in the
manner assumed by the German and Dutch critics. A minute study of Holinshed and his sources would probably throw as much light on the problem here raised as anything I can think of. At the same time it must be owned that the literary critics have in several places, as
in the story or stories of Creation, and in that of Joseph, produced evidence which seems to indicate the existence
And
or
in
work
is
divergent
writing.
tradition,
whether
preserved
orally
The
only difference
by regarding the sources as origins more indefinite in point of time than they
regarded at present.
Be
the
all this
as it
may,
literary criticism
proceeding on
assumption of Redaction of
literary,
now done
its
minutest.
On
the whole,
RECENT RESEARCH.
analysers.
15
There
is
is
whole Hexafive
teuch that
sources
(1.)
:
The
use of the
J,
Jahvist, whose work is distinguished by the name "Jahveh" (Wellhausen and Kuenen's
Dillmann's B).
(2.)
The
nomy
(4.)
i.-ii.
The Deuteronomist, who compiled Deuteroand "redacted" (1) and (2) (Wellhausen D,
Dillmann D).
The Priestly Narrative, beginning with Gen. (Wellhausen Q, Kuenen P 3 , Dillmann A). 3 (5.) The Priestly Laws, containing the legislative
PC, Kuenen
S). 1
P l5 Dillmann
Q Q Q
by
their
own
methods.
Wellhausen and Kuenen on the one side, Dillmann on are at one as to the sorting out of the whole the other contents of the Hexateuch into these five pigeon-holes.
is
Where
mental
1
they
differ
as
and
the
is
fundasources
to
dating of
the
various
Profs.
differences
eight.
than
xxxiii.
see
Gen.
17-20.
16
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
The
chief sources in
are
two, the
is
Priestly Narratives
and
than
a difference of
no
less
Wellhausen and Kuenen placing them Dillmann in the ninth century B.C. There is also some difference as to the localisation of those sources, which are admitted to be early by both sides. I have thought it would be interesting to exhibit in a graphic form the views of the two schools which
the
Exil,
now
divide
Biblical
criticism
as
to
the
dates
of the
in
sources
of the
Pentateuch.
The
latest
utterances
complete form 1 are contained in the second edition of Kuenen's Onderzoek (excellently Englished by Rev. P.
H. Wicksteed), and
mann's commentary
Joshua,
in
is
in the
concluding
essay of
Dill-
the
(which
though by
From
The main points of argument are as to the date of Deuteronomy, the Israelite origin of the Jahvist, and the
late date
The
steep gradients of
two
Pentateuch.
tendency
Renan,
1
We have
Dillmann's weighty statement of his case in the third volume of his mentary on the Pentateuch.
Com-
RECENT RESEARCH.
to incline to Dillmann's side.
in his history,
is
Stade,
Dillmann.
Judah.
Judah.
Israel.
QOO
800
{-_
70O
600
(A+B+C) a
(ABC+
500
d)
ABCDS
400
1
Dillmann
is
Priestly Legislation.
2
two
more
The
C
same
five
two
schools.
18
It
is
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
safe to say, perhaps, that the
triumphant progress of
at present barred
is
by
has
Dillmann's
produced.
Germany
Meanwhile,
it
deserves
being
pointed
out in these
The main
point
question
at
issue
is
connected at
:
every
with
the
archaeology of institutions
is
the
Priestly Legislation
whose date
to be settled
bristles
Yet
by the disputants of the light might be thrown on their problem by the that application of the modern methods of archaeological KittelFs work is preceded by an elaborate research. account of the present state of Biblical criticism, and a
no
account
is
taken
indulges
in
philological
etymologising
to
greater
extent
and in his second volume he gives a resume of Elohist and Jahvist, in which, against all probability, he
;
attributes
to
origination
of the
oral
The
conditions under
which
normal order of social development, the traces or " survivals " which, as we now begin to know in other cases, are invariably left by past stages of
society
all
which these
RECENT RESEARCH.
Here seems
research
in to
me
field
the
great
the
of
Biblical
criticism.
literary
Where
analysis,
Germany
England
holds the
pre-eminence in
possesses almost a
monopoly
in the
methods of
its best,
sociological research.
Institutional archaeology
must be
called in to carry
Men
conditions which
can
be observed
analogous cases.
We
bind
life
are beginning to
know some
men
together
some degree of
precision
down by Maclennan.
as
if
all
We
speak of the
as
Israel "
were known
to
the
man
a tribesman of
Dan
As a matter of fact, or Benjamin, as the case may be. we know nothing of the kind. It is surprising how little we know of the tribal constitution of the early Hebrews. Even as early as Solomon we find it overriden by a
system of
local
his territories
( i
Kings
is
7-19).
to be discussed, in
inheri-
raised
no
The
is,
as will
marry
tribe.
their cousins, so as to
Such a statement
raises
number of problems
in the
trained
c 2
20
in the
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
methods of Maclennan and Tylor. Does this which a indicate a general custom of exogamy to had to be made in the case of particular exception heiresses ; and if so, was exogamy between tribe and The heiresses were tribe or between family and family ? Here to married to their " father's brother's sons." to be
the English archaeologist
is
custom
laid
when
stress
was
on
the
Leah and
their handmaidens.
None
the
mind of
literary critic,
who
identities
of language
whole
words.
shifts
to
which the
literary
little
archaeological
considerations
leads
may be
Wellhausen,
Codex is later than Deuteronomy, comes to the question of tithes. " It is absolutely astounding " ( History of Israel, Eng. Tr., p. 157), "that the tithe, which in its proper nature should
oil
to
be extended in
Code
out of account
mentioned
in the passage
is
from Deuteronomy.
But
moment
them
in
of the obvious fact that cattle are the earliest possessions of man, and
we might
RECENT RESEARCH.
the very beginning of legislation.
far as I
21
Nor
does Dillmann, so
can
see,
make any
his opponent.
they leave out of account the decisive criteria of institutional archaeology. It may be replied that after all it is not much loss if we do not learn much as to the social institutions of the early Hebrews. That may or may not be the case, but
present
that
methods employed. As for the possible light may come from such application, it is surely the faith in which we students of the past live that sound and
thorough work in any department cannot
influence on the whole sphere of inquiry.
fail
to have
its
And
experience
impor-
would have thought meaning of that simpering nonentity, the " best man " at weddings, were destined to result in a complete transnovel sources of elucidation.
that Maclennan's investigations
into the original
Who
As formation of our views about the origin of society ? an instance of the light that seemingly antiquarian inquiries may throw on the deeper problems of the Old
Testament,
example,
Genesis,"
to
I
may
my own
first
paper
appeared
on "Junior
in
Right
in
which
the
pages of
the
Primarily
which
it
my
gave
views
rise
The
4,
controversies to
(see
Athen., July
Aug.
3, 10,
17)
22
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
to refer to a point which, even if established,
seem
would
But,
early
as I
show, the
Hebrews would
account for the existence in Genesis of almost all the socalled " immoral " narratives of the book, and would thus
throw more light on the composition of the latter part of the book than any amount of literary analysis, which fails altogether to determine the motives with which
such narratives were introduced. That is the peculiar merit of
the
method
of
" survivals,"
enables
that
it
system by means of a single relic of it. As a fossil us to determine approximately the fauna and flora of a geological period, so a " survival " gives us
as
information
to
the whole
stages of social
develop-
ment.
that
It
is
we
immediate future
past.
for
And
little
it
most of is by
method of "survivals"
that
what
at.
has been
Mr. Fenton's
little book on " Early Hebrew Life," Prof. Robertson Smith's article on " Totem Clans " in the Old Testament, in the Journal of Philology for 1880,
and
I
my own
aware. 1
list,
so
far
as
am
Nothing has
as yet
promising subjects
have only confirmed
1
me
in the soundness of
is
my
original position.
But
my
Much
of Dr.
Maybaum's work on
There
are also
method
of survivals.
some
points touched
RECENT RESEARCH.
relation
23
between the
Sayce
sessile
once
threw
luminous
hint
on
The
with
isolated
and seemingly
discordant facts.
is
no reason
confine
ourselves
to
Hebrew life and institutions did not cease at records. once on the close of the Biblical canon. Centuries of development intervened before the continuity of the national life was altogether destroyed by the Diaspora
under Hadrian in the second century. records are much more voluminous and
logical matters than the
The
full
post-Biblical
all
on
archaeo-
stores of information
remain unused
or
rather,
this
taken conception of
seventeenth century
stages
Biblical Archaeology.
The
scholars and
divines of the
utilise
the
further
to-day.
They
still
used the
Talmud
uncritically,
results
it
is
true,
that their
works are
24
utility.
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
Spencer's
De
Legibus
Hebreeorum
is
still
the
Yet, in considering
no one seems
Biblical epoch
Talmudic
be found
times, there
may
still
among
the
To
take a simple
is
" survival " of religious tabu of the animal sacred to Odin. Conversely, may we not find traces of the reasons why the coney, for example, was included among the forbidden food of the Hebrews,
Fellahin of to-day
?
among
the
Bedawin and
It
is
this
who
the
literary criticism,
now
almost ex-
is
The
know
is
of to
show
among
und Midrasch-Haggada,"
2
in the
Zunz Jubelschrift.
were not sub-
It
is
and
utilised.
RECENT RESEARCH.
likely to
25
Hebrew
antiquities,
because
it
is
especially in
the region of
we
tenacious vitality.
is
And
for art
our interest
in Biblical Archaeology
"
Greece
Rome
nation's
for law,
England
and science,
this
is
the
greatest enlighten-
ment.
In the case of
we
from
ritual,
from
found even in the prophetic writings which did most to disentangle religio from the other bonds of men in archaic
In approaching the religious development of from the institutional standpoint, we are to expect as much enlightenment from the non-religious element which still remained as from the purer tendencies which were struggling to emerge from the midst of elements which are now seen to be alien by us, but were not so
society.
Israel
One
can see
once
how
relics
direct a bearing
on
religious problems
would
by such " survivals," as indeed was recognised by philosophic Jewish authorities like Maimonides, who declares that Moses adapted idolatrous practices to a purer
worship.
There
is
another
aspect
26
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
Old Testament
is
instruc-
in
the
highest degree.
The
whole tendency of
modern criticism is to lay stress on the Prophets rather than upon the Law as the significant thing in Israel's M. Renan, who reflects well the religious development. of modern scholarship in this direction, makes tendencies this the keynote of his whole treatment of the history of Israel. Now the whole activity of the Prophets is directed against these "survivals of savage life," which can only be adequately studied by anthropological
methods.
the
idolatry."
statement that
" the
is
Prophets
thundered
against
that
is
But
it
the
commonest experience
when
there
common ground between the disputants, and we shall have to recognise this common ground in the case of the Where they differed was in things which Prophets. 1
they saw affected the nation in matters of livelihood and
of morals.
the
M. Renan
;
were
first Socialists
it
was
souls.
And
in their opposition to
idolatry
it
was the
amount of
social degradation
moved
As good
" adding
to field "
as fathers of families
As
a source of explanation
It has been
official
!
Israel, the
one Lord
its
declaration of monotheism, " Hear " (Deut. vi. 4), contains an implicit
recognition of polytheism in
survival of this in the
German Emperor's
emphasis on our God. M. Renan sees a phrase, " Unser Gott," during
"
RECENT RESEARCH.
of the prophetic activity,
27
the " method of survivals becomes " the method of opposition." 1 All this will seem distasteful to many who object to having things held sacred for so many generations subjected to analysis and
shown
to have
undergone a course
of natural development.
it
may
be replied that
are called
upon
to revere.
new
The The
never disappeared
prophets'
Moloch seems
aspect of the
socialistic
work connects
at
With
regard
to
the
objection which
to entertain against
is
The
not
old
this
regard.
" Akabiah
ben Mahalaleel
Know come into the hands of transgression. whence thou earnest from a fetid drop and whither to worm and maggot and before thou art going
:
whom
before
thou
the
iii.
art
King of
1).
He "
(Mishna,
Aboth^
1
infra,
both
From
the
exceptional
I
degradation
led
the
Nethinim
were
shown
was
much
method
of opposition.
"
28
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
But we need not
dilate further
is
sufficient
for
need of the application of the methods of institutional There is at present, as we have seen, a archaeology.
pause in Biblical research, because the old methods of
literary criticism
results.
It scarcely
process can
now
have
at a deadlock
failed to find
who
any crucial test to decide between them by any further application of purely literary criticism. I fancy I can discern some traces of misgiving on this
his
is
standard
work
so
by no means
The
The
which
form the points in dispute between the two dominant schools of Biblical criticism. Such an appeal should come home to English scholars, for the new methods
have been chiefly developed in England.
COMPARATIVE RELIGION.
29
RECENT RESEARCH
IN COMPARATIVE RELIGION.
Fundamental
Institutions, by
W.
Robert-
1889.
:
(Black.)
A Study
in Comparative Religion, by
J.
G. Frazer.
the
Aryan
Peoples,
by 0. Schrader.
Isaac Taylor.
(Scott.)
The
first
list
for folk-lore,
which has been consistently advocated by the Here we have two books dealing with the primitive religion of the two great groups of nations from which civilisation has obtained its chief
science
Folk-Lore Society.
spiritual material,
for
and both avowedly appeal to folk-lore methods of investigation and for corroborative criteria.
freely the analogy of savage
Both use
with confidence the method of "survivals," in order to reconstruct the primitive systems from which the " survivals "
derive.
The two
problems of
human
thought,
may
be obtained
30
from
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
folk-tales, superstitions,
which
Of
first,
the
as
it
and
perhaps, the
more
important.
Though
it is
Arabs
in
their
relations
to
those
is
of
the
Old Testament.
origins.
is
Assyriological evidence
hieratic
character
to
throw light on
The
too scanty
and precarious to be of
refers
much
value,
to
it
now and
again.
So that, practically,
we
pro-
evidence
is
very
late,
being mainlv
Arabs contained in the Hamasa and the Kitab Al Aghani. To these are added a few notices in the commentators and geographers, as well as those contained in classical
sources.
latter, indeed, an account of the Arabs in the fourth century A.D., by Nilus, does Prof. Smith yeoman's service, as we
One
of the
shall see.
It
is
that he
anthropological method.
He
among
life,
and
date
earlier in
COMPARATIVE RELIGION.
31
necessarily the earlier in development. is His implicit assumption throughout his book is, that the practices of the nomad Arabs, even though recorded much later, are
the
common
and more
And
welcome
among non-Semites
if
it
well, indeed,
of evidence.
the
On
has
frequent
recourse to
Talmud
and kindred literature of the later Hebrews. Here, if anywhere, we should expect to find " survivals " of archaic custom ; and much of Talmudic ritual carries on the face
of
it
Prof. Smith works of Spencer and Selden in the seventeenth century, but he would have done well to have followed their example in using the Talmud. He would, besides, have been able by this means to test the current hypothesis of the sequence of the three codes into which the Pentateuch has been divided by the Dutch and
ideal codes of
German
carried
critics.
certain direction,
still
we ought
to
find
that
development
in
further in the
same direction
is
Talmudic
is
times.
As
of
little
scarcely mentione
more than once or twice by Prof. Smith. Another point in which Prof. Smith
adopts
the
32
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
is,
that he seeks
in early
practice
rather
than
looks
in
early-
thought or theory.
less
In other words, he
for the
primitive,
if
indeed
any
the
Thus
work deals in the main with the ritual of Sacrifice, and its meaning among the primitive Semites ; and the subject of Semitic mythology is left for
the second series of the Burnett Lectures.
Prof. Smith
is
Here, again,
at
Lang, and all from an anthropological standpoint. So much for method, which is entirely that of the
English schools.
Scarcely a year previously, I expressed
a hope in the pages of
Biblical Archaeology
one with Mr. Spencer, Dr. Tylor, Mr. those who have treated of early religion
the Archaokgical
treated
would be
I
wrote, Prof.
with
signal
mastery.
how
tion
cordially I
to
Biblical
and
if
it
in the
is
demur
to
some of
first
conclusions,
on the under-
standing that in a
footing the
herein
field
let
me
Prof.
The
subject of this
have
said,
mainly
Prof.
sacrifice
and
its
meaning.
Smith has a few preliminary lectures on the nature of the Semitic gods, in which he has an ingenious suggestion
explaining the Baalim as divine lords of the manor, so to
COMPARATIVE RELIGION.
speak, and a
still
33
(the Genii of our youth and of the Arabian Nights) as " potential totems " of the waste places of the desert. But
all
this
is
This is, briefly, that sacrifice is a common meal of the god and his worshippers, by which their community of
blood (in a
to time.
literal
from time
where blood is used on the altar or on the worshipper. He minimises the importance of vegetable offerings, and sees in them the quite late and advanced modes of approaching the god. Except, however, in the one instance, given by Nilus, and
gives instances
He
sprinkled
referred to above, he
fails
which the absorption of blood into the worshippers seems part of the rites. 1 Nor has he been able to show any analogous rites with such an avowed object among
savages.
Mr.
Fraser, indeed,
in
his
new
book, gives
numerous examples of such meals, but none in which the object is to restore communion between god and worshipper. The whole idea of communion seems to me too
theologically abstract to be at the basis of savage rites of
sacrifice.
1
to
some
utilitarian
As
of
Smith's views,
pendix.
Parisiis,
is
he had reprinted
it
in
an Apinedita,
It is
not everyone
It
is
who
quadam
1639.
Latin version
Sand., Jan.
14.
34
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
it
motive, based,
may
be,
Now,
it is
what advantage a savage can derive from being made one with his god, by eating the same flesh as he. One could understand the use of " eating the god,"
by which to obtain the divine
Fraser gives
qualities
and powers
Mr.
the
many examples
of
this.
But what
?
is
Even
in the
tribal bond with the totem, though there is, in initiatory ceremonies, an attempt to give blood-communion with the fellow-tribesmen (Frazer^
At
ism among the primitive Semites, the evidence for which he has brought forward in his Kinship and Marriage
Ancient Arabia.
in
Now,
judices.
cannot think of
more than four men in Europe who are competent, from knowledge of pre-historic Arabia, to pass judgment on the success of Prof. Smith's attempt to prove totemism in Arabia ; and of these, two, Wellhausen and Goldziher, are adverse to his claims. But even assuming Arabic totemism to be proved, Prof. Smith has still to show that
in totemistic
communities
sacrifice
is
of the character of
communion.
The blood-communion
as a
vera causa
it
has
among savage tribes with the avowed communion between the totem or god
my
discussion of the question,
?
the reader to
COMPARATIVE RELIGION.
With
to the Semites, there
is
35
we know
the
Hebrews
were
No
is
just
one of those
likely to be
seemingly
that are
most
primitive, or
least
archaic.
And
being
on the ordinarily
it
easily
what belongs
victim's
practices
life,
the the
the blood.
of
Hebrew
may
As
be
explained on the
a utili-
where we do have
most precious
life
gift I
my own
blood, the
order to prevent
him
him
to do
me
as
good.
Prof.
The
analogy
comrade.
It will thus
religion to a sort of
on the
"
It
is
says, p.
not with a vague fear of unknown powers," he 55, " but with a loving reverence for known
are knit to their worshippers
gods,
who
by strong bonds
It
is,
perhaps,
term
for sacrifice,
Corban
and there
is
D 2
36
begins."
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
That
is
it
scarcely
answers to what
we know
about
ithe
higher beings.
matter of that, to the feeling of the majority of men And it is met by the further who are not savages.
difficulty of the facts of
ship,
and are as certainly dominated by Smith objects that magic is never Prof.
To
that
this
its
religion,
is
nor
source.
But
its
surely
its
simplest explanation
its
it is
is
gloomy aspect
later
due to
and
the
way
of Prof.
the
fact of
human
sacrifice.
That
cannot be a
meal of god and worshippers, and accordingly Prof. Smith has to make the most ingenious hypotheses to explain the late origin of human sacrifices
common
among But if
the Semites,
among whom
that
it
certainly existed.
it
the marks of
primitiveness,
of
human
sacrifice,
and
its
way of
Finally,
much
morning
rites
of the Sinaitic
Arabs.
Thus
of the
sacrificial
worship which
we know
among
the
Northern Arabs. 1
1
And
Wellhausen,
who
first
drew attention
COMPARATIVE RELIGION.
drinking, I
notice
37
Smith's account.
On
"
p.
half-raw,
and
merely softened
"
on
is
320, the
company "hack
off pieces
raw."
practically nil.
Thus
that Prof.
view that
among
origin a
The most
Perhaps some
Not
proven."
due to
its style
and arrangement.
signally
The
retention
which
is
inappropriate in
field
where
facts
is
decidedly hard
book
suffers
much by
skill
is
of Mr.
summaries
great
is
at appropriate
pauses of his
argument.
So
ele-
that his
book
is
ments.
The avowed
to slay
of Aricia being succeeded by the man who managed him after plucking the Golden Bough from the
tree under
which he
lived.
But
besides this,
Mr. Frazer
38
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
make known
beyond
to
has desired to
hardt's
deities.
English readers
facts
Mann-
remarkable views
and
about agricultural
And
the
vast
materials
he has been collecting for many years. In noticing his book we may, perhaps, separate these three threads of his cunningly woven weft.
Mr.
is,
briefly,
to be slain
life
by
his
sacred
of the
fields
would be kept at its highest point by being passed on when the priest's powers
this
began
to
fail.
He
and
for their
field
being
even
of the forest or
divinities.
He
god
his
where king,
little
priest, or
slain, so that
powers enfeebled.
There can be
doubt that he
I
hilt.
am
not
that
bough
This he considers
tree,
to be
very apt
grove.
cessor
title
for
it)
of the
So
far so
good, but
why
of the Arician priest have to pluck beginning the fight with the present possessor
There
Mr.
new
external home.
The
COMPARATIVE RELIGION.
external souls vigorous, and
all
39
will
be well.
It's
Mr.
not
killing a
got another
life."
The Golden
oak, but
why
in the grove of
still.
Nemi,
is,
confess, to
me
mystery
So
after
much
all, is
for the
seem by-paths
in the
re-
truth.
But
those
who
member Mr. Frazer's first and still most brilliant piece of work in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute^ for 1885, on Burial Customs, will know that it is his way to
tack on to such seeming
well-digested facts
really
trivialities
an enormous mass of
from
own
unrivalled collections.
that deduced
able of these
is
from Harvest
which would seem to render it probable that human sacrifices were common in archaic times to ensure the If the inferences of Mannhardt and fertility of the soil.
Mr. Frazer
are
to be trusted, there
is
scarcely a field in
Europe that has not at one time or another been reddened by the blood of such a sacrifice. I would, myself, hesitate before accepting such a sweeping assertion, simply on We should have inference from folk-lore " survivals."
somewhat more
4o
before
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
we
can assert
its
general existence
all
over the
Here, as
the
Mr.
Frazer
seems to
me
to overlook
Mr. Frazer, again following Mannhardt, applies these some of the most archaic
as, e.g.,
myths,
These he connects with the habit of killing the "corndemon " to ensure its vigorous life in another personality. Mr. Frazer confesses, in his preface, to some misgivings
that he has pushed his hypothesis too far, and in the cases
slightest.
Mr. Frazer might have taken more account of the thesis of Von Hehn, who suggests that the association of
certain
plants
Athene was really due to its introduction by the priests of the god or goddess. However, it is the duty of every
hypothesiser to push his theory to
its
with certain
deities
e.g.,
furthest extent.
Someone has said that the use of philosophical systems is in their weak places. So, too, the strength of an hypothesis is best shown in its weak places. Mr. Frazer's views have some plausibility, even when stretched and
strained to their utmost.
But
the merit of
in
his
Mr.
much
facts
theories,
his
and in
is
co-ordinations of them.
The Golden
Bough
1
really a series
my
COMPARATIVE RELIGION.
mythological subjects.
the rank of treatises,
taboos in Vol.
II. 1
I.,
e.g.,
41
Some of
Mr.
folk-lore
is
and savage
based on
all
clearly
through
Dutch
reports
on
their
field).
One
Mr. Frazer
work which
must have been passed in compiling this mass of information. He must often have felt the supreme joy of the
researcher in finding his chaotic materials slowly rounding
He
must, by this
we
few general remarks suggest themselves. Though to a certain degree the authors have worked together, it is
clusions
somewhat curious to find them tending to opposite conon the same point. Thus Prof. Smith traces
God
;
as
king, to the
Mr.
Frazer, on the
on
earth.
Royal taboos, according to Mr. Frazer, are Prof. Smith doth hedge a king.
I have already
ii.,
42
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
human
sacrifice,
is
regards
that
though 'it
is
Mr. Frazer
stage, Prof.
The two books, indeed, suggest that in the very near future we may see the very desirable application of institutional archaeology to mythology. The gods and rituals
of a
nomad
from those of an
we
makes use of
this criterion,
is
in too
immature
present.
a state to be of
much
Both books
which
dency
is
are
slightly old-fashioned in
assuming a
Semites,
recent
research
disprove.
In
all
branches of pre-historic and folk-lore research, the tento regard customs, language,
and institutions
as
and epoch, and their spread is to be explained through diffusion by borrowing. I have already referred to this in connection with Mr. Frazer's book, but the point is important
at a fixed place
enough
thesis
to
is
deserve reiteration.
clearly
The
borrowing hypothe
applicable
to
mythology, since
religions of the
opposite races,
whole world have been borrowed from the Buddhism of the Mongol races from
and Africa
facts
borrowing
Mahommedanism of Turkey, from Semitic Arabia. Those are which lend great plausibility to the
COMPARATIVE RELIGION.
borrowing hypothesis on a smaller
areas.
43
wide
scale
scale
and
in less
The
with
last
this
list
deal
on a large
in language,
custom, and
institutions
among
the
early Aryans.
Dr. Schrader's
and their
;
Aryan
alas
!
peoples, as deduced
from
their languages
German
thoroughness
but,
with
German
unreadableness.
Though
professing
facts
by the
of
It
is,
in the
main, philological.
latest
giving the
word on the
Aryan mythology, which, twenty years ago, was going to give us the key to all the mythologies. Judging from Dr. Schrader's results, the key has broken in the
wards.
He
god
common
to
to the
The
three notably,
two or away
common worship
is
myth of
The
Aryans had no
heretical as to
common
gods.
Dr. Schrader
even so
deny that they ever had a common home, This is a theme taken up
pleasant contrast to
of materials for a
by Canon Taylor, whose lucidity is a Dr. Schrader's painstaking piling up Canon Taylor adds to the subbook.
His
main
44.
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
book with great skill. This I take to be Aryan tongue was imposed upon the peoples now speaking Aryan by conquest, and was not a common
thesis of his
that the
In short, there
was only one Aryan race and tongue, and the latter has Authorities been passed on to various races by conquest. some are for the are disagreed as to the Ur-Aryans Canon Taylor himScandinavians, some for the Celts.
:
Letts
but
all
seem
a
to agree that
as
common Aryan
as
is
from
whom
Teutons,
etc.,
"swarmed off"
The
whole outcome
they
Twenty years ago we could all have sworn home of the Aryans was in Asia, that were all of one blood, that they had a common
Europe
All this was presented to us with such con-
westwards.
fidence, eloquence,
ignorant presumption.
great
their
is
Now
all
this
is
changed, and
the
fall
And
with
fall
No
and the
wise syncretism
fit all
is
wards.
There
are gods
fields,
stocks and stones received their cult, even the sun and
moon had
their votaries.
all
pared to reduce
COMPARATIVE RELIGION.
the Divine to any one single principle.
details,
45
And
even in
given
away the
facts as
in ancient records
the sacrifice was given "as a sweet savour unto the Lord " the
fast disappearing.
When
desire
to explain
this
away.
He
said,
who
and no more or
less.
The
life.
may
more
so than facts
We
man
we
at times in stages
beast's.
can be but
The hope that the study of comparative religion would throw some light on religion itself seems to be fading away. It seems, in fact, as if the mythological show has somewhat disappointed the sightseers. They have been invited by eloquent showmen to enter and take their What seats, and they would see what they would see.
they have seen has been a curtain covered with figures,
some
of
beautiful and
all
of lower orders
art.
Many
as to the
meaning
But the curtain has never been raised, and some among the audience are beginning to ask, " Is the curtain the
picture,
veil
and
is
"
i
46
BIBLICAL ARCHvEOLOGY.
JUNIOR-RIGHT IN GENESIS.
The term Junior-right implies a system of tenure in which a father's property descends to the youngest son.
It thus forms the exact contrast to primogeniture, and to express this opposition the term " ultimogeniture " has
Germany
English have
name
is
is
Jiingsten-recht.
The
special
is
said to
were two tenures of land in usages of these tenures were such that
all the tenements whereof the ancestor died seised in burgh-Engloyes ought to descend to the youngest son, and all the tenements in
common law."
Mr.
Elton, from
whom
pp.
History (Chap,
viii.,
183-221).
He
custom in South-East England, Wales, France, where it termed Mainete^ parts of Germany, Friesland, is
Zar
examples in Scandinavia,
Zululand.
New
would add the Todas, Mrus, Kolhs, and Cotas (Reclus, Prim. Folk, p. 200).
these
I
1
To
is
Mr.
term by preference, has overlooked Liebrecht's correction in the Nachtrixge to his Zur Volkskunde, p. 514.
Lang,
uses this
who
JUNIOR-RIGHT IN GENESIS.
On
the origin of this custom learned opinion
yet decided.
47
it
both
sons
customs.
Sir
H.
S.
Maine connects
it,
;
as
usual,
with the
P atria
the elder
home-staying youngster
the
left to
carry
on
of
Patria Potestas.
Against
the
doctrine
which sees in the sparsely scattered instances of junior-right a more archaic institution than that of
survivals,"
"
primogeniture.
Mr. Lang
in
is
inclined to see
in
it
the
best-beloved
wife
polygamous marriage
(Grimmis
Hunt, Introd.,
as
p. lix.).
Unfortunately primogeniture
often
as
among polygamous
nations
would
still
leave unexplained
why
youngest wife was the heir. I would venture to suggest that the custom would naturally arise during the latter
stages of the pastoral period,
selves "
when
set up for themby the time of the father's death. The youngest son would under -those circumstances naturally step into his father's shoes, and acquire the patria potestas, and with it, the right of sacrificing to the family gods by the Its occurrence nowadays is chiefly paternal hearth. 1
"
Vol.
199.
214.
It
was
abo Mr. Gomme's explanation in Archeeologia, Gavelkind : Appendix, quoted by Elton, Blackstone's suggestion, according to Maine, Hist, of
is
Instil., 222-3.
48
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
tribes,
among nomad
might have
it
bears
The
English custom
the time
way during
that the Teutonic invaders were successively founding " tun " after " tun " as the Paddings, the Kennings, or
the
Islings
grew up and
left
father
Padd, Kenn, or
iEsel,
found
new
ones
at
is still
to be
Tenures,
177), or Islington
(where
it
As with
which have died away into mere " survivals," junior-right has its item of interpretation to offer to the meaning of
folk-tales.
Mr. Lang
yeoman's
service
The "formula"
youngest born
who
succeeds
children have failed to accomplish is familiar to us in " Cinderella " and in " Puss-in-Boots," and is included by
Hahn
in his
as
summary of
incidents occurring in
folk-tales
"No.
I.e.
III.
Geschwister-formeln.
vom
ap.
Liebrecht,
432).
is
It
is
a legal "
At
Mr. Lang
with
elders
their
failures
undergone by the
involved rather the
may
first, is
right of primogeniture.
And
why
JUNIOR-RIGHT IN GENESIS.
the success of the
its
49
youngest
1
is
striking,
is
because of
The same
root of a
familiar.
opposition
is,
am
number of
tales
with which
we
are even
more
The
given by the
full
Hebrew sages in the book of Genesis are of the formula " the youngest is best." This does
itself in
not show
reasons
all,
for
which may
the
begin with
history
of the
family
of
the
Terahides
we
According
three patriarchs
were youngest
And
the eponymous father of the race, worthy ; speaking algebraically, he is the seventh power.
especially note-
youngest son to
He
is
who was
son, and
of Rebekah,
who was
youngest child of
Bethuel,
who was
The
come up
1 This prepossession seems scarcely justified by facts. Among the eminent " English Men of Science " whose nature and nurture were investigated by Mr. F. Galton, 26 out of 99 were eldest sons and 25 youngest, while 22
were both
eldest
and youngest,
i.e.,
only sons
I
(p. 33).
may
perhaps add
am
rather inclined to
No
them
50
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
GENEALOGY OF THE TERAHIDES.
Terah.
I
Haran.
Nahor.
Abraham.
Hagar.
*
Sarah.
I
Lot.
3 Iscah.
2 Milcah.
(xxii. zi,
22)
Bethuel
Amram.
Manasseh. Ephraim.
Aaron
Miriam.
Moses.
Er.
Onan.
I Pharez.
Zarah.
Jesse.
(1
Sam.
xvii.
12,
14)
David. = Bathsheba. 3
Shimea.
1
Shobab.
Nathan.
Solomon.
is
everywhere
re-
nephew Lot.
The
order
JUNIOR-RIGHT IN GENESIS.
for treatment in
51
due order and, when necessary, with the evidence by which their " ultimogeniture " is established.
But at present I would call attention to the general law which comes out so clearly in the above genealogical table. Almost every name of importance in early
Hebrew history is that of a youngest son or daughter Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rebekah, Rachel, Judah, Joseph, Benjamin, Ephraim, Moses the whole sacred history of the early Hebrews is here. And these names are con-
of the world,
shows they
son.
these traditions
This
is
shown not
alone
by references
xi. 27).
:
in
Haran
ever
starts
How-
it is
immaterial for
my argument
it.
if
Abraham
3 Theoretically, I
would count
as sons of as
Or would
(1
they
other wives
whom
he married before
at
Hebron
all
Chr.
iii.
1-3),
and by each of
whom
sheba's children.
"
Into the once vexed question whether Hebrew law sanctioned primo-
geniture in the
modern
sense
we
The Deuteronomic
legisla-
tion clearly gave the preferential share of a double portion to the eldest son.
E 2
52
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
;
xxv. 13
xxxv. 23
more by the attitude taken up by the narrators towards cases where the first-born did not obtain the birthright. They felt bound to show that what was
8), but
still
the
birthright of
youngestwas
of view,
this from the sacerdotal point whole maintenance of the priests depended on the system of first-fruits (Deut. xviii. 4). This sacro-sanctity of the first-born comes out strongly
familiar to
the
with
show
the
down
z
;
(Ex.
i.e.
xxxiv. 19)
"All
mine,"
men when
said,
3
" All
The
the
of this
is
sanctity
is
of the
first-born
among
Semites
obscure, as
Smith [Religion of the Semites, p. 445), and has scarcely been cleared up by his own suggestions. The sacrifice of
1
Maine attempted
different
two
conceptions
223)
patria
2
fiotestas.
The Hebrew
p.
evidence
is
clearly against
him.
pp. 29, 30) argue elaborately that, in this legislative code, the priests had no more
Wellhausen [History,
155) and
Kuenen (Hexateuch,
who
We
is
would ask
What
tion.
3
upon then
At any
rate
the passage
sufficient to
show the
This custom
is
who
pay a
small
in
sum
is
as
" redemption
son."
Pt.
I.,
An
chap,
instance occurs
vi.,
where the
ritual
JUNIOR-RIGHT IN GENESIS.
the first-born
iii.
53
among
p.
the Semites as in
Moab
(2
Kings
27)
is
Golden Bough,
talib
On
vows
i.
[Tabari,
p.
became a " leading case " among the Arabs. It is clear at any rate that the sanctity of the first-born must in
Israel
caste,
and
it is
among
the
Aaron was
a first-born,
in his office
by
to
when
youngest
Thus
while
all
the
was thus of
impor-
tance
to
the
these
sacerdotal
traditions
scribes
from
all
whom we
them with
rested.
received
sanctity
to
reconcile
especially the
against
them
have
reached
us
unfalsified,
stories
can be
all
stories
were invented
Our
hypothesis
explains only
tive.
why
The
need of reconciliation,
contended, caused
54
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
to be selected from the mass of legends which no In doubt existed about the early fathers of the race. particular our hypothesis would explain the admission of
them
many
which seem
at present
to be purposeless or
worse until
we
otherwise difficult to
first
was intended
to be a moral guide.
The
tradition
cases.
With Ishmael
the leading idea which serves to solve the difficulty. This should not obscure to us the fact that Ishmaelites are included as of natural right among the Abrahamides (xxv. 12-18), 1 and that many touches of tradition show
26
The
"O
that
fact
Ishmael might
thee"
(xvii. 17),
and the
The
because
especially
interesting,
himself such
a striking
instance
of a
youngest son whose parents and grandparents are also youngest children. There are no less than two accounts
to explain
right.
birthis
One
with
admirable
skill,
last resort
on a folk-etymology
Where
quotation
is
merely by
Roman
JUNIOR-RIGHT IN GENESIS.
of the
tells
55
name " Jacob, the Supplanter1 or Deceiver," and how Jacob supplanted Esau by deceiving their father
But
there
is
which Esau's
were disposed of to Jacob in a legitimate way by purchase, though under circumstances which fully confirm
Jacob's
reputation
is
narratives
to the
clear
for
cunning.
The
object
of both
to explain
why
The
custom and the earlier tradition had to be reconciled; both were sacro-sanct to the minds of the narrator, and any explanation that reconciled them would commend 3 itself as " what must have been."
The
instances
sons
of Jacob
afford,
strange
to
say,
several
of junior
right.
Different
traditions
repreup,
This
fact clears
my
1
in Genesis.
It
is
When we
that
this
Israelites,
are dealing
of the patriarch may be due to the very appropriately, " sons of the supplanter " =according to Semitic idiom, supplanters. Our own " Whig " and " Tory "
possible
name
are sufficient to
epithet
may
ultimately be adopted
It
is
by the persons on
whom
is
it
was
first
bestowed by opponents.
certainly
there are
2
no patronymic in Hebrew corresponding such derived from Israel and Judah ("Israelite, Jew").
to
Jacob
as
It
would be interesting to ascertain the exact advantage supposed to be There is certainly some folk-lore conit,
Well-
Much
is,
of the
Hagada
and
indeed, perfectly
Talmudic legends about Biblical personages is is by no means yet extinct among us, justifiable if hypothesis be distinguished from fact.
or
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
56
actual existence in
the realities underlying the narratives are the tribes in Canaan. The " sons of Leah " and
1
the " sons of Rachel " probably indicate early confederations of the tribes, while the " children of the handmaids " indicate some inferiority of the position of their
There
in
is
also
some
priority or
the
two
Now
of the
batch Judah
sceptre.
is
be the
account for
the Biblical
being disinherited. 2
stories
Two
are told
his
order
to explain this.
;
Reuben had
defiled
father's
their sister's
may
same complexion
probably
The
depend
whom
first.
for their interest upon the fact that Pharez, from was descended David himself a youngest son was really the younger though he makes his appearance
The
Map
still less
Onan
earlier in
the chapter,
1
may
i
also
See
6, in Fripp's
The
entry in
Chron.
shows
how anomalous
it
inasmuch
as
he
(R. V.
may
[Joseph?]
is
as first-born."
JUNIOR-RIGHT IN GENESIS.
With Rachel and
different,
57
is
somewhat
that
though
junior-right occurs, at
any
rate
in
"Cinderella" and
It
is
other folk-tales,
among
therefore natural
more important sister, the heiress Rachel ; Laban's substitution of Leah (xxix. 23) would otherwise lose all point. It is Rachel too who takes away the Teraphim
or ancestral gods of the hearth (xxxi. 19, 30) a distinct point of connection with junior-right (cf. Elton, I.e.
211-16 and especially p. 221). But as regards her there seem to be " survivals " of two traditions which would tend to give the birthright to each. Benjamin seems to be in every respect an afterthought among the tribal heroes. His very name " son of the
pp.
sons
we may judge
from the quaint legend of Jacob's blessing Ephraim by putting his right hand on the lad's head (xlviii. 13-19). It is difficult to say what underlies the idea of Benjamin's having been born in Canaan, after Joseph had gone down But it may be suspected that the importinto Egypt. ance thus given to Benjamin, who under the junior-right system would have the birthright, may be dated during the brief supremacy of the Benjamite Saul at the beginning of the eleventh century
be the only
B.C.
1
Hebrew
tradition
be definitely dated.
1
That
that
junior-right
may have
is
lasted
on to
this
time
is
fact
of Jesse,
seemingly David's.
linger
mode
of succession should
on
latest in
may
son of
Amram.
58
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
But
it
is
most
lovingly,
the
eponymous
His
that adds,"
hero very
of
the
Kingdom
indicates
of
his
par
excellence.
importance,
"he
Reichs.
traditions
It
is
formed under a junior-right system, he is regarded as the youngest and therefore the rightful heir. And equally natural is the attempt to explain his position
from the
special
later
Yet
interference of Providence in his dreams, &c. the " coat of many colours " (really the " coat with
who
did no
work) and the jealous envy of his brothers would be clearly, on our hypothesis, elements in the earliest
traditions about
him.
It
may
is
also
which
two
heir,
is
That
Hamasa
The
Reuben
the would-be
was probably formed later when primogeniture had become the ruling conception. There is yet another narrative of Genesis which receives an explanation from the conception of a change of tenure from junior-right to primogeniture as the Israelites exchanged their roving life for one in which sons became more stay-at-home, and the more experienced one would naturally fill his father's place. The narrarescuer,
tive relates to Joseph's sons or the tribes
they represent.
Of
by
the
more
influential.
Yet
tradition once
more
JUNIOR-RIGHT IN GENESIS.
represents the
best son
as
felt
59
the youngest.
And, once
more,
later
conceptions
tion in a society
the eldest
generally
where the eldest son had prior rights and was sacred to the Lord. The
explanation is afforded in the quaint scene in which Jacob persists in blessing Ephraim with the right hand, the hand of might and power, though he had to cross
his
hands in order to do
seen that
so,
calls
Thus we have
many of
the out-of-the-way
all
an explanation on the hypothesis that junior-right was once the rule of succession in early Hebrew society, and
that these tales are introduced to explain the superiority
Indeed,
if
the
truth of an
facts it
number of
with any of the multitudinous suggestions that have issued from German seats of learning during the past
half-century.
much. 1
hasten
It
may
not be
discreet, but it
is
where junior-right does not occur in the genealogies of Genesis deserve attention, and it would be desirable to have some confirmatory evidence of the existence of junior-right among
the weightier objections.
cases
The
other Semites.
The
so-called
authenticity of the
it
by
all
scholars
science.
state
of Biblical
60
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
the
is
earlier
The
has
deals
tolerably
obvious.
nation
it
legends
This show
is
only one of
many
that the
Hebrews had
(i.),
of
man
(iv.
(ii.),
of sin
of
death
(iv.
1-15),
of the arts
(xi.
diversity of language
1-10).
The
absence of any
nomad
this
stage,
and in
influences.
that
theory
time
would
now
to
serve as a crucial
distinguish between
now
divide
the world
of Biblical
the
as it is
Of some fourteen passages relating Dillmann and Wellhausen agree as to the attribution of all but two (xxii. 25, xlvi. partly, cf. Dillmann ad locos) they differ only as to the relative ages of
:
the sources.
Our
theory, if substantiated,
scarcely en-
ables us to decide
stories
between them.
so
The two
divergent
how Jacob
source,
prior to
so,
it
come from
the same
existed
not been
any literary fixation. But even had it would not necessarily follow that the
earlier
tradition
was written
to
his ad-
down
1
earlier.
Mr. Fenton,
in
the preface
for Abel, the
younger son.
JUNIOR-RIGHT IN GENESIS.
mirable
little
61
gestive contribution
work, Early Hebrew Life the most sugto Hebrew Archaeology made of
in
recent years
cases in India,
England has pointed out analogous where later codes contain earlier customs.
us but
little
The
as
fact
is,
:
hence the unprolific character of recent Biblical work. If a tithe of the industry and acumen that have been expended on the discrimination of the
to origins parts of the Pentateuch respectively due to the Jahvist and the Elohist, had been devoted to the Realien of the Old Testament, Biblical Archaeology would not be in its
It is on the application of the methods by which Dr. Tylor and his school have done so
much
It to
to elucidate origins
that
the
future of
Biblical
Archaeology depends.
may
little
help to reassure
some of
my
readers if I
say that, in
my
opinion,
Biblical
go on Archaeology has
very
Whether
junior-
The
idylls
of the
If to some persons
derella"
we may make as to the ideas underlying them. it may seem jarring to find " Cin"Puss
in
or
elucidation to the
that the
Book of Books,
most elaborate
Boots" adding their quota of I would remind them of recent works on The Origins of
As
the
last
few paragraphs,
special
may
perhaps be allowed to
summarise the
inquiry in which
we
have been
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
62
engaged in the form of a number of Theses which I seek to establish or connect together. (i.) It is assumed that the Hebrews, like other nations in the pastoral stage, had a system of succession corresponding to " Borough English," by which the youngest
son succeeded to his
their father's decease.
(2.)
father's
flocks
It
is
known
eldest son
had preferential rights, which were supported by the priesthood, who depended for their maintenance
first-born.
It
is
known
youngest sons
certainly
;
Ephraim
pro-
bably in those of Abraham, Judah, Joseph. It is more likely that such traditions arose under (1) than (2).
(4.)
It
is
assumed
that, in order
following narratives
(a)
(b)
(two
(c)
(d)
(e)
if)
The disgrace of Reuben. The offence of Simeon and Levi. The death of Onan. The prenatal struggle of Pharez and
Ephraim.
Zarah.
rival
be curious to see what kind of anti-Theses or hypotheses can be supplied to explain, in an equally
JUNIOR-RIGHT IN GENESIS.
natural manner, the
63
same
series
of seemingly unnatural
if substantiated,
occurrences.
I
may
would
the stories
It
relating
to Ishmael, Jacob,
fix a terminus
Rachel, and
Joseph.
rise
would likewise
It
century B.C.
would
were not
falsified,
them chime Finally, it would confirm age of the main body of tends to show that they
to
make
with
current
conceptions.
it
the
pastoral or
pre-
Canaanite period,
when
succession
went by
junior-right.
64
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
Philology, No. 17 (Vol. IX., 1880), Professor Robertson Smith, the eminent Orientalist and
In the Journal of
Biblical critic, contributed a paper entitled, " Animal Worship and Animal Tribes among the Ancient Arabs and in the Old Testament " (pp. 75-100). In this he applied Maclennan's views 2 to show that a tribal arrangement existed among the early Hebrews, analogous to the totem-clans of the North American Indians, and gave reasons for considering David to be a member of a Serpent clan, worshipping the serpent as an eponymous
ancestor,
and united by
ties
of
kinship
with
other
also
as
among
the
Ammonites.
He
saw
traces of
late as the
among
Hebrews
as survivals
member
the
eponymous animal,
Parts of the following paper were read before the Society of Biblical
Archaeology in 1885.
2 Maclennan had already suggested the application of his theories to the Hebrews {Fortnightly Review, 1870, i. p. 207), but Professor Smith has
TOTEM-CLANS
usually ready acceptance
IN
THE BIBLE?
Biblical scholars
is
x
65
and
among
anthropologists.
cautious,
Prof.
Cheyne, who
suggestion
;
ordinarily very
his
welcomes
the
p.
in
admirable
edition
103-4, 303), and 99 Prof. Sayce does the same (Anc. Empires of East, pp.
(I.,
of Isaiah
II., pp.
20 3"5)Israels
Prof.
(I., p.
Stade also
adopts
it
in
his
Geschicbte
408).
The
school of
McLennan, who
welcomed confirmatory evidence from Semitic McLennan, The Patriarchal Theory, 1885, p. 229) ; and Mr. Andrew Lang, who tends to find in animal worship the key to all the mythologies, refers to Prof. Smith's memoir as undoubted evidence {Custom and Myth, 1885, pp. 115, 261). Dr. Wilken, of Leyden,
naturally
sources (J. F.
it
relates to
among
(German
translation,
Das Matriarchat
bei
den
alten
Arabern, 1884). 2
up by
Early
with the Biblical aspects of the question except inciHis paper in the journal of Philology still remains the sole authoritative utterance of the Professor
dentally.
on the
subject,
and
deal
with
this
in the following
Professor
Dillmann, however,
them
p.
368.
2
The
late
disputed
66
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
Though
I have
widely extended the evidence by which his conclusions might seem to be established, I am unable to recognise
definite traces of the actual existence of totem-worship
among
It
the Israelites.
a collection of
But
kinship
first,
what
is
a totem-clan.
is
All the
in
avenge
thus be
and
it
is
widely,
animals,
except
i.e.,
among
tribes
closely
in
with
nomads.
Totemism,
to exist
sense of
the word,
is
only
known
Indians
where the
its
totem
is
One
characteristic of the
fuller
treatment owing to
this
cannot explain
"
i.e.,
Among
which
races
which
are
still
still
claim descent
No man may
marry a
and
totem-name, and
carries the
same
67
marry a marry a woman of the Wolf, or Turtle, or Swan, or other name, and her children keep her family title, not his. Thus, if a Crane man marry a Swan woman, the children (boys) are Swans, and none of them may marry a Swan ; they must marry Turtles, Wolves, or what not, and their children again are Turtles or Wolves. Thus there is necessarily an eternal come and go of all the animal-names known in a district." (A. Lang, Custom and Myth, p. 106). Now Prof. Smith claims, as I understand him, to have
proved that totem-clans of a kind like those just described existed in
A man descended from name is Crane, cannot woman whose family name is Crane. He must
family
Canaan and
by the
Israelites,
is
the golden
calf,
the
brazen
serpent,
Dagon
in
Biblical idolatry.
by Professor Smith's paper are that these or similar gods were regarded as ancestors that gave names to clans, tracing descent through females. We must seek, therefore, for traces of all the above " notes " of totem-clans before deciding upon the truth of Prof. Robertson Smith's hypothesis. I proceed to
points contributed
investigate these under the following rubrics
1.
:
The new
Names
11.
Worship of
in.
iv.
Exogamy and
Forbidden food.
68
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
v.
vi.
list
of 160 such
the subject,
names, which
believe
practically exhaust
At
first
sight so large a
number seems
to
show
;
a pre-
among
than
are
but, as a
less
matter of
is
fact,
considerably
day.
found in England
the
present
There
some 120 persons 2 bearing this class of name among the 15,000 whose names are recorded in the Old Testament,
less
Now
among English
surnames,
as
Mr.
Bardsley's excellent
book on that
subject,
from
plants,
beasts,
and
fishes
among them,
Brock (badger), Kite, Lyon, Dove, Lovel (wolf), Wolf, Buck, Hart, Todd (fox), Marten (weasel), Stoat (idem), Mouse, Kenn (dog), Pigg, Gait (pig), Sugden (sow),
Purcell (porculus),
oaks), Lind,
Fish,
Nokes
(oak),
Snooks (Seven
in
and
other names
that occur
the
list
list is
Many
besides,
late
books,
Ploss
Das Kind,
1883,
TOTEM-CLANS
IN
THE BIBLE?
69
Similarly, in Miss Yonge's History of Christian Names* 1885, two out often sources from which she traces their
even
less
1 As, therefore, we (p. 5). and plant names among the ancient Hebrews frequently than among modern Englishmen,
who
argument
proving much.
Oreb
do, as
(raven), and
Zeeb
names of
clans, as
would wish us to
Indeed, when examined carefully, very few of these names turn out to be family names at all, as they should be on Prof. Smith's hypothesis. In fact, only thirty of the persons with these names are named as fathers or mothers, so that they might be regarded as surnames and of actual gentilicia ending in the patronymic yud there are only the following Bechorites (Camel tribe),
;
:
Calebites
(Dog
tribe),
Arelites
(lion),
Arodites (ass),
Of these
We
more than
I., p.
30.
Esther
should
be called
Hadassah
(myrtle), and
1
resorting to
Mr. Grant Allen [Anglo-Saxon Britain, p. 79) suggested that some of the Anglo-Saxon settlers were totem-clans, but without much evidence. The question has, however, been recently put on another footing by Mr.
Gomme,
judging.
Review
will shortly
have an opportunity of
70
list
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
of the clans of the tribes of Israel given in
Num.
our
xxxvi.,
and in
another
connection will
engage
attention later. 1
But
names
plants
it
in the
would be unfair to assume that all the personal Old Testament derived from animals and
are merely personal. As is well known, the Hebrews, and indeed all early nations, preferred to put their geographical and ethnographical knowledge in the form of genealogies. Thus, when it is said (Gen. x.) " Canaan begat Sidon," it is as if one should say " Wales
begat
Monmouth, and
is
Flint,
and
Glamorgan,"
etc.
one genealogical table in Gen. xxxvi. which will well repay our attention in connection with our
there
And
immediate subject.
1
More
The
list,
:
our
may
be regarded as
personal or sur-
names
(A).
PERSONAL.
71
we also find that those clans of the Edomites who were connected with the Horites had also animal names, as a glance at the genealogies on the next page will show. Nay more, wherever we trace a connection with these Horites and Edomites we may expect with
confidence
to
find
animal or
plant
real
names.
It
is
disputed question
father-in-law,
name of Moses's
whether Jethro, Reuel (Raguel), or Hobab, but from Judges iv. 11, we conclude that he had some connection with the Kenites, and the name
of his daughter Zipporah (Little Bird), occurs in our 1 list. So, too, when the tribe of Judah received the powerful accession of the Dog tribe (Calebites), 2 in its
career
(the
The
of conquest, it is from the country of Kenax Hunter), the son of Edom, that Caleb comes. 3 importance of the Calebites in the making of
is
Palestine
shown by
who
gives
no
less
than five
and
local relations
of the
iv.
Dog
1
tribe
(1
Chron.
ii.
18-20,
42-49,
50-55;
Greene,
p. 162. Job was a son of and his daughter Kezia bears the name of the
The
following
:
is
names
in our list
Horites, etc.
... ...
Kenites...
n n
6
Israelite clans
...
16
Early miscell.
...
...
6
9
2 7
Late
Sporadic
... ...
i.
Midian, and
3
Moab
Women...
;
...
...
10
in
Cf.
Mr. Fenton's
and
ix.,
his excellent
Wellhausen,
De Familiis Judaicis,
1870.
72
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
w H 2 o w S H o
>.
.
^s S
^,
g
5
O a' 0"
<:
w O
I
73
as
Though
these
occurring in so
are
late
a
old,
book
as
genealogies
clearly
the
way
in
to say
things"
(iv.
22).
Now,
the Calebites,
many names
ass),
viz.
Ardon
thites
(great
(garlic),
(lion),
Shuma(citron).
Zorites
Tappuah
And,
all
in
fact,
when we review
given in our
the the
list, it will be found that over a third of the names belong to the tribes which wandered about
the
Arnon
Here, then,
anywhere,
we may
Old Testament, and it is hence that Prof. Smith has drawn his chief examples. Undoubtedly the aggregation of such a number of animal names
totem-clans in the
cannot
be
accidental.
Prof.
nomad
To
the nomad,
might therefore be
And,
indeed,
if Prof. Smith trusted entirely to the evidence of names, we might point out to him that it is the main boast of
they have opposed the unfounded conclusions based by Unphilologists on the mere etymologies of names.
fortunately,
the
Bible
gives scarcely
any information
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
ascertain
74
whether the Horites presented the other -exogamy, female descent, the totem worshipped as ancestor, and regarded as tabu, etc. The learned professor has, however, ingeniously extracted some evidence on the first point merely from the arrangeto
properties of totem-clans
in
Gen. xxxvi.
Before
we
turn
examine this, there is a remark worth making which bears on the whole method of his examination. Supposing him to have succeeded in proving the existence of
totem-clans
among
their
with
force
it
certain conclusions
against
existence
are
among
the
Israelites, in
whom
only
he and
been
we
more deeply
tribes
interested.
its
The
With
beasts
full
force has
found
among
the
of
hunters.
agricultural
nations,
importance
of
wild
full
totemism
its
among
the
nomad
as
Horites,
tells
strongly against
a survival
being found
to
his
With
this
and our evidence for the existence in the Old Testament of the remarkable social arrangements
known
II.
as
The
J.
Mr.
75
women
from marrying within their own clan, i.e^ to of the same surname as themselves. The custom is still extant in China and India, and forms a characteristic part of the customs of the North American Indians and Australians. 1 It is mostly found combined with the equally curious custom of tracing descent only through females. This latter practice is traced by anthropologists to a state of society where what is euphemistically called " promiscuity," or " communal
marriage,"
is
prevalent, and
is
" Maternity
Prof.
indicated
R. Smith attempts to find these customs by the names of the Horite tribes. Anah (wild ass) is said to be (1) "the daughter of Zibeon
Hivite "
2), (2) a child (son) of In the 24), (3) a son of Seir (ibid.). passage he emends with all scholars " Hivite " into
the
(Gen. xxxvi.
Zibeon
first
(ibid.,
" Horite," but does not take into account that most authorities read with Samuel LXX. and Peshito, "son" for " daughter." From the latter word he deduces kinship through females among the Horites on extremely slender And from the existence of a sub-clan, Anah, grounds.
among
among
the Seirites, he
concludes that there was exogamy, of the Anah clan could intermarry.
no members This seems at first sight a somewhat wild conclusion from very slight data, but it is really a fair working hypothesis to account for sub-clans of the same name among different Horite
so that
J.
F.
Sir
J.
Lub-
122.
76
tribes,
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
of which
we
Dishon
all
sub-clan.
members of a clan would have the same clan-name. But if kinship were traced through mothers only, and exogamy prevailed, the same clan-name could easily be There still remain two spread through the tribe. difficulties ( ) some members of the Anah clan would i also be members of the Dishon sub-clan, and it is difficult to see how they could have two clan-names ; (2) the system of sub-division and of animal nomen:
clature
tribes.
is
not
systematically
difficulties
carried
through
all
the
These
;
able, as only
in
Edom
and
we may
it
allow
shown the
tribes, has
existence of animal
rendered
probable that
exogamy and
descent
through females existed among them, and has thereby raised a presumption that, if we had further evidence,
we
among
the Edomites.
Can he
It
cannot be said
He
Simeon from history as being due to its keeping up the system of exogamy, while the other tribes settled down into a local habitation and a name. He bases this, in the first place, on Hitzig's rather forced connection of the name Simeon with the Arabic Simc, a cross between a
hyaena and a wolf.
Simeon
then contends that Shimei and and points out that there were Shimeis among the Levites (Ex. vi. 17), the Reubenites
are
identical,
He
TOTEM-CLANS
David).
cations,
IN
THE BIBLE?
77
well-known curser of
we
shall
see that
same name among them without disappearing, and he overlooks the continued existence of the tribe of Simeon to the time of Hezekiah (1 Chr. iv. 41). Their nomad habits, and liability to attack from other nomads, are a sufficient explanation of their disappearance, without any resort to far-fetched etymologies and hypotheses. And, indeed, he could have found other evidence of
exogamy among
tribe of
Simeon.
The
of
Numbers 1
does for the Horites and Edomites, gives the clans of the
Tribes.
Of
this there
can be no doubt,
as the
names of
mous
ancestor.
:
It
is
opening words
"
The
whom came
(Num.
xxvi.
5).
in Simeon the the Hezronites, Judah among whom the Calebites were adopted, in Reuben and in Judah ; and, most striking of all, the Arodites, or wild-ass clan, both in Gad and in Benjamin, where they
Reuben and
in
;
Simeon and
It
may
be observed that
necessarily established
tempt to show
immemorial.
in
it.
Such
lists
are frequently
"
78
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
It
is
also
Manasseh, were
And
besides
or
Fox
clan,
of Benjamin
the Bochrites, or
I
Camel
;
clan,
of
Ephraim
or
(and, according to
the Elonites, or
Oak
clan,
of Zebulon
;
Worm
Spies
clan, of Issachar
clan,
of Gad.
the
or families
b.
Shaphat
b.
Machi, Gabriel b. Sodi), and among them are the families of the Gemallites, or Camel clan, of Dan, and the Susites, or Horse
Vophsi,
Hori, Nahbi
Geuel
clan,
of Manasseh.
the clan
So, too,
i.
in
the
two
lists
of the
princes of Israel
bers of
(Numb.
mem-
Ammihud
Simeon,
Ephraim, and
And, if we might assume that the Israelites towns they founded after their own names, we might observe that there were Ajalons, Stag towns, in Dan, Ephraim, Zebulon, and Benjamin. Of direct evidence of the existence of exogamy I can only adduce
Naphtali.
called the
one striking passage, the tradition about Ibzan the judge, of whom the only thing recorded is that he " had thirty
sons and
thirty daughters, thirty
9).
1
took in
(Ju.
1
daughters
xii.
better description
It
is,
clearly identified
79
from totemism, though co-existing with and we may therefore conclude that totemism, as a bond of connection of the Israelites, had lost its vitality, and we should only expect to find " survivals " of it in
the later history. 1
Exogamy and totemism are mostly found connected with the custom of tracing descent through females, to
which we now
relic
turn.
of the time
through the mother, half-brothers and sisters may be regarded as having no relationship to one another, and
may
marry, as
we know
Amnon (2 Sam. xiii.). Presents were given to Rebecca's mother and brother (Gen. xxiv. 53). Abimelech appeals
to his mother's
kin as being of his flesh (Ju. viii. 19). explains the relations of Lot and his
since
innocent,
on the
earlier
system of
the Tolaites.
Marriage by capture
is
legislated for
and a celebrated
case of the
whole
tribe of
Benjamin gaining
way
occurs,
Ju. xxi.
80
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
It
might be added that Naomi tells Ruth to return to her "mother's house " (Ruth i. 8), and the Shunamite speaks
of her mother's children (Cant.
i.
6).
David's three
25
Chron.
ii.
16).
Much
of this seems to
me
the
prove a state of kinship only reckoned through females, though it certainly bears with great force against Sir H. S.
is
Maine's patriarchal theory, according to which the wife practically non-existent in reckoning kinship (agna-
tion).
McLennan, however,
{Patr.
gives
what he terms
The Tibetan polyandry pp. 157-9). term for clan, "father's house," is against the standing assumption that kinship through females existed among
the Israelites in historic times.
To sum
traces of
up
this
we have
at
found
in
the time of
settled
Judges,
Canaan, the Israelite tribes had something answering to But it is the totem arrangement among their clans.
highly improbable that this arrangement could be kept up
and
when the Israelites became mainly an agricultural we can only expect to find " survivals " of it
times of the Kings.
1
people,
in the
The
case of the
Neh.
vii.) is
somewhat
No
less
women,
but this
who were
only removed
and
81
There can be
worship, and
we
find in
Rome
is
made
in
19 " Are not the people wont to speak unto their gods (Elohim), unto the dead instead of to the " They joined living ? " ( Cheyne) ; in Psalms cvi. 28
:
dead "
is
R. Simon
III.,
15).
When
his father,
words seem to bear a reference to some kind of David is made to say, " Let me
Our
(Bethlehem), and
my
brother he hath
commanded me
to
be there" (1 Sam. xx. 29). Prof. R. Smith has proposed an ingenious explanation of the family worship of David, though, strangely enough,
it
in
I
is
Among
David
Nahshon, or the Great Serpent. Abigail, his sister, is to be the daughter of Nahash, the Serpent, which
therefore, according to the Professor, be a
ancestor worship
must
1
name
of
On
among
the Arabs,
cf.
Goldziher,
La
Culte des
AncHres
Religions.
82
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
In the royal courtyard
after-
Putting
all
these
facts
together,
Prof.
Smith
member of
a Serpent totem-
He connects with this the fact that the shepherdking was on good terms with Nahash, king of the Ammonites, although the Israelites in general were at v/ar with him, the tie of clanship overruling national
antipathies.
in
me
far-fetched,
and based
large
arrangement.
the
names
Nahshon
Nahash
sign
Then
it
that the
tradition terms
is
Again, there
if it
no
Ammonites
Moabitess.
though,
And,
was desired to connect him with the on the other hand, Ruth was a
finally,
Nahash
can
be
easily
explained
by the
is
fact
that
they were
common
King
paralleled
by David's
towards him.
We
instance of David
the
proof
among
the Israelites in
traces of
Von
z.
Baudissin
suggests
that
it
might
be the
name
of her mother.
[Stud.
Semit. Religionsgeschichte).
83
And
among
the Hebrews.
existed.
The
among
com-
mandment
showing that animal worship was the great rival of the worship of the true God " Thou shalt not make unto thyself any likeness of anything that is in the
as
is
in
or
that
is
in
the
in a
waters
under the
earth
But
this
it
What
of the Hebrews
He makes
which
as I
is
so
widely accepted.
therefore
deserves
viii.
our closest
:
attention.
carries
It runs as follows
(Ez.
7-1 1)
An
angel
shows him the image of jealousy being worshipped in the north court of the Temple, and then promises to show him even greater abominations. " And he brought me
to the door of the court, and
when
I
looked, behold a
Then
:
said
dig
now
in the wall
and when
And he said
Go in and
So
I
behold
went
and saw
G 2
84
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
all
And
there
them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah
stood before
man
his censer in
Here we have
we
or totems
Prof.
Now, the Coney, or was an abominable beast of the Hebrews, one regarded with religious horror by true Israelites (Lev. xi.), and therefore might have been regarded by religious veneration by idolatrous Jews, and
Shaphan, "son of the Coney."
rather
Rock
badger,
it
seems to be implied in
i.e.,
this passage of
Ezekiel that
all
totems.
It
which had
worship.
this
is
a family name,
we
hitherto
wanting, between
organisation.
We
We
it
must, howa
is
remember that in the first place it is Then, as regards the name " ben Shaphan," it
If
real,
vision.
either
real or fictitious.
we
can explain
with tolerable
usage, as
the ordinary
Hebrew
.
referring to the
name of
family.
We
know
TOTEM-CLANS
ceding
generation,
IN
THE BIBLE?
85
the
(2 Kings xxii.),
who was
and
who might
naturally
name
we can
as
easily
understand
figure.
why
him
a typical
figures
again, the
likely,
more
rarely in the
book
names of
think
we
can
worship of animals.
The
prophet
calls
{fab
He
is is
is
God
used
in a very wide sense in Hebrew for a member of a guild or a worshipper of a god, as the well-known " sons of
Belial."
satire
It
is
something
calling a
like
an author of
or
a
political
nowadays
"William
against
Ewart
Disraeli,"
inveighing
figure
typical
again, as regards
kinds
of idolatry
86
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
the worship of
Tammuz
importation.
remaining
idolatry,
Now
we know
mentioned in ch.
that
Egypt
I do
for departing
It
from
this usual
seems to
me most
unlikely
we
the
worship in
its strict
sense unless
signs of
Israelites
of Ezekiel's time.
IV.
Forbidden Food.
all
But
on the
his resources in
name of
the
imaginary
at
Ezekiel's imagined
teristics
temple-rites.
One
is it
of the
charac-
of the totem-organisation
is
totem-animal
regarded as tabu;
Now we
what the
" unclean animals " even as late as the second Isaiah, 100 years later than Ezekiel. This prophet speaks of men " which remain among the graves
87
and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine's flesh and broth of abominable things in their vessels " (Is. lxv. 4) ; and again, " they that sanctify themselves .... eating
swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the
lxvi. 17).
mouse"
[ib.,
Prof.
as
mouse occur
is
proper names.
time,
who
Achbor, or
mouse
(cf.
the
Roman
family of Mus),
is
used
of a king of
Edom
we
have seen
totemism to be most probable, and in Israel only of one of Josiah's friends, who was certainly unconnected with
totem-worship.
It
cannot,
therefore,
be
regarded as
sacrificial use
arrangement
at the
time of the second Isaiah, though it is possible that it was in some way a " survival " of an earlier organisation of
the kind.
Smith sees a whole series of such survivals in the well-known lists of forbidden food in Lev. xi. and Deut. It xiv. Let us see what this assumption involves. implies that at an early period, say before the Exodus, the Israelites were organised on the basis of families or clans tracing through the mothers, and called after her Hezir (swine), Achbor (mouse), Aiah (kite), Arod (wild
Prof.
ass),
Shaphan (coney), and so on, each of the clans reThus in a from eating the totem-animal. polygamous family it might happen that there were members of all these clans in one family which would therefore abstain from eating all the animals mentioned.
fraining
As
88
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
;
by
last
these customs
and
raised, as
When the legislation was codified might well be incorporated in the code, it were, to a higher power by being con-
The Jewish theory of by Maimonides, recognised that something of the same kind was done in the case of
nected with a purer worship.
sacrifice,
as
interpreted
sacrifice as a
is,
kind of concession to
human
weakness.
It
therefore, impossible to
the Israelites
may show
survivals of totem-organisation.
The
in the
it
of the
Coney
(or
no
plausible
explanation
clean
has
The
division into
and un-
by the two
as
tests later
is,
would then be a
garded
tabu
:
some extent, confirmed by the want of any such systematisation in the list of birds given
this
to
Lev.
xi.
13-19.
All this
is
is
by
far the
most
seem-
arbitrary solution of forbidden food, and at the same time of the religious horror with which the " abominations " were regarded. But, here again I fail
ingly
to find evidence of the actual existence in historic times of the connection of tabu and totem required by Prof.
Smith's hypothesis.
The
is
rather
plant-names, so frequent as
Levitical
list.
89
names contained in our list, I find forty-three of these " clean " as against forty-two " unclean," * showing at
least that
the connection,
:
Dove
the Chamois ; Jonah, Epher, the Hart, Ezra's son, could have no
Zimri,
if it
Chamois, Dove,
be impossible to
Nor would
it
who combined
in
This
latter
explanation
would, however,
list,
not
especially
would also fail to account for the which must have existed prior to the
list.
compilation of the
likely that the
list
think
it,
therefore, not
it
un-
some
though
am
historic times
it
to
Odin,
The
names, according
are
following table gives the distribution of the personal and town as they are " clean " or " unclean." Only those town-names
Animals
_,
f Persons
-1
\
\
~ Towns
-to
14
3
... ...
Clean. Unclean.
. Birds
,
30
1
Persons
,
...
...
(Towns
3
1
5 J
...
...
Plants
(Persons
Towns
15 2
... ...
u.^:i ReptlkS
/Persons
...
... ...
j Towns
are
...
In
all,
37 of former and
39 of
90
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
V.
Tattooing
that the
members
Can
have
we
Old Testament
it
We
not
"Ye
shall
make
1
for
parallel passages
xlviii.
(Deut.xiv.
xlvii.
5;
as
"SfiSp
Isaiah
" mark " that was to be set upon true Israelites in Ezekiel ix. 4 (cf. Gen. iv. 15, "mark of Cain"). It " has even been suggested that the " mark on the hand
and the sign " between your eyes " (Exod.
either originally tattoo-marks,
xiii.
9) were
or
that
the phylacteries
were adopted to win the Jews away from this practice. Mr. Herbert Spencer [Prim. Sociology, p. 364) has suggested
xxxii. 5
is
an explanation
of
the
difficult
passage,
;
Deut.
corrupted themselves
their spot
bring
He He
suggests
complaint was
that
themselves with a
trust here too
mark of another
seems to
much
which
can be
TOTEM-CLANS
IN
THE BIBLE?
91
found in it. Litenlly, the words run, " Corrupted unto him, not his sons their spots " whatever that may mean. 1
That
exists
among
the
time of Ptolemy
ordered to
be branded with an
ii.
ivy-leaf in
honour of
it is
Bacchus (3 Mace.
the
29).
And
mark of
But
there are
no
a direct
relation
Clan Crests.
The totem
it is
we
should be used as
Israelites,
The
ii.
we
seq. ;
x.
14
seq.),
Winer
Realworterbucb,
s.
v.
Fahne).
from the animal metaphors contained in the blessings of Jacob (Gen, In the former, xlix.) and of Moses (Deut. xxxiii.). Judah is compared to a lion, Issachar to an ass, Dan to a serpent, Naphtali to a hind, Benjamin to a wolf, Joseph
These were
in
probability derived
1 On the whole subject cf. L. Geiger, Z. A. M. C, 1869, 166 seq. Kalisch Lev. ii., 429-30. The Arabs still have sacred marks on their faces. Darmesteter, The Mahdi, p. in. The late " Mahdi " had them ; cf.
J.
Mediaeval heraldry made out elaborate coats of arms for the various tribes, and they are figured down the dexter side of the title-page of the
3
Editio Princeps of the Authorised Bible, 161 1, As specimens, I may quote Zebulon, " a ship argent, with Fuller's quaint descriptions (Pisgah Sight) mast and tackling sable"; Simeon, "gules, a sword in pale with the point
:
thereof
ended argent";
Cf. Fort. Rev.,
1.
Issachar,
c.
"an
ass
vert."
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
In Moses' blessing only four of these com-
92
to a bough.
parisons occur
bison,
Ephraim
and
this
to a bullock,
Manasseh
to a
Gad
to a lion, and
is
Dan
to a lion's whelp.
The
temptation
in each tribe
suggestion
this
is
particularly interest-
ing, because
it
was on
that
McLennan
argued for
totemism among the Israelites, ten years before Prof. W. R. Smith {Fort. Rev., 1870, I. p. 207). Unfortunately the
lists
disagree,
Dan
blessing, a lion's
whelp
in Moses'.
head clan in
Dan
cub
in the interval.
all
But the
the totem
the circum-
hypothesis.
VI.
Blood Feud.
To
we must
consider the
The
utility
man
would find, almost everywhere he went, kinsfolk who would take his part in any quarrel, avenge his death, and support his children if he were killed. A tribe composed
of families made of totem-clans could not be dissolved,
since in each family there
different clans,
and
all
The
known
in
ordinary cases,
the law
93
treating of the exceptional circumstance of an accidental homicide (Deut. xix., xxi.; Num. xxxv.). But we know from the charming idyll of Ruth of another function
of the Gael, or "near kinsman," to marry the childless widow of his kinsman, as Boaz, the kinsman of Elimefor Ruth, the widow of Mahlon, Elimelech's Here we have a tie of kindred, but it is reckoned through the male line, and there are no signs of a connection with totemism. Thus, throughout our inquiries we have found phenolech, did
son.
in the Biblical records which may be regarded as " survivals " of totemism, but not of the actual existence of the totem-clan itself. Prof. Smith's specific instances of David as a member of a Serpent clan, and Jaazaniah
mena
ben Shaphan surrounded by creeping beasts and abominaand all the " totems " of the house of Israel, we have had to reject as based on insufficient evidence, and having no weight against the great a priori improbabilitions,
ties
of totemism in
its full
force existing
among
a people
in the
main
agricultural.
like
On
we
have
seen indications
clans
the
arrangement of the
Israelite
(Num.
xi.),
Hebrews
(Lev.
animal names
among them, which may be regarded as " survivals " of a previous totemistic organisation among have the Israelites before their entry into Canaan.
We
totemism, where
in
this,
we
should
be more prepared
to
find
it,
the
Thus
of
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
94
Edom, such, indeed, as is expressed in the Biblical records, which make them all B'ne Abraham, or in the triumphal
opening of Deborah's song
" Lord, [when] thou wentest forth from
Seir,
Thou marchedst
out of the
field of
Edom."
We
(i.)
may then
we
Old
in
the
Testament ? by saying
If anthropology teaches that the totem arrangeis
ment
are sufficient
indications of such arrangement in the names of the Edomite clans (Gen. xxxvi.). (2.) There are sufficient "survivals" of totemism in the names of the Israelite clans, their forbidden food, per-
Abraham. But there are not any signs of the actual existence (3.) of totemism in historic times among the Hebrews, such as Prof. Smith contends for in the cases of David and the crucial passage, Ez. viii. 11.
like the other B'ne
I. LIST OF
iTN, Aiah, Kite
14
Son of Zibeon, Gen. xxxvi. 24 ; cf. 1 Chr. i. 40 (name of Horite Rizpah bath A., Saul's concubine, 2 Sam. iii. 7$ xxi.
ri7X, Ela, Terebinth,
Oak
iv.
(cf.
Duke
E.
b.
of
Caleb,
Chr.
95
E. [t6tf],
Baasha,
b. E., b.
Hosea
E.
b.
i K. iv. 18. King of Israel slain by Zimri, I K. xvi. King of Israel who slew Pekah, 2 K. xv.
Uzzi
Michri,
Chr.
ix. 8.
One
xxxvi. 2.
xxvi.
E.
b.
Zebulon, Gen.
Israel, tribe
xlvi.
D^IPW, Nu.
Judge of
Zebulon, Ju.
II, 12.
njN, Anah, Wild Ass. A. bath Zibeon, Gen. xxxvi. z (prob. false reading LXX.). A. b. Seir, Gen. xxxvi. (prob. clan name). A. b. Zibeon, ibid. (prob. clan name).
for |2, as
Sam.
in
50 (family of Nethinim).
vNIN,
A.
Areli,
b.
Lion
my
God.
16
;
Gad, Gen.
xlvi.
Nu.
xxvi. 17.
Patron, a
tribe
name, Nu.
xxvi. 17.
xlvi.
Bela
b.
Patron,
ibid, (a
clan name).
JITIK, Ardon, Great Ass (J. J.). A. b. Caleb, 1 Chr. ii. 19 (prob. clan name).
"1TIN, Arod,
Wild Ass ; cf. Ard and Ardon. Son of Gad, Gen. xlvi. 17; Nu. xxvi. 17.
16, 18.
Patron,
ibid, (clan
name).
HHX,
~JV~1frS,
Ariah, Lion.
Arioch,
Mighty Lion.
1, 9.
King
pN,
Aran,
Wild
Goat.
1
A.
b.
Chr.
i.
42
(clan
name).
Jerahmeel,
Chr.
ii.
25
(prob. clan
name).
A Jebusite,
Chr.
xxi., xxii.
2 Chr.
iii.
1.
96
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
Becher,
b.
^3,
Young He-Camel.
xlvi.
B. B.
Benjamin, Gen.
b.
Patron,
ibid, (clan
name).
H33,
Bochri, Camel-son.
b.
B.
Ammiel
b.
Nu.
xiii.
12.
miXl,
Debora, Bee.
8.
iv., v.
The
D. D.
b. b.
\W~I, Dishon,
Se
ir,
Duke
Anah
b. Seir,
Gzn. xxxvi. 25
(prob. clan
name).
Dake
i"6p"1,
cf.
Chr.
i.
41.
Deklah, Palm.
of Joktan,
Son
Gen.
a.
27.
nDin,
Hadassah, Myrtle.
Esther's Jewish
name, Esth.
ii.
7.
vii.
viii.
". lxxxiii.
\ \.
Z.
S
b.
Bilhan of Benjamin,
Chr.
vii.
10 (prob. clan).
Zsrah
b.
Judah,
Chr.
ii.
6 (prob. clan).
14.
viii., ix.
Salu, Simeonite,
Nu. xxv.
1
Descendant of Benjamin,
Chr.
;
Kings of
Israel,
Kings
xvi.
K.
ix.
31.
xxv. 2
Chr.
i.
32 (prob. clan).
cf.
Zethan.
xxiii. 8.
Laadan,
Chr.
1
Jehiel, Levite,
97
ii.
46,
ii.
45
Neh.
vii.
48
xxvii. 1 (clan
name ?).
7; Deut. xiv. 8.
One
of Shallum, 2
K.
xxii.
14
2 Chr. xxxiv. 22
xxxiv.
Jos. xxiv. 32
Ju.
ix.
28.
Prophet, hero of
Book
of Jonah,
pass (same
.
as preceding).
CIV*, Jeush, Lion (? W.R.S.). Son of Esau by Aholibamah, Gen. xxxvi. 5 (clan name). Son of Bilhan of Benjamin, 1 Chr. vii. 10 (clan name).
Descendant of Jonathan (1 Chr. viii. 39). Son of Shimei, Gersonite, Levite, 1 Chr. xxiii. Son of Rehoboam, 2 Chr. xi. 19.
10.
hy\
Jael, Ibex.
iv., v.
tlhV\ Jaale, Ibex (J. J.). Bene J. returned with Zerubbabel (Solomon's servants), Ezra.
ii.
56.
5 (clan
name).
3^3,
Caleb,
b. b. b.
Dog.
1
C.
Hezron,
Chr.
ii.
(clan).
C. C.
Jephunneh, Nu.
xiii.
Patron.
Sam. xxv.
3.
Hur,
Chr.
ii.
50
(clan).
9&
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
ii.
45.
Sam. xxv. 44
2 Sam.
iii.
15.
J13,
Nun, Fish.
Joshua
b.
friend,
Sam.
xi.
xii.
12
2 Sam. *. 2
Chr. xix.
1, 2.
?), 2 Sam. xvii. 25. Ammonites, z Sam. xvii. 27.
Shobi
b.
N., son of
King
of
tribe
Judah, Ex.
vi.
23
Nu.
i.
ii.
12, 17
a. 14,
xiii.
11.
Wife
of David, z
Sam.
iii.
Chr.
iii.
3.
King
of
Moab, Ju.
iii.
-ITJJ, Irad,
I. b.
Wild Ass.
iv. 18.
"IH23JJ,
Achbor, Mouse.
b.
Baal-hanan
A.
b.
Micaiah, 2 Kings
b.
Achbor, King of Edom, Gen. xxxvi. 38, 39; 1 Chr. i. 49, xxii. 12, 14 (with Shaphan and Huldah).
;
Elnathan
xxxvi. 12.
Simonis).
at Jericho, Jos. vii.
;
A.
rUJJ,
b.
xxii. 20.
Anah, Wild Ass. A. b. Se'ir, Edomite, Gen. xxxvi. 20 ; A. b. Zibeon, Edomite, Gen. xxxvi. 2,
Chr.
i.
38 (clan).
14, 18 (clan).
HSJ?, Epher,
Young Hart.
E.
Manassite prince,
Chr.
v,
24.
99
Ophrah, Gazelle.
b.
Meonothai,
Chr.
iv. 14.
jnSS?, Ephron,
b.
Fawn.
xxiii.
21$), Oreb,
Raven.
vii.; viii.
3;
$.
lxxxiii. II
Is. *.
26.
Wild Ass ;
cf.
Irad.
1
A.
O. O.
b.
Beriah, Benjamite,
Chr.
viii.
15 (prob. clan).
Shemaiah
b.
Obed-Edom,
Chr. xxvi.
7.
?KJT1J>, Othniel,
b.
Lion of God.
i.
13;
iii.
9, 11.
xii.
1; 2
Chr. xxiv.
Hodesh,
Chr.
viii. g.
pyiV,
Zibeon, Gazelle.
;
Chr.
i.
38 (clan).
xxiii. 18 ; J03. xxiv.
xxii,
Ju.
25.
ii.
21.
njm,
Zorah, Hornet.
1
Patron.,
Chr.
ii.
53 (clan).
ii.
; viii.
x.
25
Neh.
vii. 8
61
Neh.
iii. ;
vii.
63.
14.
mp,
Kore, Partridge.
b.
Meshilimiah
K.,
b.
Chr. xxvi.
1
I.
Shallum
b.
K.
Eliasaph,
Chr.
ix. 19.
K.
b.
Juma
ioo
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
Rachel,
?m,
Ewe.
;
R.u. iv.
1 1 ;
Sam.
x. z.
Sam.
iv.
K>
Iim
ii.
(Dillmann).
(clan).
S. b. Se'ir,
Gen. xxxvi.
Chr.
S. b. Caleb, I
(clan).
Zophah,
Chr.
vii.
36 (clan of Asher).
15 (clan). Chr. xxvi. 16.
D^SW,
Shuppim, Serpents.
Benjamin,
1
S. b. Ir b.
Chr.
1
vii. 12,
Levite in
West
of Temple,
Descendants of Caleb
b.
Hur,
1
Chr.
ii.
53 (clan).
-IW,
Chr.
i.
38.
Bela
b.
Benjamin,
Chr.
viii.
5 (clan).
Shephan, Rock-Badger.
Josiah's scribe, 2
Ahikam
Elasah
b.
S.,
;
xxxiv.
;
2 Chr. xxxiv. 20
Jer. xxvi.
24
xxxix. 14
b. S.,
xl., etc.
Jer. xxix. 3.
Jaazaniah
b. S.,
Ezek.
viii.
n.
1
Chr.
iv.
22
(clan).
Issachar,
Gen.
xlvi. 13.
Nahor, Gen.
xxii. 24.
Ru.
iv.
12
Chr.
ii.
4.
xiii.
xiv. 27.
Dan,
T.
Hebron,
Chr.
ii,
43 (clan).
TOTEM-CLANS
II. PLACE
IN
THE BIBLE?
101
Nu.
xxi. 10.
Fine Oak.
Dan,
Jos. xix. 43.
Town
n?N,
in
Elah, Oak.
1
Sam.
xvii. 2.
pW, Ajalon,
Valley in
Chr.
vi.
69.
xii. 12.
City in Benjamin,
Chr.
viii.
13.
n^N,
Elath, Terebinths.
ii.
8, etc.
Jim
])*?$,
Allon Bachuth,
Oak of Weeping.
SiatW,
Eshcol,
Grape Cluster.
xiii.
23.
i"6jn JV3, Bethhoglah, City of the Partridge. City in Benjamin, Jos. xv. 6.
nt3ETI ITO, Beth Shittah, House of Acacia. Town on Jordan, Ju. vii. 22.
D1ND? XV3,
Bethlebaoth,
Home
6.
of Lionesses.
Town
man
JJf?"l,
Cf. Nu. xxxii. 3, and in Gad, Nu. xxxii. 36. JV2, Beth Tappuah, House of Citrons {Apples).
Is. xv. 6.
Cucumber.
Town
11.
bW?
"M"l,
Town
Simeon, Jos.
xix. 3.
io2
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
City in Judah, Jos. xv. 54.
373,
Caleb,
Dog.
1
Region in Judah,
SJ'V, Laish,
Sam. xxx.
14.
Cf.
Chr.
ii.
24.
Lion.
xviii. 7.
^li
I'V, Engedi,
Town
0*735?
t'JJ,
Eglaim, Fountain of the Two Stags. Moab, Ez. xlvii. 10. )1DT J'Jf, En Rimmon, Fountain of the Pomegranate. Town in Simeon, Neh. xi. 29. Cf. Jos. xix. 7. 3JJ?, Anab, Grape Cluster.
En
of
Town
xi.
21.
msy,
Ophrah, Fawn.
in
Town Town
in
]nSJ?, Ephron,
Fawn.
Nu.
xxxiv. 4
Ju.
i.
36.
xxi. I.
Town
D JH V,
Sam.
xiii.
18.
Zorah, Nest of Hornets. Cf. 1 Chr. ii. 54. Jos. xv. 33.
)1D"1,
Rimmon, Pomegranate.
32,.
TOTEM-CLANS
yiD
Station in the Wilderness,
IN
THE BIBLE?
103
Nu. Nu.
xxxiii. 19.
Benjamin,
Sam.
xiii.
17.
WIN?,
Shaalabbin, Place of Foxes. City in Dan, Jos. xix. 42. Cf. Ju.
i.
35
2 Sam.
xxiiii 32.
[The above lists have been derived from the usual Onomastka, which are by no means up to date in their philology. Dr. Neubauer has kindly pointed out to me a few cases in which the etymology given by my sources is doubtful, but on reflection I have left them in, as the statistical data would have been falsified if I had removed them. In a few cases I have made a suggestion as to the etymology myself, appending my initials. Those due to Robertson Smith have W. R. S. attached to them. To the local list I might have added some names connected with objects like the sun (Beth Shemesh) which occur elsewhere as totems. But if the case is not proven by the animal and plant names, these additional totems would not help.]
io4
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
THE NETHINIM.
Who
in
were the Nethinlm whose names Ezra ii. and Neh. vii. ? This is
is
problem which
The
that they
the
service of the
temple,
:
whence
their
name D>aVD
(Dati sc. Deo vel Templo) it is also generally added on Rabbinic authority that the main body was formed of
descendants of the Gibeonites (Jos.
is
ix.).
This answer
it
attached to the
taken in war.
explain the
Temple and were descendants of captives But it leaves out of account and fails to
degraded
position
abnormally
of
these
Nethinim.
to wife
Other
captives
with the Jews, who were allowed to take a female captive (Deut. xxi. 10-13) these Nethinim and their
:
descendants,
interdicted
from
They were
thus a class
attached to the
Temple, which would, one should have thought, cast some shadow of its sanctity over all persons connected with it. This union of sacred service and
1
The
original
17,
form
is
of Ezr.
viii.
D^JIJIJ,
word which
is
Num.
viii.
19.
The
not
THE NETHINIM.
social
105
degradation
:
is
the
puzzle connected
with
the
as
Nethinim
solution.
the
following
remarks
are
intended
We may
condition. in the
list
first
as to their
degraded
The
enumerated separately
sufficient to
if
show
that
they were a
set
apart.
And
and Levites, this can only have been in order that marriages with them might be avoided. Herzfeld (Gesch.
d. Volkes Israel, II.
ii.
Ezr.
ix.
1,
Neh.
it
xiii.
is of later date, though the was established by David (Jeb. 78 b), and the Midrash [Bam. R. viii.) by Ezra. He gives, however, no account of its later origin, and the argumentum e silentio may be turned the other way, if we can show that the Nethinim were so despised that no legislation would seem necessary to preserve the Jews from the pollution of such marriages, no more than if they had
Talmud
been
idiots
or lepers.
case in
:
IID^S
bK-iarb navm nnaa n?nBi fvirib bN-w " female bastard and a female Nathin are prohibited (to marry) an Israelite, and a daughter of Israel to a Nathin Further in feb. viii. 3, it is said that the or a bastard" prohibition against Moabites and Ammonites, Egyptians and Edomites, though mentioned in the Bible, only applies for a certain number of generations, and does not
mi
apply at
rra.pi
all
it
is
added
piTfiO
To\rDi
oVy tcn
th-id^
io6
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
"Bastards and Nethinim are prohibited (to marry Israelites) and this prohibition is perpetual^ and applies both to males and females." 1 A table of precedence in Jer. Horaioth classes, of which iii. 5, 48* classifies the people in fifteen the first three are, ( 1 ) the sage, (2) the King, (3) the
high-priest,
and the
last
four
(12)
bastard,
(13) a
Nathin, (14) a proselyte, (15) a freedman. 2 All this, and 3 the evidence might be considerably amplified, will be
sufficient
to
position of these
level
unas
fortunate beings,
bastards, 4
who were
as
and regarded
moral
No
given in
;
the.
Talmud.
rabba,
(feb. 79 a
Bam.
from
Israelites,
distinctive qualities
of a
mercy
cannot
And
is
Jew
hospitality, modesty,
and
history.
tions of
only founded on one of those combinawhich the Rabbis were as lavish as an extraordinary professor at a German University. In Jos. ix.
and Nethinim
In Kidd. n?
viii. 3,
it
was explained
whom
vd> jnniD d^3 'Sidki pwb> wrm nroo nnm na " Proselytes and freedmen, bastards and Nethinim, those whose father
nn
disappearance of the
Nethinim
as
a class as
Temple.
inclusion in
3 4
vii. 5, the Nathin comes eighth out of the classes which renders a woman unable to marry a priest. Cf. Sota iv. 1 Mace. iii. 1 ; Hor. iii. 8. In Tos. Kidd. v. 1 (ed. Zuckermandel, p. 341), an abstract term
;
rnynj
is
given,
to-
niirOD, "bastardy."
THE NETHINIM.
167
27, the Gibeonites are said to have been made by Joshua " hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord unto this day in the
place where he should choose."
well
enough
identification
doubtless be associated
no confirmation elsewhere in the Bible. In David permits the Gibeonites to revenge themselves on Saul's children for injuries done to them by Saul, and this implies that they held no such degraded
is
There
2 Sam.
xxii. 19,
And
in Ezra's time
we
from the Nethinim. For " the men of Gibeon " with " Melatiah the Gibeonite " at their head, repaired a piece
of the wall of Jerusalem near the Old Gate on the west
side of the city (Jer.
iii.
7),
Ophel on the east side (ibid. 26). Altogether, the Talmudic identification of Gibeonites and Nethinim utterly breaks down on close examination, and, even if
better established,
fails
Nor
them help
this
us out of the
is
difficulty.
All
we
learn
from
source
that the
numbering 392
souls (Ezr.
ii.
58), the
so,
On
But even
the
108
BIBLICAL ARCHiEOLOGY.
viii.
20).
The names
ii.,
of the former
it
20)
this
second
now
and were persuaded to come by " their brother " Iddo. They were located " at Ophel over against the water-gate toward the east and the tower
unknown
{ibid. 5, 16),
that lieth
out''''
(Neh.
is
iii.
26),
no
said to
them, unless " the house of the Nethinim" mentioned in verse 31, was so called from being built by them, which
is
very improbable.
The Nethinim were doubtless placed Temple, where they served under the
all
Levites (Ezr.
vii.
all
{ibid. vii.
24)
as
II.
i.
140).
Inci-
20)
the princes
who
is
they were,
why
their functions,
and, above
graded,
still left
unexplained.
de-
nor
Talmud
an explicit answer to the puzzling were the Nethinim ? No one seems to have thought of solving these difficulties by subjecting to a critical analysis the names ol
give
us
question
Who
ii.
43-58, Neh.
vi.
Remnants
which
lieth out
been
recently discovered
p.
by Sir Chas.
Warren.
FundJerusalem,
229.
THE NETHINIM.
46-60.
109
The
latter list,
in
my
may
be here given
as
the
of
I.
The
(1)
una vn,
'a,
(2)
Mown
'a,
(3)
nwata
'a,
(4) rrfp
'a,
(5) (8)
N^a
saan
naab
'a,
ma
'a,
dwb
(9) ^abrc 'a, (10) pn 'a, (u) Via 'a, (13) rrwn 'a, (14) psn 'a, (15) siipa 'a, (17) n> 'a, (18) nos 'a, (19) ^>a 'a, 'a, (21) nvittnsa 'a [np (22) 'a
Wsa],
piapa,
(23) ssipn
'a,
'a,
(24)
iimn
'a,
(27)Ntmn'a,
'a,
nan
(31)
n^a
and to these
we may
The Sons of
(33)
Servants.
'a,
ino
'a, 'a,
(34)
msD
(36) rf*
'a,
% (40) Vtan
'a.
'a,
'e,
(42)
D^asn
'a,
(43)
pas
In Neh. xi. 21 it is mentioned that Ziha and Gispa were over the Nethinim (nn^, NSttfci). Bertheau, in
commenting on the list in Ezr. ii. assumes that this Ziha was the same as No. 1, and that therefore all the names contained in the list are those of men living at the
1
(4)
Dip,
(5)
KflNlD,
(25)
(
(8)
roan,
(33)
bmtr [np o^b>], (21) did'sj pip *dd, (34) rnsDn, (35) mns, (36) rvv\
9)
(8)
D'D'aa],
ni^va
43 ) *dn.
(37) omitted,
Between
(20)
and
(9)
D1PJJ '2 and 2311 '3 are inserted, and between (19) and
n:DK a.
no
time.
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
If this were so, I
falls
may
much
of
my
argument
this
to the
ground.
But
are
several reasons
render
improbable.
There
;
only
forty-two
families to the
392
souls
this
much
Then some
persons at
The Bene Tabdoth (No. 3) had probably charge of the rings (fTOSri) connected with the Temple (cf. Ex. xxv. 12, xxvi. 24, xxviii. 28), and the next
all.
name Bene
xxvi.
6,
it
(cf.
Ex.
16)
n).
The
Bene
Gazzam (No.
Temple.
The Sophereth (Nos. 34) might have been connected with the writing of the sacred rolls ; the article attached
the parallel passage in Ezra would was an official name, not a personal one. And other names though not of office, are yet The Me'unim (No. 20) were an clearly not personal. Arab tribe with whom the Jews had fought (2 Chr. xxvi. 7) ; and we may conclude that the Bene M. were
to
the
name
that
in
indicate
it
captives
a similar conclusion
(No. 21), though no tribe of that name is elsewhere mentioned. Again, Rezin was the name of a well-known king of Syria (2 Kings xv. 37), and the Bene Rezin (No. 14) were probably descendants of prisoners captured in the Jewish war against this King (ibid. xvi. 5). The same might apply to the Bene Sisera (No. 29) if this did not
holds good of the next item, Bene Nephisim
indicate too distant
date (Jud.
list
is
iv.).
the large
THE NETHINIM.
names ending
in ; (Nos. I, 2, 5, 8, 15, 17, 23, 26, 27, Nt is the usual Aramaic ending 29, 32, 35, 36). for feminines (cf. Kautzsch, Gramm. d. bibl. Aramaischen,
Now
50,
Anm.
3, p. 84),
and
it
that so large a
feminine ending. 1
And
with
guide us,
we
equally
25),
feminine in form,
n^b
34). in
and
mSD
Sarai
(No.
Sara
was
when
Aramaea, we may include ^bbtt? (No. 9), "2 (No. 19), and "iQIO (No. 33), among our feminine forms, while the
instance of Athaliah shows us that forms like n^N") (No.
13),
masculine.
in
and rPE2D2J (No. 39), might be as much feminine as Nor need we depend solely upon mere forms
the Nethinim traced their descent were
women. Hebrews for giving " biological " names to their women, e.g., Rachel (ewe), Debora (bee), Jael (chamois), Huldah (weasel), Kezia In our list we find no less (cassia), Hadassa (myrtle). Libanah (No. 7, poplar 2 ), than four names of this kind Hagaba (No. 8, grasshopper), Bakbuk (No. 22, gourd), and Ia'ala (No. 36, chamois). Again, Harsha (No. 27, witch), and Hatipha (No. 32, female captive), are scarcely names to be applied to men, and many of the remaining
whom
We
know
the
fondness
of the
Among
the
in
as
:
NPtN
27) and
NJtJJ
2 .of
(v. 30).
Or moon, equally
woman
in Semitic.
The
exceptional use
instead of
XT
well established by
MSS. and
early
ii2
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
Hanan
(10, grace),
of the personal
names (Nos. n,
is
28, 37, 38) which are not or in meaning, and none of these
name.
fancy
I
Nor
is
this
all.
we
shall
see,
same
characteristics.
viii.
It
is
distinctly
men-
" all of them were expressed by name" yet we have no further mention of
tioned of these
(Ezr.
20),
them
in the Bible.
It
is
was preserved, and it may be conjectured that the three additional names of the first list congenealogy
tained in the parallel passage of Ezra, 2p37, 23J1, and
PDDN, came from this source. This conjecture is confirmed by the fact that the Greek apocryphal book
of
well
Esdras
as
(v.
six additional
""Aaapi,
$apaicefi,
less
it
adds
no
Afappd,
BapcoSk,
2a<pdy.
It
extremely
Greek writer took the trouble to invent these outlandish names, and he must have obtained them from some more complete edition of the Biblical Ezra. If we may identify the iiSSou? of the Apocrypha with the
unlikely that the
IfM of Ezr. viii. 17, this gives a point of connection between these additional names and those of the second
batch.
Further,
as
THE NETHINIM.
second.
113
We
II.
may now
The
(vii.)
(i.)
satM na,
aipy
['AyyaPd, Esd.J,
(iv.)
H3D
ana
(xv.)
'a,
'a, 'a,
(xi.)
vm
aan 'a or saan rmtip 'a [?], (vi.) (viii.) [d^tu&n, (ix.) op-ia 'a, 'a, (xii.) rpt 'a, (xiii.) rn 'a,
'a,
(iii.)
'a, (v.)
IIS
saiD 'a
[cf.
Ezek.
xxiii.
42], (xvi.)
Hna
'a, (xvii.)
mina 'a,
(xviii.) -7222
'a
If this were the complete list, it would give an average of twelve to each family, not too far removed from the
average of nine in the first batch. If this average of nine persons to a family also applied to the second batch,
there would be about six names missing from the above
list.
or no, or
whether these
it
is
names
of
observe
how
closely this
new
We
have names of
office in
and the pourers of libation (No. names of enemies from whom slaves had been
viii., ix., xiii.),
captured (Nos.
i.,
iii.,
xvi.),
rp (No. xvii.), and TV> names, Hagaba {grasshopper), Azna (bramble), and Ophra (fawn), and only two names, IIS and aipS, are not
xi.),
names ending in NT (Nos. or n T (No. iv.), in \ (No. (No. xii.), three " biological"
clearly those of
women.
Our
1
previous suspicion
is
raised
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
state
ii4
with a con-
up
to
women}
Nethinim could only
the most probable con-
women,
Men who could not trace their paternity, attached Temple and yet degraded to the level of bastards
Temple
who
worship of
are
not identical
Now we know
mon
by SoloKings xi. 5), and as the Temple was simply the Chapel Royal while the kingdom lasted, the rites of Ashtoreth were doubtless performed in the Sanctuary. These rites may possibly explain the large number of his
(i
harem, and
we can
title
"H2J7 "03
nabtP given to some of the Nethinim by connecting it with this worship. Manasseh introduced an Ashera into
the
Temple
(2 Kings xxi. 7), which was removed by Even if we did not have this
rites in
These
1
worse abominations in the 0">Enp, or cincedi sacri. are first mentioned in the reign of Rehoboam
The list of the first batch is immediately followed by those who could not trace their father's house, three clans of 642 souls bearing the names
Beni Delaiah, Tobiah, Nikoia,
60
;
also seemingly
names
of
women
(Ezr.
ii.
Neh.
vii.
62).
THE NETHINIM.
(r
115
[ibid.
Kings
xiv.
24)
removed by Jehoshaphat
standing these
[ibid. xxii.
abolitions,
we
down the houses of the D^anp, which were by the house of the Lord where the women wove hangings for the
Ashera" (2 Kings xxiii. 7). This is clear evidence of the existence of these rites in direct connection with the Temple.
And where
In the Deutero-
nomic
classes
legislation,
which
all
critics
come of
cept
:
" There
nor a
shall
Israel,
Wlp
17)
and, as if to
mark the
people
ecclesiastical character
of
these terms,
among
are
in
the
common
[ibid.
18).
We
it is
have no
said
probability referred
to
when
that
Jehoiakim (2 Kings xxiii. 37), Jehoiachim (ibid. xxiv. 9), and Zedekiah (ibid. 19) "did that which was evil in the
sight of the Lord, according to
all
done."
detailed
"
And
even
as late as
rites
Ezekiel
we
account of the
mtznp
Thou
shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the wages of a dog into
The meaning
in a secular
of
373
here
is
settled by the
same term
as
D^^S
HJ1T
It
is
Ins.
Sent.
apart
I.,
flKHp, so
373 was
probably EJHp
was
was
u6
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
life-,
With
this
we
in connection
can scarcely deny the existence of sacred prostitutes with the Temple of Jerusalem throughout
the separate
to the Exile.
infertile,
Now, though
children
women
are
mostly
the
which these had would doubtless be brought up to the same vile life as themselves before the Exile (the sons as O'ttJlp, the daughters as niEnp), and after the Exile became the Nethinim, whose origin we are here investigating. This account of it explains their connection with the Temple, their degraded position, and the fact that they could only trace their ancestry up to
women.
It
may
be
fairly
asked
why
the Nethinim
should
and Herzfeld
(/. c, II. ii. 140) urges this point in arguing that the prohibition against intermarriage with
them
did
He
objection would
pariahs.
No
one
who
has read
M.
which the
outcasts
humanity submit
from
to their lot
we have an
additional and
:
more
return to Palestine
Temple (Ezr.
vii.
24).
Again
THE NETHINIM.
to
117
modern notions
it
seems
difficult
to understand
why
from the vices of which the Nethinim were a living embodiment should have permitted them to return to take up their old quarters near the Temple. But it was the most natural thing in an ancient and an Oriental State that the status quo ante should be restored what would need explanation would be any departure from it. The Jews returned with touching fidelity to the villages they had occupied before the Exile the Nethinim had been attached to the Temple before, they were attached to it as a matter of course after they were degraded before, they were
the Jews,
freed for ever
:
when once
New
Israel.
right
that
this
investigation
should
conclude
first
the In the ancestors of the Nethinim which end in names of the Yet the only names of Nt are those of women. Nethinim (except the Iddo of Ezr. viii. 16) individual are those of the two leaders SH2 and NBtM, the former
first
we have assumed
that
Ziha
at
the head
of the
first
Gispa
at the
As
Aramaic
tendency after the exile for the names of men to end in Nt, this has been deduced from the very list of names we are considering, and would thus be a circular argu1
The
latest and, I
think I
may
add, the
the Nethinim was by Rosenzweig, in his Jahrhundert nach 1885, who sees in them the forerunners of the Essenes
dem Exit,
"
n8
ment.
strange
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
At any
list
rate the
tendency
18-43).
is
not shown
among
their
at
the long
of names of Jews
(Ezr. x.
who
put away
wives
This
are the
objection,
any
rate,
n~
(34, 41).
These
names
usually
term Koheleth : if the present view is correct, this must be abandoned ; and we have not only depended on the forms of the words in contheir " biological cluding that these were women
on
to explain the
character was,
their
among
others, an independent
difficulty
is
proof of
meaning.
Another
suggested by the
xxiii.
difficult
word
'WD
(cf.
42,
good sense.
Now
it
to
say the
this
rites
we have
cryphal
ventured
to
restore
to
viol
the
ApoWhile this identification confirms in a most unexpected manner our general hypothesis, it causes some difficulty as to the origin and meaning of the words ending in M,. For here we have a word of this kind referring not to a woman, but to a place or tribe.
Sovfict of the
It
is,
and
i.)
should refer to places or tribes without our being able to Altogether I am inclined to think the identify them. evidence in favour of the majority of the names in the
list
women
is
overwhelming.
THE NETHINIM.
I
if this
as
an explanation of their
if the
names
still
remains to be
as
we
have suggested,
why
does no hint of
it
occur, in Bible or
Talmud
it,
To
story with and implied the same to men speaking Hebrew as For this we iepohovkoi implied to men speaking Greek.
required if the
replied that
no hint was
carried
its
own
and Neh.
vii.,
the
name
viii.
is
transliterated
is
Nadivaioi in
53-58,
the
LXX.,
ii.
translated UpoSovXoi
v.
viii.
(Ezr.
58,
24,
20; 3 Esdr.
22-51), and the same word is used by Josephus (Ant. XI. v. 1 ) in the only passage where he refers to them. Now there is no ambiguity in the meaning of lepoBovXoi
(v.
s.
v.
Hieroduli,
Herrmann
13-16)
:
Gottesdienst.
Hellenen, 27, n.
it
almost invariably means the ministers of lascivious rites in connection with the temples of Aphrodite (really
The LXX. and Greece as in Judaea). would not have used a term of so insulting a Josephus meaning if they had no tradition of the origin of the Nethinim to depend upon. As regards the use of the name Nethinim as corresponding to hieroduli, we have an
Astarte
in
life,
Bayaderes,
who
are
technically
called
Deva-dasi
120
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
There are also special reasons why the Mishna would be chary of entering into As the details about this somewhat unsavoury subject. Temple increased in sanctity, it was decidedly impolitic
(deodatce).
doctors of the
on earth had
been tainted by the most unholy of rites. The Sopherim developed a special sense of delicacy about these and
kindred subjects,
Chronicler,
as
we know from
has
in the synagogues.
The
whom Zunz
shown
to be identical with
all
is
mention of the
careful to point
Kedishim or Kedishoth.
to the abominations
Though he
committed by the kings, he is reticent i Kings xiv. 24 ; 2 K. xv. 12, xxii. 47, xxiv. 7, find no parallel in Chronicles. Neither in Mishna nor Gemara, so far as I am aware, do we find in any mention by name of any individual Natbin, and it is probable that they disappeared as a class The memory of after the destruction of the Temple. their origin then seems to have died away, and the Rabbis of the Talmud found and exercised an opporabout
details,
tunity
for
displaying
their
ingenuity in
combination
We
cults
this
delicacy and
best
We can
it
know
opposed to
it
all
those
who
are
nowadays
Yet
we
THE NETHINIM.
of
rites as repulsive as
121
in
Temple right up to the Exile. Scholars had of course known of this previously (though not later than
the
Josiah), but the discovery that the Nethinim were the
many
points
on the subject which cannot fail to light up on the religious development of Israel.
in
;
When we
La
Bruyere we understand the French Revolution when we think of the Nethinim and all that they imply we
Imagine Nathin slinking by Isaiah in the courts of the Temple, and we have a vivid picture of the lowest and the highest form of worship which arose in Syria and spread thence throughout the ancient world, the one disintegrating society, the other destined to bring the germs of salvation. Nor are the two forms so disconnected as might appear
a
:
healthy
human
nature has in
itself a
safeguard against
as
are
implied
in
the
The mere
much of the steva indignatio with which Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel inveigh against practices which strike not
alone at
social
all
spiritual religion
life.
but
at
and family
And
of the terms " whoredom " and " abomination " applied by these
if substantiated, enables us to appreciate the force
They
seem mere pieces of bad taste if we take them metaphorically, as modern exegesis too complacently assumes (e.g., Gesenius, Theses, v. 713T, p. 422). Our knowledge of the continued existence of these Nethinim shows these
i22
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
It
is is
right-thinking men.
instructive light
on account of the
have thought
it
lurid but
which
development of
raise for a
Israel that I
moment
123
probable
that
India
in
was by no
means
so isolated
been assumed.
As
the result of a
somewhat elaborate investigation of the fables by iEsop I have come to the conclusion that a certain number of
Indian
fables
had
percolated
to
Greece, even
before
bility
This result renders it desirable to consider the possiwhether Indian thought or literature had any influence on Biblical literature. Hitherto, the only
mon's judgment.
There is a curious piece of evidence which seems to show that the Jataka stories were connected with the
western world.
Among
by Rhys
the
-
Buddhist Birth-Tales
pp.
xiv.
is
one (translated
Davids,
xvi.)
in
which a Takshini, or female demon, seizes a child left by its mother for a moment, and claims it as her own. The two claimants are brought before the future Buddha, who draws a line on the ground, orders the women to stand on each side of it and hold the child between them, one by the legs the other by the arms. Whichever of the two, he decides, shall drag the
1
See
my
History of
Msofs
Fables, vol.
i.
of
my
edition of Caxton's
jEsop.
124
child
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
over
the
line
shall
possess
it.
They
the
begin
lets
hauling,
but the
infant
cries,
and
it.
the
mother
hurt
Then
future
child,
Buddha knows who is the true mother, gives her the and makes the Takshini confess her true nature,
it
up.
In
short,
we have
It
is
Judgment of Solomon attributed to Buddha. not impossible that the two may be connected. If
the
is
possible, for
it
would be just the kind of story to be carried out to Ophir, which we now know to be Abhira at the mouth of the Indus, whence came the peacocks, monkeys, and almug trees all with Indian names to bedeck the court of Solomon. M. Gaidoz, however, in an interesting set of papers on
justice, it
Judgment
(Melusine,
1889),
am
reason that
name
is
The
following
:
recent instance occurred in Persia during the absence of the Shah. farmer complained that a soldier had eaten his melons without payment.
" Which
soldier
man was
prince,
who was dispensing justice. The "Rip him up," said the Persian
"and
paid, if not,
woe
betide you."
melons.
125
XXX.
Who Who
Who
knows
has
or
who
here
can
come down
his fists
?
declare
Whence
sprung
whence
or not
?
this
creation
Who Who
From what
in a
garment
has established
?
the ends
He who
ruler,
in the highest
heaven
is it?
of the earth
What
is
his
He
verily
knowest ?
not.
Rig Veda,
Texts,
15
.
356).
The
horseleech
has
three
daughters, 8
" Give,
give.''
There
Yea.,
are
three
things
never
Fire
is
sated,
fuel,
four
that
never
say
"Enough":
Sheol
is
Nor Ocean with the streams, Nor the god of death with all
tures.
crea-
Nor
the
womb's
gate with
men,
Nor
Pants.,
I.
str.
And
18.
fire says
never "Enough."
habh.
iv.
153 2227. 3
also
Ma-
There be three things too wonderful for me, Yea, four which I know not
The path of ships across the sea, The soaring eagle's flight Varuna
knows.
19.
The way of an eagle in the air. The way of a ship through the sea.
.
Rig Veda
(cf.
Muir's
Metr,
Trans. 160). 4
1
a 3
owe From
he
it
Quoted
as a coincidence by Prof.
Cheyne,
I.e.
iz6
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
Proverbs
XXX.
things
21.
Under
three
trembles.
And
22.
four
it
cannot bear
Under
a servant
when
master,
And
23.
a fool filled
with meat,
A bad woman wedded, A friend that's false, A servant become pert, A house full of serpents,
Make
life
unsupportable.
ii.
Hitopadesa,
(cf.
Pants.,
I.
str.
47 2 ).
all
It
is,
the Indian
parallels that
far as
am
The
second
parallel
again
is
the other.
tive of this
literary
The
;
is
distinc-
chapter,
I
may
add, a
common
less
Indian
of the
artifice
have counted no
than thirty
instances
among
Book
Pantschatantra. 1
is,
according to
all critics,
origin to
Old Testament, 3
becomes
335,
(str.
292,
364, 449), in
earth's
golden crown:
are three
51);
" There
(str. 2 3
things for
257).
" The words of Agur, the son of Jakeh of Massa," i.e., an Arabian. There are Sanskrit words in Kings, Greek words in Daniel, Arabisms
Job, the scapegoat (Azazel)
is
in
127
from India via Arabia, and that we must allow for an earlier l as well as later " Libyan " influence on Hebrews,
as
we have
it
for
Greeks.
to
And
all
is
this
the Jewish
But be all this as it may, we have iconographic evidence of an interesting kind, that the Judgment became
Greeks and Romans. By an interesting two ancient representations of the Judgment were found within two years. One brought to light by M. Longperier in 1880 was engraved on an agate that could be traced back to Bagdad via Bucharest its age cannot, however, be decided with any great accuracy. But the other was found at Pompeii, and cannot, therefore, be later than 79 a.d. M. H. Gaidoz, who has figured the two in Melusine for 1889, comes to the conto the
known
coincidence,
Roman
version
is
Jewish or Christian source. 2 If so it must have come from the Jatakas, and as we know that other Jatakas came to the Hellenic world, this too may have been among them. I have found a slight piece of evidence from
Rabbinic sources, which confirms
this conclusion.
The
occur in Ecclus.
xiii. z,
He
both representations
in
a tender Buddhistic
128
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
of the story
drash^
vi., p.
31).
After
world.
all, it
Greco-Roman movement which disturbs to its depths a whole ocean of human feeling will naturally radiate its
Buddhistic influence percolating into the
influence, if only in
ripples, to
all
parts
in
continuity
with
it.
129
revision of the
Old Testament
is
a literary success,
it
That
which the new version makes. There have been practically no alterations in the text,
the general impression
when undoubtedly
margin.
The
literary
its
majestic
been disturbed, and has even been allowed fuller play by the arrangement of the prose books in paragraphs, and of
the poetical books in separate lines.
The
revisers are to
There can be
as the other
little
doubt
as to
the
wisdom
new
text of the
Old Testament
company
New.
stands
The
textual
criticism
of the Old
Testament
nowadays where that of the New did before the days of Even the Massorah is not settled ; the Griesbach.
Septuagint does not exist in a critical edition
;
its
Hebrew
by Lagarde, and
1
in
Samuel by Wellhausen
Old and
after
Thenius.
Translated
The Holy
New
Testaments.
(Cam-
130
Still less
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
progress has been
made
in
the
Targum
it
and
Under
would have been little less than madness to have stances attempted the huge task of settling the earliest accessible The revisers have produced text of the Old Testament. what was really wanted an amended version of the Bible as it has affected the religious and literary life of England for the past three hundred years. This is as it should be. The Old Testament is in itself a nation's literature, and depends for its effect far more on literary form than
Paul.
And
it is
form that
in
an original
text,
The
we
revisers
Arnold,
work.
But our
From
the soberly written and business-like preface, dated July, 1884, may be selected a few general principles of rendering.
The Lord," in small capitals, has been retained Tetragrammaton, while the nondescript " Jehovah " appears in the margin. Of technical terms from the Hebrew, only three seem to have been generally
"
for the
introduced.
placed by "
The
meaningless
{e.g.,
been
re-
Ashera"
Judges
28), with
its
plurals
131
" Asherim " (Ex. xxxiv. 13) and "Asheroth" (Judges In the poetical books "Sheol" has taken the iii. 7). place of "hell" (e.g., Ps. ix. 17), which has been turned in prose passages by " the grave " and " the pit," with " Sheol " in the margin. " Abaddon " has been
introduced in three passages
the
Book of
Proverbs.
once in Job and twice in " Tent of meeting " has re:
a rendering of
offering "
is
"TV1J3
bms
in
" meal
an ingenious variant
" meat
offer-
to be a
name
(e.g.,
for
all
food.
generic "
Deut. xxi. 4) has been dropped as not understood even by persons of intelligence, while " boiled " (Ex. ix.
31) has been retained
as still in provincial use
any been introduced to render D^ia, though at times this becomes " Gentiles" (e.g. Mai. i. 11), when the contrast to
literary equivalent.
plural,
new
is
marked.
landmark
in the history
of the language has been removed by a general change of " his " into " its " when applied to neuter nouns. All
headings of chapters have been dropped,
as in the
Revised
New
is
The
dis-
tinctly, paragraphs
The
Song
it
of
Songs, the
verses
5,
first
8,
9,
up into
132
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
The
Psalms are
seven speeches.
into five
now
definitely divided
" Books," the last four beginning at Pss. xlii., lxxiii., xc, and cvii. But the greatest improvement of a general nature is
Not
though the prophets have been left as however passionate and sustained their oratory. Thus the songs of Lamech, Jacob, Miriam, Moses, Deborah, and Hannah, the psalms of Jonah and Habak^ kuk, and David's lament (2 Sam. i.) appear as verse. And even slight snatches of song like
prose,
Saul hath slain his thousands
And David
are given apart
of their
less
effect.
had always
:-^-
appeared as
And he
upon Gibeon,
and the
And And
Is
it
thou,
Moon,
moon
?
stayed
So,
too,
the
ballad
origin
of
the
famous jawbone
his triumphal
when
With With
the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, the jawbone of an ass have I smitten a thousand men.
Wars
of
Lord" (Num.
xxi.
14)
is
printed poetice.
The
133
of the book is very doubtful the Septuagint takes " the war of the Lord " as part of the quotation. These
instances will illustrate the exegetic value of this seem-
ingly
mechanical
improvement.
This
will
probably
The
revisers,
many household words of the Old Testament. examined over a hundred of the most familiar phrases and passages, and in the large majority of cases have found them unchanged amid their new surroundings. may still talk of " a land flowing with milk and honey," " a still small voice," " a tale that is told," " balm in Gilead," " house appointed for all living," " darkness which may be felt," " pen of a ready writer," " vanity of vanities," " law of the Medes and Persians," " man of unclean lips," " precept upon precept," " a lamp unto my feet," " wife of thy bosom," " apple of his eye." Our " lines " may still continue to be " fallen in pleasant places " ; we may " eat, drink, and be merry," " take sweet counsel together," " grind the faces of the poor," " cause the widow's heart to sing for joy," " make a
intact the
We have
We
covenant with
death,"
"heap
coals
of
fire,"
" weighed
thy bread upon the waters " and " escaped with the skin The old saws have not of my teeth" are also retained.
" Put not thy trust in princes," " Go to the ant, thou sluggard," " Answer a fool according to his folly," " A wise son maketh a glad father," " Be not righteous over much," " A soft answer turneth away wrath," " The race is not to the swift," " Love is strong
been modernised.
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
" In the multitude of counsellors there is " Righteousness exalteth a nation " all these,
34
as
death,"
safety,"
and more
familiar
also,
retain,
we
faces.
Longer
accurately in
ticed
;
memory
would be no-
absolutely unaltered.
known of these much remains "Naked came I," etc. (Job i. 21),
born of a woman " (ibid. xiv. i), " The " (Ps. xix.), " The days of our years are heavens declare "
Man
is
threescore and ten " (ibid. xc. 10, though here the revision reads pride for " strength "), "
They that go down to hanged our harps," and other familiarity have lost none of this at the
We
revisers.
Few,
probably,
known
passage
But
I
know
that
my Redeemer
liveth
And And
upon the
earth,
Yet from
my my
God,
Whom
myself
And mine
We have
that
it is
refers
to such
a characteristic trait in
Hebraic culture.
So
far so
good.
No
revisers,
"
Ye
But not
all
the familiar
The
high he
no
longer
casts
lots
135
to
is
no longer joined
brackets
placed apart
square
as
musical direction,
day's
we
presume.
The summary
of each
formula
work at the creation now runs according to the " And there was evening and there was morn:
the Pleiades " only the text has simply, " Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades ? " (Job xxxviii. 31.) The " apples of gold " of Prov. xxv. 1 1 are now encased
appears in the margin
"
The
"
" pictures."
17) has,
after
as
borribile dictu!
become " Vanity and a striving curse (Gen. xlix. 4), " Unstable
excel,"
wind."
Reuben's
now
reads,
" Unstable
little
as water,
much
increase of harshness.
xii.
1
On
archaism in Eccl.
shows the
more Elizaalso
"Remember
thy Creator in the days of thy youth, or ever the evil days come or the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I
have no pleasure in them."
involved in the change, "
The
disturbance of
also," for
rhythm
connects
Remember
xi.
"
it
Rememrate,
ber now,"
may
the thought
variant,
better with
and, at
for
any
the
" while the evil the same idiom in days come no^t," suggested probably by The following xii. 6, has an extremely happy effect.
evil days
come,"
been necessary,
:
136
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
Authorized.
Revised.
in
vi. 4.
Gen.
in the earth
Oh
that
mine
O
which
that I had
the indictment
my
him
All
my
haste,
my haste,
All
men
are a
men
are liars.
13.
Eccl.
xii.
This
is
all
clusion of the
whole matter
Fools
Fear
God, &c.
Prov. xiv.
at sin
is
:
9.
make
mock
The
will.
foolish
make
mock
at guilt
is
but
among the
righteous there
good
favour.
The above,
a shock
rity
is
all
of familiar
unchanged
its
to the
chances of
popularity go.
As a specimen of longer passages we may take the most striking passage in prophetic literature, Is. Hi. 13liii. 12, where almost every word offers temptations to
rash
alteration.
will
be
found
ta
include
versions
most
:
of,
not
all,
the variants
of the
two
Authorized.
Hi. 13.
Revised.
extolled deal wisely
lifted
deal prudently
up and
shall
be very high.
As
Like
men).
kings.
as
thee'' (his
visage.....
men.
15.
liii.
The
.
is
kings.
the arm.
137
Revised.
we
is
shall see.
we
and
see.
despised
faces
we
;
hid as
was
despised
and
as
one from
were our
from him
he was
whom men
despised.
7.
he was
to
afflicted, yet
:
he opened
yet he
not his
mouth
the
he
is
brought as a
so
led
lamb
slaughter
he
he opened.
openeth.
8. He was taken from prison and from judgment and who shall de:
By
oppression
and judgment he
was taken
generation,
sidered that
away,
and
as
for
his
con-
he 9 done.
11. 12.
made
he shall
bare.
because he
had
they made
done.
although he had
for
bear,
and he shall
yet he bare.
bear.
and he
Except in verses 3, 7, and 8, the changes are very slight from a literary point of view, but the theological importance of the change of tense in the first three verses may be observed, though this is minimised by the future in verse n. Indeed, the Christology of the Old Testament The crucial is almost entirely unaffected by the revision. passage, Is. vii. 14, " Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and
bear a son," remains unchanged, except that the margin suggests " the virgin is with child and beareth." So, too,
in Ps.
ii.
12,
and references to the entirely different versions of Similarly, in the translations are given in the margin. Gen. xlix. 10, " Until Shiloh come " is kept, but " Till
capital,
he come to Shiloh " is noted as an alternative in the margin. In all these cases, as in many others, there seems to have been a strong minority which held out for the
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
it
138
into
we may
So
far
we have commented
rather
revisers
we now
We have
In 1 Sam. xiii. 1, " Saul reigned one year," the revisers have boldly conjectured " Saul was [thirty] years old." The Hebrew certainly cannot bear the former meaning, but why did the revisers insert " thirty " ? The late S.
which now
reads
Sharpe, and others before him, suggested that Saul's age was originally expressed by a letter-numeral, thus, 'a yz.
blSK?
gives
("Dtp,
first
if so, the
age would be
The LXX.
no
help.
we must not linger to discuss details. Let us offer a number of examples where the Bible has been really revised
where
it
was needed
Authorized.
Revised.
Gen.
xxii. 14.
it
In the mount of
In
Lord
it
shall be provided.
the Lord
shall be seen.
xxxi. 53.
By the
By
Isaac.
And
to
it
was
a
it
cloud
And
there
and darkness
them, but
gave
light by night,
139
The flood breaketh Job xxviii. 4. out from the inhabitant even the
;
He
they
They
away from
passeth by,
men.
xxxi. 35.
They hang
Behold
afar
from
fro.
men, they
swing to and
my
lest
desire
is,
(Lo, here
is
my
Beware
I will set
he take
in safety
led
away by
thee
stroke.
Ps.
him
him
in safety at
whom
that
pufFeth at him.
they puff.
Cast up a high
Extol
him
that rideth
way
for
him
who
daily
Blessed
who
the
burden.
of spear-
Rebuke
reeds.
wild
beast
of
the
men.
lxxxvii. 7.
As
As
All
well
the
singers
:
as
they that
dance say
all
my
my
let
cxli. 5.
me
it
And
him
reprove
me
it
shall be
shall be an excellent
which
shall
oil
not break
my head.
The
voice of
Let not
my
head refuse
it.
Is. xl. 3.
him
that
The
crieth
way
of
the
way
of the Lord.
v.
Amos
26.
The
passages,
or, as
too,
describing
the
say,
building
of
the
Tabernacle,
we must now
ing," as well as those dealing with Solomon's temple, are much more clearly rendered, but must be read in their
entirety.
invalid.
Some of
the
renderings
are
ingenious,
but
example.
are
not
his
children,
it
is
their
140
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
is better than " Their spot is not the spot of his children " (A.V.), which Mr. Herbert Spencer quotes as
blemish,"
a reference to tattooing.
whole
in his
it
which deserves to be In Moses's blessing, the revisers went to better known. the original text about Reuben, which sounds more like " Yet let his men be few " (Deut. xxxiii. 6). a curse The witch of Endor now sees only " a god," not " gods," ascending (i Sam. xxviii. 13); but the accom:
panying
leaving
in
participle
is
in
the plural.
As
a general rule,
difficulties
by
them severely alone. We have tested the revision some hundred passages which are really difficult, and
and then mostly in the margin. And of where the versions, especially the Septuagint,
out of insoluble
difficulties in the
Hebrew
The
it is really an adequate revision of the Authorized Version or not. The reason why a revision was deemed necessary was because it was recognised that
question whether
many errors existed in the old version, and that it should be amended so that the translation should answer the needs of modern scholarship. The chief condition of
141
work was that while necessary revisions should be made, the language of the old version should be as far as
possible
retained.
Herein
revisers'
consisted
the
Scylla
and
Chary bdis
on the
clear
of
the
voyage
of
investigation
From
very
it
is
the
rhythm
But
the suspicion
efforts to conserve
and have
where
as
is
purposes
Authorized Version.
It
new
a
paragraph
the
Bible
certainly
impression
leaves,
far
though only
how
to
letter
the
Company
of
Revisers throws light on the history of the version, and helps to explain the very large number of marginal
references
which
is
traits
of the
new
version.
Mr.
1
W.
A. Wright complains of
in the
some
to
errors of citation
which occurred
attempt
lay
But
incidentally he
the article.
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
a rendering of the
in
142
many
discarded
their
lines
second.
not
difficult
to read
between the
tion.
this recanta-
the
blamed for
Version.
Testament, which was universally wanton departure from the Authorized seems that the other company, with this
New
example before their eyes, hastened to repair the ravages they had made, and restored the old readings in many
passages, placing their previous alterations in the margin.
Like Brummel's valet, they may point to them, and say, " These are our failures." The revisers have thereby averted from themselves the fate that has befallen their
fellow revisers
;
but
it
not for a
much
has
blunders of the old version. Many of these have been noted by the newspapers in the reviews of the translation of the literature of ancient Israel, which they managed to
Revised.
Kings
yarn
x.
28.
And Solomon
And
the horses
which Solomon
;
and
them
The
critics
on mid-
night, Friday,
May
15th, 1885.
Owing
at
Athenmum
143
Revised.
flattereth
xxxvi.
2.
For he
eyes,
For he
flattereth
himself in
his
himself in his
own
until his
own
Cant.
vii. 8, 9.
;
The
best
smell of thy
And
the
smell
of thy
breath
like
apples,
mouth
like
the
wine
for
my And
down
sweetly.
thy mouth like the best wine That goeth down smoothly for my
beloved.
Dan. xi. 39. Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory.
the strongest
of a
help
strange
god
whosoever acknowledged
him
The improvement
similar
in
these passages
is
obvious, and
examples
It
might be multiplied
to
almost
any
extent.
would
work, with the aid of nineteenth century scholarship, had not been able to effect many changes. But what was wanted was that the ordinary reader should be able
to
feel
confidence
the
in
the
results
revision
as
representing
scholarship.
throughout
best
of
modern
Otherwise what advantage has the Revised over the Authorised Version ? Now, if a large number of the unintelligible passages of the older version remain as
incomprehensible
as
before, the
is
reader's confidence
its
in
is
shaken, and
purpose
whether
sufficient
the
to
number
produce
of
this
passages
result,
not
amended
the
fail
are
but
excessive
to arouse
number of marginal
ordinary reader.
It
alternatives
cannot
far better to
have
144
of the
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
text,
The
revisers
might have adopted as a regular formula in such cases the marginal " Text obscure," which they give now and
then, but far too rarely to leave the proper impression
It would perhaps have been on the reader's mind. worth trial to leave a few passages blank, with the remark that they gave no sense, rather than leave them
untouched,
nothing.
full
of
resonant
rhythm,
but
signifying
The
"
as
their,"
23,
may
serve
an
illustration, or
22
horsehoofs stamp
in the former
;
by the omission,
with the
in the latter
by
translat-
ing the second line " In the charges, the charges of their
they were to be left in an insome indication of the fact might have been given. Again, it was careless to leave the absurd finish of 2 Sam. xiii. 39, " For he was comforted concerning Amnon, seeing he was dead," without making the obvious emendation " he was comforted concerning
strong ones."
comprehensible
state,
the death of
Amnon "
At
(lit.
concerning
Amnon
that he
was dead).
new
difficulties, as in Job xxxix. 13, where the epithet " kindly " would mislead anyone who did not know the
pun of the
the
original.
The
question
how
to
deal
with
undoubtedly
difficult,
and on
145
words
as
revisers towards such " seethe," " raiment," " chapmen," " noisome,"
modern
is
American
revisers,
to be
commended.
"abjects" in Psalm xxxv. 15, might have been changed with advantage. The headings of the Psalms, "Shosh-
the
suggestion "
To
Among
untouched,
iii.
may be mentioned
12,
39
2 Kings
25
10
Prov.
xiii. 5, xxviii.
margins
(and very rarely Jin the texts) there seems to be Besides the instances already quoted, uniformity.
no
we
have noticed the text emended according to the versions at Ruth iv. 4 (b*n for bs^) and 1 Sam. vi. 18 (pN But no attempt has been made to change for *P2S). the " I Deborah arose " of Judges v. 7, into " Thou
didst arise,"
suggested by Gratz.
And
of the
LXX. are at times put in the margin, the light-giving and important variant in 1 Sam. xiv. 41, which gives so much information about the use of the Urim and
Thummim,
is
conspicuous
additional nationalities
and the
in
Gen.
x.
with passages like Judges are likewise omitted. "house of the Lord"), 2 Sam. xix. 18 ("my house" for vi. 21 ("It was before the Lord that I danced"), Job
So, too,
xxxi.
11,
Ps. lxxiii. 7.
But
L
these
inconsistencies
are
146
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
thus
It is the natural results of revision by a committee. we may explain the fact that while the company
have adhered stoutly to the Massoretic text as a whole, they have discarded the Massoretic paragraphs, which
are
much
earlier
the Jews as of so
much importance
roll.
Again, in their treatment of the tenses, which have much elucidation from Prof. Driver's work,
the revisers
Jer. xx. 9,
show
considerable variation.
xxvii.
At
times, as in
Ezek.
in the former from past to present, in from future to past whereas in Ps. xxii. 30, no change of tense has occurred, nor has any attempt
needed changes
the latter
made much-
Nowhere
is
there greater
improvement in the Authorised Version than with regard to a more consistent rendering of the
for
room
Hebrew
tenses.
revisers
The
call it.
have been
the Realign
more
successful
as
with
the
the
Germans
This
is
where the influence of Dean Stanley and Sir George Grove is clearly marked in such passages as xi. 16, xiii. 16. Everywhere an attempt
passages, particularly in Joshua,
is
made
by the use of technical terms like " the " lowlands," " plot of ground," " bare heights " Arabat,"
great success,
(OtP, Is.
Why,
Uz
by the name of
Huz
in
Gen.
21
The
revisers
show
147
in
their
Temple.
Of other
we may
refer to
satisfy
Quincey. Why, however, did the revisers retain Joseph's " coat of many colours," which has no significance, when " long-sleeved tunic " would indicate the
De
pampered darling who had no work to do ? Let not the drift of the preceding remarks be misunderstood
sions
j
first
imprespassages
made by the new version, and though selected at random often give a surprisingly
estimate of the whole, this
present instance.
accurate
may
All
we wish
that
it
we
have
1.
Its future
in this respect
bound up
in
more
:
senses than
one with
conditions of the
two
the Old Testament were vastly different revisers had to deal with works mainly literary in form the New Testament Company had to deal with documents charged with theological and dogmatic signi;
ficance.
It
that
the literary
of
the
Authorised Version
The New
Testa-
on the other hand had to see that the Christian world was not called upon to believe more or otherwise than the earliest documents suggested ; their aim was theological and scientific, that of the Old Testament revisers more of a literary nature. Both have been,
ment
revisers
148
in their
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
way, successful
j
but
it is
more
popular.
And when we
scholarship
may
shown
form
with
literary
as
Of
their success in
Old Testathis
is
ment of 1611
And
so
overbalances any
scholarship or insufficient
be only another
name
for taste.
The
revisers at
this
any
rate
they will
who
wisdom, vivid narration, passionate oratory, tender devotion, and profound searchings of the heart
CO.,
LONDON WALL.
BS1145.J17
Studies
in biblical
archaeology.