THE ORIGINS OF THE HEBREW PEOPLE

Author(s): David Diringer

Source: Rivista degli studi orientali , 1957, Vol. 32, SCRITTI IN ONORE DI GIUSEPPE
FURLANI: PART I (1957), pp. 301-313
Published by: Sapienza - Universita di Roma

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/41922843

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 l'I

THE ORIGINS ()1< THE HEBREW PEOPLE *

I am very happy to dedicate these notes tí) Prof. Furlan

Exactly thirty years ago Furlani was my professor in the Un
sity of Florence. Since then, I have travelled far and wide,
have done scientific work in various fields ^in conditions not al-
ways favouring such work), but I was always guided by the teach
ings and scientific method of my honoured and beloved Master.

Modern historians and especially archaeologists often evade the

issue. For them, the first problems connected with the origins of the
Hebrew people are those referring to the Exodus from Egypt, under
the leadership of Moses, and the Conquest of Canaan under the leader-
ship of Joshua. But Biblical tradition is adamant in considering the
Exodus as the liberation from schiavitù of a people long in existence,
and Moses as the Law-giver ( torath-Moshè is a traditional term for the
Law) and not as a Patriarch.

The Founder of the Hebrew Nation.

The first person in the Bible to bear the name " Hebrew n was
Abraham ( Genesis , xiv. 3), and he was ever after regarded as the Father
of the Hebrew people: Abraham avinu (" our father Abraham His
emigration from Mesopotamia, in response to a divine call and promise
(Gen. xii. 1-3) was the initial act of faith which made possible the un-
folding of all later Hebrew history. The promise ve-èesekha le-goy gadol
va-avarekhekha va-agaddelah shemekha . . . (c ' And I will make thee
a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great of
Gen . xii. 2 is the point of departure assigned in the Bible for the great
development of which the people of Israel was at once the medium and
the witness. It is an event of an essentially mystical order, mysterious
in its essence biit no less tangible in its result. That a small nomadic
Bedouin clan, wandering, like many others, across plains, steppes and
deserts, should be the source of a destiny so fraught with significance

* Paper delivered to the Near Eastern Society, University of Cambridge.

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 302 D . Dirìnger, [2]

is something which the d

regard as beyond the logi
hundred years, was this
moments of deepest distre
descendants of the inspired
fort, or repentance.
Concise as are the phrases
they are sufficient for us
tion of a religious drama
lunar cult of his forefathe
lekh -lekhà me-arsekhà u-m
of thy country, and from
Gemxii.i. The metaphysi
theism was to be establis
act of this man, who without hesitation set out towards the north-
west " unto the land that I will show thee " ( el-ha-ares asher arekha):
Gen.xii. 1. On the Patriarch's act of faith, three great religions were
established: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This momentous event
must form the starting point of the historian's dealing with the history
of ancient Israel.
That Abraham's home was originally in Mesopotamia, and specific-
ally at the cities of Ur and Haran, is indicated in several strands of
Biblical narrative. In Joshua , xxiv.2 the Hebrew people are reminded
of their polytheistic Eastern ancestry in these words: " Your fathers
dwelt; of old time beyond the River, even Terah, the father of Abraham,
and the father of Nahor: and they served other gods. " " The River "
is a frequent way of referring to the Euphrates, and thus Mesopotamia
is clearly indicated.
Abraham's birthplace, however, is not so clearly indicated. Gen .
xi. 28-30, xii. 1-4 a, 6-9 (cf. XV. 7) identifies it with the city of Ur, and
this tradition is echoed in Nehemiah , ix. 7: "Thou art the God who did
choosè Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees,
and gavest him the name Abraham ". Gen . xi. 10-27, 3 lf>' 4^*5
likewise places the original home in Ur but indicates that the migration
was first ťo Haran, and then - after Terah's death at that place- oh
to Canaan. There is some ground for suggesting that Abraham's birth-
place was at IJaran and not Ur at all. In Gen . xiv Abraham sends his
servant (v. 10) to the city of Nahor in Aram-naharaim (" Aram of the
two rivers ") or north-western Mesopotamia, calling it " my country "
(v. 4) and " the land of my nativity " (v. 7). If this be taken as the
genuine tradition, and be regarded as excluding the possibility that
Abraham had been born at Ur, it becomes necessary to suppose that

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[3] The origins of the Hebrew people 303

" Ur of the Chaldees M or " land of the Chaldees " was either an addi-
tion to the original tradition of Gen. xi. 28 and xv. 7, or a modification
of a tradition referring to the place of origin of Abraham's ancestry.
Then Gen. xi. 31 would represent a reconciliation of the two traditions
by representing that Abraham's residence in IJaran was the result of a
migration from Ur; Nehemiah , ix. 7 would also represent this second-
ary tradition. On the other hand, if the location of Abraham's home
at Ur were only a secondary tradition, it would be difficult to explain
why that particular city was selected. Therefore, the Biblical tradition
that Abraham was born in Ur, moved later to Haran, and went on even-
tually from there into Canaan, is as reasonable as can be expected.

Chronological Problems.

If we look for indications in the Bible of the date of Abraham's

residence in Mesopotamia, we find it necessary to consider a complex
series of chronological notations. Space does not allow of an examina-
tion here of these data, especially as in some cases they bear not only
on the date of Abraham but also on the date of the Exodus - a problem
with which I cannot deal in detail. However, granted that the available
evidence is neither sufficient nor free from contradiction, and assuming
the traditional view that the Patriarchs were 215 years in Canaan,
and the Hebrew tribes were 430 years in Egypt, we arrive at the conclu-
sion that Abraham entered 645 years before the Exodus. If we exa-
mine the archaeological evidence, comparing it with the Biblical tra-
dition, we have to conclude that the most probable date for the Exodus
is either around 1441 B.C. or around 1290 B.C., the latter date appearing
preferable. Adding the figure of 645 years - for the period from Abra
ham to Exodus - we arrive at the approximate date of 1935 B.C. for
Abraham's entry into Canaan, though naturally in view of the many
complexities and uncertainties involved in these chronological calcula-
tions one cannot attach too much weight to this figure. Actually, a
date around 193 S B.C. does not seem entirely appropriate. Such date
would mean that Abraham left Mesopotamia in the troubled period
preceding the early Elamite and Amorite invasions. This, indeed, may
have been a likely time for a clan to depart troni its old home. Cu-
riously enough, also, popular books and elementary school-books date
Abraham around 2000 B.C., but this date is based mainly on the iden-
tification - now generally abandoned - ot Amraphel king ot Shinar
{Gen. xiv. ') with Hammurabi, it this identification were correct,
then in view of recent research on Hammurabi's chronology, the date
of Abraham should be lowered to the eighteenth century B. c. 1

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 304 D. Diringer [4]

or the ninteenth centur

Abraham.
It is interesting to note that " Abraham" occurs as a personal
name a little later in Babylonia. A clay tablet from the reign of Am-
mizaduga, tenth king of the First Dynasty of Babylon, deals with the
hiring of an ox by a certain Abarama son of Awel-Ishtar. Other
similar documents deal with a field leased by Abamrama. While the
reference is of course not to Abraham the son of Terah, the name is
essentially the same.

Historical Background of the Patriarchal Stories .

Be this as it may, the Patriarchal stories fit with thorough congruity

and often with surprising relevance of detail into the historical setting
of life in Mesopotamia during the early second millennium B.C. Li-
kewise, other portions of the Bible reflect intimate connections with both
the mythology and the law of Mesopotamia. It may well have been
that Abraham himself (or his clan) carried with him upon his historic
migration some of the stories and the laws which his descendants were
to raise to so high a level and to pass on to the world. If Abraham
did come from Mesopotamia some time in the early second millen-
nium B.C., we must revise the usual picture of him as a primitive nomad
accustomed only to the open spaces of the desert, and to recognize in
him the heir of a complex and age-old civilization.

Archaeological Background: Mari .

The most important materials for the reconstruction of this civili-

zation and of the history of ancient Israel, of Syria and of Mesopotamia
during the age of the Patriarchs and Moses havè come from the discovery
of the great palace of the Amorite kings of Mari. The ancient city
was on the Middle Euphrates and is represented today by Tell Hariri
6 or 7 miles north of Abu Kemal. Excavations have been conducted
there since 1933 by the Musée du Louvre under the leadership of André
Parrot. It is revealed that in the early second millennium B,C. Mari
was one of the most flourishing and brilliant cities of the Near East.
Among its public buildings were a temple of Ishtar and a ziggurat.
Statuettes representing humble worshippers and dedicated to the god-
dess were found in the temple, and give a vivid picture of the devotion
with which Ishtar was regarded. One statuette represents a worshipper
carrying in his arms a kid which is doubtless intended for a sacrificial
offering.

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[5] The origins of the Hebrew people 305

But the most important of all the buildings was th

king. This was a tremendous structure covering mo
acres in extent. It contained not only the royal apa
also administrative offices and even a school for scribes. Furthermore
it was adorned with great mural paintings, portions of which are still
preserved. Among these were scenes of sacrifice, and a representation
of the king of Mari receiving from Ishtar the staff and ring which were
the emblems of his authority.
From the archives of the palace over 20,000 tablets were recovered,
constituting a discovery of paramount importance. A large number
of these tablets represent diplomatic correspondence of the last king
of Mari, Zimri-Lim, with his ambassadors and agents and with Hammu-
rabi, the king of Babylon. But many tablets date from the time of
the predecessors of Zimri-Lim. The importance of this discovery may be
gauged from the fact that it led to the revision of the whole chronology
of the Near East for the early centuries of the second millennium B.C.
The documents discovered swarm with personal names and other indi-
cations of the close linguistic and cultural kinship of the population
of Mari and its district with the Hebrews of the period of the Pa-
triarchs.
The Mari tablets have added much to our knowledge of the political,
cultural and social history of the times of the Patriarchs and of the
countries from which they came and where they settled. They show
that the ancestors of the Hebrews, who were living in northern Mesopo-
tamia, were surrounded by a culture which was a mixture of Huťrian
and Amorite elements, on a Sumero-Accadian foundation, but the do-
minant element in the population were the Amori tes.
In general this civilization was surprisingly advanced. Not least
among the developments of this period was the emergence of several
systems of writing, not only in Mesopotamia and Egypt but also in
Syria.
The introduction of copper - as has been pointed out by leading
scholars - had produced a veritable industrial revolution, involving
the operation of mines and the transportation of the metal to distant
parts. Naturally other commercial wares were also exchanged. At Tepe
Gawra is found evidence of trade in this period with Palestine, Syria,
Asia Minor, Transcaucasia, Persia and India. The struggle to control
the sources of the raw materials and of the caravan-routes produced
movements of population and political conflicts on a very large
scale.

A remarkable degree of skill was developed. In Egypt and Syria

great buildings of stone and in Babylonia of brick were erected. Seals,

2$

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 3o6 D. Diringer [6]

jewellery, copper utensi

are found in Egypt, Sy
of those in power was g
rich from the poor. Ma
human loss. History h
the cultural and social b

Aramaic and Hebrew .

Of what "nationality" - to use a modern term - was Abraham,

the first Hebrew, and his clan ? In the Biblical Table of Nations (Gen. x)
the Hebrews, the Assyrians, the Aramaeans, and South Arabians are
considered as b'ne Shem (or " Semites M), but so also are the Elamites
and the Lydians. Now, the Elamites were the ancient inhabitants
of the country situated to the north of the Persian Gulf and to the
east of the lower Tigris; they were a non-Semitic, and non- Indo- Euro-
pean people and spoke an agglutinative language, apparently related
to the Caucasian group of languages. The Lydians - the ancient in-
habitants of the west coast of Asia Minor - also spoke a non-Semitic
and non- Indo-European language, and very little is known about their
ethnic and linguistic affinities.
On the other hand, Canaan, the eponymous ancestor of the Canaan-
ites {i.e., the " Semitic M pre-Israelite tribes of Palestine and the Phoeni-
cians of Syria) is not considered as a son of Shem (i.e., a " Semite "),
but as a son of Ham, although the Biblical expression 11 the language
of Canaan " (Isaiah, xix. 18) obviously indicates the Hebrew tongue.
From the modern philological point of view, the 1 1 Canaanite group
of the North-west Semitic branch of languages includes Hebrew and
Phoenician, which are like two dialects of the same language. Apart
from the Canaanites, the Biblical expression benê Ham (or Iļamites), in-
cludes not only the Egyptians, the 11 Ethiopians ", and the Libyans,
but also the Hittites and the Philistines, who ethnically and linguistically
were mutually as far apart as they were from the other peoples con-
sidered 14 H ami tes M.
It is, thus, clear that the Biblical review of peoples known to the
Hebrews was planned on lines that were neither primarily ethnological
or " racial M, nor primarily linguistic, but perhaps - to use a modern
term - political or cultural-political: for instance, the b*nê Ham mainly
include peoples hostile to Israel, as well as those who were 41 Semites M
linguistically, but lived in countries then under Egyptian political or
cultural influence, or allied with Egypt against her main enemies. The

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[7] The origins of the Hebrew people 307

modern term " Semites " - invented in 1781 by A. L. Schlözer of

Göttingen, who based it upon the Biblical term benê Shêm - is thus a
misnomer, and is ridiculous if applied to a "'Semitic" race.
The Hebrews did not even bother to describe themselves as being
descendants of a pure race or ethnic group. It is true that-Abraham was
a dweller in Mesopotamia, Jacob is termed " a wandering Aramaean",
and his mother and his wives are also represented as Aramaeans,
but in later times, Ezekiel, speaking of Jerusalem, writes "Thy birth
and thy nativity is the land of the Canaanites; the Amorite was thy
father, and thy mother was a Hittite". Israel's mixed origin was empha-
sized by the author of the book Ruthy who tells us that the Moabitess
Ruth entered the Jewish fold and became the ancestress of King David.
We may therefore assume that the circumstances in ancient Israel
were similar to those, for instance, of Hittite Asia Minor. There, when
the Indo-Europeans arrived in their new homeland, they found them-
selves faced by powerful tribes more numerous than themselves, and
speedily realized that, if they were to survive, they must not stand aloof
but mix with the native tribes. The situation in England, after the
Norman invasion is another parallel.
If the Patriarchs were Aramaeans - and there is no reason to doubt
it - they obviously spoke Aramaic but what kind of language was it in
the nineteenth and the eighteenth centuries ? The Bible does not give
us any indication. It is even uncertain whether the Aramaeans in
that period were a separate nation. The small Aramaic states which
existed in the Biblical period originated in the twelfth and the eleventh
centuries, i.e. several hundred years later. The earliest Aramaic in-
scriptions belong to the tenth or ninth century, but even in the ninth
century B.C. the Aramaeans of the kingdom Ja'adi employ the Canaan-
ite tongue as their literary language.
It is possible, that the author of the Bible, writing that Abraham
came from Mesopotamia, wanted to emphasize that it was the land
which in later times was known as Aram Naharaim. It is preferable,
however, to argue that already in the early centuries of the second mil-
lennium B.C. there existed Aramaeans, though their language was pro-
bably not identical with later Aramaic. Two small words - yegàr
sahaduthâ (Gen. xxxi. 47) - spoken by Laban are given in the Bible as
against Jacob's gal-'ed (for "heap of witness"), but they are certainly
not sufficient as a basis for any conclusions. However, the available
evidence indicates that the ruling classes of the Semitic population of
Siria, and Mesopotamia of the period - including Hammurabi himself
and his successors in Babylonia - were Amorit.es rather than Ara-
maeans.

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 3o8 D. Diringer [8]

The Hyksos.

This situation was not destined to last long. Early in the period
new elements appeared, resulting in large-scale movements of peoples
which profoundly altered the ethnical and political map of all western
Asia, and Egypt as well. The " Hyksos M invasion of Egypt in the
late eighteenth century B.C. was only one phase and result of these
movements. The beginning of the political power of the " Hyksos "
in Egypt was apparently preceded by gradual infiltration into Egypt
from about 1900 B.C. The first Semitic precursors of the " Hyksos "
irruption came probably from Canaan. How far these chieftains pene-
trated Egypt we do not know, but they had apparently overrun Lower
Egypt and perhaps Middle Egypt before the invasion by the " Hyksos"
princes of the Fifteenth Dynasty, early in the seventeenth cen-
tury B.CŠ
The movements of this period are still exceedingly obscure, but it
seems that the " Hyksos " were a mixed population, and that they
were pushed southwards by a great migration from the north of Indo-
Aryans and Ķorites or Hurrians. The invasion of Asia Minor by the
Indo-European Hittites had occurred a few centuries earlier, and
Indo-European and Ķurrian princes were established almost every-
where by the fifteenth century B.C. By this time, not only were new
types of pottery and sculpture introduced, but also new types of fortifi-
cations - of beaten earth, known as terre fiisée, usually rectangular in
plan; horse-drawn chariotry had been introduced as the most important
instruments of warfare. In the seventeenth century Canaan was the
centre of a North-west Semitic feudal empire controlled from the
" Hyksos* ' capital at Avaris in the north-eastern corner of the Nile
Delta.
At its height under Apophis and Khayana, this "empire " may have
extended from the Euphrates to southern Nubia. Its principal monu-
ments still extant, are thousands of scarabs used by its officials and not-
ables for sealing documents and jars; for no period do we find so many
scarabs as for the " Hyksos " period, from about 1700 to about 1550
B.C. - especially in Canaan. This was a time of great local prosperity;
Canaan had become a high road of trade between Africa and Asia. The
division of the land into little city states, as reflected by the Tell
el-'Amarria letters a few centuries later, may have been the result of
the " Hyksos 99 conquest and the consequent imposition of a feudal
ruling class over the previous population.

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[9] The origins of the Hebrew people 309

These facts have almost all come to light in the past f

and they have come almost entirely from archaeological
phical sources.
The largest archaelogical enterprise undertaken since the esta-
blishment of the State of Israel - and correspondingly rich in results -
is the excavation of Hazor, situated in North-eastern Galilee, near
Ayeleth ha-Shahar and north of Rosh Pinah. Hazor was the capital
of the Canaanite Confederation under King Jabin and was destroyed
by Joshua and later by Baraq. The excavations are sponsored by the
Government of Israel, the PICA and Baron James A. de Rothschild, the
Anglo-Israel Exploration Committee, and the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, and are conducted by Dr. Yigael Yadin, of the Hebrew
University. The first season went on from August ist to November
ist this year. In the course of a few weeks, many buildings of the
Middle and Late Bronze Ages have been uncovered in the Camp En-
closure, which spreads over 600 dunams to the north of the Tell.
The Enclosure was large enough to house fifty to sixty thousand
people. It probably was the largest settlement of Galilee. Below
the city destroyed by Joshua there are at least three cities of the
Middle Bronze Age, built by the 4< Hyksos ", who erected the ram-
parts, thus strongly suggesting that Hazor may have been the capital
of the " Hyksos " as early as the eighteenth century B.C., before it
became the centre of the Canaanite Confederation.
It is hardly too much to say - using the words of a leading Semitic
scholar - that until recently our knowledge of the age of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob was like a painting in which these individual figures
of the Bible were vividly portrayed, but the background had been left
blank. Archaeology is now filling in the background, and thus giving
the whole picture new significance. This was a period in which the
nomadic Western Semites were settling down rapidly. The traditional
stories of the Patriarchs, as preserved in Genesis , picture them as semi-
nomads, dividing their time between care of flocks and herds on the
one hand, and agricultural activity on the other. In this respect
they were very much like the semi-nomadic Arabs of the Near East
even in modern times. The view of radical Biblical critics that the
life of the Hebrew Patriarchs was a fiction invented by the later Israel
writers, who took their cue from the life of contemporary Bedoui
wholly misleading. The Amarna Tablets give us a picture which is
some respects like that of the Patriarchal Age in Genesis (see furth
on). It would seem that the first incoming Hebrews settled first
semi-nomads in the central and southern highlands, where there w
only a few cities in the Middle Bronze Age (from the 20th to

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 3 io D. Diringer [io]

i6th centuries B.C.), and

for some time themselve
People were accustome
country. There was no s
East, since North-West
even spoken in many pa
dian of Babylonia was th
business, while Egyptian
centres. Indeed, not only the material objects of commerce, but
also the literature, the laws and social institutions, and even the religious
ideas and practices show a remarkable degree of uniformity, in spite of
differences of nationality.

Habiru.

In the Late Bronze Age (from 1500 B.C. onwards), i.e. nearly three
centuries after the time of Jacob, we find as it were a new world, quite
hidden only a few decades ago, but now known better than some later
periods of history. In Egypt, Amenophis IV was a religious reformer;
he took the name of Akhenaton, set up a new capital (which he called
Akhetaton) at the site now called Tell el-'Amarna, and attempted to
impose upon Egypt a new religion. His rich archives are one of the
main sources of ancient history.
In these documents, semi-nomadic 'Apiru or Khabiru or Ņabiru
appear as groups roving about the hill-country, just as the Patriarchs
are represented as doing in Genesis . Whether the 'Apiru are to be
identified with the 1 Ibrìm (or 41 Hebrews ") of Genesis is an elusive pro-
blem which I need not enter into here. Some scholars have suggested
that the names " Habiru 99 and " Hebrew " are philologically equival-
ent, though it would not necessarily follow that, as used in the Bible
and in the Amarna tablets they indicate exactly the same people.
Recent studies of the personal names of individuals called Ņabiru in
the Amarna and various other tablets of the nineteenth to the fourteenth
centuries B.C., have shown that they did not belong to any one ethnic
group, but that the name meant something like 11 nomad 99 ì whether
used by the people themselves as a self-designation or applied to them
by others with a connotation of something like " foreign brigand M.
Just where and how the incursions of the Habiru in the fourteenth
century fit into the account of the Hebrew Conquest of Canaan in the
Bible is a difficult problem, so difficult indeed that a whole literature
exists on this subject. For the present it must suffice to say that the
Habiru of the Amarna tablets and other sources were evidently a mixed

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[ii] The origins of the Hebrew people 311

group, perhaps also including the ancestors of Biblica

quite independent of the possible identification Habi
light shed on the historical rôle of the Patriarchs by the
containing allusions to Habiru.

Neighbours and Oppressors of Ancient Israelites in the

Only near the end of the Bronze-Age, in the thirteent

when the Hebrew tribes, which had returned from Eg
land of Canaan, did the Israelites occupy and rebuild
they had taken from the Canaanites, and also build ne
own. Archaeological discoveries bearing on the conqu
Bethel, Lachish, and Kirjath-Sepher are particularly in
respect. But even when the Age of Bronze gave way t
Age (about 1200 B.C.), and the Israelites were well est
land, many strong cities were still in the hands o
Amorites {Judges , i. 19,21,27-36).
For some time still, the Israelite tribes were unable to
united government, and their hold on the land was m
by the hostility of other peoples, who like them took
absence of any strong rule over the country by an ou
ation of the general insecurity of the times is seen i
- as has been shown by the excavator of this site - at
in levels C and B, and only in these levels, were found
age pits for grain, suggesting that in this period, as
people found it necessary to lay up supplies of grain
places.
A small fragment of pottery containing three letters which was
discovered in Lachish and which belongs to the eleventh century B.C.
may be considered as the incunabula of the Early Hebrew script.
Not only Canaanites, but Moabites, Midianites, and Ammonites
appear in the book of fudges as oppressors of Israel. By far the most
formidable of the enemies who disputed the control of the land with
the Hebrews were the Philistines. While the origins of this people - who
gave us the term Palestine- -are still something of a mystery, archaeo-
logical evidence from Egypt tell us clearly the time (thirteenth
century B.C.) and manner of their appearance on the scene. In the
twelfth and eleventh centuries, the Philistines settled in the rich coa-
stal plain of Palestine. Unhindered by Egypt or other outside powers
the Philistines and Israelites were left to settle their différences among
themselves. Under Saul, their first king (late eleventh century B.C.),
the Israelites at last attained sufficient unity and strength to take the

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 312 D. Diringer [12]

upper hand, at least in t

consolidated the kingdom,
west, hut also Edom, Moab
Damascus on the far north-east.

n.mergence of Israel as a Civilized Nation.

Meanwhile the Canaanites were pretty thoroughly subdued or

absorbed. David besieged and captured Jerusalem and made it his
capital. Apparently it was one of the last cities to succumb to the
onslaughts of the Israelites. David's work was consolidated by Solomon,
who built the Temple, and developed commercial as well as political
relations with other countries: consequently, the Hebrew people took a
place among the civilized nations of antiquity. To the period of David
belongs the most ancient monument extant of Early Hebrew writing,
the so-called Gezer Calendar.
Through this whole period the Israelites were gradually absorbing
Canaanite civilization. The Philistines brought with them to Canaan
iron weapons and implements, so that their coming was closely connect-
ed with the passage from one period in the history of civilization to
another. David's and Solomon's friendship with Phoenicia made pos-
sible the introduction of Phoenician workers, art and workmanship
into Canaan. Peace and prosperity, cultural advance, and the gradual
appropriation of Canaanite culture were, however, not accomplished
without cost, as the later protests of the prophets against idolatry,
immorality, and social injustice abundantly prove.

Foreign Influences in the Bible .

The insights which Palestinian archaeology has been giving as to

Canaanite culture and religion shortly before the Conquest (following
the Exodus from Egypt) have been greatly supplemented by discoveries
in Syria, particularly at Râs Shamrah, the ancient Ugarit. Ugaritic
seems to have closely resembled the language which must have been
spoken by Moses some generations earlier, and there are astonishingly
close parallels between Ugaritic and Hebrew poetry, especially the
Psalms.

In Psalm xcii. 10, for example, we read:

For behold , thine enemies , O Lord,
For behold , thine enemies shall perish ;
All doers of iniquity shall be scattered !

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[13] The origins of the Hebrew people 313

This appears in a Ugaritic episode of the combat of

sea-dragon as:

Behold , thine enemies, O Baal,

Behold , thine enemies shalt thou smite ,
Behold y thou shalt destroy thy foes !

Other literary evidence shows that foreign influence

are not confined to Ugaritic. In some cases ( Psalm civ
Proverbs , xxii. 17-24, etc.) whole chapters and compos
have been based on non-Israelite models (such as Egy
Akhenaton's hymn to the sun, the Wisdom of Amen-em-Op
ters of the Bible, however, may have used forms of tho
language and even particular compositions from their cu
but the more fully we compare the sources with what was
the more does the profound spiritual genius of the writers
whose experiences they report, stand out in sharp relief
of the originality of Shakespeare as a literary genius is e
of the religious originality of the Bible.
No one can see this so clearly as he who reads the B
the background which archaeology paints for us. The g
of ancient Oriental religion shows even more clearly the va
between this and the religion of Israel as a whole, especially
of the spiritual pioneers whose experiences and insight
lasting expression in the Bible, and the amazing advanc
individual seers who condemned the current ideas and w
claimed a religion of justice and righteousness. No mor
proof of genuine inspiration could be desired.

University of Cambridge {England)

Michaelmas Term 1955 . David Diringkr.

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