A TURNING-POINT IN OLD TESTAMENT

STUDY

THERE are stages in every study when quiet progress seems to be endangered by the discovery that methods of investigation have been too narrow, and that the results are consequently more uncertain than had been supposed. The reality of the discovery is apt to be denied, and there is a risk that a collision may arise between two parties, one of which is not, indeed, opposed to progress, but is unwilling to admit the imminence of a reconstruction of the study, while the other in its zeal may attempt to push the reconstructive work too fast. 'Parties' may not be the right word, but it is that which to an English reader best conveys the existence of an opposition between two principles, one of which (for I will now be quite definite) regards the Old Testament more or less by itself, and is mainly conservative in tendency, while the other treats it as the record of one of the ancient Oriental peoples, and considers that the old critical results need very considerable modification. I have already ventured to take up the position of a reconciler in this scientific quarrel,' but probably with insufficient emphasis and inadequate exposition of my meaning; and since a recent publication by a German scholar shows the need of a better understanding between critics, I ask leave in the interests of critical progress to resume my former functions. The question is (1) whether literary criticism of the Old Testament (often called, but not by the present writer, Higher Criticism) does not need to be more fully reinforced by archæological and in the strict sense historical criticism, and (2) whether the received text of the Old Testament, to which professed critics have virtually confined themselves, does not need to be examined much more keenly, with a view to determining both how far it is corrupt, and how far, not merely by the help of the Septuagint, but by the discovery of certain regularly recurring types of corrupt reading and of editorial manipulation, the corruptions of the text may be with much probability and very often with virtual certainty healed.

'The Archæological Phase of Old Testament Criticism. Contemporary Review, July 1895.

To put the matter somewhat more briefly. The most important point for those of us who study the Old Testament is not how to avoid committing ourselves to the peculiarities of this or that critic or Assyriologist, and how to suggest to our pupils and to the public a middle road between extremes which accords with the average opinion of scholars, but how by a combination of old methods with new, and by the attainment of a new point of view, to reconstruct our study, and how by the gentlest possible transition to introduce our pupils and the public to this new treatment of the Old Testament. And since there is no scholar who has so fully realised the problems before us and contributed on such a large scale to their solution as Hugo Winckler, Assyriologist and Historian, I will endeavour to give the reader some idea of his treatment of the prehistoric period of Israelitic antiquity in the second volume of his Geschichte Israels. The reader will of course not suppose that I am in the trammels of Winckler or of any other man, but he will justly infer that I owe much to him, and that I would fain see a few other scholars adopting at any rate his general attitude, and making fresh contributions to our science. The great danger of many Biblical scholars is narrowness of view, and no recent book perhaps can do more to correct this than Winckler's Geschichte.

The work before us is a perfect specimen of that 'free, disinterested treatment of things' so much dearer to Matthew Arnold in 1864 than Colenso's mixture of the practical and the scientific spirit. Of revolutionary or even reforming ecclesiastical designs Winckler is absolutely innocent. He appeals to a public which simply aims at a nearer approximation to historical truth. In 1901 such a public must exist even in the land which Arnold thought given over to the practical spirit. It would indeed be too optimistic to assert that our popular theology has become historical, but even among practical churchmen it is at least a tolerated opinion that Abraham was not an historical personage, either in the sense supposed by the older orthodoxy, or in the sense which is winning much favour among more recent theologians, viz. as the 'great leader of a racial movement, and one who has left his mark upon his fellow tribesmen, not only by the eminence of his superior gifts, but by the distinctive features of his religious life.' Winckler thinks it right to treat Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and even Moses, Joshua, the Judges, Saul, David, and Solomon in a perfectly disinterested spirit, from the point of view of a criticism founded upon the facts of a comparative study of the historic legends of the East. The results are very different from those reached by a criticism which is mainly literary in its character. They may often be insufficiently

? To get the colouring of the time read M. Arnold's essay in the National Review, where it originally appeared.

• Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible, art. Abraham.'

grounded, but this is a first attempt, and Winckler deserves credit for not being too fastidious, and venturing to publish many things which may perhaps only be serviceable as working hypotheses. At the point which we have reached the whole of the complex study called the Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft needs to be gradually transformed, and if anyone is willing to court criticism by intermixing very good things with very doubtful ones, he should be praised, and not blamed, for such a unique degree of self-sacrifice.

There is much in both parts of Winckler's History which any fair-minded student will call suggestive, springing as it does from a mind saturated with the political, religious, and historiographical ideas of the Semitic peoples. It is, however, in the second part, or volume, that the author has deposited the results which he himself thinks of the greatest importance, and it is here that he has given a clear exposition of his views respecting the ancient oriental historiography. There is also much more continuity in the chapters; the attention seldom flags. It is a book that any man of culture may read, and orthodox readers may be pleased to find that, however keen Winckler's criticism may be, he is absolutely free from the pseudo-rationalism of the eighteenth and part of the nineteenth centuries. The book has also the uncommon merit of brevity (300 pages), which it owes partly to the originality of the contents, and partly to the circumstance that the writer can refer to a series of Forschungen, largely concerned with the Old Testament, which has for some years been appearing at intervals.

The result which Winckler thinks of most significance is this— that the material which legend in the East has worked into the semblance of history is derived from mythology. The Semitic peoples, however, whose gods were local gods-originally the stone or the tree-could not develop a mythology; the myths which the lesser Semitic peoples had were borrowed directly or indirectly from Babylonia; Egyptian influence, too, is not excluded. This was naturally the case with the Hebrews. The basis of their legends is in the main a borrowed mythology. If now we turn our attention to these legends we find that they fall into two classes: (1) those which grew up round the heroes (such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), who were, according to Winckler, reflections of local divinities, and (2) those which attached themselves to historical personages, such as the Judges, regarded as representatives of the several tribes, and the first Kings, as representatives of the people. That there were literati capable of writing these myths down may be assumed; the influence of the great civilisations of the Valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile was fully great enough for this, and every king or kinglet would look out for a poet or scribe who could transmit the royal achievements to posterity. This scribe would

naturally relate these achievements in such a way as to remind the reader of the exploits of the supernatural heroes of mythology. One scribe would teach another, and so by degrees fixed forms of expression of mythic origin would arise, providing a setting for the great deeds of the ruler. Hence at a comparatively late period the artist of Pergamon, wishing to glorify the overthrow of the Gauls by Attalos, gives a representation of fighting Titans. Once made, the legends grew, like every other natural thing. Trained literati were always ready to adapt them to the changing wants of the time, as when the post-exilic Hebrew writers created David anew simply by putting a fresh interpretation on the historical and geographical data of the old legend.

It is not surprising, therefore, that we should find in the Hebrew legends striking parallels to stories told in other countries. The economy of legend is marvellous. The same thing is told with the greatest variety of detail, and of the most different persons, in widely separated parts of the earth. Everywhere the local god is the centre of the world, and so everywhere the forms of the primitive legend reappear. Age followed age, and all consciousness of the origin and true character of the legends by degrees disappeared. Hence the unity of the original legends was destroyed; omissions and additions were made according to the ideas of the later writers. Sometimes a more complete parallel in quite another part of the world enables us to repair the omission. Here Winckler found the way prepared for him by Stucken, whose Astralmythen der Hebräer, Babylonier und Aegypter (four parts published: 1. Abraham; 2. Lot; 3. Jacob; 4. Esau) is wonderfully learned, methodical, and clever. The word Astralmythen is significant. It suggests that the Babylonian map of the starry heaven is the most trustworthy guide through the intricate paths of Mythology and Legend. The legends, which in their present form may appear at once so wild and so inconsistent have in reality a harmony and a consistency comparable to that of the heaven itself. When the historical tradition was defective the earliest wise men at once looked to the sky; there it was that they seemed to themselves to learn, not only what should take place in the future, but what had taken place in the past.

It is true that these principles had already been communicated by Dupuis in the Origine de tous les Cultes, ou Religion Universelle (Paris, 1794), but the want of sound material condemned his work to failure. Even now our knowledge of the Babylonian mythology and legends is fragmentary, but so far as it goes it is sound, and the only questions are, (1) whether with our still more fragmentary knowledge of Hebrew legends it is possible to systematise the mythic elements in those legends to the extent that Winckler desires, and (2) whether the revised or emended Hebrew

text, on which Winckler often depends, in preference to the Massoretic, is trustworthy.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then, are lunar heroes. In the case of Abraham this is, according to Winckler, doubly certain. His father Terah comes from Ur in Chaldæa, the city of the South Babylonian Moon worship (Nannar), but, in order to reach Canaan, he must halt at Harran, which is the second great centre of lunar worship in the region of the Euphratean civilisation. It is inconsistent with this that, according to the Genesis narratives, Abraham's final dwelling-place is at Hebron, on the border of the wilderness, far away from the sphere of Babylonian influence. But is this not due to a misunderstanding of the original tradition? Is Kirjatharba rightly identified with Hebron ? In Genesis xiv. 13, 14, we read that Abram, who dwelt at Mamre, pursued Chedorlaomer and his allies as far as Dan. Also in Numbers xiii. 21 that the spies searched the land as far as Rehob and the entrance to Hamath. Lastly, in Genesis xxiii. we find Abraham purchasing land for a burying-place at Kirjath-arba of the people of the land, who were Hittites. Now we know nothing of southern Hittites. But we do know of Hittites in Galilee, at the foot of Mount Hermon. (Judges iii. 3; see G. F. Moore's note.) Must not Mamre and Kirjath-arba have been in Galilee in the neighbourhood of the Huleh Lake, and must not the sea called Hammelaḥ (English version, the Salt Sea) have been really the designation of the Lake of Huleh? The reference in Genesis xiv. 10 to the bitumen pits need not perplex us; it belongs to the same hand which brought in Lot, and forms no part of the original story.

Thus Winckler makes contributions not merely to archæology but to geography. And if it be said that his geographical proposals are arbitrary, I take leave to deny that. They may or may not be correct, but they are methodical. It would be a proof of consummate boldness to assert that the later editors of the Hebrew traditions were always correct in their view of the geography of the traditions. If the word arbitrary is applicable at all, it belongs to those later writers who, with no critical faculty whatever, adapted the old traditions to the false historical views of their own time. Winckler has a very keen eye for problems. His range is so wide, his occupations are so diverse, that he may well err sometimes in his solutions, but it is not exactly fair to call him arbitrary.

And how comes Sarah to be at once Abraham's sister and his wife? Because Sarah, being the counterpart of Istar, has a double rôle. She is the daughter of the Moon-god, and therefore Abraham's sister; she is the wife of Tammuz, and therefore Abraham's wife. For Abraham too, according to Winckler, has a double rôle; he is the son of the Moon-god, but he is also the heroic reflection of • Gen. xxiii. 2; xxxv. 27; Josh. xiv. 15; xv. 13, 54.