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THE 
 
 WRITERS OF GENESIS 
 
 AND RELATED TOPICS, ILLUSTRATING 
 DIVINE REVELATION. 
 
 /BY 
 
 Rev. E. COWLEY, D.D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "bible GROWTH AND RELIGION," " GOD IN CREATION," AND 
 " GOD ENTHRONED IN REDEMPTION." 
 
 ' God spake unto Noah, and to his sons, and to Abraham, this covenant. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER, 
 
 2 AND 3 Bible House. 
 1890. 
 
Copyright, 1890, bt 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 "When abroad, in 1872, 1 read in tlie Daily Tele- 
 graph Mr. George Smith's Chaldean Account of 
 the Creation, which he had just deciphered. Pre- 
 vious knowledge of Layard's discoveries enabled me 
 to estimate their importance, and to continue the 
 study of Oriental discoveries. So, in 1879, I ven- 
 tured to give a brief series of sermons on the Re- 
 ligion and Learning of Egypt in the era of Moses, 
 in the Church of the Heavenly Rest, J^ew York. 
 
 A few years later, Mr. Spencer, in his " Ecclesi- 
 astical Institutions," struck off the roots of the 
 Divine in Religion. As no one else appeared to 
 answer him, I felt bound (God being my helper) to 
 examine and refute him, or yield to the inevitable. 
 
 In some other papers I have ventured to defend 
 the Revelation of the Old Testament against the 
 gross naturalism of Renan and the negative criticism 
 of Kuenen and Wellhausen. Thus I have traversed 
 some crucial points from Genesis to the Prophecies 
 of our Lord. 
 
 This may best explain why I presume to add to 
 what has been so ably — in some instances so fool- 
 ishly — written upon the Origin of Genesis. I can 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 but think that the reader will here find that the last 
 word had not been said, and that the application of 
 modern discoveries to the Oracles of God will flash 
 the new light of His providence across them, and 
 enable us to determine 'who were the writers of 
 Genesis and of some other books. 
 
 The Right Rev. Bishop Perry, of Iowa, a most 
 competent witness, reports that some members of 
 the last Pan- Anglican Council had doubts of por- 
 tions of the Bible, notably Genesis, which illustrates 
 the importance of the subject now considered. To 
 them, and to all seekers after the truth, I commend 
 what is here offered : to Professors Green and Har- 
 per, Bissell and Briggs, Cave and Clieyne, Dods and 
 Driver, and all other Bible students. While I pre- 
 sume not to instruct them, I may suggest that the 
 more they yield to negative criticism, the greater is 
 the danger to be apprehended from it. Though the 
 old traditions may be wrong, they do not err in im- 
 plying a very ancient date for the Writers of Gene- 
 sis, and an early writer of Isaiah 40-66. 
 
 My suggestions of authorship are not based on 
 Astruc, who died in 1766. He was a physician, not 
 a Bible expositor. That his theory should form the 
 basis of so much modern criticism surprises me. 
 *"' God is His own Interpreter" of Revelation and 
 of Creation. The discoveries and decipherments of 
 our generation supply abundant reasons for believing 
 that four or five early patriarchs wrote their own 
 memoirs. These were incorporated into our Gene- 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 sis bj Moses, and later propliets explained names of 
 persons and places. 
 
 This idea I have worked out bj careful analysis 
 and examination of various facts brought to light by 
 the Egypt Exploration Fund and other Oriental so- 
 cieties. Professor Sayce corrects Renan. The lit- 
 eratures of the oldest nations sustain my view ; a 
 decent respect for the opinions of mankind supports 
 it ; the culture and good sense of the covenant- 
 patriarchs support it. It honors Inspiration and 
 God, the Revealer. 
 
 The essay on the Scientific Method Applied to 
 the Bible is the outcome of reading Mr. John Bur- 
 roughs's article in a late North American Review / 
 Babylonians and Egyptians, not Totemists, was 
 evoked by recent lectures under the auspices of 
 Columbia College, and by W. Robertson Smith ; 
 Hebrew and Greek Ethics was to correct Mr. Glad- 
 stone's third paper upon Holy Scripture. If my 
 aim has been high, I trust I have been enabled to 
 reach the mark. 
 
 May the Enlightening Spirit guide us all unto a 
 right conclusion. The Author. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Writeks of Genesis 9 
 
 § 1. Wliat we Seek 9 
 
 § 2. What we Find 11 
 
 § 3. Abraham Distinguishes Jehovah from the God of 
 
 Melchizedek IG 
 
 § 4, New Testament Authority 19 
 
 § 5. Writing in the Fourth Millennium B. c 29 
 
 § 6. Knowledge at the Time of the Deluge 38 
 
 § 7. In Egypt and Babylonia 43 
 
 § 8. The Tower of Babel 50 
 
 § 9. Summary of Points 51 
 
 § 10. Memoirs of Abraham 56 
 
 § 11. Destruction of Sodom in Accadian Legends 64 
 
 § 12. Some Domestic Events 67 
 
 § 13. Memoirs of Isaac 74 
 
 §14. Jacob's Memoirs 81 
 
 § 15. Memoirs of Judah 88 
 
 § 16. Conclusion 96 
 
 n. The Weiteb of Isaiah 40 to 66 103 
 
 III. The Scientific Method Applied to the Bible 139 
 
 IV. Ancient Babylonians and Egyptians not Totemists. ,168 
 V. Me. Gladstone on Hebrew and Greek Ethics 180 
 
THE WEITEES OF GENESIS 
 
 AND 
 
 RELATED TOPICS. 
 
 THE WKITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 Section 1. — What we seek. 
 
 I SHALL endeavor in these pages to put the aver- 
 age reader in possession of the facts and methods 
 whereby he can determine who were the probable 
 writers of the first book of the Bible. Men now 
 talk learnedly about the Hexateuch, thus massing 
 together that they may afterward pulverize the first 
 six books of Holy Scripture. But it is of chief im- 
 portance to know if there were not a Primus or First 
 Book, before the redaction of what Moses revised. 
 
 Our investigation proposes to show that there was 
 a Primer which Abraham learned, and later prefixed 
 to his Memoirs ; and that these Memoirs were con- 
 tinued by Isaac, Jacob, and Judah. From them we 
 obtain the substance of our Genesis ; so, even after 
 the revision by Moses, may be discovered differences 
 of style in'those early writers, 
 
 Thus we raay learn whence arose those distinc- 
 1* 
 
10 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 tions in the use of certain names for the Deity, 
 whicli no late writer would have observed, but which 
 indicate a contemporaneous writing. Thus, too, 
 primitive names of places occur here and there, 
 which were subsequently changed to later ones. If 
 we are charged with instructing our teachers, who 
 are more learned than ourselves in such matters, we 
 may answer, that is only what scholars often do who 
 do their teachers honor. 
 
 Indeed, all that may be adduced in favor of Moses 
 being the original writer of Genesis, or of its being 
 the work of several writers and redactors according 
 to the critics, may be said in favor of the author- 
 ship herein suggested. Abraham certainly, if not 
 Noah, wrote the memoirs of his times ; while those 
 who followed him added to and revised to date 
 under the guidance and revelation of God. This 
 largely accounts for the differences in style and 
 treatment which now puzzle the critics. It is the 
 key which unlocks the mystery of the authorship of 
 Genesis. 
 
 " No other book in existence of snch varied styles, composed 
 by so many hands, and occupying so long a period in its com- 
 pilation is marked by so marvellous a unity. A single great 
 scheme underlies, traverses, and interpenetrates the Bible, a 
 great and connected system of truth, as bone and cartilage the 
 human frame ; a single, high, gracious and inflexible aim per- 
 vades this majestic volume from end to end. In principle and 
 essence the faith of David and Paul, Daniel and John, Abraham 
 and Peter is but one. Genesis and Kevelation greet each other 
 across the gulf of ages. God's word is a unit." — Bev. William 
 T. Sabine. 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 11 
 
 " This sacred story, even without the assured and solemn 
 authority which it derives from the inspired character of the 
 Book in which it is found, should always form in sound criti- 
 cism the base of all history ; for considered from a merely hu- 
 man point of view, it contains the most ancient tradition as to 
 the first days of the human race, the only one which has not 
 been disfigured by the introduction of fantastic myths of dis- 
 ordered imagination run wild." — M. Lenormant. 
 
 The seeming purpose of its first chapters was to 
 instruct man as to the process and Agent in Creation, 
 80 as to induce him to serve the God who made him, 
 and to regard His saving methods. Though evi- 
 dence is wanting that such an account was vouch- 
 safed to the first men, Noah was fairly and Abra- 
 ham more fully instructed in the origin of things 
 and in Divine revelations. He by the inspiration 
 of God was enabled to correct prevailing errors. 
 Yet it was not given him to teach the absolute and 
 ultimate truth, but what was fundamental touching 
 matter and Spirit. 
 
 § II. — What we find. 
 
 Thus we find that Genesis was not written to teach 
 modern geology ; for the people to whom it was 
 given would not have understood a scientific treatise. 
 But the Creation account in Genesis was to set forth 
 who was the Author of the Cosmos, rather than the 
 precise order and method of it. As St. John says, 
 *' "Without Him was not anything made that had 
 been made." In other words, all material and ani- 
 mal existences were by the creative power of God. 
 
13 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 The record is somewhat complex, jet brief. It 
 at once meets and corrects the old Accadian and 
 Zoroastrian ideas and legends of the origin of the 
 Cosmos. Neither Tiamat nor Ahriman, as inde- 
 pendent creative powers, had any part in the crea- 
 tion of the universe. There is just enough of detail 
 recorded to remove current errors and to present 
 God as the Creator and Upholder of all worlds and 
 of all existences. The account of creation was to 
 disclose the Creator. 
 
 The earth was before those who lived upon it. 
 Darkness was before the light and the sun was be- 
 fore the moon, but both were by the Supreme Being 
 who separated between the day and the night. Light 
 and darkness, angels and archangels, good spirits and 
 those who became evil spirits, were the creation of 
 God. His work was perfect, '^ excellent." Why, 
 then, Abraham might say to the men of Ur, do you 
 worship the Moon God, or any created objects ? and 
 to the men of Larsa, Why do you worship the Sun 
 God, or any powers of nature ? Jehovah Elohim 
 was the Creator of matter and spirit, of the sun and 
 the moon. Him alone should men worship, who is 
 above all and who created all. Simply and chiefly 
 to teach these two grand but elementary facts was 
 the creation account in Genesis given to man. We 
 are apt to impose too much upon it. 
 
 "" The history of the creation in Genesis is not 
 merely a cosmogonic account of primitive date, but 
 above all else it is an express counter statement op- 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. . 13 
 
 posed to the conceptions of Egypt and of Babylon." 
 Yon Ranke attributes this to Moses at Sinai, 
 *^ which no terrestrial vicissitudes have ever touched, 
 and where nothing interposes between God and the 
 world." How, then, could Moses have had any 
 knowledge of the Babylonian conception of the 
 Cosmos 'i But the universe, according to Mr. H. 
 Spencer's sesquipedalian definition, is the outcome 
 of '' a change from an indefinite, incoherent homo- 
 geneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity through 
 continuous differentiations and integrations." 
 Whereupon says Mr. Goldwin Smith, " This uni- 
 verse may well have heaved a sigh of relief when, 
 through the cerebration of an eminent thinker, it 
 had been delivered of this account of its origin." 
 
 The second chapter sets forth the institution of 
 the Sabbath, describes the abode of man upon his 
 creation, his conscious superiority to the creatures 
 about him, and how God made woman to be his 
 helper and companion in life. The two were not 
 an outgrowth or development from other creatures, 
 but the creation of God, who brought them together 
 and blessed them. They were to replenish the earth. 
 
 Genesis 2 : 15-25 relate how, after the creation of 
 man, he was put in the Garden of Eden to dress and 
 to keep it. This, of course, implies the imparta- 
 tion of needful instruction to him. Large liberty 
 was allowed him, and only one prohibition was im- 
 posed : he must not eat of the tree of knowledge of 
 good and evil. Abraham was familiar with such 
 
14 . THE WRITERS OF GEi^-ESIS. 
 
 legends, and that man was divinely instructed as to 
 his duty. 
 
 Adam was also tested whether he was capable of 
 choosing a companion from among all the creatures 
 to whom he gave names ; the choice and the naming 
 suggest considerable intelligence. But Adam did 
 not find an '' answering" companion in all the liv- 
 ing beings which passed before him. No female 
 gorilla or chimpanzee would please his fancy. 
 
 Who but an anti-evolutionist could write the ac- 
 count of the creation of woman at that time ? She 
 is made for man, and brought to him as his help- 
 meet in life. He was an intelligent observer of 
 much that passed, and there was no " almost a 
 woman" among the creatures he had named. He 
 had skill, order, and analysis. He may even have 
 learned to write the account of his education and of 
 Eve's creation before he died. Quite likely it was 
 written before the Deluge, and preserved to the 
 times of Abraham, or of the legends of Ur. They 
 at least taught that God was the Creator and In- 
 structor of man, and that he had sinned against 
 Him. Of how they worshipped Him, the great 
 temple at Ur to the Moon God bore witness. See 
 *' Chaldean Account in Genesis," Sayce's '' Hibbert 
 Lectures" and Dr. Cave's '' Inspiration of the Old 
 Testament." 
 
 If we regard the first chapters of Genesis as the 
 Inspired account to Abraham rather than a revela- 
 tion to Moses, we find it just such a version as a 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 15 
 
 man in that age would give to the people of his day 
 and to those who followed him. But to make it a 
 Revelation to Moses three thousand years after the 
 creation of man, and for the science of the nine- 
 teenth century, is to put a meaning upon the record 
 which was not intended when first communicated. 
 
 " Science," says Professor J. D. Dana, has made no real prog- 
 ress toward proving that the Divine act was not required for 
 the creation of Man, No remains of ancient Man have been 
 found that indicate a progenitor of lower grade than the lowest 
 of existing tribes ; none that show any less of the erect pos- 
 ture and other essential characteristics of the exalted species. 
 Made in the image of God, Man was capable of moral distinc- 
 tions and of spiritual progress ; and hence with him began a 
 new era in history," viz., human accountability and immor- 
 tality for the crowning work of creation. Surely being made 
 in the image of God implies eternal existence? — 0. and N, 
 Test. Student for August, 1890, pp. 94, 95. 
 
 Chapter third relates how man sinned, the penalty 
 inflicted, how a Redeemer was promised, and the 
 expulsion from Eden. That this account was re- 
 vealed to Abraham may be inferred from the cor- 
 rections of prevailing errors. Not in Noah's time 
 had the Babylonians come to speak of Merodach as 
 their Saviour, nor had the men of Ur and of Larsa 
 become worshippers of the heavenly bodies. But 
 they each were this respectively when Abraham 
 was called out of Chaldea. Thus a revelation of 
 what was to come and of what men ought to do was 
 given for instruction in righteousness as well as in 
 knowledge. The accoiint suffers greatly by being 
 
16 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 relegated to the time of Moses. To Abraham it was 
 disclosed how man had failed in his first trial in 
 Eden, and in his longer trial in the world before the 
 deluge. He was himself a witness of the idolatry 
 in his day among the peoples about the Euphrates. 
 Merodach had failed to save the Babylonians ; Osiris 
 had failed to save the Egyptians, and Sosiosh had 
 failed to save the Iranians. Thus the supposed 
 saviours of Hamites, of Semites, and of Aryans had 
 alike failed in saving those representative peoples. 
 
 Wherefore the Creator of all chose Abraham to 
 found a new family for the preservation of the true 
 religion among men, and to prepare the world for 
 the Advent of its Redeemer. To Abraham also it 
 was given to understand %oliy he was thus chosen, and 
 the y^igJit of Him who had chosen him. Such a 
 revelation was needed for his instruction and future 
 guidance. So in Canaan and in Egypt he never 
 fell into idolatry, and in Gen. 14 : 19-22 he 
 finely distinguishes between Melchizedek's '' God 
 Most High'- and '' Jehovah, God Most High." It 
 appears in the Revised Version, and marks the difl:er- 
 ence between the Covenant God of the chosen peo- 
 ple and the god or gods of the Gentiles. 
 
 §111. — Abraham distinguishes Jehovah froin the 
 God of Melchizedeh. 
 
 We need not go further than Gen. 14 to learn that 
 it was not originally written by Moses. Melchize- 
 dek said, '' Blessed be God Most High, which hath 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 17 
 
 delivered tliiiie enemies into thy hand." "And 
 Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up 
 mine hand nnto the Lord, God Most High, posses- 
 sor of heaven and earth" (verses 20 and 22 of Re- 
 vised Version). To suppose that the nice distinction 
 of adding Jehovah, the Lord, to tlie name of Mel- 
 chizedek's God, to designate the God of Abraham, 
 would have been lianded down orally for five or six 
 hundred years without imderstanding the strong 
 reason for it, or to suppose that it was all revealed 
 to Moses together with all other instances of Divine 
 revelations and religious distinctions, amid the des- 
 erts of Sinai, is to my mind the top of folly and 
 critical indiscretion. 
 
 I invite the proof that the writer of Ex. 6 : 
 2-4 was the writer of Gen. 14 : 20, 22. He must 
 have been nodding ! And the difficulty here aris- 
 ing, I explain thus : Abraham and his fathers for 
 the first sixty years of his life were worshippers of 
 the heavenly bodies. Joshua 24 : 2 decides this as 
 well as contemporary history, '' Beyond the River, 
 your fathers served other gods." Now make the 
 pronoun "them" in Ex. 6 : 3 refer to those fathers 
 and to Abraham during the first sixty years of his 
 life, and it is literally true that none of them knew 
 their God or gods by the name of Jehovah. Even 
 to Isaac and Jacob new revelations of Him were 
 given at the Mount of Sacrifice and at the flight of 
 J^acob. The narrative implies that neither of them 
 had clear ideas of Jehovah till He more fully re- 
 
18 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 vealed Himself. See this in Gen. 22 : 1-9, and 
 note the recurrence of Jehovah in verses 11-18. 
 
 Moreover, it was not the purpose of Exodus to 
 trace the progress and unfold the methods of reve- 
 lation. Some matters once known had become for- 
 gotten in large measure ; and Abraham and his sons 
 may never have understood the full import of the 
 Divine name when disclosed to them at the first. 
 With all his knowledge, even Moses did not know 
 it. Thus he saw the similarity of his position with 
 that of his forefathers in this respect. 
 
 Of the many expositions of 'these passages, that 
 now offered satisfies the requirements of the text 
 and the judgment of the writer. It is conclusive 
 of different writers, and the critics claim a high 
 antiquity for Gen. 14. It was not orally trans- 
 mitted during several centuries, nor was it a new 
 revelation to Moses ; but it was written by Abraham. 
 He certainly had no motive to misstate anything in 
 writing his memoirs. Little by little he received 
 Divine revelations in Palestine, but he had lived 
 there twenty-four years before he received circum- 
 cision, and he knew not wliat next would be re- 
 quired. It proved to be the promise of Isaac, and 
 the relief of Lot in Sodom. There was nothing like 
 the development of a theory of religion, but it mostly 
 pertained to family affairs, and needed only a truth- 
 ful scribe. Its slow growth marks the unfolding of 
 revelation to Abraham. 
 
 Professor W. W. Martin's is a striking illustration 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 19 
 
 of a criticism which overlooks the point to be ob- 
 served. He appears not to see that Abram's God 
 was all that Melchizedck and the king of Sodom 
 recognized, and as much more as was implied by the 
 addition of the name Jehovah by Abram, Jahveh^ 
 the ever-living God Most High. So, later in the 
 records, Joseph realized that Jahveh was his Pro- 
 tector, Guide, and Deliverer ; yet when he was ap- 
 proached by a wanton woman he reminds her of her 
 God, El or Ea, whom she acknowledged ; but not 
 of his covenant Jahveh. As well say that Joseph 
 then denied Him, as that Abram was in danger of 
 making such a denial. (See Old and Neio Testa- 
 ment Student for July, 1890, pp. 46, 47.) 
 
 § IV. — Wew Testament Authority. 
 
 We have also a New Testament reason for our 
 suggestion of early patriarchal memoirs. Thus St. 
 Stephen explicitly told his hearers that Moses sup- 
 posed that his brethren understood how that God 
 by his hand was giving them deliverance (Acts 7 : 
 25, Revised Version). Add to this what Moses said 
 of himself, that w4ien he was grown up he visited his 
 brethren, looked on their burdens, and smote the 
 Egyptian who was smiting a Hebrew. Again he 
 w^ent out, and behold two men of the Hebrews 
 strove together : and he said to him that did the 
 wrong. Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow ? And 
 he said. Who made thee a prince and a judge over 
 us ? thinkest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the 
 
20 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 Egyptian ? And Moses feared, for Pharaoh sought 
 to slay him, and he fled from his face, and dwelt in 
 the land of Midian. In other words, rejected by 
 his own kinsmen and pursued by Pharaoh, he fled 
 to the descendants of Abraham in the desert (Ex. 
 2 : 11-15). 
 
 He had been instructed in the learning of Egypt, 
 of which his brethren knew little, and knew but lit- 
 tle of their family and tribal history, nor that Jeho- 
 vah had promised Abraham to bring them out of 
 that land, with great substance (Gen. 15 : 14). But 
 Moses had learned all this. Readers of the Speak- 
 er's and other late commentaries, as well as recent 
 lectures on Egypt, know somewhat of its arts and its 
 literature, and are prepared to follow us in asking, 
 Why did Moses suppose that his brethren understood 
 that God would deliver them by him ? The records 
 of his life do not inform us how he learned the his- 
 tory of his own people. Not even his Hebrew 
 mother and elder sister could have taught him all 
 those ancient documents, many of which had be- 
 come very scarce after those centuries in Egypt. 
 And it is too much to assume that he found the his- 
 tory of Israel among its literature. 
 
 In the " Tale of the Two Brothers" he saw a 
 version of the story of Joseph, and he may also have 
 learned other details of the family of Jacob. Indeed, 
 he may have read in Egyptian records an account of 
 the visit of Abraham six or seven centuries before, 
 and a list of the presents made him by the reigning 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 21 
 
 Pharaoh. But it contained no word for him about 
 Jehovah's covenant with the patriarch, nor about 
 his being the chosen one of God to found a new 
 nation which should prepare for the Messiah, nor 
 that the predicted four hundred years had well-nigli 
 passed, when Israel was to return to Caanan (Gen. 
 15 : 16). 
 
 Yet St. Stephen, who evidently spoke by Divine 
 inspiration, clearly states that Moses supposed that 
 God by his hand would deliver Israel. And it may 
 have been the knowledge he had which prompted 
 him to act precipitately in smiting that Egyptian. 
 Moreover, if the tradition of his success as an Egyp 
 tian general going against her enemies were true, if 
 the princess who had rescued him were dead, if a 
 Pharaoh like Rameses II. was on the throne, who was 
 jealous of Moses, a man of leisure and of influence 
 about the court, then these were other reasons which 
 might have led him to suppose that he was the one to 
 deliver his countrymen, and lead them to the land of 
 their fathers. But success under such conditions 
 would have given a secular aspect to the Exodus, 
 leaving no play for the Divine in the passage of the 
 Red Sea, nor for the giving of the Law at Sinai. 
 So his first attempt failed. 
 
 Let us put ourselves in Moses's place. With all 
 his knowledge of Egyptian literature, what could 
 he know of the God of the Hebrews who had cove- 
 nanted with Abraham? What could he kno^v of 
 the most important parts of his people's history ? 
 
22 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 He was forty years old. He had not learned the 
 lessons of the Desert, nor the lessons which Jethro 
 taught him, nor the legends and traditions of the 
 Midianites. But he was a man of intellectual activ- 
 ity and capacity. In what, during the ten years of 
 his life from thirty to forty, was he occupied ? St. 
 Stephen's words must be remembered and account- 
 ed for. Moses supposed that his brethren tender- 
 stood (we must trace up the grounds for that sup- 
 position and understanding) how that God by his 
 hand was giving them deliverance ; but their con- 
 duct showed that they understood not. Prophets 
 had not arisen to tell them, and Moses himself had 
 not then received his commission^ nor heen vouch- 
 safed a Revelation to teach them / and he anticipated 
 the time and mistook the methods for the deliver- 
 ance of his brethren from Egypt. But he had 
 learned some things which were suggestive. 
 
 How had Moses learned the history of his people, 
 whereby he could be led into such a supposition ? 
 For, according to the critical view, and even accord- 
 ing to the traditional view of Genesis, this book was 
 not then written. Did Moses, before the act which 
 precipitated his flight, receive the patriarchal history 
 which induced him to form his supposition from the 
 direct inspiration of God — his precipitate conduct 
 notwithstanding — or did he learn that history from 
 the family records of the Hebrews ? In other 
 words, was the Book of Genesis a Kevelation to 
 Moses, or were the patriarchal portions of it family 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 23 
 
 records made at the time of the events narrated ? 
 Were the Divine voices, visions, and promises re- 
 corded when first vonchsafed to man, or were they 
 all left to be revealed a second time from God ? 
 
 Consider the supposition of Moses before his com- 
 mission ; consider that only one preacher of w^arn- 
 ing was given to the antediluvians ; that only one 
 grand pleading for Sodom is preserved to us ; that 
 only one prophet was sent to warn Nineveh, though 
 other prophetic messages were sent ; that no new 
 Table of the Law was made for the new Temple at 
 Jerusalem after the return from exile ; that no sub- 
 stitute for Divine worship was provided for the Ten 
 Tribes after the disruption by Jeroboam, notwith- 
 standing the apostasy which followed. So no new 
 Kevelation was made to the compiler of Genesis at 
 the close of the patriarchal records which ended 
 with the death and embalming of Joseph in 
 Egypt. 
 
 From Abraham to Moses was about six hundred 
 years. During that time revelations were made from 
 God, which were not repeated as revelations, for 
 they had been carefully preserved in the Hebrew 
 records, and only needed a correct copyist or an 
 inspired commentator. Such copyist they had in 
 Egypt, and Moses had obtained copies of those 
 records by purchase long before his flight ; and he 
 became an inspired commentator of them while in 
 Midian, having been a diligent student of them. 
 From such study he came to form the supposition 
 
24 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 "wliicli St. Stephen attributed to liiin — i.e.^ from the 
 study of the records of the patriarchs. 
 
 My beh'ef is, and I shall endeavor to show, that 
 Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and Joseph 
 were the original writers of those portions of Gen- 
 esis in which they appear as the active subjects. 
 And it matters not upon this method of treatment 
 who was the first redactor, according to the critics, 
 nor whether E or J or P or R find any place in the 
 early or late editions of the Book. But my treat- 
 ment will assign to Moses the first editing of the 
 records of Judah, which ended with the death of 
 Joseph. In Egypt and in Midian he collected all 
 the Hebrew records and traditions. They had 
 kindled his enthusiasm and incited him to undue 
 haste, when he slew the offending Egyptian. It 
 was the outcome of the first active decade of his 
 life. Then, with his literary treasures, he escaped 
 from an indignant and angry court. 
 
 We may believe that Rameses II. was the Pharaoh 
 at this time, and was not disposed to look lightly on 
 such an offence as that whi(;h Moses had committed. 
 And the hiding the body of the Egyptian in the 
 sand, where it was not to be seen, embalmed, and 
 buried, was to deprive the dead of immortahty. 
 For however just his soul may have been, yet with- 
 out his body, which could be preserved for three 
 thousand years only by embalming, the Egyptian 
 supposed immortality to be impossible It aggra- 
 vated the crime. The rage of Rameses II. against 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAII. 25 
 
 the Hyksos incited him to obhterate every trace of 
 them from the region they had occupied for cen- 
 turies. And M. Maspero has shown us tlie sculp- 
 tures from wliich he had erased the Hyksos legends 
 and inscribed those of himself instead. This alone 
 is strong proof against the rhetoric of Renan, that 
 the Hyksos were permitted to remain in Egypt and 
 to fight the battles of the Hebrews in their oppres- 
 sion ! No ; not even Moses himself felt safe till he 
 had fled to the desert of Midian. There he mar- 
 ried the daughter of the priest-king ; there he 
 learned other details and traditions of that branch 
 of Abraham's descendants, and there, during his 
 forty years' exile, he worked over and arranged for 
 the Hebrew people the Book of Genesis as pre- 
 served to us, from the earlier writings of the patri- 
 archs. But he attempted no account of the resi- 
 dence in Egypt. 
 
 He was a learned man, an active man, a born 
 leader of his people. His character when he fled 
 from Pharaoh Rameses II. became more mature 
 and ripe, and was permeated with the Divine Spirit 
 when he returned and stood before Pharaoh Men- 
 ephtah, saying, " Thus saith Jehovah, let my peo- 
 ple Israel go, that they may hold a feast unto Me in 
 the wilderness. " It was not an unknown region, 
 but the country from which the now duly commis- 
 sioned leader had just returned after a memorable 
 interview with the God of Abraham, and where for 
 ages the Egyptians had mines which they woi'ked. 
 2 ' 
 
26 'the writers of genesis. 
 
 Sncli a man as that could not be content with tend- 
 ing sheep for his father-in-law. His mind brood- 
 ed over the past, over liis former opportunity and 
 mistakes, over the possibilities of the future ; and 
 he was inspired by Jehovah to do His bidding. 
 The time had now come. Rameses II., the pow- 
 erful king, had died, and Menephtah reigned in his 
 stead. Such are some of the well-attested facts of 
 Moses's life and times. He personally was not a 
 miracle, but, with the rod of God, was a worker of 
 miracles. Like Elijah in a later age, he was hu- 
 man, fed by daily food to nourish his body, and 
 his soul was sustained by the Divine Spirit, while 
 his mind was full of the history and appointed 
 destiny of Israel. He knew that covenant promise 
 in Gen. 15 : 13-18 ; that his people had been 
 strangers and servants in Egypt for four hundred 
 years ; that their oppressors were about to be judged, 
 and that Israel should go forth with great substance. 
 A mother's love had saved him for a great mission. 
 A father's knowledge had been imparted to him. 
 Family affection, the watchfulness of Miriam, the 
 prophetic eloquence of Aaron, cherished him and 
 centred around him. Thus Moses was instructed in 
 Hebrew traditions as well as in Egyptian learning. 
 
 Critics in various analyses and books upon Gen- 
 esis object to the traditional views of its authorship. 
 They claim to hnd diversity in style and treatment ; 
 that some words are peculiar to each writer, espe- 
 cially the names for Deity, etc. Be it so. My sug- 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 27 
 
 gestion of the patriarchal origin and writing of the 
 first book of tlie Bible fully accounts for all existing 
 differences of style and of verbal characteristics. I 
 shall waste no words upon the orthography, syntax, 
 or grammar of the writers. Possibly some of them 
 never learned to conjugate a Hebrew verb. They 
 have been described as writing in a style now free 
 and flowing, now concise and rigid, now using stories 
 and traditions, now picturesque, poetical, prophetic 
 in their delineations. And if we allow several 
 writers and revisers of the first nine chapters, fol- 
 lowed by Abraham for his portion, by Isaac for his 
 register, by Jacob for his records and visions, by 
 Judah for the continuance and completion of the his- 
 tory and of the story of Joseph, and by Moses as the 
 inspired redactor and reviser of the whole into what 
 is substantially our present Book of Genesis, we 
 shall find ample room for verbal variations in sec- 
 tions, for differences in style, for some explanatory 
 words and sentences, while all is duly authenticated. 
 It was a progressive writing during seven hundred 
 years. 
 
 I am quite aware that such a suggestion, if made 
 thirty years ago, would have been regarded as ab- 
 surd, having no grounds to rest upon. Indeed, 
 when a 3^outh I maintained the affirmative in more 
 than one discussion of the question whether Moses 
 could write ! Now, however, my theme requires 
 probable proof and illustration that Abraham could 
 write ; that Isaac could write his treaty with Abim- 
 
28 THE WRITERS OF GE]!^ESIS. 
 
 elecb, for example ; that Jacob recorded bis visions 
 at Betb-el and Peniel ; and that Judab of tbe signet 
 ring was tbe Scribe of his people. The method 
 must be largely inductive. However, I shall lirst 
 state the reasons and grounds on which my sugges- 
 tion is based. 
 
 The point at which we start and to which we 
 must return is the probabibty that Abraham could 
 read and write. Modern research has discovered 
 the temple in which he worshipped, the name of 
 the god he adored, and the Psalm of adoration 
 which for forty years he chanted. The temple 
 was that of Sin, the male moongod of Ur, and the 
 prayer psalm is not only devout, but it suggests the 
 style of some theological parts of Genesis ; and that 
 the man who early learned that prayer was the 
 writer of certain Divine names. 
 
 We also find on the bricks of the lower stage of 
 the great temple the inscribed name of King Urukh 
 or Ligbagas who built it. He also built the wall of 
 Ur. It was the most ancient capital of Accad, and 
 was a sacred city distinguished for its learning. 
 This hymn to its patron deity -was written in Acca- 
 dian and Assyrian, on a tablet now in the British 
 Museum. I give part of it, as rendered in Tom- 
 kins's ''Times of Abraham." Professor Sayce 
 translates it in the ''Hibbert Lectures" for 1887. 
 We may imagine Abraham singing : 
 
 * ' Lord ! prince of gods of heaven and earth, whose mandate is 
 exalted ! 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 29 
 
 Father ! god enliglitening earth ! Lord ! good god, of gods 
 
 the prince ! 
 Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord ! great god, of gods 
 
 the prince ! 
 Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord god of the month, of 
 
 gods the prince ! 
 Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord of Ur, of gods the 
 
 prince ! 
 Father mine, of life the giver, cherishing, beholding all ! 
 Lord, who power benign estendeth over all the heaven and 
 
 earth ! 
 Seasons, rains, from heaven forth drawing, watching life and 
 
 yielding showers ! 
 Father, long-suffering in waiting, whose hand upholds the life 
 
 of mankind. 
 Thou thy will in heaven revealest ; thee celestial spirits 
 
 praise 
 
 § V. — Writing in the fourth millennium B, C. 
 
 While 1 hold that certain dynasties of Egypt and 
 that certain kings of Babylonia were contempora- 
 neous, I am free to admit the great antiquity of read- 
 ing and writing in those lands. Professor Maspero 
 says : '' Hebron no doubt was acquainted with the 
 Hittite writing of Zoan, adopted it, and possessed 
 writings from a remote date. ' ' (See ' ' Bible 
 Growth and Keligion," pp. 87-90.) Abraham 
 came from Ur, which was even then a centre of 
 learning. Sargon I. may have been before him, 
 and certainly was not long after him. A copy of 
 his annals has come down to us. He was a success- 
 ful general and organizer, and a collector of libraries 
 which made him famous. He traversed and con- 
 
30 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 quered the countries north and west to Cyprus, and 
 on its rocks lie inscribed a hkeness of himself. He 
 also carried large booty from that island to Asia. 
 Other inscribed figures of that era have been found. 
 Indeed, Sargon I. dedicated an inscribed egg of 
 veined marble to the Sun God of Sippara, which is 
 now in the British Museum ; and the seal of his 
 librarian, Ibni-sarru, is in the hands of M. Le Clercq, 
 of Paris. There is an ancient tradition and legend 
 of him as Sargina, who was preserved and rescued 
 in a way similar to that of Moses in Egypt. The 
 pyramid builders were as early as the fourth mil- 
 lennium B.C., when the Babylonians had their quar- 
 ries in Sinai, and from thence transported blocks 
 of stone to Babylonia. All which are evidences of 
 art and culture at that time. And when Kham- 
 muragas reigned, about 2300 e.g., there seems to 
 have been a great literary revival, when the main 
 bulk of Accadian literature came into existence. 
 (Sayce's ^^ Hibbert Lectures" for 1887, pp. 29-33 
 and 420.) 
 
 " On the rocks of Wady Magharah, in the Si- 
 naitic peninsula, may be seen to this day an incised 
 tablet representing Sneferu, the first monarch of 
 the fourth dynasty, in the act of smiting an ene- 
 my, whom he holds by the hair of his head. At 
 the side we may see the words, Ta satu, Smiter of 
 the nations." A famous second dynasty tablet is 
 in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. There are 
 other inscriptions of an early age. 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 31 
 
 Mr. Theodore G. Pinches, in a letter to the Acad- 
 emy of January 21st, 1888, and to the En^^lish editor 
 of Schrader's " Cuneiform Inscriptions," vol. 2, 
 which that editor incorporated into it, says that one 
 of the tablets of Babylonian inscriptions of about 
 3000 B.C. maybe thus rendered : ** The day for the 
 worship of the gods wa.s the deliglit of his (the 
 writer's) heart, and the prayer of a king— that was 
 joy. How did he learn the path of God glorious, who 
 in the world lived, died, renewed ? . . . Open the 
 high place, they have granted my prayer (r), until 
 there be no more death, and weeping cease." This 
 inscription was considered so important as very 
 early to be accompanied \vith a glossary to explain 
 all the hard and obsolete words in the ancient text. 
 Again and again the copyist wrote, '' How has he 
 learned the path of God glorious, who in the world 
 lived, died, renewed ?" Moreover, the office of 
 Mediator was anciently performed by Marduk, prob- 
 ably referring to the " One who in the world lived, 
 died, renewed." It is a Messianic prophecy, which 
 possibly found fulfilment in Marduk 3000 years b.c. 
 And writing was then known in Babylonia and in 
 Egypt. 
 
 For confirmation let us turn to Gen. 4 : 19-22, 
 where we read of Jabal, the father of such as dwell 
 in tents — tents which imply spinning and weaving. 
 Jabal 's brother was Jubal of the harp and organ or 
 pipe, implying yet more skill than tent-making. 
 Then w^e have Tubal-Cain, the forger of every cut- 
 
32 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 ting instrument of brass or copper and iron. And 
 this stage of art and niecliauics was before the death 
 of Adam. Ko rearrangement of tlie records would 
 place this item after the father of Noah. 
 
 In the Babylonian and Oriental Record for Jan- 
 uary, 1890, Mr. Pinches recounts sundry traditions 
 of the Chinese, such as those of the Deluge, Crea- 
 tion, Paradise, the Tree of Knowledge, the Temp- 
 tation, the Fall, the Curse, traditions of Satan and 
 the Angels, and of the Dispersion of mankind. 
 
 In the creation of Adam they say, '' Father God 
 took a piece of His life, and breathed into the nos- 
 trils of the man and the woman He had created, and 
 they were real human beings. Thus creation was 
 finished." In a series of papers in that journal it 
 is shown that the Chinese may be traced back to the 
 reign of Khammuragas in Babylonia, whence they 
 emigrated, about 2300 b.c. His reign of lifty-five 
 years is identified with that of Belos, wdio is also 
 identified with Bel-Merodach (pp. 16, 19, 22). 
 
 In the Chaldean legend preserved by Berosus we 
 are told that Xisuthros — another name for Noah — 
 was commanded, just before the Deluge, to bury 
 all written documents known to him at Sippara, 
 the ancient book town near Babylon. This he did, 
 and upon leaving the Ark after the flood he re- 
 turned to Sippara, disinterred those buried treasures, 
 and thus transmitted them to posterity. Hence the 
 written knowledge of the antediluvians has come 
 down to us. However that may be, we find a close 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 33 
 
 resemblance in tlie ideas, tliouglits, and legends of 
 primitive man wherever scattered. 
 
 Old Sippara and Agade, near by, were probably 
 tlie '^ Sepliarvaim" of the Book of Kings and of 
 Isaiah. The spade and modern deciplierments have 
 disclosed their long-buried inscriptions, so that to- 
 day we have much of their learning. The writings 
 of old Accad, Babylon, and Egypt have been trans- 
 lated into modern tongues. If we have not yet 
 learned the processes of their thought, we hav3 
 abundant evidences of their writing, their art, and 
 mechanical skill. TJiese clearly express their ideas 
 of creation and of Providence, how man came into 
 being, how God was the directive Force in the 
 ordering of the world, how He was worshipped in 
 the first ages, and how He communicated His will 
 to man. Sometimes their ideas are crude and 
 mythical, and sometimes they mistake the order of 
 nature. Thus Accadian legends place the Moon be- 
 fore the creation of the Sun, and they give the 
 woman precedence over the man ; they also give a 
 polytheistic coloring to their Deluge legends, and 
 express providential oversight by making the planets 
 ^' gods of the sky," who, dwelling in them, kept 
 them from going wrong. 
 
 If Genesis tells how God placed at the entrance 
 to Eden, after man's expulsion, cherubim and a flam- 
 ing sword which turned every way, to keep the way 
 to the Tree of Life, the Gizdhubar^ legends 
 tell of 
 
 2* 
 
34 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 *' The scorpion men who guard its gate, 
 
 Of whom consuming is their terribleness, and their aspect 
 
 death, 
 Great is their majesty, o'ershadowing the forests. 
 At the rising of the Sun and the setting of the Sun they 
 guard the Sun." 
 
 Ill other words— so Mr. St. Boscawen, in tlie June 
 number of the I^ahylonian and Oriental Recm'd 
 for 1S89 — Gizdhubar encounters " certain strange 
 Cherubim-like guardians of the gates of the Sun, de- 
 scribed as scorpion men, whose heads tower to the 
 dome of Heaven, and whose feet rest in the shadow 
 of the land, or house of death. In their appearance 
 they are terrible, burning, consuming, as the flaming 
 sword was of the Hebrew Scriptures. Beyond them, 
 moreover, it is said (in col. 5), lay a beautiful garden 
 which they guarded, further characterized as being 
 ' equal to the trees of the gods in aspect,' ' bear- 
 ing emeralds as its fruit,' ' whose branches bend 
 not to uphold the crystal covering they bear as foli- 
 age,' ' pleasant to the sight.' This last phrase, it is 
 needless to add, recalls that portion of the descrip- 
 tion of the biblical garden : 
 
 '^ ' Every tree that is pleasant to sight and good for 
 food ' (Gen. 2:9). 
 
 ^' The scorpion-men of this legend serve, like the 
 guardians of Eden, to exclude the hero, Gizdhubar, 
 from access to this paradisaical garden, and from the 
 Tree of Life, where he might restore his sick and 
 declining frame." 
 
 Moreover, a cylinder of hard stone, now in the 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 35 
 
 British Museum, has a tree represented on it with 
 several horizontal branches on either side ; the low- 
 est branches bear, each, a large bunch of fruit. A 
 man sits on one side of the tree and a woman on the 
 other side. They stretch out their hands as if to 
 pluck the fruit. Behind the woman stands a ser- 
 pent erect (Smith's " Chaldean Account in Gen- 
 esis," pp. 88-91). These two records of the tablets 
 can mean nothing less than the Fall and expulsion 
 of Man from Eden. They inform us of the tempta- 
 tion and of the punishment of man. 
 
 Following upon that first sin is a legend in differ- 
 ent versions of Cain and Abel. As was quite natu- 
 ral, Mother Eve was early regarded as the daughter 
 of God, for so indeed she was by creation. The 
 birth of her first child was a real astonishment. No 
 wonder she came to be considered as a goddess, 
 offspring of the Great God. Very early the even- 
 ing star was made her symbol, and then the morn- 
 ing star. First deified as Nana, 2500 years b.c. or 
 sooner, she was then called Istar. Her image,. .car- 
 ried off 1635 years before Assur-bani-pal, was re- 
 covered by his generals at the capture of Shushan. 
 She was long the supposed bride of Tamrauz, the 
 goddess of Assur and of Babylonia. At first pure 
 as heaven, she was then debased to earth, and made 
 the innocent patron of licentiousness. 
 
 Her legend in the Gizdhubar Epic may have in- 
 corporated somewhat of the story of Nimrod and of 
 the older tragedy of Cain, who slew his brother. 
 
36 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 For, instead of being the bride of Tammuz, she was, 
 in fact, his mother, who mourned for her son when 
 slain by his brother Adar. Such was the Accadian 
 version of Cain and AbeL We can form httle con- 
 ception of the astonishment at the first human birth ; 
 greater yet was that at the first death. Terrible in- 
 deed was the horror of the first murder. The 
 amazement and anguish of Eve at the lifeless body 
 of her son cannot be expressed in words. Sculp- 
 ture and the painter can better do it. See the strik- 
 ing attempt in a group in the Metropolitan Museum, 
 and also the horrible expression of the Cain. We 
 quote Byron as he makes Mother Eve exclaim : 
 
 " May the grass wither from thy feet ! the woods 
 Deny thee shelter ! earth a home ! the dust 
 A grave ! the sun his light, and heaven her God !' ' 
 
 Some such feeling and sympathy with the first 
 mother prompted, we may believe, the daughters 
 of Babylonia to make annual lamentation for the 
 dead Tammuz, which is but another name for Abel. 
 Hence the origin of that ancient custom and of por- 
 tions of the old Babylonian epic, which is far more 
 a tragedy than a love story. Like Eachel weeping 
 for her children, the mother of Tammuz and her 
 daughters wept for their dead. It was Eve who be- 
 came the goddess Istar ; the first of deified human- 
 ity, and the longest to retain her hold upon man. 
 Thus motherhood was early honored in our w^orld 
 by practices which degenerated into base supersti- 
 tions. As the Venus God, Istar wafe worshipped at 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 37 
 
 Accad, Erecli, Sippara, Ur, and Ilaran in the era of 
 Abraham ; as Ashtoreth and Astarte by the Phoeni- 
 cians, and as Diana and Venus by Greeks and Ro- 
 mans. The murder of Tammuz was thought to 
 have been avenged in the Deluge of Noah. 
 
 Genesis was the first Hebrew book of science, the 
 first Hebrew history, and tlie first book of theology. 
 And it was in advance of any other science or his- 
 tory which has come down to us. In other words, 
 the science disclosed in our Bible and the history 
 recorded therein are in advance of all other writings 
 of the earliest ages. It must, therefore, have had 
 an inspired author. Abraham probably rewrote the 
 first nine chapters of Genesis, compiled from still 
 earlier records ; but if they were first written by 
 Moses, the marvel is great ; for it required a reve- 
 lation of past events as well as of the creation story. 
 
 Besides an account of the Sacred Tree, the Ser- 
 pent, and the Expulsion for the sin of man, found in 
 various ethnic traditions. Genesis gives an account 
 of the unity of the human race, which is sustained 
 by Baron Cuvier, by Dr. Prichard, and by Quar- 
 trefages. Even Darwin was a monogenist. Then 
 we have the unity of language as stated in Genesis 
 confirmed by modern analysis. Max Miiller reduces 
 the entire speech of man to about one hundred and 
 twenty roots, or mother ideas. Every thought that 
 ever crossed the mind of man can be traced back to 
 about one hundred and twenty simple concepts 
 ('^ Science of Thought"). Man's bodily structure. 
 
38 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 his instincts, senses, appetites, affections, mental 
 faculties, religious capacities — all point to the same 
 ethnic origin. As to color, the Jew is white in Eng- 
 land and America, brown in Italy, olive in Syria, 
 coffee-colored in Arabia, and almost black in Abys- 
 sinia. Touching religion, man is everywhere relig- 
 ious, even to superstition. He prays as naturally as 
 he laughs. So in all these grand tests of truthfulness 
 our Genesis is indisputably true. The ethnography 
 of chapter 10 is true history, though, perhaps, writ- 
 ten after the birth of Moab and Animon, if not of 
 Ishmael and Esau. From the sons of Noah the 
 world has been peopled. Upon these several mat- 
 ters are some excellent remarks by Dr. A. Cave in 
 his "' Inspiration of the Old Testament," pp. 110- 
 160. Whatever knowledge of these things Abra- 
 ham got from current legends and traditions, the 
 arrangement and revision of them, if used in com- 
 piling our Genesis, required Divine Insj^firaiion, 
 
 § VI. — The Deluge and Knowledge then. 
 
 Briefly, we find that God told Noah when to build 
 the Ark ; God sent the destruction upon man ; shut 
 the door of the Ark ; assuaged the flood of waters ; 
 set His bow in the heavens in token that He would 
 not again destroy man with a Flood ; and when the 
 sweet odors of Noah's sacrifice ascended to the skies, 
 God smelled the fragrance. For it is remarkable 
 that while the legends give a polytheistic version of 
 the account, our Genesis corrects them, saying, 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 39 
 
 *^ Jehovah" — God in Divine Unity — smelled the 
 sweet savor of that sacrifice. It looks like a record 
 carefully made by the saved man, whose knowledge 
 in other matters doubtless included the ability to 
 write out his wonderful experiences. 
 
 Moreover, the legend of the preservation of the 
 antediluvian writings at Sippara can mean nothing 
 less than that, in that far-off age, men were com- 
 petent to read and write. Ev^en before the Deluge 
 this art was known among men, and so they who 
 lived near that catastrophe believed. Their brick 
 inscriptions inform us how the older written knowl- 
 edge was preserved. Accadian and Egyptian 
 legends have been discovered and deciphered which 
 make this fact clear. For legend is not a myth or 
 a guess, but a reading, and those ancient legends 
 record impressions of how mankind were preserved 
 from total extinction. In Chaldea, Egypt, India, 
 China, they testify that such preservation was by 
 Divine interposition. Brick, stone, papyrus, are 
 uniform in the main facts. A long-lived race had 
 the time needed for various learning. Step by step 
 they attained to the treasures of knowledge, and 
 they were careful to record for after 'generations 
 their ideas and achievements. Forgeries no one 
 pretends them to be ; but even forgery would prove 
 a true original. Men do not counterfeit the spuri- 
 ous, but the genuine ; the actual, not the fictitious. 
 To invent Deluge legends is absurd. 
 
 Possibly the Egyptian story of Thoth and his 
 
40 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 wonderful book, wliose contents, even a single page, 
 would charm the heavens and the earth, the seas 
 and the mountains, may have arisen from the legend 
 of the book knowledge of the world preserved at 
 Sippara, notwithstanding the misfortune which it 
 brought upon its possessor. Or it may have been 
 a version of the forbidden knowledge obtained by 
 eating of the forbidden fruit in Eden, which, as in 
 the Pandora's box of the Greeks, brought unspeak- 
 able evils upon mankind. 
 
 Then tlieir destruction by the God Ra, as told in 
 another Egyptian story, cannot have been without 
 a foundation in truth. '' For a long time he had 
 reigned over obedient subjects, but at length they 
 grew headstrong and unruly ; they uttered words 
 against Ra ; they plotted evil things ; they griev- 
 ously offended him. So he called a council of the 
 celestials to consider what he should do. They ad- 
 vised that mankind be destroyed. Hathor and 
 Sekliet were commissioned to the work of destruc- 
 tion, and proceeded to smite the men over the whole 
 land. This brought fear and repentance upon them, 
 and the men of Elephantine made haste to propi- 
 tiate the gods. They extracted the juice from the 
 best of their fruits, mingled it with human blood, 
 filled seven thousand jars with it, and brought them 
 as an offering to the Deity. Ra drank and was con- 
 tent, and bade that the liquor which remained be 
 poured out of the jars ; when, lo ! an inundation 
 covered the whole land of Egypt. And when 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 41 
 
 Hathor went forth tlie next day to destroy, she saw 
 no men in the fields, but only water, which slie 
 drank ; it pleased lier, and slie went away satisfied.' ' 
 Some, indeed, see no reference to tlie Deluge in this 
 story, while others of undoubted learning and judg- 
 ment do. It implies that a destruction had been 
 wrought as a punishment for the sins of men by the 
 Deity, and that those who surviv^ed the pestilence 
 or smiting of Hathor were destroyed by inundation 
 of the river. By a confusion in the order of events, 
 the propitiatory sacrifice of the Elephan tines, though 
 acceptable to Ka, failed to procure the desired res- 
 pite. This is unaccountable. In another version 
 of this story, by M. Naville, in '' Eecords of the 
 Past," he represents some men as saved, and that 
 the practice of making libations to Hathor arose from 
 that fact. Lenormant suggests the correspondence 
 of Ea in Egypt with Bel in Chaldea, and that the 
 form of the tradition was changed to suit the feel- 
 ings of the Egyptians, who regarded the overflow- 
 ing Nile as a benefaction. Hence the destructive 
 gods were the slayers of men. (See '' God in Crea- 
 tion," pp. 101-111.) Such variations in the ac- 
 count are not denials of the catastrophe. 
 
 In the Accadian legend the variations are marked. 
 Principal Dawson has called attention to them in a 
 paper in the Contempm'ary Beview for December, 
 1889. There a '' steersman" is introduced, the 
 ship is 'launched," not floated with the rising 
 waters ; while the dimensions of the Ark are large- 
 
42 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 ly increased. Its construction and navigation imply 
 advanced knowledge in such matters. The Biblical 
 is the more reasonable account, but that is of a vessel 
 800 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high, 
 with lower, second, and third stories, having sundry 
 comjiartments. It was to be of such form and 
 strength as to carry an immense cargo of provisions 
 and living animals, endure a terrific downpour from 
 heaven, and withstand the shocks of a breaking up 
 of the foundations of the great deep. That catas- 
 trophe included upheavals, convulsions, and various 
 destructive forces at work. The saving vessel must 
 be duly proportioned, well built, and capacious. 
 Nor was it a mere float, but a three-decked vessel 
 as large as an Atlantic steamer. Those 300 cubits 
 were nearly 600 feet, the width was about twice 
 that of a large steamer, and the depth some 55 ft. 
 The sacred cubit is supposed to have been two of 
 our feet, or 25 inches. 
 
 While 30 and 50 are factors of 300, few builders 
 would trust their memory with the figures, nor with 
 the deck measurement and divisions of the Ark. 
 Then as now the skill to build such a huge float 
 implies the skill to write down the directions. Add 
 to this the legend of the preservation of the ancient 
 writings by burying them at Sippara, and it em- 
 phasizes the probability that the antediluvians were 
 able to read and write. In nothing is the testimony 
 of the three great families of man more corrobora- 
 tive than in Deluge legends. See that chapter in 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 43 
 
 '^ God ill Creation;" in Dr. Cave's " Inspiration 
 of the Bible ;" in Dr. Fraden burgh's " Witnesses 
 from the Dust," and in Lenormant's and Sir 
 Principal Dawson's works. Dr. Cave notes tliat 
 Yima, in the Aryan story, was commanded to build 
 '' wlien six hundred winters" had passed over him, 
 and that '' Noah was six hundred years old when 
 the Flood broke." Moreover, the Accadians and 
 Lithuanians confirm Genesis in having the rainbow 
 as the sign of God's returning favor. Sir William 
 Dawson corrects the usually judicious Schrader, who 
 objected to " the omission of the swallow, when 
 the story passed over to the Hebrews. It is one of 
 the most amusing instances of the inversion of sound 
 criticism which results when unscientific commen- 
 tators tamper with the plain statements of truthful 
 and observant witnesses. The addition of the swal- 
 low in the Chaldean version is a mark of interpola- 
 tion, arising from a local and popular superstition 
 attached to the swallow." Our chief business with 
 these legends now is not confirmation of the fact of 
 the Deluge of Noah, but rather that in his era, be- 
 fore and after, man could probably record such 
 events, and record them correctly. 
 
 § Yll. — In Egypt and Babylonia. 
 
 Amenemhat I., of the twelfth dynasty, wrote 
 detailed *^ Instructions" to his son— the earliest 
 literary production of royalty that has reached us. 
 Writing, however, was exceeded by the skill which 
 
44 THE AVRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 built the great pyramid of Khufii of the fourth 
 dynasty, and the pyramid of Shafra soon after. 
 They are the most ancient remains of those times 
 and reach back to very near the Deluge. What skill 
 in engineering and the mechanic arts is implied to 
 raise such huge blocks of rock, nicely chiselled and 
 fitted into a compact mass, in comparison with which 
 our modern cathedrals are but chapels. If Egyptol- 
 ogists are right in dating them at about 3300 b.c, 
 the skill thus manifested in the morning of the 
 world renders probable the truth of the legend that 
 even before the Deluge men wrote out the events 
 of their times. 
 
 Indeed, there are sculjDtures and inscriptions of 
 Sneferu's officers which prove hieroglyphic and 
 picture writing of before the year 3000 of our era. 
 Earlier still was that second dynasty tablet now in 
 the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford ; while the 
 metaphysical distinctions of man made him to con- 
 sist of body, soul, spirit or intelligence, life, shadow 
 and name ; so M. Maspero and others. Miss Ed- 
 wards adds that ''the Book of the Dead shows 
 that all these several parts had to be restored to the 
 man, and reunited before he could obtain immortal- 
 ity." The subtlety of the classification is remark- 
 able for the period. And, says Rawlinson, " No 
 rudeness or want of finish attaches either to the 
 writing or to the drawing of Sneferu's time ; the 
 artists do not attempt much, but what they attempt 
 they accomplish." Moreover, at Meydoum and at 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 45 
 
 Sakkara are pyramids earlier than those of Khufu 
 and Shafra, of whom and of Una we find inscrip- 
 tions. Then of the eleventli and twelfth dynasties 
 we have a literature. 
 
 A tomb of the eleventh dynasty records of the 
 dead reposing within it : ^^1 was beloved by the 
 king more than his nobles and officers in all the 
 Sonth. He caused me to rule when I was a mere 
 child of a cubit high. He elevated my seat when 
 I still wore the lock of youth ; he had me taught to 
 swim with the royal children. 1 was a marvel of 
 uprightness (a servant), who did no injury to his 
 master, who had trained him from a child. Siut 
 was contented with my administration, Heracleop- 
 olis Magna praised God for me, IJpper.and Lower 
 Egypt said, ' This is the wisdom of a great prince.' " 
 
 This was in the dynasty before Abraham, when 
 the two Egypts were under one sovereign, and prior 
 to the Hyksos domination. 
 
 Another inscription, probably of the tenth dyn- 
 asty, says of the Prince of Siut : *' 1 came to 
 my city, I entered my nome ; I did what men de- 
 sired, what the gods approved ; I gave bread to the 
 hungry, and clothes the naked ; 1 listened to the 
 cry of the widow, 1 gave a dwelling to the homeless. 
 I returned evil with good, and sought not injury, 
 in order that I might remain long on the earth, and 
 thence pass to perfection." Then a blessing is in- 
 voked on hrs friends. ^' But every evil one, every 
 perverse one who shall do the reverse of these 
 
46 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 things which he has heard, his name shall not re- 
 main, he shall not be bmned in the necropolis-hill, 
 he shall be destroyed with the wicked." See '' Re- 
 port of Egypt Exploration Fund for 1888-89," 
 and other translations in it. These inscriptions fit- 
 tingly preceded the writing of Genesis, and were 
 not improbably known to Abraham. 
 
 Even while revising these pages news comes from 
 England of the receipt of another collection of in- 
 scribed tablets which were written at different times 
 from about 2300 to 200 years b.o. in Chaldea. 
 Some of the tablets were enclosed in clay envelopes, 
 on which another copy is written. One such pair 
 dates about 2200 e.g., and discloses the curious fact 
 that thus early agents were employed in Babylon to 
 obtain children for adoption by wealthy citizens 
 who had none of their own. Those agents were 
 paid a regular commission by the parents of such 
 children and by those who adopted them. The 
 humanity thus illustrated is an important feature of 
 the life of those times. 
 
 Moreover, we have the mute speaking Sphiiix, 
 so wise in his silence, and the Tower of Babel, 
 either of which necessitated a high degree of me- 
 chanical skill, not far distant from the era of the 
 Flood. Sippara, on the Euphrates, and Kerioth- 
 sepher, near the Jordan, were book- towns of great 
 antiquity, and possessed a written literature. What 
 is recorded of Noah and his sons, which lifts the 
 veil from his couch and the curtain of his tent, is of 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 47 
 
 a kind to be written, not carried in the memory. 
 They were not revehitions to the compiler of Gen- 
 esis, bnt were matters of history, of legend and 
 tradition, for the instruction of men, who had not 
 to wait six centuries for them to be written. 
 
 The blessing upon Shem and Japheth and the 
 curse of Canaan began to be realized before Israel 
 entered Palestine. Thus the words " Ham was 
 the father of Canaan" have long been regarded as 
 true in application to those doomed tribes who 
 found the avenger of Noah in conquering Joshua. 
 The malediction and its fulfilment, not far apart in 
 our records, were some two thousand years apart 
 in accomplishment. And of those two millenniums 
 Father Abraham learned much of the history from 
 the ancient tablets of Urand Accad. The language 
 of Babylon, we are now assured, was then the 
 language of commerce and of international com- 
 munication. By it the lords of Chaldea and the 
 princes of Palestine could readily converse with the 
 princes of Egypt. Nor was Abraham behind them 
 in literary culture. (See " Bible Growth and Re- 
 ligion," pp. 44:-61.) He certainly had no difficulty 
 in conversing with Pharaoh Usertesen II., who prob- 
 ably reigned when he fled from the famine of Canaan. 
 Indeed, the art of writing is traced a thousand 
 years back of Abraham. While Mr. Flinders Petrie 
 describes papyri of the twelfth dynasty, other writ- 
 ten papyri of that era have been found in the Fayum 
 excavations. And Professor Sayce writes of an 
 
48 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 Egyptian scarab, with its duplicate of the iirst dyn- 
 asty. Upon examining it, he found an inscription 
 which he renders, ^' The Lord of the North and the 
 South, Amu." Amu is a Semitic word, meaning 
 '' the terrible one," the plural of which occurs in 
 Gen. U : 5 ; Deut. 2 : 10, 11. There the word 
 designates the Emim, who were then the people of 
 that land, and were so called by the Moabites, who 
 succeeded the Emim in possession of that country. 
 Dr. Naville has also found among the inscriptions 
 of Bubastis the same name, Amu, which may have 
 denoted a god at an early period ; but Professor 
 Sayce asks : '' Was it the name of an unknown 
 prince ?" (The Academy for July 20th, 1889, and 
 for October 26tli, 1889.) Whatever the word 
 meant, its being inscribed on a scarab of that era 
 proves the remote antiquity of writing, of which 
 the tablets of Tel-el- Amarna furnish additional il- 
 lustrations. Long before Abraham left Babylonia, 
 and before he visited Egypt, reading and writing 
 were common in both lands. It was the assured 
 way to honor and wealth. Children of nobles, 
 sometimes children of slaves, were taught to read 
 and write. There was no difficulty from lack of 
 the required skill to record the early history of man- 
 kind and of God's dealing with them from the days 
 of Seth, when men worshipped Jehovah in public 
 assemblies, to Noah's acceptable sacrifice and Abra- 
 ham's call out of Ur. Lenormant suggests a series 
 of revelations during that period. 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAII. 40 
 
 Whatever the method of instruction, tlie teaching 
 itself was from above, by the Spirit of God. Thus 
 knowledge of Creation, of Paradise almost every- 
 where found, of Expulsion thence, of a Promised 
 Redeemer, of the Serpent as an evil-worker, of Sab- 
 bath and Sacrifice, of Immortality, of good and bad 
 Spirits, and of God's overruling Providence for the 
 benefit of man— these ten elements of religion were 
 very early known, and may be clearly traced among 
 the three grreat races descended from IS'oah. This 
 has been done for the general reader in the little 
 book '^ God Enthroned in Redemption," published 
 by Mr. Whittaker, New York. It is certainly 
 probable that those primitive men recorded and 
 carefully cherished their early knowledge, which 
 was divinely imparted. In no other way can we 
 account for the similarity of thought and action 
 among the scattered nations. 
 
 Adam, Noah, and some other names of early 
 patriarchs have not yet been deciphered in Baby- 
 lonian inscriptions ; showing an earlier and indepen- 
 dent origin of Bible names which were not derived 
 from them. But we find some names of animals 
 the same in the Bible and in India ; viz., those for 
 elephant, ape, peacock ; in Egypt, kafi ; Sanskrit, 
 kapi ; Hebrew, kuf ; Greek, kepus ; Latin, cepus. 
 So Conder's ''Syrian Stone Lore." As it is not 
 pretended that the Hebrews borrowed from the 
 Hindus, such similarity of names would seem trace- 
 able to a connnon origin before separation from 
 the same ancestral home. 
 3 
 
50 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 § YUl. — Tower of Bahel. 
 
 Not only does the ethnology of Gen. 10 bear 
 the test of criticism, but we find confirmation of 
 the Tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues 
 in the brick inscriptions. Early fragments of the 
 accounts have been discovered, which accentuates 
 the skill of the first ages. Compare Gen. 11 : 1-9 
 with the '^ find" which astonished Mr. George 
 Smith in 1875. Though torn from its connection, 
 it is supposed to have been preceded by another 
 narrative. The fragment is rendered : '' Babylon 
 to sin corruptly went ; small and great were mingled 
 on the mound. Make strange their speech ; make 
 hostile their counsel. The King of the holy mound 
 their work confounded. To their stronghold at 
 night they went ; entirely an end he made. In his 
 anger the secret counsel he declared ; to scatter 
 abroad his face was set ; to confuse or make strange 
 their speech (the verb is similar to the Hebrew) he 
 gave command. The builders continued to build ; 
 against the gods they revolted. Even the gods la- 
 mented the Babylonians. By whirlwind and storm 
 their work was destroyed." Another fragment 
 reads : '' Against the father of all the gods was 
 wickedness . . . and great he confounded their 
 speech. Babylon is brought to subjection." Mr. 
 George Smith also discovered cylinders on which 
 tall piles and the outline of a god were represented. 
 There were figures with outstretched hands resting 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 51 
 
 on tall piles, as if erecting tliem, and a god is por- 
 trayed in the company. The legend is believed to 
 be identical with the account in Genesis. 
 
 But, very ancient as is the tradition, it is not 
 alone. AVhen the tablets were well known and one 
 of their two languages was a living tongue, Berosus 
 read it, and incorporated it into his history. He 
 speaks of '* earth's first inhabitants who gloried in 
 their strength, despised the gods, and undertook 
 to erect a tower wliich should reach to the sky. 
 It was on the site where Babylon now stands. But 
 the gods diversified their speech ; for till then men 
 spoke the same language. By the winds of Heaven 
 their work was overturned. Whereupon war arose 
 between Kronus or Saturn, and Titan. From the 
 confusion of tongues thence arising, the Hebrews 
 called the place Babel." A similar version by the 
 Sibyl is given in Cory's ^' Ancient Fragments," p. 
 75, and see p. 55. There is also a probable refer- 
 ence to the Tower of Babel in the historic account 
 of Nebuchadnezzar's rebuilding the great temple of 
 Bel Merodach. He says '' The earthquake and the 
 thunder had dispersed the sun-dried clay. He 
 changed not the site, nor removed the foundation, 
 but set his hand to finish it as it was in former 
 times." 
 
 § IX. — Summary of Points. 
 
 Thus, in the early records of God in Creation, in 
 similar religious ideas among the representative na- 
 
52 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 tions of early ages, in the ethnic history of Gen- 
 esis, in Deluge legends, tower-building, speech-con- 
 founding, and primitive civilization, we have illus- 
 trations of culture and education among men ; which 
 imply the ability to read and w^ite in the days of 
 Noah ; which suggest how Abraham learned the 
 knowledge he possessed, and from his known char- 
 acter as the chosen one to found a new people who 
 should preserve the true religion in the world, mark 
 him out as the Inspired collector, reviser, redactor 
 and editor of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. 
 They were written in a form which suited the men 
 of that era, were calculated to further the Divine 
 purposes, and were adapted to the capacity of the 
 young Hebrew people. They were written for a 
 Divine purpose and plan, partly to correct the then 
 polytheistic notions which prevailed in Babylonia 
 and in Egypt, and to teach that God Almighty 
 created tlie heavens and the earth, and was the 
 Creator and Preserver of mankind. It was not to 
 teach science according to our notions of science, 
 but to teach and to unfold the origin of man, some 
 of the accomplished facts in his past, and some grand 
 facts and developments of his future. Both crea- 
 tion and man — its crowning work — were of God, 
 whose Providence still governed in the affairs of 
 man, and whose educational and uplifting designs 
 were yet to be accomplished in a chosen nation for 
 the Iledemption of mankind, and in the final coro- 
 nation of sanctified humanity. 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 53 
 
 Hence we name Abraham as the compiler of the 
 first chapters of Genesis, under the Inspiration of 
 God, while those following were from Divine Rev- 
 elations and personal experiences. Hence we learn 
 the foundation of the 7n{fht and the why Jehovah 
 selected a Hebrew faniilj to be His chosen people. 
 
 The one objection to this view of the writer of 
 those first chapters is the use of the Divine name 
 Jehovah and compounding it with names of places, 
 as in Moriah, Jehovah-Jireh, and as found in the 
 Creation, Noachian, and Palestinian accounts. Nor 
 does it, at first view, explain the so-called Elohistic 
 and Jehovahistic portions of Genesis. But this is 
 because it has been assumed that the name Jehovah 
 was not known before Moses. 
 
 It was six hundred years from Abraham to Moses, 
 and during four hundred of those years Israel was 
 in Egypt. That was long enough, under their con- 
 ditions, to lose the precise theological knowledge 
 which their fathers had received. Hence the use 
 of the Divine name Jehovah fell into disuse in 
 Egypt, and was given again to Moses in Exodus 
 S : 13-18 ; 6 : 3. But some think that was the 
 first revelation of it, though in fact it may have 
 been then thus given to distinguish Jehovah from 
 the gods of Egypt. We notice the previous use of 
 Jehovah in Ex. 3 : 2, 4, 7, of events before its rev- 
 elation in verse 14. (See "God in Creation," p. 61.) 
 
 Moreover, it would derogate from the majesty of 
 the record to substitute another word for Jehovah 
 
54 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 in a passage like, " I have waited for Thy salva- 
 tion, O Jehovah !" (Gen. 49 : 18.) So of Joseph, 
 it is not simply a God who was with him in Egypt, 
 but Jehovah (39 : 2), which is repeated in verses 
 3, 5, 21, 23. Properly to his master's wife, Joseph 
 nrges that it was sin against God — against her 
 God as well as his God, and so Jehovah is not 
 used, but the general name for God (verse 9). In 
 
 28 : 13, 16, 21 Jehovah again appears as the Cov- 
 enant Lord of Israel, whom Leah recognized in 
 
 29 ; 31, 32, 35. Nor was the word used without a 
 purpose by Isaac in Gen. 26 : 2, 12, 22, 24, 25, 28, 
 29, seven times in that chapter. And it seems to 
 be of special significance as used in chapters 22, 19, 
 18, 17, 16, 15, and 14 : 22, being the name of the 
 Covenanted Jehovah, where the God of Melchizedek 
 is distinguished from the Jehovah of Abraham. 
 He does not cast off Hagar, but His angel found 
 her at the fountain, and bade her return to her mis- 
 tress (16 : 7, 9, 11, 13). It is hardly probable that 
 Moses made such changes in the text, though he 
 might properly revise local names and add a word 
 of illustration. Thus in 14 : 7, 8, 14, where he 
 describes the country as that of the Amalekites, and 
 what was ZoarandDan ; perhaps inserting verse 19 
 in chapter 15, and defining Beer-sheba in 26 : 33. 
 In 35 : 20 he observes that Rachel's pillar still re- 
 mained over her grave, and he makes additions and 
 revisions to chapter 36 : 11, 12, 15, 16, 42, 43. 
 But we prefer to regard the general record as tliat 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 55 
 
 wliicli was first written, thongli tlic modernizing of 
 local names improves tlie narrative. 
 
 Even if we must allow the change of the Divine 
 name by Moses as editor, that is little in comparison 
 with assuming the whole of Genesis to have been a 
 new revelation to Moses, whicli does not accord 
 with God's usual method of not repeating Himself. 
 And we avoid such repetitions by ascribing the first 
 Genesis to Abraham and his immediate successors. 
 After Moses, not till Samuel, perhaps not till Ezra, 
 was another revision necessary for Hebrew or for 
 Gentile. To Abraham God is revealed as the 
 covenant God ; to Moses the ritual of His worship 
 is revealed. 
 
 Thus we find sufiicient explanation of the differ- 
 ences in style, of local names, of words free and 
 flowing, or concise and rigid, of the scientific, pro- 
 plietic, narrative, and poetic writing of our Genesis. 
 
 Dr. Cave properly asks, " If Moses was the Je- 
 liovist, who was the Elohist ?" And then gives 
 reasons for believing that he was both. '' He util- 
 ized existing materials collected by a writer who 
 preferred the name Elohim for Deity, and he, there 
 is strong reason for believing, was the Jehovistic 
 writer ; for he might well have penned his Eloliis- 
 tic document a sufficient time before the events at 
 Sinai to account for the change of literary style, as 
 well as of religious standpoint." Yes, Dr. Cave, 
 he might ; but did he ? And does this explain 
 what St. Stephen said about him, and what he sup- 
 
56 THE WlllTEKS OF GENESIS. 
 
 posed his brethren understood of him ? Dr. Cave 
 seems not to aceonnt for St. Steplien, in his able de- 
 fence of the Mosaic authorship. Bat we must ac- 
 count for that, and for Moses's first mistake and fail- 
 ure. These are points which strongly make for 
 Abraham as the original writer of the lirst portions 
 of our Genesis, while Isaac, Jacob, and Judah 
 wrote the succeeding chapters. 
 
 § X. — A hraham^ s Memoirs. 
 
 The patriarch, having revised and coiTected what 
 Le had been early taught, and incorporated what 
 had been revealed to him of the Creation Story and 
 the primitive history of mankind in chapters 1 to 
 11, proceeds, in chapter 12, to record his personal 
 memoirs. Who but Abraham could write Genesis 
 12 ? It contains the call to him to get out of his 
 countr^^ from his kindred, and from his father's 
 house, unto a land which God would show him, and 
 there make of him a great nation. This is a per- 
 sonal communication which he regarded as from 
 Jehovah. It took him up by the roots, so to say, 
 cut through his affections, and implied manifold 
 risks in following. He was comparatively a young 
 man of some sixty years when he left Ur. He 
 spent some more years in Haran, where his father 
 died, and in his seventy-fifth year was bidden to 
 pass on to Shechem and the oak of Moreh. These 
 are all matters known only to Abraham at the lirst. 
 But they were so vitally important to him that he 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 57 
 
 could not let them float away into uncertain memo- 
 ries, and so he duly entered the account in his reg- 
 ister. 
 
 But because he added, to emphasize the peculiar 
 fact of God's gift of the land to him and his poster- 
 ity, '' And the Canaanite was then in the land," 
 some hold that another wrote it at a later time. It 
 is, in fact, a time-mark of antiquity. It was not 
 written in Egypt, nor at Sinai, nor under conquer- 
 ing Joshua, but by him to whom the country was 
 promised when the Canaanite was in the land. 
 Abraham evidently considered it a proof of God's 
 purpose to put him in their place. 
 
 Others have kept a diary of events, even writing 
 down impressive dreams. Here is the root and 
 foundation of a new and Eevealed Religion, by 
 which the God of heaven entered into covenant with 
 man ; a representative man, religious, intelligent, 
 prosperous, and with a remarkable opportunity 
 opening before him — think you that such a man, 
 having the ability to write, would fail to record and 
 carefully preserve such a Divine promise to him and 
 to his seed ? Promptly he builded an altar unto the 
 Lord, and upon going to Bethel he built another 
 (verses 7, 8). As the greater would seem to include 
 the less, we infer that he also wrote the account of 
 all these matters for the use of his promised seed, 
 through whom all families of men should be blessed 
 (verse 3). He also records his visit to Egypt, because 
 of the famine in Canaan ; what befell him there, and 
 3* 
 
58 THE WKITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 liis safe return, being very rich in cattle, in silver 
 and in gold. It was twenty years before the birth 
 of Isaac. Lot also was with him (12 : 10 ; 13 : 1). 
 
 Surely these things were not matters of a later 
 revelation. And rei3resentations of similar visits 
 are to-day found upon Egyptian monuments. Syrian 
 nomads are portrayed as entering the Delta and ob- 
 taining permission to pasture their flocks and herds. 
 Even on the tomb of an Egyptian governor of the 
 era of Abraham is represented a company of Syrians 
 coming to him for permission to pasture their herds 
 in his district. The reigning Pharaoh was probably 
 Usertesen II., of the twelfth dynasty. One of the 
 best-known pictures of the ancient empire repre- 
 sents the arrival of a nomad chief, with his family 
 and dependents, seeking sustenance and protection. 
 They were Semites from Arabia, or Palestine. 
 Even the name of the chief is given, Abshah, which 
 some identify with that of Abraham. It at least 
 suggests that where Abshah was received Abraham 
 would not be rejected. 
 
 Moreover, presents like those of the Pharaoh to 
 Abraham — viz., sheep, oxen, asses, and slaves, are 
 to-day found pictured on the monuments of Beni- 
 Hassan. They mark an early period, since after the 
 ass became the emblem of Typho he would not be 
 thus represented ; nor would they whose god he 
 symbolized give him away to unbelievers ; nor 
 would true Egyptians present to their friends what 
 they regarded as emblems of the Devil ; for such 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 59 
 
 in later times the ass became in Egypt. This por- 
 traiture, then, belongs to the time before the Ilyk- 
 sos and before the horse was domesticated in the 
 Nile land. It was probably not known there in 
 Abraham's day. Yet the wagons and chariots men- 
 tioned in Gen. 45, 46, 50, where horsemen also oc- 
 cur, show that then horses were in common use 
 in Egypt. There is an account in one of the oldest 
 existing papyri of an Egyptian by the name of 
 Saneha, who went as a fugitive to southern Pales- 
 tine, as a modern would go to a country of which 
 he was suspicious of his safety, and was not quite 
 sure of returning. At length he was restored to 
 his friends, and gave the narrative of his courteous 
 reception and entertainment, and was himself pleased 
 with his welcome home again. ('' Kecords of the 
 Past," vol. vi., pp. 131-150; also vol. ii. of 2d 
 ed., with a new translation by M. Maspero). 
 
 Of chapter 13 there can be no question that 
 Abraham, rather than Lot, was the writer. Its con- 
 tents would not be a revelation to Moses. It is his- 
 tory. So of the memorable incidents in Gen. 14 ; 
 they were evidently recorded by its chief actor. 
 The supposed difficulty in verse 7, '' They smote all 
 the country of the Amalekites," disappears if con- 
 sidered as the revision of Moses. Amalek is here 
 first mentioned, but not by anticipation, as the 
 '^ Speaker's Commentary'' suggests, nor as a pow- 
 erful people of uncertain origin, so the ^' Concise 
 Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, " but as a later 
 
60 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 revision which described the smitten country as 
 that which was occupied by the Amalekites. It 
 was the field or country where they dwelt in the 
 time of Moses or the reviser. They were descend- 
 ed from Esau (Gen. 36 : 16). 
 
 Chapter 14 also shows the mistake of Lot. He 
 had made his choice, and dwelt in the cities of the 
 Plain, when Chedorlaomer appeared and captured 
 him with all he possessed. The details are so ex- 
 plicit respecting names and nations in Syria and 
 South Babylonia, the number of Abraham's trained 
 servants and his allies, the way taken to Hobah, and 
 the rescue by a night attack of all the persons and 
 property that had been carried away ; the happy 
 return, the public thanksgiving by the priest-king 
 of Salem, the bread and wine brought forth, the 
 tithes paid by Abraham, even the little strategy of 
 the prince of Sodom in order to gain some honor 
 for himself among his subjects, after his defeat by 
 the marauders, and the refusal of Abraham to take 
 any share of the recovered goods for his risk and 
 pains, save only what the young soldiers had eaten, 
 the portion due to Aner, Eschol, and Mamre — 
 these are so many marks of time and circumstance 
 as to require a prompt record of the particulars to 
 be made by the chief actor in the occurrences. 
 They were not the things to be left to inspiration 
 in some later writer, but were written out and 
 handed on from Abraham to Moses, or the fine dis-. 
 tinction between the El-Elyon of Melchizedek and 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 61 
 
 tlie Jehovah El-Elyon of Abraham loses all its point 
 (14 : 22). Pentateuchal analysts overlook its im- 
 portance. See an able paper by Rev. H. A. Rog- 
 ers in O. and N. Test. Student for March, 1890. 
 
 The vision and revelation narrated in chapter 15 ; 
 the promise of an heir other than Ishmael, not- 
 withstanding the prayer of his father ; the gift of 
 all the country round about the Jordan ; the ac- 
 companying sacrifice and the attesting fire, together 
 with the dark unfolding of the servitude of his de- 
 scendants for four hundred years, to be followed by 
 judgments upon the oppressors and the deliverance 
 of Israel, with the boundaries of the lands they 
 should possess — these, too, were recorded by Abra- 
 ham. They were of such far-seeing importance as 
 not to be left to the chance of memory and erring 
 traditions. 
 
 That it was early attributed to Moses finds illus- 
 tration in our English translation of the Bible, which 
 is often attributed to Coverdale, or Rogers, orCran- 
 mer, or even to Wycliffe, or to Geneva, instead of 
 to William Tyndale, to whom the first half of the 
 Old Testament and the whole of the New Testa- 
 ment should be ascribed, with revisions by Cover- 
 dale,.. Rogers, and later editors. 
 
 In Gen. 16 are family incidents and details of a 
 character which none but the parties directly con- 
 cerned could preserve ; which Abraham could write 
 only in part, and which found a completing hand 
 in Judah. For it would be strange indeed if he did 
 
62 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 not cross the track of Hagar's grandchildren. Those 
 shepherds and hunters were not strangers to one an- 
 other. The man who knew tlie children of Midian 
 also knew the children of Ishmael (37 : 26-28). 
 Thus he was competent to add to the tribal history, 
 by gleanings from others of Abraham's family. 
 Attentive readers of the Bible are often pained at 
 the notions of those who claim to find in its narra- 
 tive portions the same measure of inspiration as they 
 find in its visions, its Divine Epiphanies, and its 
 covenant revelations. 
 
 The angel's announcement to Hagar in regard to 
 her son, the sort of man he would be, and the posi- 
 tion he would occupy are not beneath the dignity 
 of history. It was not, liowever, a revelation to 
 Moses. If no other use comes of knowing about 
 Ishmael, it at least teaches the difference in those 
 who were in the line of redemptive preparations 
 and those who were not. And it discloses the hu- 
 man factors engaged therein : how human impulse, 
 if not passion, conduced to the one great end ; how 
 the pride of Sarah, in discarding Ishmael, prepared 
 a place for the Babe of Bethlehem. Indeed, the 
 free play (we use the word reverently) of the human 
 with the Divine marks the truth of the story in 
 Genesis, as well as the Scribe who penned it for 
 after ages. But they would not be revelations given 
 four centuries later. 
 
 Chapter 17 to 18 : 15 nan-ates the institution of 
 circumcision as the seal of Jehovah's covenant with 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 63 
 
 His chosen people ; how Canaan was bestowed upon 
 tliem as an everlasting possession ; how Israel was 
 promised as the heir of tliat covenant ; how Abra- 
 ham was circumcised in his ninety-ninth year, and 
 Ishmael in liis tliirteenth year, as well as all the 
 men born in his house, or bou^^ht with money — 
 free-born and slave-born were circumcised with 
 their tribal chief. They are personal items of wide- 
 reaching significance, and so were faithfully record- 
 ed at the time. It was, in fact, the Magna Charta 
 of Jehovah renewed to Abraham and to the poster- 
 ity of Sarah : in Isaac was the chosen race. Thus 
 early was Woman's Rights certified by Covenant. 
 Not in Ishmael, not in after-born sons of Keturah, 
 but in the gentle Isaac, the child of Abraham in his 
 hundredth year and of Sarah in her ninetieth year, 
 was the covenant to be sealed and the nations to 
 be blessed. Can we doubt that records of that Di- 
 vine heritage were made at the time, and by him 
 whom God called out of Ur to become its chief 
 human agent ? It is not to be expected that su- 
 pernal means would be used to perpetuate or to give 
 new accounts of what could just as well be written 
 and transcribed by human hands and a truthful 
 spirit. 
 
 Thus was penned the visit of the angels whom 
 Abraham entertained, and who made known to him 
 coming events, and what God was about to do to 
 the wicked cities of southern Jordan. That mem- 
 orable appeal to the Divine clemency, which has 
 
64 THE WRITERS OF GEN"ESIS. 
 
 rendered the patriarch forever illustrious as the great 
 interceder for great sinners, was written soon after 
 it was made. Simple in its grandeur, it sets forth 
 the progressive steps in the plea to save the obdu- 
 rate : "If fifty, if lack of five of fifty, if forty, 
 and so on down to ten" — who but Abraham could 
 have pleaded so earnestly and so adroitly at that 
 time ? Who but he could have written it for our 
 learning? Then the Lord went His way after com- 
 muning with Abraham, and Abraham returned to 
 his place (Gen. 18 : 33). Could such a statement be 
 a revelation to Moses six centuries later ? While 
 the incident teaches a striking lesson touching God's 
 dealings with man, it has little special relation with 
 Israel, or with later unfoldings to him. But the 
 judgment removed one set of corrupt people from 
 contamination of others. No parallel has yet been 
 discovered to that famous pleading. 
 
 § XI. — Destruction of Sodom in Accadian Legend, 
 
 But of the dire calamity which followed, even of 
 the deliverance of Lot, though not of his prayer, 
 all which are related in Gen. 19, an account is be- 
 lieved to have been found in the Babylonian in- 
 scriptions. We read thus : '* An overthrow from 
 the midst of the deep there came. The fated punish- 
 ment from the midst of heaven descended. A 
 storm like a plummet the earth overwhelmed. To 
 the four winds the destroying flood like fire did 
 burst. The inhabitants of cities it caused to be tor- 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 65 
 
 merited ; their bodies it consnined. In city and 
 country it spread death, and the flames as they rose 
 overthrew. Freemen and slaves were equal, and 
 the high places it filled. In lieaven and earth it 
 rained a thunderstorm. Death overtook mankind. 
 As for this man [probably Lot] there was a loud 
 voice of the thunder [to warn him]. The terrible 
 lightning flash descended. During the day it flash- 
 ed ; grievously it fell." ('' Records of the Past," 
 vol. xi., pp. 117-18.) However that inscription 
 was derived, the account originated with Abraham 
 as recorded in our Genesis. The name Lot is sup- 
 posed to be found in Syrian inscriptions. 
 
 The avenging downpour of fire from heaven, 
 burning and consuming the earth, destroyed a land 
 which had been as the garden of Eden. It is a ca- 
 tastrophe which finds confirmation in the history of 
 the alhed chieftains under Chedorlaomer. They 
 were heads of tribes and principalities in southern 
 Babylonia. Nimrod is believed to have had a suc- 
 cessor in one of them, and all of them in their suc- 
 cessors were merged and consolidated by Sargon of 
 Agade, the list of whose names and reigns was 
 found and displayed by Naram-Sin, the son of Sar- 
 gon, when hard pushed by his unassimilated sub- 
 jects. This list, thus composed and originating, 
 probably formed the long line of 350 kings whom 
 I^aram-Sin claimed to have reigned before him ; 
 and it has needlessly revolutionized the old Baby- 
 lonian chronology. Some critics seem ready to ac- 
 
66 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 cept any pretence for pntting dates and eras back 
 as far as possible, as though such change could 
 affect the truth of history. Not only was there a 
 beginning to historic times, but such beginning bore 
 some relation to other and contemporaneous ev^ents. 
 Sargon I. and his son prove and illustrate the uni- 
 fication of four or five different lines of princes, who 
 w^ere, in fact, contemporaneous. 
 
 Indeed, the confederacy and expedition of Chedor- 
 laomer against southern Palestine, render the legend 
 of the Accadians concerning it, not only not surpris- 
 ing, but, under the circumstances, quite natural. 
 For the survivors could report, after their defeat by 
 Abraham, that those who had rebelled against their 
 authority '^ were destroyed by Anu, who rained fire 
 upon them from heaven in punishment for their re- 
 bellion." And so great was the importance at- 
 tached to the account of it, that it is found in " the 
 original Accadian text of the tablet as well as in the 
 Assyrian translation of it" (Professor Sayce). This 
 fragment of a very ancient tablet, which has been 
 preserved to our day, confirms Abraham's account 
 of the Overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah. It 
 was translated in 1878, from the '' Cuneiform In- 
 scriptions of Western Asia." 
 
 There are eighteen lines of Accadian and Assyrian 
 text, written a thousand miles distant from the 
 place of destruction, which disclose a contemporary 
 record of that catastrophe. 
 
 But the ten verses which follow the account in 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 67 
 
 Gen. 19 are to be ascribed to Moses, who enacted 
 the infliction of a penalty for the sin there related, 
 and in Dent. 23 : 3 forbade the descendants of Lot 
 to enter the assembly of the Lord to the tenth 
 generation. 
 
 Properly enough such a character as Lot drops 
 out of the patriarch's memoirs. It would seem 
 that uncle and nephew nev^er again met. Moses 
 may have obtained the record of Ammon and Moab 
 through the family of Judah or of Jethro. He 
 certainly encountered them while on the way to 
 Palestine, when they sent for Balaam to curse 
 Israel. It was a poor return for Lot's being twice 
 saved by Abraham's interposition ; but the ingrati- 
 tude of their father reappeared in his descendants. 
 (See Num. 22, 23, 24.) 
 
 § XII. — Some Domestic Events. 
 
 The episode of the patriarch with Abimelech of 
 Gerar in Gen. 20, which, like a two-edged sword, 
 cuts 'both, was not derived from the Philistines. 
 Nor was it the sort of matter to be revealed to 
 Moses ; and it bears every mark of the record of a 
 prime actor in it. Its ethical lesson is similar to 
 that of chapter 12, and was early incorporated by 
 Abraham into his family history. 
 
 In chapter 21 we have the Divine announcement 
 of Isaac's birth, of his circumcision when eight days 
 old, his father being then a hundred years old, and 
 that Sarah laughed for joy of having Isaac, whose 
 
68 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 name means, " he laughs ;" also the account of her 
 wounded pride that the son of Hagar was mocking, 
 perhaps quite playfully, at the pranks of the boy 
 when Isaac was weaned. These are things which 
 Abraham was the fittest person living to enter in 
 the family register. They are not the matters for 
 special revelation. So of the weaning of Isaac and 
 the feast which celebrated that event, the father, 
 or his scribe, would record it. Of Sarah's increas- 
 ing jealousy of Hagar and Ishmael, whom her pride 
 could no longer tolerate near her ; of their expulsioa 
 from among her thousand domestics ; of God's 
 word to Abraham touching the lad and his mother, 
 and how his strong parental love clave to his first- 
 born, of whom Heaven promised to make a na- 
 tion ; of Abraham's early rising in the morning, 
 preparing the outfit of bread and a bottle-skin of 
 water, perhaps also adding some silver current at 
 that time, and then sending mother and boy away 
 — these are just the things which Abraham would 
 write down, so that in the future of his tw</ sons 
 each would know that their father had dealt kindly 
 by them. This was attested later on by Ishmael as 
 well as Isaac attending the burial of the patriarch. 
 Nor was there any after strife between those sons. 
 
 But the account of the wanderings of the lad and 
 his mother in the wilderness of Beersheba ; of his 
 weariness and fainting ; of her hearing the angel, 
 who came to answer the voice of the lad whom God 
 had heard ; of her seeing the water- well and refill- 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAU. 69 
 
 h]cr her bottle-skin for Islimael ; of his reviving and 
 growing to be an archer, and tliat Ilagar took a wife 
 for him out of her own native Egypt — all this ext7'a 
 covenant history w^as probably collected by Jndah, 
 or obtained from Jethro, and incorporated by 
 Moses. 
 
 With 21 : 22 is resumed the register of Abraham. 
 The interview of Abimelech and Phichol, which 
 ended in a treaty and a present to seal it with those 
 Philistine chiefs, all joining in a covenant at Beer- 
 sheba ; the tree-planting, the calling upon '' Jeho- 
 vah, the Everlasting God, and Abraham's sojourn 
 in the Philistines' land many days," are related by 
 the patriarch. It is family history written at the 
 time, and not a new revelation to another, nor later 
 obtained from the Philistines. 
 
 The first nineteen verses of chapter 22, touching 
 the offering of Isaac, form one of the most striking 
 episodes in the patriarch's life. It tries his faith 
 in God, proves his character, tests his manhood, 
 and illustrates the Divine wisdom in the choice of 
 such a man to be the founder of a new nation for 
 the Light of the w^orld. For Messianic prepara- 
 tion and the instruction of the nations in religion, 
 it had a wide- reaching significance. And it was 
 Heaven's prohibition of human sacrifice. Abraham 
 was tempted to sacrifice Isaac, and then forbidden 
 to do it, a substitute being provided in a ram for a 
 burnt offering. The Divine manifesto was spread 
 abroad. (See "Bible Growth and Religion," pp. 
 
70 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 58, 80, 81.) Every line of the record was written 
 by Abraham, and every sentence of it was graven 
 on his lieart. Criticism is dumb before it. Analy- 
 sis of it becomes reverent admiration. It also 
 portrays the history of the chosen race, when 
 condemned and scattered to the four winds ; 
 and as Isaac was restored to his father, so shall 
 Israel be restored to the favor of their covenant 
 God. 
 
 The last five verses are a part of the family rec- 
 ords as kept by his brother Nahor in Haran, and 
 introduce the genealogy of Rebekah, who became 
 Isaac's wife. Hence their importance in the history 
 of Israel. It is a reproach upon Hebrew strictness 
 in such matters to suppose that such details would 
 be neglected. 
 
 And now another trial befell the patriarch. At the 
 age of one hundred and twenty-seven years, Sarah, 
 the proud mother of Isaac, died. The account is in 
 Gen. 23, and the particulars of the purchase of the 
 field of Machpelah from the sons of Heth. The 
 treaty then made ; the stipulated price of 400 shekels 
 of silver passing with the merchants of the time, 
 being rather more than §200, but worth many times 
 that amount now ; the procession to the gate of the 
 city to acknowledge the transaction, like men before 
 a notary public, or town clerk, to register the transfer 
 of real estate to-day ; all was done to ratify the pur- 
 chase by Abraham of that field and the cave in it, for 
 a burying place, of the sons of Heth (23 : 20). 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 71 
 
 The words, '' the same is Hebron," v. 2, was a 
 later addition.' 
 
 The care here manifested to make snre the trans- 
 fer of the property thus pubiicly bonglit, was reason 
 enough for the purchaser to enter the facts upon 
 the papyrus, or prepared skins used for writing his 
 memoirs. 
 
 It was a princess who had died after a happy 
 marriage of nearly a century. The burial was with 
 due honor and circumstance. Abraham and Isaac 
 were there, and the mourners of an immense house- 
 hold — at least twelve hundred. It was a most im- 
 pressive event in that family history. Here also, 
 in after years, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were 
 severally laid to rest, in presence of a mourning as- 
 sembly, and none ever disputed their title to the 
 land. That is strong evidence of a treaty and deed 
 of transfer. And the evidence presented by recent 
 decipherments of the habit of writing in Babylonia, 
 whence Abraham came, in Palestine, where he long 
 dwelt, and in Egypt, which he visited, would reduce 
 him to an insignificant man, if he did not record the 
 important events of his long career. The friend of 
 God was not a dunce among men. 
 
 Inscriptions show that some of those Hittites 
 could wage successful war and make enduring trea- 
 ties. It was about the time when Accadian litera- 
 ture was in full bloom ; a century after Amenemhat 
 I. wrote his " Instructions" to his son, probably 
 the earliest literary production of a royal pen that 
 
72 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 has come down to us ; it was not far from the story 
 of Saneha's flight from Thehes to Palestine, when 
 writing was well known (" Ancient Empires of the 
 East," p. 29; " Bible Growth and Keligion," pp. 
 75, 136-39.) 
 
 In Gen. 24: we have confirmation of this writing 
 habit in the records concerning the sworn agreement 
 between Abraham and his chief servant touching 
 the procuring of a wife for Isaac. With the utmost 
 solemnity the elder was enjoined to visit Abraham's 
 kindred in Haran, and there select the destined 
 bride. The domestic scene is so minutely portray- 
 ed : the daughters of the land tending and watering 
 their flocks ; the recorded praj^er of the servant ; 
 the damsel's courtesy to him and her brother's hos- 
 pitality ; the announcement of the purpose of his 
 visit, attested by the costly presents he had brought 
 and placed on Rebekah (verse 22); his cordial re- 
 ception and welcome by Laban ; the speedy deliv- 
 ery of his message from Abraham, with an account 
 of his prosperity, and that he had a son who must 
 not come to Haran, but a bride be taken to him 
 from thence — all which is repeated with verbal ex- 
 actness ; compare verses 4—9 with 34-41 ; also com- 
 pare 12-24: with 42-48. The servant's prayer-test 
 was answered. lie could but ask that Rebekah 
 should go with him to Isaac. He was in haste, but 
 was not precipitate with his errand, feeling sure of 
 success. And the consent of the family and of the 
 damsel followed. Then other presents were given, 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 73 
 
 vessels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment 
 for Kebekali, with precious things for her mother 
 and brotlier. Properly it was left for the damsel 
 to decide whether she wished longer time for prepa- 
 ration, or would go at once to her new home. " I 
 will go," she said. Never was a more speedy be- 
 trothal and never a happier marriage. For they 
 all knew the character of Abraham and were as- 
 sured about his son. So away sped Rebekah to 
 Isaac. He was found in prayerful meditation in 
 his field at the eventide. And Isaac took Rebekah, 
 and she became his w^fe. 
 
 Here are sixty-seven verses of one of the longest 
 chapters in Genesis narrating scenes in domestic 
 life whose importance to Israel and the world cen- 
 tres in the fact that they account for the family 
 origin of the chosen people. They are descended 
 in blood relation from the same Semitic tribe. It 
 is in Isaac and Rebekah, from the same ancestry, 
 that the promise of Man's Redemption was sealed. 
 In this grand fact alone centres our interest in that 
 bridal meeting. The dismounting of the bride, the 
 veiling of herself wlien Isaac approached, the report 
 of the servant, and the noted omission of a feast, 
 out of respect for the memory of Sarah — all this 
 marks the account as made at the time. It is clearly 
 narrative rather than the revelation of a later age. 
 And the report of tlie servant, and the prayer he 
 offered, and the answer of Rebekah, were incor- 
 porated into the family history soon after their safe 
 4 
 
74 THE WRITERS OF GEI^-ESIS. 
 
 arrival in the home of Abraham. They were mat- 
 ters of too much importance to be relegated to 
 strangers, and yet they were not matters of revela- 
 tion, but facts to be recorded. An account written 
 some centuries later would contain some errors : a 
 marriage-feast would be inserted, and the present 
 order of those sixty-seven verses of Gen. 24 would 
 be changed. But as they now stand, with the part 
 of the several actors at Haran and the later home- 
 making, without a shade of color derived from 
 Jacob's experiences with Laban in after days, we 
 have Abraham, the chief servant, Rebekah and Isaac, 
 all parties concerned in a true account, and attesting 
 to this part of the family records of the covenant- 
 race. With chapter 24 the personal memoirs of 
 Abraham end, and Isaac continues the narrative. 
 
 § XIII. — Jsaac^s Memoirs, 
 
 These commence, we may assume, with Gen. 
 25 ; 1. Possibly verses 5 and 6 are by Abraham, 
 but the account of Ishmael and his sons was given 
 by Judah (verses 12-19). The ' ' gifts" to Keturah's 
 sons recall the gifts to Hagar ; compare 21 : 14 
 with 25 : 6. They included enough of silver and 
 herds to enable the sons to make a fair start in life. 
 The half-brothers never troubled Isaac about a more 
 generous share of their father's property. This 
 would imply a fair apportionment upon the separa- 
 tion. The patriarch was a rich man when he left 
 Egypt. " He had sheep, and oxen, and asses, and 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 75 
 
 camels, men servants and women servants ; was 
 very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold" (Gen. 12 : 
 16 ; 13 : 2). His trained servants, born in his house- 
 hold, numbered 318 when he pursued and routed 
 Chedorlaomer with his allies. He lived prosper- 
 ously after that time for about ninety- five years. 
 So he must have left a large estate, which in these 
 days of courts and surrogates would feed lawsuits 
 for a generation. But the fair dealing of Abraham 
 ■was so marked that no disturbance arose because of 
 Isaac having more than Ishmael, or Midian, or 
 Shuah. It suggests intelligence as well as nobility 
 of character, which provided an equitable division 
 of his property. His learning w^as more than that 
 of a prosperous shepherd and chief of a tribe of 
 nomads, and he had various accomplishments. 
 
 If he was the original of '^ Father Orham" in 
 Ur, and the peer of any in that place, or in Haran, 
 when he left it ; if he was treated as a prince in 
 Egypt by the Pharaohs of the twelfth dynasty ; if 
 the kings of Canaan so treated him, and were wholly 
 indebted to him for successful generalship in the 
 defeat of Babylonian oppressors ; if the Priest-king 
 of Salem and the King of Sodom blessed and hon- 
 ored him ; if Abimelech of Gerar sought his alli- 
 ance and made a treaty with him ; if he was able to 
 converse in their different languages with the peo- 
 ples whom he met in Haran, in Canaan, and in 
 Egypt ; if, above and beyond all this, he was fa- 
 vored with hearing Divine voices, seeing Divine 
 
76 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 visions, and receiving Divine communications, which 
 have been carefully preserved to this day, then it 
 is but just to his memory to allow him sufficient 
 skill to keep his own record of those things in which 
 he was a most important actor, and so deeply con- 
 cerned. Among other legacies he committed those 
 records to his son Isaac as containing matters 
 worthy of preservation. 
 
 Moreover, at his death, Jacob and Esau were some 
 fifteen years old, and able to remember much of 
 what their grandfather had told them. Chapters 
 25 to 28 : 9 narrate the additions made by Isaac, 
 and how the blessing of his first-born was given to 
 Jacob : '^ God Almighty bless \h.ee, and give thee 
 the blessing of Abraham, and to thy seed" (28 : 3, 4). 
 
 This abrupt and unexpected change in the order 
 of inheritance in the family, reversing the usual 
 coarse in those days, implies the existence of a con- 
 temporary record. Certainly, any later and unin- 
 spired writer would not reverse it ; he would not 
 see the reason for it ; being the facts of history, 
 inspiration would not be required. So this change 
 of the younger for the elder ; the bitter cry of 
 Esau ; the cunning supplanting of Jacob and his 
 consequent flight to Aram, though a puzzle to early 
 readers of that family history, became clear enough 
 to the inspired reviser who wrote for the chosen 
 people in the era of the Exodus. To regard it as a 
 New Eevelation to Moses is to interpose a miracle 
 where no miracle is needed. 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 77 
 
 Moreover, even in the brief section of the family 
 register by Isaac, the supernatural certainly appears. 
 Thus in Gen. 26 : 2-5 and verse 24, two Divine 
 communications to Isaac are recorded. Though 
 pressed by a famine like that which sent Abraham 
 to Egypt, Isaac is told not to go down thither, for 
 the Hyksos were then conquering that land, and the 
 Divine covenant is renewed to him in exclusion 
 of all his half-brothers. He was to seek refuge in 
 Philistine Gerar. After his return and abode at 
 Beersheba, Jehovah again appeared to him, and 
 repeated His blessing upon him and upon his seed. 
 And Isaac builded an altar there, and called upon 
 the name of the Lord (verse 25). The treaty agree- 
 ment with Abimelech, the feast, the digging of a 
 well, whence it was called " the well of the oath," 
 especially the recorded marriage of Esau to Judith, 
 the daughter of Beeri, the Hittite : ** Which were 
 a bitterness of spirit to Isaac and Rebekah," could 
 be written by no one so well as by Isaac. Who 
 else would state the inner, sv\hje(it\vG feeliiig of the 
 parents at the marriage of their son — the self-reliant 
 Esau ? His going later to Ishmael and taking his 
 daughter Mahalath to wife, though intended to please 
 his parents, was but an attempt to correct the irrev- 
 ocable ; for he already had two Hittite wives (26 : 
 34 ; 28 : 9). It was conduct which perhaps no 
 contemporary, except his beloved father, would be 
 likely to record. But with our knowledge of the 
 then prevalent habit of writing, attested by recent 
 
78 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 decipherments, there can be no objection to saying 
 that Isaac himself wrote down those matters at the 
 time. It was his duty to do so. 
 
 Who can read those tender, tearful words of Isaac 
 and Esau (27 : 32-38) without deep sympathy for 
 both father and son, as well as the conviction that 
 they were recorded at the time ? It is the affection- 
 ate conversation of disappointed parental and lilial 
 love. It is desire against destiny. It is the human 
 overruled by Heaven. The reader should study the 
 passage. So assured was Esau of his father's affec- 
 tion for him, that he could not believe it possible 
 that he had no blessing reserved for him before he 
 died ! '' And he cried with a great and exceeding 
 bitter cry . . . Bless me, even me also, O my 
 father ! . . . Hast thou not reserved a blessing 
 for me ? Hast thou but one blessing, my father ? 
 bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau 
 lifted up his voice, and wept." Tlien his father 
 gave him the blessing of earth, its fatness, and the 
 dew of heaven, but not the blessing of Jehovah ; 
 and he should serve his brother (verses 39, 40). 
 There is nothing superior to it in love and pathos in 
 Hebrew literature. Not a later revelation to 
 Moses, it was the recorded words of Isaac and Esau, 
 and was written by the father in the family history. 
 
 This view is emphasized by what is said of the hate 
 of Esau for Jacob, and his purposed revenge for 
 loss of the Divine blessing. It was told to Eebek- 
 ah, who told it to Jacob, and hastened his flight 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. i\f 
 
 to lier kindred in Haran. '' Tarry there till thy 
 brother's anger turn away from thee, and he forget 
 what thoM hast done to him" (verses 41-45); for he 
 was known to be of a generous disposition. Re- 
 bekah's words to Isaac in verse 4G, containing her 
 reasons for sending Jacol) to her brother Laban, 
 with Isaac's charge to Jacob about taking a wife 
 from his own kindred, and then giving him the 
 blessing of God Almighty, and the blessing of 
 Abraham, to him and his seed, which blessing God 
 gave to Abraham (28 : 1-5), also belong to the reg- 
 ister of Isaac, as well as the account of Esau in 
 verses 6-9. Here end the memoirs of Isaac ; to 
 which may be added the account of his death 
 (35 : 27-29). But chapter 36 was by Judali, revised 
 by Moses, giving the family register of Esau and his 
 descendants. Perhaps verse 31 was by a writer as 
 late as Samuel, who added that the list of '' the 
 Kings there given of Edom was before there reigned 
 any king over Israel." Thus, all seeming difficulties 
 in Genesis are cleared up, if we accept the now 
 SLppsiV^t fact of a Divine revelation written out by 
 the patriarchs, and later adapted by the prophets 
 to the needs of their age. 
 
 Only to distinguish the other branches of Abra- 
 ham's descendants from the Israelites is the record 
 admitted into Genesis, and also to show that Job 
 and his friends were of their kindred, though not 
 of the covenant seed (36 : 10, 15, 28 ; 25 ; 2) ; Job 
 was of Uz and an Esauite. 
 
80 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 To suppose that a writing people, such as we 
 know the Hebrews then were, did not record im- 
 portant events in their family history, is absurd. 
 Indeed, such exercises probably occupied much of 
 their leisure. Those blessings of Isaac are unique. 
 His carefulness in using the Divine name marks him 
 as a man accustomed to think. No late writer 
 would so discriminate. Esau should become great, 
 but not with the spiritual unfoldings and blessings 
 of Jacob. Nay, he should serve his brother, till he 
 broke his yoke from off him (27 : 38-1:0). Com- 
 pare 36 : 6-8, " And Esau took his wives, and his 
 sons, and his daughters, and all his household, his 
 cattle, his beasts, and all his substance, and went 
 into the country of Mount Seir, from the face of 
 his brother Jacob." Their riches and pursuits re- 
 quired a larger land than Canaan, in which they 
 were but sojourners ; and Esau remembered that 
 the inheritance of the home estate belonged to 
 Jacob, by his own agreement and his father's will. 
 These are so many indications of an early record, 
 and also account for differences in style and lan- 
 guage. They disclose the several authors of Gen- 
 esis. The early patriarchs were skilled in writ- 
 ing, and taught it to their sons. According to 
 Eupolemus, Abraham resided during his stay in 
 Egypt in the sacred city of On or Heliopolis, and 
 at that seat of learning and religion he taught 
 the Egyptians astronomy and arithmetic. So Raw- 
 linson. 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 81 
 
 § XI Y. —The Memoirs of Jacob. 
 
 These evidently begin at Gen. 28 : 10, '-' And 
 Jacob left Beersheba, and went toward Ilaran." 
 Then he gives the events of In's journey, his won- 
 derful dream of the angels passing up and down the 
 ladder, and the appearance of the Lord standing 
 above it, and identifying Himself to him as the 
 LoKD, the God of Abraham and of Isaac. Then the 
 promise : '' The land whereon thou liest, to thee 
 will 1 give it, and to thy seed. It shall greatly in- 
 crease and spread abroad, and be a blessing to all 
 families of men." Notice verse 15, '' And, behold, 
 I am with thee, and will keep thee whithersoever 
 thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land ; 
 for I will not leave thee, until I have done that 
 which I have spoken to thee of." As well ask a 
 bride to forget her husband as to suppose that 
 Jacob did not record that Divine promise. It made 
 such an impression upon him that he awoke out of 
 his sleep, and said, '' Surely the Lord is in this 
 place ; and I knew it not." That abode of God 
 and gate of heaven filled him with fear and rever- 
 ence. He rose early in the morning, and set up a 
 pillar-stone of witness, pouring oil upon it, and 
 vowed unto God, according to the tenor of the 
 dream, that if God would be with him, and keep 
 him in the way he went, and give him bread to 
 eat, and raiment to put on, so that he returned to 
 his father's house in peace, then, he says, " Shall 
 4* 
 
82 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 the Lord be my God, and this stone, set np for a 
 pillar, shall be God's house : and of all that Thou 
 givest me I will surely give a tenth unto Thee" 
 (verses 16-22). Such important details were not 
 long left to memory, and the change of name from 
 Luz to Beth-el emphasized the importance of the 
 vision and covenant. It explained that not in Ish- 
 mael, not in Esau, but in Jacob was the line of de- 
 scent of the people of Jehovah. 
 
 Abraham was given to understand it in his hun- 
 dredth year ; Isaac was given to understand it in 
 his twofold blessing of his sons ; and now Jacob, 
 who had been rather sharp, through his mother's 
 instigation, in dealing with Esau, is enabled to un- 
 derstand that it was not by any act of his own, 
 though accepted by his brother, but by this prom- 
 ise and renewal of covenant by God Himself with 
 him, that he is appointed the head of his tribe and 
 the blessed of Heaven. It was a transaction which 
 concerned him and his descendants, and which he 
 carefully wrote out for them. They were not mat- 
 ters for later revelation, nor to be gathered from 
 varying traditions, but were duly entered in the 
 family register by its newly appointed chief. While 
 in Laban's service, Jacob had opportunity for lit- 
 erary exercises, and the skill he displayed in after 
 times, up>on his return home, while dwelling in 
 Shechem, and when he stood before Pharaoh and 
 '^blessed him," indicating his feeling of equality 
 with, if not his superiority over the Egyptian king 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 83 
 
 — all tin's indicates capacity and mental training 
 which easily includes the ability to write. 
 
 Who but Jacob could write Gen. 28 : 10-22 ? 
 Who but the lover of Kachel, who kissed her at the 
 well, and would not be content with her sister 
 Leah, could write chapter 29 : 1-35, making Judah 
 the son of Leah, but not of Rachel the beloved ? 
 Surely if internal evidence has any weight in this 
 matter, it carries the proof of contemporaneous 
 authorship on the face of the record. Our text 
 makes the two most prominent names and charac- 
 ters in the after history of Israel to be the sons of 
 the less loved Leah. Levi and Judah were her 
 sons. It is evidence of a Divine purpose overrul- 
 ing human choice and affection ; a purpose seen in 
 the appointment of Isaac instead of Ishmael, of 
 Jacob instead of Esau, and of the sons of Leah in- 
 stead of Rachel's beloved boys. Such unexpected- 
 ness marks alike the origin and the inspiration of 
 the account. For nothing but God's guidance of 
 later copyists of these records would allow it to 
 stand as we find it. The best days of Israel were 
 marked by reverence for her priests, and her golden 
 age was full of the praises of David, yet her ancient 
 writings recorded that Judah and Levi were the 
 sons of the less loved but first wife of Jacob. So, 
 in the face of all learned criticism of these annals, 
 it is safe to afiirm that no later writer, when the 
 priests were powerful and David was king, would 
 have failed to represent Levi and Judah as the sons 
 
84 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 of the best loved Rachel. That the text makes 
 them the sons of Leah stamps its origin. That, 
 amid all the changes in dynasty and ritual after 
 Solomon, the text remained and remains to our day, 
 making Levi and Judah Leah's sons, seals alike its 
 inspired truthfulness and its Divine preservation. 
 Jacob first wrote it in his family register. 
 
 The entire contents of chapter 30 are also by 
 Jacob. In 31 : 1, 2, we find additional proof : 
 '' Jacob heard the words of Laban's sons, saying, 
 he hath taken away all that was our father's. . . . 
 And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban . . . 
 it was not toward him as formerly." These are 
 the observations of a contemporary recorder of 
 what he saw and heard. But verse 3 is a Divine 
 revelation : ** The Lord said unto Jacob, Return 
 unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred ; 
 and I will be with thee." He proceeds at once to 
 arrange for his return ; he had a joint interview 
 with Rachel and Leah, and recounted his griev- 
 ances ; he also told them of God's appearances to 
 him at Beth- el and more recently. And Rachel 
 and Leah — the order of names marks the record as 
 Jacob's, placing the best loved first — answered. Is 
 there any portion or inheritance for us in our father's 
 house ? Are we not counted of him strangers ? 
 There was nothing in the after-history of Laban's 
 immediate descendants which provoked the hostil- 
 ity of Israel, and so only its truth could have in- 
 duced a contemporary writer to detail these partic- 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 85 
 
 iilars so disparaging to Laban. So also were the 
 blending of the human with the Divine in the flight 
 of Jacob and the pursuit after him (verses 22-30). 
 with loss of his gods — probably images of the Moon- 
 god, who was worshipped in llaran (verses 30-35). 
 
 Jacob's indignation at Laban 's charging him with 
 stealing his gods, or the teraphim with which he 
 worshipped, could not have been invented by any 
 late historian of Israel. Under Judges like Gideon 
 and Jephthah such conduct would cause no surprise. 
 In the account of Micah, the Ephraimite, and of 
 the Danites, who despoiled him at once of priest and 
 ephod, images and teraphim, we find an aggravated 
 parallel. While after Solomon, who built chapels 
 for the use of his foreign wives in the worship of 
 their gods, no writer would invent the just indig- 
 nation of Jacob, who had so recently heard God 
 speaking to him. The passage is, therefore, a time- 
 mark of ancient authorship, and suggests that the 
 accused Jacob was its writer. Compare Gen. 31 : 
 22-42 ; Jud. 8 : 24-28 ; 11 : 1-40 ; 17 ; 18 ; 1 
 Kings 11 : 1-10. 
 
 So Gen. 31 : 43-55, stating Laban's claim as the 
 father of his daughters to their children, and to all 
 that Jacob had with them, even his cattle, and all 
 born unto him, would appear absurd to a Hebrew 
 after Moses, whose legislation made each father the 
 head of his family, his wife being adopted into the 
 family of her husband. I indeed marvel that men 
 of learning should overlook such time-marks of au- 
 
86 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 thorship. None but Jacob could have penned the 
 account of the treaty-making, where " no man was 
 witness" (verse 50) ; but God was witness, the pil- 
 lar-heap was witness, and their mutual oath was 
 witness. While the invocation of the God of Abra- 
 ham, and the God of Nahor, as their God, was 
 pi'oper for the time, yet that Jacob should '' swear 
 by the Fear of his father Isaac, ' ' and then ' ' offer 
 sacrifice upon the mount" is unique and original, 
 of high antiquity, and not according to the law of 
 Moses (verses 53, 54). The good-by in verse 55 
 is the record of Jacob. 
 
 Moreover, Jacob alone could write chapter 32. 
 The vision of angels at Mahanaim, the name he 
 gave to the place where he saw the hosts of heaven 
 in readiness to help him ; his message to Esau, the 
 exact number and names of the presents to him, 
 also the number of his brother's escort, with the 
 feelings the news caused in Jacob ; his dividing his 
 flocks and belongings into two bands, so that if 
 smitten, one party might escape, suggest the pru- 
 dence of the maker of the second bargain with Laban, 
 and of the vow at Beth-el. Even his prayer to the 
 God of his fathers is characteristic ; it is part bio- 
 graphical, part reminiscent, and part petition (32 : 
 9-12). No one but Jacob could write that prayer. 
 He also wrote verses 13-23. So of that memorable 
 vision at Peniel (verses 21-30), whose name means 
 *^ the face of God," where alone with a Divine 
 Person Jacob wrestled during that anxious night 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 87 
 
 and obtained his desire, wlien he was left with a 
 blessing and a mark — who but the wrestler himself 
 could write it ? Whether in vision or in essence, 
 Jacob believed that he there saw God, and though 
 his life was preserved, yet he ever afterward bore 
 about the Divine mark (verse 31). J>ut verse 32 
 was by a later copyist and reviser. Chapters 33 
 and 34 were by Jacob, who had personal knowl- 
 edge of all therein related. The return to Beth-el 
 in chapter 35, and the building of an altar there, 
 another appearance of God to him, proving Him- 
 self by recalling His former appearance when Jacob 
 fled from his brother, and again blessing him, and 
 changing his name to Israel, and the promise to 
 give that land to him and to his seed after him, and 
 the consecrated pillar set up in memorial of it — this 
 was the record of Jacob of those striking incidents 
 at Luz, which he called El-beth-el, because God 
 there appeared to him (35 : 7). 
 
 There, too, Rebekah's nurse, Deborah, died (verse 
 8), she who had watched over him from infancy, 
 and she was buried at the oak of weeping in Beth-el. 
 Who but this chief among his contemporaries would 
 so honor his old nurse at Beth-el, and enroll her 
 name in the register of his family ? Later in the 
 history she would have been buried without the city 
 walls, without the town limits, but this ancient 
 record makes her remains interred beneath, or close 
 to the oak of the sanctuary. It proves the origin 
 and antiquity of these memoirs. 
 
88 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 Then, while on the way from Beth- el to Ephrath, 
 beloved Eachel, with the birth of Benjamin, the 
 son of his right hand, died, and was buried. And 
 Jacob set a pillar upon her grave ; and there it re- 
 mained when a later writer copied the record of 
 Jacob (verse 20). The rest of the chapter was also 
 by Jacob, who had not then learned to write his 
 name Israel, reverently shrinking from using the 
 Divine name in it (viz., El, verse 22, last sentence, 
 and verse 29). But verse 21 and first four fifths of 
 22 may have been by a later hand. Significant is 
 the statement in verse 29, And Isaac gave up the 
 ghost, and died, being old and full of days. And 
 his sons Esau and Jacob buried him. The placing 
 of Esau before Jacob shows the writing to be 
 Jacob's. E'o later writer would have done it ; and 
 with it the Memoirs of Jacob merge into those of 
 Judah. 
 
 § XV. — Memoirs of Judah. 
 
 On page Y9 I have assigned chapter 36, except 
 verse 31, to Judah ; verse 31 may have been added 
 by Samuel, who studied and copied the Hebrew 
 Scriptures. The chapter itself narrates the genesis 
 of the Edomites as descended from Esau, who was 
 superseded by his brother Jacob, as the heir to the 
 Divine covenant, and the grand figure in it. Per- 
 haps Esau wrote the original sketch, which was filled 
 out and rearranged by Judah, and thus handed down 
 to Moses. It concerns the cousins of Israel through 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH, 89 
 
 Esan, and contains notliing opposed to our view of 
 the original writers of Genesis. 
 
 But chapter 37 is a different writing. It intro- 
 duces the matchless story of Joseph and his 
 brethren, thus preparing for the going down to 
 Egypt. It recounts Divine providences and over- 
 sight, the feeding of Hocks, the dislike of Joseph, 
 and the selling him by his brothers to the Midian- 
 ites, who were their cousins in descent, and of 
 whose origin we read in chapter 25. Some parts of 
 the story were revelations from God, some were 
 known to one brother, some to another, some to all 
 the twelve' and to Jacob. The time of these oc- 
 currences may be assigned to the era of the Hyksos, 
 who were making their conquests in Egypt when 
 Isaac was told not to go there, and the writer of 
 them was Judah, the fourth son of Jacob and Leah. 
 
 The evidences of reading and writing then are 
 conclusive, and Judah had equal opportunities with 
 any of his brethren. In chapter 37 he figures as 
 the adviser of his brothers, while chapter 38 tells 
 of his signet ring and bracelets. He was probably 
 the recognized Scribe of the tribes, and then about 
 forty years old. 
 
 That Judah had a commanding influence over 
 his brothers is seen in 37 : 26, 27 ; and he inter- 
 poses for thein with his father in 43 : 8-10 ; while 
 in 44 : 14, 16, 18-34, he addresses Joseph on their 
 behalf. After Joseph made himself known to his 
 brethren, and sent for his father to come down to 
 
90 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 Egypt, tlien Jacob commissioned Judah to go be- 
 fore, and prepare for him in Goslien ; the Septu- 
 agint reads ''at the city of Heroes, in the land of 
 Eameses (40 : 28 ;47: 11). Nor is it straining a point 
 in the narrative to say that as it is the records of 
 Judah we are reading, who does not give tlie name of 
 the agent, the " one" who told Joseph that his 
 father was sick was Judah, and the " one" who 
 told Jacob that Joseph was coming to see him was 
 Judah (48 : 1, 2). So in the grand benediction of 
 the patriarch he said : ' ' Judah, thy brethren shall 
 praise thee : thy hand shall be in the neck of thine 
 enemies ; thy father's children shall bovv down be- 
 fore thee." Then, very poetically, he compares 
 him to a lion for strength and leadership, and de- 
 clares by prophetic inspiration, " A sceptre shall 
 not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver or ruler's 
 staff from between his feet, until he, Shiloh, come, 
 and he shall have the obedience of the peoples." 
 As a sign of royalty, " he shall wash his garments 
 in wine, and his clothing in the blood of grapes." 
 Professor Briggs interprets it, " Judah will assume 
 the leadership of Israel, and lead the nation in its 
 march until they obtain their inheritance" (" Mes- 
 sianic Prophecy," p. 96). 
 
 Gen. 49 : 8-12 has been translated in theEevised 
 Version by some twenty-iive of the best Hebrew 
 and Greek scholars in England and America, and 
 compared with the Septuagint version made three 
 centuries before any Christian controversy. They 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 91 
 
 agree in assigning the sceptre to Judali until Mes- 
 siah come, He whose riglit it is, who has the obedi- 
 ence of the peoples. At Shiloh the tabernacle was 
 set up, and the wanderings of Israel ceased for 
 seven hundred years. But while Judah led the 
 tribes to conquest and the inheritance of their prom- 
 ised lands, he can hardly be said to have held the 
 ruler's staff before David was enthroned as King of 
 Israel. Not till then may royal prerogatives be at- 
 tributed to him, when he could wash his garments 
 in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes, and 
 his teeth be white with milk. 
 
 The whole blessing of Jacob has especial reference 
 to the positions of his sons in Canaan ; to the reg- 
 nancy of Judah, the abode of Zebulon and Dan, 
 and the character of Benjamin. After the return 
 from Exile Judah was the representative and gov- 
 erning tribe amid various fortunes down to Herod 
 the Great. To David's son and Lord shall the gath- 
 ering of the peoples be. 
 
 Only some such view of the history and the text 
 is an adequate exposition of what Jacob by the 
 prophetic spirit so grandly uttered. But to make 
 Judah's supremacy begin and end with arrival at 
 the place Shiloh is to descend from the heights 
 of heaven to the depths of earth, and to bestow 
 upon him very inconspicuous honor. Whatever 
 the word Shiloh means, the related verses de- 
 mand an adequate explanation. There surely was 
 no royalty ascribed to Judah at Shiloh. Not till 
 
92 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 David and his sons does it find sufficient realiza- 
 tion. 
 
 The passage Gen. 49 : 57 is evidence that, at 
 that time, Levi had not been set apart as the priestly 
 tribe of Israel, which came to pass under Moses. 
 Yerse 10 looked beyond Egypt, beyond Shiloh, to 
 where the praises of Jehovah ascended from Zion. 
 
 As Judah was present at the death of his father, 
 and attended his burial in the field of Machpelah, 
 he had personal knowledge of all that occurred. 
 He witnessed Joseph's tearful kiss of the departed, 
 and was one of the mourners for seventy days. 
 Probably he was the '^ messenger" sent by his 
 brethren to Joseph, after the return from Canaan, 
 to arrange respecting their future in Egypt, or pro- 
 posed departure from it (50 : 15-22). The record 
 also implies that Judah survived Joseph. And it 
 connects itself, so to say, with Ex. 13 : 19 : '' Moses 
 took the bones of Joseph with him ; for he had 
 straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God 
 will surely visit you ; and ye shall carry up my 
 bones away hence with you." So Jacob command- 
 ed in Gen. 50 : 25. 
 
 Thus we find a duly appointed and competent 
 Scribe, who was also the recognized chief of the 
 tribes. How soon Judah's official writing began 
 may be inferred from the narrative. The blow at 
 the loss of Joseph was so severe upon Jacob, that 
 he gave up all interest in life ; he rent his clothes, 
 put on sackcloth, and mourned for his son many 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 93 
 
 days. His other sons and daughters vainly tried to 
 comfort him ; but he refused, saying, For 1 will go 
 down into the grave unto my son mourning (37 : 34, 
 35). Wherefore Judah took up tlie pen, added 
 chapter 37 to the family history, and, of course, 
 wrote chapter 38. He only could write it. And 
 he learned from his father all the traditions of the 
 chosen race, the interview with Esau, and the later 
 interview with Pharaoh. His genius and capacity, 
 his opportunities and recognized leadership under 
 his father, alike designate Judah as the official Scribe 
 of the Tribes. 
 
 Even when his sons brought him the glad tidings 
 that Joseph was yet alive, Jacob's heart almost 
 misgave him whether he could go down to Egypt. 
 He was about one hundred and thirty years old. 
 '' And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the 
 night, and said, Jacob, Jacob ! And he said, Here 
 am I. And God said, I am the God of thy father : 
 fear not to go down into Egypt ; for I will there 
 make of thee a great nation. I will go down with 
 thee into Egypt ; and I will surely bring thee up 
 again : and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine 
 eyes" (Gen. 46 : 2-4). For thirteen years hope- 
 less and depressed, this vision comforted and re- 
 assured him. He could now leave the land of his 
 fathers and seek a new home with his beloved son 
 in Egypt. He told the Divine communication to 
 his sons, and Judah wrote it in his memoirs. It 
 certainly was not a revelation to Moses ; and no 
 
94 THE WKITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 uninspired writer would have applied it to Jacob. 
 Ordinary men would have hastened to the long-lost 
 son as soon as iaformed of his abode and pros- 
 perity ; that Jacob hesitated marks the antiquity of 
 the incident and Judah's record of it. 
 
 Next to Joseph he is the most conspicuous char- 
 acter in that inimitable story, and probably received 
 from his distinguished brother those parts of it in 
 which he himself was not an actor or observer. So, 
 while the several portions may be regarded as a 
 joint contribution to the narrative, it was Judah 
 who arranged and moulded that historic gem which 
 is the delight of the young and the admiration of 
 all ages. As it became known among the Egyp- 
 tians, it found at least one imitator, whose version 
 has come down to us. (See "" Tale of Two Broth- 
 ers," in Brugsch's ^' Egypt Under the Pharaohs," 
 vol. i., pp. 309-11 ; ''Kecords of the Past," vol. 
 vi., pp. 151-56). Of the residence in Egypt we 
 have only glimpses of its commencement and its 
 close, but no history. 
 
 Such were the records from which Moses learned 
 the history of his people ; and from the Divine 
 promise to Abraham he supposed, according to St. 
 Stephen, that God, by his hand would deliver them. 
 I see no other way of understanding all the facts 
 presented. The records had been written he/ore 
 Moses, and he learned the national history and the 
 Divine purpose from them. What else was he 
 doing during the ten years before his hasty action 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 05 
 
 and sudden flight but studying the annals of his 
 race ? 
 
 He had the leisure and the means to procure a 
 complete copy of all the records of his people. St. 
 Stephen suggests they were known, and Moses's 
 conduct implies the same. He certainly was famil- 
 iar with them, and probably carried them with him 
 into exile. I am also disposed to think that he re- 
 wrote and perhaps embellished them, adding here 
 and there a word of explanation. Quite likely he 
 was inspired to enlarge the first portions and to in- 
 corporate some things which he learned from Jethro. 
 But however much or little his revision, as we are 
 not told of an appointed successor to Judah as the 
 Scribe of the Tribes, it is to Moses, as an author- 
 ized agent, that the Book was early attributed ; 
 from him it was received by Israel, after his Divine 
 commission as the leader and lawgiver of his peo- 
 ple. The supernatural and the inspired are woven 
 into its texture ; Divine revelations and family 
 events compose its substance, the Book being an 
 Eclectic History of the early ages of mankind and 
 a Contemporary History of the Chosen People. 
 For Abraham wrote his chapters, not for the chil- 
 dren of Lot, nor for the children of Nahor, but for 
 the seed of Isaac ; Isaac wrote not for Esau, nor 
 for Ishmael, bnt for Jacob ; Jacob wrote for his 
 sons ; while Judah wrote for Israel, and Moses 
 wrote and revised for Israel and the*world. 
 
 After the death of Moses and of Joshua the tribe 
 
96 THE WRITERS OF GEN"ESIS. 
 
 of Judah takes its appointed place as leader of 
 Israel : Tliey asked of the Lord, Who shall go up 
 for us first against the Canaanites ? And the Lord 
 said, Judah shall go up ; behold, I have delivered 
 the land into his hand (Judges 1 : 1, 2). Moreover, 
 after the rejection of Saul, who was of the tribe of 
 Benjamin, David, of the tribe of Judah, was 
 anointed King. And notwithstanding the Disrup- 
 tion of the Kingdom under his grandson, the fam- 
 ily of David continued to reign down to, if not, in- 
 deed, long after the Captivity. The sceptre did 
 not really depart from Judah till Messiah came. 
 
 The Book of Jasher (62 : 23) records the death 
 of Judah when one hundred and twenty-nine years 
 old, and that he was embalmed, and put in a coffin, 
 and given into the hands of his children. It was 
 an honor done to his father and to Joseph, and 
 marks Judah above his other brethren. The tra- 
 dition is significant. 
 
 § XYI. — Conclusion. 
 
 Now, if it be asked what is gained by adopting 
 the proposed authorship thus j^resented, I answer 
 with St. Paul, Much, every way. It removes root 
 and branch the guesses of Kuenenism, Wellhausen- 
 ism, and the rhetoric of Eenan. Genesis and the 
 Pentateuch cannot be ascribed to a human origin 
 and development. The first Biblical book thus 
 becomes true history, so far as it is history ; true sci- 
 ence for that age, so far as it treats of scientific 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 97 
 
 matters, and a true Revelation from God touching 
 all matters above human knowledge, whether of 
 celestial beings, or of Divine covenant, or of special 
 providences in first saving a doomed world, and 
 then in preparation for the Redeemer of mankind. 
 The uniqueness of the covenant with Abraham 
 stamps its Divine origin. 
 
 Neither he nor any other man then could have de- 
 vised and thought it out. He had travelled twelve 
 hundred miles, had settled almost alone among 
 strangers, had acknowledged the God El-Elyon of 
 Melchizedek, and had paid him tithes. He was the 
 first missionary of the world. It was a novel way 
 to found a new nation and a new religion. He cer- 
 tainly had no scheme in his mind hke other found- 
 ers in later times, like Buddha or Mahomet. The 
 setting up of a new religious cult was at first the 
 farthest from his intention. Not till he was ninety- 
 nine years old did he receive the seal of circum- 
 cision, the blood of which typified its value, being 
 the symbol of life and the appointed means for cov- 
 ering sin. That was not Abraham's, but Jehovah's 
 method. So when the system was completed under 
 Moses, blood was the s^^mbol which atoned for the 
 sin of man. In old Canaan and at Sinai blood w\as 
 the seal of Divine covenant. It was not Abraham, 
 nor Moses, but God wdio appointed it to be so. 
 The symbol of life was Jehovah's symbol of for- 
 giveness. In Abel's sacrifice and at Moriah it was 
 disclosed how atonement for sin could be obtained. 
 5 
 
98 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 Moreover, the blood of circumcision linked and 
 connected itself with the blood of the Passover-lamb. 
 The blood of a lamb and the blood of man, centuries 
 apart in time, was made the symbol of the Divine 
 acceptance of the sinner. But while the signifi- 
 cance was alike in each era, the plan was beyond the 
 comprehension of Abraham and of Moses. Neither 
 of them could have devised such a method, which 
 is proof of its revelation. It was Heaven ordained. 
 
 The records also disclose unity and completeness. 
 In the genealogy before the Deluge we find the 
 heads of ten families, from Adam to Noah ; though 
 there may have been more, ten are mentioned. So 
 in the genealogy of Abraham, ten heads of families 
 trace him back to Shem. It is the number of com- 
 pleteness. A list of ten progenitors traces him up 
 to Shem, and another list of ten traces him up from 
 I^oah to Adam. 
 
 For suppose it can be shown, as Dr. Winchell 
 and others have attempted, that other beings like 
 man once occupied this earth, yet the records of 
 Noah's family and of Abraham's show their descent 
 in direct line from Adam, who was God-created. 
 And the law of Deuteronomy 23 : 2, 3 was in fact 
 observed. Lot's children, Ammon and Moab, could 
 not enter the assembly of Jehovah unto the tenth 
 generation, for all future ages. AVhile the records 
 of Noah, of Abraham, and of Moses testify to the 
 purity of Israel's descent for twice ten generations 
 in regular succession. It is a very ancient example 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 99 
 
 of the importance of family purity, of family de- 
 scent, and of contemporary records. 
 
 This explains the great care afterward seen in 
 preserving the genealogy of the Hebrews. One- 
 third of the I Chronicles is occupied with tables of 
 descent. It is seen in Ezra 2 : 61, 62 in a remark- 
 able ruling which excluded certain claimants from 
 the priest's office, because of mixed marriages. 
 Compare Neh. 7 : 63, 64. Descendants of Barzil- 
 lai, the Gileadite, were thus rejected. But a rule 
 which had been operative from time immemorial, 
 from Abraham to Moses, to David and Ezra, must 
 have been believed to be of Divine appointment. 
 It was before the Law of Sinai, and is another il- 
 lustration of very early records. The rule is found 
 back of Ezra, back of Moses, and has its roots in 
 the ten generations of Abraham and the ten genera- 
 tions of Noah. 
 
 As moderns have their correspondents the world 
 over, so the ancient leaders of Egypt and the Ori- 
 ent had their scribes, who recorded their achieve- 
 ments. Thus Sneferu and Sargon and the early 
 Pharaohs inscribed their deeds, and perhaps an 
 image of themselves on the rocks of the Wady 
 Magharah, or of Cyprus, or on some obelisk or 
 temple. But the Patriarchs built an altar, or mar- 
 ried a wife, or dug a well, or made a treaty, and 
 then wrote an account of their doings in the register 
 of the Tribes, and so preserved the record for their 
 descendants. Especially careful were they in all 
 
100 THE WKITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 matters concerning Divine covenant and tlieir rela- 
 tions to it and to God. Hence the early writing of 
 Genesis. 
 
 Perhaps too much is said about European scepti- 
 cism, and calling this Old Testament book and that 
 New Testament book legendary and mythical, writ- 
 ten when and by whom nobody knows ! It is alike 
 destructive of Christian belief and of Christian 
 growth. First, the difficulties of Kevelation are 
 magnified, and then the Scriptures are rejected be- 
 cause of those difficulties ! 
 
 The truth and strength of my argument find 
 support in the evidence for very early writing as 
 attested by the inscriptions of Babylonia and Egypt. 
 It is conceded by M. Renan, who meets it in the 
 weakest possible way — viz., by suggesting that the 
 discoveries of Tel-el-Amarna are forgeries ! To 
 forge a record which nobody living could write is 
 not yet among our modern achievements. Bnt the 
 argument here presented, as well as that in '* Bible 
 Growth and Religion," does not depend on the 
 Tel-el-Amarna inscriptions, nor upon the statue of 
 Rameses II., found at Bubastis, from which Ram- 
 eses had erased the name of a Hyksos king and in- 
 scribed his own instead ; nor upon the mummy of 
 Sekenen-Ra, of Thebes, showing that his skull 
 had been cloven through, causing his death, prob- 
 ably while fighting against the Hyksos. I say, my 
 argument does not depend upon these disclosures, 
 though they tend to strengthen it. We go back of 
 
ABRAHAM TO JUDAII. 101 
 
 Earaeses II. and Sekenen-Ea to the inscriptions of 
 the twelfth dynasty ; to the Ilittite writing of He- 
 bron and Zoan ; to the ilhistrations of Syrian visitors 
 in Egypt ; to the inscriptions upon the obehsks, in 
 the tombs, upon early temples and pyramids ; to 
 records of the fourth dynasty, of the second dynasty, 
 and, according to Professor Sayce, of the first 
 dynasty. We find the inscriptions of Sargon I. and 
 of his son, of Khammuragas, of Kuder-Mabug and 
 Arioch mentioned in Gen. 14, and the artistic skill 
 mentioned in Gen. 4 : 19-22. 
 
 The rocks of Cyprus and of Sinai, the inscriptions 
 of Babylon concerning Marduk, the Messiah, and 
 of Istar weeping for Tammuz, like Eve for Abel, 
 are not forgeries. Nor are the stone cylinders now 
 in the British Museum which represent a man and 
 a woman in the act of plucking fruit from a tree, 
 and a serpent erect standing behind the woman. 
 Nor is the inscription about the scorpion-men, the 
 cherubim-like guardians of the way to the tree of 
 life and to Eden itself, translated in June, 1889, by 
 Mr. Boscawen. Nor is there any doubt of the leg- 
 ends aad their meaning, which we call Deluge 
 Legends in Chaldea, with their confirmation in 
 Egypt, India, and China. Their account agrees 
 substantially with our Genesis, and with the arts 
 named in Gen. 4 disclose a degree of skill which 
 implies the ability to read and write. How else 
 was preserved the record of the ten Adamic gener- 
 ations down to Noah, and of the ten generations 
 
102 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 from Noah to Abraham ? And as ** probability is 
 the very guide of life," we have the very great 
 probability which the records disclose that Abraham 
 and his successors wrote the Genesis which was 
 early studied, and later revised by Moses. This 
 accounts for all peculiarities of style and language. 
 
 It is a sufficient answer to all modern analysts of 
 the text of our Genesis, and is as probable as the 
 literature of Babylonia and Egypt can m.ake it. 
 The forgery of those literatures is impossible, while 
 their existence in the days of Abraham and his sons 
 all but demonstrates the patriarchs as writing me- 
 moirs of their times. 
 
 In the name of Him who gave the Revelation in 
 our Genesis, I entreat the reader, both of the crit- 
 ical and the traditional school, to pause and recon- 
 sider my suggestions before relegating them among 
 the theories which may be true. Patriarchal writ- 
 ing honors reason, explains conceded difficulties, 
 and enthrones God in the Book of Genesis. If 
 used as a provisional basis of exposition, and tested 
 by experience, the unfoldings of the future will best 
 determine whether acceptance shall be final and 
 satisfactory. 
 
IT. 
 
 INTEENAL EVIDENCE FOE AN EAELY 
 WEITEE OF ISAIAH 40-66. 
 
 All critics, we are told, concede a similarity of 
 style in the last twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah 
 with tliat of the first forty chapters. And similar 
 technical expressions are common in each division ; 
 for example, *' The Holy One of Israel" and 
 " The Servant of Jehovah." Similar Hymns are 
 common to both sections of the Prophecies, while 
 there is a noticeable infrequency of 'Visions ;" 
 thus chapter 6 in the first division and chapter 63 
 in the second part stand alone. 
 
 Ancient tradition, the Jewish Synagogue, Ec- 
 cles. 48 : 24, 25, quotations by the later prophets, 
 by Josephus, and by early Christian writers, as well 
 as its long-time place in the Canon, all attribute the 
 Book of Isaiah to one and the same Author. The 
 purpose of this inquiry, however, is not the unity 
 of its authorship, but its comparatively early date. 
 Prophecies of the highest order, stirring exhorta- 
 tions, and very remarkable history are common to 
 both sections. By examining portions of the last 
 
104 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 twenty-seven chapters, we expect to find an approx- 
 imate date for the writing. 
 
 In chapter 40 : 18-26 we have the demand, " To 
 whom will ye liken God ? or what likeness will ye 
 compare unto Him ? The graven image, a work- 
 man melted it, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over 
 with gold, and casteth for it silver chains." Then 
 follows a grand description of Jehovah's power, 
 who again demands, '' To whom then will ye liken 
 Me ? Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath 
 created these heavenly things, calling them all by 
 name . . . not one is lacking." 
 
 Kow, whoever cannot appreciate the force of the 
 prophet's argument and the grandeur of his lan- 
 guage of course cannot see the utter absurdity of 
 such deliverances in Palestine at any time after the 
 destruction of Jerusalem in 586 b.c, when idolatry 
 ceased there, or of an Exile Jew so addressing the 
 Assyrian or Babylonian Gentile. For the Jew it 
 was too late ; for the Gentile it was a century too 
 early. Even if the writer of these chapters was 
 authenticated by the Prophet Jeremiah, since he 
 died in about 572 b.c, it would be singularly ab- 
 surd to make such a comparison of Jehovah with 
 graven images at that time ; for none remained in 
 the ruined city of Zion ; only the poorest of the 
 people were left ; and Gentiles were jubilant vic- 
 tors, not disposed to regard those who derided their 
 deities. Nebuchadnezzar effected a large clearance 
 in Judsea. So a prophet of the Lord would not 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 105 
 
 stultify himself by exhorting to forsake the wor- 
 ship of graven images from 586 to 570 b.c, nor, 
 perhaps, till after Cyrus took Babylon. 
 
 I have tried repeatedly to apply the comforting 
 character and the shepherding character disclosed 
 in chapter 40 to Cyrus, but in vain ; he never ap- 
 proaches the standard, and there was little of the 
 herald of good tidings about him. He was as astute 
 a politician as an accomplished soldier, but preacher 
 of righteousness and the worship of Israel's God 
 he was not in any such way or degree as to fulfil 
 the description in chapter 40. The Church ap- 
 points the reading of the first eleven verses for St. 
 John Baptist Day, which suggests her opinion of 
 their interpretation. 
 
 Compare Jer., chapters 10, 50, 51, which, how- 
 ever, were written before their fulfilment. The 
 great similarity in the contents is conclusive for an 
 early date of the Isaianic passages. Thus, touch- 
 ing idolatry we read, " Behold, their works are 
 vanity and nought : their molten images are wind 
 and confusion" (Is. 41 : 29). I invite the critics to 
 prove that this passage was not written before the 
 Fall of Jerusalem, in 586. After that date prophets 
 had no occasion to denounce idolatry in Judsea. 
 But see the accentuation of it in chapter 42 : 8, '^ I 
 am Jehovah ; . . . my glory will I not give to 
 another, neither my praise unto graven images." 
 And verse 24 asks, " Who gave Jacob for a spoil, 
 and Israel to the robbers? did not Jehovah ?" 
 5* 
 
106 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 This is a time- mark, and shows the passage was 
 written after the capture of Samaria by Sargon II., 
 when Jacob was spoiled and Israel robbed, but be- 
 fore the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar — 
 i.e.^ some time between 721 and 586 e.g. These 
 dates are as well defined as that of our Ameri- 
 can Independence. A¥ith 586 idolatry ceased in 
 .Judaea, and no writer like the author of 42 : 17 
 would denounce the " trust in graven images, and 
 the invocation of molten images." If the writer is 
 supposed to have lived in Babylonia, he would not 
 dare to denounce the idolatry of Babylonians. But 
 put the deliverance of the text before 586, and all 
 is easy of exposition. An inspired writer explains 
 what even a truthful historian leaves inexplicable. 
 Hence, I prefer the one miracle of prophecy to the 
 manifold confusions arising from assigning it to a 
 later date. 
 
 So, again, in chapter 43 : 1, 3, it implies that 
 Jehovah had given Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba as a 
 ransom for Jacob and Israel ; which could have no 
 meaning after the Fall of the Holy City. Yerse 
 14 is against Babylon and the Chaldeans, and verse 
 28 " will profane the sanctuary, and make Jacob a 
 curse and Israel a reviling ;" showing that the curse 
 and the reproach were yet to be — viz., before 586 e.g. 
 In chapter 44 : 1-8 is a detailed promise of help 
 and blessing, followed by an exaltation of Jehovah's 
 supremacy, which was not required to be stated 
 after the Restoration under Cyrus ; yet in verses 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 107 
 
 9-20 are " tlie carpenter's description and the 
 baker's description of making a god of wood, and 
 then burning the chips in order to bake bread there- 
 with, orto warm one's self at the fire thereof," which 
 would have no relevancy if uttered after 586 B.C.; 
 for the Hebrews wxre cured of idolatry in Baby- 
 lonia. 
 
 Moreover, the conditions of pardon and restora- 
 tion, unfolded in 44 : 21-45 : 25 are prophetic ; 
 for the comparison of Jehovah with the gods of the 
 nations is continued, even to '' the wood of their 
 graven images, and prayer unto a god that cannot 
 save" (45 : 20, 21). This had no application to 
 Cyrus, who accepted the doctrine of Two eternal 
 Principles of Good and Evil, and he was not a wor- 
 shipper of images. His attendance upon the sacri- 
 fices in Babylonian temples disclosed his tolerance, 
 or, if you prefer, his indifferentism to national re- 
 ligions. He certainly granted favors to the He- 
 brew exiles, and by decree provided for their re- 
 turn, and the restoration of all their sacred thino:8. 
 But his favor to them did not incite him to attack 
 the shrines of Babylon. Not yet did Bel fall or 
 Nebo crouch to the conqueror. Not yet ' ' shall 
 tliey go into confusion together that are makers of 
 idols" (45 : 16). But Judah was to follow Ephraim 
 into exile. So it came to pass ; the Kingdom of 
 the South also became captive. '* All Israel, all 
 the ends of the earth, shall be saved by looking 
 unto God. In Jehovah shall all the seed of Israel 
 
108 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 be justified, and shall glory." It was then to be 
 (45 : 22-25). 
 
 Not only is the nation's deliverer named, and the 
 terms of Pardon and Restoration stated for Judah 
 and Ephraim, but the supremacy of Jehovah is in- 
 sisted upon for Jew and for Gentile. After how 
 long an interval is not said, but it is affirmed as a 
 fact to be accomplished (chapter 46 : 1), as 8chra- 
 der tersely renders, " Bel sinks, Nebo falls down." 
 And the Revised Yersion, '' Their idols are upon the 
 beasts, and upon the cattle ; themselves are gone 
 into captivity" (verses 1, 2). It sounds like pro- 
 phetic ridicule : Bel and Nebo are taken prisoners. 
 Orelli places this under Artaxerxes, but Herod- 
 otus, P. Smith, Rawlinson, and Professor Sayce 
 place it under Xerxes I., at least forty years after 
 Cyrus, but probably before he entered upon the 
 war against Greece. Herodotus (Book 1, chapter 
 183) says : '' Xerxes took away the golden image 
 of Bel, and killed the priest who forbade him to 
 move the statue." This, I presume, was before 
 the war with Greece, and Xerxes actually seized the 
 statues of Bel and of Nebo, and coined them into 
 money, to aid in his campaign against Greece. 
 Then, after his return, he destroyed the temple of 
 Belus, so Arrian (vii. 17). Xerxes would hardly 
 have done so provoking a thing before that war, lest 
 it fomented worse evils than seemed pending, but 
 upon his return his resentment was intensified by 
 his defeat. 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 109 
 
 It was Nebuchadnezzar, after the devastations of 
 Sennacherib, that rebuilt Bel's temple and replaced 
 the silver image, which he overlaid with plates of 
 gold, and enriched his worship. Indeed, no son 
 could do more honor to his father and show more 
 love for him than Nebuchadnezzar showed to Bel 
 Merodach. He entered his temple, took him by 
 the hand, and thanked him for his blessings and his 
 triumphs. He adored him at great cost. This 
 temple continued to Xerxes I., when he pillaged 
 and then destroyed the temple of Bel and of Nebo. 
 Their worship, however, held on, with various 
 fortune, to the third or fourth Christian century. 
 (So Kawlinson's ''Herodotus," 4:th ed., London, 
 vol. i., pp. 660-668.) But the words of the prophet 
 were fulfilled when, in about 485 b.c, a full cen- 
 tury after the Fall of Jerusalem, Bel and Nebo were 
 captured by the Persian king and converted to his 
 own uses by being coined into money for his wars 
 against the Greeks. 
 
 Dr. Cheyne seems to regard the passage as writ- 
 ten of Cyrus, and that the conqueror disappointed 
 prophetic expectations when he tolerated and did 
 not destroy the worship of Bel and of Nebo. But 
 surely 46 : 1 and 2 may have no reference to 
 Cyrus, but only to him who, like Xerxes, made 
 those images to vanish from before him ! As a 
 successor of Cyrus and the avenger of Jehovah 
 upon idols Xerxes I. seems to have fulfilled all the 
 requirements of the prophecy. It recalls the irony 
 
110 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 of Elijah against the dupes of Baal (1 Kings 18). 
 But while he was laughing at the idolaters of Israel, 
 the writer of Is. 46 : 1-2 portrays, before the event, 
 the helplessness and capture of the Babylonian idols. 
 He also further insists upon the supremacy and sov- 
 ereignty of Jehovah (verses 3-13). It was prophecy 
 not yet fulfilled. 
 
 Those who make history of it ignore 47 : 1-7 : 
 *' Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin 
 daughter of Babyh^n ; sit on the ground without a 
 throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans ! I will take 
 vengeance, and will accept no man as a truce maker 
 between us. Get thee into darkness, daughter 
 of the Chaldeans ! Two things shall come upon thee 
 in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood ; 
 there shall be none to save thee" (verses 9, 15). 
 These predictive utterances were literally fulfilled 
 at Babylon by Cyrus in 538. Belshazzar was slain, 
 and his father, Nabonidus, died soon after. The 
 country, like that of Israel and Judah, was bereft 
 of both her kings. In little more than half a cen- 
 tury Bel and Nebo were melted into current coin. 
 We cannot bring these several events nearer to- 
 gether. There is the discussion against idolatry, the 
 word about Cyrus, about Bel and Nebo ; in 66 : 6 a 
 word goes forth from the temple ; no one human 
 life could span those 215 years, or from the siege of 
 Sennacherib to the capture of Xerxes I. To reduce 
 the prophetic portraiture which we^find in chapters 
 44 to 48 to a history of occurrences is to do vio- 
 
UEFORE THE EXILE. Ill 
 
 lenco to the text, its time-marks, and its arguments. 
 It ignores the futures in 48 : 14, 20, " Shall per- 
 form His pleasure on Bahjlon : Go je forth of 
 Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, tell it to the 
 ends of the earth !" Surely this, when spoken, had 
 not been done ? Bel Merodach liad not fallen and 
 Nebo liad not prostrated himself before the God of 
 godg. 
 
 Hence, the actual fall of those false gods was a 
 striking confirmation of the predictions and con- 
 trasts in Is. 40-46, and of Jer. 10, 50, 51. But 
 Isaiah is never more sure of the Restoration of 
 Judah than was Jeremiah, who, when in prison, 
 sent his servant to purchase the field, whose right 
 of redemption was his, saying : ^' Thus saith Je- 
 hovah, God of Israel : Houses, and fields, and vine- 
 yards shall be possessed again in this land." Com- 
 pare Jer. 32 : 2-15 ; 36 to 44 with Is. 48 : 12-20 ; 
 49 : 8-26. So the writer of these portions of Isaiah 
 is corroborated by Jeremiah, and he again by Micah. 
 The predictions of each are alike explicit. Compare 
 Jer. 15th chapter. Also what is said of a certain 
 Roman who, after the disaster at Cannge, bought a 
 piece of the ground then occupied by Hannibal. 
 No ; the accuracy of a fulfilment of prophecy does 
 not prove it false, nor that it was written after the 
 events. 
 
 Moreover, chapter 49 informs us that the isles of 
 Japheth shall see the exaltation and return of Jacob, 
 even as they saw his humiliation and captivity. 
 
112 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 Verses 25, 26 could scarcely be more expressive of 
 deliverance : " Tims saitli Jehovah, Even the cap- 
 tives of tlie mighty shall be taken away, and the 
 prey of the terrible shall be delivered ; for I will 
 contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I 
 will save thy children. And I will feed them that 
 oppress thee with their own flesh ; and they ishall 
 be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet 
 wine : and all flesh shall kuowthat I, the Lord, am 
 the Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of 
 Jacob." All this was in the future when the 
 prophet wrote, and when Jeremiah wrote, but 
 found its accomplishment in the conspiracy of the 
 priests against Nabonidus for not being more devoted 
 to them, and they prepared the way for Cyrus by 
 conspiracy against the government, so that Belshaz- 
 zar and others fell by the hand of the assassins 
 among their own Babylonians, rather than by the 
 sword of the Persians. This is the revised history 
 of the Fall of Babylon, Her people were drunk 
 with their own blood, through the slaughter of con- 
 spirators, and in 538 b.o. fulfilled Is. 49 : 26. But 
 46 : 1 was fulfilled by Xerxes I. rather more than 
 fifty years later. 
 
 The divorcement mentioned in chapter 50 : 1, 2 
 may be better apphed to the Ten Tribes already in 
 Exile than to Judah, for whose transgression the 
 mother was put away when the larger part of Israel 
 was carried captive. But the sin of both kingdoms 
 now left them without a man to deliver them ; only 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 113 
 
 Jehovah could redeem and save them ; so the 
 prophet describes Him (verses 2-11). The descrip- 
 tion is grandly continued in predictive poetry through 
 chapter 51, and to verse 13 of chapter 52. The 
 language is very thrilling. Whether the " Awake, 
 awake, put on strength, O arm of Jehovah" — 
 '^ Awake, awake, stand np, O Jerusalem" — 
 '' Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion ; put 
 on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy 
 city !" a city then laid waste, as some say — whether 
 these exhortations were uttered by the prophet 
 through inspired vision of future unfoldings, or were 
 the deliverances of a later herald, must be deter- 
 mined by the light already shed upon our theme and 
 by what may yet dawn. Certain it is they preced- 
 ed the return from Babylon, and did not receive 
 complete fulfilment under Cyrus. A diviner Light 
 should yet arise for Judah. 
 
 We may find another time mark in 52 : 4, 5, 
 *' Saith the Lord God, My people went down at the 
 first to sojourn in Egypt," they did not expect to 
 abide there, but were kept for some centuries. 
 Leaping over other centuries, " The Assyrian op- 
 pressed them without cause." That is, Shalma- 
 neser lY. and Sargon II. had no grievance to 
 avenge for which to invade Israel and carry Sama- 
 ria captive. *' Now, therefore, saith Jehovah, see- 
 ing my people is taken away for nought, and their 
 rulers make them howl, and my name is continually 
 blasphemed" (through the honors paid to Bel and 
 
114 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 Nebo), ^^ Therefore m J people shall know my name, 
 and that I am here to speak for them ; behold, it 
 is 1." I have adopted the margin of the Revised 
 Version in veree 6. 
 
 The prophet here states that neither Israel nor 
 Jiidah had wronged Assyria and Babylon, who were, 
 therefore, to be punished for their offences commit- 
 ted while chastizing the Hebrews for their sins 
 against God. Tlie eternal law of righteousness is 
 regnant andiihistrated, and also the Divine promise 
 to Abraham. His heritage was Canaan, and it 
 passed to Israel. They sought refuge from famine 
 in Egypt, and were kept there for centuries. They 
 were not captives, but detained and enslaved till 
 Jehovah delivered them. Later on they were cap- 
 tured by force of arms, and carried now into As- 
 syria and now to Babylonia. It was not, like the 
 going down to Egypt, a voluntary migration, but 
 a seizure. Longer detention there would interfere 
 with the Divine plan of man's Redemption ; break 
 the promise to Abraham, and let the Gentile blas- 
 pheme. Hence Judah was to be rescued and re- 
 stored, and the oppressor chastized. The exiles 
 were exhorted to '' look unto Abraham, their father, 
 and unto Sarah, their mother : in unity he had been 
 called and blessed, and of one made many. Jehovah 
 will comfort Zion, and make her deserts like Eden. 
 Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiv- 
 ing, and the voice of melody" (51 : 2, 3 ; 52 : 3-6). 
 
 National deliverance is coupled with the world's 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 115 
 
 salvation ; the propliet describes the suffering Mes- 
 siah, who becomes an offering for sin, bearing the 
 iniquities of others, and making intercession for the 
 people (chapter 52 : 13-53 : 12). Surely, if this 
 passage of a suffering Saviour for Israel is in its proper 
 place here, there are connected two related subjects 
 — viz., the salvation of Israel and salvation by the 
 Christ. Chapter 53 : 4-12 cannot be adequately 
 explained of any Deliverer from national exile ; for 
 He is a Sufferer, and suffers the full penalty in Ilis 
 own person for the transgressions of others. He is 
 not like Moses, who led forth his people from 
 Egypt ; nor like David, who delivered them from 
 the power of the Philistines ; nor like Hezekiah, 
 who went into the Temple, and with the letter of 
 Sennacherib spread before Jehovah, besought Him 
 to rescue His people from the besieging army. 
 Those deliverers suffered no penalty ; but this 
 righteous Servant justifies and delivers many, by 
 bearing their iniquities Himself, by the travail of 
 His own soul (verse 11). 
 
 Throughout these connected chapters we find a 
 complex, dual subject : there are the supremacy of 
 Jehovah and exposure of the absurdity of idols and 
 idol worship ; the warnings and denunciations against 
 sin and the threatened judgments upon it ; pre- 
 dicted exile and promised restoration. The penalty 
 follows transgression. Jehovah triumphs over all 
 rival deities ; Bel and Nebo bow before Him. For 
 the salvation of the world, a captive nation shall be 
 
116 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 delivered from captivity and be re-established in 
 their own land. For the God of Abraham had 
 promised to keep the covenant made with him for 
 blessing mankind. 
 
 Filled with these assurances of the deliverance of 
 Jehovah's people — barren, desolate, and forsaken, 
 like a deserted wife, as they then were — the writer 
 breaks forth into the highest strains of poetry : 
 " Sine:, O barren, thou that didst not bear. Thou 
 shalt be enlarged, and shalt possess the nations. As 
 the Flood of Noah abated, and the earth was re- 
 newed, so Jehovah will renew His promises to His 
 people. His covenant of peace, of which the en- 
 durinor mountains were witness, should not be 
 broken, but His kindness should return to them, 
 and God would gather them with great mercies" 
 (54 : 1-10). Then another prophetic hymn was fol- 
 lowed by a personal invitation to *' Every one that 
 thirsteth to come to the waters ; to come freely, 
 without money, and partake of wine and milk with- 
 out cost. For Jehovah, God of Israel, would glorify 
 them" (55 : 1-5). But this was never true of the 
 national restoration ; that was at great cost to Per- 
 sian princes and to the returned Hebrews. The 
 prophet therefore looked forward to the preaching 
 of the Messiah. (Compare St. Matt. 11 : 28-30.) 
 
 In Isaiah 55 : 6-13 the subjective conditions, 
 prayer, penitence, righteousness, are described and 
 enjoined. Purity and loyalty are required of men, 
 because God is highly exalted above all the earth. 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 117 
 
 Even the natural world testified to His supremacy, 
 and that He would cause fir-trees and mjrtle-trees 
 to take the place of thorns and briers, as an ever- 
 lasting sign of His faithfulness. The redemption 
 of His people would be accompanied bv the glad 
 acclaim of mountains and hills, and the trees of the 
 field would clap their hands. This, of course, is 
 poetry, but it is poetry inspired. It is Jehovah 
 speaking by His prophet, ^^hy that prophet is not 
 the same as he who wrote and sung the first five 
 chapters of Isaiah is not discoverable from the text. 
 The style, tone, and verbal expressions are much 
 alike ; only difference of subject seems to differ- 
 entiate the writer. It is at least very probable that 
 both of these sections were written before the 
 Exile to Babylon. Compare chapters 10 and 11. 
 Jerusalem is threatened (10 : 11), yet the dispersed 
 of Judah will be gathered from the four corners of 
 the earth (11 : 12). 
 
 If one should collate passages from the last twenty- 
 seven chapters, and compare them with their parallels 
 in the first forty chapters of Isaiah, and with Jere- 
 miah, the absurdity of relegating the last twenty- 
 seven chapters to a period after these two prophets 
 would be manifest. Read carefully Jer. 13-15 
 chapters, where we find similar matter to that of 
 Isaiah, '^ Line upon line, and precept upon pre- 
 cept." Such similarity does not indicate that the 
 Second Isaiah was after the First, nor after Jere- 
 miah. And some time marks suggest that he may 
 
118 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 have been between them — e.g. Is. Q% : 6, where 
 the '' Voice of the temple, with the tumult of the 
 city, and the recompense upon Jehovah's enemies," 
 point to Sennacherib's letter which Hezekiah then 
 spread before the Lord (chapter 37 : 14-20). At no 
 other time in that era, from 721-586 b.c, is the three- 
 fold voice to be heard. Not till this nineteenth cen- 
 tury was there any serious doubt of its date. The 
 section was translated into the Septuagint without 
 question, was collated by Origen in the third cen- 
 tury, and by Jerome in the fourth, without suspi- 
 cion that those twenty- seven chapters were not 
 prophecy as truly as the first forty chapters, as truly 
 as the predictions of Jeremiah are prophecy. They 
 are prophetic exhortations, warnings, songs, fore- 
 seeings, not written after the events. 
 
 The exhortation of chapter 55 is continued in 56 
 and in 57, while in 58 it is only more urgent : " Cry 
 aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, 
 and declare unto My people their transgression, and 
 to the house of Jacob their sins." It proceeds with 
 conditional promises of pending blessings, yet as 
 though Judah still observed her feasts and fasts in 
 Jerusalem (verse 2). And the figure of "lifting 
 up the voice like a trumpet," which was strikingly 
 fitting in a city, or before a large assembly, has no 
 meaning for a people scattered, captured, and ex- 
 iled throughout the Assyrian empire. So of chap- 
 ter 59 : " Will you shorten Jehovah's hand and dull 
 His ear, so that He can neither hear nor save ? Is 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 119 
 
 truth SO fallen in oitr streets, and departed from 
 us, that we are become a prey, and the righteous 
 stand afar off, wliile our sins testify against us 
 (verses 12, 14, 15) ? Indeed, the whole chapter is 
 an argument that Jerusalem yet stands, but is in 
 peril through transgression ; that a redeemer shall 
 come to Zion, and to the penitent in Jacob, saith 
 Jehovah" (verse 20). 
 
 Moreover, the word Zion used of the Temple, 
 and Jacob, used for Canaan, imply that the people 
 were then at home and their beautiful house not 
 then destroyed. Thus verses 16-19 have a stronger 
 emphasis — "■ Oh, that one may interpose for us, that 
 the Divine Arm may bring us salvation instead of 
 vengeance ; then shall we of the west fear Jehovah, 
 and Ris glory shall be seen from the rising of the 
 sun. A redeemer shall come to Zion, and the 
 Divine Spirit shall be upon them, and His words 
 shall be in their mouth, and shall not depart out of 
 their mouth, nor out of the mouth of their seed's 
 seed, saith Jehovah, from henceforth and for ever" 
 (verse 21). All this reads as much like conditional 
 prophecy before its accomplishment as anything 
 we find from Samuel to Malachi. Compare Mai. 
 2 : 17--3 : 7. The frequent iterations of condi- 
 tional blessings and of penalties are as natural in the 
 last section as in the first section of Isaiah. He 
 cannot be changed into an historian and narrator of 
 accomplished facts. 
 
 Nor can we explain the *' Arise, shine ; for thy 
 
120 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 light is come" of Cyrus, in 60 : 1, since the whole 
 account of the wonders mentioned leads up to verse 
 22, " 1, Jehovah, will hasten it in its time." But 
 it was a conditional promise. The nations had not 
 come to that light, nor their kings to the brightness 
 of its rising. Nor had the wealth of the nations, 
 the frankincense from 8heba, the flocks of Kedar, 
 and the rams of Nebaioth yet glorified the house of 
 the Lord at Jerusalem. From her predicted judg- 
 ments after the capture of Samaria the people had 
 not became righteous ; though righteousness con- 
 ditioned their possession of the land forever. But 
 not yet had this promise been realized ; not yet had 
 Jehovah hastened its advent. 
 
 In due course, however, Nebuchadnezzar ac- 
 knowledged the Most High God as supreme in 
 heaven and in earth ; Darius and Artaxerxes pro- 
 claimed Him ; while Xerxes I. carried off Bel and 
 Nebo from Babylon, and destroyed the great temple 
 there. Thenceforth on the Euphrates, as for more 
 than a century on the Jordan, no remonstrances 
 were needed against graven images. Nor would a 
 prophet who could write like the author of Is. 
 40-66 stultify himself by denouncing a forsaken 
 idolatry. The inference, therefore, must be that 
 when he wrote idolatry was a crying sin in Judaea. 
 It w^as he/ore its extirpation by capture and by exile. 
 
 In chapter 61 : 1-10 the ^^ Anointed One was 
 promised to preach glad tidings to the poor, to bind 
 up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 121 
 
 captives, the opening of prison doors, the acceptable 
 year of Jehovah, and His day of vengeance ; also to 
 comfort the mourners, meeting them in Zion, and 
 changing their heaviness into joy and rejoicing : 
 they should become the planted of the Lord, and 
 He gloritied in them. Former wastes were to be 
 repaired, new priests were to be named, the covenant 
 was to be renewed, and national renown secured." 
 And to emphasize the assurance of all this the 
 Spirit of the Lord descends upon the preacher to 
 encourage devout seekers after Him. For reproach 
 and confusion they shall repossess their lands and 
 rejoice in their portion. As a bride and bride- 
 groom, so should they adorn themselves and become 
 a praise before all nations. 
 
 This is strongly accentuated to the penitent : 
 *' For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for 
 Jerusalem's I will not rest, until her righteousness 
 go forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp 
 that burnetii. . . And thou shalt be called by a 
 new name — viz., Beulah : for Jehovah delighteth 
 in thee, and thy land shall be married. . . Thou 
 shalt be a crown of beauty and a royal diadem in 
 the hand of the Lord thy God" (62 : 1-5). These 
 promises of glory and blessedness are continued 
 throughout the chapter. It describes the watchman 
 of Jehovah, and His sworn pledge to Jerusalem : 
 her sanctuary shall be honored by those who gath- 
 ered and garnered her people's harvests. So it 
 came to pass under Persian kings : " Say ye to the 
 6 
 
122 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh ; 
 behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense 
 before him." This cannot be said of Cyrus. Yet 
 the holy people, " the redeemed of the Lokd, shall 
 be called, sought out, a city not forsaken" (verses 
 6-12). 
 
 As did other prophets, as did our Lord, the writer 
 here blends and connects the deliverer of Israel 
 from captivity with the Redeemer of the world, 
 who should tread the winepress alone for its salva- 
 tion ; it was the grand symbolization of Redemp- 
 tion. To call it a rhetorical statement of facts may 
 leave us its poetry, but poetry without meaning. 
 As mere history, its point and essence evaporate. 
 The traveller from Edom, with crimsoned garments, 
 described in chapter 63, is far more than a glori- 
 ously apparelled prince : " He is strong, He is right- 
 eous, mighty to save : His garments are sprinkled 
 with lifeblood. He looked, and there was none to 
 help ; therefore His arm brought salvation ; He 
 trode down the peoples in anger, made them drunk 
 in his fury, and poured out their lifeblood on 
 the earth" (verses 1-6). Even if this can be said 
 of Cyrus, the rest of the chapter cannot be so 
 applied — viz., the praises of Jehovah and His mer- 
 cies ; the rebellion of the people and their affliction ; 
 the Angel of his presence who saved them, the love 
 and pity that redeemed Israel ; that bare them, and 
 carried them all the days of old ; the reference to 
 Moses and his works, dividing the water and lead- 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 123 
 
 ing his people through the depths ; the prayer for 
 the return of the Tribes, so passionately implored 
 in verse 17 — all this is without meaning as applied 
 to Cyrus, and it was not fulfilled in the Restoration 
 under him. Nor is there any proper comparison 
 between him and Moses in verse 11. 
 
 With verse 18, and continuing to the end of chap- 
 ter 64, is a different treatment of a similar theme. 
 The holy people are said to have possessed their 
 heritage but a little while, when their adversaries 
 trode down the sanctuary, and they became as 
 though God never bare rule over them, and they 
 were not called by His name. These conditions did 
 not exist under the Persian kings, unless applicable 
 to the evils wrought by Sanballet and Tobiah, exag- 
 gerated reports of which may have come to some 
 prophet of the Exile ; and hence this passionate ap- 
 peal to Jehovah : Oh, that He would rend the 
 heavens, let the mountains burn, that He would 
 descend as upon Sinai, and make the nations tremble 
 at His presence ! The language is too strong to 
 be spoken of relief from any local distress in Judaea 
 during the Persian supremacy. It must belong to 
 the era just before the destruction by Babylon, or 
 look forward to the troubles under Antiochus £pi- 
 phanes, or under Titus and the Romans. And the 
 writer proceeds with historic allusions to God's ter- 
 ribleness, that He requires loyalty, recognizing none 
 besides Him ; how He meeteth the doer of right- 
 eousness ; how He was wroth against sinners ; how 
 
124 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 He would pardon their iniquities, and restore their 
 beautiful house, then represented as* desolate and 
 burned with fire. Tiie last point may be a pro- 
 phetic time mark, showing it was uttered before 
 586 B.C. It certainly was not said of accomplished 
 promises to gather captives already returned ! 
 Yerses 10 and 11 prove that. 
 
 Must it not be considered in relation with the 
 idolatry denounced in chapter 44 ? "Be not wroth 
 very sore, O Lord, neitlier remember iniquity for 
 ever. Thou art our Father" (64 : 8, 9). Com- 
 pare 44 : 21-24. Yet as sure as that the Hebrew 
 exiles did not worship graven images in Babylon, 
 of which Daniel and his friends are examples, so 
 sure the temple was not burned nor Jerusalem a 
 desolation when 44 : 6-20 was written. Indeed, 
 I prefer to regard chapter 64 as a work of Daniel, 
 related to Dan. 9 : 1-19, which has been misplaced 
 by some copyist of the time of Ezra, and so fitted in 
 where we find it, than to relegate the second grand 
 division of Isaiah to a period after the destruction of 
 city and temple by Nebuchadnezzar. Or we may 
 consider it a prayer of Ezekiel, following Ezek. 39 : 
 29, which has been misplaced ; or the effusion of 
 some other prophet before the Restoration, rather 
 than allow it to drag its now connected chapters to 
 a time when they lose their meaning. It was cer- 
 tainly written before Cyrus, and so is not history. 
 Yet, as is tersely said, " A word of history is worth 
 a mountain of theory' ' — a rule to be applied to the 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 125 
 
 exposition of prophecy. Bat some are so misled by 
 a theory, now touching prophecy, now legislation, 
 now the development of theology in Israel, and 
 now to make history of a Second Isaiah, that they 
 ignore contemporary facts and records which ilhis- 
 trate this period of the Hebrews, and so they can- 
 not interpret Hebrew prophecy aright. 
 
 However my suggestion may be regarded by 
 those competent to judge, I am free to confess tliat 
 Is. 64 seems to be a prayer prophecy, uttered when 
 Judah was in Exile and her temple in ruins ; ut- 
 tered before her return and before the restoration 
 of Zion. It is not an interpolation for a purpose, 
 but a reverent misplacement of a passage, when 
 such misplacement was easy. But it was before 
 Cyrus that Jehovah was invoked to rend the heavens, 
 shake the mountains, and make His name terrible 
 to the nations, even as He appeared at Sinai (64 : 
 1, 2). 
 
 My suggestion, therefore, connects 63 : 17 with 
 65 : 1. Thus the related passages of a Suffering 
 Messiah who delivers Israel and redeems the world, 
 are linked to that which makes Him inquired after 
 by those who sought Him not ; first by the Persians 
 and later by the Greeks. They fit well togetlier. 
 Then the writer returns to treat of Judah, when her 
 people wrought abomination and were rebellious : 
 sacrificing in gardens, burning incense upon bricks, 
 eating swine's flesh and broth of abominable things ; 
 they were idolaters, yet conspicuous for their self- 
 
126 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 righteousness. ** I will recompense into their 
 bosom, saith Jehovah, them that have burned in- 
 cense upon the mountains, and blasphemed, or de- 
 fied me upon the hills : 1 will measure their work 
 into their bosom" (verses 2-7). Yet because of 
 the loyal and faithful among them, a seed of Jacob 
 and of Judali shall inherit the good land promised 
 to their fathers. Sharon and Achor shall pasture 
 their flocks ; but they who follow Fortune and 
 Destiny as gods shall fall by the sword ; because 
 when the Lord called they would not regard it 
 (65 : 8-12). 
 
 It suggests what St. Paul says of the rejection of 
 the Jew and the calling of the Gentile, that Israel 
 may be saved. The old leaven of truth remaining 
 among them shall lead to their rehabilitation. God 
 will create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a 
 joy ; He will rejoice in them. They shall reap 
 the fruit of their labors and dwell in their own 
 houses. Jehovah will anticipate their needs, and 
 hear before they call. Even the brute creation shall 
 be blessed : the wolf and the lamb, the lion and the 
 ox, shall be companions. The serpent shall not hurt, 
 none shall destroy in the holy mountain, saith the 
 LoKD (65 : 13-25). For, behold, '' I create new 
 heavens and a new earth." Historically, this has 
 not been fulfilled. It seems to anticipate the tri- 
 umph of the principles unfolded in the Sermon on 
 the Mount. But even then children may die, and 
 old men before reaching a century of years. The 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 127 
 
 new creation, however, is shown to be a conditional 
 renovation for Jerusalem and her people, but it 
 was a condition which they never reah'zed, because 
 of their disobedience. 
 
 Chapter GG begins to correct the material pros- 
 perity which was erroneously expected from the 
 passage commencing at verse 17 of chapter 65. 
 The new dispensation to be introduced by Him 
 whose throne is heaven, and whose footstool the 
 earth, will need no temple like that wliich Solomon 
 built ; for the Most High dwelleth not in temples 
 made with hands ; neither is worshipped as though 
 He needed anything (Acts 17 : 2i, 25); what sort 
 of house will ye build for Him ? and where shall 
 He be located ? His own hand hath made all 
 things, saith Jehovah. Then the new creation is 
 described as the Lord dwelling in the heart of a 
 poor and contrite man, who trembles at His word, 
 by anxiety to obey it. Thus our Lord in St. John 
 4 : 24, ^' God is a Spirit ; and they that worship 
 Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." 
 He needs no temple of mechanical design and 
 workmanship, but is content to abide in the hearts 
 of His faithful people. 
 
 This new and spiritual teaching is then illustrated 
 by the prophet^'s comparison of it with the former 
 system wherein material acts were of chief impor- 
 tance ; but under the new system, the cruelty of 
 killing an ox is likened to the slaying of a man ; 
 the sacrificing a lamb to breaking the neck of a 
 
128 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 dog ; the offering an oblation was deiilement like 
 offering swine's blood : even to burn incense was 
 materialism like idolatry. Yet this people " choose 
 their own methods, and their soul delighteth in 
 their abominations." They do not accept what I 
 have offered them. " I also will choose their de- 
 lusions, and will bring their fears upon them ; be- 
 cause when I called none did answer ; when 1 
 spake they did not hear ; but they did that which 
 was evil in mine eyes, and chose that wherein I de- 
 lighted not. " The reader will now see how utterly 
 different is this part of the prophet's discourse from 
 much that has preceded it. He has leaped beyond 
 the Jerusalem temple, beyond Judsea, to have his 
 Lord found of them who sought Him not. The 
 reference is back to chapter 65, where Persians and 
 Greeks and other Gentiles — nations not called by 
 the Divine name — now inquire for Jehovah and 
 the new covenant which He has made with man. 
 This new dispensation has nothing to do with 
 Cyrus, nor with anything he did, or failed to do, 
 for Israel, Israel the called and the rejected. 
 
 Another matter is connected with it for those who 
 hear the Lord's word : " Your brethren that hated 
 you, that cast you out for My name's sake, have 
 said, Let Jehovah be glorified, that we may see 
 your joy ; but they shall be ashamed." We, your 
 brethren of Ephraim, have seen Baal fall in Sama- 
 ria ; let us see your joy. No, you shall be ashamed ! 
 What, says the prophet, do you not remember 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 120 
 
 the 'Woice of tuimilt from the city," when Sen- 
 nacherib besieged it witli his 200,000 men, and 
 the '^ voice of prayer from the temple," when 
 Hezekiah spread his blasphemous letter before Je- 
 hovah, and the voice which told that He would be 
 avenged upon His enemies and deliver His peo- 
 ple ? Even before they suffered from the siege 
 they were delivered. Not an arrow was shot at 
 them, not a drop of their blood was shed before 
 deliverance came to Jerusalem. The blatant boast- 
 ers heard a rumor and escaped as fast as possible. 
 They were utterly discomfited. Before the pain 
 of travail, because of the siege, came upon the city 
 the siege was raised, and the invaders tied away. 
 Jerusalem rejoiced, and all that loved her also re- 
 joiced. Baal had fallen, but Jehovah had tri- 
 umphed. Those of Ephraim who saw it were 
 ashamed, but Judah rejoiced. 
 
 This, I suggest, may be the exposition of Q6 : 
 6-10. It meets all the points named in the text. 
 Every element is verified, every requirement an- 
 swered ; even the figurative comparison is accounted 
 for in each particular. The conditional element 
 does not here exist. When the prophet wrote it 
 was recent history, and it is a time mark of that 
 fact. Of no other epoch is it applicable ; not to 
 Nebuchadnezzar, and he suffered no defeat ; not to 
 any later time of trouble in Jerusalem, or of the 
 rebuilding of Zion. All the conditions find their 
 yerification when the Assyrian sent his defiant mes- 
 6* 
 
130 THE WHITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 sage to King Hezekiah, and he spread it before the 
 Lord in the temple. Compare Nebuchadnezzar 
 before Bel Merodach. Jehovah triumphed, for the 
 cause was really His. And that wonderful deliv- 
 erance, which the writer compares to an easy ac- 
 couchement of the daughter of Zion, made a deep 
 impression upon the people. It was the talk of the 
 city. 
 
 With this grand event in mind the prophet gives 
 assurance of the final deliverance of Judab from 
 all her foes, and from all her sins. Her peace shall 
 be like a river, and all her wants shall be satisfied. 
 As one whom his mother comforteth, so will Je- 
 hovah comfort her, and she shall be comforted in 
 Jerusalem (66 : 10-14). Sennacherib had defied 
 the Lord ; had compared the gods of even con- 
 quered nations to Him. AVherefore Tarshish, Pul, 
 Lud, Tubal, Javan, and the isles afar off should 
 hear of the fame and glory of Jehovah in rescuing 
 His people. He would come with fire and sword, 
 with chariots like a whirlwind, having great indig- 
 nation against His enemies, and the slain of the 
 Lord shall be many. Men must sanctify them- 
 selves and purify themselves from all idolatry, from 
 eating swine's flesh and the mouse as a religious 
 act, and offer a pure offering in the holy mountain 
 Jerusalem, saith Jehovah, even as Israel bring their 
 offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord. 
 And of the Gentiles will He take for priests and 
 for Levites. But when ? Clearly, as in verse 22^ 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 131 
 
 when Jehovah makes the new heavens and the new 
 earth — i.e., when He estabh'shes the new system of 
 a more spiritual religion ; not when lie has restored 
 the Hebrews from captivity. 
 
 The writer, like St. Paul, leaps from theme to 
 theme. Now he speaks of deliverance from the 
 Assyrian, now of Jehovah in Jerusalem being 
 mightier than Baal in Samaria, and of the comfort 
 He gives to His people ; then he will have Jehovah 
 glorified among the Gentiles, and they shall wor- 
 ship Him with pure offerings on Mount Zion — yea, 
 the time comet h when He will take of them to be 
 His priests and Levites. In verse 23 he indicates 
 how and when the Gentiles — yea, all flesh, shall 
 worship Him ; and they shall see the carcasses of the 
 transgressors against Him (verse 2^1:). So it came 
 to pass. 
 
 The fulfilment of this prophecy was realized in 
 part after the return from Exile. Cyrus, Darius, 
 Artaxerxes, even Alexander the Great, all did honor 
 to the God of the Hebrews. They restored their 
 sacred things which had been captured, and their 
 national privileges w^iich had been forfeited. They 
 made provision for rebuilding the temple and the 
 resumption of its sacrifices, " that they may offer 
 sacrifices of sweet savor unto the God of heaven, 
 and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons." 
 (See Ezra 6 : 1-12 ; 1 : 1-11.) Thus Jehovah was 
 honored by Cyrus and by Darius. After that Ar- 
 taxerxes ordered to teach those who knew not the 
 
132 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 laws of God (Ezra 7 : 25). How Alexander hon- 
 ored Him is stated in Josephiis and briefly ntilized 
 in '' BiWe Growth and Religion," pp. 232, 233. 
 How the opposition of Sanballet and Tobiah, men- 
 tioned in Neh. 2 : 10, was frustrated, we learn in 
 the first part of that chapter. It, in fact, empha- 
 sizes the fostering care of three Persian kings, who, 
 bj decree and by deputy, fulfilled Is. 6^ : 19 and 
 23. The reader should consult the references. 
 
 As in the destruction wrought by Assyrian, Baby- 
 lonian, and Persian armies, all the threats of verses 
 15 and 16 were fulfilled, so in the rebuilding of 
 Jerusalem and the restoration. of the temple and its 
 sacrifices under Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, all 
 the nursing care promised in verses 10-14 found ac- 
 complishment. Even the '' all flesh" of verse 23 
 was largely realized by the injunction of Darius, to 
 *' pray for the life of the king, and of his sons" in 
 the daily service of the temple (Ezra 6 : 10). For 
 then Darius represented the civilized world, except 
 Greece ; Rome had not yet become a power ; and 
 the successor of Cambyses as King of the Medes and 
 Persians was also King of Babylonia and Assyria, 
 of Syria and Judaea, of Egypt also, governing it by 
 deputy. 
 
 Xerxes I. succeeded him, and fulfilled Isaiah 
 46 : 1, for he plundered the temple of Bel and other 
 shrines at Babylon, and carried off their images, 
 which he probably melted into money. They bowed 
 and crouched before him in the coinage. Orelli 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 133 
 
 sajs Artaxerxes carried off Bel and Nebo ; but ac- 
 cording to Herodotus, who is sustained by Rawlin- 
 son, P. Smith, and hiter still by Professor Sayce, 
 this was done by Xerxes I. about 485 b.c, when 
 making his vast preparations for the war against 
 Greece. Then he seized the treasures of Babylon, 
 with their gods of gold and shrines of silver. It 
 was a full century after the fall of Jerusalem. It 
 is another authentication of prophecy. But it was 
 done as a punishment upon a people who often re- 
 belled against the Persian rule, and whose priests 
 were made to suffer for their part in conspiring 
 against the government and inviting Cyrus to be- 
 come their chief. It was the priests of Babylon 
 who compassed the overthrow of Nabonidus. They 
 had excited the people against him ; they rebelled 
 against the successors of Cyrus, and now Xerxes 
 despoiled their temples, and left their priests with- 
 out a sanctuary. 
 
 Thus the prophecy was fulfilled, even if a thor- 
 ough clearance of idolatry from the country was not 
 effected. For the Persians were not in the habit of 
 interfering with the religion of subject peoples, un- 
 less their priests were suspected of fomenting dis- 
 cord, as in Babylon and in Egypt. With the Jews 
 there was no religious opposition to the Persians, 
 and their theology was singularly alike. Chapter 
 QQ : 23 is also fulfilled, as is 19 : 19, by the erec- 
 tion of a temple like that at Jerusalem in Egypt. 
 It was within the sanctuary of old Bubastis, where 
 
134 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 Onias was permitted by the king to set up an altar 
 to Jehovah, and there daily to celebrate a worship 
 only a little less elaborate than that in the temple 
 of Jerusalem. This continued in that old Egyp- 
 tian nome Heliopolis, from 170 B.C. to 73 a.d., 
 when it was destroyed by the Romans. See '' Bible 
 Growth and Religion," pp. 205, 233, 254, and 
 Josephus ad loo. In the slaughter at Babylon by 
 the conspiracy against Nabonidus, and the several 
 punishments inflicted upon her for later rebellions, 
 not to go as late as the conquest of Alexander, there 
 was at least a measurable fulfilment of Is. ^^ : 24. 
 
 Wherefore, to relegate this whole division of the 
 work to a period which makes it history, and not 
 prophecy, is a serious perversion of the text, a part 
 of which refers to 701 b.c, and a part to Cyrus, a 
 part to Darius in 519, his second year (Ezra 4 : 24), 
 and a part to Xerxes in 485, and a part to Arta- 
 xerxes in his twentieth year, or about 445 e.g. As 
 history it covers a period of 256 years ; and, if 
 from an unknown author, could not then have been 
 admitted to a place with the earlier chapters of 
 Isaiah. Its admission there certifies to its early 
 writing. 
 
 I have shown the date of the fall of Bel and 
 Kebo, and that no such writer as was the accom- 
 plished author of chapters 40-66 could write the 
 denunciations against graven images contained in 
 chapters 40, 44, and other passages after 586 b.c. 
 I have conceded that 63.: 18-64 : 12 may be anun- 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 1135 
 
 Explained misplacement of a later prophet. The 
 comparison of Jehovah with graven images, and 
 what is said of Bel and Nebo, of nursing kings for 
 Jndah, of Cyrus and the slain of the Lord, all this 
 was years before the Restoration, before Darius re- 
 quested prayers in Jerusalem *' for the life of the 
 king, and of his sons," and before Artaxerxes en- 
 joined upon Nehemiah to teach the ignorant the 
 laws of God in that land. The prophetic portions 
 were probably written soon after the invasion by 
 Sennacherib, which caused a tumult in the city, 
 also the prayer of Hezekiah in the temple, and the 
 avenging of Jehovah upon the Assyrians suggested 
 in QQ : Q '^ 37 : 1-35. It surely could not have 
 been written when the temple lay in ruins. Nor 
 could the remonstrances against idols have been 
 written after they had been destroyed in Babylon, 
 and had long ceased in Judaea. Making it history 
 creates insuperable difficulties, which disappear 
 when regarded as prophecy. To put the writing of 
 it soon after 700 b.c. makes it a w^onderful com- 
 position of an inspired prophet, while to place it 
 about 485 or 445 b.c. makes it a marvellous rhap- 
 sody, without coherence or possible explanation, of 
 which no theory of a " conditional element" per- 
 vading it is an approximate solution. 
 
 To say that the passages describing a suffering 
 Messiah and the Messiah regnant and triumphant 
 were fulfilled before 444 b.c. is hardly paying " a 
 decent respect to the opinions of mankind." If 
 
136 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 
 
 the writer were not Isaiah of Jerusalem, he must 
 have flourished in the latter part of that era, being 
 a jiiniop companion prophet, and, like him, possess- 
 ing all kinds of talent and all beauties of discourse, 
 treating of Redemption Promised, of Redemp- 
 tive Accompaniments, and of Redemption in its 
 realization. 
 
 Very early all that now forms the Book of Isaiah 
 was closely connected in ms. It was enrolled as 
 canonical before the close of the prophetic era, 
 which proves as sure as dawn precedes the day its 
 ancient authentication. Divine Inspiration is evi- 
 dent all through the Book, and elucidates its con- 
 tents — tlie vision in chapter 6 and QQ : 6. The 
 Divine voice attests the later as well as the earlier 
 chapters, and the later as well as the earliest Biblical 
 Books. It chose Abraham rather than any other 
 Semite ; it chose Isaac rather than Ishmael, Jacob 
 rather than Esau, and the tribe of Judah as the line 
 whence the Messiah should descend, rather than 
 Jacob's first-born. And so Inspired Prophecy and 
 Miraculous Events were required for the grand ac- 
 complishment of those ancient choosings. The sub- 
 ject really is not Israel, nor Cyrus, not Exile, or 
 return from it, but Preparation for the Redemp- 
 tion of the world '^ Hebrew election and Gentile 
 calling, temple sacrifices and prophetic deliverances 
 being necessary elements in the great preparation 
 of two thousand years. See this wrought out in 
 ** Bible Growth and Religion." 
 
BEFORE THE EXILE. 137 
 
 My plan did not include a notice of those writers 
 who differ from me, which confuses the ordinary 
 reader, and is not needed by the learned. Yet I 
 must mention Canon Driver, who in his " Life and 
 Times of Isaiah," as I understand him, holds that 
 those grand chapters, 40-66, relate to One who was 
 a Deliverer of Israel /'r6>m captivity^ and would not 
 allow the Bahylonians to restrain them from re- 
 turning to Palestine. They shall return in grand 
 processions, and Zion shall be rebuilt ! But is not 
 that rather small work for which to invoke Him 
 who inhabiteth Eternity, calling to the Isles and the 
 nations afar off to behold His wonders ? Erelong: 
 those Babylonians ceased to be a nation, and the Per- 
 sians possessed their lands. Never could the isles 
 of the Mediterranean Sea nor the distant nations 
 hear the prophet east of the Euphrates ! Even 
 when scattered through the empire before Babylon 
 fell, no large assembly of Hebrews could be gath- 
 ered into one place where the prophet might ad- 
 dress them ; and it were useless for him to lift up 
 his voice or cry unto widely scattered captives ! 
 Of course, the prophecy is in poetic style, but its 
 language has the ordinary meaning. Applied to 
 residents in the cities of Judaea before the Exile, it 
 is easily understood ; but to assign it to a time when 
 Judah was scattered over the empire obscures the 
 sense. The learned canon overlooks this. 
 
 Nor does he explain chapter 53 according to the 
 demands of the text. It confessedly is not applic- 
 
138 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH. 
 
 able to any one, except the rejected and crucified 
 Christ. For Jehovah did not lay our iniquity on 
 Cyrus ; nor was he oppressed and dumb under it, 
 like a sheep in the hands of her shearers. He was 
 not taken away by oppression and an unjust judg- 
 ment, nor cut off prematurely, nor stricken for 
 Israel. Not for Cyrus did they make a grave with 
 the wicked, and with the rich in his death. Nor 
 did the Lord bruise him and put him to grief ; nor 
 was he ever made a sin-offering for the people. 
 The whole chapter is singularly inapplicable to 
 Cyrus. Head it in the Revised Version. 
 
 Of Isaiah 61, St. Luke tells us that our Lord ap- 
 plied the first verses to Himself, thus : ^' To-day 
 hath this Scripture been fulfilled in your ears" (St. 
 Luke 4 : 16-23, Revised Version). The authority 
 is supreme and absolute, that it could not have been 
 fulfilled in the time of Cyrus. Our Lord forecloses 
 all doubt as to its meaning and application. I pre- 
 sume Canon Driver will acknowledge its force and 
 obligation. 
 
iir. 
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD APPLIED TO 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 It is only in illustration of our subject to say that 
 we regard the foregoing pages as the outcome of 
 the findings, if not in strict logical sequence of fol- 
 lowing the scientific method in such themes. For 
 science has been well defined to be the knowledge 
 of the laws which govern phenomena. It is not 
 the law nor the phenomena, but the knowledge of 
 those laws which govern the manifestations of na- 
 ture. Hence science is knowledge, and not agnos- 
 ticism. It is what men have learned and know 
 touching this or the other matter. Hence it is the 
 product of experience and of experiment. Such 
 science we may apply to Revelation and to Biblical 
 exegesis, the Bible being received upon the testi- 
 mony of disinterested and truthful men. Bible 
 religion began anew with Abraham, who had no 
 motive to deceive his child. 
 
 1. All true history is the record of what others 
 or we oui-selves have done ; the transcript of human 
 phenomena and achievements ; the knowledge of 
 
140 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 
 
 wliat has been or is being done. Some one lias 
 thought, has spoken, has put the word into deed ; 
 and the record and sequence of that is science in 
 history, in the Bible, in religion. It is not a jum- 
 ble nor an aggregate, but sequence in nature, in 
 man, in the revelations and unfoldings of Deity. 
 
 There is no such thing as science in nature, for 
 nature does not know, it simply is. But our knowl- 
 edge of the laws and manifestations of nature is 
 scientific. Natural science is our knowledge of the 
 laws which govern nature, or its manifestations. 
 But science cannot affirm or deny the alleged dream 
 of Alexander at Dium, nor the crossing of the Ru- 
 bicon by Caesar, nor the signing of the Declaration 
 of Independence by our fathers. Still our knowl- 
 edge of history may suggest similar occurrences ; 
 as that of the Barons of England obtaining Magna 
 Charta from King John, the invasion of Italy by 
 Hannibal, and the dream of Philip of Macedon. 
 Thus our knowledge enables us to probe and test 
 the evidence upon which a certain dream rests, or 
 a plunge was made, or a treaty was signed. 
 
 2. With a priori, or a posteriori probabilities our 
 science has little to do, except so far as our knowl- 
 edge is concerned. Thus 2 X 2 = 4 is perhaps 
 eternally true, and never will be 3 or 5. Also that 
 water below 32° freezes on our planet. Observa- 
 tion and testimony certify to this, and history tells 
 us it has been so since the beginning of human 
 records or of geologic time. Our a jpriori notions 
 
APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 141 
 
 are corrected by experiences. Men and women of 
 the same temperament and characteristics are not 
 alwajs the most happy in wedlock. The greatest 
 of our race have left rather feeble successors : Peri- 
 cles, Alexander, Cfesar, Cicero, Shakespeare, Mil- 
 ton, Goethe, Cromwell, Washington, Napoleon, 
 Gibbon, Hume, Johnson, Carlyle, etc. Even in 
 Bible story, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and other 
 prophets, John Baptist, St. John and St. Paul, left 
 no heirs of mark or distinguished merit. Nor will 
 our expectations be realized if we look for the fin- 
 est potatoes, the choicest cabbages, and the fairest 
 flowers from seeds of the largest and most per- 
 fect of their several kinds. Here experience — i.e., 
 science tells us that by the law of reversion the 
 very finest seeds usually produce the poorest crops 
 in return. Nature exhausts herself, and so teaches 
 us to correct our otherwise reasonable expectations. 
 The farmer and gardener learn from their elders. 
 
 So of natural science : Kepler's law of the plan- 
 etary distances, Newton's law of the force of attrac- 
 tion, with sundry calculation tables, come to our 
 knowledge and to the mass of mankind upon the 
 testimony of others. We know them only at second 
 hand. Learned professors and their humblest 
 scholars depend upon lists and classifications w^hich 
 others had made for them. They have not proved 
 them. Libraries of large volumes may be filled 
 with the names of plants, insects, birds, fishes, mam- 
 mals, including man ; of geological strata and their 
 
142 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 
 
 contents, whicli no late scientist has proved for him- 
 self or knows of except upon the testimony of 
 otliers. There are myriads of books in the various 
 departments of knowledge which one has not exam- 
 ined, who accepts their results upon trust, that mir- 
 acle of human confidence. Even the reports of re- 
 cent observers and explorers in the flora and fauna 
 of our world are read by few. Agnostics should be 
 indeed modest, for they know but little, and take 
 most of that little upon trust in the truth of what is 
 told them. The Christian goes perhaps a step 
 farther, but carefully sifts all testimony touching the 
 facts of revelation and the so-called doctrines of re- 
 ligion. And why not ? Is not the testimony to 
 the truth of Holy Scripture as credible and trust- 
 worthy as that of Cuvier or Lyell, of Audubon or 
 Linnaeus, of Darwin or Dawson ? In the world of 
 nature, as of revelation, man ever depends upon the 
 testimony of man. So it is time to have done with 
 lauding the certainties of science above the so-called 
 guesses of Revelation. Both rest on testimony. 
 And the testimony of Christians is no more fanati- 
 cal than that of scientists. Anaxagoras and Aris- 
 totle were as fanatical as St. James and St. Mark. 
 
 3. However poor a handling the clergy make of 
 certain questions related to theology, their training 
 for centuries was such as to fit them to be the lead- 
 ers and formers of society, of the literature and of 
 the higher life of the nations. Not only did they 
 tame savage men into reason and culture, they also 
 
APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 143 
 
 converted and transformed tliem ; they nuiUipHed 
 copies of the ancient writings and of Holy Scripture, 
 and with the dawn of modern life tliey supplied the 
 people with an open Bible in Germany, England, 
 France, and later on the world over. Wickliffe, 
 Tyndale, and other translators and revisers of the 
 Bible formed the language of England and America. 
 
 Indeed, the Church's methods in her search after 
 truth have long been the same as those pursued in 
 our State courts, but without a party concerned to 
 suppress important facts. Our theological semina- 
 ries worthy of the name seek for the facts and 
 origins of their ecclesiastical and dogmatic systems. 
 Unlike colleges which teach Greek, Eoman, and 
 other ancient hteratures as they tind them in cur- 
 rent texts, the theologian is taught and required to 
 sift his text and the authority for it, as well as its 
 interpretation. This did Lightfoot, Westcott, Elli- 
 cott, Cheyne, etc., in England ; Turner, Briggs, 
 Green, Harper in America ; and numbers whom 
 every scholar knows on the European continent. 
 They seek for the right text to interpret as well as 
 for the right principles of interpretation. 
 
 But judging from recent utterances on both sides 
 the ocean, one might suppose that the Christian 
 Church had not ever been the teacher of good ethics, 
 culture, and criticism ; that she had not led in the 
 ways of learning and of civilization. She founded 
 the colleges of the old world, and also many of our 
 land — Harvard, Yale, Columbia, with many of re- 
 
144 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 
 
 cent date, whose chairs she has filled with Christian 
 scholars. From Bede to Abelard and the two 
 Bacons, Roger and Sir Francis, the path is strewn 
 with the works of Christian writers — of Caedmon 
 aird Lanfranc, Anselm and Chaucer, Gower, Frois- 
 sart and Mandeville, Sir T. More and William 
 Tjndale. Even Spenser, Shakespeare, and Rare 
 Ben Jonson received inspiration from the literature 
 of the Church. She gave lawyers to the State and 
 judges to the bench ; she humbled Henry IV., of 
 Germany, and Frederick, the Redbeard ; she soft- 
 ened the asperity of barons, incited to chivalry and 
 the Crusades, conquered the barbarians who tram- 
 pled down the old civilization ; and when Constanti- 
 nople fell to the Turks she received and provided 
 for her exiled scholars. The jSIew World was 
 peopled by her colonists, who copied her attain- 
 ments in life and in arts, as well as in science and 
 religion. But she does not so often talk about what 
 she has done as of what remains to be done. 
 
 Thus she illustrates what Bishop Thompson tersely 
 says in his Lectures : '' The beast eats the phenom- 
 ena, or drinks it, and thinks no more about it." 
 So she follows the scientific way of seeking truth, 
 she absorbs it, inculcates it upon others, but says 
 little about it. Even of the Sermon on the Mount 
 she inquires what and where it is before she ex- 
 pounds it. So of this or that miracle, at the Red 
 Sea, at Gadara, at Olivet, slie first certifies to the 
 record, and then accepts and teaches it. Now one 
 
APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 145 
 
 of her sons devotes his studies to the prophets, now 
 to the Gospels, now to the Epistles, and now to the 
 primitive records of mankind and the early Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 4. Whether St. Paul's writings stimulate and 
 exalt the religious sense is not enough for the 
 Church to know, but she is bound to know, from 
 reasonable evidence of their date, style, character, 
 and early acceptance, that they are the writings of 
 St. Paul. That is the scientific method. So of the 
 Epistles of St. Peter and St. John and of the 
 Fourth Gospel. 
 
 There are confessedly some old Apocryphal writ- 
 ings which are true as history, true and elevating in 
 etliic, but which are not accounted by the Church 
 universal as inspired ; for they never received pro- 
 phetic endorsement and attestation. Hence, despite 
 their quality, they are not included in the canon of 
 Holy Scripture. 
 
 We all remember the recent work .of the revisers 
 of the Old and New Testament ; that some four- 
 score scholars were long engaged in deciding upon 
 their text and its proper translation into modern 
 English ; and that in several instances they elim- 
 inated portions of the text ; for example, St. John 
 8 : 1-11 ; 1 Ep. St. John 5 : Y-9 ; the Doxology 
 to the Lord's Prayer following St. Matt. (> : 13, 
 with other lesser changes. These we may examine 
 for ourselves and judge of the method and its re- 
 sult, while we assume no superior learning. A text 
 7 
 
146 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 
 
 has been furnished which for the most part is up to 
 modern scholarship, and bears the test of Greek 
 criticism. 
 
 For the reasons that the Church allows such 
 emendation of canonical Scripture, she rejects the 
 story of Augustine, that the flesh of the peacock 
 never decays, for w^hicli Mr. Burroughs laughs at 
 the saint. But to hold the Church responsible for 
 it is extremely unjust. 
 
 Since the Council of Nicsea, the assembled Church 
 has never promulgated a mere opinion as a doctrine 
 of salvation, or necessary to be believed. Kather 
 has she inquired in the true scientific v/ay, What 
 Was taught in the beginning ? How did the early 
 teachers and bishops understand the question ? 
 What is the teaching of Scripture about it ? Neither 
 primitive Christianity nor the Orthodox Christian- 
 ity of to-day requires men to believe in the develop- 
 ment of doctrines of salvation. These were revised 
 and authenticated by our Lord and His Apostles, 
 and they may not be added to or diminished. 
 Questions of polity and of discipline may be changed 
 or modified to suit the times, but the whole Church 
 assembled in Council has no power to change doc- 
 trines of salvation. 
 
 So St. Paul, in Gal. 1:8,'^ Though we, or an 
 angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gos- 
 pel other than that which we have preached unto 
 you, let him be anathema ;" and he repeats the 
 curse for so doing in the next verse. The doctrines 
 
APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 147 
 
 of salvation were given at the first ; the Church 
 and her heralds are but the teachers of the Glad 
 Tidings, which never change. 'No law of reversion 
 pertains to Christ, but He enjoins His people to go 
 on unto perfection in the Faith once delivered to 
 them. Ours it is to ask what was tirst taught ; how 
 that teaching has been preserved ; and whether we 
 now have trustworthy records of it ? We may reject 
 all later additions and insertions to the Creed of 
 Christ and the primitive Church. Such is the sci- 
 entific method applied to theology and to Christian 
 history. It is the law of religious phenomena 
 whereby we may weigh the spiritual manifestations. 
 5. And when we consider intellectual processes 
 and achievements, what becomes of our science ? 
 "We find in Macbeth and in the Comus what no 
 previous writer of our tongue had led us to expect, 
 a sort of literary miracle. There is a touch and a 
 fancy quite unexpected, something which our soul 
 appropriates as well as our mind. It is immortal as 
 mind. It is not merely the words we read, but their 
 deeper meaning disclosed by their setting. Yet 
 there was nothing in the times and the unfold- 
 ings which environed Shakespeare and Milton that 
 would naturally produce such work. In other 
 words, their work was not expected before they ex- 
 emplified their talents. And so it has been with all 
 great achievements of the mind. The material 
 wonders of Morse and Edison were only guessed as 
 possible after the experiments of Frankhn and New- 
 
148 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 
 
 ton and Francis and Roger Bacon. Chemistry and 
 physics are prophetic of mysterious phenomena, and 
 miracle is merged in expectation. In the material 
 world the unexpected rarely happens. We have 
 forecasts of the weather, and of this or that discov- 
 ery. But none of these discoverers of telephones 
 and continents can sing like the Bard of Avon and 
 of Paradise Lost. 
 
 So in the Sermon on the Mount there is purity 
 unexcelled and nobility of sentiment unsurpassed, 
 which uttered in that age and in that '^ outlandish 
 corner of Judsea' ' are even more wonderful than the 
 originality. And if we consider it a Divine proph- 
 ecy of the ethics which shall yet prevail on this 
 earth, that surely makes its utterance then all the 
 more wonderful. To be smitten on the one cheek 
 and then offer the other to the smiter is a prophecy 
 of conduct which concerns the smiter as well as the 
 smitten. For it suggests a principle of action be- 
 coming operative among men, when the rude hand 
 of a smiter shall be as rare a surprise as it now is 
 for the smitten one to turn the other cheek. It is 
 there, more than in the purity and nobility of the 
 sentiment, that the Divineness lies and the superi- 
 ority of the Speaker consists. He, with all the hu- 
 man odds and environment against Him, then ut- 
 tered a code of ethics which He foresaw would 
 become the heritage and the rule of mankind. Mil- 
 ton, in the '' Comus," was only a copyist of that 
 prophecy. To the sister is ascribed that deep- 
 
APPLIED TO THE lilBLE. 149 
 
 souled purity, that true unsuspicion of evil, which 
 makes her strong against a thousand dangers. Of 
 the power of magic she had no experience and no 
 fears, but her more knowing brothers were all the 
 more anxious for her rescue. They feared to trust 
 perfect, but inexperienced innocence with a con- 
 summate trickster, whose strength might win the 
 mastery. And the rule is safe for all untried char- 
 acters. 
 
 But we are told of One w^ho did resist a con- 
 summate master in all wicked arts, and it was be- 
 fore He spoke that famous Sermon. Why shall we 
 accept His discourses, yet discredit His encounters 
 and achievements ? What quality is there in the 
 utterance which was not in the Person ? Why shall 
 we immortalize His words while we refuse immor- 
 tality to Him and to His Person ? But it is be- 
 coming the fashion to deny the raising of Lazarus 
 and the resurrection of our Lord, though His words 
 of comfort to the sisters are admitted to be genuine 
 and His later words to His disciples ! There they 
 were to end except in memory ! The Soul that 
 bore them, the minds of the greatest among men — 
 Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Paul, Plato, Pascal— despite 
 of all their celestial qualities, are to end like the 
 grass or like the grain eaten by a beast ! And 
 soul-powers which are perfect m their manifesta- 
 tions to the last moment of mortal life shall cease 
 like the herbage of the field when cut down on a 
 sunny day, and their life go out with the sunset ! 
 
150 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 
 
 And this because of our ignorance, and that we 
 have had no experience of continued life other than 
 in our posterity, or in posthumous reputation ! 
 
 6. We saw how the mental achievements were 
 unexpected till accomplished by those whom we have 
 named ; we have seen and known how much in life 
 is taken upon trust, and that in the world of matter 
 its analysis, nomenclature, classifications, are also 
 taken upon trust in what others have done in their 
 several lines of work, and that systems and sciences 
 are built upon them from Copernicus to Kepler, 
 Kewton, Darwin, and Spencer ; why then may we 
 not proceed in similar lines of discovery in the realm 
 of mind and soul and God ? Why shall we stumble 
 at " Thy brother shall rise again," '' Whosoever 
 believeth in Me shall never die !" since upon the 
 uniform testimony of all who knew Him — five hun- 
 dred at one time — He who spoke those new words 
 did actually Himself rise again ? Every recurrence 
 of Easter, every Lord's day, certifies to it as surely 
 as that the Passover testifies to the Exodus ! The 
 Hebrew had his Passover and the restoration of the 
 son of the widow of Zarephath ; but the Christian 
 has the daughter of Jairns, the widow's son at 
 Nain, Brother Lazarus, Jesus in His Resurrection 
 and Ascension, all testifying to the power and truth 
 of Him who restored life. 
 
 As we receive the records of the Old Testament 
 and of the New upon testimony which has been 
 thoroughly probed, we follow the scientific method 
 
APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 151 
 
 as closely as any scientist who accepts the findings 
 and classifications of others ; indeed, more so, for 
 the Church has borne constant witness to what she 
 receiv^ed, while the investigations of scientists have 
 been but occasional and sporadic. They have no 
 perpetual witness like that of Hebrew and Chris- 
 tian writers. So even the Resurrection was not 
 a new experience. The new thing about it was 
 that one should come to life and rise from the grave 
 without the intervention of known personal agency. 
 Other revivifications were by recognized prophets 
 like Elijah, Elisha, and by Him who, after raising 
 others, was Himself raised from the grave. Indeed, 
 St. Matthew says that the Pharisees expected this, 
 and by the order of Pilate went and made the sep- 
 ulchre sure, sealing the stone to make it safe, the 
 guard being with them (27 : 63-66). And the 
 earliest Christian art, as well as preaching, agrees in 
 the representation. The resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ was expected, and had been foretold. The 
 only question for us is, are the accounts true ? 
 
 Hence, we also ask, are the accounts true that 
 Columbus discovered any part of America and 
 that Sir Walter Raleigh found potatoes and tobacco 
 here, which were new to Europeans ? Or shall we 
 take those accounts like the humorous story of 
 Charles Lamb of how the Chinese first learned of 
 roast pig ? He, however, does not deny the previ- 
 ous existence of pigs. Nor did Raleigh deny the 
 existence of potatoes and tobacco. But they were 
 
152 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 
 
 a new experience with him. Yet a '* scientist" 
 lately dogmatizes that, *' What we know, we know 
 only through the senses !" How, then, can we 
 know who discovered America ? or whether Euro- 
 peans first learned of potatoes and tobacco from the 
 American Indians ? or whether Caesar ever con- 
 quered Britain ? or whether the Declaration of In- 
 dependence was written by those who are said to 
 have written it ? How does the scientist know the 
 true from the spurious ? whether his coffee is gen- 
 uine or adulterated ? whether his sugar is from cane 
 or corn ? his paper made of cotton or linen, and his 
 cloth dyed with Indigo or Prussian blue ? Scien- 
 tists, like Christians, take much of their knowledge 
 at second hand. Both largely depend upon the 
 testimony of others. If one can demonstrate a 
 fact, the other feels the witness to what he be- 
 lieves abiding within him (1 Ep. St. John 3 
 and 4). 
 
 7. Yet he is not all heart and feeling and subjec- 
 tivity. He believes in objective truths, doctrines, 
 and revelations which were duly certified to in old 
 times by Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, Ezra, 
 by our Lord and His Apostles. The testimony has 
 received continuous certifications in its passage 
 through the centuries. This is but the alphabet of 
 our religion. All theologians of repute maintain 
 the necessity of belief in the objective revelation of 
 God as well as in subjective faith in Christ ; in re- 
 ligious truth as well as religious feeling. And so the 
 
APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 153 
 
 witness in the soul of a devout man testifies to the 
 power of a great Saviour. Behold tlie martyrs ! 
 
 Thus, he who decries the scientific method in 
 Christians exemplifies his ignorance of Christian 
 training in the principles of investigation. We 
 deprecate all mere assumption and tlie hlind follow- 
 ing of a theory. We require proof of all we be- 
 lieve. We are taught to '^ read, mark, learn, and 
 inwardly digest ;" to be ever ready to give to the 
 inquirer a reason for our belief ; to prepare in time 
 for the joys and unfoldings of eternity. We are to 
 k7iow Him in whom we believe ; to worship an ob- 
 jective God by means of an objective agency such 
 as we find in the Church. 
 
 If it be said that the Church has no oinginal copy 
 of the Holy Scriptures, it must not be forgotten 
 that she was the living witness to their authenticity 
 when first given ; so that for the Scriptures of the 
 time of David we have her living testimony in that 
 age, so of the time of Hezekiah, of Jeremiah, and 
 of Ezra ; men of learning quite competent to do so 
 passed upon the Scriptures of that time ; they had 
 the living testimony of those who recei ved the writ- 
 ten Word, and God bore them witness. 
 
 Then of the Septuagint at the close of the third 
 century e.g., the witnessing Church certified to the 
 Sacred Writings and accepted a translation which 
 to-day asserts itself, and is becoming more and 
 more recognized as of equal authority with the He- 
 brew text. Schrader claims that the more exact 
 
154 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 
 
 forms of Hebrew words and names are those pre- 
 served in the Septiiagint ; and he cites the Assyrian 
 Bin-hidri — i.e., Ben-hadra, in illustration. (Schaff's 
 Herzog, sub Benhadad.) 
 
 When we study the era of Origen and of Jerome, 
 what is more unscientific than to say that these men 
 in their collation and translation of Hebrew and 
 Greek Scriptures did not have access to trustworthy 
 copies of the ancient text ? Why, the " Hexapla" of 
 Origen proves the contrary. Athenagoras and Jus- 
 tin Martyr are witnesses of the fact. Indeed, Cuvier, 
 Darwin, and Spencer collate supposed facts and 
 specimens to elucidate their theories which have 
 not a tenth part of the evidence of genuineness as 
 liave the Hebrew and Greek text which we receive 
 to-day. There were schools of the prophets from 
 Samuel to Jeremiah ; while from Ezra to Matta- 
 thias, and from our Lord to Jerome, the Church, 
 Hebrew and Christian, testiried to the Sacred 
 Books. What facts of science or of history are 
 more strongly attested ? 
 
 One-half of the three years' course in our theo- 
 loorical seminaries is devoted to Biblical and Church 
 history, to evidences which authenticate the genuine- 
 ness and credibility of the Old and Kew Testament, 
 to the rules and principles of correct interpretation. 
 Some knowledge of the langnages in which the Bible 
 was written is required, not as an exercise in grammar 
 and syntax, but the better to understand that Bible 
 and how to explain it correctly. Christianity has a 
 
APPLIED TO THE IJIBLE. 155 
 
 history as well as offices, functions, and usages ; and 
 these are to be studied along with the Scriptures 
 upon which it is founded. Indeed, how to reach a 
 correct exegesis of Scripture is much longer dwelt 
 upon than how to preach to the people. The 
 method is scientific, even if the preaching is poor. 
 
 However, they who have never taken such a 
 course are not the men to lecture the Church on how 
 to apply the scientific method to exposition of the 
 Bible. It cannot be done in a sermon of a Sunday. 
 To explain the creation of man in Genesis by the 
 legend of Bel's head being cut off, and the blood 
 which flowed from his body being mixed with the 
 earth or clay from which the first man was God- 
 made and endowed with the Divine life, will be 
 easier to do after the Chaldean account in Genesis 
 is more generally known. 
 
 So of Gen. 3 : 15. The old Hindus had a sav- 
 iour and serpent-killer in Krishna, one of their 
 Avatars, who '^ was not altogether invulnerable, for 
 when he crushed the head of the serpent of Jumna 
 he was poisoned in the heel, ai d was cured only by 
 drinking the milk of the goddess Parvati Durga, the 
 Warrior, from whose eye the goddess Kalli sprang 
 in complete armor, like Minerva from the head of 
 Jupiter." See the collocation of "Legends of a 
 Kedeemer" in " God Enthroned in Kedemption," 
 pp. Y-37. The variations in the legends emphasize 
 the truth of our Genesis, while the legends of early 
 belief in God and His worship overturn Mr. 
 
156 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 
 
 Spencer's theory of the evolution of religion among 
 men. 
 
 In all phenomena, spiritual and material, objec- 
 tive or subjective, the first inquiry is for the evi- 
 dence upon which the manifestations depend. As 
 in the case of the demoniac of Gadara, we are told 
 who was the Healer, what was the disease, and tke 
 subject of it. We have Christ, an evil spirit, and 
 the man possessed. It is no more wonderful than 
 other instances of healing, except that an evil power 
 or entity had been permitted to enter and possess a 
 man. Is this any more marvellous than the evil 
 power, called the serpent, which entered Eden and 
 tempted Mother Eve ? Admit the first recorded 
 instance of Satanic influence, and all that follow are 
 quite explicable. What became of the expelled 
 demon is of no account. He was not destroyed, 
 but only expelled ; and not being disabled, he went 
 and took possession of another, or rather the legion 
 possessed another company of creatures. The his- 
 tory of the occurrence, if it stand the test of being 
 a truthful record, must be received just as we ac- 
 cept any other narrative, as, for example, the his- 
 tory of the martyrs. And every martyrdom for 
 Jesus Christ attests His life and works, as well as 
 the faith of the martyred and the doctrines of 
 Christianity. There is a joint testimony of the ob- 
 jective and subjective. 
 
 But because we to-day have no experience of such 
 healing and such martyrdom we ought not to call 
 
APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 157 
 
 it unscientific to believe tliey ever occurred ; for 
 tliej were just as real at the time as the inscriptions 
 on Egyptian tombs and the tablets of Babylonia, 
 which were long buried out of sight. The testi- 
 mony of primitive man and of contemporary his- 
 tory may be as credible as what we see about us. 
 And there are universal beliefs, concepts, records, 
 legends which, because they are so universal, must 
 be regarded as true. Among these is belief in evil 
 spirits in Eden, in Babylon, in Egypt and Iran. 
 Every ancient people had a devil of some sort. 
 Every ancient literature embodies the idea as a fact, 
 and also how to cure its hurt and evade its power. 
 The thought is no more prevalent or potent in Judaea 
 than in Egypt, in Bactria, and in Babylonia. So it 
 becomes as clearly the affirmation of science as any- 
 thing propounded by Darwin or H. Spencer. The 
 attestations of universal mankind must be accepted 
 as scientific and in the highest degree credible. In- 
 deed, a true record commands belief. See chapter 
 4, touching Legends of Evil Spirits in "" God in 
 Creation." 
 
 8. Recent discovery of ancient facts also confirms 
 the fact and the time of the Sojourn in Egypt. 
 Thus, R. S. Poole has called attention to Mr. 
 Groffs identification of two names of prominence in 
 the Pentateuch, in the lists of Karnak, among the 
 tribes made prisoners at Megiddo by Thothmes III. 
 — viz., Jacob-El and Joseph-El, transposed or short- 
 ened a little. Some Hebrews during this obscure 
 
158 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 
 
 period were engaged in border wars and even in 
 military service abroad. This is consonant with the 
 story of the death of Ephraim's sons in a border 
 foray (1 Chron. 7 : 20, 21), and tlie fact that the 
 Israelites marched out of Egypt in battle array (Ex. 
 13 : 18). The A7nerlcan Register^ of Paris, re- 
 marks of the report to the Academy of Inscriptions 
 and Belles Lettres, after a thorongh discussion of 
 the subject, that, ''It is more than likely — and in 
 this consists the great value of this new version — 
 that in this fact we have gained a clew to an episode 
 in the history of the children of Israel between their 
 arrival in Egypt and exodus." 
 
 It means that Thothmes III. in his wars in Pal- 
 estine captured two persons who were worshippers 
 of El, and were probably Hebrews. One bore the 
 name Jacob, the other Joseph, named after those 
 patriarchs. They were carried to Egypt by Thoth- 
 mes III. in the sixteenth century b.c. Our Bible 
 Jacob was already dead, and Thothmes may have 
 been the " king who knew not Joseph," a successor 
 of those who expelled the Hyksos. 
 
 The mummy of Sekenen-Ka, who had been mor- 
 tally wounded in the contest, and that of Rameses II. 
 were found in a vault near Thebes in 1881. And 
 Bameses II. took great pains to erase the names of 
 Hyksos and other kings from the statues at Bubastis, 
 and to inscribe his own in their place. Miss Ed- 
 wards shows that Joseph served under two kings. 
 The first of them was Apepi, who probably killed 
 
APPLIED TO THE IJIMLE. 159 
 
 Sekenen-Ra. Other findings disclose that the Is- 
 raeh'tes were held in servitude after the expulsion 
 of the shepherd kings. 
 
 M. Naville, as the result of Egyptian explora- 
 tion work, in 1885 rehabilitated old Pithom, its thick 
 walls and edifices built by the Israelites, some bricks 
 with straw and some without straw, when the heavy 
 hand of Kameses II. lay hard upon them. His 
 name is the oldest of any one found in this border 
 fort and store-city. It was his own work, and not, 
 as at Bubastis, an usurpation, the name of Rameses 
 II. inscribed on the work of his predecessors. 
 Pithom, indeed, now certifies to the name of the 
 Pharaoh and Exodus to the people who built it. 
 Thus, the recovered works and the ancient record 
 supplement each other. The bricks prove their 
 builders and when they wrought. 
 
 In Schrader's '^ Cuneiform Inscriptions," vol. 
 2, p. 147, we learn that Jonah must have lived and 
 delivered his message to the Ninevites a century 
 before Sargon II. built Khorsabad. Under him 
 l^ineveh embraced Kalah, Rehoboth, and Dur- 
 Sarrukin. Including these towns, the circumference 
 of the capital would be about ninety miles, or more 
 than three days' journey for a footman, more nearly 
 five days' journey. So the population, including 
 120,000 that could not discern between right and 
 wrong, or under eight years of age, is not overesti- 
 mated in Jonah 4 : 11 ; nor its greatness of three 
 days' journey round it in 3 : 3, 4. Our scientific 
 
160 THE SCIEJ^TIFIC METHOD 
 
 method confirms the text. We find ilUistrations in 
 Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and India of the historical 
 and prophetical portions of Scripture. 
 
 We have to deal with matters far more tangible 
 than sentiment, feelings, and emotions ; we have dog- 
 matic formulas, historical records, and a God-given 
 Revelation to prove and illustrate. Consideration 
 of comparative religion is quite young, but it must 
 receive attention, and so of different forms of Chris- 
 tianity. What is the effect of dogma in Scotland 
 and in Italy ? What is the outcome of Creed or 
 the want of Creed in America ? Where there is a 
 blending of Creed with Conduct are the people 
 more soundly Christian in faith and works ? What 
 is the relation between doing the will and knowing 
 the doctrine ? 
 
 9. How can we meet the statement that '^ the 
 Hesurrection is a myth which is kept alive because 
 mankind have such a profound interest in believ- 
 ing it ? " Thus, for example : The Resurrection is 
 but the authentication by Jesus Christ of life with- 
 .out the body, in which men have believed ever since 
 fossil men provided an eternal habitation for their 
 dead, and placed amulets in the skulls of the de- 
 ceased in order to secure happiness and exemption 
 from evil in the disembodied state ; in which men 
 showed their belief by the judgment scenes of 
 Amenti in Egypt, in the Realm of Allat, and Life 
 Eternal in the land of the silver sky of Babylonia, 
 and in various legends touching immortality ; all 
 
APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 101 
 
 which are unfolded in " God in Creation" and in 
 *' Bible Growth and Religion." It was believed 
 before Abraham lived or the Lord arose, before 
 St. Paul preached it, or Athenagoras was converted 
 to it, or Justin Martyr died for it ; and it has be- 
 come the accepted belief of many who had been un- 
 believers, from the first to the nineteenth century. 
 
 But this should not prevent a scientific searching 
 for the facts of history and the phenomena of tlie 
 Spirit of God, so that others may know why Chris- 
 tians to-day believe in the llesurrection of their 
 Lord, and that His followers eighteen hundred years 
 ago so believed. That we now have no experience 
 of such events is really no more oppugnant to the 
 facts than, because continents are not now discov- 
 ered and Britain is not now conquered, therefore 
 the story of Columbus and of Julius Caesar is false ! 
 Yet doubters of old came to believe in it. As well 
 might the Indian deny salt and sugar to be in use any- 
 where before Europeans brought them to his notice. 
 As well might the East Indian prince deny the 
 veracity of the traveller who told him that in his 
 country the water became so hard in winter that 
 men walked on it and so crossed over rivers ! Pre- 
 cisely so is it with them who " know only what they 
 know through the senses." The senses, indeed, 
 disclose only a small part of human knowledge. 
 
 10. Moreover, may we not trust to our intuitions 
 and soul perceptions as well as to what we know 
 through our sense perceptions ? So that when we 
 
16-^ THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 
 
 have done with glaciers and moths, protoplasm and 
 materialistic studies, with all other human culture, 
 learning and proving all that we can ever learn and 
 prove, we may have the assurance not only of rest, 
 but of blessedness. For seeds die to live again in 
 plant and flower ; from dying life to springing life 
 is the law of the things we see about us. Nature 
 does not disappoint proper expectations. Slie is no 
 more cruel than ^ha is kind : she is Nature. 
 
 Why, then, shall the minds she has matured and 
 ripened, the souls slie has filled with thoughts of God 
 and longings for immortality, have no continuance in 
 that environment where they can best unfold their 
 possibilities ? More surely than the boyhood of 
 Shakespeare and Milton prophesied of their future 
 achievements does the spirit of a thoughtful man 
 prophesy of the opportunities which shall hereafter 
 be afforded him. 
 
 Neither the be-all nor the end-all is here and now 
 for any man of aspiration and soul growing quali- 
 ties. If in his studies of things and of life, of suns 
 and stars, he also studies soul life and spiritual be- 
 ing, he will come to know what soul life is, and that 
 there is for him a nevxr -ending life with One who 
 Himself rose from the dead. Because He liv^es, 
 shall all who believe in Him live also. But how 
 can these things be ? Yes, how can you color an 
 apple or perfume a rose ? Why is your child's eye 
 blue when your own is brown ? Why is ice formed 
 in winter and the sheep shorn every spring \ Be- 
 
APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 163 
 
 cause it is accordinor to the law of tlieir beino^. So 
 it is according to the hiw of being a Christian that 
 he sliall live forevermore with the Lord who ran- 
 somed him from death. lie is the Resurrection 
 and the life for all believers. His ways are from 
 everlasting to everlasting. All who hunger and 
 thirst for immortality shall find it in Ilim. His 
 was an opened grave ! There was a vision of An- 
 gels ! They were seen in Eden ; they were seen 
 by Abraham and Jacob ; they appeared in the Gar- 
 den, and again at Olivet. Is not that sufficient at- 
 testation ? Doubt not llis power. It is the law of 
 spiritual phenomena. Spiritual life is dependent 
 upon the Giver of it. Because He lives, you shall 
 live also. 
 
 Thus have we sought to illustrate how the scien- 
 tific method may be applied to the study of the 
 Bible, to the doctrines of salvation, and the desire 
 for immortality. Said Victor Hugo : " Winter is 
 on my head and eternal spring is within my heart. 
 The violets and the roses are beautiful as ever. 
 The fragrance finds capacity of enjoyment. The 
 grave is but a thoroughfare ; it closes with the sun- 
 set and opens with the dawn." Says another poet : 
 
 " Every noblest aspiration 
 Is God's angel, undefiled. 
 And in everj^ ' my Father ! ' 
 Slumbers deep a ' Here, my child ! ' " 
 
 Thus there is an eternal tendency in men to de- 
 
164 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 
 
 sire and pray for admittance to that abode where 
 life " immortal blooms." 
 
 To see that 1 have not overstated the assumptions 
 and dependence of science, the reader may compare 
 Professor J. T. Huxley on " The Advance of Sci- 
 ence the last Half Century." On pnge 34 he says, 
 '^ Any one who is practically acquainted with scien- 
 tific work is aware that those who refuse to go be- 
 yond fact rarely get as far as fact ; and any one 
 who has studied the history of science knows that 
 almost every great step therein has been made by 
 the ' anticipation of nature' — that is, by the inven- 
 tion of hypotheses w^iich, though verifiable, often 
 had very little foundation to start with, and turned 
 out wholly erroneous in the long run." 
 
 Mr. Huxley illustrates this by the guesses of 
 astronomy, of which Kepler's was the wildest ; by 
 several hypotheses of Newton's ; for observation 
 cannot go beyond the limit of our faculties ; while 
 even within those limits we cannot be certain that 
 any observation is absolutely exact and exhaustive. 
 And our observation at one time may prove untrue 
 when our powers, directly or indirectly, are en- 
 larged. 
 
 Kepler's assumption that the planets moved in 
 ellipses was only an approximate truth ; for as a 
 fact, the centre of gravity of a planet describes 
 neither an ellipse nor any other simple curve, but an 
 immensely complicated undulating line. It may be 
 
APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 165 
 
 doubted whether any generah'zation based upon 
 physical data is absolutely true. The invention of 
 verifiable hypotheses is not only permissible, but is 
 one, of the conditions of progress (pp. 35 -38), for 
 Mr. Huxley knows through the senses, and through 
 guesses and assumptions ! Beyond that even meta- 
 physical theology does not venture. 
 
 In the ideas and definitions of matter, atomic, 
 molecular, cosmic ; of force and motion, he shows 
 it is questionable whether science to-day has much 
 advanced beyond that of Aristotle twenty-three 
 centuries ago. We may describe our 65 to (SS rec- 
 ognized " elements," but whether they all run into 
 atoms or ether, into molecules or gases cannot be 
 determined ! The name '' New Chemistry" is very 
 significant (pp. 40-62). We have also " New As- 
 tronomy" and ^' New Physics" after five thousand 
 years' study and observation ! 
 
 Modern protoplasm does not prove the assumption 
 of " spontaneous generation ;" for it " has utterly 
 broken down in every case which has been properly 
 tested. Yet belief in it was accepted by all philos- 
 ophers down to the latter part of the seventeenth 
 century, when Redi shook it to its foundations ; 
 Schwann and others proved it to be imtrust worthy 
 just fifty years ago" (pp. 118, 119). 
 
 Thus this corypheus of modern science guesses 
 and assumes as true a thomandfold more than a 
 dozen orthodox expositors of the Bible. He and 
 they alike depend upoti testimony. 
 
166 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 
 
 But while Professor Huxley denies the claims of 
 Mr. Burroughs, he, in a recent Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury^ shows himself as reckless of historic testimony 
 as he is daring in assumptions for science. He fails 
 to see that w^iether the Canon of St. Paul's in 1890 
 agrees with the Canon of St. Paul's thirty years 
 before it does not affect the now historical fact of 
 the literary attainments of Babylonians and Egyp- 
 tians 2500 to 3000 years b.c, nor of the Bible 
 patriarchs 2000 to 1500 b.c. So, his scorn of an- 
 cient legends in Babylon and Egypt will not avail 
 to minimize the *^ stories" of Genesis. For they 
 are as well founded as his guesses of science. 
 
 lf24-2 + 4:= 8 in science, why do they not 
 equal the same in history ? Our religion rests upon 
 the testimony of patriarchs and prophets and na- 
 tional records during two thousand years, and of at 
 least one million other Hebrews during fifteen hun- 
 dred years ; of Jesus and His apostles and the first 
 century Christians. Now, if we may not believe 
 their testimony as handed down through those ages, 
 neither may we believe any allegation of science or 
 of secular history during those ages, nor anything 
 which Professor Huxley alleges of the ancient 
 philosophers ; for their testimony is no more credi- 
 ble than that of Hebrew and Christian religionists. 
 
 Since his " Half Century" essay in 1887 we are 
 quite prepared for any historical assumptions or de- 
 nials in another essay in the middle of 1890. He 
 appears not to know that the demonstrations of his- 
 
APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 167 
 
 torj require lis to accept as true as any science the 
 records of Babylonia and Egypt in the third millen- 
 nium B.C., and of the Bible patriarchs in the second 
 Tnillenniiim B.C. And he probably discerns the 
 sophistry of his own attempt to make the Bible re- 
 sponsible for the miscalculations of biblical chronol- 
 ogists ! It nowhere says, Now the Flood occurred 
 1600 years after the creation of the World ! 
 
 The Independent of August 28th, 1890, prints a 
 letter from Prof. A. H. Sayce, a short extract from 
 which must end this chapter : 
 
 ** The discoveries made by Mr. Petrie prove that in Palestine, 
 as in Egypt and Assyria, there are monuments of the past hid- 
 den beneath the soil which go back not only to the age of the 
 Kings, but even to that older Canaanitish period which pre- 
 ceded the invasion of the Israelites. Among the cuneiform 
 tablets found at Tel el-Amarna, in Egypt, are dispatches from 
 the Governor of Lachish to the Egyptian monarch. The dis- 
 patches imply that there was an Archive-chamber in which 
 their duplicates and the answers to them were preserved. It 
 is more than possible that the Archive-chamber with its pre- 
 cious contents may still be lying within the walls discovered by 
 Mr. Petrie, awaiting only a few more weeks of digging to be 
 brought to light. Inscriptions and sculptured monuments will 
 yet be found to pour floods of unexpected light upon the rec- 
 ords of the Old Testament." 
 
IV. 
 
 ANCIENT BABYLONIANS AND EGYP- 
 TIANS NOT TOTEMISTS. 
 
 As in recent public lectures upon Egypt the 
 speaker asked whether totemisni did not earl}^ exist 
 in the land of the hawk and the crocodile, which 
 were symbols of their gods, I offer a few facts which 
 may suggest that such could not be so in primitive 
 times. Yet very early in history misconceptions of 
 the story of the serpent in Eden travelled far and 
 wide, and led to its adoration. It symbolized the 
 Deity. Still, in Babylonia, in Egypt, and under 
 the Theocracy of the Hebrews there ever existed 
 two important facts of a character opposed to to- 
 temism : First, the monarchy ; and second, the in- 
 termarriage of kindred and members of the same 
 tribe or clan. Egyptians even killed their supposed 
 totems, which are often confounded with religious 
 symbols. These facts are opposed to totem ism. 
 Kings, from the mythical Osiris to Thothmes II., in 
 the sixteenth century b.c, and much later, married 
 their sisters. It was a common practice among the 
 Pharaohs. So in old Chaldea Abraham married 
 
NOT TOTEMISTS. 1G9 
 
 his half-sister, which serves to iUustrate tlie custom 
 there at that time ; while Isaac and Jacob married 
 their cousins. This practice does not coexist with 
 totemism, which forbids sucli marriages. (See 
 ** Encyclopaedia Britannica," art. Totemism.) 
 
 Nor does monarchy coexist with totemism. Yet 
 from the earliest times, from Osiris to Menes and 
 Sneferu, kings reigned in Egypt ; while from Nim- 
 rod to Khammuragas and Sargon 1. kings reigned 
 in Babylonia. Among the early Hebrews God was 
 their King. This continued from Abraham to Saul 
 and David. 
 
 Again, before historic times, the myths tell us of 
 Horus, who speared the crocodile, one of the sup- 
 posed early totems of Egypt, and her sculptures 
 graphically portray him in the act of spearing a ser- 
 pent. Babylonian legends describe Bel-Merodach 
 as fighting against the old dragon-totem of that 
 country, and the cylinders vividly represent the 
 fierce combat. Iranian Bactria had her Sosiosh, 
 who turned evil into good, who slew serpents and 
 scorpions, and wrought redemption for her people ; 
 while the Indian Krishna killed the huge serpent of 
 Jumna. See chapter 1 of '' God Enthroned in Re- 
 demption. " 
 
 Thus, from the nature of the case and the op- 
 pugnancy between rival powers, totemism could not 
 coexist with monarchy nor with intermarriage be- 
 tween kinsmen and clansmen. If the totem were 
 anything more than a symbol or ensign, it could 
 
170 BABYLONIANS AND EGYPTIANS 
 
 not be tolerated within a monarchy, for the king 
 was superior to all other earthly powers. His su- 
 perior was the celestial Being known as God- Amun, 
 God Osiris, God-Ra, God-Il, or God-Merodach, 
 whose worship excluded all place and scope for dei- 
 fied totems. And the custom of intermarriage be- 
 tween the tribes and clans of a kingdom largely neg- 
 atived and precluded the possible union of rival 
 gods. The totemism found among our Indians and 
 others in modern times is far too late to illustrate 
 the worship of totems in ancient Babylonia and in 
 Egypt. 
 
 It is interesting to note that Thothmes III., of 
 the first half of the sixteenth century e.g., was the 
 maker of the obelisk which is now in our Central 
 Park. He was a famous Pharaoh of one of the 
 best defined periods of Egyptian history. Yet, 
 singularly enough, Mr. H. Spencer cites him to il- 
 lustrate his theory of ancestor-worship, and connects 
 him quite closely with the builder of the Great 
 Pyramid, which was a thousand years before him, 
 even according to the shorter chronology — i.e.^ of 
 the fourth dynasty. 
 
 The Egyptian poet-laureate makes the god Am- 
 nion to address Thothmes III. as " the blazing sun, 
 shining like a god before the enemy ; as a young 
 bull which none can approach ; as a crocodile, ter- 
 rible in the waters, not to be encountered ; as a 
 lion, fierce of eye, who leaves his den and stalks 
 through the valley ; as the hovering hawk which 
 
NOT TOTfiMISTS. 171 
 
 seizes whatever pleases him ; and as tlie jackal of 
 the South, who prowls through the land." Mr. 
 Spencer adds the epithet of an older translation, 
 calling him '^ the valiant bull Horus, reigning over 
 the fhebaid." 
 
 1 fail to discover ancestor worship or any form of 
 totemism in these appellatives. Thothmes has here 
 seven different characters attributed to him, and is 
 addressed by the names of five supposed totems ; 
 also as the Sun and as Horus ; the last two having 
 well-defined positions and origins. It is a compar- 
 ison which contains its own refutation. 
 
 Moreover, Hatasu, the sister of Thothmes III., 
 calls herself " the living Horus, abounding in divine 
 gifts, the mistress of diadems, rich in years (she was 
 then under forty), the golden Horus, Queen of 
 Upper and Lower Egypt, daughter of the Sun (her 
 father was Thothmes I.), consort of Ammon (she had 
 married her own brother, Thothmes II.). She also 
 called herself " the daughter of Ammon, dwelling 
 in his heart, and living forever !" The self-adula- 
 tion is too apparent for remark. 
 
 The royal brother and sister use some of the sarne 
 titles indifferently. They are each Horus, the liv- 
 ing Horus, or the golden Horus, or the valiant bull 
 Horus. They are the son of a god, and the daugh- 
 ter of a god, though their parents (Thothmes I. and 
 his consort) were well known. Not worshippers of 
 their ancestors, they most extravagantly extol them- 
 selves by means of their acknowledged deity. The 
 
172 BABYLONIANS AND EGYPTIANS 
 
 '' Queen of diadems and daughter of the Sun" was 
 the sister of him who is styled '^ crocodile, hawk, 
 bull, lion, jackal," all by the same rhapsodist. 
 Not a word of prayer is uttered, nor sacrifice offered, 
 only self-glorification, in Oriental exuberance, is 
 expressed. Truly, may we not say that the builder 
 of our New York obelisk and his sister Hatasu are 
 sufficient answers to totemism in ancient Egypt ? 
 
 While they adored the Sun-god and worshipped 
 Ammon, they assuredly did not worship their pro- 
 genitors. Moreover, the earliest Egyptian kings 
 speared the totem-crocodile, and the earliest Baby- 
 lonian kings hunted the lion, while the monarchs 
 of both regions pursued other beasts of prey and 
 attributed to themselves the striking characteristics 
 of those animals. So we say ** Kichard of the 
 Lion's Heart," the " Black" Prince, '' Rough and 
 Ready," '^ Stonewall" Jackson, etc. The reader 
 will find much condensed information touching an- 
 cient religions in '* God Enthroned in Redemption" 
 and in '' Bible Growth and Religion." " Records 
 of the Past" and Brugsch's "Egypt" give the 
 laudation of Thothmes III. 
 
 Moreover, the Sabeans of Arabia, the rise' of 
 whose kingdom Hommel puts at about 900 e.g., 
 worshipped the sun, and also Sin, the moon-god, as 
 well as Istar or Astarte. One of the tribes wor- 
 shipped the sun under the form of an eagle, another 
 under the form of a horse, and a third tribe under 
 the form of a lion. This was a thouBand years after 
 
NOT TOTEMISTS. 173 
 
 Abraham, and discloses the development of reh'g- 
 ioiis worship in a direction very different from that 
 claimed by totemists and evolutionists. But we are 
 told that " Jewish influence made itself felt in the 
 future birthplace of Mahomet, and introduced 
 those ideas and beliefs which subsequently had so 
 profound an effect upon the birth of Islam " {Old 
 and New Testament Student for March, 1890). 
 Yet that was not till Christianity had long influ- 
 enced Jewism. The actual course was from the re- 
 ligion of Abraham to that of ninth century b.c. to- 
 temism, thence to Jewism as influenced by Chris- 
 tianity at the rise of the prophet of Arabia, in 
 622 A.D. 
 
 Professor W. Eobertson Smith, in his '' Eeligion 
 of the Semites," may deceive himself and his read- 
 ers into supposing that the Arabians are fair illus- 
 trations of a theory of totemism and the evolution 
 of a monotheistic religion. But he is much too late 
 and fanciful in his citations. For we have evidence 
 that two or three thousand years before his Arabians 
 appeared in that country, Babylonians on the one 
 side, and Egyptians on the other, took possession 
 of it, quarried its mines and its hills, inscribed their 
 names on the rocks of the Wady Magharah, and 
 that Egyptian soldiers worked the turquoise mines 
 of Sinai for the benefit of Sneferu or Soris, the 
 first of the fourth dynasty. It is much too late to 
 turn askance from the evidences of a civilization on 
 the Nile and the Euphrates in the third, and even 
 
174 BABYLONIAI^S AND EGYPTIANS 
 
 fourth millennium b.c. It is, therefore, a prime 
 necessity for Professor Smith, and those who agree 
 with his notions, to explain how contact with it had 
 no effect on the Arabians, and also to explain 
 whence came those Arabians whom he cites as ex- 
 emplars. It were indeed easy to affirm that there 
 were no such Arabians in the earliest times, and 
 none who had not drifted away from their north- 
 eastern or southwestern neighbors. Arabia itself 
 was not then peopled, Abraham was not born, and 
 his sons by Keturah had not possessed that coun- 
 try. The Bible account of its inhabitants makes all 
 easy to understand ; but to put a savage people 
 there without touch of influence from Babylonians 
 or Egyptians is the acme of assumption. (See 
 Sayce's ^'Empires of the East" and Rawlinson's 
 "Egypt") 
 
 China, also, which was^^c>^M by emigrants />'<9m 
 Babylonia, in 2300 e.g., and possessed their relig- 
 ious cult, has degenerated in her worship. The 
 latest writer, the Rev. George Owen, of Pekin, 
 gives, m the Chronicle of the London Missionary 
 Society, the following graphic account of the dete- 
 rioration of the religion of the Chinese : '' The his- 
 tory of China is a striking instance of the down- 
 grade in religion. The old classics of China, going 
 back to the time of Abraham, show a wonderful 
 knowledge of God. There are passages in those 
 classics about God worthy to stand side by side with 
 kindred passages in the Old Testament. The fathers 
 
NOT TOTEMISTS. 175 
 
 and foundei's of the Chinese race appear to have 
 been monotheists. They believed in an omnipotent, 
 omniscient, and omnipresent God, tlie moral Gov- 
 ernor of the world and the impartial Judge of man. 
 
 ^^ But gradually the grand conception of a personal 
 God became obscured. Nature worship crept in. 
 Heaven and earth were deified, and God was con- 
 founded with the material heavens and the powers 
 of nature. Heaven was called father and earth 
 mother, and became 'China's chief god. Then the 
 sun, moon, and stars were personified and worship- 
 ped. China bowed down to ' the hosts of heaven.' 
 The great mountains and rivers were also deified 
 and placed among the state gods. This nature 
 worship continues in full force to the present time. 
 Nature has taken the place of God. 
 
 ^' Polytheism and idolatry followed. From the 
 dawn of history the Chinese worshipped their an- 
 cestors, regarding the dead as in some sort tutelary 
 deities. This naturally led to the deification and 
 worship of deceased heroes and benefactors, till the 
 gods of China, increasing age by age, became legion. 
 Her well-stocked pantheon contains gods of all sorts 
 and sizes. There are gods of heaven and earth ; 
 gods of the sun, moon, and stars ; gods of the 
 mountains, seas, and rivers ; gods of fire, war, and 
 pestilence, wealth, rank, and literature, horses, cows, 
 and insects. 
 
 '* But the degradation did not stop here. The 
 Chinese sank lower still and became demon wor- 
 
176 BABYLONIANS AND EGYPTIANS 
 
 shippers. Charms — long strips of paper bearing 
 cabalistic characters in black, green and yellow — 
 hang from the lintels of most doors to protect the 
 house against evil spirits. Night is often made hid- 
 eous and sleep impossible by tlie firing of crackers 
 to frighten away the demons. Almost every village 
 has its professional exorcist and devil-catcher. The 
 fear of demons is the bugbear of a Chinaman's life, 
 and much of his worship is intended to appease 
 their wrath and propitiate their favor, and once a 
 year, during the seventh moon, a gigantic image of 
 the xievil himself is carried in solenm procession 
 through every town and village, followed by the 
 populace, feasted and worshipped. 
 
 " Animal worship, too, is rife. In some parts 
 of North China certain animals are more worshipped 
 than the most popular gods. The fame of even the 
 largest temples is often due not to the gods they 
 contain, but to the supposed presence of a fairy fox, 
 weasel, snake, hedgehog, or rat. These five ani- 
 mals are believed to possess the secret of immortal- 
 ity and the power of self -transformation, and to ex- 
 ercise great infiuence over the fortunes of men. 
 
 *' I have seen crowds of men, women, and chil- 
 dren worshipping at an ordinary fox-burrow, and I 
 have seen one of the great gates of Pekin thronged 
 day after day with carriages and pedestrians going 
 to worship a fairy fox supposed to have been seen 
 outside the cit}'' walls. Any day small yellow 
 handbills may be seen on the walls and boardings 
 
NOT TOTE MISTS. 177 
 
 of Pekin assuring the people that ' prayer to the 
 venerable fairy fox is certain to be answered.' " — 
 Spirit of Missions for March, 1890. 
 
 Here we have the descendants of Abraham in 
 Arabia and of the ancient Babylonians in China 
 testifying against modern theories of the evolution 
 of religion. It was not from nature worship to 
 Mosaism, which developed into Jewism, which de- 
 veloped into Christianity, but the other w^ay 
 from the revealed to the debased. Arabia and 
 China are our witnesses. 
 
 The mistake of evolutionists of religion lies in 
 beginning their inquiries at too late a period. Here 
 and there may be found what looks like totemism. 
 But it was not so in the earhest ages. For then men 
 held a simple belief in One Being to be worshipped. 
 Later, from misunderstanding about the Serpent of 
 Eden, arose animal- worship and totemism. 
 
 Closely related, if not earlier, was the worship 
 of Istar, called Nana in the Accadian texts, Istar 
 not being found in them. The first centres of her 
 worship were Erech and Accad. She was called 
 '' the divine Lady of Eden," '' the goddess of the 
 tree of life," *^ the goddess of the Vine," etc., 
 showing that she was Eve deified. Tammuz is said 
 to mean '^ the son of life," ^^ offspring," *' the 
 only son," etc. And he was invoked as a shep- 
 herd : " O Tammnz, shepherd and lord, bridegroom 
 of Istar, the lady of heaven, lord of Hades, lord of 
 the shepherd's cot," etc. The poem is written in 
 
178 BABYLONIANS AND EGYPTIANS 
 
 the artificial dialect -which sprang up in the court 
 of Sargon I., probably emanating from the city of 
 Accad. So Sayce in " Hibbert Lectures" for 1887, 
 pp. 232-66. 
 
 The many allusions to life in Eden, to the life of 
 Abel, the descent to Hades, Abel's character as a 
 shepherd and l^eing invoked by shepherds, suggest 
 that '' the Lady of Eden and of the tree of life" 
 was Mother Eve, thus early deified, and that the 
 departed one for whom she mourned was her shep- 
 herd son Abel or Tammuz. The earliest legends 
 of Istar and Tammuz reach back to primitive times, 
 and seem like the very echoes of Eden. So of ser- 
 pent worship. It also may be traced to the serpent 
 of Eden. 
 
 Mr. H. Spencer draws his examples from the 
 later periods. Thus, in his ^' Ecclesiastical Institu- 
 tions" (pp. 692-93), he sees the difliculty that sun 
 worship in Egypt creates for his '' derivation of all 
 beliefs from ancestor worship," and so tries to ex- 
 plain away sun worship and the belief that he ever 
 had been ruler over Egypt ! Whereas, the early 
 legend of Osiris can only be thus accounted for. 
 A page of special pleading, with a long note to con- 
 vince '^ theologians and mythologists," will not 
 change the fact that in Egypt sun worship preceded 
 ancestor worship ; for the sun represented the high- 
 est beneficence in nature. Osiris, as Sun-god, was 
 before Osiris as Judge of Amenti. And kings 
 were first deified only because they were the rep re- 
 
NOT TOTEMISTS. 179 
 
 sentatives of the Divine order, power, and good- 
 ness. Hence adoration of kings preceded adoration 
 of ancestors. In primitive history and Old Testa- 
 ment exposition the date determines the environ- 
 ment and often expounds tlie text. Hymns to 
 Amen-Ra and the Nile are of ancient date ; festal 
 dirges belong to the eleventh dynasty ; while, ac- 
 cording to Renouf s " Hibbert Lectures," the old- 
 est piece of literature in the world is a " Hymn to 
 the Maker of Heaven and Earth, Who is the Self- 
 existent One." Compare " God in Creation," 
 chapter 3, and chapter 1 of this book. 
 
MR. GLADSTONE ON HEBREW AND 
 GREEK ETHICS. 
 
 (Reprinted from The Standard and The Church.) 
 
 As St. Paul rejoiced that Christ was preached, 
 though not quite according to his method, so I re- 
 joice that the Rock of Scripture is defended, even 
 though imperfectly. Mr. Gladstone has succeeded 
 in the breadth of his view and in stating points 
 which should satisfy the reader not only as to the 
 honesty of his plea, but that the subject is itself 
 worthy of all his conceded ability. The homogene- 
 ity of the Old Testament, both as to matter and 
 spirit, and its preparative character, are of the same 
 trend throughout. It was also for the Gentile as 
 well as for the Jew, or, as stated in a recent publi- 
 cation, for '' Jacob and Japheth." 
 
 This book Mr. Gladstone seems not to have read, 
 or he would not have fallen into the ethical error of 
 his third paper, in rating the ethic of the Hebrew 
 as lower than that of the Achaian Greeks. When 
 he says that '' the conduct of the suitors of Penel- 
 ope and the actions of Paris form the worst exhi- 
 
HEBREW AND GREEK ETHICS. 181 
 
 bitions of human nature which come before us in 
 the Poems" of Homer, he overlooks what so good 
 a Grecian could not forget, that Penelope herself 
 was a striking exception to the prevailing laxity of 
 her day, and that Ulysses, her husband, was ill- 
 deserving so pure a wife. He also overlooks, what 
 he could not forget, that the actions of Paris re- 
 ceived large endorsement from his father and family 
 then reigning at Troy, for they received him and 
 the runaw^ay wife of Menelaus, and refused to sur- 
 render her when demanded. 
 
 The ^' rape of Helen'- is a misnomer in modern 
 phrase. She eloped voluntarily with her husband's 
 guest ; she became the wife of Paris, then of his 
 brother Deiphobus, whom she afterward betrayed 
 in order to reconcile herself to her first husband. 
 If our law about the receiver of stolen goods being 
 as bad as the thief is right, the conduct of the ruling 
 family at Troy was very reprehensible, for which 
 neither the noble heroism of Hector, nor the loyal 
 love of Andromache, nor the tears of Priam could 
 atone, unless accompanied by Testitution. And 
 when the Poet introduces Venus to rescue Paris 
 from the death-dealing blows of Menelaus, what is 
 that but to sanction the adulterer's crime ? 
 
 Knowing all this, Mr. Gladstone should have 
 boldly affirmed the lower ethics of the Greeks as 
 compared with the Hebrews. He also overlooks 
 what he could not forget, that King Agamenmon 
 was himself an offender against purity when 
 
182 MR. GLADSTONE. 
 
 he seized the beautiful captive Briseis, who had 
 been awarded to Achilles. That the king had re- 
 tilrned the daughter of the priest upon her father's 
 demand did not justify him in seizing the prize of 
 his ablest general. And was it less than an aveng- 
 ing Nemesis that Agamemnon, upon returning home 
 from the war, found his wife an adulteress with 
 ^gysthus, and bj them was murdered ? A double 
 crime had been committed, far more heinous than 
 that of David's, who had not thouglitof taking life 
 in his amour with Bathsheba. Cljtemnestra was 
 killed for her crimes by her own son ! Diomed, 
 another of Homers heroes, returned home after the 
 fall of Troy, but narrowly escaped with his life from 
 his adulterous wife, -^giale. 
 
 Not to dwell longer upon the morality of Homer's 
 people, both men and women, what shall we say of 
 the Homeric gods, from Jove to Yenus ? Was not 
 Olympus the rendezvous of impurity ? With few 
 exceptions its celestial denizens were quite obhvious 
 to the observance of chastity. There is not a pure 
 boy who has done his first or second year in Greek 
 and Latin, unless the course is greatly changed since 
 I was a youth, who is not disgusted with the amours 
 of the gods and goddesses of the Homeric Age. 
 
 On the wrangling, the deceit and lying of 
 Homer's gods, I must refer to Professor G. H. Gil- 
 bert's last chapter of his '^ Poetry of Job," Chi- 
 cago, 1889. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone knows that in the historic period, 
 
HEBREW AND GREEK ETHICS. 183 
 
 in the acme of Greek culture and attainments, the 
 great Pericles lived for years in forbidden relations 
 with Aspasia, and before his death accepted it as a 
 marked favor that the Athenians legitimatized his 
 two bastard boys ! Yet he turns askance from the 
 nativity of Pharez and Rutli ! Ptuth, at least, was 
 removed by ten generations from the sin of Lot, 
 who was not of the covenant seed, and married a 
 Canaanitess ; while Pharez was the offspring of a 
 single desperate adventure, in order to compel the 
 performance of lawful duty ! There was nothing 
 in them at all parallel with the sin of Agamemnon 
 and Helen, Paris and Clytemnestra, Ulysses and 
 ^giale, Jove and Venus ! 
 
 Moreover, Mr. Gladstone cannot forget that even 
 Plato is an offender against good ethics. He allows 
 men a community of women, so that the children 
 do not know their own fathers I Indeed children 
 were to be brought up in common, without filial or 
 parental affection. But I may not dwell on this, 
 and should have said less but for the great reputa- 
 tion of the writer and the recent strong deliverances 
 of Eev. Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst. So I commend 
 them and those w^io accept their puttings to pages 
 71 to 81 of " Bible Growth and Religion from 
 Abraham to Daniel." 
 
 In Egypt, in Canaan, in Philistia, the code of 
 ethics practised by the early Hebrews was loftier 
 and purer than that of those peoples. It was to 
 save his wife from dishonor as well as his own life 
 
134 MR. GLADSTONE. 
 
 that Abraham equivocated with Pharaoh, and with 
 Abimelech of Gerar, each of whom sought to add 
 Sarah to his harem ! And at the time of his equiv- 
 ocation Abraham was but a young Jehovist. It 
 was more than twenty years before he received the 
 covenant seal of circumcision ; while it was true that 
 Sarah was his half sister, who to-day if introduced to 
 strangers might be called sister Sarah. Mr. Glad- 
 stone overlooks this. He also overlooks how 
 Dinah's brothers avenged themselves upon Ham or 
 for his treatment of her. Their chastisement of him 
 was not the method of men who had low views of 
 purity and honor. But centuries later the Philis- 
 tines in their treatment of Samson and his bride 
 trampled down every law of morality. Yet in his 
 frolics and his revenges Samson personally observed 
 the duty of good neighborhood. As the avenger 
 of Israel upon their oppressors, he acted officially. 
 Compare David's treatment of Saul and consult 
 the reference above given, also pages 166 to 174. 
 
JACOB AND JA PHETH. 
 
 Bible Growth from Abraham to Daniel, illustrated by Con- 
 temporary History. By the author of ''God in 
 Creation," etc. i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 
 
 The Churchman says : 
 " The underlying motive of the book seems to be an answer to 
 Kenan's Iheories of Hebrew ilistory. It certainly succeeds in dealing 
 with the French skeptic's reasonings pretty effectually. It shows the 
 absurdity of the assumption that Jewish religion was merely self- 
 originated, the outcome of special Semitic tendencies. Apart from its 
 purpose, this volume is well worth reading, for it is written in a lively 
 style, displays a very careful study, and is full of information on Biblical 
 topics. It is a book we should especially commend to our readers as 
 one likely to guide and help their study of the Bible. It takes just that 
 large and comprehensive view which is opposed to the mere study of 
 special and isolated verses, and gives the bearing of the earlier books 
 of the Old Testament in a very suggestive and thoughtful way." 
 
 The New York Evangelist says : 
 "The author of 'God in Creation' and of 'God Enthroned in 
 Redemption,' has given us in the present work a further development 
 of his fundamental position, which may be briefly characterized as based 
 upon that which Squire Wendover denied — the value of the testimony 
 of history to revelation. A thorough and searching review of the testi- 
 mony establishes very completely that the God of Israel is the very God 
 of the whole Earth, The author is familiar with the utterances of the 
 Higher Criticism, and with the results of recent researches among the 
 cuneiform documents of the East, and he argues very ably and convinc- 
 ingly against the theory of late authorship of the Pentateuch and the 
 Book of Daniel. Good scholarship, fine critical acumen, sound judg- 
 ment, a reasonable faith, characterize this book." 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR: 
 
 God in Creation and in Worship. By a Clergyman. 
 i2mo, paper, 25 cents; cloth, 50 cents. 
 
 God Enthroned in Redemption. Part Second of "God 
 in Creation." The answer of History to modern theo- 
 ries of the Evolution of Christianity. i2mo, cloth, 
 50 cents. 
 Both parts in one volume. i2mo, cloth, $1,00. 
 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER, 
 
 2, AND 3 Bible House, New York. 
 
DIABOLOLOGY, 
 
 THE PERSON AND KINGDOM OF SATAN. 
 
 The Bishop Paddock Lectures for 1889. 
 
 By the Rev. Edward H. Jewett, D.D.; LL.D. Second 
 Edition. i2mo, cloth, $1.50. 
 
 Contents : Lecture I. — Introductory. Lecture II. — Moral Proba- 
 tion. Lecture III. — Satanic Personality. Lecture IV. — Parsee and 
 Hebrew Views Compared. Lecture V. — Christ's Teaching with Regard 
 to Evil and the Evil One. Lecture VI. — The Sixth Petition of the 
 Lord's Prayer. 
 
 " The lectures are timely and able, and ought to have a strong in- 
 fluence in counteracting the pernicious and baseless modern theory that 
 Satan is only the personification of a mere force. The author's reason- 
 ing is unanswerable ; he always is fair to opponents, and he has done 
 good and abiding service. His pages are especially rich in researches 
 and comparisons which bring out the differences between the Hebrew 
 and the Parsee, or other beliefs in regard to Satan and evil spirits in 
 general. He seems to quite disprove the hypothesis that the Jews bor- 
 rowed the ideas of the Persians on these subjects." 
 
 — The Congregationalist. 
 
 " He has carefully and critically examined the various views and 
 teachings on this subject to bring out with great logical clearness the 
 trftth of the personality of Satan as taught in the New Testament as 
 well as in the rest of Holy Scripture." — TAe Churchman. 
 
 " The author deserves credit for the boldness and clearness with 
 which his investigation is conducted." — The Virginia Sem. Magazine. 
 
 "Although written primarily for the scholarly public, the style is 
 simple and the language clear and easily comprehensible by the ordinary 
 reader." — The Philadelphia Press. 
 
 " This volume discusses, in a thorough and scholarly manner, the 
 question of the personality of spirits, good and evil, their probation, 
 and the place assigned to them in the teachings of the Bible." 
 
 — National Baptist. 
 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER, 
 2 AND 3 Bible House, New York. 
 
CANON ROW'S NEW BOOK. 
 
 CHRISTIAN THE ISM. 
 
 A Brief and Popular Survey of the Evidences upon which 
 it rests, and the Objections urged against it considered and 
 refuted. By C. A. Row, M.A. Small 8vo, cloth, $1.75. 
 
 "Prebendary Row has attained high repute by his previous publi- 
 cations, but we doubt if he has written anything more likely to be useful 
 than the present volume, in which he sets forth in a popular form and 
 with clearness and force of style the chief reasons on which Christian 
 theistic belief is founded. It is avowedly a popular argument, adapted 
 to the needs of the multitude of people who justly complain that many 
 excellent treatises dealing with the subject are ' over their heads.' It 
 also claims to be a comprehensive survey of the whole question as it is 
 now debated, and grapples with current difficulties and objections which, 
 if they do not subvert the faith of many, do nevertheless prevad with 
 some, and cause widespread disquiet and perplexity." 
 
 — The Standard of the Cross. 
 
 " Among all the works of Prebendary Row in the general line of 
 Apologetics of Christian belief, and they are many, this will be the most 
 prominent in the list, the most thoroughly and lastingly useful." 
 
 — I'^he Livinjor Church. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Addressed to busy people. i2mo, cloth, gilt top, 75 cents. 
 
 CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE VIEWED IN RELATION TO 
 MODERN THOUGHT. Bampton Lectures for 1877. Fourth 
 Edition. 8vo, cloth, $3.75. 
 
 A MANUAL OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. i6mo. 
 cloth, 75 cents. 
 
 FUTURE RETRIBUTION, VIEWED IN THE LIGHT 
 OF REASON AND REVELATION. Svo, cloth, $2 50. 
 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER, 
 
 2 AND 3 Bible House, New York. 
 
ON ROMANISM, 
 
 Three articles on Romanism. By the Rev, John Henry 
 Hopkins, S.T.D. With a useful Index. i2mo, cloth, 
 
 $i.oo. 
 
 " Entertaining reading, without a dull line." — The Churchman. 
 
 " This is a caustic, severe and able arraignment of Romanism." 
 
 — Zion's Herald, 
 
 " Dr. Hopkins' articles form a strong and well stated summary of 
 the question." — The Critic. 
 
 "An amazingly brilliant book is this. As far as the correspvondence 
 with and strictures on Monsignor Capel go, we do not wonder that Dr. 
 Hopkins has republished the whole and wound it up with a snapper in 
 the shape of his elaborate review of Dr. Littledale triumphant, on the 
 'Petrine Claims.* To outside readers who are not too much enmeshed 
 in Roman Catholic sympathies to be able to extract any kind of enjoy- 
 ment from the routing of such a serene example of prelatic assumption 
 as Monsignor Capel, the whole will be as good as a play." — Independent. 
 
 " The discussion is exceedingly sharp and lays bare the tremendous 
 assumptions of the papacy in regard to the authority of the Pope, and 
 the sole right of the Roman Church to the name Catholic. " 
 
 — The Lutheran. 
 
 "Dr. Hopkins is bold and sharp, fears nothing, and is especially 
 pointed in detecting weak places in an adversary." — Public Opinion. 
 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER, 
 2 AND 3 BiBi^E House, New York. 
 

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