1?^ 'iP'i- ■■■■■ '■/■J ?■!•;;'■'■ SI' i0{ QF r.f>^^^ > FEB 9 1908 *1 Division BS llhO . R34- The Failure of the "Higher Criticism" of the Bible The Failure of the "Higher Criticism" of the Bible BY EMIL HEICH, Doctor Juris Author of " Gr-«co-Koman Institutions," "Atlas of English History," " Select Docttments Illus- trating Medi-eval and Modern History," "Imperialism," "Success Among x"fATiONS," "General History," Etc., Etc. CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS ooptright, 1905, bt Jennings and Gkaham PREFACE. Of the five chapters of the present work, the first two chapters appeared in the Contem- porary Review for February and April, 1905. The other three chapters form the substance of various lectures given by the author in Lon- don, at Edinburgh, and elsewhere. All the five chapters are results of an historic examination of the claims of '"Higher Criticism," com- menced many years ago. The author is not a clergyman, and has no intention whatever to become one. He means to serve the ends of no ecclesiastic party. He searches for nothing but Truth. Many years ago he fully believed in the "scientific character" of Higher Criticism; but having learned more about Life and Reality by means of extensive travels and varied ex- perience, he has come to the conclusion that Higher Criticism is bankrupt as a method of research, and pernicious as a teaching of re- 5 6 Preface. ligious truth. It is a perversion of History, and a desecration of Religion. May this little book help unprejudiced minds to gain a truer and more reverential conception of the Holy Book of Mankind. It is intended not only to destroy the "scientific" spell of "Higher Criti- cism," but also to construct the right method of comprehending the Bible. EMIL REICH. London, August 6, 1905. CONTENTS CHAPTER I Pa&k Introduction. The Argument from THE Masai Legends, . - - 9 CHAPTER II The Argument from the Border Nations, 41 CHAPTER III The Argument from the Method, The Inquisitorial Principle, - 81 CHAPTER IV The Argument from the Theory of Names, of the Foreigner, and of Myths, 127 CHAPTER V The Argument from the Prophets AND the Theory of Personality, 171 CHAPTER I. The Argument from the Masai Legends. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. The Argument from the Masai Legends. Despite all the great debt which we owe to the Renaissance, we must admit that it has foisted one great incubus upon us, and that is, the blind admiration of words. The Renais- sance was undoubtedly due in very great meas- ure to the humanists, and it was their superior knowledge of Greek and Latin which at all events aided in bringing about the vast change which at that time came over the whole mental life of Europe. What the Renaissance would have been without Greek, I do not intend here to debate. It would probably have been irrep- arably crippled, and Europe would perhaps never have succeeded in its present career had it not been able to walk in the footsteps of Greece. All that I would here say is that the reverence which has been paid to the mere ex- ternals of humanism has been greatly exag- gerated. The words, which were the mere in- 11 12 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. strmnents through which the new inspiration was conveyed, have been worshiped as much as, if not more than, the inspiration itself. The dicta of the philologist, without any further qualification, have been accepted with even greater admiration and adulation than have the great words of the great pioneers of human thought. Who in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- turies were the great receivers of rewards ? Not Copernicus, not the incomparable Kepler, not Descartes, not Giordano Bruno, not Spinoza, persecuted by every synod of the Seven Prov- inces, denied by father, mother, sister, and dy- ing as an outcast pariah, when still in the hey- day of manhood. But Scaliger, who, admirable as may be his philological aKptjiua, can not claim to have advanced humanity, was invited to the newly-founded University of Leyden ; he was appointed professor at a handsome salary; no obligation was required of him in return ; he was not to lecture unless he graciously felt so disposed ; his mere presence was deemed to shed luster enough upon the great Dutch Uni- versity. Compare the position of poor Pascal in Prance with that of Casaubon, king of com- mentators, adulated by Henry IV, perhaps the greatest monarch of Prance, who tried to Argument from the Masai Legends. 13 wheedle and coax him. into Catholicism, who patted him literally on the cheek and meta- phorically on the back; thinking, as the King did, that if Casaubon, whom the world regarded as the mirror of all wisdom, could be gained as a convert. Protestantism in France might be extinguished much more easily. And when Casaubon was weary of France, was there not a warm welcome for him in England ? James I, who could never see what he had in Bacon, was too delighted to have a Casaubon and to pay him well for the interchange of philological gabble. Meanwhile James left Shakespeare without recognition, so that to-day, there be- ing little known about the great poet. Shaken speare bids fair to be treated as a myth by latter-day historians. Why should we speak of Bentley, whose acute scholarship, expended in ingenious emendations of Horace, won him honor and renown, although to-day, as we are told by M. Salomon Reinach, out of his hun- dreds of emendations of Horace only half-a- dozen meet with the acceptance of scholars? Heyne, the great critic of texts, was made an oracle and listened to with awe by the whole of Europe, was envied by Goethe, who burned to become a Heyne II, whereas Leesing was left to languish in obscurity on the miserable pit- 14 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. tance of an eighteenth-century librarian. But the Laohoon will live forever, while the hair- splitting textual refinements of Hejne are mostly long discredited and forgotten. But in the nineteenth century the worship of the philologists became even more exaggerated. If they did not find themselves placed invariably in high political positions, like Wilhelm von Humboldt, they were, at all events, allowed to assume undisputed dictatorship in everything pertaining to antiquity. Without any other recommendation save a linguistic smattering, they were permitted to lay down the law even on Roman legislation, and to impose their ideas or lack of ideas concerning ancient art, history, and religion. How many of those bold philolo- gists has the last century seen, who have em- barked in the nutshell of a word and set forth merrily to explore, like retrospective Colum- buses, the ocean of the prehistoric past ! That so many of them have undergone shipwreck is no matter for excessive lamentation. For a long time the unsolved enigmas of hieroglyph and cuneiform preserved us from the nightmare of ancient Oriental philology. The discovery of that unfortunate Rosetta stone, seeing all the philological misery that it has entailed, can hardly be viewed as an unmitigated blessing to Argument froTTi the Masai Legends. 15 mankind. Still more doubtful is our gratitude towards Grotefend and other ingenious con- trivers who have enabled us to decipher Assy- rian and Babylonian tablets. Hitherto the rav- ings of philologists had been comparatively harmless. They had been compelled to limit themselves to the demolition of the classics. Out of a missing digamma they were able, first, to rob Homer of his character, to pillory him as an impudent plunderer of other men's wits, and finally to prove most conclusively that, with or without character, he never existed at all. But, after all, this was a more or less innocuous amusement. It was no doubt a pity to see the figure-head of Greek and Roman history robbed of all credit, and turned into mere mythical figments of the primitive brain. But to this we might have been reconciled. To-day, however, the philologists have pushed forward their linguistic parallels against far more serious objects. They are seeking to bat- ter down the foundations of all that we believe and hold most in reverence. They have dis- turbed the minds and troubled the consciences of thousands of people who have been too sim- ple to grasp the absolute emptiness of the philologists' methods in history. But assuredly the world lacks a sense of humor How comes 1 6 The Fmlure of the Higher Criticism. it that it does not see the incougruity of allow- ing itself to be lectured upon ancient history, upon the origin of religions, and upon subjects even more sacred, by some little German phi- lological pedant in some obscure German town ? How comes it that there is so little inquiry into his qualifications? ^Vhy, because by dint of plodding insistence he has succeeded in spelling out some obscure Himiaritic inscription and in fitting it with some hypothetical meaning, should he be considered a luminous exponent of ancient history? On the same grounds we might admit any little schoolteacher of French or German as a capable historian of France or Germany. Here the absurdity strikes one at once. Why in the case of ancient history should it be less apparent ? The man who is in- capable of appreciating contemporary history is not likely to make any startling discovery in ancient history. Historical events at all times have been made by the human heart, by hiunan passions, by the clash of will upon will, by personality. If we are unable to grasp the ac- tion of these elements to-day, when the process is going on under our very eyes, how shall we discover them in their obscure lurking-places in inscriptions and papyrus, where they are as often as not willfully disguised? For those Argument from the Masai Legends. 17 makers of history who have left records have seldom done so with the disinterested motive of informing posterity of the truth. If we are to interpret those records to any account, we must first have studied men in the living generation ; we must know something of actual politics and their motives; we must have rubbed shoulders with many nations, felt their ambitions, and learned to know their men and women. Finally we may light upon some illuminating analogy which will enable us to see clearly into the dim records of the past. There is certainly no single German pro- fessor of ancient history who can claim to have undergone such a training. But, necessary as it is to the advancement of truth, a preparation of the kind is not essential to his own advance- ment. Life in these dreamy university towns has little of the savor of reality. The professor is generally yet further isolated from reality. His training in ancient languages has cast his mind in a mold little suited to historical in- vestigation. It is quite true that in linguistics the phenomena are of a slow and natural growth : doubtless, syntactical contrivances such as the ablative absolute have been produced by gradual evolution. No man has created a con- struction like this de toutes pieces. But in his- 2 18 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. torj it is far otherwise. We can not there ap- ply methods of philology. Yet .this is what has been done, and what characterizes almost every work on ancient history for the last seventy years. The results have been disastrous. The phi- lologist w4io in all his days has never seen a personality, can not bring himself to believe that institutions like the Spartan State are of the making of a single man. Thus Lycurgus has been dissolved into a myth. Theseus and Romu- lus have sui*vived through more than five-and- twenty centuries, only to be ruthlessly mur- dered by a pack of philologists ; and now, not satisfied with these crimes, they are moving for- ward to attack yet greater and more sacred personalities, those of Moses and even of Jesus Himself. We can not well be angry with the perpetrators of these deeds. They have used what means they had ready to hand. They have availed themselves of a weakness common to all mankind. They have made up for their ignorance and insufiiciency by incantations of high-sounding names. Some of the latest sam- ples of philological jugglery with which the public has been duped are too amusing to be omitted. If only read from the humorous standpoint, it is doubtful whether any book could afford a merrier half-hour than one of Argument from the Masai Legends. 1 9 the latest achievements of Professor Hugo Winckler — two volumes in which he finally dis- solves into myth the small portion of Jewish history which had been mercifully left to us. Listen awhile, and you shall hear how Jewish tradition is a mere flimsy plagiarism of Baby- lonian myths. Among the general massacre of Biblical personalities we can only mention a few of the victims. What person has hitherto been more historical than Joseph ? But to Pro- fessor Winckler he is an obvious astral myth, for in the forty-third chapter of Genesis, verse 25, does he not come at noon ? And is not this clear enough proof that he is a mere personifi- cation of the sun ? Besides, if we are disposed to doubt, we must recollect that Joseph dreamed that the sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed dowm to him; and whom should they bow to save the sun ? Joshua, too, is the sun. Por he is the son of Xun, and does not J^iin, being in- terpreted, mean fish ? and does not the sun at the spring equinox issue from the constellation of Pisces ? What could be more conclusive ? Besides, does it not amply explain why Joshua's companion is Caleb ? Now, Caleb is Kaleb, and Kaleb is Kelb, and Kelb is a dog. So, of course, Caleb is clearly put for the dog-star Sirius. 20 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. This is indeed philology run mad. But so seriously is it taken in scientific circles that Jensen, another Assyriologist of highest repute, thought it necessary to raise his mighty voice in the Berliner Philologische Wocliensclirift, and to thunder confutation against the Winck- lerian utterances. But in the midst of his thunder Jensen suddenly realizes the hideous crime he is about to perpetrate in demolishing Winckler. He evidently grasps that he is tell- ing tales out of school, and with due contrition sets about giving us even more startling hy- potheses. He discovers that Biblical history is a mere perversion of Ghalda^an legends, just as was the Odyssey of Homer. He finds the story of the two Chaldsean Dioscures, Gilgamish and Ebani, running through the whole thing. Gil- gamish is of course hidden under various names. He is in turn Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Simeon, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, and Saul. Then evi- dence is adduced in proof. Did not Gilgamish slay the heavenly bull? So did Moses destroy the golden calf. Israel was vexed in the desert ■» by scorpions, but so was Gilgamish. As for the trek of Israel into the Promised Land, all stuff and nonsense. That is merely the land of the blessed which Gilgamish went to visit, and which Homer filched to put it in the Odyssey Argument from the Masai Legends. 21 as the island of the Phseacians. How delight- fully simple it all becomes ! Yet the philological school of historians have met with astounding success. The effect they have had on the public has been enormous. They have had in their favor all the paraphernalia of erudition, eminently imposing to the naive public. The admiration which the every-day man has for the knowledge of languages is a curious psychological problem. There is prob- ably no talent which secures for its fortunate possessors such inordinate prestige. The more unknown the language is to the hearer, the more profound are the depths of wisdom for which the speaker secures credit. What wonder that when the learned historian is able to cram his footnotes with portentous vocables gleaned from Assyrian tablets, or copied from hieroglyphic steles, that his reader casts up his hands in ecstasy and marvels at the profundity of the man. Herein we have the secret of that won- drous success of the astral myth, which permits the would-be historian to drag into his service all the ponderous lore of Babylonian and later constellations and zodiac; which allows him to sit comfortably ensconced in his professional chair, to pull down volume after volume of long- forgotten wisdom, and to demolish national, re- 22 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. ligious, and other historians, without once com- ing into rough evidence per indicia, etc., that, when applied to '( living persons accused of a crime, has led, and was bound to lead, to the vilest abuse of law of ArguTThent from the Method. 103 all times. Tor it is superfluous to show that neither the Greeks nor the free Romans dis- honored themselves by the application of the in- quisitorial principle. ISTor did they have "learned" judges. On going somewhat more deeply into the matter, we can not but see that all the condi- tions that combined to precipitate the rise of the inquisitorial method in criminal jurisdiction have been at work in the introduction of the same method to the study of History, Theology, or Archaeology in the last hundred and fifty years, especially on the Continent. It is well known that particularly in Germany the "learned" studies proper — i. e.. Philology, His- tory, or Theology — are almost exclusively in the hands of professional, arm-chair scholars, or professors. Their posts they obtain by pon- derous treatises ; their fame is based on books of heavy erudition ; their horizon, their basis, hope, and joy are determined by books, and nothing but books. They are, in fact the Doctores and Glossatores of our time. They ignore Reality for a variety of reasons. As a rule, they are too poor to have seen more than a few minor aspects of great life ; still worse, they spend their receptive years, up to thirty-five, exclu- sively in libraries, so that subsequent acquaint- 104 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. ance with Reality finds them quite impermea- ble to new impressions. Like the Doctores, al- though unfitted to grapple with any concern of life, they yet constantly deal with problems of life, past or present, with History or Theology. The same class-ambition that prompted the "learned" judges of the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries; the same overbearing self-as- sertiveness of the bureaucrat that filled the hearts of those judges, now fills the hearts of the arm-chair historian or theologian in Ger- many, and largely also in France. Their ambi- tion is indeed boundless. Although nobody brings any pressure upon them to this purpose, yet they slave away year after year at the elab- oration of some stupendously erudite work on History, Philology, or Theology. Naturally, they want to be recognized as the masters of the sub- ject. He who is not of the profession is either silenced by neglect, or positively condemned by haughty vituperation. Buckle, in their view, is a dilettante; so is Pater, Grote, Froude, J. G. Frazer, Joseph Ferrari, Motley, Duruy, Riehl. For what they are really after is to wield the same absolutism in History and Theology that their forerunners in the law-courts of the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries wielded in point of Law. In the interest of that great aim, Argument from the Method. 105 nothing is more efficient than the inquisitorial method; the method of learned and malicious insinuation, that rapidly throws about one the halo of "singular sagacity," and "penetrating insight ;" the method of proof by mere indicia, which at once clothes you in the wide gown of a Doctor subtilissimus; the method of torturing single words and phrases until all their natural meaning has been racked out of them. To em- ploy this method, both a peculiar etat d'dme, and a peculiar erudition a la Archbishop Ussher or Pfeffinger are required. This is unobtain- able for the normal man outside the professorial career ; and accordingly, History, Theology, and Philology are at present almost exclusively un- der the weight of an Absolutism which the na- tions of Europe have long shaken off in spheres political and social. To come now to our immediate point. It is here maintained that the "Higher Critics" of the Bible are to all intents and purposes the "learned judges" of former ages; that, for the same psychological motives that actuated those judges in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- turies to employ, in ever more "refined" ways, the inquisitorial method, the "Higher Critics" of the Bible are employing the same pernicious and sterile method; and, finally, that the 106 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. "Higher Critics" of the Bible, far from applying mental processes and methods of research ap- proved by the true spirit of scientific thought, are, on the contrary, the victims, or worse, of the same thoroughly unscientific and inhuman delusion that was, in ultima analysis, the real cause of the horrors of witch-trials and religious persecution. To illustrate and fully prove the preceding statement, we need only relate the story of the "Higher Criticism" of Genesis xiv. For clear- ness' sake we first subjoin the text : And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedor- laomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations ; 2 That these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar. 3 All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea. 4 Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled. 5 And in the fourteenth year came Chedor- laomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashtei'oth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh Kiriathaim, 6 And the Horites in their mount Seir, unto El-paran, which is by the wilderness. 7 And they returned, and came to En-mish- pat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country Argument from the Method. 107 of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that dwelt in Hazezon-tamar. 8 And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Ad- mah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim ; 9 With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar ; four kings with five. 10 And the vale of Siddim was full of slime- pits ; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there ; and they that remained fled to the mountain. 11 And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way. 12 And they took Lot, Ab ram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and de- parted. 13 And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner : and these were confederate with Abram. 14 And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eight- een, and pursued them unto Dan. 15 And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. 16 And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. 108 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. 17 And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Che- dorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king's dale. 18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine : and he was the priest of the most high God . 19 And he blessed him, and said. Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth : 20 And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all. 21 And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself. 22 And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, 23 That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich : 24 Save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre ; let them take their portion. This whole chapter, Noldeke, Wellhausen, and so many other "Higher Critics" say, is simply a very late interpolation, i. e., a forgery. Says Wellhausen : "That 'at the time of Abra- ham' four kings from the Persian Gulf made a razzia (or raid) as far as the peninsula of Argument from the Method. 109 Sinai ; that they, on that occasion, surprised and captured five city princes who reigned in the Dead Sea ; that finally Abraham, at the head of three hundred and eighteen servants, fell upon the departing victors, and recaptured what they had robbed, — these are simply impossibilities."^ No unprejudiced reader can for a moment fail to see that the mental process here used by Wellhausen is painfully identical with the men- tal process used by the '^learned judges" of the times of the inquisitorial principle in criminal law. Wellhausen, after relating the common- est occurrences of all history; that is, raids made by some kings into the territory of other princes ; captures of men and goods ; a military surprise of the departing victors at the hands of a clever leader, who attacks their rear guard ; Wellhausen, we say, after relating these most commonplace and but too likely events of ordi- nary warfare, suddenly delivers himself of the statement, or rather judgment, that "all this is simply impossible." Wliy is it impossible, Doctor subtilissimef Why ? Are not raids as common in all history as are sharks in the sea ? Do we not know of hundreds of raids and campaigns of Assyrian, * Wellhausen, J. Die Composition des Hexateuch (third edition), Berlin, 1899, p. 312. 110 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. Babylonian, Elamite, Hittite, Egyptian, and other rulers, very many of which were directed against the country they called Martu, or the West ; i. e., Syria and Palestine ? Do we not pertinently know that Hammurabi, King of Babylon in the twenty-second or twenty-third century B. C, extended his rule to the Mediter- ranean ?•* Do we not positively know that Baby- lonian influence was, in some respects, para- mount in Western Asia for over a thousand years, and that such influence can not have been acquired without a certain military superiority of the Babylonians ? Have we not inscriptions on the so-called Omina slab relating of such raids into Western countries under Sargon of Agade, a Babylonian sovereign, who ruled long before Abraham and Hammurabi V On the strength of what reasonable argiuncnt are we entitled to deny prima facie credibility to the statement of Genesis xiv ? There is no such reasonable argument. In ^See an inscription in the British Museum, referred to by 'SVmckl^v , Altorientalische Forschungen I, pp. 145- 146. See also on Babylonian invasions of the West, after Hammurabi, Pinches, in Records of the Past, 2d series, vol. v, pp. 102-105. ^See Schrader's KeilinschriftUche Bibliothek, III, 1, p. 103; and Thureau-Dangin, in Compics Rendus de VAcademie des Inscriptions (Paris 1896, month of August.) Argument from, the Method. Ill reading chapter xiv of Genesis, no fair-minded historian can say that the facts related therein are ''simply impossibilities." To say so, is to be unwarrantably arbitrary. To say so, is to act precisely as acted the "learned" judges of the age of the inquisitorial principle. They, too, laid down the condemnation of the accused long before the latter had been convicted by any semblance of real evidence. They laid it down, simply because they wanted to do so; because they were anxious to assert their power, to "make a case," or to win the applause of their absolutist prince. There is not a shadow of real evidence discrediting the story of Genesis xiv. About the names of the kings therein men- tioned we shall see presently. About the facts themselves there can be no initial or logical doubt whatever. One may subsequently prove that these facts, likely and natural in them- selves, have yet never taken place. ISTot every- thing that is likely is for this reason alone also real. We are, however, speaking here of the initial attitude of the historian to Genesis xiv. Wellhausen, a limme, or from the very outset, condemns the chapter, because it contains things "simply impossible." This he has no right whatever to do ; not the palest shadow of a right. That chapter contains no impossibilities what- 112 The Failure of the Highei" Criticism. ever. But Wellhausen, like all the rest of the Higher Critics, is in reality not a critic, but a sixteenth or seventeenth century criminal judge. He treats the crime of forgery imputed to the ' 'interpolator" of Genesis xiv, in the manner and after the methods of Carpzov or Dam- houder, or any other criminal judge of the sev- enteenth century. He lays it down from the outset, "ea; plenitudine juris mei/' that this "in- terpolator" has indeed forged the chapter. Then he proceeds to prove the forgery. In vain the "interpolator" exclaims: "Consider, O Judge, the names of the kings ! It was said formerly that all these names were 'free inventions' of mine. Have these names not been borne out in the last thirty years by authentic inscriptions from the second millennium B. C. ? Is not every one name a real name 'i Has not the As- syriologist George Smith, in 1871, shown that Arioch, king of Ellasar, in verse 1 of Genesis xiv, was, according to authentic inscriptions, a real king whom Hammurabi once defeated ? Did not the same George Smith show, in the same unimpeachable manner, that the name of King Chedorlaomer of Elam, mentioned in verse 1 of Genesis xiv, is indeed a true Elamite name, Lagamar being the name of an Elamite goddess, and Kudur having been found in the Argument from the Method. 113 authentic names of Elamite Kings, such as Kudur-Mabuk, and Kudur-Nanchundi ? And has not Mr. Pinches found the full name of Kuturlagamar (Chedorlaomer) in a Chaldsean document ?"* There is no modern court of law where the preceding arguments of the 'interpolator" would not be accepted as complete and irrefuta- ble evidence for the above statement, that Gene- sis xiv does not contain anything that can in common fairness be called "simply impossible" from the very outset. There is no modem judge but would recognize that Wellhausen's initial dictum of "simply impossible" is hopelessly ab- surd and arbitrary. Historic impossibilities are either chronological, topical, logical, psy- chological, or technical. There are no other im- possibilities wdth regard to historic facts. We have condemned certain records as relating im- possibilities, because they contained a flagrant incongruence in point of time, or in point of 'See The Academy for September 7, 1895, p. 189. G. Smith and most Assyriologists (Oppert, Delitzsch- MUrdter, Hommel, etc.) have always accepted Genesis xiv as a record of historic facts ; while the majority of " Higher Critics" (Reuss, Noldeke, in 1869, Well- hausen, etc.) have refused to accept that chapter as an authentic statement of events of the times of Ham- murabi. See the elaborate notes in Maspero's Histoire Ancienne, vol. ii (1897), pp. 48, 49, 50. 8 114 TJie Failure of the Higher Criticism. space ; likewise, because tbey contained what is illogical, or psychologically impossible ; and, finally, because they contain a technical, or what the Germans call sachliche, impossibility. Does Genesis xiv contain any such ground for the initial assumption of "impossibilities ?" ISTone whatever. However, as said above, the Higher Critic is not a modern judge. He is a judge of the seventeenth century. He deals not with facts, and such conclusions from facts, as are psycho- logically justifiable. He deals with the inquis- itorial method of browbeating facts and wit- nesses, of poisoning statements by diabolical in- sinuations, and of bullying everybody by declar- ing the most likely things "absolute impossibil- ities." For, what indeed has been the answer of the Higher Critics to the arguments of the "interpolator" above stated ? Here is their answer : "The accused (interpolator) refers to the slight error committed by the previous judges (Higher Critics) in declaring, as they did, that all the names of kings in Genesis xiv were free inventions of his. We do not say at present, that they were. Those names are really names of Oriental kings of Elam, Ellasar, and Shinar. The previous judges, for reasons that the ac- A rgument from the Method. 115 cused would not be able to follow, and which therefore it behooves us at present to conceal, did not choose to admit their knowledge of the authenticity of those names. But even admit- ting, as we now do, that these kings of Shinar, Ellasar, and Elam, as named in Genesis xiv, were indeed authentic kings of those countries, we can not at all admit that this merely ex- ternal circumstance can in any way exonerate the accused of his heinous crime. The names are true. But will any one undertake to prove that those names could not have been copied out by the accused from some old records in Baby- lon ? Could he, a child of the fifth century B. C, not have repaired to Babylon, and get- ting information from Babylonian priests and historians, 'write up' Genesis xiv, as if this chapter were a document from the beginning of the second millennium, or relating authentic facts of that time ? Note our sagacity. Is it not superbly subtle to have pointed out this most unlikely act of literary forgery ? Is such sa- gacity, such lightning flashes of 'presumptional' thinking, such sorites of hypothetical concatena- tions ivOvfJiT^fULTa and dTTLXf^iprjfxaTa not in itself a full proof of the most reprehensible act of the accused ? Here is, apparently, an authentic record in Genesis xiv. With the 116 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. usual wiliness of hardened criminals, the ac- cused repairs stealthily to Babel, bribes priests, filches Babylonian documents, copies old records, and imbuing himself with the atmos- phere of the second millennium B. C, 'writes up' a chapter of history that is, in all its out- ward appearance and inward probability, a most plausible piece of literary forgery. Mark the coincidence of outward appearance with inward probability. In authentic things there is, as a rule, a certain slight but natural discrepancy between what we call outer and inner proba- bility. External reality is always somewhat of a blurred mirror of existence internal. The sub- jective does not correspond fully to the ob- jective, nor the spiritual to the material. But in inauthentic and illegal acts there is just that complete correspondence between inside and out- side, between soul and body, heart and act, that to the experienced and truly learned judge re- veals the crime. The criminal, by his very at- tempt to create a pleasing harmony between names, dates, places, and inner probability of events, reveals the criminal nature of his action. True, none but a trained intellect will discover such subtle traces of misdeeds. But it is equally true that such an intellect will discover it. Or, is it not luce meridiana clarius that this verv Argument f pom the Method. 117 coincidence of correct names with probable events in Genesis xiv calls for the application of that powerful, nay, irresistible and acknowl- edged principle, that 'too plausible a probability is rightly considered to be suspect,' or, as Dam- houder has it, verisimilitudo ultra quam necesse est magna suspicionem in se trahit. The ac- cused, in order to prove his officially impossible innocence, has indeed advanced the ludicrous ar- gument that had he copied his tale from Baby- lonian records as they existed in his time — i. e., in the fifth centuiy B. C. — ^he could not have written in Genesis xiv, Chedorlaomer, which in that century was unknown at Babel, but should have written Kudurlagamar, which spelling alone was current in his time.^ This, far from proving his case, is one more argument against him, in that it only proves his natural attempt to cover up the traces of his forgery, and to choose from among the various forms of Kudur- laomer the one which had the most archaic ap- pearance in sound. It is evident that the most elementary cunning of forgers of allegedly an- cient documents will suffice to suggest to them the choice of the most likely verbiage and style. Is it, for instance, possible to assume that a modern forger who wants to foist a false manu- ^Plommel, The Ancient Hebrew Tradition (1897), p. 165. 118 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. script of Chaucer on some silly amateur, will write it in the prose of the eighteenth century ? An obscure Frenchman, by the name, if we mis- take not, of Alphonse Daudet, has indeed done such an incredibly perverse thing in his novel 'Ulmmortel' in which a member of the French Academy, and thus one of our respected col- leagues, is said to have been taken in by forged manuscripts dating, apparently, from the four- teenth century, although manifestly written in the prose of nineteenth-century France. But Daudet was one of those unspeakable free lances, who will say anything, as long as they can make money by so doing. Our trained in- tellect can not be duped. We do know that criminals will use contemporary prose or names, lest we, conversant as we are with the prose of all ages, be put on our guard from the very be- ginning. Their doing so is therefore proof con- clusive of forgery. To sum up, it is absolutely clear that all the arguments of the accused as to the authenticity of Genesis xiv are beyond the point, illogical, against all psychology, and therefore absolutely inacceptable." The gentle reader who has been able to with- hold his indignation and to read the judge's (or Higher Critic's) absurd discourse to the end, must kindly pardon us for inviting him to Argument from the Method. 119 stand the ordeal for a little longer. He has not yet learned the whole of the Higher Critic's ars magna probandi. Before proceeding we must again call the reader's attention to the fact that the preceding argumentation of the Higher Critic is, in tone, method, and drift, identical with the discourses of seventeenth-century judges in witchcraft trials. Read one or two such trials in the original acts. You will find the same fitiasserie, the same perverse application of moral truths, the same method of revolting insinuation. Or, if you can not easily obtain access to the musty bundles of rotuli of old witch-trials, read the speeches of Robespierre and other masters of diabolical invective. Pur- blind prejudice alone can prevent one from noticing the absolute identity of the method in both cases. Or, what else shall we say of Well- hausen, whose absurd works are still enjoying such reputation in Europe and America ? After having delivered himself, as we have seen, of his pompous and inane "these are simply im- possibilities" with regard to Genesis xiv, he feels that some people might timidly ask them- selves: "Is the mere dictum of a German Pon- derosity quite sufficient to discredit an entire chapter of Genesis f x\nd, accordingly, Well- hausen, in order to poison the minds of these 120 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. timid believers — that is, of an, alas ! but too numerous section of students and non-students — goes on saying: "Tliey [the impossibilities implied in Genesis xiv] do not become more worthy of credence by their being placed, with great and deliberate care, in a locality that has since disappeared."^" Wellhausen hints at the fact that the king's near (he says "in") the Dead Sea, of whom men- tion is made in Genesis xiv, ruled over a terri- tory which subsequently disappeared, as related later on in Genesis. Being unable, as we have seen, to make even the semblance of a fair case of his contention, Wellhausen now, exactly after the manner of the old judges of witch-trials, uses the poison of vile insinuation. The crim- inal jurist of the seventeenth century used to say, "/s fecit cut prodestf — "The crime was probably made by him who profited by it." The* interpolator thus invented the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in order to tell with im- punity a story of some kings who held territory round the two doomed tou-ns. Can learned per- versity go any further ? It will be noticed that the absurdity of Well- ^"AVellhausen, Die Composition dcs Hexateuchs, etc. (3d ed, 1899, p. 312.) *' Sie werden dadurch nicht zutrauenswurdiger , dass sie mil grosser Gejtissentlichkeit in eine untergegangene Welt placiert werden." Ai'guraent from the Method. 121 hausen's elaborate system of arraignment comes back, root and branch, to his initial and purely arbitrary assumption, that Genesis xiv is a for- gery, — just as all the revolting proceedings of the old inquisitorial judges in witch-trials come back to their initial assumption that the ac- cused woman was a witch. However, there is another and equally important point, that must be steadily kept in mind. The Higher Critics, like their forbears on the judicial benches of the seventeenth century, have practically only one category of argument, that of the Possible and its converse, the Impossible. He who will carefully peruse the works of the Higher Critics will soon convince himself that the principal en- gine they work with is the bald category of the Possible and the Impossible. Whatever hap- pens to agree with what their little experience of life or thought may accept as ''possible," that they will admit. Whatever event, institution, idea, or personality does not commend itself as "possible" to their minds, that they will forth- with dismiss with the cold sneer of the pedant. The true student of history does but rarely use the formal and practically void category of the Possible and the Impossible. He is too busy dis- covering the relations and correlations of the psychological forces of Keality. He has long \y 122 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. learned to disparage the endless discussions of the mediaeval or scholastic doctors about the possibilitas dbsoluta, possibiUtas ex supposi- iione, possibile logicum, posslhile reale, etc., which, together with the scholastic subtleties about potentia, occupied hundreds of thousands of scholars in the monastic schools of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries with interminable disputations ending in no ap- preciable result. A few examples will put the whole matter in a clear light. One of the most moderate yet resolute Higher Critics of our time is Professor Edward Ivonig. In his "Introduction to the Old Testament" ("Eiiileitung in das Alte Testament" Bonn, 1893), he sincerely tries to be as just and fair as he is learned. Not the vaguest imputation of deliberate unfairness to the Pentateuch can be laid at his door. His is a painstaking, labor- ious, and erudite work. It is, nevertheless, a book thoroughly vitiated by that false and un- scientific view of the questions raised which we here ascribe to all Higher Critics. iSTeither Konig nor Wellhausen can move outside the sphere of methods tainted with all the poison of the inquisitorial principle. A mere formal "j)ossibility" is sufficient for Konig to cast the gravest doubt upon entire chapters and sections Argument from the Method. 123 of Genesis and Exodus. When it is urged that the expressions "without the camp," "out of the camp," in, e. g., Leviticus iv, 12 ; xiii, 46 ; xiv, 3, 8 ; etc., clearly indicate a time when the Israelites were still in the desert during their exodus; then Konig literally retorts: "It is 'possible to conceive that these portions of the text referring to incidents of the wanderings of the Israelites through the desert arose in the following manner. Some of the laws and stories that originated in the period of Israel's divinely willed salvation may very well have re- tained their original traits, which were subse- quently, when the text of Leviticus was com- piled, used as parts of the narrative."^^ In the same way, Konig discredits the value of the numerous details of customs and laws Egyptian to be found in Genesis and Exodus. Could not these details, Konig asks, "possibly" have been inserted by a late compiler V' Mark the enormity of the argument : Should we find no trace of Egyptian habits and customs in the portions of Genesis and Exodus relating to that country, then the Higher Critic would "Konig, E., Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1893, p. 157. The original German is uncommonly involved, but the above abridged translation does not leave out a single essential part. 12 Konig, I. c. p. 159. 124 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. triumpliantlj exclaim: ''Does not this total ab- sence of local color of /Egyptiaca at once con- demn the Bible stories located in Egypt ? Is it conceivable that these stories, if authentic, should not have contained some traits about the country which, more than any other country, abounded in traits singular and strange ?" If, on the other hand, the Higher Critic is com- pelled to admit that there is plenty of local color (thus, the carrying of baskets on the head, the shaving of the beard before appearing before Pharaoh, etc.) in Genesis and Exodus with re- gard to matters Egyptian, then he exclaims with equal triumph : "Could not this local color have been 'procured' by a late interpolator ? Was it impossible to secure such details in the sixth or fifth century B. C. ? Evidently not. What guar- antee have we, then, of the authenticity of the Egyptian narratives of the Bible V This was precisely the method of the judges in witch-trials. When the accused proved an. alibi, then the judge triumphantly retorted: "An alibi? Can not a witch be in two places at a time ? Have not Bodinus, Delrio, Clarus, Zanger, etc., etc., conclusively shown that as witches can fly in space, so they can also be at several spots at the same time ?" It can indeed not be denied that if witches are possible, they Argument from the MetJiod. 125 may bewitch space as much as men. If it be allowed to use mere formal possibilities as ar- guments, then indeed it may legitimately be doubted whether Konig and Wellhausen are not, after all, the greatest enemies of Higher Crit- icism. For is it not just possible that they wrote their works in order to show up the hopeless absurdity of Higher Criticism? Much might be advanced to that effect. At any rate, it is "possible.'^ Such things have been known to happen ; there are several masterpieces of Swift, and even of scholars proper, that may very well serve as precedents. Once we admit mere "pos- sibilities," we can prove anything we like. The old Italian criminalists rightly said, on the basis of the inquisitorial principle rife in their time, "Give me two lines, two ever so trivial and commonplace lines written by any one, and I undertake to bring the writer to the gallows." Undoubtedly this is possible and feasible, but only as long as the method of inquisitorial prin- ciple is recognized. In modem criminal law it is absolutely impossible. Mere possibilities are rejected as evidence or proof. ^Nowadays we insist on psychological, and not on formal proof in criminal matters. Except, when people criti- cise the Bible. With regard to this most im- portant of all books, we still suffer the applica- 126 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. tion of a method of crimiual procedure which we have long thrown overboard when dealing with the most lowly and' vulgar of criminals. The so-called crimes of the "interpolators," "re- dactors," "compilers" of the Pentateuch, are still proceeded with after the fashion of trials in the seventeenth century. Mere possibilities are adduced as proof conclusive; insinuations are leveled at the most natural and simple pas- sages of the Bible ; and the guilt of the "forgers" is taken for 2;r anted from the very outset. It is high time that this scandalous witch- trial of the Bible be put an end to. It is im- perative, in the interest of humanity, knowl- edge, and religion, that the Bible shall be sub- jected, if at all, to a criminal examination ac- cording to the precepts of modern criminal law. The honest student may rest convinced that the Bible can and will stand any fair criticism. He need not be afraid. The Rock of the Bible is as impregnable as is the Power that gave rise to it. CHAPTER IV. The Argument from the Theory of Names, of THE Foreigner, and of Myths. CHAPTEK IV. The Argument from the Theory of ^^Tames, OF THE Foreigner^ and of Myths. In the preceding chapter we have shown that the method used by the Higher Critics is as per- nicious as it is unscientific. It is a method long abandoned, and, to speak plainly, despised by all real students of history, philology, and the- ology. It is as antiquated and obsolete as it is unsound and perverse. It is destructive and unfounded. It is the method by means of which the most astounding and now avowed bank- ruptcy of knowledge of all the ages of study and research has been brought about. For it is well known that the same method that the Higher Critics of the Bible have been using, has in the last one hundred and thirty years been applied to the origins of our civilization, and with the same discreditable result. The inquisitorial principle, when applied to phi- 9 129 130 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. lology and to the origins of language, religion, "races," and history generally, stands at pres- ent convicted of a hopeless bankruptcy of re- sults. By the middle of the nineteenth century, indeed, it was held that the great philologians, or inquisitorial judges of words, had firmly es- tablished the following interesting "truths" about our primeval history : (1) With the exception of a few nations, such as the Finns, Hungarians, Turks, etc., all the white peoples of Europe are Aryans, whose ancestors originally lived in Central Asia, from where they spread southward and westward. (2) Their original language was Aryan, to which idiom Sanskrit stood nearest, so that Sanskrit may practically be taken as the oldest of the Aryan langiiages. (3) Their religion, too, was originally one, the Aryan religion, and both Greek and Norse mythology, Indian religion, etc., came originally from the old Aryan stock, as witness the famous equation Jupitei-=Diaus-pitar. (4) All our plants, implements — in short all the instruments of our civilization — come from the central or western portion of Asia. (5) As against the pure and ideal Aryans, there was the other, inferior "race" of the Sem- ites, who, in language, religion, laws, and cus- Theory of Names and Myths. 131 toms, were quite, or "racially," different from the Aryans and In do-Germans. He who, by the middle of the last century, should have ventured to doubt the preceding "splendid" results of the philological method based on the inquisitorial principle, would have risked literary extermination. To doubt Pott, Bopp, the Grims, Max Miiller, Benfey, etc., seemed sacrilegious. Yet a fearful revulsion of opinion has since taken place, and not one of the above five statements is at present accepted by the majority of students.^ Whoever carefully reads the interesting essay by M. S. Reinach, quoted in the preceding foot- note, will be in a position to gauge aright the complete insolvency of a method that has these hundred and thirty years so signally misled us ^In 1879 M. de Saussure dethroned Sanskrit as the "oldest Aryan language" (Reinach, S., Manuel de Philologie, 1884, II, p. 173) . We now accept the opinion of Bergaigne (La religion vediqne, 1883), that the Vedas do not go back to a period moi*e ancient than Homer. Mannhardt, and especially Otto Gruppe (Die griech- ischen Ctdte und Mythen in ihren Beziehungen zu den orientalischen Religionen, 1887), have emancipated Greek mythology from " Aryan " suzerainty. Penka has successfully traced the original seats of the Indo- Germans to Europe (Die Herkunft der Aryer, 1886) ; etc., etc. See the excellent essay by S. Reinach, Le Mirage Oriental, in his Chroniques D'Orient, 1896, vol. ii, pp. 509-565. ^ 132 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. about the realities of the past. In this state- ment there is, we beg to repeat it, nothing very novel. \Miat we claim to have been hitherto ignored ; wiiat we must insist upon as a matter of the highest, if neglected, importance, is this, that that insolvency was, and is, due to the ap- plication of the same method that in previous centuries was allowed to disgrace the tribunals of Europe, and to outrage the conscience of humanity". WHiat is here demanded as a fact of scientific research is this, that the method of the so-called Higher Criticism of the Bible is the same method that in law has led to witch- trials; in philology, to the Aryan vagaries; in primeval history, to the wholesale dislocation of events; in Greek and Roman history, to the radical distortion of all the real issues and per- sonalities of that memorable period, as the au- thor has shown in detail in his "General His- tory." We may now turn to the consideration of the right method of studying a book like the Bible. We may now say a few words, and give a few examples, with regard to the real method to fol- low. And first as to its name. If the method of the Higher Critics must be called philological and inquisitorial, ours may in fairness be termed psychol ogical. The philological method Theory of Names and Myths. 133 is so unsatisfactory in any serious study of the Bible and of the events related therein, that we do not hesitate to say that even the opinions of such philologians as resolutely oppose the Higher Critics, and whom we gladly welcome in our circle, can yet not be held to be decisive opinions. We honor and love the men ; we fight shy of their methods. To these men belongs, in the first place, Hommel. Professor Hommel, of Mimich University, is one of the ablest and, in point of linguistic ac- complishments, one of the most erudite of Bible students. He is quite opposed to the views of the Higher Critics, and has, in consequence, suffered to a certain extent in his academic posi- tion, as he has declared to the author of the present work. In Germany the authority of the Wellhausen school is so great, it is considered to be so thoroughly scientific (or rather "wissen- schaftlich"), that any person that opposes it, at once calls down upon himself the ignominy of "retrograde dilettantism." Professor Hom- mel has, in a series of books, articles, and re- views contributed a very considerable mass of new facts and new ideas which, when properly used, can not but strengthen the view of the bankruptcy of Higher Criticism. For all this, the serious student of the Bible and of Biblical 134 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. history can not but thank him most sincerely and devoutly. It is, however, not possible to approve of his exclusive use of the philological method in mat- ters of history. In this respect Professor Hom- mel is still under the spell of the prevalent men- tal turn of German historians. For various social and historical reasons, the German scholars have at all times attached an undue value to the efficiency of the philological elab- oration of problems of history. They take up words of some ancient language, analyze them, group them, let on them play the waters of their minds in a variety of showers, and thus press out of them all manners of statements of social in- stitutions, political facts, religious beliefs, etc. This is convenient; it is also very learned. It lends itself to a bewildering array of erudite footnotes a la Selden or Salmasius. But it is y hopelessly wrong. Language can not help us to penetrate to the psychological forces producing the events of history. History is action, and the grammar of action is ioto ccelo different from the grammar of language. Action is, to go for a moment to the philosophic root of the matter, — action is essentially Heraclitic; while lan- guage is fundamentally Eleatic. Language must assume the substantiality of things in or- Theory of Na/mes and Myths. 135 der to house and fix them in permanent words. Action comes from and proceeds to an unending flux of things. Of all modes and methods of historical research, then, language is the poor- est. He who has a practical and thorough knowledge of one or two Latin (Romance) idioms, of one or two Germanic languages, and of one or two Slav or "Turanian" idioms, has long learned the important truth that there is, for the purposes of the historian, no more misguiding instrument of research than language. In fact, it may be said, that of all things illogical and absurd, language is the most illogical and the most absurd. It is a will-o'- the-wisp, a demon giving the lie to its own con- fession, holding out prospects it never means to keep ; flirting and coquetting with six mean- ings at the same time ; heartless, selfish, silly, — a finished killer of minds. A thousand years from now a philological historian will easily prove, from the English language, that the Eng- lish people of 1905 A. D. had no will-power whatever. Eor, was there a word in English to express fully the French "/e veux," or the phrase ^^ Quelle volonte!" or the German ^^Ich will," or "Des Menschen Wllle ist sein Himmel- reich?" He who really knows these three lan- guages is fully aware of the impossibility of 136 Tihe Failure of the Higher Criticism. rendering these German and French words into short and adequate English words. Vice versa, although the French undoubtedly are, and have long been, recognized to be the wittiest nation of Europe and America, yet there is no adequate word in French to render the German word Witz, nor the English jolce, in its conversational sense. The modern French, then, will, by the philological historian a thousand years hence, be declared to have been a nation singularly de- void of esprit. Under these circumstances one must be care- ful not to attach any extraordinary power to ar- guments taken from a consideration of names only. When Victor Hehn published his '"Kul- tvrpflanzen und Hausthiere" (1870), in which he traced, in pleasing manner and polished style, the origin of our domestic plants and animals from the East by means of philological argu- ments, his efforts were greeted by his colleagues and the general public with great applause. The sober fact is, that most of the results of his re- searches have since been questioned, corrected, or abandoned. Even Paul Kretschmer has now declared that " a history of civilization on a linguistic basis is pure nonsense."" Keeping in 2 Kretschmer, P., Einleitung in die Geschichte der Griechischen Sprache, 1896, p. 50: ^'Eine KuUurge- schichte auf sprachwissenschaftlicher Grundlage ist ein Unding." Theory of Names and Myths. 137 mind all these weighty considerations of princi- ple and fact against the usual abuse of philolog- ical methods in history, we may now attempt to allot its true value to the arguments of Pro- fessor Ilommel. In one of his most interesting works on Old Testament Criticism, in his "The Ancient He- brew Tradition as Illustrated by the Monu- ments" (English edition, London, 1897), Pro- fessor Hommel lays down the following princi- ple in the Preface, which he illustrates with the subsequent remarks and conclusions about the nomenclature of the Arabians : "For years past I have been convinced that the question of the authenticity of the Ancient Hebrew tradition could not be finally decided until the Hebrew personal names found in the Old Testament had first been exhaustively com- pared with other contemporary names of similar formation, and carefully checked by them ; and that all that was needed was the hand of an ex- pert to disclose the treasures hitherto concealed in them, and to set forth the evidence they con- tain in such clear and convincing fashion as to render all further discussion impossible. Twen- ty-one years ago Eberhard Nestle,^ in a valua- ble work, which still retains its place in the esti- ^Die israelitischen Eigennamen nach ihrer religios- geschichtlichen Bedeutung, Haarlem, 1876. 138 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. mation of scholars, endeavored to use the per- sonal names of the Old Testament as a touch- stone bj which to test the authority of Hebrew tradition. ISTestle correctly divided Hebrew per- sonal names into three main groups, correspond- ing to the three stages of evolution observable in the religion of the Old Testament. In the first he placed names compounded with El (God) ; in the second those belonging to the period between Joshua and Solomon (or Eli- jah), in which the Divine name Yahveh comes to occupy a favored place beside El, the name of the Canaanite deity Baal (Lord) being sub- sequently added ; and, lastly, the names of the monarchical period, containing, almost without exception, the element Yahveh (Yo, Yahu, or Yah), and thus bearing witness to the perma- nent victory of Yahveh over Baal. Moreover, in his explanation of the ancient Hebrew equiva- lents of the divine name. El — viz., A6i=my father; ylmmi=my uncle — Nestle was not far wide of the mark. Indeed, this attempt of Nes- tle's might have found acceptance, as a solution of the Pentateuch problem, had not Wellhausen roundly asserted that the personal names of the Mosaic period, to be found in the Priestly Code, had been deliberately manufactured in later times after an earlier pattern, and that their Theory of Names and Myths. 139 testimony was consequently worthless. The question was thus left in very much the same position as before. "One of the main objects, therefore, which I have kept before me in writing the present book, has been to adduce external evidence — i. e., from contemporary inscriptions — to show that, even from the time of Abraham onwards, per- sonal names of the characteristically Mosaic type were in actual use among a section of the Semites of Western Asia, and that it is conse- quently useless to talk any longer of a later post- exilic invention." "The personal names* which occur in all these inscriptions — and especially in the earliest of them, such as the Minsean and early Sabsean — are of a fairly uniform type, their main charac- teristics being briefly as follows : "We are struck, first of all, by the fact that though the South Arabian religion was of a polytheistic character — as the ex veto offerings to the various gods conclusively show^ — yet the names of the various gods are, in almost every * The Ancient Hebreiv Tradition as illustrated by the Monuments, by Dr. Fritz Hommel, 1897, page 79. *The majority of the inscriptions are ex voto offer- ings to the gods ; even the few purely historical monu- ments partake of this character. l40 The Failure of the Higher Criticism. instance, excluded from personal names in favor of the generic term 'i7w='God.' "The usual sequence in which the gods are mentioned in the Minsean inscriptions is as fol- lows: Athtar (pronounced Astar) of Kahadh, Wadd, an-Kar'ih (another rendering is Nak- rah), Athtar of Yalirak, and the Lady of Nashk. To these some inscriptions add an "Athtar the Ascendant" (i. e., apparently, the Morning Star), and an Athtar of Yahir. Athtar and Wadd occupy the highest place. The first of these, though originally borrowed from Babylon, and identical with the goddess Ishtar (the Phoe- nician Astarte), is nevertheless always repre- sented as a male deity. He w^as also worshiped in the Hadramaut, though there his son Sin (also a Babylonian importation, but in Babylon the relationship was reversed. Sin being re- garded as the father of Ishtar) took a more prominent place. As to Wadd, he is the per- sonification of Love, just as an-Karih® is the personification of Hate: we have here an Ara- bian counterpart of the hostile brothers Marduk "This reading (in which the "n" is assumed to be equivalent to tlie old North Arabian article) is based on the fact that in certain South Arabian inscriptions the North-Arabian-Phcenician god Ba^al appears as an- Ba^al (according to another rendering Nab^al) ; it is, therefore, probable that an-Karih is originally of North Arabian origin. Theory of Names and Myths. 141 and Nirgal (cf. Osiris and Set). Yet in spite of all this we scarcely ever find anything but ilu=Q(odi, in Minsean personal names. Wadd occurs but seldom (as in Sa^ada-Wadd==^a.di^ hath blessed it; or, better reading, 8a' du- Wadd=^T\iQ prosperity of Wadd), an-Karih is not found at all ; the word 'goddess' only once ; viz., in