NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 725 



But Egyptology, while thus aiding to sweep away the former 

 conception of our sacred books, has aided biblical criticism in 

 making them far more precious ; for it has shown them to be a 

 part of that living growth of sacred literature whose roots are in 

 all the great civilizations of the past, and through whose trunk 

 and branches are flowing the currents which are to infuse a 

 higher religious and ethical life into the civilizations of the 

 future.* 



But while archaeologists thus influenced enlightened opinion, 

 another body of scholars rendered services of a different sort the 

 center of their enterprise being the University of Oxford. By 

 their efforts was presented to the English-speaking world a series 

 of translations of the sacred books of the East, which showed the 

 relations of the more Eastern sacred literature ,to our own, and 

 proved that in the religions of the world the ideas which have 

 come as the greatest blessings to mankind are not of sudden 



* For general statements of agreements and disagreements between biblical accounts 

 and the revelations of the Egyptian monuments, see Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the 

 Monuments, especially chap. iv. For discrepancies between the Hebrew sacred accounts 

 of Jewish relations with Egypt and the revelations of modern Egyptian research, see 

 Sharpe, History of Egypt ; Flinders Petrie, History of Egypt ; and especially Maspero and 

 Sayce, The Dawn of Civilization in Egypt and Chaldaaa, London, published by the Society 

 for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1894. For the statement regarding the Nile, that 

 about the middle of July " in eight or ten days it turns from grayish blue to dark red, occa- 

 sionally of so intense a color as to look like newly shed blood," see Maspero and Sayce, as 

 above, p. 23. For the relation of the Joseph legend to the Tale of Two Brothers, see 

 Sharpe and others cited. For examples of exposure of various great personages of antiquity 

 in their childhood, see G. Smith, Chaldaean Account of Genesis, Sayce's edition, p. 320. 

 As to Trinities in Egypt and Chaldaea, see Maspero and Sayce, especially pp. 104-106, p. 175, 

 and pp. 659-663. For miraculous conception and birth of sons of Ra, ibid., pp. 388, 389. 

 For ascension of Ra into heaven, ibid., pp. 16*7, 168 ; for resurrections, see representations in 

 Lepsius, Prisse d'Avennes, et al. ; and for striking resemblance between Egyptian and 

 Hebrew ritual and worship, and especially the ark, cherubim, ephod, Urim and Thummim, 

 and wave offerings, see same, passim. For very full exhibition of the whole subject, see 

 Renan, Histoire du Peuple Israel, vol. i, chap. xi. For Egyptian and Chaldaean ideas in 

 astronomy, out of which Hebrew ideas of " the firmament," " pillars of heaven," etc., were 

 developed, see text and engravings in Maspero and Sayce, pp. 17 and 543. For creation of 

 man by a divine being in Egypt out of clay, see Maspero and Sayce, p. 154 ; for a similar idea 

 in Chaldaea, see ibid., p. 545 ; and for the creation of the universe by a word, ibid., pp. 146, 147. 

 For Egyptian and Chaldaean ideas on magic and medicine, dread of evil spirits, etc., antici- 

 pating those of the Hebrew Scriptures, see Maspero and Sayce, as above, pp. 212-214, 217, 

 636 ; and for extension of these to neighboring nations, pp. 782, 783. For visions and use 

 of dreams as oracles, ibid., p. 641 and elsewhere. See also, on these and other resemblances, 

 Lenormant, Origines de l'Histoire, vol. i, passim ; see also George Smith and Sayce, as above, 

 chaps, xvi and xvii, for resemblances especially striking, combining to show how simple 

 was the evolution of many Hebrew sacred legends and ideas out of those of earlier civiliza- 

 tions. For an especially interesting presentation of the reasons why Egyptian ideas of im- 

 mortality were not seized upon by the Jews, see the Rev. Barham Zincke's work upon 

 Egypt. For the sacrificial vessels, temple rites, etc., see the bas-reliefs figured by Lepsius, 

 Prisse d'Avennes, Mariette, Maspero, et al. 



