INTRODUCTION. xvii 



Adolph Zahn of Stuttgart. The former, as a re- 

 sult of his investigations, declares positively " that 

 the Pentateuch dates back to the Mosaic period 

 of Divine revelation, and that its author is Moses 

 himself, the greatest prophet in Israel." And as to 

 the groundless assertion that writing was unknown 

 at the time of the Hebrew law-giver, we have the 

 deliberate statement of Sayce that "Canaan, in the 

 Mosaic age, like the countries which surrounded it, 

 was fully as literary as was Europe in the time of 

 the Renaissance." ' 



Such and similar instances of premature claims 

 for unwarranted hypotheses, should teach us the 

 wisdom of practicing a proper reserve in respect of 

 them, and of suspending judgment until we can yield 

 assent which is based on unimpeachable evidence. 

 But this does not imply that we should go to the 

 extreme of conservatism, or display a fanatical obsti- 

 nacy in the assertion of traditional views which are 

 demonstrably untenable. There is a broad reach 

 between ultra-conservatism and reprehensible liber- 

 alism or arrogant temerity. In this golden mean 



1 See The Contemporary Review, pp. 480-481, for Octo- 

 ber, 1895. Cf., also, by the same author, The Higher Criti- 

 cism and the Verdict of the Monuments, chapter n, and 

 Literature of the Old Testament in "The People's Bible 

 History," mentioned later. In the last-named contribution to 

 Biblical lore, the erudite Oxford divine affirms, and without 

 fear of contradiction, " that one of the first and most important 

 results of the discoveries which have been pouring in upon us 

 during the last few years, is the proof that Canaan was a land 

 of readers and writers long before the Israelites entered it, and 

 that the Mosaic age was one of high literary activity. So far 

 as the use of writing is concerned, there is now no longer any 

 reason for doubting that the earlier books of the Bible might have 

 been contemporaneous with the events they profess to record." 



