THE CONTROVERSIALIST igi 



only Abraham, but Adam and Noah, are said "to 

 form successive links in the chain of Divine educa- 

 tion, which with each fresh starting-point becomes 

 less general and more personal." 1 In the third of 

 his Yale Lectures on Modern Criticism and the 

 Preaching of the Old Testament, Professor G. A. 

 Smith is in agreement with Canon Driver : — 



While archaeology has richly illustrated the main out- 

 lines of the Book of Genesis from Abraham to 

 Joseph, it has not one whit of proof to offer for the 

 personal existence or characters of the Patriarchs 

 themselves. This is the whole change archaeology 

 has wrought ; it has given us a background and an 

 atmosphere for the stories of Genesis ; it is unable to 

 recall or to certify their heroes. 



The legendary character of the patriarchal age, 

 which may be compared with the heroic age in 

 Greece, was demonstrated by Kuenen, Knappert, and 

 other Continental scholars thirty years ago. " Actual 

 ancestors are never distinctly traceable,'' says Dill- 

 mann, a sound statement pushed to extremes by 

 Goldziher, who, following the late Professor Max 

 Miiller's philological methods, resolved Abraham, 

 Isaac, and Jacob into sun and sky myths, Jacob's 

 twelve sons being the moon and eleven stars. 

 Steinthal, with more warrant, converted Samson, the 

 " shining one," into a solar hero whose labours cor- 



1 P. 15- 



