62 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



us to ignorance again. -For example, it was a great point with 

 many archaeologists at one time that no tomb was to be found in 

 Egypt of the Pharaoh who was supposed to have pursued the 

 Israelites and perished in the Red Sea. One man who wrote a book 

 in 1899 and referred to this fact learned just in time to add a foot- 

 note before his book went to the press that the tomb of this 

 Pharaoh had been discovered. When one considers how difficult 

 the simplest case in a law court is, no matter how copious the evi- 

 dence, it is little wonder that definite decisions are hard to teach 

 when dealing with a mass of evidence that has only come before 

 the jury of competent criticism yesterday. 



If one could confine his reading to some one of the specialists 

 on archaeology the matter would be simplified. Prof. Sayce, for 

 instance, never seems to find difficulties. Every new discovery 

 .seems to be just what he was looking for and to prove the accuracy 

 of the Old Testament narratives. But one is apt to have an un- 

 comfortable feeling when one finishes a book of Sayce's that diffi- 

 cult problems have been disposed of a little too easily. At the same 

 time it may be confidently asserted that archaeological research has 

 tended in a marked way to confirm the historical character of the 

 early narratives of the Bible. 



What we are particularly interested in just now is the archae- 

 ology that will throw light on the origin of the Hebrew people. 

 Now this can be secured for the most part only in an indirect way 

 for this reason : Hardly any discoveries have been made in Pales- 

 tine of writings that belong to the early time with which we are 

 dealing. The early inhabitants of Canaan did not leave written 

 memorials in stone — at least none have yet been discovered— and 

 this is a fact to be kept in mind when weighing the arguments of 

 archaeologists who infer that the Israelites were a race of scribes 

 possessing all the culture of Babylonia and Egypt. Explorations 

 have been made, and are being made, in Palestine, but the results 

 have affected New Testament rather than Old Testament study. 

 It is to Babylonia and Egypt that we must look for any light that 

 is available in reference to so early a period as that of Abraham. 



A great many expeditions have been made to Babylonia, but a 



