HAMILTON SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 67 



archaeological research has proved that these critics spoke rather 

 too h'astil}' and that whether Gen. xiv. is absolutely historical or 

 not, Wellhausen was certainly quite mistaken in thinking that the 

 events there recorded were impossible in that age. 



We shall next take Sayce's view of the matter. It is interest- 

 ing and it will show that even the methods of arcdiseologists are 

 not above reproach. Sayce says: "There is only one way in 

 which our studies are likely to end in true results, and that is by 

 excluding from them as far as possible, what the Germans would 

 call the 'subjective element.' What we want are not theories but 

 facts. 'lyiterary tact' is but another name for a purely subjective 

 impression. Literary evidence may be explained away — the 

 evidence of potsherds and forms of art constitutes a solid foundation 

 of fact upon which to build. Where art or archaeology informs us 

 which is the earlier and which the later link, it is not difficult to 

 bind them into a single chain. In dealing with the history of the 

 past we are thus confronted with two utterl}^ opposed methods — 

 one objective, the other subjective ; one resting on a basis of 

 verifiable facts, the other on the unsupported and unsupportable 

 assumptions of the modern scholar. The one is the method of 

 archaeology, the other of the so called "higher criticism." "It 

 is not archaeology and not philolog}^ that has to do with liistor3\ 

 The more archaeological and the less philological our evidence is, the 

 greater will be its claim to scientific authority." In view of this 

 scathing denunciation of philology and literary tact notice Sayce's 

 proof that Khammurabi is the Amraphel of Genesis xiv. Between 

 Khammnrabi and Amraphel the difference is considerable. The 

 kings of the dynasty of Khammurabi were of Canaanitish and 

 South Semitic origin, like Abram the Hebrew, and their ancestral 

 deity was Sanui or Shem. Though the language spoken by them 

 was Semitic, it differed from the language of the Semitic Babylonians 

 who found some of the sounds whicli characterized it difiicult to 

 pronounce. The first element in the name of Khammurabi is the 

 name of a god which enters also into the composition of Hebrew 

 names, Amminadab, Jeroboam. More usually this was spelt 

 " Khammu " by the Babylonians, but we often find the spelling 



