AND THE PRESENT STATE OF CRITICISM. 



277 



accordance with the true archaeological method. It is found that 

 these memorials exhibit tablets, or small plates of baked clay, 

 covered with cuneiform writing, in the Babylonian language. 

 These are the tablets of Tel-el Amarn a, in Egypt, which are letters 

 written to Pharaoh by Governors of Palestine, later than Abraham 

 but previous to Moses, documents from Boghaz Keni in Asia 

 Minor, relating to Egypt, Rameses TI, and the Hittites, contem- 

 poraries of Moses ; and contracts of the seventh century B.C. 



What is the result ? It is that the Babylonian Cuneiform was 

 the official, learned, literary language, the written language of 

 Western Asia, and that Moses was able to compose the book of 

 Genesis in this manner, tablet by tablet. This is the explanation 

 of the duplicate statements and repetitions of the book. That 

 which brought a chapter to a close was not the natural termina- 

 tion of a narrative, but the end of the tablet ; and at the 

 commencement of the next tablet it was necessary to recur 

 to the preceding text, to resume and recommence." M. Jullian 

 then gives various illustrations of the correspondence of 

 M. Naville's work with the archaeological, geographical, 

 sociological, and historical methods of modern science, and 

 concludes by repeating that in all this there is no question of 

 religion or dogma or tradition or belief. " There is no question 

 of anything but of recovering the truth, and of doing so for 

 love of the truth itself. M. Edouard Naville has succeeded. 

 His work marks a new era in the criticism of the books of the 

 Bible ; it is that of a master workman, devoted to science, 

 formed on the best methods, which are also French methods." 



I have quoted this account of M. Naville's work, instead of 

 describing it myself, that it may be recognized that the German 

 treatment of the Old Testament is now challenged, not by 

 mere criticism in detail, but by a general and comprehensive 

 movement of thought, supported by the principles of a great 

 school of history in France. It is no longer a matter for Hebrew 

 scholars only. M. Jullian says : "I shall no doubt be re- 

 proached as not being a Hebrew scholar, and as a neophyte or 

 unskilled in Biblical studies. I am the first to acknowledge it. 

 But I think I know the civilizations of the Bronze Age, and of 

 the middle of the second thousand years before the Christian 

 era, the civilizations in the midst of which Moses lived and in 

 which the books of the Pentateuch would have been formed, 

 and I observe that all that we know of these ancient civilizations 



