THE WITNESS OF ARCHEOLOGY TO THE BIBLE. 



211 



sealed by the marriage of the Pharaoh with the daughter of the 

 Hittite king.* 



' ' Hittites ! Hittites ! ' ' With these words a young school- 

 master used to be greeted by the boys whenever he came into 

 their class-room. For he had fired their imagination by stories 

 of this great empire, recovered by the monuments from oblivion; 

 and they were always eager to hear more. If only the children 

 in our schools, and the theological students in our colleges were 

 taught the facts of archaeology instead of the theories of " higher 

 criticism," there would be fewer lives shipwrecked through the 

 undermining of their faith in God's Word. 



" In dealing with the history of the past," writes Professor 

 Sayce, " we are confronted with two utterly opposed methods, 

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

 veritable 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.' Be- 

 tween the two the scientifically trained mind can have no 

 hesitation in choosing."! 



Eardmans, successor to Kuenen at Leyden, " definitely and 

 • absolutely breaks with the Wellhausen School of criticism, 

 chiefly on the ground that archaeology has discredited their 

 critical viewpoint, and made impossible, indeed absurd, the 

 historical atmosphere with which they surround the Old Testa- 

 ment. He says, ' To sum up in conclusion, I believe that an 

 explanation of the text from the standpoint of the old Israelitic 

 thought will lead to a reformation in Old Testament criticism. ":j: 



The Witness of Edom. 



The romance of travel and exploration centres round a city 

 the very site of which was lost to the civilized world for cen- 

 turies. " A rose-red city, half as old as time," a city hidden 

 away in the heart of Mount Seir; a city not built but hewn out 

 of the sides of the many-coloured sandstone rock — such is 

 Petra, or Sela, the strong city of Edom, mentioned under 

 various names more often in the Bible than any other city 

 except Jerusalem. 



The refusal of the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, to 

 allow the Israelites to pass through their territory, led to a per- 

 petual feud between the two nations. Their mahgnity in 

 joining with Nebuchadnezzar in sacking Jerusalem led to the 



* " The Hittites, The Story of a Forgotten Empire," Prof. Sayce. 

 t " Monument Facts and Higher Critical Fancies," Prof. Savce, pp. 

 17, 18. ' ' t^f 



I " The Deciding Voice of the Monuments in Biblical Criticis.m," Dr. 

 Kyle, p. 15. 



