589th OEDINAEY GENERAL MEETING, 



HELD IN COMMITTEE EOOM B, THE CENTRAL HALL, 

 WESTMINSTEK, ON MONDAY^, APRIL 16th, 1917, 



AT 4.30 P.M. 



The Ret. Johx Tuckwell, M.R.A.S., ix the Chair. 



The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and confirmed. 



The Secretary announced that Mr. Patrick Morgan, Mr. Charles 

 Stuart Thorpe, and the Eev. H. Oxland had been elected Associates of 

 the Institute. 



The CHAiRiTAN regretted that the Eev. J. Iverach Munro, M.A., 

 author of the paper to be read, on "The Witness of Philology to the 

 Truth of the Old Testament,"^ was unable to be present. In his absence, 

 he would ask the Secretary, Mr. E. J. Sewell, to read the Paper on 

 Mr. Munro's behalf. 



TRE WITNESS OF PHILOLOaY TO THE TRUTH OF 

 THE OLD TESTAMENT. By the Rev. J. Iverach 

 Munro, M.A. 



IN the preface to an account of a research into the origin of a 

 pronoun imbedded in the five books attributed to Moses, 

 published by the Oxford University Press in 1912,* I 

 remarked : " As the Rosetta Stone was the means by which 

 scholars deciphered the Hieroglyphic writing of ancient Egypt, 

 so i^in, liv, used in the Pentateuch for both masculine and 

 feminine, has been the means of opening up the primitive 

 structure of all Semitic languages, and not only so, but also of 

 establishing the essential unity of primitive Semitic-Indo- 

 European speech. 



" With regard to the Pentateuch, this pronoun, with the light 

 it throws on the structure of Semitic speech, is like the invisible 

 ink which shows on exposure to heat, or the water-mark in 

 paper. Its evidential value is greater than if Moses had signed 

 every page of the Pentateuch — infinitely greater, because a 

 forger might have done that. But no forger that ever lived 



* Research into the Origin of . . . . j^iri- Oxford University Press. 

 1912. Is. Qd. net. 



