148 EEV. J. E. H. THOMSON. M.A., D.D., OX 



were great collectors of religious and ritual formulae. The great 

 mass of the clay tablets which make up the huge library of 

 Asshur-bani-pal are transcriptions of sacred texts ; directions 

 when to offer sacrifice and how to do so ; or sacred poems con- 

 taining cosmology and mythology ; very much what the contents 

 of the Pentateuch must have seemed to the Xinevite monarchs. 

 They would not have regarded the priests as properly equipped 

 if they did not carry with them directions in writing in regard 

 to all matters of ritual and worship. Xor would the colonists 

 on their part have been ready to trust the ministrations or in- 

 structions of this unlettered priesthood.* 



Should it be objected that, according to what we have already 

 stated, there were a very considerable number of the Israelite 

 inhabitants still remaining in Northern Palestine — could they not 

 have instructed the colonists ? But they were only the poor 

 of the land, illiterate peasants, shepherds, ploughmen, vine- 

 dressers. Those who could read and wxit^ would have been 

 carried away by Sargon. The colonists would not be satisfied 

 that the remembrances of these poor people were adequate to 

 assure them that they were worshipping the God of the land 

 with correct ritual. To the heathen, correctness of ritual was 

 of the highest importance. Hence of the whole Pentateuch, 

 the Priestly Code, that which is declared to be the latest in date 

 of all its component parts would be that alone which would be of 

 value to these colonists. 



If these priests brought the Torah, whence did they get it ? 

 They must have taken it with them into captivity. The Samaritan 

 history distinctly says that the High Priest conveyed the great 

 RoU of the Law to the Merj Xinwe, the Meadow of Xineveh." 

 Certainly, if there was a Torah it woidd be carried with them into 

 their exile. It must be assumed that they had had it before. 

 If so, there will be, not improbably, signs in the literature of the 



* We wonder that no ambitious privaidocent has propounded the 

 theory that it was from these priests and at that time that the Jews got 

 their Torah ; and that consequently the Samaritan Pentateuch was really 

 the earlier. In proof of this the alleged fact might be adduced that the 

 stories of Creation, the FaU of Man, the Flood, etc., were brought from 

 Babylonia, whence the Sargonid sacred formulse were derived. What 

 more likely, then, than that this was the time when these stories were 

 imported into Palestine. Of course, this would imply a total reconstruction 

 of Hebrew history and a re-writing of the prophecies. But WeUhausen 

 has accustomed us to aU that ! 



