ORIENTAL DISCOVERIES ON OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 39 



still more important bearing upon the questions now raised 

 concerning this Book. They make frequent mention of a people 

 named the Khabiri, or Hahiri. These people are all over the 

 land, and are daily extending their ravages. They spare none. 

 They are called "men of blood," and are regarded as enemies of 

 the gods. The suggestion that these were the Hebrews was at 

 first set aside by Assyriologists, but is now being received into 

 favour. " By the Habiri," says Carl Niebuhr, " we must here 

 understand no other than the Hebrews."* This finally disposes 

 of the widely-accepted recognition of Eameses 11. (of the XlXtli 

 Dynasty) as the Pharaoh of the oppression and of Minephtah, 

 his son, as the Pharaoh of the Exodus — an opinion retained in 

 spite of the references of Eameses and of his father Seti I. to 

 the tribe of Asher as resident in Palestine, and to Minephtah's 

 own reference to the Israelites as already settled in Canaan. 

 Viewed in this light, these contemporaneous letters show us the 

 Israelites extending their conquests just as they are represented 

 to have done in Judges. 



The Pentateuch. — We come now, in conclusion, to the opening 

 Books of the Bible. Upon the age and the historical character 

 of the Pentateuch, German and other criticism has concentrated 

 its powers of analysis. The result has been an elaborate scheme, 

 by which the Books of Moses have been separated into sections, 

 sometimes long, sometimes so brief as to consist of one or two 

 words, and at times of only one word. These are said to have 

 been drawn from the works of, or to have been inserted by, 

 certain writers or schools of writers, often separated from each 

 other by long intervals of time. The one broad conclusion 

 which has been impressed upon the public mind by those 

 elaborate works, is that the Books were in no sense the work of 

 Moses ; that little or nothing of them existed in his time ; and 

 that the great body of the laws and of the history came intO' 

 existence only in the fifth or fourth century B.C. The represen- 

 tation, in a word, is that this alleged history is not history ; and 

 that it is at best a very late composition of dressed-up myths,, 

 legends, and traditions, with amplifications and additions which 

 reveal the tendencies and the character of the writers' times, 

 but which are of little other value. That is the account which 

 is at present widely accepted. The frequent formula, "The 

 Lord said unto Moses " (we are informed in a work intended for 

 popular use) "is mainly the attribution to Jehovah of every law 

 and regulation, every plan and purpose of ruler and teacher, 



* The Tel-el- Amarna Period, p. 46. 



D 



