40 BEV. JOHN URQUHAKT, ON THE BEARING OE RECENT 



every appeal, threat, and promise of reformer and prophet, that 

 has imposed its authority so long. ... It is generally 

 admitted now that what are called the Books of Moses were 

 largely made up after Moses' day, chiefly about the time of the 

 restoration from Babylonian exile,"* etc. The papers, from 

 which the above extracts are made, first appeared some years 

 ago in the Sunday edition of the New York Times, and may be 

 accepted as a frank and fairly accurate statement of the teacliing 

 of the more learned works to which I have referred. 



As a party to this discussion, oriental discovery has the 

 highest claims to be heard. It has brought back the times, and 

 in some cases the very personages, of which the Books of Moses 

 speak. It has enabled us to see the countries and the peoples 

 as they then existed. We read inscriptions which were then 

 being chiselled upon the walls of temples, palaces, and tombs, 

 or upon pillars and statues. We mark the speech, the manners 

 and customs of the living peoples. We march with their armies ; 

 we encounter them in their streets ; we enter with them into 

 their homes ; we become their guests ; we breathe with them the 

 atmosphere of the place and of the time. Surely, then, when 

 questions arise as to what is or is not possible to those times, 

 as to what belongs to them or does not belong to them, 

 we also have a voice in the discussion, and some part in the 

 shaping of the conclusion in which the discussion shall be 

 summed up. 



There is one most important fact which has emerged in the pro- 

 cess of Egyptological discovery. The Pentateuch is distinguished 

 from the rest of the Hebrew Bible by the presence in it of a 

 considerable number of undoubted Egyptian words. In addition 

 to these we find also Egyptian names, which were given because 

 they have certain significations, as in the case of Joseph and of 

 the sons of Moses. In the opening books of the New Testament 

 we have a parallel to this peculiarity of the opening books of 

 the Old Testament. Hebrew words are transferred into Greek 

 in the Gospels ; but, in this latter case, the Hebrew words are 

 explained to the Greek readers of the Gospels. The reason is 

 plain. Those Greek readers, for whom the Gospels were first 

 written, were not supposed to be, and in the great majority of 

 cases could not have been, acquainted with Hebrew. But in 

 the Pentateuch sucli explanations are entirely wanting, and 

 almost all of them had to be waited for until oriental research 



Amos K. Fiske, Midnight Talks at the Club. 



