ORIENTAL DISCOVEFJES ON OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 



The liistorical references of the Old Testament have a wider 

 ran(^e than those of any other ancient book. It comniences. 

 with tlie story of primeval hnmanity and of the catastroplio 

 which brought it to an end. While confining itself in 

 subsequent portions to the story of Israel, the Old Testament 

 nevertheless reflects to some extent the institutions, the 

 customs, and the international relationships, of the times with 

 whicli it deals. Tiiere were occasions also when Israel w;is 

 brouglit into contact witli both neighbouring and more distant 

 countries; and the Old Testament history consequently 

 introduces us to peoples and to personages of the time. Hence, 

 in the recovery of documents relating to those very periods^ 

 oriental research has come frequently, and sometimes 

 startlingly, into line with the Biblical history. How far the 

 results of these researches support, or are in conflict with, the 

 attack upon the liistorical accuracy of the Scripture, the rapid 

 survey which follows is intended to disclose. 



1. The Books of Chronicles. — We shall begin with the Books of 

 Chronicles. Professor W. Eobertson Smith, writing in the- 

 Eiicycloiiceclia Britannica, passes a comparatively lenient 

 judgment on their historicity. While asserting that they 

 contain errors in numbers, and professedly historical state- 

 ments which have no better foundation than inference, he 

 dismisses the charges of wholesale fabrication wdhch have 

 been brought against them. This is a distinct contrast to- 

 Wellhausen's fierce attack, in which certain of the narratives, 

 are described as " frightful examples " of Jewish imagination. 

 Others have condemned what is sujDposed to be their partiality 

 for large numbers." It cannot be said that there is at the 

 present time any apparent tendency to reverse, or even to 

 modify, that judgment. A publication* which professes to- 

 supply the public with the most recent authoritative opinion 

 on Biblical and other matters, says : " Tlie variations of the 

 Chronicler from the latter " (the Book of Kings) " are due in 

 most instances to his religious pragmatism. Everything is 

 done to emphasize the ancient importance of the Levites, who- 

 aie introduced at points and on occasions wdiich are most 

 inappropriate. Taking all this together, it is claimed by many 

 that the historical value of the Chronicles, where they vary from 

 the Books of Samuel and Kings, is small ; and except in some 

 details, which have chiefly an interest as representing perhaps, 

 ti more or less widespread tradition, there is a reluctance among, 



* The New LiternatioRal Encyclopcedia (1902). See art. " Chronicles.''' 



