KECENT OEIENTAL DISCOVERIES ON OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 163 



"In opposition to earlier views on the subject, it must be 

 admitted that the situation presupposed in Gen. xiv — a campaign of 

 an Elamite King with other princes in his train to Palestine as well 

 as the prominent part taken . . . by Jerusalem and its king 

 is, according to the knowledge we now possess regarding the 

 earliest Palestine thoroughly historical and intelligible." — Der 

 Theologische Iiunchchau, May, 1898. 



We have seen that AVellhauseii enipliatically denounced all 

 the circumstances of this narrative from beginning to end as 

 " sheer impossibilities." Other critics, in face of these identifica- 

 tions of the kings, have felt themselves obliged to try to find 

 some different way out of the dilemma. 



As Professor Hommel says — 



" They were obliged- — since there seemed no other way out of 

 the difficulty — to fall back again on the theory of a post-exilic 

 forgery, and to suggest that, like a nineteenth century novelist in 

 search of ' local colour,' the Jewish writer must have gone to the 

 Babylonish priests for his antiquarian details." 



And he then quotes a passage to this eft'ect from the 1st volume 

 of Meyer's History of Antiquity (Stuttgart, 1884). Ancient 

 Hehrevj Tradition, pp. 161, 162. 



Cornill {Einlcitung in das Altc Tcdamcnt, 1892, p. 73) writes 

 in almost exactly the same style as Meyer. He calls the 

 imaginary post-exilic Jew, who is conceived to have been the 

 author of the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, "fm literarisch 

 inter essicr ter Judc,'' a literary designing Jew; and using even 

 stronger language than Meyer, declares the chapter to have 

 been dovetailed into the already concluded Pentateucli — a late 

 addition in the style of Midrash and Chronicles, ^vhose 

 tendency in the episode of Melchizedek shows clear as day. 

 To quote once more from Hommel — 



" That the history of Abraham, whom they (the critics) regard 

 as not merely a legendary, but rather a purely mythical being, should 

 contain in its midst an ancient historical tradition was something 

 which they could not accept ; for in that case the whole theory 

 according to which everything before the time of David is wrapped 

 in the midst of legend would begin to totter on its base, and the 

 account drawn up by Moses would l^egin to appear in another and 

 far more authentic light. ... In order therefore to save this 

 master principle from ruin- there was nothing for it but to adopt the 

 above opportunist expedient, the inherent absurdity of which must, 

 one would think, l^e patent to every unprejudiced observer." Op. 

 cif., pp. 162, 163. 



