](j4 iiV:V. ANUKEW CEAIG KOBINSON, M.A., ON THE BEAFJNG OF 



We see then th(^ remarkable testimony to tlie trutli of the 

 general bituation pre-sn])posed by Genesis xiv, which has been 

 alforded by the cuneiform inscriptions, and we see also the 

 desperate and opportunist expedients, expedients wiiich beg the 

 whole question, to whicli the critics have been obliged to resort 

 in struLigling to escape from the inference as to the genuine 

 cliaracter of the entire narrative, which naturally results from 

 that testimony. 



Dr. Driver, liowever, has stronglv asserted that — 



" the bearing of the facts related nl:)0ut them (the four kings) in 

 the inscriptions on the credibility of the narrative following is 



nil" 



That is to say, no doubt, that the rest of the incidents stand in 

 exactly the same position in regard to credibility as they did 

 Ijefore any evidence had been brought to bear upon the chapter 

 from the cuneiform inscriptions. But such a statement as this 

 would seem to be quite unreasonable. In ordinary cases where 

 a witness whose evidence may have been doubted has been 

 unexpectedly confirmed in a most important and leading point 

 of his evidence by an entirely independent witness, whose 

 testimony is practically conclusive on such a point, a strong 

 inference is naturally raised that the evidence of the first 

 witness on other points is also likely to be reliable. Such 

 inference, of course, is not the same thing as if actual 

 confirmatory evidence on all points were forthcoming, but still 

 such an inference is usually held to be rea^^onable, and we may 

 claim that in this particular case of the fourteenth chapter of 

 Genesis it is fairly and very strongly raised. 



The episode of Melcliizedek, King of Salem (or Jerusalem) is 

 considered by critics like Cornill to be one of the most 

 undoubted marks of the late post- exilic composition of the 

 chapter. And yet in view of the position which Jerusalem 

 occupied as early as 1400 B.C. as testified by the Tel-el-Amarna 

 talJets (in which it is described as a ' capital" city) tiieie 

 would seem to be nothing more natural than that, in the midst 

 of any important political events occurring in Southern 

 Palestine, the King of Jerusalem should appear on the scene. 

 The suspicion then with which the critics regard the intro- 

 duction of the King of Jerusalem into the history, would seeni 

 to be uncalled for, and in the episode of Melcliizedek tlu^ 

 general situation ])resupi)osed in the fourteenth chapter of 

 (Jenesis would a])i)ea,r once more to be in close accord with tlie 

 ])olitical conditions indicated by the monuments. 



