172 REV. ANDREW CRAIG ROBINSON^ M.A._, ON TEE BEARING OF 



When therefore Dr. Driver urges the point that an assumption 

 that Moses was unacquainted with the art of writing is not a 

 premiss upon which the criticism of the Pentateuch depends he 

 is only leading away from the real point raised by archseology. 

 That point is, that the conclusion of the critics that the 

 Israelites in the age of Moses had no literature worthy of the 

 name is irreconcilable with the teaching of archaeology as to the 

 literary condition of Egypt and Western Asia in that age. 



And here it may further be remarked, that although this 

 denial of any literature to Israel in the Mosaic age may not be 

 a premiss upon which the critical theories rest, but rather a 

 conclusion — nevertheless — such a conclusion — if once it he 

 accepted — works round in a vicious circle of argument to help 

 the criticism. For if it be accepted as true that such literary 

 barrenness existed at that time, then the early history of Israel 

 becomes as it were a tcibula rasa, on which the critics may 

 inscribe whatever theories their imagination may lead them to 

 conceive, unchecked by the wholesome restraint which the 

 admission of the existence of contemporary documents would 

 impose upon them ; and further, under such circumstances, they 

 consider they are entitled to treat all writings in the Bible 

 concerned with the Mosaic period as merely a collection of 

 myths and legends, handed down by oral tradition, around 

 which again their critical imagination is left free to play ; and 

 so even the most far-fetched speculations — in the dimness and 

 uncertainty of mere oral tradition held to prevail — are 

 emboldened to put forward a claim to recognition. 



Archaeology, which strikes at the historical probability of 

 this literary barrenness of Israel in the Mosaic age, strikes at the 

 same time at one of the buttresses at least, if not one of the 

 foundations of the Higher Criticism. 



This then is the point, which tliough long before known, was 

 emphasized by the discovery of the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, 

 namely — the yawning chasm that separates the conclusions of 

 the critics from the state of things indicated by archaeology. 

 It is not that the critics said Moses could not write — and the 

 discoveries of archaeology revealed that he coidd — hut thcd the 

 conclusions of the critical theories deny to Israel in tlie age of 

 Moses any literature worthy of the name, wliilst the condition 

 of things revealed by archaeology would seem to show that in 

 order to reconcile such a conclusion with that condition, we 

 should have to suppose that the leaders of the Israelites, cUuing 

 their sojourn in Egypt, nmst have stolidly resisted the most 

 ordinary influences of the every-day life around them. 



