530th OKDINAEY GEIs^ERAL MEETING. 



MONDAY, APEIL 1st, 1912, at 4.30 p.m. 



E. J. Sewell, Esq., took the Chaie. 



The Minutes of the previous Meeting were read and confirmed. 



The Secretary announced that Miss Morier had been elected as an 

 Associate. 



The Chairman then called upon Mr. Tuckwell to read his paper. 



ARCHEOLOGY AND MODERN BIBLICAL SCHOLAR^ 



SHIP. 



By the Rev. John Tuckwell, M.R.A.S. 



MODERN Biblical scholarship is a development. By a 

 brief glance at its origin we shall the better understand 

 its relation to modern archaeological discoveries. 



During the first three hundred years of the history of the 

 Christian Church the progress of the truth with which she was 

 entrusted was phenomenal. But the next thousand years, and 

 especially that part of it which followed immediately the 

 breaking up of the Roman Empire, was a time of almost universal 

 arrest of human progress. The ignorance and degradation of 

 the populations of Europe rendered them powerless to civilize 

 the barbarians who brought them under their martial sway. 

 " These were times," says Hallam in his Middle Ages, " of great 

 misery to the people, and the worst, perhaps, that Europe has 

 ever known. Even under Charlemagne we have abundant 

 proofs of the calamities w^hich the people suffered. The light 

 that shone around him was that of a consuming fire." 



Tlie first gleam of a new dawn was due to an awakening of 

 interest in classical learning. Manuscripts began to be collected 

 and libraries to be formed, while the opportune invention of 

 paper rendered books cheaper, and quickened and extended the 



