322 THE YEN. ARCHDEACON POTTER, M.A., OX THE INFLUENCE 



6. From time to time Archdeacon Potter seems to endorse the 

 documentarv theory of Genesis, and in particular he discusses the 

 Flood story in this connection. Professor Sayce has long ago shown 

 that the Babylonian Flood story, written ages before the times of J. 

 and P., exhibits marks of both, and hence that the docimientary theory 

 utterly breaks down when tested in th ij way. I)r. Sayce rightly 

 alleges this as a crucial test of the theory. There are other points 

 connected with the Archdeacon's discussion of the Flood which are 

 equally open to question. 



7. On the subject of Deuteronomy, the Archdeacon seems to 

 favour the critical view which places the completion of this book as 

 dating from the time of Josiah. This is frankly admitted by both 

 conservative and critical schools to be a crucial and ^*ital issue in 

 the controversy, and the conservative school gladly accepts the 

 challenge, believing that on grounds of pure scholarship alone, apart 

 from all else, the essentially Mosaic date and character of 

 Deuteronomy is beyond all question and the Josianic date is 

 absolutely impossible. This has been recently proved by the 

 Rev. J. S. Griffiths in his Problem of Leuteronomy. 



8. On p. 314 Archdeacon Potter speaks of the evidence produced 

 by the Higher Critics as "extraordinarily convincing." I can only 

 speak for myself when I say that as a result of reading of critical 

 books of importance I find their position extraordinarily imconvinc- 

 ing, and I have been confirmed in the position of conservative 

 scholarship very largely through the reading of critical works. 



9. On p. 315 the Archdeacon regards the so-called creation stories 

 of Genesis, placed side by side without any attempt at harmonization, 

 as speaking highly " for the honesty of the compiler." He does not, 

 however, say anything about the capacity of the editor, still less of 

 the capacity of the readers, to have left these two (alleged) discord- 

 ant passages side by side. It sitrely reflects very seriously upon the 

 capability of the editor, who is admitted by all to have~brought our 

 present Genesis into unity. Either this, or else the editor must 

 have thought that his readers in all ages would never be able to 

 discover what had been done. 



10. The reference on p. 316 to the limitations of our Lord's know- 

 ledge is another instance of what seems to me to be the writer's lack 

 of thinking out a subject to its conclusion. Surely limitation or 

 mperfection of knowledge does not imply error. TMiat our Lord 



