196 REV. JOHN TUCKWELL, M.R.A.S., ON MODERN THEORIES 



(as for instance Schliemann's discoveries in Troy), immediately these 

 disclosures are welcomed by the whole intelligent world, and we are 

 called upon to put more and more faith in the accoimts they give of 

 the nations of the ancient world. But in the case of the historical 

 portions of the Bible it is different ; for when Egyptologists and 

 Assyriologists bring to light remarkable points in corroboration of 

 the accuracy of the Biblical accounts, the critics in question either 

 pass over them in silence, or endeavour to explain them away on 

 some hypothesis conjured up from the depths of their own fertile 

 imagination. As Mr. Tuckwell has well observed, the investigations 

 carried on amongst the Assyrian tablets and in Egypt by such 

 laborious workers as Dr. Pinches, Prof. Sayce and Prof. Petrie, and in 

 Palestine by the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Society, all 

 go to confirm the wonderful accuracy of the accounts even of the 

 earliest books of the Old Testament ; and the evidence from day to 

 day and year to year being cumulative, amounts at the present time 

 to demonstration such as all fair-minded men might be supposed to 

 admit without hesitation. Witness, for instance, the remarkable 

 case of the discovery of the Moabite stone, and its verification of the 

 history of the Book of Kings (2 Kings iii). And here I might be 

 allowed to add my own humble testimony as regards one very 

 important epoch of Israelitish history, that of the Exodus, which 

 has called forth, perhaps, more adverse criticism, on the ground of 

 the miraculous element which pervades the entire narrative, than 

 any other part of the Old Testament. Now, it will be admitted 

 that there is no series of events recorded in the Bible which de- 

 pend for their outcome on the topographical features to the 

 extent of those connected with this wonderful migration from Egypt 

 to Canaan as narrated in the Book of Exodus. The whole series of 

 events is associated with topographical details, such as the crossing 

 of the then arm of the Red Sea, the camping grounds, the valleys 

 amongst the mountains of Sinai, which were the only highways for 

 a great multitude of men, women, and children ; the giving of the 

 law from Sinai itself, the camping ground at its base, the streams of 

 water for supplying drink, the Gulf of Akabah (or Ezion Geber), 

 the Arabah Valley, the camp at Mount Horeb, Kadesh, the 

 mountains of Edom and Moab, the crossing of the Jordan, and the 

 plain of Jericho. It would have been impossible to construct such a 

 narrative as that of the Exodus unless the writer of it had been 



