Chapter II (2)

I do not know to what extent Mr. Darwin's views are likely to be permanent; but supposing that they, or any view of the same class, should eventually overcome all existing difficulties, and be generally regarded as representing the process by which it has pleased God to bring about man's physical and mental supremacy, then it can hardly seem strange that the same God should have adopted a course of progress and development in the spiritual and religious world. I say, emphatically, "if it has pleased God" to act thus; because if I accept the hypothesis of the nebular origin of planetary systems, or the supposition of the earth being a fluid globe gradually cooled, or even the assertion that our most ancient progenitors were marine animals, I must do so with the underlying assumption that it has pleased God so to work. I do not find fault with scientific men for not putting their theories in this form; but looking at the question from a religious, or even from a philosophical, point of view, I cannot consent to lose sight of God, as the intelligent maker of the whole. If this earth was originally a fluid mass, then I believe that that was the best, or, for anything I know to the contrary, the only way of making a world; if the marine animals, which Mr. Darwin sees through his scientific telescope, did become fish, and those fish eventually became men, then I believe that that was the best, or, for anything I know to the contrary, the only way of making men; and this being so, why may I not deal in the same manner with the alleged course of man's spiritual history? I have in my hands something which purports to be a revelation to my intellect, and to my soul, of the God who made me: that revelation is contained in a history which tells me that God spake at sundry times and in divers manners to the people of olden time, and that finally He spake by One who is called His Son. Now I do not say that this revelation is or is not a real one; but I do say that there is nothing to render us suspicious of its reality in the fact that it has been communicated gradually, that it has grown as the human race has grown, and that some of the steps in the process of revelation appear strange, or even, at first sight, unworthy of the grand scheme of which they form a part. No one has a right to find fault on this ground who has read the lessons of natural science, and observed how it points to gradual progression as a characteristic of the doings of God. Least of all can they find fault on this ground, who receive in whole, or even in part, the recent theories concerning the origin of man. I will not undertake to answer for those students who have gone deeply into these physical questions; but I do assert, without fear of contradiction, that to men of ordinary education, and ordinary habits of thought, the difficulties of accepting Scripture as the revelation of God to the human soul, however much those difficulties may be expounded or even exaggerated, are absolutely nothing as compared with the difficulty of accepting recent views of man's prodigious pedigree.

The fact is, that it is not so much the process by which a result has been brought about, as the result itself, which is the all-important thing. Whatever may have been the history of our earth in the dark dim distance of incalculable ages, we know that its present condition is very beautiful, and that it answers admirably well the purpose for which it seems to have been originally designed, namely, that of serving for the residence of intelligent man; and whatever may have been the process by which that creative work was consummated, which is described in Scripture as the making of man out of the dust, and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, we know that man is high above all the rest of creation, and worthy of being spoken of as being made in the image of God. And so in the case of man's spiritual history, we need not be over-careful to criticize the several steps when we are able to see the result; the question is, not so much whether the steps of God which we trace in Old Testament history be such steps as we should imagine that the Most High would have left, as whether the mystery of the Incarnation, and the truth that God has spoken to us by His own Son, be not worthy of all acceptation. If Christ be worthy of our adoration and love, then, though the way may have been long, and strange, and dark, and sometimes even weary, yet we may be sure that it is the right way, because it has led us to Him.

For there is this further analogy between nature and revelation, namely, that in each the progress is not indefinite, but tends to a limit. Whatever theory be adopted with regard to the history of the earth, we seem to see in its present settled condition the limit towards which everything has been moving in past geological ages; and even if man has been a progressive animal, and has only gradually attained his present physical perfection, I presume it is not anticipated that the process of natural selection, or any other process, will carry him beyond the point which he has now reached. Or, if we take the divine picture of creation, we see the creative work tending from the limit of chaos to the limit of man; then physics cease and religion begins, and we hear utterances of the voice of God beginning with whispers, and becoming more and more distinct, until we are permitted to listen to divine oracles uttered by human lips. Beyond this the dreams of philosophy, and the aspirations of the human heart, and the longings of the weary and heavy-laden cannot carry our thoughts or raise our desires.

Those who are acquainted with Bishop Butler's great work will perceive that I have now been endeavouring--how imperfectly no one knows better than myself--to apply to the question of "the gradual development of revelation," those principles of reasoning which Bishop Butler has taught us to use. I was very sorry to see it stated in the evidence taken before the select committee of the House of Lords on University Tests, that Bishop Butler's _Analogy_ was "out of fashion" in Oxford.[66] I trust that the witness only intended to assert that the _Analogy_ was not now so commonly chosen for examinations as formerly, for it will be an evil day for us all when the method of reasoning which Bishop Butler taught us shall be "out of fashion" with thinking people. In truth, the advantage of the method is that, properly speaking, it never can be out of fashion; it is like the method of Euclid, or that of the Differential Calculus; it is an _organum_, an instrument, a machine, which may be applied in all the varying circumstances of theological controversy, and to almost all religious difficulties. For the principle of the method is this. You find certain difficulties in that which professes to be a revelation of God; you think to get rid of these difficulties by denying the revelation; will you succeed in doing so? Not if you find precisely analogous difficulties in the course of nature; unless you go further, and deny not only that there is a God of revelation, but a God of nature too. Nay, the argument carries you beyond this point, and suggests to you that if there be difficulties in God's natural world, and if He be pleased to reveal the spiritual world to us, then we ought to expect to find the same general method of proceeding in matters spiritual which we have been able to observe in the natural world. I quite admit that this reasoning has no force for the man who says "There is no God;" he must be dealt with in another way; but it has force and it has comfort for the doubting inquiring soul, by assuring it that it can find a logical resting-place, and that the refuge from the misery of blank and hopeless atheism is to be found in simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.[67]

With the atheist, I honestly confess, that I have little or no sympathy; certainly I should not think it worth while to compose a lecture intended for his special behoof. I should feel disposed rather to send him for his answer to the fourteenth and fifty-third Psalms. The difficulty of supposing the framework of the universe to have had no architect, appears to me to be so great, so absolutely immeasurable, that the man who can fancy that he has got over it must, as I believe, either not have understood the difficulty, or else have deceived himself as to his power of solving it; anyhow, I feel that he has cut away all ground of argument, as between him and me. Not so the man whose mind is sceptically inclined. Be it ever remembered that the word _sceptic_ is derived from a word which means to _look_ or to _see_--it is the same word which forms the root of the word _bishop_ or _overseer_; and accordingly there is nothing radically reproachful in the name of _sceptic_. It implies that a man is determined to look into matters for himself, not to trust every assertion, not to repeat a parrot creed; and so far as this determination is concerned, it is high and noble, and is in fact the very root and spring of all human knowledge; but who can wonder if looking should lead to doubting, and that so the name of sceptic should popularly imply, not the man who looks and believes, but the man who looks and doubts? And I am not ashamed to confess that I have much sympathy with this sceptical frame of mind. Not only is it closely connected with a noble instinct of inquiry and search for truth which God has implanted in the human mind, but also, as I believe, it is well-nigh impossible that an inquiring mind should deal seriously with religious subjects and remain entirely free from doubt. In my opinion, the amount of scepticism which has, during some period of his life, occupied the mind of each thoughtful earnest man, will be merely a question of degree; while, at the same time, I most sincerely believe that scepticism ought not to be, and need not be the lasting condition of the human soul, and that all doubts may be made to vanish in the light which God has given to "lighten every man who is born into the world."

I know not what may be the condition of mind of those to whom I have been speaking to-day. I presume the hope of the Christian Evidence Society is that some persons who feel practically the pressure of doubt and unbelief, will come and see whether any of their difficulties can be resolved by this course of Lectures. If there be such in this company, I beg them, in concluding this Lecture, to believe that they have been listening to one who does not wish to treat their speculative difficulties as trifles, but who would consider it as an unspeakable privilege to be able to help a doubting brother to get rid of his doubts, and to exchange them for the steady assurance of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

THE ALLEGED HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES

OF THE

OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS,

AND THE

LIGHT THROWN ON THEM BY MODERN DISCOVERIES.

BY THE

REV. GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A.,

CAMDEN PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY, OXFORD.

THE ALLEGED HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.

In addressing you on the historical difficulties of the Old and New Testaments--a large subject, which it will be hard to treat adequately within the time allowed to me--I must in the first place premise, that with difficulties which lie on the verge or outskirts of the historic field, on the debatable ground between Science and History, I do not on the present occasion profess to deal. Questions as to the origin of man, whether by development or by direct creation, whether from one pair or from more; questions as to his primæval condition, his possession from the first of the faculty of speech, his original savagery or civilisation, and the like, lie (I think) beyond the domain of history proper, belonging to what has been properly termed the "_pre-historic_ period" of our race, and so not coming within the terms of the subject on which I have undertaken to speak to-day. History deals with man from the time to which written records reach back. Historical difficulties arise from divergence, real or apparent, between the different accounts contained in those records. Now the profane records, to which any modern critical school would attribute an historical value, do not reach back within many ages of the origin of man, and thus no "historical difficulty" can arise with respect to these primitive times. It is only when we descend to an age of records, when the apparently authentic accounts of ancient countries preserved to our day can be compared with the Scriptural narrative that difficulty arises and that either agreement or disagreement can be shown.

The first difficulty, really historical, which meets us when we open the volume of Scripture, is the shortness of the time into which all history is (or at any rate appears to be) compressed, by the chronological statements, especially those of Genesis. The exodus of the Jews is fixed by many considerations to about the fifteenth or sixteenth century before our era. The period between the Flood and the Exodus, according to the numbers of our English version, but a very little exceeds a thousand years. Consequently, it has been usual to regard Scripture as authoritatively laying it down that all mankind sprang from a single pair within twenty-five or twenty-six centuries of the Christian era, and therefore that all history, and not only so, but all the changes by which the various races of men were formed, by which languages developed into their numerous and diverse types, by which civilization and art emerged and gradually perfected themselves, are shut up within the narrow space of 2,500 or 2,600 years before the birth of our Lord. Now this time is said with reason to be quite insufficient. Egypt and Babylonia have histories, as settled kingdoms, which reach back (according to the most moderate of modern critical historians) to about the time at which the numbers of our English Bible place the Deluge. Considerable diversities of language can be proved to have existed at that date; markedly different physical types appear not much subsequently; civilization in Egypt has, about the Pyramid period, which few now place later than B.C. 2,450, an advanced character; the arts exist nearly in the shape in which they were known in the country at its most flourishing period. Clearly, a considerable space is wanted anterior to the pyramid age for the gradual development of Egyptian life into the condition which the monuments show to have been then reached. This space the numbers of our English Bible do not allow.

Such is the difficulty. Now how is it to be met? In the first place, candour should (I think) induce all those who urge it to let their readers, or hearers, know that a special uncertainty attaches to the numbers in question, from the fact that they are given differently in the different ancient versions. We possess the Pentateuch in three very ancient forms, in Hebrew, in the Greek version known as the Septuagint, and in Samaritan. Our English numbers represent those of the Hebrew text. The numbers of the Septuagint and the Samaritan version are different. Those of the Samaritan version extend the period between the Deluge and the birth of Abraham from the 292 years of the Hebrew text to 942 years,--an addition of six centuries and a half--while those of the Septuagint, according to some copies, give 1,072 years as the interval, according to others 1,172 years, thus increasing the period between the Deluge and Abraham by a space of nearly eight, or nearly nine centuries. Now if the Greek, or even if the Samaritan, numbers are the right ones, if they represent, that is, the original text, it may be questioned whether anything more is wanted. It may be questioned whether a term of from six to eight centuries is not enough for the production of that state of things which we find existing in Babylonia and in Egypt when the light of history first dawns upon them, whether within that space might not have been produced such a state of civilization, so much progress in art, such differences of physical type, and such diversities of language as appear to have existed at that period.

If, however, the ultimate verdict of calm reason, and rigid scientific inquiry should be against this view, if more time seem to be absolutely wanted for the development of settled government, of art, science, language, ethnical diversities, varieties of physical type, and the like, than even the enlarged chronology of the Septuagint allows, then I should not be afraid to grant that the original record of Scripture on this point may have been lost, and that, as it is certain that we cannot possess the actual chronological scheme of Moses in more than one of the three extant versions of his words which have come to us with almost equal authority, so it is quite possible that we may not posses his real scheme in any. Nothing in ancient MSS. is so liable to corruption from the mistakes of copyists as the numbers; the original mode of writing them appears in all countries of which we have any knowledge to have been by signs, not very different from one another; the absence of any context determining in favour of one number rather than another, where the copy is blotted or faded, increases the chance of error, and thus it happens that in almost all ancient works the numbers are found to be deserving of very little reliance. Where they to any extent check one another, they are generally self-contradictory; where they do not, they are frequently in the highest degree improbable.

A second historical difficulty connected with Genesis was much insisted upon by the late Baron Bunsen. The primitive Babylonian kingdom is declared in the tenth chapter of Genesis to have been Cushite. Baron Bunsen held that there were no Cushites out of Africa, and that "an Asiatic Cush existed only in the imagination of Biblical interpreters, and was the child of their despair."[68] But an analysis of the earliest documents recovered from Babylonia has shown that the primitive Babylonian people, that which raised the first structures whereof any trace remains, in the country, and whose buildings had gone to ruin in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, was (at any rate to a large extent) Cushite, its vocabulary being "undoubtedly Cushite or Ethiopian," and presenting numerous analogies with those of the non-Semitic races of modern Abyssinia. Hence, modern historical science, in the person of one of its best representatives, M. Lenormant, commences now the history of the East with a "First Cushite Empire," which it regards as dominant in Babylonia for several centuries before the earliest Semitic Empire arose.[69]

A difficulty less noticed, yet one which was, in the state of our historical knowledge a few years since, more real, may be found in the narrative contained in the 14th chapter of Genesis with respect to the invasion of Palestine in the time of Abraham by a number of kings from the vicinity of the Persian Gulf. These kings act under the presidency of a monarch, called Chedorlaomer (or Chedor-lagomer), who is stated to be "king of Elam." Now till very recently there was no profane evidence that Elam--which is not Persia, as many have supposed, but Elymaïs or Susiana, the country between Babylonia and Persia--had ever been an independent state, much less a powerful kingdom, and still less one that at so remote a date could have exercised suzerainty over so many and such important nations. But the Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions have shown that throughout almost the whole of the Assyrian period Elam maintained herself as an independent state and one of considerable military strength on the south-eastern borders of the empire; and very recently[70] it has further been discovered that, according to the Assyrian belief, an Elamitic king was strong enough to invade and plunder Babylonia at a date, which expressed in our ordinary manner would be B.C. 2,286, or somewhat earlier than the time commonly assigned to Abraham. Further, the primitive Babylonian remains bear traces of the extension of Elamitic influence into Babylonia at a remote era; and the possibility of such distant military expeditions at this far-off period of the world's history, receives illustration at once from the epithet "Ravager of Syria," which is borne by a Babylonian monarch of about this date, and also from the numerous expeditions conducted not very much later by the Egyptian princes from the valley of the Nile into Mesopotamia.

No other historical difficulties, so far as I know, present themselves in the narrative of Genesis. Some attempts were made in Germany, about thirty or forty years ago, to prove that the description of Egypt contained in the latter portion of the book exhibited numerous "mistakes and inaccuracies;" but the "mistakes and inaccuracies" alleged were scarcely of an historical character, and the writers who alleged them have been so triumphantly refuted by Hengstenberg, and others, that the sceptical school has ceased to urge the point, and now allows the entire truthfulness and accuracy of the whole account. Few things are in truth more remarkable than the _complete_ harmony and accordance which exist between the picture of ancient Egypt and the ancient Egyptians, as drawn for us by Moses, and that portraiture of them which is now obtainable from their own contemporary writings and monuments.

With regard to the narrative contained in the last four books of the Pentateuch, modern criticism has chiefly employed itself in objections turning upon the numbers. The multiplication of the Israelites, as related in Genesis and Exodus, has been declared to be utterly and absolutely incredible. The sudden exodus from Egypt of a body of two millions of persons in the way narrated has been pronounced an impossibility. The subsistence of such a multitude, with their flocks and herds, in the Desert of Tih for forty years, or even a single year, has been said to be inconceivable. Many minor objections, turning on the same point of numerical difficulty, have been urged, and the conclusion has been drawn that the entire narrative of Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy is unhistorical--a romance drawn up at a comparatively late period of the nation's history, having perhaps a certain historic foundation, but in its details wholly and entirely imaginary.[71]

Now, with respect to these objections, let it be observed, in the first place, that they all turn upon the one point of number; and that the numbers of the sacred texts are (as has been already observed) exactly the part of it which is most liable to corruption and least to be depended upon. So that if the difficulties of the multiplication, as stated, of the exit from Egypt, the march, the passage of the Red Sea, and the sojourn in the wilderness, were all allowed to be as great as represented, it would be enough to reply that there may have been a corruption of the numbers--the addition (say) of a cipher in each case--and that the whole narrative would stand good, and the difficulties disappear, if for "six hundred thousand that were men" in Exodus xii. 37, we were to read 60,000, and so on--the entire exodus being thus made one of 200,000 instead of two million souls. But this mode of meeting the difficulty is not, perhaps, here the right one. The numbers may be defended as they stand. In Germany the best critics, including so subtle and little credulous a writer as Ewald, accept them. They seem required by the general tenor of the whole narrative, especially by the great unwillingness of the Egyptians to let the people go, and by their power, within little more than a generation to conquer and occupy Canaan. Assuming therefore the numbers to be sound, to have come to us as they were delivered by Moses, let us inquire what the great difficulties are of which so much has been made, and see if they are really so insuperable.

In the first place, as to the multiplication in Egypt. Now here, before we can form any judgment, two things have to be determined--"What was the number of the Israelites when they entered Egypt," and "What was the duration of their stay there?" What was their number when they entered Egypt? We are commonly told, "seventy souls." Now, no doubt, these words occur in Scripture, "All the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten."[72] But, when we come to look into details, we find first, that the seventy souls of Jacob's descendants comprise only two women, the married daughters and grand-daughters of Jacob not being mentioned, who yet, we are told, followed the migrations of the tribe,[73] and no account being taken of the wives of his sons and grandsons. Supplying these omissions, we have for the family of Jacob as it entered Egypt, the number 267, instead of the number seventy, or nearly four times the ordinary estimate. But this is far from being all. The children of Israel entered Egypt with their households, or retainers.[74] What the size of a patriarchal household was we may gather from the history of Abraham, who had 318 trained servants born in his house, capable of active military service. It has been well observed that "we shall scarcely find so many in a clan of three thousand souls."[75] Jacob's retainers are likely to have been more numerous rather than less numerous than those of Abraham; and the conclusion of Kurtz, that they amounted to "several thousands"[76] is therefore perfectly reasonable. It appears to me quite probable that the tribe which took possession of the Land of Goshen on the invitation of Joseph and Pharaoh was a body of five or six thousand persons.

Next, as to the duration of the sojourn in Egypt, the Hebrew text lays it down very positively that it was 430 years.[77] The best MSS. of the Septuagint agree. There was a tradition among the later Jews which brought down the term to 215 years; but this tradition cannot reasonably be set against the plain words of Exodus; and consequently we must take 430 years as the duration of the sojourn.

Is it then, or is it not, conceivable, that under the circumstances of the time and country, a tribe or clan of 5,000 persons may have increased in 430 years to one of two millions? Here it has to be remembered that there were two modes whereby they might increase, one that of ordinary natural increase, the other by augmentation of the number of their retainers. The natural tendency of population has been shown by Mr. Malthus, to be to double itself, if unchecked, every 25 years.[78] The Israelites, having the land of Goshen, a large fertile territory, capable of supporting a population of several millions, assigned them, would be in a position where the checks on the natural tendency, especially at first, would be very slight. Now, according to the estimate of Mr. Malthus, a body of 5,000 persons increasing without check, would have become more than two millions at the end of 225 years; a body of 267 persons would have exceeded the same amount at the close of 325 years; and a body even of seventy persons would have done the same at the expiration of 375 years; so that, except for the operation of artificial checks, the family of Jacob, had it really consisted of seventy persons only, would have become one of above two millions fifty-five years before the time of the exodus. But, no doubt, as the increase took place, the artificial checks, which keep down the natural tendency of population, began to operate, and the result was, that if the original immigrants were, as I have supposed, about 5,000, the actual rate of increase had been a doubling, not once each twenty-five years, but once each forty-eight years, or not very much beyond the rate which prevails in our own country at the present time.

If we add to this the consideration that the Israelites, being in a very flourishing condition during the earlier portion of their sojourn in Egypt, would naturally augment, by purchase, the number of their households, and might even receive, by agreement, whole tribes into their body, we shall not be surprised that at the end of the 430 years, the clan had grown to be a nation of two million souls.

With respect to the difficulties of the exit of this large body of persons from Egypt in the sudden way which the narrative in Exodus seems to describe, they depend (I think) mainly on the broad and general manner of description habitual to Oriental writers, who do not trouble themselves with details, or with exceptions, but describe _in the mass_, stating that to be done by all which was done by most, or by those of most account; regarding a nation as concentrated in its heads; and directing attention to the main events, to the neglect of the various details into which they were broken up. A candid reader, making fair allowance for these characteristics of Oriental style, and for the brevity of the sacred narrative, will scarcely be much troubled by the difficulties of the start and the march, as they have been urged by some critics. It is certain migrations of tribes, quite as large as that of Israel is said to have been, have from time to time taken place in the east, and indeed in the west also. Such migrations have frequently been sudden--the emigrants have started off with their women, children, and all their possessions on a certain day[79]--they have traversed enormous distances, much greater ones than the Israelites traversed, and have finally settled themselves in new abodes. That the Israelites made such a migration there cannot be a doubt. The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, all accepted the fact as certain. Cavils as to their exact numbers, or as to the particular expressions used in Exodus, do not touch the main fact, but show (if they show anything) either that our ancient manuscripts are here and there defective, or that an early Oriental historian does not write in the exact and accurate style of a nineteenth-century occidental critic.

The difficulty which attaches to the subsistence of the Israelites for forty years in the wilderness of Tih, concerns almost wholly the sustenance of their flocks and herds, which are said to have been numerous, and have been calculated at two million head of cattle. The answer to this difficulty may be very brief. In the first place, we are not told that the cattle did not very rapidly decrease; for no mention is made of the people possessing any considerable number in the later portion of the sojourn, until an enormous booty is captured from the Midianites;[80] and in the second place, there is ample reason to believe that the wilderness was anciently very much more fertile than it is at present, and quite capable of furnishing pasturage to flocks and herds of a large size. The recent explorations of Mr. Tristram and Mr. Holland have placed this fact beyond a doubt, and have shown that the Sinaitic peninsula, at any rate, was a "desert" merely in comparison with the richly agricultural countries of Egypt and Palestine.

Historical difficulties are scarcely alleged with respect to the portion of the Biblical narrative which follows upon the sojourn in the wilderness. The conquest of Canaan by the immigrant Israelites is a fact too well attested to be denied; and the subsequent chequered history of the race, as delivered to us in Judges and in the First Book of Samuel, is for the most part too modest and unpretending an account to tempt the assaults of sceptics. The exploits of Gideon and Samson are viewed indeed with incredulity; but merely on the ground that they are intrinsically improbable. It is not until we come to the time of David and Solomon that any further difficulties, really of an historical character, present themselves, and that an examination of the difficulties by the light of historical documents becomes possible.

The sudden rise of the Israelites to power and greatness in the reign of David, the grandeur, magnificence, and extent of the kingdom of Solomon, and the entire collapse of the empire at his death appear to some, not merely in themselves strange and improbable, but incompatible with what is known from history of the condition of the neighbouring countries. The little country of Palestine was placed midway between the territories of two great and powerful monarchies, of which it may be said, in a general way, that for a thousand years before the rise of the Persians to power, they contested the sovereignty of the East. Over-shadowed by the grand forms of Egypt and Assyria, how could Israel (it may be asked) emerge from obscurity, how especially advance at a bound from a dependent to a dominant position, asserting, and for above fifty years maintaining, her place among the great ones of the earth? We may answer, that, in the first place such a revolution has numerous analogies in the history of the East, where the rapid rise of petty states to greatness, the sudden conversion of an oppressed into a dominant power, is the rule rather than the exception; where Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, where the histories of Timur, Yenghis Khan, Nadir Shah, all illustrate it. But further, in this particular case, we can see not only a general analogy, but a fitness in the peculiar circumstances of the time for the production of such a phenomenon as that which Scripture places before us. The monumental evidence of the two countries shows, that exactly at the time when the conquests of David and the Empire of Solomon are placed, both Egypt and Assyria were exceptionally weak. Egypt, after the time of Ramesses III. (ab. B.C. 1,200) ceased to be aggressive on the side of Syria, and continued until the accession of Sheshonk or Shishak, (ab. B.C. 990) to be a quiet and unwarlike power. Assyria, which, about B.C. 1,100, extended her sway into the valley of the Orontes, and threatened Palestine with subjection, passed under a cloud soon afterwards, and did not again become a terror to Syria, till about B.C. 880. For a Jewish Empire to arise it was necessary that Egypt and Assyria should be simultaneously weak. Such simultaneous weakness is found for the hundred or hundred and twenty years between B.C. 1,100 and B.C. 990. And exactly into this interval fall the rise of the Jews to power under Saul and David, and the establishment of their empire under Solomon.

Doubts were thrown a few years since, by an able writer, on the expeditions of Shishak against Rehoboam, Solomon's son, and of Zerah, the Ethiopian, against Asa, Rehoboam's grandson;[81] which, it was suggested, might be mere embellishments of a history, otherwise tame and uninteresting. The careful analysis which the inscription of Shishak at Karnac has undergone at the hands of Mr. Stuart Poole,[82] and Dr. Brugsch,[83] not to mention other scholars, and the evidence thus furnished of the reality and the importance of his expedition into Palestine, render the continuance of incredulity, as to the former of these attacks, impossible. The analysis has thrown a flood of light on what was previously obscure in the scriptural narrative. It has shown that Shishak went up, not so much with any extensive scheme of conquest, as to settle his _protegé_, Jeroboam, in his kingdom, where he was in great danger from the Levitical and Canaanite towns not being in his hands. These Shishak reduced and made over to Jeroboam, thus giving him a firm hold on the northern kingdom. Having done this, he was content to receive the mere submission of Rehoboam, and allowed him to retain the southern kingdom, perhaps not wishing to make Jeroboam too strong. It was the constant practice of the great monarchs of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, to maintain, on dependent thrones, a large number of petty princes, who were checks upon each other, and could easily be dealt with, if they shewed any inclination to rebellion.

The expedition of Zerah has not yet received any distinct confirmation from monuments. But the recent discovery that there reigned about this time a king called _Azerch_-Amen in Ethiopia, has removed the difficulties which attached to the name and the description of the invader, and has indicated to the dispassionate and candid student, that here, too, the Jewish historian had probably contemporary records to guide him, and related real facts of history, not figments drawn from his imagination.

A real historical difficulty meets us soon after this, in the sacred narrative, in the invasion of the kingdom of Samaria, by Pul, who is called a "king of Assyria," and is said to have put Menahem to a tribute of a thousand talents of silver.[84] We possess the history of Assyria for this period, apparently in a state of completeness; and this history shows us no monarch at this time (or indeed at any other time), bearing a name in the least resembling that of Pul. The predecessor of Tiglath-pileser on the throne of Assyria, was a certain Asshur-lush (or Asshur-likkis), whose predecessor was Asshur-dayan, who followed on Shalmaneser III. It seems impossible that any one of these kings can be Pul. Moreover, Assyria, in the time immediately preceding the accession of Tiglath-pileser, instead of being a great, aggressive power, capable of marching armies into Palestine, was in a depressed state, troubled by frequent insurrections among her own subjects, and quite incapable of sending out distant military expeditions. Thus "Pul, king of Assyria," constitutes to the modern historical inquirer a real difficulty--a difficulty which it has been proposed to meet in various ways.

The best explanation hitherto suggested is, I think, the following. Pul, who was called by Berosus, the great Babylon historian, "king of the Chaldeans," was probably a monarch who reigned at Babylon, while Asshur-lush was reigning at Nineveh. In the troublous decade of years which preceded Tiglath-pileser's accession, he became a powerful prince, perhaps deprived Assyria of her western provinces, and invaded Syria and Palestine from the quarter from which Assyrian invasions had been wont to come. Presenting himself to the Israelites as the representative of the great Mesopotamian power, with which they had been contending for centuries, they termed him loosely "king of Assyria" when he was in reality a king of Babylon, who had possessed himself of a portion of the Assyrian dominions. In the same way, they subsequently termed Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, and even Darius Hystaspis, "kings of Assyria."[85]

A difficulty used to be felt with respect to "Sargon, king of Assyria," who is said to have taken Ashdod by the hand of one of his captains.[86] Sargon's name is not contained in the historical books of Scripture, nor is he mentioned by any of the classical writers, who speak of Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon. The occurrence of his name in Isaiah was thought to indicate an irreconcilable difference between the historical data possessed by that prophet and those of the writer of Kings. Even his existence was doubted, and different writers proposed to regard his name as a mere variant for those of each of the three princes just mentioned. The Assyrian inscriptions have completely cleared up all this obscurity. Sargon is found to have been the successor of Shalmaneser; the predecessor and father of Sennacherib. He speaks of having captured Ashdod. All that Isaiah says of him is confirmed; and it appears to have been quite accidental that the writer of Kings, who more than once alludes to him,[87] does not mention his name.

The strictly historical character of the later portion of the Old Testament narrative, especially of that delivered to us in Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and in the contemporary prophets, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and Haggai, is generally admitted, even by sceptics. The only writings belonging to this period, whereto exception is taken are the Books of Daniel and Esther, which many still regard as full of historical inaccuracies, and as quite unworthy of credence. I shall therefore conclude my observation on the alleged historical difficulties of the _Old_ Testament, and the light thrown on them by modern discoveries, by a brief consideration of these two books and of the objections taken to them.

The chief historical inaccuracies alleged against Daniel are the following: He is said to have invented two kings, Belshazzar, and Darius the Mede, whose existence is not merely unknown to history, but precluded by it; to have falsely ascribed a government by satraps to the Babylonians; to have incorrectly represented the condition of their "wise men"; to have made Susa a residence of the Persian monarchs when it was not even built; to have wrongly made the last king of Babylon a son of Nebuchadnezzar, and to have misrepresented his fate; to have misconceived the relative position of the Medes and Persians at the time of the capture of Babylon; and to have related an utterly incredible circumstance, viz. that Daniel was admitted among the Babylonian "wise men," and even constituted their head.[88]

Now of these charges some are quite incapable of being either substantiated or distinctly refuted from our insufficient knowledge of the times to which they refer. Nothing is really known of the classes into which the "wise men" of Babylon were divided in Nebuchadnezzar's time, excepting what we learn from Daniel himself. The authors supposed to contradict Daniel on this point, write of the state of things in their own day, which happens to be eight centuries later! And they do not write about the Babylonian "wise men" at all, but about the divisions of the Persian magi, an entirely different class. We do not even know enough about the "wise men" to say whether there was anything strange and unusual in a foreigner being placed at their head. We may suspect that it was so, but we have really no sufficient evidence on the subject. The little evidence that we have is to the effect that the "wise men" were a learned, not a priestly, body; and that they admitted foreigners among them--more we do not know; but there is certainly not the slightest difficulty in supposing that the despotic power of a Babylonian monarch would have been amply sufficient to overcome any repugnance which any class of his subjects might have felt towards one of his appointments.

Similarly, we have no sufficient knowledge of the Babylonian governmental system to say that it was not, at any rate, to some extent, satrapial. A satrapial system is simply one in which governors are appointed over the provinces, instead of their being suffered to remain under the rule of native kings. Our present Indian system is in part satrapial, in part a government by means of kings. The Assyrian government was one of the same kind; and, on the whole, it is most probable that so was the Babylonian. Gedaliah, who succeeded to King Zedekiah in Judea, was a "governor,"[89] that is, a satrap, appointed by Nebuchadnezzar; and Berosus speaks of a "satrap of Egypt, Cœle-Syria, and Phœnicia," as holding office under Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar's father. Thus there is no "inaccuracy" in Daniel's speaking of Nebuchadnezzar as summoning, among his other great officers, his "satraps."[90] That the _word_, which is Persian, was not used in Babylonia is probable; but Daniel, writing for Jews under Persian government, who were perfectly familiar with the term, employed it for a corresponding Babylonian expression.

The charge that Daniel misapprehended the relative position of the Medes and Persians at the capture of Babylon, regarding the supremacy of the Medes as still continuing, is unjust, and rests on an omission to look carefully to the original text. It is true that the Medes are placed before the Persians in the words of the handwriting upon the wall, and also in the formula, "according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not." But this honorary precedence assigned to the Medes is a mere trace of their ancient supremacy--a trace much more strongly marked in Greek writers, who actually call Cyrus and his successors "Medes"--and is not an indication of its continuance. Daniel twice marks very strongly the subordinate position of the Medes, stating in one place[91] that Darius the Mede "_received_ the kingdom"--_i.e._, was given it by another; and further declaring that he "_was made king_ over the nation of the Chaldæans,"[92] using in this case an expression which distinctly implies that he derived his position from some superior authority, which made him king.[93]

The notion that Susa, or at any rate, its palace, was not built at the time when Daniel says that he saw himself in vision there, rests wholly upon a statement made by Pliny, six hundred years later, that "Susa, the ancient regal city of the Persians, was built by Darius Hystaspis."[94] Now this statement, one of very weak authority, had we nothing to set against it, is contrary to the declarations of various other classical authorities, among them notably of Herodotus; and is completely disproved by the Assyrian inscriptions, which show that Susa was one of the most ancient of all the Mesopotamian cities, and that its "palace" was famous for many centuries before the time of Daniel. The truth which underlies Pliny's statement, is the fact that Darius Hystaspis was the first Persian monarch to build a palace at Susa after the Persian fashion; but the ancient residence of the Susian kings, the Memnonium, as the Greeks called it, had existed for considerably more than a thousand years when the son of Hystaspes began his edifice.

Of the two remaining charges, which concern Darius the Mede, and Belshazzar, one--and that the more important of the two--has been completely rebutted by the evidence of the Babylonian monuments. These monuments show that Nabonnedus (or Labynetus), the king of Babylon attacked by Cyrus, had a son named Bel-shar-ezer, or Belshazzar, whom during some years he associated with him in the government. This son may well have been on the mother's side descended from Nebuchadnezzar, as Daniel says that Belshazzar was;[95] he may have played the part in the siege which Daniel states that he did, while his father (as Berosus mentioned) defended the fortress of Borsippa; and he may have fallen in the general massacre during the night in which Babylon was taken, while his father was subsequently made prisoner, and kindly treated by Cyrus. All the supposed contradictions of profane history by Daniel in connection with this matter, are entirely removed by one little document, exhumed in our own day from the soil of Mesopotamia, by the exertions of an English gentleman.

With respect to Darius the Mede, nothing has been as yet discovered. It is clear from Daniel that he was not a king in his own right, but a viceroy set up by Cyrus. He held his government probably for not more than two years. Perhaps he is to be identified with Astyages, the Median king, whom Cyrus deposed but treated kindly; perhaps he was merely a Median noble, whom Cyrus advanced, as he did other Medes, to a position of trust and importance. The monuments have not at present thrown any light on this matter; but he would be a bold person, who, after the discovery with respect to Belshazzar, would undertake to say that there may not, ere many years are past, be as much light thrown upon the obscure history of this monarch, as has been recently thrown on the history, formerly at least as obscure, of his predecessor.

I cannot leave this matter and turn to another without strongly advising those who have any doubts as to the genuineness and authenticity of the Book of Daniel, which have been of late so fiercely attacked, to study carefully the recent work of Professor Pusey upon the subject. They will find in it a complete answer to all the objections, historical, and critical, which have been urged against this portion of Scripture.

The historical difficulties alleged against the Book of Esther, are chiefly the following. Assuming Ahasuerus to be Xerxes, which is no doubt a highly probable identification, it is said that Esther's position is impossible, since Xerxes had but one wife, Amestris, who cannot be Esther. Nor could any Persian king have married a Jewess, since there was a law that the kings should take all their wives out of seven noble Persian families. Such a feast as that described in the first chapter, where all the princes of the provinces were entertained for 180 days, could not have taken place, since the governors could not without ruin to the empire have been so long absent from their governments. It is incredible that a Persian king should have given the command, said to have been given by Ahasuerus to Vashti. The edicts ascribed to Ahasuerus are all incredible--especially the second and third. No king would have consented to the murder of 2,000,000 of his subjects; nor would any king ever have allowed at a later time those two millions to stand up and slay as many as they pleased of their enemies. Finally, the honours granted to Mordecai are said to be excessive, and such as no monarch would have allowed to a subject.

With respect to the first of these objections, we may reply that though Amestris cannot be Esther, she may well be Vashti; and that though the classical writers tell us of no other wife of Xerxes, yet it is quite possible that he may have had several. Polygamy was the rule with the Persian kings. Amestris was no doubt on the whole the chief wife of Xerxes, and if she at one time fell into disgrace, must have been afterwards restored to favour; but the accounts which we have from the Greeks do not at all preclude the possibility of such a temporary disgrace, and of the elevation of another wife to the first place for a time. As to its being impossible that any Persian king could have married a Jewess, it is sufficient to remark, that though the Persians had laws, the Persian kings were above the law, and could always disregard its restraints. When Cambyses having conceived an affection for his full sister, Atossa, asked the royal judges if they could find a law allowing a Persian to marry such a near relative, their reply was, that they could find no law permitting the marriage of brothers and sisters, but that they found a law, that the king of the Persians might do what he liked.[96]

The objection to Xerxes feasting _all_ his princes for 180 days is an objection, not to anything contained in the Book of Esther, but to something which the critic who makes it has intruded into the book. The writer of the book tells us that Xerxes "made a feast to all his princes and his servants" (ch. i. 3), and subsequently relates that the feast lasted "an hundred and fourscore days" (verse 4); but he nowhere states that the princes were all present during the whole of the time. Indeed, the reader possessed of common sense sees clearly enough that the very duration of the festivity was probably contrived, in order that all the princes might in their turn partake of it. The critic says, "it is not so stated in the text," which is true: but neither is that stated which he has thought that he saw in it.

The command given to Vashti is undoubtedly strange and abnormal. It was an outrage on Oriental custom; and as such the narrative sets it before us. The king does not issue the order until he is "merry with wine"; and the Queen refuses to obey, because she feels the order to be an insult. But can we say that no Oriental king could possibly have issued such a command? Is it not more reasonable to allow, with a German critic of the sceptical school, that the narrative is here "possible on account of the advancing corruption in Xerxes' time, and through the folly of Xerxes himself"?[97] Indeed is it not clear that we can set no limit to the caprices of absolute power, or to the orders that may not be issued by a proud and silly despot?