Irish Church Quarterly

The Archaeology of the Old Testament. Was the Old Testament Written in Hebrew? byEdouard Naville; Robert ScottReview by: W. H. T. G.The Irish Church Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 25 (Jan., 1914), pp. 75-76Published by: Irish Church QuarterlyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30067773 .

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NOTICES OF BOOKS. 75

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. WAS THE OLD TESTAMENT WRITTEN IN HEBREW? By Edouard Naville, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. Robert Scott. Ss.

This recent addition to Mr. Robert Scott's popular and valuable "Library of Historic Theology" is a development of the theory put forward two years ago by the same author in his little book published by the S.P.C.K., with the title The Book of the Law, in. which he maintained that Deuteronomy was written in Babylonian cuneiform. The result of his researches, as stated on page 4 of the present work, is as follows:-""Looking at it in the light of the different finds of the last thirty years, we cannot but arrive at the conclusion that the oldest documents of Hebrew literature have been written neither in the Hebrew language nor with the Hebrew script, but in the idiom and with the characters of the tablets of Tel-el-Amarna, namely Babylonian cuneiform."

There is no A priori impossibility in this view, and Prof.. Naville works out his theory with much learning and ingenuity, though we cannot say that his arguments generally carry convic- tion, and the logical fallacy known as ignoratio elenchi appears with surprising frequency in these pages. Unfortunately we cannot rid our minds of the thought that our author's principal use of his theory is as a stick to beat "the critics " withal; these much maligned individuals being regarded from the point of view of the orthodox " Defender of the Faith" as men who live in an intellectual world of exploded theories and antiquated opinions; confined to their study, with a Hebrew Lexicon, a copy of the " Rainbow Bible," and some works by Wellhausen; uninfluenced by the wider know- ledge and later discoveries of archaeologists like Profs. Sayce and Naville. In this country popular opinion is liable to forget there are many other Assyriologists besides Prof. Sayce, and many other Egyptologists besides Prof. Naville, and that these others almost unanimously uphold the main conclusions of the Higher Critics; so that the idea, so often stated or implied by some writers, that the results of criticism are in conflict with the results of archaeology, is simply untrue. But as we must distinguish between the "results " of criticism and the fancies of individual critics, so we must distinguish between the "results" of archae- ology and the fads of individual archaeologists.

We are not at all concerned to deny the possibility of Prof. Naville's theory being true, or of its containing an important

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76 NOTICES OF BOOKS.

truth, which has been already emphasized by writers of the " Pan- Babylonian" school of critics, such as Jeremias and Friedrich Delitzsch. That point cannot be settled by an appeal ad populum, but must be left to the specialists, who are alone competent to decide upon it; and who, we may say, so far show no inclination to accept it, at least in the form in which it is put forward by our author.

It is too late in the day to wave aside the results of the higher criticism as "merely philological, " They are just as real as the results of archaeology, and one of the most damaging features in Prof. Naville's presentation of his theory is that he sets it in opposition to them. It is not they that will suffer.

Finally: supposing for the sake of argument that Prof. Naville has proved his case, and that the ancient literature of the Hebrews was written in cuneiform; we are quite unable to follow him in his view of the consequences which flow from it; as, for instance, the overthrow of the critical analysis of the Hexateuch, and in- deed of the whole Documentary Hypothesis. The broad facts upon which that analysis is based remain practically untouched by this book. All the evidence accumulated by over a century of research holds good, and no theory which practically ignores it can hope to gain general acceptance with scholars. Can Prof. Naville, holding, as he does., to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentetcuch, imagine that the fact, if such it be, of a translation of the ancient Hebrew records from cuneiform into Aramaic or Hebrew, is a satisfactory explanation of its many duplicate nar- ratives, inconsistencies, contradictions and anachronisms; of its widely divergent literary styles and theological conceptions; in short, of the innumerable phenomena which point to centuries of development, literary, social, and religious, between the writ- ing of its various parts.

Therefore, while recognizing much that is useful and of deep interest in Prof. Naville's work, we do not think that his views will gain any wide acceptance amongst scholars; but in any case, the generally accepted results of criticism will remain unaffected by them. W. H. T. G.

THE BOOK OF WISDOM With Introduction and Notes. Edited by Rev. A. T. S. Goodrick, M.A. (Oxford Church Bible Commentary.) Rivingtons. 7s. 6d. net.

The Book of Wisdom offers a fascinating subject of study to all those who are interested in extra-canonical literature. If its date could be definitely fixed, we should possess certain land- marks of first-rate importance for the history of the process of the development of doctrine.

And yet, in the case of Wisdom, it is just this question of date which is so hard to determine. It is the fashion nowadays to

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