PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE
BY
THE REV. A.H. SAYCE
PROFESSOR OF ASSYRIOLOGY, OXFORD
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.;
43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.
NEW YORK: E. & J.B. YOUNG & CO.
LONDON & BUNGAY.
PREFACE
A few years ago the subject-matter of the present volume mighthave been condensed into a few pages. Beyond what we would gatherfrom the Old Testament, we knew but little about the history andgeography of Canaan before the age of its conquest by theIsraelites. Thanks, however, to the discovery and decipherment ofthe ancient monuments of Babylonia and Assyria, of Egypt and ofPalestine, all this is now changed. A flood of light has beenpoured upon the earlier history of the country and its inhabitants,and though we are still only at the beginning of our discoveries wecan already sketch the outlines of Canaanitish history, and evenfill them in here and there.
Throughout I have assumed that in the narrative of thePentateuch we have history and not fiction. Indeed thearchaeologist cannot do otherwise. Monumental research is making itclearer every day that the scepticism of the so-called "highercriticism" is not justified in fact. Those who {4} would examinethe proofs of this must turn to my book on The Higher Criticismand the Verdict of the Monuments. There I have written purelyas an archaeologist, who belongs to no theological school, andconsequently readers of the work must see in it merely theirreducible minimum of confidence in the historical trustworthinessof the Old Testament, with which oriental archaeology can besatisfied. But it is obvious that this irreducible minimum is agood deal less than what a fair-minded historian will admit. Thearchaeological facts support the traditional rather than theso-called "critical" view of the age and authority of thePentateuch, and tend to show that we have in it not only ahistorical monument whose statements can be trusted, but also whatis substantially a work of the great Hebrew legislator himself.
For those who "profess and call themselves Christians," however,there is another side to the question besides the archaeological.The modern "critical" views in regard to the Pentateuch are inviolent contradiction to the teaching and belief of the JewishChurch in the time of our Lord, and this teaching and belief hasbeen accepted by Christ and His Apostles, and inherited by theChristian Church. It is a teaching and belief which lies at theroot of many of the dogmas of the Church, and if we are to rejector revise it, we must at the same time reject and revise historicalChristianity. It is difficult to see how we can call ourselvesChristians in the sense which the term {5} has borne forthe last eighteen hundred years, and at the same ti