The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-05-13
HAS THE "aIGHER CRITICISM" DE
MOLISHED IsRAEL'S HISTORY.

Yield to the discoveries OF Schl1emann'b
Spade-MOdern Research Shows That the
Ancient Oriental World Was Not Hitter
ate - Inscriptions which Prove That
Biblical Critics Have Been Mistaken.
We have heard good deal of late
years about the "Higher Criticism" and
its effect upon our views in regard to the
character and authenticity of the Old
Testament scriptures. In some quarters
it has been asserted that the new science
has triumphantly demolished the ancient
history of Israel, at all events up to the
age of the foundation of the monarchy,
and has thrown considerable doubt even
upon such Old Testament records as be-
long to a later date. By the term
''Higher Criticism" is meant, firstly an
enquiry into the age and authorship of
the books of the bible, and secondly a
judgement on the historical character of
their contents. The two kinds of inves-
tigation are not necessarily connected
with one another, the literary analysis of
the Old Testament books belonging more
strictly to the domain of philology, while
the criticism of their historical contents
falls within the province of the historian
or the archaelogist. In practice, how
ever, it is not easy to keep two kinds of
enquiry separate. History will often
cast an important light ON the age of
authorship of a literary document, and
conversely the historical credibility of a
narrative is lessened, if not overthrown,
if we can show that the document in
which it is contained was written long
after the events recorded in it.
The fierce criticism to which the books
of the bible have been subjected since
the beginning of the present century is
but reflection OF a general spirit of
skepticism which was rejected tradi-
tional beliefs in regard to ancient history
and writings, and insisted on bringing
them before the bar as the modern in
structive method, 1t is not only the
ancient history of Israel which has been
relegated to the region or myth; the
ancient histories of Greece and Rome
obstlnately maintained that the history
of civilization begins with the age of
Cyrus, and that literary documents in the
true sense of the word were unknown
before the closing days of the Jewish
monarchy. There has been tacit as
sumption that the nations of antiquity
we're practically illiterate, and that it is
useless to search for grains of truth in
the traditions of their earlier history
which have come down to us.
The high-water-mar in historical
skepticism is represented in Greek his
tory by Sir Geo. Cox, in Roman history
by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, in sacred
history by Harvet and Vernes. The
reaction naturally came first in the case
of Greek history. The excavation of DR..
Schliemann proved that the early history
of Greek was not the mass of myths and
fables which it has been the fashion to
suppose it to be; that on the contrary,
the story of Achean power and culture
was founded on fact, and that race of
kings once held sway in Myken@ who
were in contact with the civilization of
Egypt and PhGnicia. At first the
scholars scoffed; but facts are stubborn
things, and before his death DR.. Schlie-
mann had the satisfaction of knowing
that he had by means of the spade re-
established the credit of history which
the "Higher Criticism" seemed to have
demolished forever.
As the destructive criticism of the Old
Testament had but followed in the wake
of that of early Greek history, it was
natural that it should share the fortunes
of the latter. The discovery and de-
cipherment of the monuments of Egypt,
of Assyria and of other Oriental lands,
have done for the older records of the
bible what the discoveries of DR.. Schlie-
mann have done for the early traditions
of Greece. This historical fabric which
the Higher Criticism" had claimed to
have destroyed, is being restricted by
the archeologist and decipher. We
have come to know that much which had
been pronounced impossible was not only
possible but true, and that the difficult
ties raised by the critic were really due
to his own ignorance.
Let us take, for example, the assump-
ton that the Israelites in the age of
Moses were an illiterate people, or that
the events recorded in the book of
Genesis could not have been preserved in
writing. Modern research is making it
continually clearer than the ancient
oriental world, instead of being
illiterate, was one in which the arts of
reading and writing were almost as COM
mon in our own day. The cuneiform
tablets of Tel-el-Amarna discovered three
years ago have shown that all over the
civilized world of the East, in the century
before the Exodus there were libraries
and schools in which books and letters
were stored, and numerous pupils were
taught the foreign language and compli-
Gated syllabary of Babylonia. They have
shown that an active correspondence
was carried on not only about affairs of
state but even about such trivial matters
as the illness of the writer or the dis
patch of a messenger. And this CORE