CRITICISM AND ARCHEOLOGY (krit'l sIz'm and (1) No Real Antagonism. There is no real antagonism between archaeology and literary criticism; on the contrary the archreologist is hound to welcome all literary criticism which is based upon sufficient evidence and is conducted in accordance with a sound method. It prepares the way for the reception of his archaeological facts by explaining the meaning and character of the documents to which he applies them. But un fortunately the literary criticism of the Old Testa ment has come to signify a very different thing. and indeed it has gained notoriety chiefly from the startling and extravagant nature of its results. and the confidence with which it has been put forward, the confidence being in inverse propor tion to the solidity of the foundations upon which these statements rest.
(2) Assumptions. When we ask for the evi dence upon which the unanimous belief of centu ries is reversed and the authenticity and trust worthiness of the Old Testament Scriptures are alike denied, we find that it consists almost en tirely of a philological analysis made by modern European and American scholars. Passages are torn from their context and assigned to authors who are supposed to have lived centuries after the events which they record took place, if indeed they ever took place at all. And this is done on the strength of a few words or idioms which the philologist assumes to indicate a particular au thor or particular date. The conclusions which are thus obtained are often supported only by microscopic contradictions detected in the text, many of which are due to the arbitrary interpre tations of the critic or by his dogmatic assertion that the statements contained in it are incredible.
(3) A Dead Language. In the first place it seems to be forgotten that the Hebrew is a dead language and that the critics are not even modern Orientals who are familiar with Eastern modes of thought and expression.
(4) Fragmentary Literature. It is also for gotten that the books of the Old Testament con stitute but a fragment of the Hebrew literature that once existed, and that consequently our knowledge of both Hebrew lexicon and grammar are exceedingly imperfect. We are dependent for what we know upon the traditional interpretation of that fraction of it which is contained in the Old Testament.
In a modern case of collaboration it is often im possible to tell which portions were written by each author. How, then, can it be possible to do this in the case of the Hebrew Scriptures which were written so long ago, and in a tongue of which so little is actually known concerning its early uses and idioms? (5) A Literary Mosaic. If the so-called critic al method is correct the Pentateuch, instead of being the work of Moses, is a literary mosaic cut from the works of various authors, and so clever ly put together as to deceive even contemporaries and also the Jews, Samaritans and Christians up to the present day. So far from being the earliest portion of the Scriptures upon which the religion of Israel rested, it is claimed that the Law is later than the Prophets and marks a period of real de cline. The tabernacle with which it was asso ciated, was also a fiction as much as the revela tion on Mount Sinai. Against these conclusions, archology raises a protest which is daily grow ing stronger and more emphatic. The position of the "critic" depends largely upon the unavowed assumption that the use of writing for literary purposes was not known among the Israelites until long after the days of Moses. But we now know that this assumption is entirely false. (See ASSYR