(6) Contemporaneous History. But a con clusion, however elaborately argued, is not scien tifically established unless it excludes other valid explanations. This coinplicated and unrestrained, and yet unstable analysis of the Hexateuch has not, in the judgment of many sound and scholarly thinkers, excluded the more simple and formerly accepted view, which is a history substantially contemporaneous with the authorship though in part.drawn from previous authentic sources, and inevitably somewhat modified, and perhaps mod ernized in the transmission through a period of a thousand years. Those earlier sources may also have undergone some changes in the transfer from the tongue which was native to Abraham in Babylonia, into the Hebrew which became the language of Israel.
(7) Older Documents. The fact that some older documents were used in the Hexateuch is not a discovery of modern investigators; that it embodies contents hundreds of years older than Moses is not a matter of speculation, but of record. The history itself refers to "The Book of the Wars of the Lord" and also to "The Book of Jasher," although the latter was merely a collection of poems rather than history-.
(8) Opinions of Recent Scientists. The pos sibility of the Deluge by the method described, is sustained by such recent scientists as Miller, Howarth, Dawson and Prestm jell, De Girard and others, and is still further confirmed, though un intentionally, by the testimony of Le Conte and other specialists to the effect that "a great inland sea" once submerged the whole region that in cludes the Caspian Sea, Lake Aral and other lakes. (See also "Deluge, Illustrative Facts Con cerning," by Sir J. W. Dawson.) (9) Archreological Facts. increasing attention is also directed to the indications corresponding to the still earlier portions of the biblical nar rative. That the fourteenth chapter of Genes's deals with actual persons and conditions at least two thousand years before Christ is now well sustained, in spite of the strenuous opposition of the critics. (See CuEnonAostEa; ARIOCII ; A 11I RAPHEL, (10) Separate Histories. The eleven sets of generations in Genesis were well described a century ago by Lord-Arthur Hervey as "marking the existence of separate histories from which the Book of Genesis was compiled," not only in ac cordance with the obvious facts of the else, and the unquestionable fact of Jewish genealogies ex tending hack into very remote times. but with
the definite statement in the narrative itself, con cerning the genealogical list from Adam to Nosh and his sons. "This is the book of the generations of Adam" (Gen. v:i.) (11) Founder of the Nation. That Moses was the great founder and molder of the nation of Israel, of its character and institutions, is necessarily admitted by the critics (with a few sporadic exceptions), and emphatically so by Wellhausen and Driver. This admission is made because of the undeniable historic testimony, and especially the incorporation of his mighty per sonality into the whole life and composition of the Jewish people. In a word, nothing in the theories of modern criticism has been so provnd as to disprove the authenticity of the Hexateuch, or to exclude the essential features of the view so long held by the Hebrew nation and the Chris tian world.
(12) Historical Character of the Hexateuch. Every decade is making it more unsafe to im pugn the historical character of the Hexateuch..
It is a question of interest whether that which has been announced as "the greatest Biblical work of the age," the Polychrome Bible, so far as it conforms to Professor Cheyne's standard, may not prove to be a heavy ordnance, more effective in the recoil than the atm.
Andrew Lang, in Longman's Nlagazine, com ments upon it as follows: "The method is simple and Teutonic. You have a theory, you accept the evidence of the sacred writers as far as it suits your theory, and when it does not suit, you say that the inconvenient passage is an interpola tion. /t must be, for if not, what becomes of your theory'? So you print the inconvenient passage in green, or what not. and then the people know all about it. (See "The Veracity of the Ilexateuch," by Samuel Colcord Bartlett, D.D., LL.D.; The Documents of the Hcxatcuch, by NV. E. Addis, M. A., 1808.) Metz. Tr), khiz-kee', st rong), one of the "sons" of Elpael, a chief resident of Jerusalem It Chron. 18); a Benjamite. In R. V., Hizki.