Dear Friends of Billy Graham:

It’s hard to believe that Billy Graham is now pushing fifty. After twenty years of crusading as the world’s best-known evangelist, he still has the lean and handsome appearance and zestful spirit that mark him as a man of perpetual youth. His dedication to Christ, faithfulness in proclaiming the biblical Gospel, love for people, and effectiveness as a communicator have resulted in his preaching in person probably to more people than any other man in history. A sampler of his thought has been compiled by Bill Adler in The Wit and Wisdom of Billy Graham (Random House, $3.95). Along with many of Billy’s stimulating observations on God, man, the Church, and the world, Adler presents dozens of anecdotes that have enlivened Graham sermons. Here are condensations of a few.

♦ To stop rascals from raiding his watermelon patch, a man put up a sign: “One of these melons is poison.” He got up the next morning and sure enough, no melons were missing. Everything was the same—except the sign. It now read, “Two of these melons is poison.”

♦ A woman said to her minister, “This morning I stood in front of the mirror for half an hour admiring my beauty. Do you think I committed the sin of pride?” The minister replied, “No, I don’t think you committed the sin of pride. It was more the sin of a faulty imagination.”

♦ After reading about transmigration of souls, a man asked his wife, “Does that mean if I die I will come back to this world in a different form?” “Yes, that’s what it means,” she replied. Said he, “Do you believe, for example, I would come back as a worm?” She answered, “Sweetheart, you are never the same twice.”

♦ A fellow told his friend, “Boy, my wife is an angel.” He replied, “You’re lucky; my wife is still living.”

♦ “I was coming down on an elevator with some friends,” said Billy, “and a man got on about the fifth floor. He said ‘I hear Billy Graham is on this elevator.’ One of my friends pointed in my direction and said, ‘Yes, there he is.’ The man looked me up and down for about thirty seconds and he said, ‘My, what an anticlimax.’ ”

To those who know him, Billy Graham is anything but an anticlimax. And it may well be that the climax of his amazing ministry still lies ahead.

May the Lord bless you—and Billy—real good,

EUTYCHUS III

FINE NOTE

Many thanks for your “Editor’s Note” in the May 24 issue. Fine!

DONALD C. STUART

Asheville, N. C.

CHURCH DEFECTORS

Mr. Jones may be relatively valid in his indictment about “the power-wielding role of the Church” (“The Church’s Defection from a Divine Mission,” May 24). The Church must work independently of political power.

However, to assume that some rather anemic religio-political “weapon” is responsible for the disruption in local parishes is rather naive and hypocritical. Most of the people who leave the Church do so because the Church (or at least that particular pastor and congregation) is taking seriously biblical admonitions to “seek justice,” to “love your neighbor,” to “welcome the stranger” (be he black or white).

RICHARD L. ERICKSON

Grace Lutheran Church

Belview, Minn.

JOY READING

I just finished reading Eutychus on “So-kagakkai” (May 24). How interesting to know of the “In” religion of California. Your man Eutychus writes so well. It is a joy to read.

MRS. E. STANLEY PEDERSON

Omaha, Neb.

With keen interest and frequent smiles, I read Eutychus and his kin. The “preface” is the best reading of all.

C. W. KIRKPATRICK

Housatonic Congregational Church

Housatonic, Mass.

POSITIVE-NEGATIVE PAINS

I cannot refrain from pointing out the unfair implications of the single sentence, “The union process began in 1957, and in 1962 only 3,933 out of 5,458 Congregational Christian churches were in the merger” (“Dissent in the Churches,” May 24). The inference is that a very sizable minority acted negatively.… My study of the yearbooks shows that many of the churches which did not vote … or which voted negatively were not very active in positive support of the mission of the denomination even before.

It pains me to see certain positive aspects of CHRISTIANITY TODAY undercut by a negative response to the potentials of church union such as evidenced by your editorial.

But the slant seems quite different when applied to the National Association of Evangelicals.

CHARLES S. SANGREE

The First Congregational Church

Holliston, Mass.

N.A.E. RESPONSE

I must confess to a bit of surprise and disappointment at your report of the recent convention of the National Association of Evangelicals in Philadelphia (May 24).

From the story I get the impression of some difficulty on the part of your correspondent in understanding the perspective of the convention that its leaders would almost unanimously have described as constructively evangelical.

A bit more serious, the story puts together material covering only one aspect of the convention relating to social concern. This is understandable, since a reporter can attend only one of a dozen or more meetings running concurrently and hear the response to papers presented. Consequently, some of his statements appear out of context, convey a distorted picture of the whole, and leave the impression of a reporter’s preoccupation with social activism rather than the actual picture of the convention’s preoccupation with the relevancy of the Gospel.

CLYDE W. TAYLOR

General Director

National Association of Evangelicals

Washington, D. C.

APT CAPTION

How well captioned was your article “Methodist Militants Bid for Power” (May 24). The Methodist “pink fringe” has followed the well-known pattern of socialist-Communist action, with its emphasis on social concerns and ecumenical one-worldness. I see no particular merit in the bigness of a Church, when you lose your values and identity in accepting the dictates of the “militants.”

ELEANOR DURR

Lakeside, Ohio

HELPING THE HELPLESS

“Nobody’s Nothings” (May 10) was indeed heart-searching. I wish it could be read by all pastors and Christians. As a Christian nurse, I have experienced the joy one receives when an abused or neglected child responds to love and understanding.… Every human being wants to feel “wanted” by someone.… Mr. Rote is carrying a heavy burden. I appreciate and understand his love and concern for these helpless bits of humanity.

ESTHER FROSTAD

Bentley, Alberta

You are to be commended for publishing “Nobody’s Nothings.” It is easy for the Church to forget about the spiritual and other needs of the mentally retarded.

In an otherwise excellent article, however, the author has made some inaccurate statements about mental retardation.… “Mental retardation” refers only to persons whose IQ’s are lower than 70. This comprises 3 per cent—not 20 per cent—of the population. Persons with IQ’s between 70 and 90 are below average, but usually able to live productive and useful lives. Furthermore, the causes of this condition are not limited to brain damage and cultural deprivation. Mental retardation is often caused by inherited genetic factors and other physiological conditions. In almost all cases, mentally retarded persons canmake some improvement in response to treatment.

GARY R. COLLINS

Associate Professor of Psychology

Bethel College

St. Paul, Minn.

STUDENTS SEEKING

Congratulations for once again attacking the problems of higher education (May 10).… The nation’s colleges and universities are undergoing great stress during these trying times. They are filled to capacity with students seeking truth and direction. The tragedy is that higher education, and we who are involved in it, fail miserably in guiding the student. Until we realize that only Jesus Christ can show us the truth and guide us, we will not succeed in our task.

My special congratulations to Dr. Reid for his penetrating and refreshing article pointing the way to knowledge only through our Saviour and Lord. Somehow we must become aware of the fact that we can only find “the unity of truth in Christ.”

MARVIN J. PETROELJE

Chairman, Div. of Social Sciences

Northwestern College

Orange City, Iowa

I read with great interest and some despair the article by Mr. Allison on “The American Campus as a Spiritual Force” (May 10).… Mr. Allison despairs of the fact that the “American campus” is no longer a “positive spiritual force” and derides the fact that church-related students go to college to discover “answers to life’s problems” and find that they get only “more questions.” Yet in Allison’s own words, “perhaps more than any other, this generation recognizes injustice and wants to do something about it.”

This in and of itself is the strongest possible reaffirmation of the spiritual force which is upon the campus, and it is precisely here that colleges serve as a training ground for the secular church of the future. In our “post-religious” age, verbal affirmation of Christ will be displaced by concerned action in the field of recognized injustice.… Only committed action on rather unpopular fronts is a way to show positive spiritual force. In this context, the college generation is far ahead of ours.

IGOR I. SIKORSKY, JR.

Hartford, Conn.

IN PERSPECTIVE

I want to express my admiration and appreciation for the group of editorials in the May 10 issue which I consider to be of unparalleled relevance and insight. The evaluations of these key contemporary issues were profoundly placed within proper perspectives—both historical and eternal.…

I must particularly applaud your suggestion that truly concerned civil-rights leaders “would do well not to stage a useless tent-in but to organize a program for economically deprived Negroes to work together to remove the rubble and rebuild many facilities destroyed by rioters in past weeks”.…

Those who clearly have the greatest need possibly render themselves the greatest harm by sitting, marching, or rioting. In fact, the nation’s attention becomes focused on these disruptive elements of so-called corrective action to such an extent that the actions themselves become major social issues, further delaying progress on the basic needs and problems.

THOMAS E. MCCABE

Valley Forge, Pa.

MOVING TO UNITY

I read with great interest your reporter’s account of the ecumenical stirrings within Wesleyan conservatism (“Other Wesleyan Ecumenics,” May 10).…

Methinks there are thousands of anxious on-lookers who applaud the trend and pray for the day when Wesleyan factionalism shall be done with in favor of a singular, united force. Christian holiness deserves no weaker a voice than such a movement most certainly would possess. Its “future effectiveness” may indeed be at stake!

DAVID GLENN GROSSE

Chaplain, Captain, USAF

Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

AS A DOG BITES

Someone has said that as every dog is entitled to one bite, so every man should be allowed one far-out theory.

If John Warwick Montgomery’s “Cry-onics and Orthodoxy” (Current Religious Thought, May 10) is his only “far-out theory,” he may be allowed to have it. Granted, that truly progressive evangelical theologians will develop serious theologies of cryonics, but not in the direction that he suggests.

May I say that the Bible does imply the possibility of a resuscitation of one who has been clinically and unquestionably dead (Rev. 13:3). So remarkable will be the event that the whole world will marvel.

My own serious theology of cryonics is that it is not impossible that some misguided evangelical may stumble upon the very means of resuscitating an archenemy of Christ and of God, the destroyer of the saints—the Antichrist.

WILLIAM G. LOWE

Berlin Bible Church

Narrowsburg, N. Y.

Dr. Montgomery overlooked a possible difficulty confronting the space-age voodooism of cryonics. A scientific observer of an earlier age pointed out: “There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding” (Job 32:8). Will this spirit and inspiration congeal at the temperature of liquid helium and be revived by the glorious science of the future?

Despite the intriguing prospect of being among the first orthodox zombies, most evangelicals will opt for the kind of restoration proposed by the Apostle Paul in First Corinthians 15.

OVERTON W. BROWN

Chiapas, Mexico

AFFLUENT PROTEST

It is not possible for this minister to longer keep his silence about the misuse of the term “affluence” by all too many ministers of all denominations. “Affluence” is a respectable word. It means prosperity flowing in a fluctuating manner. However, the way this word is misused it means that every affluent person is a crook, dishonest, and downright unchristian.

This, ministers imply, certainly characterizes the thousands of church members in their parishes. They condemn affluence in their speeches, in their conventions, and in their newspapers.

We would remind them that everything in America is affluent. And of all people who should be careful of the manner he uses “affluence,” it is the minister. He is a man of affluence, especially the ministers who are serving on denominational staffs. Most of them work in “affluent” buildings. They have affluent offices; in fact most of them look like they are presidents of banks or oil or steel corporations. They get affluent salaries, compared with most of their church members. They receive affluent privileges, such as part of, if not all, free tuition in schools and colleges for themselves and their children. They are so affluent that they are exempted from military service. They get affluent discounts from the department stores, special discounts from their doctors. They travel on railway trains with affluent discounts. Yet they vilify their parishioners who contribute generously to support ministers in their affluent kind of living.…

All of us Americans are affluent. We even have “affluent poverty,” compared to the poverty in Haiti, India, China, Russia, and even South America.…

Some time ago someone sent me a press release which quoted an editor who declared, “The velvety affluent ought to get mugged.” … Such declarations do not solve our problems. They make more of them.…

GORDON PALMER

Los Angeles, Calif.

A FEW LEFT

I find your magazine stimulating. It is an encouragement to know that there are a few evangelical magazines left on the market.

OTTO T. ZEEB

Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran Church

Dover, N. J.

Knowledge of New Testament background has undergone what amounts to a revolution since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This revolution involves both history and vocabulary. It does not call in question the basic New Testament faith in the risen Jesus as God’s Messiah and God’s Only-begotten; rather, it is one of knowledge and perspective.

Inevitably this revolution has overturned a great deal of the work done by New Testament scholars in the past hundred and fifty years. Most of this work was honest and painstaking, and much of it was perceptive, even brilliant. But it was limited by a lack of the assured controlling evidence now available in such large measure. How unfortunate it is that many of the giants of the new Testament field worked and died before the dramatic discoveries at Qumran.

One must say also, however, that some New Testament work has been capricious, based on philosophical presuppositions that ought never to have been applied to any discipline claiming to be based on historical evidence. At times such work has even been done against a background of ill-concealed anti-Semitism, on the assumption that the Old Testament and the history of Israel are not truly a “word of God” to this or any other generation.

A Jewish Environment

Only those who still resist the evidence can fail to realize that the whole background of the New Testament is thoroughly Jewish—Jewish in assumptions and in habits of thinking—and is derived from the basic concepts of the Old Testament and its faith in the active intervention of God in human history.

The known historical background of the New Testament was far from simple before the Qumran discoveries of 1947. Iranian dualism, astral determinism, the revolt of many of the “pious ones” (hasidim) against the idea of a secular state, a great upsurge of apocalyptic literature, inroads of Greek hermeneutics into Jewish thought—all these things were known to have had a profound influence on Judaism prior to New Testament times, to have been reflected in the New Testament writings, and to have influenced attitudes of various groups within Judaism to one another and to the Gentile world outside. But before the Qumran discoveries, scholars were without firm control evidence.

Perhaps the most striking reappraisal of the New Testament literature has been that of the distinctive vocabulary of the Johannine writings, with their reiteration of pairs of opposites: life and death, truth and falsehood, light and darkness, the world of good and the world of evil. Far from representing a late pattern of Hellenistic Gnostic thought, as was often erroneously supposed, this vocabulary now is clearly seen as theological material belonging precisely to a southern Palestinian tradition in the time of Jesus and already in that time well rooted in at least one important stratum of Jewish thinking. So too with the apocalyptic material of Second Peter; its vocabulary and manners of expression are now well known to us from the Essene writings of Qumran.

Important for all future study of Matthew’s Gospel (and now the subject of an important work by Robert H. Gundry, The Use of the Old Testament in St. Matthew’s Gospel, Leiden, 1967) is the commentary material from the Essene sectarians. Matthew did not use Old Testament quotations as “proof texts” or draw from some ill-defined “book of testimonies”; it is clear that he worked along lines of which we now have abundant examples. Matthew’s model was pesher (commentary), in which whole blocks of Scripture are set against commentary on them. This method is in complete contrast to the rabbinic method of halakhah, with its rigid attention to the precise meaning of words and phrases so familiar to us from the writings of St. Paul. Halakhah, based on Greek rules of hermeneutics, was introduced into Jewish thought by Hillel the Elder, grandfather of the Gamaliel who was Paul’s teacher in Jerusalem. (It is worthy of incidental notice that “proof texts” were an impossible device until the imposition of chapter and verse divisions for liturgical purposes much later on.)

Thanks to the seminal work on Samaritanism by the late Professor Abram Spiro, we find we must examine afresh the allusions and implications in many of the New Testament writings. For example, the so-called speech of Stephen in Acts seven seems a clear instance of the scrupulous care taken by the author of Acts to preserve the form of a Samaritan-Christian apologia or tract. In the light of Spiro’s work, we are likely to find that the book we know as the Epistle to the Hebrews was addressed to a group of Christians who had at one time been members of a sect that owed much to John the Baptist (to Essenism) and were more than likely Samaritans in origin (cf. Appendix V in Johannes Munck, The Acts of the Apostles, New York, 1966).

Varieties of Messianic Hope

One important result of the Qumran discoveries is the new knowledge of sectarian Judaism available to us. Although scholars knew that the picture of Judaism as being fairly uniform, with groups such as the Pharisees and Sadducees occupying more or less well-defined positions, was always too simple, they are now confronted with evidence of a far richer diversity than was thought possible before 1947. It is not simply that archaeology has added Essenes to a list of groups exercising influence within Judaism. That again would make the over-all picture too simple. Scholars already knew of the Essenes (the “monastic” variety) through Josephus. Now, however, they have a much fuller portrait. Pharisees, Samaritans, and many others were affected by, or made common cause with, the piety that produced communities like that of Qumran. And even there, it is clear that Essenism was itself divided into what might be described as “pietist” groups, who sought no identification with the wider world of political life and conflict, and those whom we might call “activists,” who looked with eagerness to the resolution of national and religious life in an apocalyptic messianic war.

All this knowledge makes for a far greater degree of complexity in what is known as the “messianic hope.” The expectations of a Deliverer, a champion of Israel’s cause, bore the complexion of the group that held them. Sometimes they seemed to point to a kingly ruler of the Davidic line, sometimes to a Servant identified with the sufferings of his people, sometimes to a “Righteous One” belonging more closely to the post-Exilic, orthodox tradition (cf. Acts 7:52). All the portraits are found in the New Testament interwoven around the person of Jesus, and all are found explicitly or implicitly in the sectarian literature of Qumran. In the face of the evidence available, we need no longer posit any kind of “messianic secret” to explain Jesus’ reluctance to be called “Messiah” publicly. Too much was at stake to allow the ministry to be compromised by any one of the many-faceted interpretations of the messianic vocation. The impressive thing is the manner in which the New Testament writers see all interpretations fulfilled in Jesus.

New Windows on Textual Criticism

For the textual critic of both Old and New Testaments there is abundant work for many years to come. Since the background of the New Testament is now demonstrably Jewish, the state of the Old Testament text in the period prior to Jesus’ ministry is of considerable importance. Not only has the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Septuagint) been immeasurably enhanced in stature, with the result that it is now an absolutely indispensable tool for the biblical scholar; it has also become clear that the Hebrew text was in a quite fluid state, with considerable variation in rendering. It is now possible to speak of an “Old Palestinian” textual tradition, older than either the Septuagint or the medieval Hebrew text. And this means that direct quotations from the Old Testament in the New Testament documents, as well as innumerable allusions in scattered phrases, may often depend upon very ancient Hebrew originals or even upon free renderings (cf. Frank M. Cross, Jr., The Ancient Library of Qumran, New York, 1958, p. 120 ff.). The notion, widely entertained by some New Testament scholars, of finding and establishing a fixed and formal Hebrew text is now discovered to be a chimera.

Indirectly, textual criticism, coupled with the larger quantities of commentary material, bears eloquent testimony to the strength and vitality of the oral tradition in the period immediately before the time of Jesus. The ease and rapidity with which oral tradition shaped and formed material makes it unnecessary to assume the plethora of editors—armed with scissors and paste (and unlimited expensive parchment)—so beloved of some New Testament higher critics.

Two further comments are in order. First, the Dead Sea discoveries, allied with archaeological evidence, have effectively established the tri-lingual character of Palestinian life in the time of Jesus. Hebrew, far from being a dead language as was formerly thought, was actually being increasingly cultivated. It was Aramaic that was being eroded by dialect variations.

Secondly, enough is already known of the intense social upheavals of the years after A.D. 60 to make any late first-century date for most New Testament material increasingly untenable. It becomes more and more unlikely that Christians in Palestine had to await the writing and dissemination of a Roman Gospel by Mark (c. A.D. 65) before embarking on their own collections of tradition.

Faith in Jesus

The speed with which the infant Church, especially in Jerusalem, achieved a degree of organization and assumed that this pattern would also serve for missions much farther afield, seems to argue that tested and proven models that could easily be adopted and adapted were already available. It is interesting in this regard that during the past fifteen years several New Testament scholars have called attention to the parallels between community organization at Qumran and the Jerusalem church as depicted in Acts. Both Catholics and Protestant may have to take a fresh look at the presuppositions they have brought to the study of early church history. Incidentally, the early history of Christian monasticism, both hermits and community groups, may also have to be reworked in the light of the Essene literature.

It is well to end as we began. For all the illumination that the Qumran discoveries can provide, for all the parallels that can be drawn, and for all the debts that the New Testament writers manifestly owed to sectarian Judaism, it needs to be said with emphasis that the New Testament is based wholly on the faith that in Jesus alone—suffering, dying, risen, ever-living—all messianic expectation had its goal.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

We Christians have a particular interest in the past of the Near East, because our religious and cultural roots lie there. Our beliefs are guided by an ancient book, the Bible, that was produced in its entirety in lands strange to us by people who did not speak our tongue and whose customs were not ours. If the message contained in that ancient book is to have meaning for us moderns of the Western world, we must understand it and have confidence in its authenticity, its veracity, its timelessness, and its eternal values.

During the last two centuries, the Old Testament more than the New has been subjected to much critical investigation. We know it was written in Hebrew by Jews 2,500 years ago and more. It contains accounts of miracles that cannot be verified, events that seem unreal or fantastic, and prophecies in a symbolism that requires special study to be understood. Little wonder that many thinking people have questioned the value of the Old Testament for this modern age and have subjected it to a scrutiny that no other book, ancient or modern, has ever experienced.

Many fields have undergone revolutions during the last few centuries. In the space of 150 years, traveling has been accelerated from 4 to 17,000 miles an hour. Electronic computers now make calculations with breathtaking speed. Electric and atomic power has been harnessed and can be released at will. The worlds of the Arctic and the Antarctic, of the deep sea, of the air that surrounds us and of the empty space beyond our atmosphere—all these have been explored. No wonder the inquisitive mind of modern man began also to question traditional religious beliefs, when he saw that values changed in many areas and that the views of his forbears in many fields of knowledge proved false. It is only natural, then, that the basis of our Christian faith, the Bible, has been subjected to careful scrutiny.

For some the results of this investigation seemed to threaten doom for the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. The culmination Was reached at the time of World War I. Scholars did not yet know that a Hebrew alphabetic script existed before the eighth or ninth century B.C.; therefore they thought that the Pentateuch could not have been produced any earlier than the period of the Hebrew kings. Since ancient parallels for the strange customs described in the patriarchal stories had not been discovered, practically all scholars of standing in Europe and America considered these stories fictitious. Furthermore, the earliest known Hebrew Old Testament manuscripts came from the tenth century A.D. and thus were less than a thousand years old. This strengthened the suspicion that the Bible text had undergone substantial changes during its transmission from one generation to another over a period of many centuries from which no witnesses seemed to have survived.

Not surprisingly, many scholars therefore abandoned belief in traditional views about the Old Testament. Friedrich Delitzsch, a great German Assyriologist and Old Testament scholar, wrote in 1921 that “the books of Moses, Joshua and Judges suffer under the fault that history is indiscriminately mixed with legends and fairy tales, as is also the case in the Book of Kings” (Die grosse Täuschung, I, 10). He also asserted that “the Old Testament works, the alleged Word of God, has been transmitted in a much more faulty and careless way than we can comprehend” (II, 5). Julius Wellhausen, the famous higher Bible critic, proclaimed unchallenged his idea that the conditions of the later Jewish monarchy were retrojected into the hoary past, and that the patriarchal stories were no more than a transfigured mirage of unreality. He was so fully convinced of the unreliability of the biblical narratives that he exclaimed: “If it [the Israelite tradition] were only possible, it would be folly to prefer any other possibility” (Komposition des Hexateuch, p. 346).

But thanks to archaeological discoveries made during the last forty years, this situation has changed completely. In 1917 Alan Gardiner, noted British Egyptologist, made the first decipherment of the Proto-Semitic inscriptions found at Mt. Sinai by Flinders Petrie more than ten years earlier. These inscriptions, written in a pictorial script by Canaanites before the middle of the second millennium B.C., prove that alphabetic writing existed before the time of Moses. Numerous other inscriptions in the same script have since that time come to light in Palestine and near Mt. Sinai, showing that the art of writing in an alphabetic script was already widespread in the patriarchal age.

The discovery of a whole archive of legal and social texts at Nuzi, a small place in northeastern Iraq, has revealed that the social and legal background of the patriarchal age is reflected accurately and in great detail in the Old Testament patriarchal narratives. Nothing has done more in recent years to restore confidence in the reliability of these narratives than the humble Nuzi texts. Scholar after scholar has testified that “there is today no reason to doubt the authenticity of the general background of the patriarchal narratives” (E. A. Speiser, Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, XIII, 43). To the discoveries at Nuzi must be added the finding of several law codes from the early second millennium B.C.that have revealed the legal background for many strange customs encountered in the patriarchal period.

Since 1929, annual excavations carried out at Ras Shamra in northern Syria have given us a large mass of Canaanite literature, written in an alphabetic cuneiform script that was deciphered in an incredibly short time, chiefly through the ingenuity of two scholars, one German and one French. These texts have illuminated the religion as well as the moral and social conditions of the ancient Canaanites and have provided much linguistic help for a better understanding of the poetical sections of the Old Testament.

Excavations of numerous sites in Palestine, Syria, and other Bible lands have brought to light many bits of evidence that have made major or minor contributions to a better understanding or verification of the Bible stories. Professor W. F. Albright, the greatest living Orientalist, made the following significant remarks in 1958 when he reviewed the archaeological accomplishment of the recent past:

Thanks to modern research we now recognize its [the Bible’s] substantial historicity. The narratives of the patriarchs, of Moses and the exodus, of the conquest of Canaan, of the judges, the monarchy, exile and restoration, have all been confirmed and illustrated to an extent that I should have thought impossible forty years ago [The Christian Century, November 19, 1958, p. 1329].

Then came the culmination of all discoveries in the field of biblical archaeology: the finding of Hebrew scrolls in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, scrolls that have given us samples, dating from the period from the third century B.C.to the second century A.D., of all Old Testament books save one. The few well-preserved documents as well as the tens of thousands of fragments of worm-eaten and rotten Bible scrolls, which patient scholars have deciphered and published, have already done much to restore confidence in the reliability of the Hebrew text. One can find scores of published testimonials by reputable scholars who as the result of their studies of the Dead Sea scrolls have declared their surprise that the changes the Masoretic Hebrew text experienced in the course of transmission were so few and so insignificant. Professor Albright said in this respect that the Dead Sea scrolls prove “conclusively that we must treat the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible with the utmost respect and that the free emending of difficult passages in which modern critical scholars have indulged cannot be tolerated any longer” (Recent Discoveries in Bible Lands, 1955, p. 128).

Having taken this general look at the phenomenal changes in the evaluation of the reliability of the Old Testament, let us turn to some concrete examples of illumination and verification of the Old Testament by archaeological discoveries. First, in the patriarchal stories we find several strange accounts of a barren wife who asked her husband to produce a child for her by her maid servant. Sarah did this, and later also Jacob’s two wives, Rachel and Leah. Today we know that this practice was not unusual during the patriarchal age. The laws of that period as well as ancient marriage contracts mention it. For example, in a marriage contract from Nuzi, the bride Kelim-ninu promises in written form to procure for her husband Shennima a slave girl as second wife, if she fails to bear him children. She also promises that she will not drive out the offspring of such a union. In no other period besides the patriarchal age do we find this strange custom.

Another example is the sale of Esau’s birthright to Jacob for a dish of lentils. It is hard to believe that that status of an older brother or sister could ever have been attained by purchase. However, a Nuzi text deals with this very custom. In a written contract between Tupkitilla and Kurpazah, two brothers, Tupkitilla sells his inheritance rights to his younger brother for three sheep. Esau sold his rights for food in the pot, while Tupkitilla sold his for food still on the hoof.

Other texts show that a bride was ordinarily chosen for a son by his father, as the patriarchs did; that a man had to pay a dowry to his father-in-law, or to work for his father-in-law if he could not afford the dowry, as poor Jacob had to do; that the orally expressed will of a father could not be changed after it had been pronounced, as in Isaac’s refusal to change the blessings pronounced over Jacob even though they had been obtained by deception; that a bride ordinarily received from her father a slave girl as personal maid, as Leah and Rachel did when they were married to Jacob; that the theft of cult objects or of a god was punishable by death, which was why Jacob consented to the death of the one with whom the stolen gods of his father-in-law were found; that the strange relationship between Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar is vividly illustrated by the laws of the ancient Assyrians and Hittites. These are only some of the many parallels to customs reflected in the patriarchal stories that archaeologists have discovered. Such evidence shows clearly that these narratives were written soon after the events described had occurred, when these strange customs either still existed or had not yet been forgotten.

Leaving the patriarchal period, let us see how archaeological material can illuminate biblical records without providing a scrap of written material. The excavations at Shiloh by Danish scholars provide an example. The early chapters of the first book of Samuel describe the story of Eli and Samuel at the tabernacle located at Shiloh. This city was at that time the seat of the desert sanctuary originally constructed under Moses’ direction at Mt. Sinai. Its greatest treasure was the Ark of the Covenant. Then we read that the Ark was captured by the Philistines in the battle of Aphek and held by them for some time. Finally it was returned to Israel, but not to the city of Shiloh. For many years it remained at Kirjath-jearim, until David transferred it to Jerusalem, his capital. Moreover, when we read again of the family of Eli, the Ark resides not at Shiloh but at Nob; nothing is said about the fate of Shiloh and its sanctuary.

What happened to it? In the book of Jeremiah, references are made to some great disaster that befell Shiloh at some unspecified period of Israel’s history. Nothing in Jeremiah’s references suggests that this disaster had occurred in the distant past. However, scholars have long supposed that the Philistines destroyed Shiloh and its tent sanctuary after they defeated the Israelites and took the Ark at the battle of Aphek. When the Danes excavated Shiloh, they found evidence that satisfactorily answers the question. The broken pieces of pottery discovered there provide a means for reconstructing the ancient history of Shiloh. This pottery evidence shows that there was a break in the city’s history from the eleventh century B.C. until the sixth century. From biblical evidence we know that the early eleventh century B.C. is precisely the period of the Philistine defeat of Israel and the capture of the Ark; hence we have proof that at that time the city of Shiloh and the Tabernacle must have been destroyed.

I want to inject a personal note about the discoveries at Shechem, for I have participated in its excavation. Our 1960 work at Shechem revealed that the city and its great temple of Baal were destroyed in the twelfth century B.C. That is exactly the time indicated in the Bible for the destruction of Shechem by Abimelech, the bastard son of the judge Gideon. The archaeological evidence—broken pieces of pottery—sets that date at about 1150 B.C. The agreement between the two dates, one obtained from biblical evidence and the other from archaeological data, could hardly have been closer. This is certainly a source of great satisfaction for us biblical archaeologists.

For another illustration of the value of archaeological evidence for a better understanding of the Old Testament, let us go to Jerusalem. Archaeological explorations have shed some interesting light on the capture of Jerusalem by David. The biblical accounts of that capture (2 Sam. 5:6–8 and 1 Chron. 11:6) are rather obscure without the help obtained from archaeological evidence. Take for example Second Samuel 5:8, which in the King James Version reads: “And David said on that day, Whosoevergetteth up to the gutter, and smiteth the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind, that are hated of David’s soul, he shall be chief and captain.” Add to this statement First Chronicles 11:6—“So Joab the son of Zeruiah went first up and was chief.”

Some years ago I saw a painting of the conquest of Jerusalem in which the artist showed a man climbing up a metal downspout, running on the outside face of the city wall. This picture was absurd, because ancient city walls had neither gutters nor downspouts, although they had weeping holes in the walls to drain water off. The Revised Standard Version, produced after the situation had become clear through archaeological discoveries made on the spot, translates the pertinent passages: “And David said on that day, ‘Whoever would smite the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind, who are hated by David’s soul.’ ” “And Joab the son of Zeruiah went up first, so he became chief.” What was this water shaft that Joab climbed?

Jerusalem in those days was a small city lying on a single spur of the hills on which the large city eventually stood. Its position was one of great natural strength, because it was surrounded on three sides by deep valleys. This was why the Jebusites boastfully declared that even blind and lame could hold their city against a powerful attacking army. But the water supply of the city was poor; the population was entirely dependent on a spring that lay outside the city on the eastern slope of the hill.

So that they could obtain water without having to go down to where the spring was located, the Jebusites had constructed an elaborate system of tunnels through the rock. First they had dug a horizontal tunnel, beginning at the spring and proceeding toward the center of the city. After digging for ninety feet they hit a natural cave. From the cave they dug a vertical shaft forty-five feet high, and from the end of the shaft a sloping tunnel 135 feet long and a staircase that ended at the surface of their city, 110 feet above the water level of the spring. The spring was then concealed from the outside so that no enemy could detect it. To get water the Jebusite women went down through the upper tunnel and let their water skins down the shaft to draw water from the cave, to which it was brought by natural flow through the horizontal tunnel that connected the cave with the spring.

However, one question remained unanswered. The excavations of R. A. S. Macalister and J. G. Duncan some forty years ago had uncovered a wall and a tower that were thought to be of Jebusite and Davidic origin respectively. This tract of wall ran along the rim of the hill of Ophel, west of the tunnel entrance. Thus the entrance was left outside the protective city wall, exposed to the attacks and interference of enemies. Why hadn’t the tunnel been built to end inside the city? This puzzle has now been solved by the recent excavations of Kathleen Kenyon on Ophel. She found that Macalister and Duncan had given the wall and tower they discovered wrong dates; these things actually originated in the Hellenistic period. She uncovered the real Jebusite wall a little farther down the slope of the hill, east of the tunnel entrance, which now puts the entrance safely in the old city area.

David, a native of Bethlehem, four miles south of Jerusalem, may have found out about the spring and its tunnel system in the days when as a youth he roamed through the countryside. Later, as king he based his surprise attack on this knowledge, and made the promise that the first man who entered the city through the water shaft would become his commander-in-chief. Joab, who was already general of the army, did not want to lose that position and therefore led the attack himself. The Israelites apparently went through the tunnel, climbed up the shaft, and were in the city before any of the besieged citizens had any idea that so bold a plan had been conceived.

This water system, constructed more than three thousand years ago, is still in existence and can be examined by any tourist. Some good climbers have even climbed the shaft in modern times, though it is not easy to do so because the rock walls are smooth and slick and give little hold for hand or foot. The shaft is also a little too wide for a comfortable climb, as I learned in my unsuccessful attempt to climb it.

Among many other illustrations of how archaeology clears up disputed points of biblical history, I want to mention one more, involving the conquests of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II. Various biblical records mention three conquests of Judah’s capital by the Babylonian king, first in 605 B.C., in the third year of King Jehoiakim, then in 597 after a three-month reign of Jehoiachin, and finally in 586 in the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. For a long time scholars did not doubt that Nebuchadnezzar had taken Jerusalem, for the biblical statements seemed quite clear on this point. However, many scholars became somewhat suspicious when a hundred years of excavations in Babylonia failed to turn up one single text of Nebuchadnezzar referring to any one of these conquests of Jerusalem, though numerous texts written by this monarch had come to light during these hundred years. Also, the city of Babylon, which the Germans excavated during a long campaign of eighteen years, failed to provide a single document to show that Nebuchadnezzar had ever been at war with the kingdom of Judah or had ever taken their capital, Jerusalem. A number of well-known scholars began to doubt that Nebuchadnezzar had ever taken Jerusalem during his reign. But today these doubts are groundless; at least one of Nebuchadnezzar’s three conquests of Jerusalem is well attested by several pieces of archaeological evidence, of which I shall mention two recent ones.

Shortly before the last war, Professor Ernst Weidner worked in the Berlin Museum on unimposing tablets that had been found in some storerooms of Nebuchadnezzar’s palace in Babylon many years ago. These tablets contained day-by-day records of the issuance of grain and oil to dependents of the royal palace, such as workmen engaged in royal building operations, musicians employed as entertainers, and hostages from foreign countries. As Weidner studied these somewhat dry records, he suddenly came upon the name of King Jehoiachin of Judah as recipient of royal rations of grain and oil. The tablets mentioning the king were written in 592 B.C., five years after he had been taken captive, and his five sons and their tutor are mentioned also. Jehoiachin received twenty times as much foodstuff as any other person listed, an indication that he was still considered an honorable personage and may have been allowed to keep servants for his use. His imprisonment, to which the Bible also refers, seems to have begun at a later time, probably when efforts were made during a rebellion (described by Jeremiah) to put him back on the throne of Judah.

The second interesting discovery bearing on this subject was made in 1955 by Donald Wiseman of the British Museum. Among tablets that had been in that museum for many decades Wiseman discovered one that chronicled several years of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. This tablet describes briefly the military campaign of Nebuchadnezzar against Judah in 597 B.C. and the capture of Jerusalem on March 16 of that year—the first exact date of a biblical event obtained from a factual non-biblical record. The tablet also states that Nebuchadnezzar deposed King Jehoiachin and replaced him by Zedekiah.

These two discoveries teach us a valuable lesson. That some excavations from which we expect some information seem to shed no light on biblical events should not be taken as evidence that the biblical records are at fault. We should never forget that all our evidence is fragmentary and incomplete, spotty in some parts and more full in others. Conclusions based on incomplete or negative evidence can be entirely misleading, as this illustration clearly shows. Time after time, after a long period of patient waiting, solutions to our problems have been found. There are still many points awaiting clarification, which may come as more archaeological evidence comes to light.

Many more examples could be given of how archaeological evidence has shed light on interesting details of biblical history. The unpretentious castle at Gibeah, King Saul’s residence, has been excavated, and Solomon’s copper and iron mines in Edom have been rediscovered and in part are being exploited again by modern Israelis. The Assyrian cuneiform documents mention nine of the thirty-six Hebrew kings that reigned during the period of Assyria’s existence and give us much valuable information about the history of the divided kingdom. Egypt has produced welcome historical evidence, both in documents and in other material. There are records of King Shishak’s invasion of Judah and Israel after Solomon’s death, recorded in two Old Testament books. A large existing archive consists of scores of papyrus documents written by Jews of the post-exilic period; these have illustrated many obscure points of that interesting time we glimpse in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.

The archaeologist’s pick and hoe have produced for the biblical scholar an abundance of auxiliary material that enables him to understand and defend the historical narratives much better than before. And we can assume that there is more to come.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

Although the archaeology of Palestine has often been valued mainly to confirm the biblical account, it is often better to look on it simply as an aid to reconstructing the culture of an ancient people. Much that archaeology discloses does not bear on the biblical accounts at all, and an occasional find may complicate rather than simplify our understanding of the Bible.

The period of Israelite history designated by the term “the monarchy” covers well over four hundred years, from the anointing of Saul to the destruction of Jerusalem (c. 1020–587 B.C.), and would cover up to two hundred years longer if the years of the judges were included. To discuss half a millennium under a single rubric would be difficult enough, and the situation is complicated by the variegated character of political and religious life during those centuries. For example, after the first hundred years, north-south tensions split the kingdom into two smaller principalities, Israel (the northern kingdom) falling to Assyria in 721, Judah lasting until 587.

But this long time span does afford a rich body of finds that show the kind of thing archaeology can do for the understanding of the Bible. This article will deal with the modest but important contribution of archaeology to our understanding of historical events, social and cultural development, and religion and theology, and to biblical criticism.

It is not necessary, of course, for a biblical person or event to be known from sources outside the Bible in order to be believable; but it is always interesting to see what additional light extra-biblical sources shed, and the corroboration is suggestive.

The Israelite king Jehu (c. 842–815 B.C.) is an instructive example. His coup and bloody purge are known from Second Kings 9–11, and so is the pressure on him from Hazael of Syria in the north. But the annals and monuments of Shalmaneser of Assyria also add the fact that Jehu paid tribute to Shalmaneser, perhaps to obtain relief from Syrian pressure. The famous “Black Obelisk” of Shalmaneser, discovered in 1846 and now in the British Museum, pictures Jehu (or his representative) bowing low before the king, while the inscription reads, “The tribute of Jehu, son of Omri.” A list of gifts follows. This is the only known contemporary representation of any Israelite king.

Another king mentioned in Assyrian annals is Hezekiah, a late eighth-century king of Judah (c. 715–686 B.C.). Sennacherib laid unsuccessful siege to Jerusalem in his farthest penetration down the Mediterranean coast. He describes the entire western campaign, including the siege, in some detail, and at one point he mentions Hezekiah:

As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, [and] I laid siege to forty-six of his strong cities … and conquered them.… Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage [Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 288].

The last two kings of Judah, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, while not mentioned by name, are referred to in the “Babylonian Chronicles.” These clay tablets are now in the British Museum and have been translated by Donald Wiseman. What Sennacherib the Assyrian attempted to do, Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian actually did. The biblical account (2 Kings 24:8–17) is paralleled by the Babylonian:

Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem and seized it on the second day of the month Adar. He then captured its king and appointed a king of his own choice, having received heavy tribute from the city, which he sent back to Babylon [Chronicles of Chaldean Kings].

These particular tablets had been in London for over fifty years before Wiseman identified them; one might almost say they were recovered by exacavations in the British Museum!

The unfortunate King Jehoiachin, deported by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon, is mentioned in Babylonian records by name as well as by office. About fifty years ago, German archaeologists working in Babylon found a group of clay tablets detailing rations of oil and barley issued to certain important captives. Jehoiachin of Judah is mentioned, along with other Jews, another kinglet, and numerous skilled craftsmen. This is clear evidence for the favorable treatment of Jehoiachin during his forced exile (2 Kings 24:15; 25:30).

Contrasting Cultures

The material culture of people is a clue to their values and preferences. The archaeologist usually studies an entire sequence of cultures and may be in a position to trace developments that are of great interest. For example, Canaanite culture in Palestine before the Israelite settlement stands in impressive contrast to the simple and unsophisticated homes that followed. This juxtaposition suggests that a simple but virile culture displaced a sophisticated but effete one (W. F. Albright, Archaeology of Palestine, p. 119). The reverse may be seen at the Israelite town of Tirzah. There Père de Vaux found all of the tenth-century homes similar in size and arrangement, while in the eighth century, the larger and better homes were in a separate quarter from the poor houses. He concludes, “Between these two centuries a social revolution had taken place” (Ancient Israel, p. 73).

When Omri abruptly moved his capital from Tirzah to Samaria, he carried the taste of the nouveaux riches with him. Samaria was the only important city founded by the Israelites, and both its layout and material remains are significant. Omri appropriated the site’s impressive and strategic summit plateau for his palace quarters, with the rest of the city being built on the lower levels. Miss Kathleen Kenyon has compared this summit quarter with the Greek acropolis, “the defensible civic centre of a democratic community.” But instead of a democratic center Omri built “an exclusive enclosure reserved for an autocratic king and his servants,” a “new conception in Palestinian townplanning” (Archaeology in the Holy Land, p. 263). The contrast with Israel’s first king is also striking. Saul used a substantial but humble fortress at Gibeah for his headquarters. In the 150-year interval, Israel had developed both prosperity and social stratification.

Omri’s son and successor, the better-known Ahab, continued the reputation for elegance and luxury. His palace is called an “ivory house” (1 Kings 22:29), a symbol of extravagance and oppression later decried by Amos the prophet (Amos 3:13–15). Quantities of carved ivories excavated at Samaria illustrate this embarrassment of riches very nicely. They are carved with floral designs and inlaid with gold foil, lapis lazuli, and colored glass, and may well have come from Ahab’s palace. It is thought that the interior paneling and furniture were adorned with such ivory inlays, giving rise to the expression “ivory house.”

Temple Patterns

Because the religious life of a people is connected with its place of worship, any excavation that advances our understanding of Solomon’s temple takes on religious as well as architectural and cultural interest. It is impossible to conduct excavations on its presumed site, but reconstructions have been proposed for years, based on the data found in First Kings 6 and following. According to these data, the temple consisted basically of three rooms in a row: an outer foyer, an elongated inner room, and the innermost chamber, the Most Holy Place. Two free-standing pillars stood outside, and steps led into the inner room, which was a cube. The rooms were of the same width and on the same axis.

In recent years, temple buildings have been found in Palestine and Syria chronologically proximate to that of Solomon and showing the same basic floor plan. This is important, for it is known that Hiram of Tyre contracted with Solomon to furnish Lebanese timber, as well as “servants” and “builders” (1 Kings 5). Hiram himself personally supervised the casting of the bronze accouterments for the temple (7:13–47). Since Israel lacked a discernible architectural tradition, it may well be that Hiram also provided certain plans and motifs for the Jerusalem temple.

In 1937, University of Chicago archaeologists discovered a chapel in northern Syria much like Solomon’s. It is at Tell Tainat, west of Aleppo, just over the Turkish border, and shows the same tripartite plan, with center room long and inner room small. The inner room may have been elevated and was probably the focal point of the building. Similar temples have been found at Khorsabad, north of the present Mosul, on the upper Tigris.

In each temple the three-room plan is followed, with steps leading up to a raised cella. The finds suggest a widespread impact of Assyrian architecture throughout Assyria’s general sphere of influence, molding Hittite and Phoenician forms that in turn provided a pattern for Jerusalem.

The chapels are each, like Solomon’s temple, attached to a royal residence. Indeed, at Khorsabad, a complex of three temples connected with Sargon’s palace has only two outside entrances, leading the first excavator, Place, to believe that it could only be the royal harem! The inference is that the temples were not so much public sanctuaries as private chapels. Solomon’s temple, therefore, may have functioned partly to encourage divine favor upon his deliberations by providing a place where Yahweh might be easily consulted.

About ten years ago, Israeli archaeologists working at Hazor in northern Galilee found a series of four Canaanite temples that show the tripartite plan. The latest of the four is probably from the thirteenth century. More recently still, excavations at Tell Arad in southern Palestine have brought to light a temple nearly contemporary with Solomon’s, apparently built by Israelites. It seems to have the three-room pattern, although the elongated central room is wide and shallow instead of long and narrow. It has the east-west orientation typical of temples, bases for two large pillars, and certain religious furnishings. Written records found at Arad even mention a “house of Yahweh,” apparently referring to the Jerusalem sanctuary.

Controls on Biblical Criticism

One of the really interesting questions raised by this discovery has to do with the centralization of worship in ancient Israel. According to Deuteronomy 12, no worship was to be permitted outside Jerusalem, although, as has long been recognized, this regulation was not always observed. Indeed, Yadin believes that at Hazor he has found “an idolatrous Israelite cult place,” in use after the Israelites settled there but before the time of Solomon. It is clear from First Kings 12:28–30 that in the tenth century, Jeroboam I established sanctuaries in the north to rival that of Jerusalem, while Amos 5:5 indicates that in the eighth century there were sanctuaries also at Gilgal and Beersheba, both southern towns.

The Arad chapel was built in the time of Solomon, subsequently enlarged, and abandoned in the eighth century, about the time of Josiah of Judah. It was therefore in existence at the same time as Solomon’s temple, and less than forty miles away. Some think this supports the current opinion that the Deuteronomic regulation was first formulated by Hezekiah (715–686). Whether this is so or not, however, it does seem to indicate the effectiveness of Josiah’s well-known religious reforms (2 Kings 22–23), for the Arad chapel was abandoned and a massive wall built through it.

Biblical criticism, like literary criticism of any sort, is a procedure with subjective dimensions. It is legitimate when done with appropriate controls, but objective checks upon its conclusions are all too few. The Arad find is not really such a check, since some laws on all books seems destined not to be observed, but it suggests that archaeology may sometimes become at least a factor in biblical criticism. Unfortunately, the situation at Arad is still far from clear, for some experts in ancient masonry believe that the great wall marking the end of the sanctuary is not seventh century but first. If so, an evidence for the Josianic reform disappears, and with it also the evidence for the violation of Deuteronomy 12!

Religious practices during the monarchy will be clarified as excavations continue. We probably do not need archaeology to tell us basic facts about the history, culture, and religion of the period, but we gratefully welcome the considerable light it throws upon the biblical records.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

Few figures in the Old Testament loom larger than Moses, and few events rival the exodus from Egypt in vividness of detail and in significance for the course of Hebrew history. In the flow of time, the man and event fall somewhere within the fifteenth to thirteenth centuries B.C., most evidence now favoring the thirteenth century. This was the period of the Egyptian Empire and of Late Bronze Age culture in Syria-Palestine, a period very richly, though unevenly, documented in the story of the biblical Near East. In these centuries, Egyptians, Semites, Hurrians (Horites), and Hittites mingled on an international stage.

An Egyptian Heritage

Before the Exodus, the life and labors of the Hebrews were set in the eastern delta within the life of ancient Egypt. The cities of Pithom and Raamses (Ex. 1:11) are familiar from Egyptian records, especially those of the thirteenth century, and Raamses held special prominence as the delta residence of Rameses II. The exodus route itself may be traced with considerable confidence. Succoth (“Tjeku”), Baal-Zephon, and (Pi-ha)hiroth are known in papyri, and more than one “Migdol” (fort). The Hebrews went eastward from Raamses (Qantir) past and near Succoth to the western edge of the wilderness of Etham (near El-Gisr ridge), then doubled back west of north (Ex. 14:2). Finally they journeyed east again through the parted waters of the Sea of Reeds (Hebrew, Yam suf), attested in Egyptian records also, then south by the region of Shur and the east side of Etham (Ex. 15:22; Num. 33:8) to Sinai.

The Hebrews’ life in Egypt long before they marched forth lends itself to comment. There is nothing unusual in the fact that a non-Egyptian child like Moses was brought up in a royal harem, of which there were several in empire times. A late thirteenth-century papyrus mentions young foreigners who lived in a harem in the Fayum, presumably receiving an Egyptian education.

All manner of foreigners, Semites and others, were to be found at all levels of Egyptian society: slaves, peasant-farmers, artisans and craftsmen, merchants, officials and priests, high dignitaries in the administration and at court, even cup-bearers to Pharaoh himself, sometimes then serving as special ministers of the crown. In this cosmopolitan society, not only did foreigners acquire the Egyptian language in addition to their own, but literate Egyptians sometimes prided themselves on their knowledge of foreign tongues and distant places. Into this broad social spectrum, one may easily fit the Hebrews who labored in the brick fields, craftsmen such as Bezalel and Oholiab (Ex. 31:1–6) higher up the scale, and a princely figure like Moses near the top. West Semitic (the early Hebrew or Canaanite language) not only was understood in Egypt but had long been written in a simple alphabet for everyday matters.

The picture of brick-making, the overseers, the need of straw as well as of labor, and the problems of religious holidays pictured in Exodus 5 all accord perfectly with the incidental references to such matters found in the papyri and scrap jottings of the age. These refer to quotas of bricks, lack of straw, and other related matters. The registers of workmen from western Thebes speak of absenteeism, including references to men who went “to offer to their god” (cf. Ex. 5:3, 8). The basic techniques employed for the construction of the tabernacle (a “prefabricated” structure) are no priestly pipedream but had already been known in Egypt for centuries. The techniques of building in this manner would be no mystery to a Bezalel trained in Egyptian workshops. Thus, when the Hebrews left Egypt, some at least took with them a heritage less tangible and more significant than jewels (Ex. 12:35, 36).

Near Eastern Background

Yet the Hebrews were not Egyptians. They were Semites and as such heirs also to the world of Semitic custom and tradition.

In the covenant made at Sinai (Ex. 20 ff.) and later renewed in the plains of Moab (Deut.), there is a counterpart in form (though not in theology) to the layout of covenants and treaties usual in the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C. After about 1200, ways changed in the wake of the sweeping changes that hit the Near East about that date and after. The comparative evidence includes at least two dozen examples showing remarkable consistency in form. The many fewer documents from the first millennium B.C. possess only the essential elements (parties, stipulations, witnesses, curses as “sanctions”), in common with those of Moses’ time, and vary in form, all in striking contrast with the close agreement between the Mosaic covenant and its late second-millennium contemporaries. This clue to the real date of the Sinai covenant and its renewals in Deuteronomy and Joshua cannot be easily dismissed.

The Sinai covenant also contains law, and with the passing of time this became the spiritual constitution for the Hebrew nation and community. As law, the Sinai covenant bears comparison with other collections of law from the biblical world, including three collections from before the patriarchal age: the law of Hammurabi of Babylon, the Hittite laws, and the Middle Assyrian laws. These, with everyday records of actions-at-law, offer a broad vista of popular custom in the biblical world from before Abraham down to just after Moses’ day. Much is comparable—in subject-matter, in modes of formulation, even in similar or parallel terminology. There is no real factual warrant for saying that the Hebrew laws are formulations of the Persian Empire period, when their best analogues sometimes go back to the time of the patriarchs! The modern ideogram “PC” would be better read as “patriarchal core” rather than “priestly code.”

The cleavage between biblical and non-biblical law can be seen in such things as a fundamental difference in emphasis. For example, the biblical laws set a prior value on man, not property, whereas in Babylonia offenses against property (mere things) could be treated more seriously than crimes against life. Here is a contrast conditioned not by time or an imaginary “evolution” but by a basic difference in viewpoint brought about by the biblical revelation.

In matters of religion, the old idea that rituals and consciousness of sin are “late” (that is, after the Babylonian exile) is quite untenable. Quantities of offering-lists, full-scale rituals, and festival programs are attested in Egypt and Mesopotamia from the third millennium B.C. on, and among the Hittites and Canaanites in the second millennium B.C. In their elaboration, these often far outstrip anything to be found in the Pentateuch. In the Egypt of Moses, one finds a considerable consciousness of sin in the modest religious inscriptions of workers at the royal tombs of Thebes, as well as in occasional references going back nearly a millennium earlier.

In the literary field, the Song of Moses and Miriam (Ex. 15) is fine, archaic Hebrew poetry consonant with the late second millennium B.C. These songs are also members of the genre of triumph hymns attested by Egyptian texts from the fifteenth-thirteenth centuries. The oracles of Balaam similarly contain much that is clearly ancient.

A rich variety of other details might be called upon to fill in the overall picture: the use of ox wagons (Num. 7), the long trumpets and their functions (Num. 10), the spies (Num. 13), for which background data exists in Egypt and probably elsewhere also. The same is true of personal names, some Egyptianized (Phinehas), some hybrid (Putiel), and some Semitic (Shiprah and Puah). On every hand, instructive comparisons are found. From the foregoing survey, one point worthy of note is the sheer wealth of highly relevant background information, much of it contemporary with the general epoch of Moses and in some aspects going back in time well beyond it.

The second point is the basic realism of the Old Testament record. Although some points of only limited importance may yet resist full understanding, it is an inescapable fact that these narratives, poems, and laws are not yet in some imaginary land that transcends mortal history but breathe the real life so abundantly attested in the biblical Near East, whether in law or covenant, midwifery or music, hymnody or ritual, geography or technology. Thus, the skepticism so fashionable during the last century or so stands condemned, not merely at the whim of a conservative theology heedful of dogmatics, but inexorably and increasingly at the hands of the re-emergent biblical world itself, elucidated from a flow of raw material by archaeologists and philologians. In short, Moses and his age, exodus and all, must be reckoned as a part of mundane history.

The point is reinforced by our one specific reference to the people of Moses in this age: the mention of Israel as a people in western Palestine on the famous stela of the pharaoh Merenptah (c. 1234/1220 B.C.). Despite occasional aberrations, there can be little real doubt that this is a reference to the biblical Israelites, and (with the Amada stela) it places them with considerable certainty in western Palestine. The Teutonic myopia that, under a smokescreen of methodology, fails to see the obvious will just have to be discarded in the face of externally attested realism.

Part of Living History

Once the external data have restored the epoch of Moses to us, we are brought back to the text of the Old Testament itself in order to reach a real evaluation of the man and his age. Here we see the stream of patriarchal tradition and the experiences of the Egyptian sojourn, which come to their first full flowering at the birth of a nation at Sinai. The Sinai covenant thereafter provides basic guidelines for the Hebrew nation and the spiritual basis of its ongoing community. This can be seen deeply influencing the historical books and the work of the prophets.

A historical profile involving in sequence a formative age (the patriarchs and the sojourn in Egypt), a crucial crystallizing of cultural forms (the Mosaic age and covenant), and the ongoing undulations of history in terms of a basic viewpoint and tradition, is not foreign to the biblical world. One may see this on the grand scale in Egypt, in Mesopotamia, and in other countries. In the former, for example, the first two dynasties saw the formation of Egyptian culture in the fullest sense. In the brilliant Old Kingdom of the Pyramid Age, the typical forms were crystallized and remained fundamentally in force for the two and a half millennia that passed before the Roman period. Many new things were added during that long time, but they were added to an existing basis and outlook. Similarly, the rich theology of Deuteronomy, with its echoes and re-echoes in books like Judges and Kings or with prophets like Jeremiah, shows a long perspective. It is a deformation of history to cite later echoes of a basic viewpoint in order to date everything like it to the seventh to fourth centuries B.C.

The combined evidence of the Old Testament and the rich tapestry of its setting highlight the vital importance and lively reality of the Mosaic age. The question should not be, “Can we believe in a biblical Moses and Mosaic period?,” but, “Will we believe in such?” The total evidence can compel no one to believe. But it points clearly enough in one direction and in its own right cuts the ground out from under those whose “method” is simply to ignore or reject whatever the Old Testament may have to say, under the delusion that they are thereby practicing truly critical scholarship.

The Mosaic period is not a theological shadow play in some never-never land. Its part in the “history of salvation” is played out in the cut-and-thrust encounter of living history.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

Archaeology is rewriting the secular life of Abraham. We now know him as a “big business man” of the nineteenth century B.C. engaged in international commerce.

Abraham followed in the steps of his father Terah, who specialized in trade coming from the Persian Gulf via Ur, up the Euphrates and Balikh rivers to Harran. Sometime before Ur was destroyed by the Elamites (in the lifetime of Terah or Abraham), Terah seems to have sensed trouble and to have moved his headquarters from Ur to Harran. Harran was the ideal transfer point for commerce going east to Assyria and Persia, north to the Hittite country and the Lake Van area, west to the Mediterranean, and southwest to Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Apparently Terah planned to enter the Harran-Canaan trade lane, but he died before the new venture got under way. Yahweh then appeared to Abraham and marked out the plans and specifications for a new business venture for him. Abraham fulfilled them faithfully, and later God sealed a covenant with Abraham embracing ownership of the land between the Euphrates and the river of Egypt.

Abraham was a caravaneer—the original meaning of the word “Hebrew.” In his time all land commerce moved on donkey back. The caravan donkeys were large animals that carried 150- to 200-pound packs. Anatolian and Syrian caravans numbered up to 3,000 donkeys. Egyptian caravans ran about 300 to 1,000 donkeys, and Abraham’s was probably in this range.

Every city mentioned in the Abraham story was a key caravan city. Shechem lay at the junction of the north-south ridge road and the east-west pass between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal that linked the Mediterranean with the Transjordan plateau via the Jabbok River. It was a Hurrian enclave where the ass was the sacrificial animal, as at Harran. Bethel, on the same ridge road, was also a junction point for east-west traffic. This road came from the Mediterranean up the valley of Ajalon to Bethel and then descended to Jericho, where it crossed to Transjordan and Arabia.

Hebron was the next Abrahamic city on the ridge road. It handled traffic coming from the Mediterranean via Beer-sheba, passing it on to Transjordan via the south end of the Dead Sea, at that time much farther north than now. Abraham used Sodom as the caravan city to handle his Arabian trade and entrusted it to his nephew Lot. After the destruction of Sodom, Abraham seems to have carried on his business directly with the Arab tribes. This is the only explanation of his marriage to Keturah; it must have been a diplomatic marriage, necessary to carry on international commerce. It was in no way related to the Sarah marriage, which was the “only family marriage.”

The wealth of the family of Abraham was witnessed by the towns in the Harran area that reflected the names of various members of the clan: Serug, Nahor, Terah, and Peleg. Sarah also was rich, for she was a “sister-wife,” an official Hurrian term signifying the highest social rating. Like modern Hong Kong, Harran was a blending of two cultures. Abraham’s life reflects both the Semitic and the Hurrian culture and both legal patterns.

The episode in which Lot was taken prisoner is another evidence of Abraham’s role as a caravaneer, for it shows that he had his own small but highly efficient military unit to protect his commerce in this sparsely settled land. The Abimelech episode at Beer-sheba also suggests the superiority of Abraham’s retainers. Inscriptional materials show that the donkey caravans were often subject to brigandage.

Genesis fourteen gives another clue to Abraham’s business. This chapter used to be an enigma, for the strong allied forces seemed to be going on a dead-end military campaign into the Sinai Desert. Today we know that this was normal warfare; the invaders were after the rich prize of the copper deposits in Edom and Sinai, and the metal from the mines of both countries was doubtless a major part of Abraham’s commerce. This explains his preference for the Kadesh-barnea and Sinai route to Egypt rather than the normal Mediterranean one.

Gerar was a very important caravan city at the beginning of Abraham’s business enterprise, for as a foreigner he needed “resident-alien” rites for the Negeb-Egyptian business. Gerar was the first major Palestine city on the road from Egypt that followed the shore of the Mediterranean. Later Abraham was powerful enough to make his own cities of Mamre (Hebron) and Beer-sheba the caravan cities at the end of his alternate trade route to Egypt via Kadesh-barnea. The Kadesh-barnea route had only a brief history, for the little hamlets along the road were there only during Middle Bronze I, the period to which most scholars assign Abraham. The trade route was not used again until the Iron Age.

As a major caravaneer, Abraham faced a constant problem of feeding his donkeys and drivers. Fortunately the agricultural areas most useful to him were only sparsely occupied, so he himself could farm and graze the area of his trade roads. Special crop techniques were necessary along the route from Kadesh-barnea to Egypt, however, and these methods show up well in the hamlets along the Sinai section of the road. Water had to be conserved for both crops and caravans.

Such an extensive international business as Abraham’s demanded large capital. Abraham did his banking at Damascus, where Eliezer was his banker and his heir in his early business deals. Under Hurrian law a moneylender was adopted into the borrower’s family, thus becoming a legal heir and being assured of repayment.

The business contract of which we have the best detailed report is Abraham’s purchase of the cave of Machpelah for the burial of Sarah. Since Abraham was a “resident-alien” at Hebron, he could not make “a man to man” purchase; the deal had to be approved by the town council. Apparently the people of Hebron were Hittites whose closest major city was Jerusalem. Like Abraham they seemed to have been a commercial people, but they had come into the land earlier and had already secured property rights. They had already worked with Abraham in the military campaign against the army that had captured Lot. The price of the land was exorbitant—400 shekels of silver “at the rate of the market.” This last idiom parallels quite modern terminology. Abraham himself was later buried here beside Sarah.

Archaeology can check the religious background in which Abraham lived and worked, but his spiritual life was unique. Yahweh worked with him personally as Christ did later with his disciples. Abraham was “justified by faith,” just as the Christian is justified; the essence of his life was “trust.”

Abraham built his own altars as communication centers with God. He did not use heathen ones. The sacrifice of Isaac is often given Canaanite significance, but Abraham’s faith was greater than that of the commentators. He told the servants, “We will worship and then return to you,” revealing his faith that God would spare Isaac or return his son to him. And when Isaac asked about a sheep, Abraham replied that God would provide it.

The Melchizedek episode is of special interest, for it provides evidence of a true believer who was not in Abraham’s family. Grace was even then to Jew and Gentile.

Archaeology knows many of the details of the Canaanite religion of the peoples surrounding Abraham. Sodom’s destruction was God’s evaluation of the Canaanite religion and its homosexual priestly guilds. In all probability, the Canaanite sanctuary excavated at Shechem is the same one Abraham saw there. The hill east of Bethel was a sacred site much earlier than Abraham’s time, a fact witnessed by the prehistoric flints found beside the sacrificial altars. The Canaanite high place at Bethel has been uncovered and is very similar to the one under the Muslim Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, said to be the place of Abraham’s sacrificial episode with Isaac.

Of all the Abrahamic descendants in Genesis, it was Joseph especially who had both the secular and spiritual qualities of the father of the faithful. The Joseph story ties in perfectly with the Hyksos conquest of Egypt. The Hyksos invaders were themselves largely Semitic and consequently willing to settle some new Israelite Semitic clans at the eastern end of the Nile delta. This was the general neighborhood of the Egyptian terminus of Abraham’s old trade routes. The founding of the Hyksos capital at Tanis is actually synchronized with the founding of Hebron. Potiphar, to whom Joseph was sold, was apparently an Egyptian quisling in the Hyksos government.

The Pharaoh whose dream Joseph interpreted spoke as a Semite and not as an Egyptian when he said, “God has made this all known to you.” No Egyptian-born Pharaoh would have said this, for the Pharaoh was the most important god in Egypt. One cannot be dogmatic about the cows in this dream, but they may relate to Hathor, the cow goddess, who was one of the most important fertility deities in Egypt. She was the equivalent of the Canaanite Astarte. If Hathor is involved in the dream, then the problem of interpretation would have been impossible for an Egyptian magician. The Nile River, the area from which these cows came, was also an important Egyptian god. The honors given to Joseph for interpreting the dream were the highest Egyptian honors.

The seven-year drought is paralleled by an inscription of King Zoser as early as the third dynasty. Some scholars think that the famine was aggravated by revolting Egyptians in the south who succeeded in partially interrupting the flow of water into the delta. More likely it was due to a climatic change caused by the jet streams of the upper air moving to a more northern route. The method by which Joseph secured all the land for Pharaoh was a peaceful method by which the Hyksos Pharaoh could consolidate his throne. The mention of horses in this famine program shows its dating in Hyksos times. The wagons that were sent to bring Jacob’s family to Egypt are of similar date. Neither horse nor wagon appears in the Abraham story. Joseph’s relatives were located permanently in Goshen, and during this period the Hyksos Pharaohs made their capital at Tanis in the eastern delta. This is the same area in which the Israelites are found in the Book of Exodus.

The Israelites kept their title deed on Palestine by burying Jacob there. Joseph, his son, lived a full life according to Egyptian terminology (110 years) and was embalmed in Egypt. His body was taken to Palestine at the time of the Exodus.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

During the past century, our knowledge of the historical and literary background of the Bible has increased by a series of prodigious leaps, and it is now advancing with steadily increasing speed. My own thinking has fully participated in this rapid change, as may be seen by comparison of my several volumes of a general nature, from The Archaeology of Palestine and the Bible (1932) through From the Stone Age to Christianity (1940) to Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (1968). This steady advance is the result of several factors:

1. A rapid increase in the number of serious archaeological expeditions from many different countries, including Japan. Museum space and volume of publication have kept pace with the field work.

2. An improvement of archaeological method that has been little short of phenomenal. This applies both to the analysis of superimposed layers of occupation (stratigraphy) and to classification and relative dating of objects found (typology).

3. Use of innumerable new techniques derived from the natural sciences, among them radiocarbon (carbon isotope 14) for dating.

4. Decipherment and interpretation of the flood of new inscriptions and texts in many scripts and languages, many quite unknown until recent decades. The application of sound linguistic and philological method to well-preserved cuneiform tablets and Egyptian hieratic papyri makes it possible to publish them with speed and accuracy. A new script is deciphered quickly, if there are a few good clues or sufficient material to permit decoding. The number of cuneiform tablets from three millennia preserved under debris of occupation in Western Asia and Egypt seems to be practically unlimited, and new methods of baking and reproduction have reduced losses to a surprisingly low proportion.

With the aid of stratigraphy, scientific analysis, and museum research, the archaeologist can now reconstruct the daily life of ancient peoples with remarkable completeness, enhanced by evidence contained in written documents dealing with everyday affairs. He can fill gaps in military and political history; he can trace social and economic development and the effect on society of new inventions and discoveries—even in the absence of inscriptions. Aside from texts dealing with business and industry, we have masses of documents devoted to legal matters, including a dozen law codes and a host of records of court cases, legal actions, treatises, and contracts of all kinds.

Another very large body of ancient literature recovered by archaeologists is religious. Religion played such a dominant role in the life of the ancient Near and Middle East that it is impossible to imagine what its absence would have meant. Generally it is very easy to distinguish between religious literature and other forms of literary composition; this directly contradicts the sociologists and anthropologists who want to dismiss religion as unimportant for ancient and modern primitive societies. We can also follow the development of natural science in Mesopotamia and Egypt from simple beginnings to degrees of sophistication that in some respects even exceeded levels attained by early Greek science—though in general the Greek was far superior.

In the light of our new information, biblical archaeologists no longer devote themselves primarily to proving the accuracy of Scripture, though this remains important and new confirmations are turning up almost daily. Their main purpose today is to interpret the Bible as fully as possible from the new evidence. The result is throughout favorable to the biblical record, and over and over again reinterpretations of biblical concepts and phraseology in the light of archaeology make the Bible more meaningful for today. For instance, the Amarna and Mari tablets have proved that the Hebrew verb naqam and its derived nouns do not mean “avenge, revenge, vengeful” when used of God, but “champion, vindicate, save,” and so on. The more we know about the world of the Bible, the brighter becomes the light shed on the historical relation of man to his Creator.

The Bible is itself a collection of written documents, and discoveries of contemporary documents are of the greatest value in interpreting the biblical writings. Written documents tend to appear in archives or accidentally preserved libraries, with stretches of little-known territory between large bodies of written documents. We shall limit ourselves to a number of outstanding illustrations of the wealth of material now available.

From the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries B.C. we have vast collections of cuneiform letters and legal or business texts. The largest single body of these comes from Mari on the Middle Euphrates and dates chiefly from the eighteenth century B.C. Since most of these tablets were written by Northwestern Semites speaking dialects closely related to patriarchal Hebrew, and since many of the tribal and personal names, as well aslaws and customs, are closely paralleled in biblical tradition, it is possible to recover the practices and beliefs of the people from whom the patriarchs came. Additional finds of similar documents have very recently been made in the cities of Shusharra and Qattara in what later became the core of the Assyrian empire. Adding to these finds, most of which have not yet been published, a very large number of Old Assyrian letters and legal texts from the Assyrian merchant colonies in Cappadocia (the eastern part of the central plateau of Asia Minor) dating from the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries B.C., we have a vast treasury of documents that will throw undreamedof light on the patriarchal period, demonstrating the substantial historicity of early Israelite traditions. Somewhat later are the Nuzi texts (fifteenth century), which have illuminated the customary laws of Genesis.

To the late twentieth and nineteenth centuries B.C. belong the so-called Execration Texts, which have been found in northern and southern Egypt as well as in Nubia; they are written in Egyptian hieratic and include names of tribes, districts, and towns and their chieftains. These chieftains were vassals of the Egyptian pharaohs of the Twelfth Dynasty; most of them ruled in Palestine, southern Syria, and Phoenicia. They are of the greatest significance for the political and ethnic history of Palestine in the early Patriarchal Age. Thanks to these and other Egyptian lists of Semitic names from the eighteenth century B.C., it is possible to determine the exact phonetic form of a great many names of patriarchal type that appear in contemporary cuneiform texts, not only from Mari and other places in the north but also from the rich Babylonian cities of that time, including Ur, Abraham’s home.

Next we may list the Amarna Tablets and related documents from Palestine and Syria that include hundreds of cuneiform letters written in Babylonian of every type, from good Middle Babylonian of the fourteenth century B.C. to a kind of Canaanite Babylonian that is full of words and expressions characteristic of early Hebrew. Many of these tablets were written from such places as Jerusalem, Gezer, Megiddo, and Shechem.

It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the Canaanite alphabetic tablets from Ugarit, north of Canaan proper. Thanks to them, we have a vast body of texts from the age of Moses (fourteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C.). They are partly in the local prose dialect of Ugarit at that time, but mostly in a generalized poetic dialect that corresponds closely to such early Hebrew poetic language as the Song of Miriam (thirteenth century B.C.) and the Song of Deborah (twelfth century), as well as to many of the early Psalms. They have enormously widened our knowledge of biblical Hebrew vocabulary and grammar.

The steady accumulation of ink-written potsherds (ostraca) in both the dialects of Judah and North Israel in the tenth to sixth centuries B.C., accompanied by finds of Aramaic papyri in Egypt from the sixth to fourth centuries, has thrown light on a host of historical and literary problems in classical Hebrew and Aramaic literature. Our understanding of political and religious development from Samuel to Ezra has grown greatly.

But the incredible discoveries of leather and papyrus scrolls and fragments in the Jordan and Dead Sea valleys since 1948 easily take precedence over all other finds except the tablets of Ugarit. They are clarifying intertestamental studies to an extent considered impossible only a few years ago. New Testament studies are being revolutionized as the date of the Gospels is pushed back and the meaning of obscure texts is illuminated. Neither “form criticism” in Bultmann’s sense nor the now popular “existential” interpretation of Paul and John can withstand the torrent of Jewish illustrative material in Hebrew and Aramaic—practically all antedating the Fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

In dealing with the Bible from the standpoint of modern archaeological discovery, one must remember that the Bible is both divine, since it rests on divine inspiration, and human, since it has come to us through human channels. Much of both the Old and New Testaments was transmitted by oral tradition. In other words, the Bible contains many things handed down by word of mouth—in the Old Testament largely in verse and in the New Testament as oral reports of words and acts of Jesus and his disciples. The written text of these early traditions followed later—though earlier than supposed by “critical” scholars.

It has long been obvious that our written Bible passed through an often complex history. Copyists inevitably made minor errors in copying, and their mistakes were compounded by later copyists until different recensions arose, with varying written forms of the texts, which can be classified both by key mistakes of copyists and by the efforts of later editors to correct real or supposed errors. In early times, there were naturally more errors of copyists than there were later, when accuracy became a prime object. Then came translations where, owing to the different connotations of words with similar meanings in different languages, there are nearly always slight semantic shifts that give rise to different interpretations. For instance, in the translation of Hebrew into Greek, the word for “pact, covenant” came to mean “testament,” and a whole new body of interpretation grew up around this change of sense. Illustrations are so numerous in both the Old and the New Testament that it is scarcely necessary to belabor this point. Although these changes do not affect basic religious convictions, they often do bear on specific theological interpretations.

Oral tradition has its own characteristics, its own regularities, that render its transmission both safer and more accurate in some ways and less accurate in others. Since verse was put into fixed meters and stylistic forms, and since it was sung or chanted, it was often preserved with an accuracy rarely found in normal written transmission of early literary texts. Most of the early historical traditions of the Old Testament are based on such poetic transmission. Side by side with the poetic original we often have condensed prose paraphrases. The combination of verse and prose transmission results in extraordinary reliability from the point of view of the historian of events, literature, and religion.

Another point to be borne in mind is that as a rule the Old Testament was originally written with only the consonants and without spaces between words. The Hebrew Bible with vowel points and separated words did not come in until about the eighth century A.D. While it shows a remarkably continuous tradition with respect to grammatical forms and meaning of words, by that time more than 2,000 years had elapsed since the time of Moses and perhaps 2,500 years since the time of Abraham. It is not surprising, then, that the very existence of many words was forgotten and the precise meaning of many others was no longer understood. Today, thanks to an incredible series of archaeological discoveries of documents extending from about 2000 B.C., down to the first century A.D., we have a Northwest-Semitic literature that is much more extensive than the entire Old Testament. Consequently we are able to improve the interpretation of the Old Testament text, especially in poetic passages, to an extent undreamed of a generation ago.

In studying the New Testament, we now have a similar increase in the quantity of Semitic texts dating to just before and just after the time of Christ. They vastly increase our understanding of the grammar and vocabulary of the Hebrew and Aramaic spoken and written in the time of Christ. For the first time we can really grasp the significance of the Syriac versions of the Gospels.

Much nonsense has been repeated about what constitutes orthodoxy in dealing with the texts of the Old and New Testaments. It has even been asserted recently that the Pentateuch was written by Moses in the exact form that has come down to us in the Hebrew Bible. So-called critical scholarships was partly responsible for this approach, since nineteenth-century critics insisted that the text of our printed Hebrew Bible had come down from the time of its supposed final editing in the time of Ezra without any appreciable change. Today, thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls, we know that this is not true. There were different recensions of the Pentateuch, and no immutable form can be attributed to any part of it. It is quite impossible to cut the Pentateuch up into a patch-work of “JEP” with any hope of increasing our knowledge of what actually happened. That the Pentateuchal law is substantially Mosaic in origin and that patriarchal and Mosaic historical traditions are astonishingly early and dependable seems, in my opinion, certain.

There has also been a great deal of nonsense written about discrepancies and contradictions in the Bible. It must be remembered that reconstructing history is quite impossible unless we have different views of just what happened at given times and different reactions of contemporaries or successors. No true perspective is possible without different eyewitness or later accounts. In the case of any famous man of the recent past, we shall find different points of view and different interpretations of what he did and why he did it. In order to get as true a picture as possible of a man and of the events that transpired in his time, we must have different reports of what actually happened or appeared to happen. Minor discrepancies do not invalidate historicity; they are necessary concomitants of any true history of man.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

Many stories in the history of the Church and of biblical scholarship remain only partly told. Of these, few are as significant as the story of archaeology. Since the nineteenth century, when archaeological expeditions were first launched in an extensive way, literally tons of artifacts and parchments have been uncovered. Many bear either directly or indirectly on the biblicalrecords. For some periods—such as the earliest history of the people of Israel and the years in which the New Testament was written—thefinds have often been revolutionary.

This issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY helps to illumine this story. Foremost on our list of contributors is the distinguished Orientalist Dr. William F. Albright, retired professor of Semitic languages at Johns Hopkins University, who contributes a focal essay on the Bible and archaeology.

When an assassin’s bullet felled Senator Kennedy, we were within hours of our final editorial deadline. The stunning news from Californiacarried a new warning of the trendtoward violence in the United States, and a further reply to those who think that a new society can beshaped simply by changing socialstructures.

For background on Arab-Israeltensions bearing on the mood of Kennedy’s assassin, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, readers are referred to our last issue, particularly the essay by Dr. Kelso, and to page 39 of this issue.

The life of theology and the Church is vulnerable to all sorts of dangers. Some people, deeply impressed by danger, are fearful of taking any new step lest they fall victim to it. One is reminded of the Preacher’s description of people who are getting old: “They shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way … (Eccl. 12:5).” The time of fear is a hard time of life.

We must remember that, in theology and the Christian life, we are not permitted to be driven back by fear of danger, as wide-eyed as we ought to be to its reality. Danger is not a theological term. The man who is afraid of danger is disqualified for creative action in the tension-ridden times that Church and theology are now going through. Hemmed in by fear, we are held to a stalemate. And this is never God’s intention for our lives.

Our task and calling must take us straight through danger. If we are possessed by fear, we are unable to do the job and follow the calling. This is true in the ordinary affairs of life and particularly in our Christian endeavors. We need only think of Paul and his own apostolic task. He fulfilled it in an environment of very practical dangers—things like rivers to cross, robber bands, the desert and the sea, raving mobs. The lesson is elemental: dangers may never keep us back from our job in life.

Tempted to act, or to fail to act, in fear, one is well served if he remembers Jeremiah 12:5: “If thou hast run with the footman, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? And if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustest, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?”

One consequence of exaggerated fear of danger is the absence of joy. In fearful theology, we could never discover the truth of what Barth said about theology, that it is a joyful science. This does not mean, of course, that we play around with danger or ignore its presence. The slogan of the theologian can never be, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. But dangers ought never to hide from us the clear lines of our responsibility, especially not in times such as ours.

It is tempting to zero in on all the dangers of relativism, irenicism, historicism, “demythologizing,” and the like, and then to be so frightened by them that we give up on the task of translating the Gospel for our time for fear of falling into one or another trap. The only response that fear allows is that of the negative “anti,” the negative judgment against heresies and rumors of heresies.

When this happens, we are inclined to forget that the Gospel is first of all a mighty pro. Once we are possessed by the power of the Gospel’s pro, we will have ample occasion to come to grips with its con or anti side. We will have plenty of opportunities to speak in defense and resistance. But if we fall victim to the anti spirit and close our minds to the powerful pro, we sacrifice humanly speaking, the Church and theology to fear of danger. The future is closed to us when this happens. And we resign the Church to the public image of a group that is only against things, an image opposite to both the content and the spirit of the Gospel.

Nothing is more important for us today than that we blaze a trail through the dangers that surround us. This demands great seriousness and sober analysis of the times. Theology, around the world, is looked to increasingly for a word of power and clarity. But it can not pretend to offer its own “gnosis,” a humanly constructed system of knowledge that it claims can open the doors of the Kingdom. Rather, theology must offer itself in humble service to human life, a service that only the Gospel can perform in the power of the Spirit.

Here, above all, we must live in the truth that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). The word John uses is the same one we meet when we read that Jesus “cast out” demons. Theology must cast out fear; it must be unwilling to duck away from any problem. At bottom, problem-ducking is an act of petty faith. In small faith, one suppresses problems out of fear that he and other believers can only be harmed by dealing with them in the open. Faith then becomes a safety zone where problems do not intrude and danger does not threaten. But in this faith there is no longer an opportunity for victory, because there is no longer any conflict.

We should not forget that almost everyone is influenced by modern media of communications, that almost everyone does come into contact with new questions. There are questions raised by the new technology of our time, questions about creation and the acts of God. There are questions raised by the very detailed biblical studies of our time. Anyone ignoring these questions does the Church poor service and inflicts serious damage on our faith and also that of the next generation. The theology of our time has become keenly aware of this.

The Gospel is the power of God to salvation, and Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If we keep this in mind, we will face the dangers and go on with our task. Theology will be, not a game played in an intellectual ghetto, but a serious calling pursued in an open and fearless confrontation with the spirits of the age. This is how it was with Paul; he fled from no-one, not even the bright philosophers hanging around the Aeropagus. He faced outward because the gospel had taken hold of him, and compelled him to wish nothing more than to share it with others.

Dangers are around us, waiting for us not to capitulate but to conquer. They are there, not to fill us with fear, but to fill us with faith. Theology joins in the fray, answering a summons to cast out fear and do the Lord’s work. Theology is a responsible job; and its responsibility should be met with joy and confidence. Fear fertilizes only a stunted faith. But in actual confrontation, faith is nourished with courage and love. This nourished faith is what makes us willing, under all circumstances, to give a reason for the hope that is within us.

In the shadow of the nation’s memorial to Abraham Lincoln, a makeshift city took shape last month. The announced resident requirement was enslavement to poverty, the announced aim emancipation by the government. Plywood-plastic shacks housed some 3,000 persons, mostly Negroes, in Resurrection City. Among them was temporary “mayor” Ralph David Abernathy, the clergyman who inherited from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., not only the top position in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference but also the job of administering the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington (see story following).

Campaigners coming from all parts of the country leaned heavily on volunteers and donations from churches, many of which quickly made clear that aid was not necessarily endorsement.

Among evangelicals, response seemed left almost entirely to individual discretion. The National Association of Evangelicals made no official comment on the campaign. The Greater Washington Association of Evangelicals recommended prayer as well as material expression of Christian love. Some member churches donated food but did not offer facilities.

At New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, where Lincoln worshiped, one room became an SCLC information center where volunteers were directed to needs and a television reporter worked on his network’s newscasts.

The National Council of Churches’ Department of Social Justice moved to Washington for the campaign, bringing staff members from around the country. Its purpose was to coordinate national religious leadership and provide liaison.

Some church groups, such as the Topeka (Kansas) Church Council, dissatisfied with local coverage, sent representatives for on-the-spot reporting. Father James E. Groppi, Milwaukee civil-rights activist, accompanied a group of Midwesterners to Washington Coliseum (Resurrection City was not ready for them), where he conducted a Mass with singing and handclapping.

Reports indicated that the SCLC appealed mainly to white churches—though some officials appeared to fear that too much white suburban aid could ruin the movement. Apparently little was done to enlist Negro church aid.

During its first week in Washington, the campaign tottered uncertainly. Demonstrators who arrived before Resurrection City was completed went to overcrowded churches while other churches remained empty. More campaigners were expected than the Department of the Interior would allow on the fifteen-acre tract, and what to do about the overflow was undetermined. The SCLC issued no schedule for early demonstrations; some that were planned were canceled or postponed, and others took place with little advance notice. Even the date of the final demonstration—to which, according to some reports, ministers may be specially called—was changed from May 30 to June 19.

Resurrection City has some of the atmosphere of a rustic summer camp. Volunteers play ball with youngsters or take them on sightseeing excursions. A loudspeaker blares announcements and pages leaders. On a line between two plywood “tents,” tennis shoes hang drying. A “big top” provides the community dining area, and trailers house medical facilities.

That shelters are temporary and insufficient is obvious. Plastic draped around the top and a curtain over the open front can hardly provide adequate protection against rain or the sun that in late May often beats without mercy on the capital. Furnishings are sparse at best. On some shelters, bold letters and colors proclaim “Black is beauty” and “God and his angels watch over us.” Refuse burns in large containers along the “streets.” Inside the main gate is a Seventh-day Adventist welfare van where residents “shop” for clothes.

KING’S SUCCESSOR

The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy was there at the beginning—December 1955. Mrs. Rosa Parks, a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, was tired from shopping and refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. She was arrested. Abernathy, pastor of First Baptist Church, got together with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

They formed the Montgomery Improvement Association, which spearheaded a 381-day Negro boycott of city buses. The drive was later vindicated by the U. S. Supreme Court ruling against bus segregation.

From the start, King overshadowed Abernathy, who was three years his elder. King called Abernathy “my closest friend,” and in 1957 the two became founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to extend their civil-rights drive across the South. Abernathy was vice-president and treasurer. Two years ago King made provision for continuing the organization in case he died by naming Abernathy vice-president at large.

When King was shot, Abernathy was standing directly behind him on the Memphis motel balcony. In the chaos he knelt in prayer over the body, then rode in the ambulance to the hospital, cradling his dying friend’s head in a towel.

The next day, at his first press conference as the new president of the SCLC, Abernathy vowed to continue nonviolent strategy, for King “sought redemption of man, not vengeance.”

Abernathy was born in Linden, Alabama, in the state’s black-belt farm area. He graduated from Alabama State College and did graduate work at Atlanta University. Before the twelve-year Montgomery pastorate, he had a church in Demopolis, Alabama. Abernathy is currently the pastor of Atlanta’s West Hunter Street Baptist Church, which is located near the city’s four Negro colleges.

PROTESTANT PANORAMA

The Queens Federation of Churches defeated, for the second time this year, a proposal to merge into the Protestant Council, which represents New York City’s other four boroughs. A two-thirds majority of the 150 member churches is required. The Queens merger is considered a first step toward inclusion of Orthodox and Roman Catholics in a citywide council.

The necessary two-thirds of Christian Churches area organizations approved the denomination’s proposed restructure. Final step for passage will be two-thirds approval at the Kansas City convention, which opens September 27.

A Church of England commission recommended that this month’s assembly permit intercommunion on special occasions—but only with Methodists and Presbyterians, with whom the Anglicans are discussing merger.

PERSONALIA

Dr. Roger J. Voskuyl resigned as president of Westmont College, a Christian liberal-arts school in Santa Barbara, California. Next January 1 he will become executive director of the Council for the Advancement of Small Colleges in Washington, D. C.

The Rev. Andrew J. Young, executive vice-president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was named chairman of the National Council of Churches’ controversial Delta Ministry in Mississippi. He is a former pastor of Congregational Christian churches and once before worked with the NCC.

Dr. Paul D. Clasper, former American Baptist missionary to Burma, was appointed to a professorship and made academic dean at Berkeley Baptist Divinity School.

The Rev. James Roy Smith, a Methodist pastor in Arlington, Virginia, and a colonel in the Army Reserve, was chosen president of the Military Chaplains Association.

The Rev. Emmanuel L. McCall will become the first Negro to hold a staff position with a Southern Baptist agency. He will work in the Home Mission Board in Atlanta, where he has been a pastor and teacher.

Dr. John D. Godsey was appointed associate dean and professor of systematic theology at Wesley Theological Seminary.

Deaths

Newell S. Booth, 64, Methodist bishop and former missionary to Africa; in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Peter Kleperis, 63, archbishop-elect of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church; of a heart attack while traveling on a train in the Ukraine.

George T. Peters, 64, field representative of Concerned Presbyterians, independent lay organization in the Presbyterian Church in the U. S.; in Charleston, West Virginia.

James C. Suggs, who has been heading the public-relations agency of the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ), has been given the newly created position of managing editor of the Disciples’ official weekly, The Christian.

Prominent Roman Catholic attorney-realtor Victor Orsinger was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of using $1.5 million in investments of the Sisters of the Divine Savior to further his own interests while he acted as the order’s financial adviser. Another pending suit charges him with fraud in public sale of $16.5 million in bonds for the order and two other groups.

Latest gimmick among free-lance revivalists, reports the Minneapolis Tribune, is used by a one-eyed preacher, Ronald Coyne, 24. He tapes shut his good eye, pops out his plastic eye, then “reads” from items collected in the congregation.

French Dominican Father Damien Boulogne, 55, became the first clergyman to receive a heart transplant. He was reported in satisfactory condition two days later.

The Rev. H. Robert Cowles, former missionary to the Philippines, was elected editor of the Alliance Witness, official organ of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He succeeds the late Dr. V. Raymond Edman.

The Rev. J. Berkley Reynolds won reversal of an ecclesiastical order that barred him from accepting a call to the pastorate of West Ellesmere United Church in suburban Toronto. The local presbytery had been upheld by the executive group of the Conference (regional) Settlement Committee in refusing approval on the grounds that the theologically conservative Reynolds might split the 1,000-member congregation. The order was overturned by the full committee after the congregation vowed to appeal to the national meeting of the United Church of Canada.

MISCELLANY

United Methodist Board of Missions, perennially short on recruits, is opening the way for appointment of Roman Catholics. Ecumenism “may need this kind of interchange,” said the executive committee of the board’s World Division.

Evangelist Leighton Ford returned to his home town, Chatham, Ontario, for an eight-day crusade in May. He preached to a total of 23,750 persons, including a capacity crowd of 4,100 at the closing service in Chatham Memorial Arena.

Roman Catholic clergy have formed a national federation. Among goals is a reform of canon law forbidding priests to marry.

Encounter California, said to be the biggest evangelistic effort ever undertaken by a Baptist state convention, resulted in an estimated 18,860 decisions. Local church revival meetings were supplemented by cooperative crusades in municipal auditoriums over a three-month period.

Toronto Bible College and London (Ontario) College of Bible and Missions are merging to form Ontario Bible College. The new school will be located on the Toronto campus. Dr. S. L. Boehmer, president of Toronto Bible College, will be president.

Western Baptist Bible College in El Cerrito, California, last month became the first school of the General Association of Regular Baptists to win regional accreditation.

Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr., turned down an offer of the Washington, D. C., Cathedral (Episcopal) as the permanent burial site for her husband, who delivered his last Sunday sermon there before his murder.

Philosophy Professor W. Robert Smith of Bethel College, St. Paul, has a hunch that the Viet Cong murdered missionary C. Edward Thompson because “he knew too much” and talked about it. Among other things, Thompson believed “Cambodia is involved in the war to the hilt,” Smith said.

For the first time since 1957, circulation of the semi-monthly Presbyterian Life, leading Protestant house organ, dropped below one million (to 993,605 as of February 15). Denominational subsidy for 1967 soared to $489,094, largest in the twenty years of publishing.

The Christian Broadcasting Network was awarded television Channel 46 in Atlanta. CBN President Pat Robertson said he hopes to air programs by the end of the year. The network has been operating a television channel and an FM station in Tidewater Virginia. A new AM station is being purchased in Bogota, Colombia.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that the opening of town meetings with prayer is constitutional.

THEY SAY

“I was a sinner when I went into that mine, but I came out a Christian.”—Joseph Fitzwater, one of six survivors rescued after ten days of entombment in a West Virginia coal mine.