iquity through the
fallible medium of many generations of copyists, is far more clearly
kept in mind than it formerly was. Every belief of mankind is in the
last analysis amenable to reason, and finds its origin in evidence that
can appeal to the arbitrament of common sense. This evidence may in
certain cases consist chiefly of the fact that generations of our
predecessors have taken a certain view regarding a certain question;
indeed most of our cherished beliefs have this foundation. But when such
is the case, mankind has never failed in the long run to vindicate its
claim to rationality by showing a readiness to give up the old belief
whenever tangible evidence of its fallaciousness was forthcoming. The
case of the historical books of the Old Testament furnishes no
exception. These had been sacred to almost a hundred generations of men,
and it was difficult for the eye of faith to see them as other than
absolutely infallible documents. Yet the very eagerness with which the
champions of the Hebrew records searched for archaeological proofs of
their validity was a tacit confession that even the most unwavering
faith was not beyond the reach of external evidence. True, the believer
sought corroboration with full faith that he would find it; but the very
fact that he could think such external corroboration valuable implied,
however little he may have realized it, the subconscious concession that
he must accept external evidence at its full value, even should it prove
contradictory. If, then, an Egyptian inscription of the XIXth dynasty
had come to hand in which the names of Joseph and Moses, and the deeds
of the Israelites as a subject people who finally escaped from bondage
by crossing the Red Sea, were recorded in hieroglyphic characters, such
a monument would have been hailed with enthusiastic delight by every
champion of the Pentateuch, and a wave of supreme satisfaction would
have passed over all Christendom. It is not too much, then, to say that
failure to find such a monument has caused deep disappointment to Bible
scholars everywhere. It does not follow that faith in the Bible record
is shaken, although in some quarters there has been a pronounced
tendency to regard the history of the Egyptian sojourn as mythical; yet
it cannot be denied that Egyptian records, corroborating at least some
phases of the Bible story, would have been a most welcome addition to
our knowledge. Some recent finds have, indeed, seemed to ma