st. Others, especially
in the highlands of Judah and the south, at first succeeded in keeping
themselves remote from foreign influence. During the later periods of
the national life the country was again subjected, and in an intensified
degree, to those forces of political aggression from Mesopotamia and
Egypt which we have already noted as operating in Canaan. But throughout
the settled Hebrew community as a whole the spark of desert fire was
not extinguished, and by kindling the zeal of the Prophets it eventually
affected nearly all the white races of mankind.

In his Presidential Address before the British Association at
Newcastle,(1) Sir Arthur Evans emphasized the part which recent
archaeology has played in proving the continuity of human culture from
the most remote periods. He showed how gaps in our knowledge had been
bridged, and he traced the part which each great race had taken in
increasing its inheritance. We have, in fact, ample grounds for assuming
an interchange, not only of commercial products, but, in a minor degree,
of ideas within areas geographically connected; and it is surely not
derogatory to any Hebrew writer to suggest that he may have adopted, and
used for his own purposes, conceptions current among his contemporaries.
In other words, the vehicle of religious ideas may well be of composite
origin; and, in the course of our study of early Hebrew tradition, I
suggest that we hold ourselves justified in applying the comparative
method to some at any rate of the ingredients which went to form the
finished product. The process is purely literary, but it finds an
analogy in the study of Semitic art, especially in the later periods.
And I think it will make my meaning clearer if we consider for a moment
a few examples of sculpture produced by races of Semitic origin. I do
not suggest that we should regard the one process as in any way proving
the existence of the other. We should rather treat the comparison as
illustrating in another medium the effect of forces which, it is clear,
were operative at various periods upon races of the same stock from
which the Hebrews themselves were descended. In such material products
the eye at once detects the Semite's readiness to avail himself of
foreign models. In some cases direct borrowing is obvious; in others, to
adapt a metaphor from music, it is possible to trace extraneous _motifs_
in the design.(2)

(1) "New Archaeological Lights on the Origins of