Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 54:214 (Apr 1897)
Article: Babylonian Paleography And The Old Testament
Author: A. A. Berle

BSac 54:214 (April 1897) p. 391

Babylonian Paleography And The Old Testament

A. A. Berle

The linguistic history of the Old Testament has in recent years developed into one of the most interesting, and in some respects one of the -most important, branches of Old Testament study. More than ever the Old Testament is seen clearly to be a rational development of ideas, customs, ritual, and laws which must be suitably placed in their order of development to be thoroughly comprehended. There being no inspired or final authority known on the subject of the arrangement of the material contained in the books of the Old Testament, it becomes the work of scholars and others to grapple with the matter of arrangement; and this, for the most part, is what gives the question of the dates of the documents the importance it has, though, at first glance, the ideas seem to be the only important thing. But obviously the understanding of the ideas depends in great measure upon the knowledge of the conditions from which they emerged, and the necessities which required, their enactment into institutions and laws.

Until within a comparatively recent period, the whole tendency of critical study of the Old Testament was to lower all the dates, and thus bring the material and ideas of the Old Testament institutions closer to our own era; and it must be admitted that there seemed to be much to justify the procedure. Many of the books were -placed by the present arrangement in a period to which they obviously could not belong. And many documents alleged to be of early or antique origin showed a skill in arrangement and compilation which proved without question that they belonged to a more highly developed literary period than that in which they were alleged to have been created. Consequently there was a general quest for a productive literary period, and one such was found in the exile and the period succeeding. Professor Brown’s statement, commented upon in the preceding note, is a type of the prevailing notion. But the interesting thing in connection with the subject is, that it did not seem to oc-

BSac 54:214 (April 1897) p. 392

cur to any one that a productive literary period might be found earlier than the alleged date of the documents referred to. Take, for example, the Mosaic books, so-called. The assumption that there might have been such a literary period contemporary or earlier than Moses was dismissed with a contemptuousness that made argument about it almost impossible. To a later period one must look, and the result was that the seventh century B.C. blossomed out into what must have been, if one can credit that it produced all attributed to it, one of the most astounding literary developments in the history of the world.

There was, however, just one shadow across...