with quite distinct aspects of the problem; and the fallacy lies in treating the chapter as a homogeneous and indivisible unity: it is like discussing whether the climate of Asia is hot or cold on conflicting evidence drawn from opposite extremes of the continent. Criticism claims to have shown that the narrative is full of improbabilities in detail which make it impossible to accept it as a reliable contemporary record of fact. All that the archæologist can pretend to have proved is that the general setting of the story is consistent with the political situation in the East as disclosed by the monuments; and that it contains data which cannot possibly be the fabrications of an unhistorical age. So much as this critics are perfectly prepared to admit. Nö., who has stated the case against the authenticity of the chapter as strongly as any man, expressly declined to build an argument on the fact that nothing was then known of an Elamite dominion in the West, and allowed that the names of the four kings might be traditional (op. cit. 159 f.).[1] Assyriology has hardly done more as yet than make good the possibilities thus conceded in advance. It is absurd to suppose that a theory can be overthrown by facts for which due allowance was made before they took rank as actual discoveries.
Ch. XV.—God's Covenant with Abram (JE).
In a prolonged interview with Yahwe, Abram's misgivings regarding the fulfilment of the divine promises are removed by solemn and explicit assurances, and by a symbolic act in which the Almighty binds Himself by the inviolable ceremonial of the berîth.[2] In the present form of the chapter there is a clear division between the promise of a son and heir (1-6) and the promise of the land (7-21), the latter alone being strictly embraced in the scope of the covenant.
Analysis.—See, besides the comm., We. Comp.2 23 f.; Bu. Urg. 4161;
Bacon, Hebraica, vii. 75 ff.; Kraetzschmar, op. cit. 58 ff.—The chapter
shows unmistakable signs of composition, but the analysis is beset with
peculiar, and perhaps insurmountable, difficulties. We may begin by
- ↑ The same admission was made by We. as long ago as 1889 (Comp.2 310). In view of the persistent misrepresentations of critical opinion, it is not unnecessary to repeat once more that the historicity of the names in v.1 has not been denied by any leading critic (e.g. Ew. Nö. Di. We.), even before the discoveries of later years.—For an exposure of Sayce's extraordinary travesty of Nöldeke's arguments, the reader should consult Dri. Gen.7, Addenda to p. 173.
- ↑ "Die Berîth ist diejenige kultische Handlung, durch die in feierlicher Weise Verpflichtungen oder Abmachungen irgend welcher Art absolut bindend und unverbrüchlich gemacht wurden" (Kraetzschmar, Bundes-*vorstellung, 40 f.).
