'i'he dithculty which besets the modern student is how to distinguish the substratum of actual history from the accretion of later legend and from the symbolism of Kastern description. The task is one which will probably defy all the attempts of existing .scholarship. Future discoveries may bring fresh light to bear upon the patriarchal narrative. For the present, important a-s recent discoveries have been in illustrating the Genesis narrative, they have not supplied us with any certain data for its chronology. Thus, while the credibility of an Elamite invasion, as mentioned in Gu 14, has been conlirmed, in the opinion of competent scholars, Ijy the evidence of cuneiform inscriptions, we have not yet arrived at any settled conclusion as to the century to which the events should be assigned. While the IJabylonian e(|uivalent to the name Abraham hii.s been found in the inscriptions, neithiT he nor Isaac nor Jacob nor .loseph have yet been identified in the monuments. The ideiititication of Y'kb'ar and Y'sp'r, by which some scholars transliterated Xos. 102 and 78 in the list of towns an<l places compiered by Tahutmes iii. in his campaiiin against I'alcstine and Syria, with Yakobel and Yose])liel, Jacob and Joseph, would not, supposing it to be accurate, throw any light upon the historical problem. It would, at the mi>st, afford evidence that the names Jacob and Josc>]ili had been current in I'alesline as the names of localities and ilistrict.s -centuries before the time of Moses' (ef. DiUmann, Geji. ii. 4, Kng. tr.).
Again, while we gather from the Tel el-Ainarna tablets that the ofticials in the towns of I'alesline and riuenicia, as well as of Kgypt, were wont, in the lijth cent, n.c, to employ the cuneiform char-
acter in their diplomatic and state correspondence, we are brought no nearer to the determination of the (piestion, when the Palestinian (Fheenician- Hebrew) writing was first adopted, or whether the nomad Hebrews employed writing.
To maintain that because cuneiform writing was practised in Palestine in the 1.5th cent, by othcial scribes for state correspondence, the ex- isting liatriarchal narratives are therefore ba.sed uiion Hebrew transcriptions of cuneiform chron- icles which were contemporary with the events, is to leap over several stages of the argiunent. A comparison of the Tel el-Amarna tablets with the patriarchal narrative confronts us with the fact that no one from reading the Genesis account could form any conception of the political con- dition of Palestine, as it really was, during the patriarchal period. With the isolated exception of the reference to historical details in Gn 14'", the lives of the Hebrew patriarchs furnish no clue to the history of the centuries that cor- respond to the period of patriarchal sojourn in Palestine.
The story of Joseph shows abundant signs of acquaintance with Egyptian life and customs. But there is no appearance of its having been committed to writing in Egj'pt or by any con- temporary. The dynastic name of the king of Egj'pt is alone given, i.e. I'haraoh ; but we are nowhere told either his own name or that of the capital in which he resided. Accordingly, while some have contended that the mention of the Egyptian hatred for strangers indicates a period subsequent to the domination of the Hyksos, others have held that the elevati<m of Joseph, a shepherd by birth, to the highest office in the kingdom coidd have occurred only under a llyksos dynasty. The Egyjrtian monuments have hitherto failed to give the name of Joseph ; and the mention of a prolonged famine in the el-Kab inscription illustrates, but cannot with any certainty be identified with, the Genesis narrative. The mea.sures taken by Joseph (Gn 47) i:i consequence of the famine doubtless corresiJond to Egyptian institutions known to the writer ; but hitherto no account of them has been found in other quarters.
The evidence of the monuments, which has in recent years so copiously illustrated the biblical narrative, has not yet contributed with any cer- tainty to the establishment of the literal historical accuracy of the patriarchal story.
The result may be disappointing ; but the evi- dence at our disposal does not at present ju.siify us in claiming more than that the general outline of the narrative is historical, and that the Mosaic epoch presupposes the patriarchal age. 'Tlie historian may com|)lain with Kuenen (see ']')!>• liil'fjinii of Israel, vol. i. p. 113) that the strictly historical kernel which can be safely extracted from such a book as Genesis is vague and more or less indefinite. The fact is that the great ligures of the patriarchal period are presented to us in narratives '-of which," says Prof. G. A. Smith, ■• it is .simply impossible for us at this time of day to establish the accuracy." We have simply to accept the fact that in the present state of our know- ledge there are no clear criteria by which to distinguish precisely the historical nucleus con- tained in the patriarchal narratives from the idealized picture. If there is uncertainly on this point, we can only ccmclude that knowledge of the pnci.se details of the history is not of vital im- portance' (Ottley, /?/>p. lattf.).
vi. Tin: HKi.itiiDfsTK.vniiNO or thk Hook.— A consideration of the religious value of Genesis reveals to us its true character and luirpose. The Scriptures were written for religious instruction ; and in no book of the OT are the trciisures of