Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR KUDOS You deserve a real pat on the back for the excellent, interesting and instructive articles in your October 26 issue. The articles by Morgenthau, Weeks, Feuer, Hottelet,...
...It is not so long ago that the so-called intellectual view was that even this was a myth...
...Glueck found fault with Keller's effort to reveal the Bible as a true chronicle of history, he upheld his general aim because of constantly increasing archaeological evidence of the close relationship of the Bible to history...
...West Orange, N.J Leo Yanoff...
...His graphic account of the old "post-Marxists" sitting side by side with "the large younger generation of professors for whom Soviet studies are a 'field'" provided a profile of historical and intellectual change that will remain in one's mind for years to come...
...We find, instead, this curious statement in support of his thesis: "Utterly unsubstantiated and obviously 'sacred history'—that is, myth believed to be history—are not only Adam and Noah and Samson, but Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, Joseph and Moses and Joshua, David and Solomon and the First Temple...
...according to Albright's Archeology of Palestine) and which was at that time recounting events already ancient, one cannot expect the same kind of factuality that one hopes to find in history of current events...
...Hyman concedes that beginning with the -ninth century B.C., the Bible is a source of history and that this has been confirmed by archaeology...
...I do not suggest that one swallow the tale of Jonah and the whale but that, as to things which are not proven, one maintain at least a state of respectful equilibrium, because positions such as that taken by Hyman may be blown sky-high by reports of a current archaeological dig...
...New York City Frederick M. Stern Lewis S. Feuer's report ("Passage Beyond Marxism," NL, October 26) on the Stanford Conference was very well done...
...Obviously, when one considers the factuality of statements in a document which began to be reduced to written form about 1,000 B.C...
...Is it more reasonable to infer that this shows that four places were built according to a common plan, at least in some degree, or that Ezekiel's description of the First Temple is pure invention...
...He advances nothing but an opinion in substantiation of his position...
...But he specifically called attention to the fact that the saving grace of the book was to be found in Keller's reliance in the main upon authoritative sources despite some lamentable lapses...
...Marblehead, Mass...
...Hyman says categorically that actually archaeology confirms little in the Bible and nothing of significance...
...One of the Elephantine letters is from a certain Hanaiah (419 B.C.E...
...Hyman's slashing attack on The Bible as History in Pictures would presuppose a carefully documented proof for his extreme assertions...
...Instance after instance of physical proof of Biblical history can be recited...
...Yet Hyman terms his work on the Elephantine papyri "an archaeological find...
...Enough to demonstrate that it is sounder to treat the Bible as a source of history than as a book of fairy tales...
...Hyman merely reinforces Cowley's prejudice found in the introduction to his work on the Elephantine papyri...
...This prejudice is typical of Christian scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries like Wellhausen, Delitzsch and Breasted who sought to denigrate the contribution of the Jews to civilization by arguing that the Jews borrowed their religious culture from other religions (Wellhausen's Prologomena zur Geschichte Israels, Delitzsch's Bibel und Babil, Breasted's The Dawn of Conscience...
...Thus, reference to Abraham's ancestors in terms of places, rather than in terms of persons, is only the way in which people spoke in those days...
...Some of these scholars even advanced their views with the hope of converting Jews to Christianity...
...That a considerable portion of the Old Testament is demonstrably accurate suggests that, in the absence of contrary proof, other portions of it may also be accurate...
...He is prepared to go further and say that no archaeological discovery has ever been made that contradicts or controverts historical statements in scripture...
...It must be conceded that Werner Keller is a popularizer and that he suggests conclusions, not warranted by proof...
...He challenges not only Dr...
...Cowley, as we know, was not an archaeologist...
...in Jerusalem to the community at Elephantine directing them in the observance of the Passover...
...If, in fact, the ancestors of the Israelites came from the Tigris and Euphrates Valley, the tale of Abraham is not a myth, and there seems no question in the minds of competent archaeologists that this occurred in the 19th century B.C...
...But world renowned scholars in the field of Bible archaeology like William F. Albright and Nelson Glueck and others have offered ample evidence that archaeology does indeed confirm the Bible historically in a great many instances...
...The fact that the places existed is therefore evidence of the veracity of the account...
...May we not conclude that the Biblical story as to the incursion of Jews into Canaan is at least not demonstrably untrue...
...Nelson Glueck discovered King Solomon's mines at Etzion Geber...
...Nelson Glueck reviewed Keller's earlier book The Bible as History (which bears much more of the brunt of Hyman's attack than the newer work of Keller), he called attention to its shortcomings by noting that its fault lay in the author's straining eagerness to demonstrate that biblical statements and archaeological facts are in essential agreement and by inference thus to prove that the biblical teachings must be true...
...Morgenthau's contention cannot be defended, any more than one would argue that a democratic philosophy is "disproved" by the existence of countless problems in democratic societies...
...Ernest T. Clough This is just to tell you how much I liked Hans J. Morgenthau's article ("The Myth of Soviet Politics," NL, October 26...
...And the gates of the Temple which Ezekiel describes (40:5-12) are built on the same plan as the gates to these three cities...
...Furthermore, Aramaic was the "lingua franca" of the entire western region of the Persian empire and was not exclusively limited to the Jews of the Elephantine...
...To rely on Cowley as authority for his denial of the historicity of Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon and other Bible characters as Hyman does, is to lean on a thin reed...
...In the same review Dr...
...The Bible records that Solomon rebuilt Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer...
...Glueck stated: "The reviewer has spent many years in biblical archaeology and, in company with his colleagues, has made discoveries confirming in outline or detail historical statements in the Bible...
...Cowley published them in 1923 in Aramic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C...
...What reason is there to believe that Joshua was not the leader...
...But discovery of Egyptian and Assyrian records has given precise verification of Biblical history for at least 900 years before Christ (Burrows: What Mean These Stones...
...Perhaps that is the privilege of the amateur...
...And if the historical account in the Bible is not completely accurate, how much less accurate is it than history of contemporary events, such as World War I? It may be possible that Solomon and David are myths, but it is not likely...
...It is, therefore, difficult to understand how, with his limited scholarship, he can presume to speak of the Keller book as "one of the most ignorant and fraudulent books I have ever encountered...
...Additionally, it must be remembered that the Bible is written in the idiom of its time...
...He merely dismisses the Glueck finding and the Keller recording of it with the broadside, "Archaeologists given to schliemannizing (claiming to have discovered Agamennone Tomb or Priam's Treasure when they have dug up an anonymous burial) in order to make a splash in the newspapers, must share some of the blame for Keller...
...It is hardly conceivable that the Elephantine Jewish community would have known of the Passover and not of Moses...
...It is perfectly plain, as Morgenthau outlines so well, that Marxism as a "living political philosophy" hardly insures a smoothly running government or a consensus among the Party leaders...
...One does not have to hold any brief for Keller to challenge Hyman...
...As to Joshua: As Albright states, the evidence is clear that in the 13th century B.c...
...But this does not mean that all of his conclusions are unwarranted or that Hyman's statement that substantial portions of the Old Testament are myth is correct...
...New York City Rabbi Charles E. Shulman Riverdale Tempie This letter is addressed to Stanley Edgar Hyman's comment as follows: "Utterly unsubstantiated, and obviously 'sacred history'—that is, myth believed to be history—are not only Adam and Noah and Samson, but Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, Joseph and Moses and Joshua, David and Solomon and the First Temple...
...To state, as Hyman does, that because they do not speak of the Jewish tradition they therefore had no knowledge of Moses or the Torah or the Exodus is to utter sheer nonsense...
...But nowhere in the review do we find sound reason for his doubt...
...One has to consider only the problems which historians have with the story of Pocahontas or even with the Civil War period, to realize that absence of precise documentation does not make an event "myth...
...Archaeological excavations show that all three were rebuilt according to the same plan during the time attributed to Solomon (Pearlman and Yannai: Historical Sites in Israel...
...The archaeological find that made this clear (The Bible as History in Pictures does not mention it) was the discovery around the turn of the century of some Aramaic papyri on the island of Elephantine in Egypt (A...
...The colonists were orthodox Jews, as their correspondence with the high priest at Jerusalem makes clear, yet their papyri show that they had never heard of Moses or the Torah, the Exodus, the Sabbath, the Patriarchs, the Twelve Tribes, or of any festival except Unleavened Bread...
...While Dr...
...Glueck further noted in his review in the New York Times in 1956 that the canvas covered in Keller's volume about the Bible as a source book of history whose reliability has been repeatedly attested to by archaeological investigation is simply monumental, and recommended it highly with the reservations made...
...They are the letters and documents of a Jewish colony there contemporary with Ezra...
...New York City Max Goldstein SOVIET POLITICS While Hans J. Morgenthau's perceptive discussion concerning the replacement of Khrushchev ("The Myth of Soviet Politics, NL, October 26) offers a reasonable analysis of Soviet troubles, he would seem to be overstating his case when he maintains that current or historic problems of Marxist practice prove Marxism to be "untrue...
...And if the physical structures to which the book makes reference are there and can be seen, is it reasonable to say that the narrative is correct as to them, but myth as to the man during whose reign they were said to have been built...
...Paris A. L. Wallenbeck THE BIBLE AS HISTORY Stanley Edgar Hyman, reviewing Werner " TCeller's The Bible As History in Pictures (NL, October 12) confesses that he has been for a long time an amateur student of the Bible and of archaeology...
...The articles by Morgenthau, Weeks, Feuer, Hottelet, and Crozier and the book review by Marshall particularly caught my fancy, but most of the others were also above average...
...He was the librarian of the Bodleian Library and an Aramaic scholar...
...I think he has made a tremendous contribution to the proper evaluation of the present transformation of the Communist world...
...a number of Canaanite cities, notably Hazor, Lachish, Bethel, and Debir, were destroyed, and that the cities which were built on their sites were Israelite...
...Again, the Elephantine papyri discuss local conditions of the Jews in Egypt and deal with such items as selling houses, engaging in trade, going to law, etc...
...But while he finds much to criticize, he offers nothing in substantiation of his criticism...
...Hyman's one source of authority which he cites in his review is of questionable nature as we shall see...
...But neither the historic contradictions of Soviet policies, nor the Khrushchev-bred difficulties of polycentrism and the destruction of Moscow's "legitimacy" as infallible leader of the Communist world, relate to the essential question raised: namely, whether the practical political turmoil and intra-Party struggles necessarily constitute "proof" that the Marxist analysis of society is incorrect...
...His own words constitute the greatest challenge to him...
...Albright, who certainly cannot be accused of lack of scholarship, says "The view of radical critics of the nineteenth century that the life of the Hebrew Patriachs was a fiction invented by writers of the Israelite Monarchy, who took their cue from the life of contemporary Bedouin, is wholly misleading, though certain details were doubtless added by tradition to suit the inherited picture to the facts of later periods...
...He says also: the patriarchal narratives have a historical nucleus throughout, though it is likely that long oral transmission of the original poems and later prose sagas which underlie the present text of Genesis has considerably refracted the original events...
...Hyman questions this, as he questions almost everything else in Keller's book...
...They had their own Temple, in which they performed blood sacrifices and they worshipped Yahve, his female consort Anath, and three other gods...
...When Dr...
...Keller but outstanding Bible archaeologists as well...
Vol. 47 • November 1964 • No. 23
