seful_. It is difficult for us to look at things from this
point of view, because our ideas of historical good faith are
so utterly different. When we write history, we know that we
ought to be guided solely by a desire to represent facts
exactly as they really happened. All that we are concerned
with is _reality_; we want to make the old times live again,
and we take all possible pains not to remodel the past from
the point of view of to-day. All we want to know is what
happened, and how men lived, thought, and worked in those
days. The Israelites had a very different notion of the nature
of historical composition. When a prophet or a priest related
something about bygone times, his object was not to convey
knowledge about those times; on the contrary, he used history
merely as a vehicle for the conveyance of instruction and
exhortation. Not only did he confine his narrative to such
matters as he thought would serve his purpose but he never
hesitated to modify what he knew of the past, _and he did not
think twice about touching it up from his own imagination,
simply that it might be more conducive to the end he had in
view and chime in better with his opinions. All the past
became colored through and through with the tinge of his own
mind._ Our own notions of honor and good faith would never
permit all this; but we must not measure ancient writers by
our own standard; they considered that they were acting quite
within their rights and in strict accordance with duty and
conscience."[97:4]

It will be noticed that, in our investigations on the authority of the
Pentateuch, we have followed, principally, Dr. Knappert's ideas as set
forth in "The Religion of Israel."

This we have done because we could not go into an extended
investigation, and because his words are very expressive, and just to
the point. To those who may think that his ideas are not the same as
those entertained by other Biblical scholars of the present day, we
subjoin, in a note below, a list of works to which they are
referred.[98:1]

We shall now, after giving a brief history of the Pentateuch, refer to
the legends of which we have been treating, and endeavor to show from
whence the Hebrews borrowed them. The first of these is "_The Creation
and Fall of Man_."

Egypt, the country out of which the Israelites came, had no stor