e with their
immediate neighbours. What gave them a seeming importance in the eyes of
posterity was the fact that the true history of the Egyptians,
Mesopotamians, Arabians and Hittites had been well-nigh forgotten. The
various literatures of these nations were locked from view for more than
two thousand years, while the literature of Israel had not merely been
preserved, but had come to be regarded as inspired and sacred among all
the cultured nations of the Western world. Now that the lost literatures
have been restored to us, the status of the Hebrew writings could not
fail to be disturbed. Their very isolation had in some measure accounted
for their seeming importance.

All true historical perspective is based upon comparison, and where only
a single account has been preserved of any event or of any period of
history, it is extremely difficult to judge that account with historical
accuracy. An illustration of this truth is furnished in profane history
by the account which Thucydides has given us of the Peloponnesian War.
For most of the period in question Thucydides is the only source; and
despite the inherent merits of a great writer, it can hardly be doubted
that the tribute of almost unqualified praise that successive
generations of scholars have paid to Thucydides must have been in some
measure qualified if, for example, a Spartan account of the
Peloponnesian War had been preserved to us. Professor Mahaffy has
pointed out that many other events in Greek history are viewed by us in
somewhat perverted perspective because the great writers of Greece were
Athenians rather than Spartans or Thebans. Even in so important a matter
as the great conflict between Persia and Greece it has been suggested
more than once that we should be able to gain a much truer view were
Persian as well as Greek accounts accessible.

Not many years ago it would have been accounted a heresy to suggest that
the historical books of the Old Testament had conveyed to our minds
estimates of Oriental history that suffered from this same defect; but
to-day no one who is competent to speak with authority pretends to doubt
that such is really the fact. Even conservative students of the Bible
urge that its historical passages must be viewed precisely in the light
of any other historical writings of antiquity; and the fact that the
oldest Hebrew manuscript dates only from the 8th century A.D., and
therefore of necessity brings to us the message of ant