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CHAPTER II.

THE STORY OF THE PATRIARCHS.

Gen. xii.-1.

Introductory.

IN approaching the Old Testament account of the Patriarchal age it is necessary to form some idea of its essential character and to estimate the degree of historical value that may be claimed for it. It must be carefully borne in mind that the earliest period of Israel's development is rightly described as prehistoric. This period corresponds with what is usually called the 'heroic age' in Greek history, and the narratives relating to it are analogous in many respects to the folk-lore of other ancient nations. The story in Genesis in fact rather resembles an epic poem than history in the modern sense of the term. It deals with obscure incidents of early tribal history, of which we can scarcely hope to acquire exact or definite knowledge; and since the primitive narratives were probably committed to writing in their present form at an interval of several centuries after the events recorded, we cannot expect to find in them a contemporaneous picture of patriarchal life. It can scarcely be doubted that the sacred writers occasionally depict under the form of personal or family incidents, events which are manifestly ordinary episodes of tribal life; and they follow the common practice of ancient historians in idealizing to some extent the forefathers and founders of the Hebrew race,

ascribing to them both the moral characteristics which marked their descendants, and the institution of such peculiar practices or customs as were familiar in a later age.

Accordingly, although many of the patriarchal narratives may well contain a historical kernel, we only do justice to these life-like and beautiful tales when we remember that those who recorded them were less concerned with the question of their literal truth than with the religious lessons that might be based upon them. Like the early historians of other ancient peoples, the compilers of the book of Genesis were dominated by certain religious ideas and convictions, in comparison with which the accurate knowledge of facts seemed relatively unimportant. They were far more deeply interested in the providential dealings of Almighty God, and in the methods by which He had chosen to reveal His will and purpose, than in the exact course of events in a remote past. In fact they employed the ancestral legends and oral traditions of their race a race singularly gifted with imaginative power and religious fervour-as apt vehicles of spiritual teaching; and to treat these picturesque stories as if they were strictly historical in the modern sense of the term, is to misconceive not only the intention and aim of the writers, but also the very nature and characteristics of primitive history.

"1

Thus for our knowledge of this interesting period we depend for the most part on narratives "of which it is simply impossible for us at this time of day to establish the accuracy. At the same time there is good reason for supposing that the book of Genesis, after every allowance has been made for the natural bias or defective information of the original writers, contains a life-like picture of an age which really existed, and we are so far justified in accepting the account of the patriarchal period as being in its broad outlines credible. A nomadic stage in the development of the Hebrew

1 Prof. G. A. Smith, The Preaching of the O.T. to the Age, p. 37.

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