Jewish Literary Sources

Literary Sources.

The most fruitful sources of information germane to the subject are of course the literature of the Torah. As has been noted above, due regard must be had from the beginning to the assured results of Biblical criticism. The Torah material must be so used as to gain therefrom full advantage of the best-established results of the scholarship of to-day. It must be remembered, however, that a systematic archeology for each period of history can not yet be presented; merely the origin and growth of rites and customs through the entire stretch of time are all that have been traced. Uncertainty as to the dates of some of the books of the Bible aggravates the difficulties of the archeologist.

The writings of Josephus, compiled, as they were, from many and uncertain sources, possess, nevertheless, because of their immense sweep through time, a multitude of apposite data. Josephus' partiality for his own people, and his desire to magnify their importance throughout their history, have to be guarded against; but he provides much material for the portrayal of the life of the ancient Jews.

The inter-Biblical apocryphal books, such as I and II Maccabees, III and IV Esdras, Judith, the Letter of Jeremiah, etc., abound in hints and items of importance in a systematic study of Biblical Archeology. Philo of Alexandria, though strongly influenced by Greek thought, was a serviceable chronicler of many things Jewish. This mass of literature yields much of genuine value to the archeologist of Sacred Scripture.
 
The great mass of rabbinical literature (the two Talmuds and the Midrashic collections) is full of facts, statements, and hints concerning the life of the Jewish people. These are often of significant, illustrative importance in the elucidation of Torah conditions. The compilations of Manetho, Berosus, and Philo of Byblus yield facts that add materially to some phases of Biblical Archeology. The habits, customs, and religious characteristics of the Jews, as described in early Christian and Greek writings, are also of value. Arabic literature and antiquities reveal the common Semitic character of ancient times, and consequently some elements of Jewish life.

The unchangeable and permanent elements of the Oriental Semitic personality are surprisingly illustrative of the ancient Jewish character of the Bible. The habits, customs, and rites of the inhabitants of the East, and their mode of existence as a whole, are a living commentary on many passages of Scripture, the thought and significance of which are wholly foreign to a modern Occidental. Such portions of the Semitic world as are least modified by the aggressions of civilization, like those in the interior of Arabia, seem to maintain in their pristine purity the traits of two or three millenniums ago. The closer one gets to the primitive Semitic man, the nearer in many cases is the approach to a true understanding of his life as it appears in Holy Writ.

Out of the material already indicated, Biblical Archeology claims for itself four general divisions, under which it may best be treated; they are (1) the land and people of Palestine; (2) domestic or individual antiquities; (3) public or civil antiquities; and (4) sacred or religious antiquities.

Judaic, Archeology and Biblical

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