Ancient Hebrew Tradition

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. In view of the fact that my Preface to the German edition of the present work contains nothing which does not equally appeal to the English-speaking public, it seems superfluous for me to prefix any special introduction for the benefit of readers on the other side of the Channel or of the Atlantic - more particularly since my Assyriological Notes in the Proceedings of the Society for Biblical Archaeology and my contributions to the Sunday School Times have perhaps already made my name familiar to them. I shall merely content myself by referring here to a volume recently published by G.Buchanan Gray, which has only just come into my hands, and which, though in many respects an excellent production, indicates in its main conclusion (see the late artificial creation of some of the most striking characteristics in the Proper Names of the Priestly Code, cf. the summaries on pp. 194 and 207 et seq.) a distinctly retrograde movement when compared with Nestle's work. The investigations recorded in the present volume, based as they are on material obtained from the inscriptions, furnish a sufficient reply to Gray's contention. External Evidence must be the banner under which all students of Old Testament Literature are to range themselves in the future.