All history is fragmentary. Each particular fact is the center of an infinite complex of circumstances. No man has intelligence enough to insert a supposititious fact into circumstances not belonging to it and make it exactly fit. This only infinite intelligence. could do. A successful forgery, therefore, is impossible if only we have a sufficient number of the original circumstances with which to compare it. It is this principle which gives such importance to the cross-examination of witnesses. If the witness is truthful, the more he is questioned the more perfectly will his testimony be seen to accord with the framework of circumstances into which it is fitted. If false, the more will his falsehood become apparent.
Remarkable opportunities for cross-examining the Old Testament Scriptures have been afforded by the recent uncovering of long-buried monuments in Bible lands and by deciphering the inscriptions upon them. It is the object of this essay to give the results of a sufficient portion of this cross-examination to afford a reasonable test of the competence and honesty of the historians of the Old Testament, and of the faithfulness with which their record has been transmitted to us. But the prescribed limits will not permit the half to be told; while room is left for an entire essay on the discoveries of the last five years to be treated by another hand, specially competent for the task.
Passing by the monumental evidence which has removed objections to the historical statements of the New Testament, as less needing support, attention will be given first to one of the Old Testament narratives, which is nearest to us in time, and against which the harshest judgments of modern critics have been hurled. We refer to the statements in the Book of Daniel concerning the personality and fate of Belshazzar.
The Identification of Belshazzar
In the fifth chapter of Daniel Belshazzar is called the "son of Nebuchadnezzar," and is said to have been "king" of Babylon and to have been slain on the night in which the city was taken. But according to the other historians he was the son of Nabonidus, who was then king, and who is known to have been out of the city when it was captured, and to have lived some time afterwards.
Here, certainly, there is about as glaring an apparent discrepancy as could be imagined. Indeed, there would seem to be a flat contradiction between profane and sacred historians. But in 1854 Sir Henry Rawlinson found, while excavating in the ruins of Mugheir (identified as the site of the city of Ur, from which Abraham emigrated), inscriptions which stated that when Nabonidus was near the end of his reign he associated with him on the throne his eldest son, Bil-shar-uzzur, and allowed him the royal title, thus making it perfectly credible that Belshazzar should have been in Babylon, as he is said to have been in the Bible, and that he should have been called king, and that he should have perished in the city while Nabonidus survived outside. That he should have been called king while his father was still living is no more strange than that Jehoram should have been appointed by his father, Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, seven years before his father's death (see 2 Kings 1:17 and 8:16), or that Jotham should have been made king before his father, Uzziah, died of leprosy, though Uzziah is still called king in some of the references to him.
That Belshazzar should have been called son of Nebuchadnezzar is readily accounted for on the supposition that he was his grandson, and there are many things to indicate that Nabonidus married Nebuchadnezzar's daughter, while there is nothing known to the contrary. But if this theory is rejected, there is the natural supposition that in the loose use of terms of relationship common. among Oriental people "son" might be applied to one who was simply a successor. In the inscriptions on the monuments of Shalmaneser II, referred to below, Jehu, the extirpator of the house of Omri, is called the "son of Omri."
The status of Belshazzar implied in this explanation is confirmed incidentally by the fact that Daniel is promised in verse 6 the "third" place in the kingdom, and in verse 29 is given that place, all of which implies that Belshazzar was second only.
Thus, what was formerly thought to be an insuperable objection to the historical accuracy of the Book of Daniel proves to be, in all reasonable probability, a mark of accuracy. The coincidences are all the more remarkable for being so evidently undesigned.
The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser
From various inscriptions in widely separated places we are now able to trace the movements of Shalmaneser II. through nearly all of his career. In B.C. 842 he crossed the Euphrates for the sixteenth time and carried his conquests to the shores of the Mediterranean. Being opposed by Hazael of Damascus, he overthrew the Syrian army, and pursued it to the royal city and shut it up there, while he devastated the territory surrounding. But while there is no mention of his fighting with the Tyrians, Sidonians, and Israelites, he is said to have received tribute from them and "from Jehu, the son of Omri:" This inscription occurs on the celebrated Black Obelisk discovered many years ago by Sir Henry Rawlinson in the ruins of Nimroud. On it are represented strings of captives with evident Jewish features, in the act of bringing their tribute to the Assyrian king. Now, though there is no mention in the sacred records of any defeat of Jehu by the Assyrians, nor of the paying of tribute by him, it is most natural that tribute should have been paid under the circumstances; for in the period subsequent to the battle of Karkar, Damascus had turned against Israel, so that Israel's most likely method of getting even with Hazael would have been to make terms with his enemy, and pay tribute, as she is said to have done, to Shalmaneser.
The Moabite Stone
One of the most important discoveries, giving reality to Old Testament history, is that of the Moabite Stone, discovered at Dibon, east of the Jordan, in 1868, which was setup by King Mesha (about 850 B.C.) to signalize his deliverance from the yoke of Omri, king of Israel. The inscription, is valuable, among other things, for its witness to the civilized condition of the Moabites at that time and to the close similarity of their language to that of the Hebrews. From this inscription we learn that Omri, king of Israel, was compelled by the rebellion of Mesha to resubjugate Moab; and that after doing so, he and his son occupied the cities of Moab for a period of forty years, but that, after a series of battles, it was restored to Moab in the days of Mesh a. Whereupon the cities and fortresses retaken were strengthened, and the country repopulated, while the methods of warfare were similar to those practiced by Israel. On comparing this with 2 Kings 3:4-27, we find a parallel account which dovetails in with this in a most remarkable manner, though naturally the biblical narrative treats lightly of the reconquest by Mesha, simply stating that, on account of the horror created by the idolatrous sacrifice of his eldest son upon the walls before them, the Israelites departed from the land and returned to their own country.
The Expedition of Shishak
In the fourteenth chapter of 1 Kings we have a brief account of an expedition of Shishak, king of Egypt, against Jerusalem in the fifth year of Rehoboam. To the humiliation of Judah, it is told that Shishak succeeded in taking away the treasures of the house of Jehovah and of the king's house, among them the shields of gold which Solomon had made; so that Rehoboam made shields of brass in their stead. To this simple, unadorned account there is given a wonderful air of reality as one gazes on the southern wall of the court of the temple of Amen at Karnak and beholds the great expanse of sculptures and hieroglyphics which are there inscribed to represent this campaign of Shishak. One hundred and fifty-six places are enumerated among those which were captured, the northernmost being Megiddo. Among the places are Gaza, Adullam, Beth-Horon, Aijalon, Gibeon, and Juda-Malech, in which Dr. Birch is probably correct in recognizing the sacred city of Jerusalem,
