BOOKS.
EXPLORATION IN PALESTINE.*
Tnz first of these sumptuous volumes was printed eleven years ago : the last some months ago. It is no exaggeration to describe them as the most complete and accurate account of the archeology of Palestine, and of its fauna and flora, accessible to the public. The affluence and variety of the materials which they contain render even a summary of their contents impossible within the limits of an ordinary article. Suffice it to say that while they are invaluable to the Biblical student, the man of science and the general reader will find them very interesting and instructive. Eastern Palestine is now sparsely inhabited by wandering Arabs. The explora- tions recorded in the first of these volumes have disclosed ample proofs of a once populous region enjoying a high civilisation which extended back through Christian and Roman times into Old Testament history. Here, as else- where, Islam has shown itself the ruthless foe of civilisation. The reader will be surprised to find the immense quantity and variety of the remains discovered in the territory east- ward of the Jordan by Major Conder and other agents of the Palestine Exploration Fund. But probably the volumes which will prove of most general interest are the last two by M. Clermont-Ganneau, the well-known savant and 'expert who, as some of our readers will remember, exposed some years ago the extremely clever archeological forgeries of Shapira. His volumes are of absorbing interest; but we must content ourselves with furnishing our readers with a few samples.
Josephus says (Wars, Book V., chap. 5, sec. 2) that the second court of the Temple (which he calls " the Sanctuary ") was surrounded by a wall three cubits in height, and on this wall were " stelai at equal distances from each other, declaring the law of purity, some in. Greek and some in Roman letters, that no stranger [Gentile) should go within that Sanctuary." In his Antiquities (Book XV., chap. 11, sec. 5) he says that an infraction of this rule was a capital offence. It is Herod's Temple that Josephus is here describing, and critics have generally questioned his veracity on the ground that the Roman Government was not likely to punish so slight an offence with death. Research has exhibited in a singular manner the danger of basing historical theories on a priori reasoning. In the year 1871 M. Clermont- Ganneau actually discovered in the wall of an Arab house in Jerusalem one of the very stelai mentioned by Josephus, with the inscription upon it which he describes. In a long letter to the Times, which is copied in the Quarterly Statement of the !Palestine Exploration Fund for 1884, M. Clermont-Ganneau gives an account of his discovery. The Governor of Jerusalem, thinking that the find was a great treasure—as indeed it was—took possession of the stele (small stone pillar), and tried to sell it for £2,000. " It was to be forwarded to Constantinople. In fact, having lain a few months in the serai, it was despatched to Jaffa, but it never reached its destination. It is now some twelve years since this event, and the stone is still looked for at Constantinople." In the two volumes before us M. Clermont-Ganneau makes four references to this "famous stele of Herod's Temple," but does not say whether " it is still looked for at Conatanti- nople." As a matter of fact, either the original or an extremely clever imitation of it is now shown to visitors at Constantinople. One of the few Mussulmans who have ever shown any archeological proclivities—the son of one of the Christians who perished in the great massacre of Chios — started an archeological museum (14 The Survey of Eastern Palestine. By Lieutenant A. ManteU, B.E., and Messrs. T. Black and G. Armstrong, under the command of Major Courier, D.C.Is. &Mae Are011.* of the Fauna and POT& of Sisal, Petra, and the Wddy 'Arabah. By Remy Chichester Hart, B.A., F.R.G.S., drehseoksdeal Researches in PalestSeut. By Charles Clermont-Gannean, LL.D., Member de 'Institut, Professor an College de France. Y vols. All three published for the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 38 Conduit Street, W. at Stamboul a few years ago. The collection contains some very interesting recent discoveries, undoubtedly genuine, and among them the famous stele, or what purports to be such. The present writer saw it eight years ago, and he understood that it was recognised in the archaeological world as M. Olermont-Ganneau's lost treasure. It is a pity that the Committee of the Exploration Fund has not put the matter beyond a doubt, for the stele has more than an archeological interest. It explains, for instance, the tumult raised against St. Paul (Acts xxi. 27-29), and the assertion of Tertullus (Acts xxiv. 6) that the Jews had power to take and judge the Apostle according to their law. St. Paul himself declared that the Jews " went about to kill him " without formal trial after expelling him from the Sanctuary,—that is, the second court which was fenced by the warning stelai. Apparently they would have been justified in doing so, since any man caught in jtagrante delicto, as they erroneously thought the Apostle had been, was liable to summary execution. A still more interesting illustration of the power of life and death conferred by the Roman Government on the Jews in this solitary case is perhaps furnished by the unresisted expulsion of the profaners of the Temple from the second court by our Lord. W e know that the priests encouraged, and the high priest's family profited by, this profane traffic, which admitted Gentiles within the forbidden area. But there was the terrible warn- ing on the surrounding stelai, and the traffickers hurried off without remonstrance before the uplifted scourge of the Nazarene Rabbi, who wielded such magnetic influence over the multitude. Commentators ascribe the meek submission of the traffickers and their clients to a miraculous awe caused by Jesus ; but it is well to have no recourse to a miraculous agency where a natural explanation is possible.
One of the problems of modern research in Jerusalem is the site of the Holy Sepulchre. M. Clermont-Ganneau does not discuss it, but he indicates his own opinion, and gives a few facts which go to confirm the authenticity of the traditional site. Indeed, it was never called in question till recent times. It is im- possible to go into the various arguments here. But as the number of travellers to Palestine increases year by yea r it may be well to state a few facts which seem conclusive. Two questions must be kept carefully apart : first, the authenticity of the old site ; secondly, the evidence for " Gordon's Tomb," which a few interested speculators and some ingenuous enthusiasts have set up in rivalry. " Gordon's Tomb " may be dismissed at once. Not only does it lack a single scrap of evidence of any kind, but the evidence against it is overwhelming and com- plete. Everybody of the least repute who has referred to it at all has dismissed the so-called evidence for it as ridiculous. But what about the traditional site ? The present writer, having gone very carefully into the evidence, not only historically, but by personal investigation in the course of two visits to Jerusalem, has no hesitation in saying that the evidence for the traditional site appears to him to amount to an historical demonstration. The only tan- gible argument against the traditional site is the fact of its being within the city wall, Golgotha and Joseph of Arimathea's tomb having been admittedly without the wall. Yes ; but which wall P Jerusalem has three walls now. It had only two in the time of our Lord, and the question is whether the traditional site is outside the second wall, as Joseph of Arimathea's sepulchre unquestionably was. M. Clermont-Ganneau certifies one fact which is alone decisive on that point. " I made a thorough examination," he says, " of this tomb, which is situated within the church " of the Holy Sepulchre. " My studies distinctly prove that whatever people may have said about it, it is a genuine Jewish tomb hewn in the rock." And for the details of his argument he refers to his " Essay on the subject, together with the drawings upon which it is based in the Jerusalem volume of Memoirs, pp. 319-327." We call this little fact a decisive proof of the traditional site being outside the second wall because the Jewish law forbade burials within the city wall. The present Holy Sepulchre was, therefore, undoubtedly outside the city wall in our Lord's time. And M. Clermont-Ganneau's archeological researches into the course of the second wall have led him to the same eon- clusion,—a conclusion which Herr Schick, the first authority on the subject, has now placed beyond a doubt. M. Clermont- Ganneau refers incidentally to the fact of Hadrian having
" caused a heathen temple to be built in this place, on the site of which temple Constantine's basilica was subsequently erected." That is another piece of evidence which is abso- lutely, conclusive, for Hadrian certainly built his temple to Venus on Golgotha, one of the sacred shrines of the Jews, and on which Joseph of Arimathea's tomb abutted. Hadrian's temple thus marked unmistakably the Saviour's sepulchre, and Constantine's basilica was reared on that site after Hadrian's temple had been rased. This by no means ex- . hausts the evidence for the traditional site ; but it may suffice.
One of M. Clermont-Ganneau's discoveries is the fact that part of the burying-ground of Jaffa (Joppa) is called " the ground of Tabitha." " Evidently the memory of the resurrec- tion of Tabitha helped to shape the name given by local
tradition to the burying-ground where that pious woman, though her going thither was on the first occasion postponed, must finally have found a resting-place." " A great yearly festival," in which all the inhabitants, without distinction of creed, take part, is held "in honour of Tabitha." The tradi- tion is rendered more remarkable by the fact that the burial- ground is Jewish, and bears evidence of having been in use as early as the date of the miracle.
One of the most interesting chapters in M. Clermont- Ganneau's fascinating volumes is his identification of the ancient Gezer. It is a singularly brilliant specimen of patient research, inductive reasoning, and what the late Professor Tyndall called " the scientific use of the imagination." It seems to us impossible to master our explorer's striking argument without being forced to the conclusion that the Book of Joshua was written by a contemporary of the events which it describes, and not by a "pious fraud" manu- facturer, or syndicate of manufacturers, after the return of the Jews from Babylon. The sweeping theories of the Higher Criticism, based mainly on linguistic criticism and
a priori reasoning, have already been considerably shaken by the discoveries at Tel-el-Amarna, Lachish, and elsewhere, and M. Clermont-Gazmeau's lucid argument on Gezer is a serious
blow to the theory of the post-exilic origin of the Hexateuch, and is all the more telling from being a plain statement of facts, without any reference to the Higher Criticism or any sort of polemical bias. It is one of many indirect proofs which these volumes show of the accuracy of the early books of the Old Testament, even later than Joshua. But we must conclude with a happy specimen of the light which M. Clermont- Ganneau throws incidentally here and there on Biblical exegesis. In the East great importance is attached to the delimitation of the land :—
" With this view they adopt various expedients, probably of immemorial antiquity. In addition to the more or less rudimen- tary stone landmarks, they make use of underground marks con- sisting of egg-shells and pieces of charcoal buried at a great depth. In cage of dispute they dig down, and the affair is settled by these indications, which, they say, remain permanently white and black."
We learn from the Bible that removing a neighbour's land- mark was a not uncommon offence. A stone might be removed in the course of a night, or might perish through neglect or other cause. How in such cases was the under- ground evidence of the boundary to be located P To obviate this difficulty they planted over the buried landmark a tree of hard wood, which struck its root vertically, and grew up again if cut down, One of the trees commonly used for this purpose is the tamarisk, and it was a boundary tamarisk (as rightly translated), not a sacred grove, that Abraham planted at Beersheba to settle the dispute between his servants and Abithelech's, as related in Genesis xxi. 25-33.
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