Show bible critics n silenced in face of evidence the crucial question about the pot shards inscribed with hebrew writ ing discovery of which Is announced from the site of ancient lackish in palestine Is that of date hebrew scholarship at the university at jerusalem undoubtedly Is adequate to deal with the problem from the standpoint of language and script as are the experts of doctor starkey Star keys s expedition to deal with it as field archeologists something must be al lowed perhaps for enthusiasm en ez gendered by a truly remarkable dis covery and time must be granted for would be critics of the ancient dates assigned to examine the evi dence for themselves and express approval or marshal their contrary arguments if it be true that the documents found date from to 1000 B C the discovery Is difficult to overestimate in its importance to biblical studies like so many hap henings of recent archeological years it gives the biblical text that has come down to us added stature as a historical document most of the pre ilous discoveries which have done this were baby ionian it has been a generation since the originals of the bible stories of the creation and of the flood were found on cuneiform tablets but 4 Is only a few years since the flood was identified both at ur and kish as an unquestionable historical event even though olt It may not have sub merged quite so much of the world as literal interpreters of the babii cal text sometimes imagine the story of creation emerges as a Su merlan account of how desopo tamla was reclaimed from the sea and the rivers most recent of all the confirmations are the d verles veries at ur which reinforce previous knowledge of Su merlan customs and law to show almost perfect veri verl similitude in the bible stories of abraham even the dream of jacob a ladder doctor woolley suggests may have been a memory of white robed merlan Su priests marching up and down the great ladder like stairs of the ziggurat at babylon original of the tower of babel considered quite aside from its devotional and religious charac character teris ls tics and purely as a historical docu ment the bible has experienced within two generations one complete swing of the pendulum of expert opinion from slavishly literal ac cep tance of every word and alon mark opinion of bible scholars swung far to the opposite extreme of doubting every historical event recorded even the exodus or the existence of abraham now the bal ance Is becoming truer proof satis batis factory to the most rigid logician now Is available for many of the bible episodes more appears with every thorough bit of excavation that Is done the dream of the first excavators of bible landa lands that they would add light and solidity to the stories in the book they loved grad bally Is coming true new york her aid tribune |