(1) The Excavations at Ur and the Hebrew Records (2) Biblical Anthropology compared with and illustrated by the Folklore of Europe and the Customs of Primitive Peoples

Abstract

(1) THOSE who know Mr. Leonard Woolley's “Sumerians” will turn with interest to his Arthur Davis Memorial Lecture on the bearing of his discoveries on Biblical history. Mesopotamia is, of course, a long way from Palestine, and “the periods with which we have to deal are sometimes far removed in time from those which interest most the Bible student”, yet the link is there. The two points of contact which concern us most would seem to be the flood narrative and the story of Abraham. Of the first we read that “such archaological data as we possess, and the traditions of the Sumerians themselves, are most easily explained and best reconciled by the assumption that the Flood was the epoch-making historical event which they believed it to be”. As for Abraham, the chief point of interest is “that living at Ur, so far from being a primitive Bedouin accustomed only to the wide spaces of the desert, he was the heir to an age-old civilisation sharing the complex life of a great trade centre”. Another interesting point is that “it would not be even fanciful to hold that Jacob's dream was based on tales he had been told of the ziggurat of Ur, where on festivals the priests went in procession up and down the long stairways which led from earth to Heaven”. (1) The Excavations at Ur and the Hebrew Records. By C. Leonard Woolley. Pp. 61. (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1929.) 2s. net; paper, 1s. net. (2) Biblical Anthropology compared with and illustrated by the Folklore of Europe and the Customs of Primitive Peoples. By the Rev. H. J. D. Astley. Pp. vii + 262. (London: Oxford University Press, 1929.) 12s. 6d. net.