ANCIENT EGYPT, HER TESTIMONY TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE: being an Interpretation of the Inscriptions and Pictures which remain upon her Tombs and Temples. By WILLIAM OSBURN, Jun., Member of the Council of the Royal Society of Literature. London: Bagsters. 1846.

THIS is a seasonable, and will be, we trust, to the lovers of God's truth, a welcome work. It offers a confirmation of the credibility of the Scripture narrative just at the moment that it most needs such an assistance. Our author remarks, and with perfect justice, that the History of Ancient Egypt "belongs to the Biblical rather than to the Classical era of antiquity; and therefore that it must be from the former, not from the latter, that its remains are either to receive illustration or to impart it." He tells us that "the remains of ancient Egypt are the monuments of a religion and polity which prevailed at a period far earlier than any other of which similar memorials are now in existence. The ruins of Thebes illustrate an epoch which precedes by at least a thousand years that of the ruins of Athens. The manners, customs, and modes of thought that prevailed in Egypt, and of which its temples and tombs have preserved the record, are therefore those of an age of the world which is removed from the classic era by so wide an interval, that the one cannot, of necessity, be of any material service for the illustration of the other. They must be applied, we repeat, to the events of far earlier periods, before their illustrative value can be made apparent." Yet, notwithstanding the very obvious nature of this position, he informs us that "those who have occupied themselves with Egyptian antiquities, seem by common consent to have rejected the aid of the Bible (the only book in existence which professes to be cotemporary with them), and to have relied upon the classical authorities, the earliest of which dates at least 1000 years later than the temples on which these reliefs occur, so that they could not possibly contain anything beyond vague and obscure traditions of a period so remote." This strange neglect of the only existing source of precise information has had the effect of putting a full stop to the progress of Egyptian Archæology, in any thing like useful shape, during the four and twenty years that have elapsed since Champollion le Jeune first announced to the world that he had recovered the long-lost key to the hieroglyphic writings.

In proof of how little has been accomplished hitherto, we can cite no better instance than that of Gesenius's invaluable Thesaurus 1846.

5 T

Linguæ Hebreæ, the last part of which appeared in 1842, within a very short time of the death of its lamented author. The design of this stupendous work was to bring together every thing that could throw light upon Hebrew Lexicography; and the author had evidently read with the utmost care all that had been written upon the interpretation of the monuments of Egypt. Yet he could only find two hieroglyphic words that were worth quoting!! The truth is, the voluminous collections of engravings published by the French and Tuscan governments, which put within the reach of every one all that is worth preservation of the remains of ancient Egypt, have hitherto contributed to Biblical criticism, absolutely nothing beyond a few pretty embellishments for Pictorial Bibles, of very questionable authority, and a smartly-written book or two which some eight or ten years ago might occasionally be seen on the drawing-room tables of religious ladies, full of pictures and promises, but utterly guiltless of the production of a single grain of useful knowledge. The subject indeed has had so irresistible a tendency to nothing, that the scholars of Europe seem by common consent to have thrown it up in despair. Naturally enough doubting the reality of a discovery which for so long a period has disappointed all the expectations which were reasonably entertained from it.

2

The works that have appeared upon this subject are generally dry, tedious and inconclusive. At the best mere heaps of bricks and mortar; too often of rubbish. But their repulsiveness and uselessness is by no means their worst characteristic. No one of them gives to the Bible any approach to fair dealing. Some treat it altogether as a book of hyperbole and fabrication,-others in the excess of their liberality absolutely condescend to tolerate it; assigning to it an authority just as great as that of the Koran of Mohammed, or the Vedas of Juggernaut, or Joe Smith's book of Mormon, or any other book professing to teach men religion; but of course placing its authoritative value very far below that of the works of Manetho or Eratosthenes or Syncellus, because these great men enjoyed the inestimable advantage of being heathen philosophers! Now, even conceding this lofty impartiality to be possible, we much doubt whether truth ever was, or ever can be, elicited from the Bible by subjecting it to such a process; and for reasons sufficiently obvious. The Bible is not, nor does it profess to be, a mere human composition. The reasoner who so treats it, who throws it into his collection of materials for deduction along

They were the names of Cush, and of Pharaoh Shishak, written in hieroglyphics. 2 With the exception of the " Antiquities of Egypt," published by the Religious Tract Society.

with other books, professing to let it prove itself by them or against them, as the case may fall, and to take no special interest in the result, -puts the Bible to an use for which it was never designed. The Bible is, according to its own account of itself, the word of God and nothing else; and therefore by an obvious law of right reason it can never be treated as any thing else. The credibility or non-credibility of the evidence on which this its assumption rests, must be a foregone conclusion in the mind of every man who would apply it to the investigation of ancient history. Let this its credibility be once established, and its teachings become revelations which it is not lawful to question; and when God is the lawgiver, that which is not lawful is not reasonable. The man who believes the Bible, and yet places the historical truths which it reveals on the same scale in point of credibility with the traditions preserved by profane historians, no more adopts a right method of reasoning than the man who, in the affairs of common life, questions the evidence of his own senses in deference to the opinions of others. The modern German student, therefore, who throws his Bible into the midst of a mob of Greek chronologers, and hierolic papyri and hieroglyphic cartouches, and stands by to watch the result with an air of perfect indifference, professing (by his manner at least) that, whether it sink or swim, he does not regard as a matter of much importance, -sins against right reason as much as against good taste and religious feeling.

We dwell upon this, because we feel that the excellent Chevalier Bunsen has given an advantage to the bitter enemies of the truth he loves, by forgetting this perfectly obvious distinction between the word of man and the word of God, in his otherwise admirable work on Egypt. Misled by the modes of thought so lamentably prevalent among his own countrymen, he (unintentionally we are well assured) too much treats the Bible as a mere history, the truth or falsehood of which must appear from its comparison with other contemporary histories of equal authority. We are glad to express our high sense of the value and importance of the Chevalier's literary labours, but we feel persuaded that the mistake we have endeavoured to point out, considerably impairs the usefulness of his work on Egypt.

The author before us seems to us to take the right course on this question. He lays down the historical notices of Egypt, contained in the Bible, as truths to be reasoned from, not as pretensions to be investigated: and this we take to be one of the reasons why he has arrived at results of a more satisfactory character. His prefatory remarks on the history of Egypt are as follows:

:

"The materials for this history are to be derived from

"I. The Bible; which is also the first beyond all comparison, both in the value and importance of the facts it has recorded.

"II. The ruins of temples, tombs, etc., now in existence, on which are inscribed the hieroglyphic names of kings with the dates of their reigns, and also, several genealogical tables containing the names of the monarchs of Egypt in the order of their succession.

III. The work of Manetho, a priest of Sebennytus, on the dynasties of the kings of Egypt, written in Greek by the command of Ptolemy Philadelphus about 180 B.C. This book is lost; but long quotations from it occur in the writings of Josephus, Eusebius, and Syncellus. The latter writer quotes from two abbreviators of Manetho, one of whom was named Eratosthenes; the work of the other is called "The Old Chronicle." Manetho's book professes to be a translation from historical documents then existing in the temples of Egypt. Like the histories of India, China, Mexico, and most other heathen nations, it commences with the reigns of the gods and demigods, which lasted many hundred thousand years, and the first of whom was the sun or Phra, who gave his name, Pharaoh, to all his successors on the throne of Egypt. After these come thirty-one dynasties of men, who, according to Manetho, reigned in succession over Egypt for an incredibly long period. The aid, however, of the two preceding authorities enables us materially to cut down this vast antiquity. Some of these dynasties prove to be fabulous; others are the names of kings who reigned contemporaneously over different parts of Egypt.

"The Greek historians Herodotus and Diodorus have also recorded many anecdotes of the ancient kings of Egypt; but, as they observe no chronological order, it is only by the aid of the preceding authorities that these anecdotes can be made available as history.

"From the casual notices of the history of Egypt in the Bible, we learn the following facts:

1st. Egypt was colonised by the descendants of Mizraim, the son of Ham, who gave to the country its oriental name, both in ancient and modern times. This event took place shortly after the dispersion of mankind from Babel (Gen. x. 13).

"2nd. Egypt was a settled kingdom, ruled by a Pharaoh, at the time of Abram (Gen. xii. 10, seq).

3rd. Egypt acquired immense wealth under the administration of Joseph (Gen. xlviii. 1).

"4th. Egypt sustained terrible national calamities, which, from the tenor of the narrative, would appear to have been irretrievable ones, at the time of the Exodus (Ex. vii. to xii).—(pp. 2, 3.)

From the monumental remains he informs us that we acquire as actual history,

"I. The name of Menes, the founder of the monarchy, who, according to Josephus, reigned many years before Abraham.

"II. The Era of the Pyramids: that is, of the building of the celebrated pyramids of Ghizeh near Memphis in Lower Egypt. The names of the builders of the first, second, and third pyramids-Suphis, Cephrenes, and Mencheres, have been discovered in the buildings themselves by Col. Howard Vyse. There are also some tombs in their vicinity which are contemporary with them. This remote period is characterised by skill in the arts of design, equalling, if not surpassing, that of any succeeding period. It corresponds to the fourth dynasty of Manetho.

"III. The Era of Osortasen I." He gives the inaugural titles of six of the predecessors and of seven of the successors of this monarch, and then proceeds to explain that, "the frequent occurrence of the name Ammenemes in

the second ring among the immediate successors of Osortasen, decides that his era corresponds with the twelfth dynasty of Manetho, in which the same name is thrice repeated."-(pp. 3—6.)

The history of these remote times is thus adverted to :

"Osortasen_was a prosperous and successful monarch, who reigned over the whole of Egypt: but no remains of the works of his immediate successors have been discovered in Lower Egypt. They held their court at Abydos, in Upper Egypt, while another race of monarchs equally civilised with themselves had possession of Memphis, and probably, therefore, of Lower Egypt. This agrees well with Manetho's account of the invasion and conquest of Egypt by a race of people from Canaan, whom he calls shepherds, or Tows, which he interprets shepherd-kings. They reigned in Memphis, by his account, for 511 years. He gives us the names of six of them. The names of two of the Memphitic kings who reigned contemporaneously with the descendants of Osortasen at Abydos have been discovered in tombs in the burial place of Ancient Memphis. In one of them we recognise 'Apoßis or 'Apopis, one of the names of these shepherd-kings in Manetho's list; the other re-produces, in a manner equally satisfactory, the name of 'Aaois, another of them. Notwithstanding the fearful account given by Manetho of the barbarities committed by the shepherds in Egypt, they were evidently a highly-refined race. The tomb of Assis is said, by its discoverer, M. L'Hôte, to be executed with surpassing skill. It is in the style called cavo-relievo, like most other similar monuments; and each character in it has the delicately exquisite finish of a gem or medal. This great perfection of art at so remote a period, which in his judgment was never afterwards equalled, is a subject of great surprise to him, but will occasion none to those who rightly consider that all the arts of social life were, in the first instance, the direct gifts of God to man.

"The shepherds had adopted the religion, the manners, and the customs of Egypt. The Pharaoh to whom Joseph was prime minister was the shepherd-king Aphophis, according to Manetho. The king of Egypt with whoni Abraham had had communication 200 years before, was also a shepherd-king in all probability. The proof of this is the issue of a long chronological inquiry, upon which we cannot now enter. We only observe respecting it, that the vulgar chronology which is usually printed with the English Bible, needs critical correction quite as much as that of the kings of Egypt."(pp. 6-8.)

The fourth period of the monumental history of Egypt, the Mittleres Freich of Bunsen, is called by this author "the era of Amosis, who expelled the shepherds and recovered the throne of all Egypt for himself and his successors." He gives the following account of it :

"The era of Amosis, or the eighteenth dynasty, was the golden age of Egyptian history. Nearly all the temples and palaces, the ruins of which are still in existence, were begun by the Pharaohs of this illustrious line. Every thing that was undertaken by them indicates the possession of enormous wealth, and times of the utmost prosperity. The treasures accumulated by the shepherd-kings under the administration of Joseph seem to have produced the usual effect of enervating the possessors, and exciting the cupidity of their still formidable neighbours the hereditary Pharaohs at Abydos. They became in their turn the aggressors, attacked their ancient conquerors, despoiled them of their wealth, and expelled them once more from the limits of Egypt, of the whole of which they afterwards retained possession. This event took place during the sojourn of Israel in Goshen, after the death of Joseph and his brethren and all that generation. The prosperity of the Israelites in