APPENDIX: GENESIS 14 AND THE MONUMENTS ｜ 附录：创世记十四章与出土碑铭

EN[Among other surprising corroborations is the demonstration that the fourteenth chapter of Genesis is rigidly historical—the record of an actual military campaign in which Abraham was the conspicuous figure—while the mysterious figure of Melchizedek is proved to be that of a living prince. The evidence for the first comes from the plains of Assyria; the evidence for the second comes from the valley of the Nile. The critics never did know what to do with that chapter: it has defied all analysis and dissection. Even Ewald conceded that it must be pre-Mosaic, though he treated it as legendary; and the critics have proved, over and over again to their own satisfaction, that it is purely fabulous. To-day, as Professor Brown says, "wise exegetes are not doing this: there is too much light out of the east; the sun has risen too high." Bricks have been dug up out of the mounds of Assyria which antedate the birth of Abraham, and among them are some which give an account of early Babylonian invasions, mentioning Arioch, Ellasar and Chedorlaomer by name. It is only ten years since the Tel el-Amarna tablets were discovered, between Thebes and Memphis, by an Egyptian peasant woman. These tablets contain official letters of great importance, belonging to the period immediately after the Exodus, during which Joshua was active in the conquest of Southern Palestine: they mention the Hebrews as invaders, and they speak definitely of Jerusalem and of its king, a royal priest whose name Major Conder renders as the equivalent of Melchizedek, "king of righteousness." So that in Joshua's time Jerusalem was already well known, and its king was a royal priest. Thus from the sands of the Nile and from the mounds of Assyria rise the long-buried bricks which prove the fourteenth chapter of Genesis—confidently relegated by the critics to the realm of legend—to be simple, straightforward history. Down goes the whole legendary fabric at a touch, and it is critically certain that Abraham is no myth. The critical retreat has been steady and sure: first the pre-Solomonic history was discredited, and even Moses reduced to a shadow; then a halt was made at Moses, and the entire patriarchal record treated as unhistorical; and now the bricks have compelled a further retreat, back to Abraham. Behrends.]

BSBGenesis 14:18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine—since he was priest of God Most High—

中〔在其他令人惊讶的印证之中，还有这样一项证明：创世记第十四章是严格意义上的信史——是一次真实军事征战的记录，而亚伯拉罕是其中的显要人物；同时，麦基洗德这一神秘人物也被证明确有其人，是一位在世的君王。前者的证据来自亚述的平原，后者的证据来自尼罗河谷。批判学者向来不知道拿这一章怎么办：它抗拒了一切分析与解剖。连埃瓦尔德（Ewald）也承认它必定早于摩西，只是他把它当作传说；而批判学者们则一遍又一遍地『证明』（他们自己觉得满意地）它纯属虚构。今天，正如布朗教授所说：『有智慧的解经家不再这样做了：从东方来的光太多了；太阳升得太高了。』人们从亚述的土丘中掘出了一批泥砖，其年代早于亚伯拉罕的出生；其中有些记述了巴比伦早期的入侵，并指名提到亚略（Arioch）、以拉撒（Ellasar）与基大老玛（Chedorlaomer）。泰勒亚玛拿（Tel el-Amarna）泥版被一位埃及农妇在底比斯与孟斐斯之间发现，至今不过十年。这些泥版收有极重要的官方书信，属于出埃及之后紧接着的那段时期——其时约书亚正忙于征服巴勒斯坦南部；泥版中提到希伯来人是入侵者，并明确提到耶路撒冷及其王：那是一位兼有王与祭司身分的人，孔德少校（Major Conder）把他的名字译为与麦基洗德相当的形式，即『公义之王』。可见在约书亚的时代，耶路撒冷早已闻名，而它的王是一位王兼祭司。就这样，从尼罗河的沙中、从亚述的土丘中，那些久埋的泥砖升了上来，证明创世记第十四章——那被批判学者信心十足地打发进传说领域的一章——原是朴实、直白的历史。整座传说的楼阁一触即塌；从考据上说，亚伯拉罕绝非神话，这已是确定的了。批判学派的撤退是稳步而确定的：先是所罗门以前的历史被判为不可信，连摩西都被缩成一个影子；接着他们在摩西处止步，把整部列祖的记载当作非史实；而如今，泥砖又逼着他们再退一步——退回到亚伯拉罕。贝伦兹（Behrends）〕

EN[It is pertinent at this point to quote the words of the eminent Orientalist, Professor Hommel of Munich: "The genuineness and authenticity of an account like that in Gen. 14 involves a sweeping and destructive criticism of the now fashionable view as to the trustworthiness of the Old Testament traditions; and therefore this chapter will ever be a stumbling-block to those critics who will not allow a single line to be Mosaic—not even the Decalogue and the so-called Book of the Covenant." Thus history plants itself squarely and solidly in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis; and if in this chapter the author of Genesis has not drawn upon his imagination, but has simply discharged the duties of a historian, he may fairly be believed to have been equally honest and conscientious in the thirteen preceding chapters. Behrends.] In the preface to his volume entitled The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as Illustrated by the Monuments (New York, 1897), Dr. Fritz Hommel, Professor of Semitic Languages in the University of Munich, explains his method: twenty-one years earlier, Eberhard Nestle had endeavored to use the personal names of the Old Testament as a touchstone by which to test the authority of Hebrew tradition, dividing them into three main groups corresponding to three stages in the religion of the Old Testament—first, names compounded with El (God); second, those of the period between Joshua and Solomon, in which the divine name Yahveh comes to occupy a favored place beside El; and lastly, the names of the monarchical period, containing almost without exception the element Yahveh, and thus bearing witness to its permanent victory. Nestle's attempt, says Hommel, might have found acceptance as a solution of the Pentateuch problem, had not Wellhausen roundly asserted that the personal names of the Mosaic period found in the Priestly Code were deliberately manufactured in later times after an earlier pattern, and that their testimony was consequently worthless.

BSBGenesis 14:14 And when Abram heard that his relative had been captured, he mobilized the 318 trained men born in his household, and they set out in pursuit as far as Dan.

中〔此处不妨引述著名东方学家、慕尼黑的何梅尔教授（Prof. Hommel）的话：『像创世记 14 章这样一段记载，其真确与可靠，就意味着对当今流行的那种关于旧约传统可信度的看法，施行一次全面而具毁灭性的批判；因此，对那些不肯承认哪怕一行文字出于摩西的批判学者——他们连十诫与所谓的《约书》都不承认——这一章将永远是一块绊脚石。』就这样，历史稳稳当当、结结实实地立足于创世记第十四章；而如果创世记的作者在这一章里并非凭想象落笔，只是履行了一位史家的职责，那么人们完全有理由相信：他在前面十三章里同样是诚实而尽责的。贝伦兹（Behrends）〕慕尼黑大学闪族语教授弗里茨·何梅尔博士（Dr. Fritz Hommel）在其《碑铭所印证的古希伯来传统》（The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as Illustrated by the Monuments，纽约，1897 年）一书的序言中说明了他的方法：二十一年前，内斯特勒（Eberhard Nestle）曾试图以旧约中的人名为试金石，来检验希伯来传统的权威性；他把这些人名分为三大组，对应旧约宗教发展的三个阶段——第一组是与『伊勒』（El，神）合成的名字；第二组属于约书亚到所罗门之间的时期，其时神名『雅威』（Yahveh）开始在『伊勒』之旁占据受偏爱的位置；最后一组是王国时期的名字，几乎无一例外都含有『雅威』的成分，从而见证了这一名称的最终得胜。何梅尔说：内斯特勒的这一尝试，本来可能被接受为五经问题的一个解答，若不是威尔豪森（Wellhausen）断然宣称：祭司法典中所见摩西时期的人名，乃是后世按早期样式刻意制造出来的，因此其证据毫无价值。

ENHommel states that one of his main objects has therefore been to adduce external evidence—from contemporary inscriptions—to show that from the time of Abraham onward, personal names of the characteristically Mosaic type were in actual use among a section of the Semites of Western Asia, and that it is consequently useless to talk any longer of a later post-exilic invention; on the contrary, he holds, Nestle's theory of their development is confirmed and corroborated in every direction. He adds that, besides the portions bearing on the criticism of the Pentateuch, his work contains so large a mass of evidence from the inscriptions—throwing new light on the history of religion and on sacred archaeology—that even those who may consider his main purpose to have failed will still find plenty of material which they cannot afford to treat with indifference. "But truth must in the end prevail," he writes. "The monuments speak with no faltering tongue; and already I seem to see signs of the approach of a new era, in which men will be able to brush aside the cobweb theories of the so-called 'higher critics' of the Pentateuch, and, leaving such old-fashioned errors behind them, attain to a clearer perception of the real facts. The gales of spring are already beginning to sweep across the fields that have so long lain ice-bound." In the conclusion of the volume he sums up: there is enough material in the personal names compounded with the names of God, and in the continuous external testimony to the true tradition furnished by the inscriptions, to make manifest the falsity of the reconstruction of history associated with the Wellhausen school. From the evidence of personal names, and of inscriptions also, personalities such as Abraham and Melchizedek are seen to have nothing of the nature of anachronisms about them, but to rest upon traditions which had been put into writing long before the time of Moses; from the Tel el-Amarna tablets we learn the history of the period prior to the Exodus; and from the South Arabian inscriptions we gather materials for completing our knowledge of the sacerdotal system of the Midianites—a system which plays so important a part in the Mosaic history. "And how much further material lies still buried in the soil of Babylon, Arabia and Egypt, with promise of new surprises and further confirmation! Let us meanwhile, in thankful acknowledgment of the providence of God, rejoice in the treasures already brought to light."

BSBPsalm 119:160 The entirety of Your word is truth, and all Your righteous judgments endure forever.

中何梅尔说，因此他的主要目的之一，就是举出外部证据——即出自同时代碑铭的证据——以表明：自亚伯拉罕的时代起，具有典型『摩西式』特征的人名，在西亚闪族的一部分人中确实在使用；因此再谈什么『被掳归回之后的晚期发明』已属徒然；恰恰相反，他认为内斯特勒关于这些人名演变的理论，在各个方向上都得着了证实与佐证。他又说：除了与五经考据相关的部分之外，他这部书还收有大量出自碑铭的证据——为宗教史与圣经考古学带来新的亮光——以致即便有人认为他的主要目的没有达成，也仍会在书中找到大量他们无法置之不理的材料。他写道：『但真理终必得胜。碑铭说话，口齿毫不含糊；而我似乎已经看见一个新时代临近的迹象——在那时代，人们将能把所谓五经「高等批判」学者那些蛛网般的理论拂到一边，把这些过时的谬误撇在身后，对真实的事实获得更清晰的认识。春天的风已经开始吹过那些冰封已久的田野了。』在全书结论中他总结说：单是那些与神的名字合成的人名，加上碑铭为真实传统所提供的持续不断的外部见证，其材料就足以使那套与威尔豪森学派相连的历史重构显出其虚妄。从人名的证据、也从碑铭的证据可以看出：亚伯拉罕与麦基洗德这样的人物，身上毫无『时代错置』的性质，而是立在早在摩西之前很久就已写定的传统之上；从泰勒亚玛拿泥版中，我们得知出埃及以前那段时期的历史；从南阿拉伯的碑铭中，我们又得着材料，补全了我们对米甸人祭司制度的认识——而这一制度在摩西时期的历史中占有那样重要的地位。『而在巴比伦、阿拉伯与埃及的泥土中，还埋着何等多的材料，许诺着新的惊喜与进一步的印证！让我们在此期间，怀着对神护理的感恩，为那些已被带到光中的宝藏而欢喜。』