Egypt and Israel: Inquiry Into the Influence of the More Ancient People Upon Hebrew History and the Jewish Religion by Willis Brewer (1910)

Melak-Aoreth, the "Skin-King"









Excerpt from the book introduction:

The Hebrew Scriptures, if not so ancient as was once supposed, are sufficiently venerable and valuable to deserve a more perfect and liberal translation than any we now possess. Great as are the difficulties of a translation, and these cannot be wholly overcome, there is no satisfactory excuse to the truth-seeker for some of the short-coming now presented.Throughout the narrative portions especially there is a narrowness of interpretation arising from ignorance, or from the exclusion of the religious practices and language of contemporary peoples. The invaluable services of Gesenius himself, which have contributed so freely to Bible exegesis, are painfully defective for that he relies almost entirely on Arabic and Syrian for his philology and even treats the Ethiopic and the Greek with far more consideration than he does the Chaldean, while he slights the Egyptian almost wholly. It is true that these latter languages have received their largest attention since Gesenius began his labors, but the Rosetta stone and Champollion had begun to reveal the riches of the Egyptian lore during the life of Gesenius, and the contiguity of Palestine and Egypt, to say naught of their alleged historic association, should have moved the learned linguist in that direction.The laborers who have wrought the ponderous tomes of Webster and Worcester are perhaps more culpable than Gesenius since they set or follow the fashion of going even to the Hindoos for their radicals and analogs, and refer scores of times to Icelandic or Welsh for these and scarcely once to Egyp- tian or even Hebrew; seeming to forget that it is to the peoples of the Levant and the Euphrates that we are mainly indebted for our religion and literature, and to them also for the descriptive and technical branches of the languages of southern Europe and of Britain.Section ISection IISection IIISection IVSection VSection VISection VIISection VIIISection IXSection XI The Curious Narrative of the CrucifixionII What was the Offense of Jesus.III The Silence of Paul as to the Life of JesusIV The Silence of Jesus as to his birthV The Failure of Jesus to Impress HimselfVI Silence of the Epistles as to the LogiaVII The Resurrection and AscensionVIII The Earlier Claims of ChristianityIX Historic Environment of Jesus.X Antecedents of ChristianityXI The Claims Jesus Made for HimselfXII Traits and Opinions of JesusXIII The Holy Ghost...Author: Willis Brewer Publication Date:1910