moved to the chair of Arabic in Cambridge. Smith introduced Higher Criti-
cism to Britain in his booksThe Old Testament in the Jewish Church(1881),
The Prophets of Israel(1882) andThe Religion of the Semites(1889). Following
Wellhausen’s method, he studied the Deuteronomy. Wellhausen was also
followed by the Regius Professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church,
Oxford, Samuel Rolles Driver (1846–1914).
Among the conservatives there was opposition to Higher Criticism. In
particular, Wellhausen’s proposals were resisted by the Anglican clergyman
and Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, Reverend Archibald Henry Sayce. As
he said in 1894:
The records of the Old Testament have been confronted with the monuments of the
ancient oriental world, wherever this was possible, and their historical accuracy and
their trustworthiness has been tested by a comparison with the latest results of
archaeological research... the evidence of oriental archaeology is on the whole dis-
tinctly unfavourable to the pretensions of the ‘higher criticism’. The ‘apologist’ may
lose something, but the ‘higher critic’ loses much more.
(Sayce in Elliot 2003).In 1892, after a new discovery in Palestine, he argued:
To dig up the sources of Genesis is a better occupation than to spin theories and
dissect the scriptural narrative in the name of ‘higher criticism’. A single blow of the
excavator’s pick has before now shattered the most ingenious conclusions of
the Western critic...wedoubt not that theory will soon be replaced by fact, and
that the stories of the Old Testament which we are now being told are but myths and
Wctions will prove to be based on a solid foundation of truth.
(Sayce in Elliot 2003).Sayce argued that the Hebrews had been able to read and write even before
Abraham, as they had lived in environments inXuenced by Egypt and Meso-
potamia, societies that archaeology had proved to be literate. Moreover,
cuneiform tablets had been unearthed in excavations undertaken in Palestine.
The accuracy of the Book of Exodus had been proven by the excavations of the
store-cities of Pithom and Ramses. The Pentateuch had not been composed
during the Exile for it was inconceivable that the Israelite scribes would have
borrowed the creation story from their Egyptian oppressors. Sayce main-
tained that the Hebrew scribes knew of Babylonian and Assyrian accounts,
and that some parts of the Old Testament had been inspired by them (Elliot
2003).
Sayce’s opponent and representative of Higher Criticism in England, Driver,
warned about the ambiguity of the archaeological discoveries, pointing to
162 Archaeology of Informal Imperialism