THE BIBLE AND THE BRITISH MUSEUM BY ADA R. HABERSHON AUTHOR OF 66 OUTLINE STUDIES OF THE TABERNACLE," ETC. PREFACE Sir Robert Anderson, K.C.B., LL.D. Bible and the British few words by way of My friend, the author of The Museum, has asked me for a preface, and I gladly respond. For I deem it both a pleasure and a privilege to be allowed to identify myself with her book. I have read it with very great interest, and I hope to have it as my companion in future visits to the great Bloomsbury treasure-house. But its chief value will not be as a guide-book to the Museum, but as a handbook to the Bible. The avowed aim of the sham "Higher Criticism" is to get rid of the miraculous-that is, of the Divine element in Scripture. And in furtherance of this aim no effort has been spared to shake confidence in its historical accuracy. The book has yet to be written which will record in detail the struggle by which the assailants of the Bible have been driven out of one position after another by the discoveries of archæology; but the present volume marks out the lines on which that magnum opus will be framed. Even Nebuchadnezzar was at one time regarded as a myth. And it seems but yesterday that Amraphel (the Hammurabi of the Inscriptions) was rescued from that same category. But these famous kings of ancient Babylon now stand out among the greatest figures of ancient history. And thus one after another of "the assured results" of modern criticism is destroyed by the spade of the explorer. But Miss Habershon's book is fitted not merely to confirm the faith of waverers, but to make the Bible more interesting to all who prize it as the Word of God; and it will, I doubt not, be warmly welcomed and widely read. INTRODUCTION A LABOURING man had come up from the country for a holiday in London. He seemed strong and active, though his hair was grey; and standing in the Roman Gallery, he looked wonderingly at the long line of statues and busts of the Roman Emperors. As I pointed out one and another to a friend with me, he stepped forward and said, “Have they got Julius Cæsar here?" I at once told him that the bust stood at the end of the gallery (Frontispiece), and he walked towards it, but soon came back again, evidently not quite satisfied. I asked him if he had found it. "No," he said, "I couldn't see him." So I took the old man back to where it stood, and pointed it out. "Is he the one that took Jerusalem?" he asked. "Oh no," I replied, "that was Titus; his statue is up on the wall." He at once placed himself in front of the bracket on which it stood, and gazed up for some minutes, then went to one side, then to the other, and examined the face well (Frontispiece). "You are interested in these things?" I inquired. "Yes," he replied, "and now I can tell folks when I go home that I've seen him. Which is the one that was alive when Jesus Christ was crucified?" I soon showed him Tiberius Cæsar, and then Augustus, telling him how God |