Page:Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894.djvu/264

224 sind in England nicht uubekannt. Ich hege die Zuversicht, dass insbesondere auch meine "Einleitung" die Solidität meiner Untersuchungen documentiren wird. Ich bin mir bewusst, dass das gleiche feurige Interesse für die geschichtliche Wahrheit mich mit Hrn. Prof. Sayce verbindet.

Prof.

In your number of October 21st, Professor A. H. Sayce has criticised a passage of my book, "Einleitung in das Alte Testament mit Einschluss der Apokryphen und der Pseudepigraphen Alten Testaments." The love of historical truth common to both of us compels me on my side also to say a word respecting this matter.

When in the summer of 1892 I examined the linguistic character of the Song of Solomon, there came into consideration a weight which Dr. Chaplin had bought in Samaria. The inscription on this weight was published in the Academy of August 2nd, 1890. In order to form a judgment respecting this weight I wrote to Dr. Neubauer, of Oxford, to ask whether he could obtain a copy of it. He advised me to apply to the Committee of the German Palestine Society. But Professor Socin, of Leipzig, recommended me to make enquiries of Mr. George Armstrong, Secretary of the London Palestine Exploration Fund. I was fortunate enough to receive the answer that he could supply me with a copy of the weight. When I received it I first examined it myself, and then sent it to Professor Julius Euting, of Strasburg, the well-known investigator of Semitic inscriptions. His judgment I had printed, word for word, on p. 425 of my "Einleitung." The essential point was that we both failed to find the word shel "of" in the inscription. For it consists on both sides of six similar characters.

Has this proceeding of ours been rightly judged of by Professor Sayce?

(1) He does not sufficiently consider the circumstances that a copy, which I had received from the Palestine Exploration Fund, I had to regard as reliable. For how could we guess that the copy was essentially inaccurate? Why should the Palestine Exploration Fund receive into its collections a facsimile which was not a sufficiently faithful reflex of the original? But we might have supposed that the deciphering of the inscription might not be at first entirely successful. For this has often been the case.

(2) Professor Sayce appears to have not yet made up his mind as to the actual relation of the original to the copy. For the copy shows on each side of the weight the same letters, six in number. Professor Sayce writes: "As it happens, the part of the weight where the word shel is engraved is somewhat worn, and the cast has consequently failed to reproduce all the lines of the letters."

But it does not appear to follow that because a portion has been broken off, the copy shows more lines than the original, and that the