THE BLOOD COVENANTS: A PRIMITIVE RITE AND ITS BEARINGS ON SCRIPTURE

THOSE who are most familiar with the Bible, and who have already given most time to its study,
have largest desire and largest expectation of more knowledge through its farther study. And, more
and more, Bible study has come to include very much that is outside of the Bible.

For a long time, the outside study of the Bible was directed chiefly to the languages in which the
Bible was written, and to the archæology and the manners and customs of what are commonly known
as the Lands of the Bible. Nor are these well-worked fields, by any means, yet exhausted. More still
remains to be gleaned from them, each and all, than has been gathered thence by all searchers in their
varied lore. But, latterly, it has been realized, that, while the Bible is an Oriental book, written
primarily for Orientals, and therefore to be understood only through an understanding of Oriental
modes of thought and speech, it is also a record of God’s revelation to the whole human race; hence,
its inspired pages are to receive illumination from all disclosures of the primitive characteristics and
customs of that race, everywhere. Not alone those who insist on the belief that there was a gradual
development of the race from a barbarous beginning, but those also who believe that man started on a
higher plane, and in his degradation retained perverted vestiges of God’s original revelation to him,
are finding profit in the study of primitive myths, and of aboriginal religious rites and ceremonies, all
the world over. Here, also, what has been already gained, is but an earnest of what will yet be
compassed in the realm of truest biblical research.
TIP OF AN ICEBERG...