Questions From Readers

● What answer can be given to those who point out that certain dates given by Egyptologists conflict with the chronology published in The Watchtower?—C. V., United States.

The facts are that the Egyptologists have more self-assurance than proofs for the dates they give for the various Egyptian dynasties. Bearing this out is the following quotation from the book, Archaeology of Palestine, pages 219, 220, written by W. F. Albright, the leading Palestinian archaeologist in the United States:

“It is frequently said that the scientific quality of Palestinian archaeology has been seriously impaired by the religious preconceptions of scholars who have excavated in the Holy Land. It is true that some archaeologists have been drawn to Palestine by their interest in the Bible, and that some of them had received their previous training mainly as Biblical scholars. The writer has known many such scholars, but he recalls scarcely a single case where their religious views seriously influenced their results. Some of these scholars were radical critics; still others were more conservative critics, . . . others again were thorough going conservatives. But their archaeological conclusions were almost uniformly independent of their critical views.

“There have been a few cases [but] the violence done to scholarly objectivity by some of these Palestinian excavators is slight indeed when compared to the damage to Egyptology which resulted from the wholesale brigandage of Belzoni and Passallacqua, or the airtight monopoly of the field by Mariette and the ruthless exploitation of royal tombs by Amelieau. Nor should we forget that some of the foremost scientific excavators, such as Petrie and Reisner, won some of their fairest laurels in Palestine. As an illustration of the caution practised by leading Palestinian archaeologists it is interesting to recall that Petrie and Bliss, MacAlister and Watzinger, followed by all others, nearly always set their dates too low, while in Egypt dates were generally placed far too high. Here we have the curious spectacle of an archaeological chronology being progressively raised in Palestine, while in Egypt it has had to be progressively lowered.”

From the foregoing the Christian may draw several conclusions. First and most important of all, the fact that the chronology of the Egyptologists does not harmonize with that of the Bible is no cause for concern or alarm; such a discrepancy need not be taken seriously. Secondly, that it appears that the Egyptologists were likely to be less conscientious than were the Palestinians. On the other hand, the archaeologists of Palestine were so conscientious that they leaned over backward in not assigning an older date than was absolutely necessary.

● Could you help me find the statement, supposedly in the Bible, that “it is better for a man to put his seed in the belly of a whore than to cast it upon the ground”?—M. P., United States.

This is a question that has been repeatedly asked and almost invariably it has been quoted by a Roman Catholic. According to the Knights of Columbus Information Service, this statement does not represent the Roman Catholic viewpoint. But on the other hand a priest, speaking in behalf of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, observed that it was more natural to put one’s seed into the belly of a whore than to spill it on the ground although there was no scripture to that effect. This is the type of thinking employed by Roman Catholic priests in certain parts of Italy, for they have gone on record as excusing fornication and adultery so long as birth control was not practiced.

Obviously, the statement runs counter to all that the Scriptures have to say on the subject of sexual intercourse. Nevertheless, it may be that the saying is a corruption of the Scriptural record regarding Onan, who wasted his seed on the ground rather than perform the duty of levirate marriage toward his deceased brother’s wife, because of which he was slain by Jehovah.—Gen. 38:9.