The rest of the story became a familiar tale—how the Jews left Egypt and after an endless trek in the desert,were united into a strong tribe—how that tribe conquered a small part of the land of the High Roads,called Palestine,and there established a nation,and how that nation fought for its independence and survived several centuries until it was absorbed by the empire of the Macedonian King,Alexander,and was then turned into part of one of the minor provinces of the great Roman state.
But when I mention these historical occurrences,bear one thing in mind.This time,I am not writing a book of history.I am not going to tell you what (according to the best historical information)actually happened.I am going to try to show you how a certain people,called the Jews,thought that certain things had happened.
As you all know,there is a great deal of difference between the things that “are facts”and the things which we “believe to be facts.”Every text-book of history of every land tells the story of the past as the people of that particular country believe it to be true,but when you cross the frontier and read the text-book of the nearest neighbour,you will therein find a very different account.Yet the little children who read those Chapters will believe them to be true until the end of their days.
Here and there,of course,an historian or a philosopher or another queer person will read all the books of all the countries,and perhaps he will come to an appreciation of something that approaches the absolute truth.But if he wishes to lead a peaceful and happy life,he will keep this information to himself.
What is true of the rest of the world is also true of the Jews.The Jews of thirty centuries ago and those of twenty centuries ago and those of to-day are ordinary human beings,just as you and I.They are no better (as they sometimes claim)and no worse (as their enemies often state)than any one else.They possess certain virtues which are very uncommon,and they also have certain faults which are exceedingly common.But so much has been written about them,good,bad and indifferent,that it is very difficult to come to a correct estimate of their just place in history.
We experience the same difficulty when we try to learn the historical value of the chronicles which the Jews themselves kept and which tell us their adventures among the men of Egypt and among the men of the land of Canaan and among the men of the land of Babylonia.
Newcomers are rarely popular.In most of the countries which the Jews visited during their endless years of peregrination,they were newcomers.The old and settled inhabitants of the valleys of the Nile and of the dales of Palestine and those who lived along the banks of the Euphrates did not receive them with open arms.On the contrary,they said,“we have hardly room for our own sons and daughters.Let those foreigners go elsewhere.”Then there was trouble.
When the Jewish historians looked back upon those ancient days,they tried to place their own ancestors in the best possible light.Nowadays we do the same thing.We praise the virtues of the Puritan settlers of Massachusetts and we describe the horrors of those first years when the poor white man was forever exposed to the cruel arrow of the savage.But we rarely mention the fate of the red man,who was exposed to the equally cruel bullet of the white man's blunderbuss.
An honest history,written from the point of view of the Indians,would make mighty interesting reading.But the Indian is dead and gone,and we shall never know how the coming of the foreigners in the year 1620impressed him.Which is a pity.