Excerpt from Traditions Beliefs of Ancient Israel
The genesis of this book may be interesting. Early in the seventies I was impelled by zeal for progress to prepare the first draft of a somewhat full commentary on Genesis for the use of critically-minded students. The reason why the completion of this work was postponed was my realisation of the large part which Assyriological researches were destined to play in the renaissance of Biblical studies. 'With fresh archaeological and Assyriological evidence I hoped to return some day to a problem which as yet "baffled" me' (Origin of the Psalter, 1891, Introduction, p. xvii.). But the study was not given up, and contributions were made from time to time to the questions arising out of Genesis, eg. (in 1877) to a very important one, 'Can the Yahwistic narrative [in the early chapters of Genesis] be safely broken up into several'? None of these questions, however, could as yet be adequately answered, and it was the planning (by different scholars) of the International Critical Commentary and the Encyclopedia Biblica which stimulated me to further study. The word 'international' (familiar to readers of the original Academy) in connexion with scholarship expresses not only the ideal of these two works (and of Dr. Appleton's Academy), but the spirit in which I resumed the definite plan of a critical commentary. For the editors of the International Commentary were good enough to entrust me with the preparation of the volume on Genesis in their series.
No scholar, however, can be tied even to his own spoken or written words. As time goes on, he must make progress, and not merely by inches.
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