j:>s PRE;SH>ENT WHiTE LIBRARY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY. A, ^s/^o ^ Cornell University Library DS 69.6.B87 Assyriolog 3 1924 028 543 985 •«- The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028543985 ASSYRIOLOGY ^ ITS USE AND ABUSE IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY BY FRANCIS BROWN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OP BIBLICAL PHILOLOGY IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YOEK NEW YOEK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1885 K& //' ^B 70 G Copyright, 1885, by CHAELBS SCEIBNER'S SONS TROW 9 PRINTING AND BOOKBlNOmQ COMPANY, HEW YORK. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. It is the custom, ia the Union Theological Seminary, to have each year of study opened with a public discourse from one of its Faculty. The following pages con- tain an address, given pursuant to this custom, September 18, 1884, in the Adams Chapel, Lenox Hill. In its printed form the illustrations are somewhat more copi- ous than they could be in its oral delivery, a few verbal alterations have been made, frequent references added, and a bibliog- raphy appended. It is issued, without other change, as a slisrht contiibution to the literature of a momentous subject. Union Theological Sbminaky, New York City, March 31, 1885. ASSYRIOLOGY: ITS USE AND ABUSE EST OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. Mr. Peesident, Brethren, and Friends of the Seminary : You will understand tlie hesitation with which, at our first public meeting in this new home of the Seminary, when our cir- cumstances and surroundings all point toward the future, and the most fitting word would seem to be one that should be born of the occasion, and express its significance, I venture to lead your thoughts backward to an ancient and long-buried civilization, remote from our own, not only in time and locality, not only in re- 2 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AN-D ABUSE lationships of blood and language, but in almost all its conscious interests and aims. It would be wholly out of place to do so, ■if we were not Bible students, and if, in the surprising revolutions of history, it were not given to this forgotten people to come once more to the front, throwing light on old problems and opening fresh avenues to discovery for the Old Testa- ment scholar. The product of each new source of knowledge is apprehended only by slow degrees. A long time is needed to exhaust it. Patient thought is needed to set it in its right relations with the stock of truth already on hand. Scientific advance is through guesses — more or less rash — des- tined often to ephemeral life, and marking only the approximations of the mind to sound and accurate learning. No depart- ment of science can make real progress without constant and searching criticism, IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 3 that zeal may not outrun knowledge, nor brilliant conjecture do duty as secure fact. But when the matter of research is closely related to our sacred documents, where truth is most needful, and mistake most disastrous, then such criticism, both calm and intrepid, is demanded with especial emphasis. And it is from this standpoint that it ought to be profitable to survey the great subject of Assyrian DISCOVERY. The remarks just made are fully applicable hei-e. Assyriology has its guesses, and it has its accurate knowledge. It has felt the benefit of rigid critical ex- amination at some points, and has suffered, at others, for lack of it. In some directions it has borne rich fruit for the Old Testa- ment exegete, but has been allowed to do harm in others. I trust, therefore, that it may not be thought foreign to those great matters which are to occupy us through the coming months, if we con- 4 ASSYRIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE sider, for a little, some of tlie Uses and Abuses of Assyriology in Old Testament Study. Assyriology is tlie somewhat inadequate term employed to denote the scientific in- vestigation of the history, literature, and art of the Babylonians and Assyrians, as these have been revealed through excava- tion on the sites of their ancient cities. u In all human research there have never I' been more surprising discoveries. The constitution and external fortunes of great peoples, their religion and morals, their languages and writings, even, to some de- gree, their personal habits and modes of life, have been suddenly disclosed. Cen- turies that were saved from utter blank- ness only by wild and conflicting stories from Greek historians have taken on pre- cision and life and movement. Other centuries, wholly unknown before, have been rescued out of the abyss of the past. IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 5 A new, and vast, and varied canvas has been added to the panorama of history. And it was perceived, at once, that this was not a matter for the secular historian alone. The peoples who thus emerged from the darkness were the very ones whose destinies intertwined themselves so fatally with those of the Hebrew nation. "We had, all of us, heard their names from childhood ; though we had little under- stood the involved machinery of national life which projected those devastating ir- ruptions from the East, before which the northern and the southern kingdoms of Israel successively fell. It was therefore not strange, that, to the eager students of philology and history who hailed the new discoveries, and plunged with energy into the work of their elucidation, were added numbers of those to whom Apologetics seemed the most important field of human learning, and who, with a more or less 6 ASSTEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE hasty equipment for the task, began at once to make Assyriology serviceable m defending the Scriptures. The conse- quence was the appropriation of valuable matter, often effective employment of it, great and infectious enthusiasm, but a sad lack of cool judgment and scholarly pa- tience. Before considering the great positive benefits w^hich Biblical study has derived from the cuneiform records, I beg you to recall a few of the abuses which have crept into some of the work of those who have employed them to establish the truth of Scripture. I. The root of the misuse of Assyri- ology in Bible study has been, as already hinted, an ill-directed and excessive Apol- ogetics. Into the sources of this Apolo- getic spirit, it is not necessary to enter in detail. That the matter-of-fact Anglo- Saxon mind, tenacious of its traditions, re- IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 7 membering the religious struggles of other ages, and clingiug to their hard-earned fruits, insisting with an energy which expe- rience has intensified upon the indivisible connection of theory with j)ractice — belief with life, — ^brought by its practical and ag- gressive conception of Christianity into fre- quent and prolonged hostilities with skep- ticism in many forms, accustomed to fight its own battles, and eager to pre-occupy the strategic points, should in our day be inclined to lay too much stress, relatively, upon warfare in defence of the truth, can hardly be a surprise to us. No thought- ful man can lightly esteem that branch of scientific theology which consists in a de- fence of fundamental, revealed truth from the attacks of its adversaries. An impor- tant place in theological study is with reason assigned to it. But it may be. questioned, whether the Apologetic temper, jY always on the defensive, always looking 8 ASSY BIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE for assaults, and prepared, at the first blow, to strike vigorously back — is a healthy- frame of mind for a Christian thinker. It accustoms him to a timorous view of truth. It is likely to issue in a narrow zeal, which will oppose eveiy new thing, through fear that it may, in some way, imperil the old. It tends to prevent the taking up of new and genuine elements into the sum of truth, the modifying of statements to make them harmonize with advancing knowledge. There is danger, that in protecting the inherited treasures of the past, it will hinder the accumula- tion of more ; that in securing the achieve- ments of bygone centuries, it will fetter the present with their limitations. An Apologetics of this sort runs the risk of crippling itself, by insisting upon the use of old methods and weapons against mod- ern and well-equipped opponents. It is j likely to grow eager for certain forms IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 9 of truth, rather than for essential truth. It inclines to make no distinction be- tween eternal verities and the forms of revelation in vrhich those verities are em- bodied, and to venture the whole sub- stance of the former upon its apprehension of the latter. Such characteristics have been often perceptible in the discussions of recent years over matters of Biblical Criticism and Dogmatics, over points of historical, and natural, and philosophical science. But the field of what may be called Archae- ological Apologetics affords some special opportunities for observing them, because the discoveries in this field have been so generally presented to the world as being, what they really are on the whole, most favorable to the interests which Apologet- ics defends. Archaeology has not assailed fundamental truth, as natural science has sometimes been foolishly made to do. 10 ASSTEIOLOGT : ITS USE AND ABUSE The Apologetic temper in relation to Archaeology may therefore be observed, so to speak, in its natural movement, not provoked and forced into a violent posi- tion, by attack, but acting spontaneously, in accordance with the tendencies vrhich have become habitual with it, and under their guidance using the materials which excavation and research have put into its hand. It is amid these circumstances that those abuses have sprung up, in the employment of Assyriology for Bible study, especial- ly in popular treatments of the subject, which we ought to deprecate and try to abolish. (1.) One abuse of Assyriology for pur- poses of Old Testament study is overhxste in its employment. By this I do not mean to imply any doubt as to the solid basis of knowledge upon which the published de- cipherments of the cuneiform inscriptions IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 11 rest. But it took a long time to establish that basis. And although the general val- ues of the characters rest upon the cumu- lative evidence of many decades, and the growing experience of the decipherer and translator is constantly giving him greater ease in his processes, and more entire con- fidence in his results, it is impossible to do anything hastily that will be of lasting value. At the best, first results are pro- visional. Early translations are approxi- mate only. Some detail, at first unper- ceived or misunderstood, may change the scope of a whole inscription. And, more than this, to see the newly discovered facts in their right relations — to perceive their meaning when combined with other facts, and to work them all together into one compact, enduring structure, is not a mat- ter for the first day or first week. The Assyriologists themselves have been guilty of many sins of excessive haste, in the in- 12 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE toxication of discovery. But although their science has suffered thereby in the eyes of other scholars, and a considera- ble number of soundly trained philologists and historians has been held aloof, still, as far as Assyriology itself is concerned, it will outlive these erroi's. Its votaries vpill learn caution, as the excitement of exploration cools, and their number in- creases. The chief harm has been done to Bible students vpho have caught at their dicta. The x4.ssyriologists themselves have, of course, been primarily at fault ; but the Biblical scholar cannot shake off his own responsibility. He has not only, to his undoing, taken the hasty conclu- sions of the specialists, and worked them into his expositions, but he has himself drawn hasty conclusions from them. It is curious to see how the same excess of the Apologetic spirit makes its possessor at one time too conservative, and at another IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. I'd too radical — now over-cautious, and now rash. Over against carefully generalized propositions of natural science, accepted by great bodies of scientific workers, and affording fair explanations of classes of facts, we have seen a tolerably unyielding front; over against well-ascertained re- sults of the literary criticism of the Bible we have seen a mental stolidity which ar- gument could not affect ; but for theories and suggestions from Assyriology, often not half so well supported or understood, there has been, in some quarters, an un- seemly voracity; everything has been swallowed; the simplest rules of critical inquiry have been forgotten. There has been blind trusting to authority, without weighing it, and an assumption of fact upon the mere say-so of some presumably honest scholar. A mean between these extremes, more openness of mind to scien- tific proof, and less greedy snatching at 14 assyeiologt: its use and abuse everything which seems to offer a plausi- ble argument for what we believe would give truth a better chance. The unfortunate results of too great precipitation in this matter can be readily- illustrated : E.g. : Between nine and ten years ago, one of the foremost Assyriologists (no longer living) wrote to the editor of an English newspaper the announcement that he had found what he thought would be, " to the general public, the most interest- ing and remarkable cuneiform tablet yet discovered,. This turns out to contain," he says, " the story of man's original inno- cence, of the temptation, and of the fall." ■^ This announcement he repeated and am- plified in a book published not long after,^ ' George Smitli : Letter printed in the Daily Tele- gi-apli, March 4, 1875. ° George Smith : Chaldean Account of Genesis, pp. 11, 13 sc[., 81 sq. London, 1875 ; New York, 1876. i:Sf OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 15 — of course the statement was echoed and re-echoed ; after the discovery of the Babylonian Deluge and Creation tablets nothing conld be too great a surprise. Everybody felt that the third chapter of / « i j^ Genesis had received powerful support. . C? ^ r CX^ ^. Many persons did not make it clear to themselves what the precise kind and de- gree of that support was, but we need not enter upon that inquiry just now. The important thing is that it was not long be- fore other decipherers were able to show conclusively that this first, hasty transla- tion of the newly found inscription was mistaken,^ and the chief evidence for a Babylonian story of the Fall was thus de- stroyed. But the use of his translation in discussions about Genesis did not at once ' Friedr. Delitzsch, in George Smith's Ohaldaische Genesis, pp. 301 sq. Leipzig, 1876. George Smith : Chaldean Account of Genesis, rev. edition, by Sayce, p. vii., etc., etc. London and New York, 1880. ^ ^ 16 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE cease.^ And even where it has been given up, some of his corroborative proofs have been made to support the thesis that the Babylonians had such a story, though we have not as yet discovered it. This is not impossible, nor even improbable, but there is a wide difference between expecting a discovery and making one, and then build- ing on what you have made. Another illustration is found in theories about the garden of Eden. The notion that Assyriology proves that the Baby- lonians had a legend of Eden, and located it somewhere in their own territory, has^ cropped out at various times within the past decade or two.^ It has been caught at eagerly by those who were troubled ' E.g., 0. Geilde : Hours with the Bible, i., p. 122. New York, 1881. ^E.g., Sir H. Eawlinson : Journ. Koyal Asiatic So- ciety, 1869. Annual Eeport. Friedrich Delitzsch : Wo Lag das Paradies. Leipzig, 1881. IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 17 about the exact geographical interpreta- tion of Gen. ii., and in its most recent form appeared to some of them to satisfy- even in its details the requirements of the Biblical narrative. And yet, where- ever this theory has been submitted to thorough tests, its lack of sure foundation has become evident.^ The attempt has been likewise made to confirm theories of the Sabbath, by refer- ence to a similar institution among the Babylonians,^ but the result has been to make it appear that, with our present knowledge, little intrinsic resemblance, and no historical relationship can be safely asserted as beyond question.* The question of the antiquity of the Babylonian civilization is another instance ' See Old Testament Student, September, 1884. ° See, especially, James Johnston : Catholic Presby- terian, January, 1881. 'See Presbyterian Review, October, 1882. W. Lotz (Quaest. Sabbat., Leipzig, 1882) is more confident. 3 f 18 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE in point. A very distinguished historian ^ has been at the pains to prove that the earliest Babylonian civilization did not date beyond b.c. 2300, oi", at the farthest, 2500. This seemed, until recently, likely enoxigh, though his argument was not demonstrative; but within a year or two almost all the Assyriologists have adopted as trustworthy the statement of a Baby- lonian tablet that one of the early Shemi- tic kings was reigning there about b.c. 3800, and place the Akkadian civiliza- tion still earlier, taking up, on a new ground, the A'iew that Bunsen ^ published, in the last generation. The Assyriologists, it must be admitted, have rather a slender basis for their date, since the tablet referring to this ancient ' G. Eawlinson : Origin of Nations, Chap. III. Lon- don, 1877 ; New York, 1881. ^Egypt's Place in Universal History, iii., pp. 361, 451, etc. London, 1859. iJSr OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 19 king was inscribed in the sixth century, but its discovery hints too strongly at the likelihood of further evidence look- ing the same way, to be comfortable for those committed to the other view. Now the blameworthy thing in all this is not the mistakes. The most careful scholar may make mistakes, of fact and of inference. But the blameworthy thing is that there has been no adequate care to guard against mistakes. Assyriology would be a more useful aid to exegesis to-day if the energy that has been spent in glorifying it, on the ground of its real or supposed contributions to our knowl- edge, had been devoted to a patient in- quiry into the real value and bearing of these contributions. There has been too much going on the theory that every asser- tion which seemed to confirm the Old Testament was therefore, as a matter of course, a true statement, and any ques- 20 ASSTEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE tioning of it a covert attack upon the Old Testament. The result of such a habit, pushed to its logical issue, could not be doubtful. There would be not only the wasted labor of erecting worthless defences, but there would be the necessity of abandoning those defences whenever the attack should come, with all the loss of moral force due to a constant shifting of position. True, we may expect to learn, and ought to wish to learn. The defence of to-day ought not to be the same line of fortifi- cations that served the last generation. But a constant, and enforced shifting of ground, made needful not because the fortifications are antiquated, but because though new they are not shot-proof, is, to say the least, undignified for champions of divine truth, and is demoralizing to the rank and file. There is no need of such a hand-to-mouth Apologetics. There IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 21 is no exigency whicli requires this catch- ing at any and every weapon. We want well-considered results that have some prospect of permanence. It ought to be clearly understood by every man who takes it upon himself to speak or wiite in behalf of the Bible that there is no possibility of reaching assured conclusions except by calm, patient, can- did, prolonged and critical examination of all the facts. It is not always that one man can go through the whole process ; in the case of busy ministers it is rarely pos- sible. But there must be some kind of sufficient assurance that the process has been carried through, by some one com- petent to do it. When the same man is Assyriologist and exegete, he ought, as exegete, to demand of himself, as Assyri- ologist, the most rigid observance of the rules of critical investigation. Conclu- sions must not be jumped at, but reached 22 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE from weighing of evidence. He may, aa Assyriologist, have his hypotheses ; [science! advances by setting up hypotheses, and working from them, till they are dis- placed by better. But then he must not, as exegete, treat the hypothesis as an established fact, and build a dogmatic ex- position upon it. Exegetes and apologists who are not themselves at home in the inscriptions ought to demand of the special investiga- tors that they give them nothing as as- sured result which has not been thor- oughly tested and sifted. They ought to demand that fact be sharply distinguished from guess; that definite and intelligible reasons be assigned for opinions. They ought to distrust popular and cursory statements of surprising discoveries. They ought to learn something of the character and way of reasoning of those to whom they look as authorities, in order to have IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 23 a notion of the probable worth of their opinions. In short, they ought to make it a matter of conscience to take each step with as clear reason as their most earnest efforts, under the conditions and with the equipment which their circumstances fur- nish, can possibly secure. It will be a good day for Old Testament studies when this comes to be the prevailing habit among Old Testament students. (2.) Another abuse of Assyriology for purposes of Old Testament study, and one so flagrant as not to need long discussion, is the refusal to accept its clear facts, in the interest of some theory of interpretation. We need to discriminate here. When an Assyrian statement can be equally well explained in two difEerent ways, we have the right, and are bound, as we should be in all historical study, to take that expla- nation which harmonizes with a corre- sponding Biblical statement. It may even 24 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AWD ABUSE be scientifically allowable to modify an Assyrian statement for sufiicient cause. Thus when Sennacherib recounts the suc- cesses of his great Palestinian campaign, and puts the tribute of Hezekiah at the end, instead of near the beginning, revers- ing the order of 2 Kings xviii., we can see a reason for that, which confirms the ac- curacy of the latter. For it is most natural that the Assyrian king should have been desirous of putting the best face on his disappointing expedition by rounding off his account with a descrip- tion of his spoils; while it is hardly credible that, after Jerusalem had success- fully defied his threats, Hezekiah should have paid him tribute. So, also, it is not a warping of Assyi'iological facts to sup- plement and explain them by Bible facts, which the inscriptions ignore. Sennache- rib does not tell us why he suddenly re- turned to Nineveh, while apparently, from IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 25 his own account, in the full tide of military success. A historian with no predilection in favor of the Bible, called to choose between the mice-eaten quivers and bows, which Herodotus gossips about, and the provi- dentially ordered pestilence of the book of Kings, might well prefer the latter. But when the sense of the inscription is distinct and complete, then it is not legit- imate to put another sense into it for har- monistic purposes. You may deny its truth, if you choose to take the responsi- bility of that, but you have no right to warp its meaning. A noteworthy illustra- tion of what I mean is the hypothesis of a break in the Eponym Canon. I hope I shall not be thought too technical in ex- plaining it. The Eponym Canon is a list of officials, who, after the fashion of Greek archons and Roman consids, gave names to the successive years. A complete list of this sort would give us a secure chrono- 26 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE logical basis for Assyrian history. In fact, we have no one complete list, but six or seven partial lists, overlapping each other, so as to cover altogether a period of two hundred and fifty years, from the beginning of the ninth to the middle of the seventh century b.c. There is no internal proof, and no indication from all the cuneiform lit- erature that the succession of names thus given is not continuous ; no suggestion of a break. And yet a respectable number of chronoloa:ists have assumed a break of forty-six years, to make a place in this interval for the king Pul, of 2 Kings xv. and 1 Chr. v., whose name did not appear in the inscriptions. They have done this in spite of the fact that the eponym chro- nology is fixed on one side of their break by agreement with the list of Babylonian kings which Claudius Ptolemy, near the beginning of our era, made up in Greek, on Babylonian authority, and fixed on the IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 27 other by an eclipse of the sun in b.c. 763 (they have taken advantage of a less note- worthy eclipse in B.C. 809) ; they have acted in the face of the convincing histor- ical proof that Pul was identical with Tiglathpileser (II.), solely on the ground that Tiglathpileser cannot, according to their understanding of Biblical dates, have been a contemporary of Menahem of Is- rael, with whose name Pul's is associated, 2 Kings XV. 19. This view is gradually los- ing its adherents, but has been main- tained by reputable scholars.^ The vice of this method of handling the inscrip- tions lies here : that it involves a playing fast-and-loose with well-attested historical documents ; hailing them eagerly when they say at once what you want them to say, but ' Particularly in Prance ; see J. Oppert : Salomon et ses Successeurs, Paris, 1877 ; E. Ledrain : Histoire d'lsrael, 2 vols., Paris, 1879-82. The quietus has prob- ably been given to this hypothesis by recent discovery. See below. 28 ASSYKIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE discrediting them with all your might when their utterances are troublesome to you ; it means that you are unwilling to wait, un- able to bold questions of harmony in abey- ance, insist on building your own wall, and building at once, and building on your own foundation ; not courageous enough to be candid ; not large-minded enough to rec- ognize a well-established fact outside of the Bible as possessed of all the rights of a fact, and claiming its lawful place in the complete series of facts. The danger in this particular case is, I think, practically over- come, but the same inclinations are still alive. They spring from an affection for God's Word which is not to be lightly es- teemed, and a purpose to defend it at all hazards, which does honor to him that cherishes it, but they endanger the interests for which they fight, because they are tinged by fear of the full light of all the truth. It is a great pity to be afraid of facts. IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 29 (3.) This brings us to another point. It is an abuse of Assyriology for pui-poses of Old Testament study to ignore the new prol)lem.s with which it confronts the Biblical scholar. Assyriology is not a mere key to unlock doors. It offers a vast and complicated series of facts. It throws clear light on some things, and partial light on others, and reveals dim outlines of yet others. If we put ourselves in that light, we must be willing to see all it shows us. Assyriology is not simply an interpreter, that stands outside and ex-i plains our Bibles to us. It makes its way! into our Bibles, and even while it smooths I over some of the old difficulties, it some- ' times unearths new ones no less trouble- ' some. It is the imperative duty of those who study — most of all those who teach, or expect to teach — the Bible, to recognize these new problems in all their gravity and far-reaching import. Intelligence and 30 ASSYBIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE honesty, love for the Scriptures and loyalty to truth, all demand it. The new ques- tions must be faced without prejudice and discussed without passion. I do not mean that they must at once and indiscrim- inately be made topics for popular dis- course ; though I believe we ought to be looking forward to a time, and preparing for it, when the average membership of our churches shall have a faith so full of living nerves and muscles that it will hold itself upright beneath even such searching inquiries as these ; and wise instruction is very nourishing to such a faith ; still, a habitual and emphatic magnifying of these problems is needless and would do harm, as much as the ignoring of them. But whoever undertakes to make use of As- syriology in behalf of the Old Testament cannot shun them, for himself, and there will be many cases which will prove the wisdom of keeping the bright and eager IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 31 and truthful minds that come under his influence fairly well informed of the ob- scure matters as well as of the plain ones. It gives the enemy a great advantage if he can be the one to drop an ugly-looking fact, colored as he can color it, into the mind of one whom you are set to teach ; so that the pupil will suppose you did not know it, and despise you, or concealed it, and distrust you. Of course the right pre- sentation of difficulties is a matter for veiy delicate treatment, but it can be learned. The first and chief thing is that we appre- hend ourselves what the difficulties are. The so-called Genesis tablets, already referred to, furnish an illustration. Take, for example the Deluge tablet,^ with its divine command to build the ship, its ac- count of the embarkation, its picture of the oncoming and the efEects of the flood, ' See Lenormant : Beginnings of History, English Translation, pp. 575 sq. New York, 1882. 32 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE ATSTD ABUSE the ship grounding at length on a moun- tain, the sending out of dove and raven, the sacrifice after disembarking, and all the details of its correspondence with the Hebrew account. There are disagree- ments, no doubt, but the resemblances are sufficiently striking. How are these re- semblances to be explained ? Is there a literary relationship between the two ? If so, of what sort ? Which depends on the other ; or are both dependent upon some earlier form of the story ? If so, again, which of the two comes the nearer to that earlier form ? And what was the character of that earlier form ? If, as now seems most likely, the Ur Kasdim from which Abram came out was in Baby- lonia, does this give any clue to the pres- ence of the story among the Hebrews ? And when did Abram come out ? Can it be proved that the story was current in Babylonia before he left that land ? Where IN" OLD TESTAMENT STDDY. 33 did it come into being, and how ? Did it originate with, the Shemitic Babylonians, or was it borrowed by them from the Akkadians, those imperfectly known par- ents of so large a part of the Shemitic civilization? What light is thrown by these inquiries upon the catastrophe which the narrative describes — its nature, its ex- tent, its result ? It will be seen that such inquiries as these are not questions of abstract science, but have to do with the structure of the first of our sacred books, the sources of i its materials, and, not indeed the fact of its inspiration^— that is not touched — but the I mode of that inspiration's working. They ' open up, for example, the whole discus- sion, whether the early narratives of Gen- esis are matter of special revelation to their immediate human author; whether they have been handed down from re- motest antiquity under a miraculous super- ..' 34 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE vision, which kept them free from ad- mixture of error ; whether they belong to the common stock of popular, Shemitic tradition, cleansed and ennobled and made fit vehicles for spiritual teaching, under the special influence of God; or what other explanation of their present appearance and form may suggest itself. For a like set of questions can be put with refer- ence to the Creation tablets of Babylonia, as far as they agree in form with Gen. i. and ii., and if there were a Babylonian story of the Fall, we should have the same problems, in some respects more intricate, the closer the external resemblance with the Hebrew narratives. Dogmatism might cut the knot, but our duty as Christian scholars is to untie it, if we can, and, at all events, in the interests of God's truth to recognize it, and weave no theory in whose meshes that knot shall be merely hidden, put out of sight, and forgotten. IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 35 The divine origin of fhe Bible, the moi-e strongly it is believed, will impel us the more forcibly to a complete apprehension of all the facts which have to do with it, and to a more persistent assurance that the Bible will not suffer, but will gain, indefi- nitely and permanently, in the appreciation and faith of men, the more freely these reverent questions are raised, and the more thoroughly they are settled. Take a difEerent illustration. An an- cient cuneiform record bears a story — call it legend or history, as you please— of the King Sargon of Agane ; how he was born in retirement, placed by his mother in a basket of rushes, launched on a river, rescued and brought up by a stranger; after which he became king.^ Is there any connection between this story and 'See G. Smith, Trans. Soc. Bib. Archseol., i., p. 46. 1872. Of. Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 224. 1876. Eev. ed., p. 319 sq. 1880. 36 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE ANB ABUSE 1 that of Moses ? If so, what ? It has been j said that the stories of the exposure of Rom- ■ ulus and Cyrus and other unfortunate in- fants were later reflections — echoes — of the Hebrew account of Moses. Whether that was likely or nof, here we have a king who -ri lived a thousand years before Moses — per- \ haps much more. It is believed that the story was told of him several hundred years at least before Moses was born. Is there simply a coincidence here ? I do not doubt for a moment that there is some explana- tion, honorable to the Sacred Record and satisfactory to the literary phenomena, but what is it ? The best that one of the most popular and conservative of recent writers on such topics can say is : " Acting either on the hint of this strange legend, or led in a like case to a similar course, Jochebed prepared a little ark of papyrus," etc.-' ' 0. Geikie : Hours with the Bible, ii., p. 92. New York, 1881. IlSr OLD TESTAMENT SUTDY. 37 The former hypothesis is conceivable, but unlikely; the latter, again possible, but very strange. The problem is still there. As a third illustration, take the new- , est Cyrus Inscriptions. There are two of i them,^ which give the account from dif- 1 ferent stand-points (that of the zealous priest and that of the annalist) of the capture of Babylon by Cyrus' troops, B.o. 538. I mention only one of the points of difficulty which arise when these inscrip- tions are compared with statements in the book of Daniel. They seem to leave no place for " Darius the Median." Gobryas, general of Cyrus' forces, entered Babylon, according to their statement, in July, of the seventeenth year of Nabonidus, the reigning King of Babylon. Cyrus fol- ' A cylinder (see Sir H. Eawlinson, Journal of Eoyal Asiatic Society, January, 1880), and a tablet (see Tlieoph. G. Pinches, Transactions of Soc. of Bibl. Archseol., vii., 1. 1880.) 38 ASSYRIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE lowed him soon after ; having at once de- posed Nabonidus, and assumed the royal power. The Darius who from Dan. v. 31, vi. 1-28, etc., would appear to have fol- lowed the last Babylonian king, and pre- I ceded Cyrus, seems not to exist for the in- scriptions. Now here is a historical problem of the first order. It needs no amplification. The issue is clear. I do not know what adequate solution can be now offered for the diificulty. That there is some solution, under which the Bible will sufEer no dam- age, I feel sure, but who can now tell us what it is ? ^ This is a specimen of a com- paratively small, but extremely grave class of problems, which it is not honest, nor wise, for Bible students to put wholly out of sight, when they call Assyriology to their aid in interpreting the Scriptures. ' A current answer affirms the legendary character of the book of Daniel. But this is not enough. The origin of the legend is still to be explained. IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 39 No one of these questions endangers the divine truthr That has its own basis, immovable and sure. And no one of them need endanger our repose upon the divine truth, or give us anxiety or disti-ess of mind. Peace of heart, security for the truth and in the truth, belong, in God's ordering, to the courageous, reverent, and loyal inquirer, who welcomes all knowl- edge that God sends him. II. It might seem wise in me to detain you a much shorter time with the loses of Assyriology in Old Testament study, not because this branch of the subject is less important than the other, but be- cause it is, at least in the general aspects of it, more familiar. And yet I trust that some fulness of illustration may not come amiss. For, if the cautions already sug- gested are kept in mind, we are not likely to exaggerate the advantages which As- 40 ASSYRIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE syriology offers to the student of the Bi- ble. They are very great. (1.) In the first place, Assyriology has given to the ancient Hebrew literature and life a neio setting. Whenever we learn to know a people in its racial con- nections, then we are beginning to lenoto it, then it begins to take its rightful. place among the peoples of the earth, then the fibres of human sympathy begin to reach out on this side and that, there are points of contact, there are lines of interest ; we can estimate its whole character more wisely when we learn, even imperfectly, its genesis and its re- lationships; what it has accomplished in the world takes on a new aspect, either by resemblance or by contrast, when put by the side of the doings of its sister people ; the forms of its thought become more intelligible, or more striking; the quality of its literature receives some IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 41 « explanation, and the external features of that literature cease to be solitary and strange to us ; the people and all that belongs to it come more fully into our world, and range themselves alongside of us and our neighbors and our ances- tors, and take on a familiarity which is yet new and fresh, and full of meaning. It is a distinct and great advantage, when, without any lowering of its unique claims, or any diminution of the special charac- teristics imparted to it by the divine agency in its production, the volume of sacred writings, before whose authority we bow, associates itself more intimately, on its human side, with the history of mankind at large. Nothing has done so much to establish these connections as the inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria. It is true we have had other Shemitic literatures — Arabic, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Rabbinic — 42 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE but all of them too late, and much of their product too artificial to illumine the ancient Hebrew times with the living light, to throw about them the brilliant atmosphere, which records contemporary with them could do. But within the last thirty years there has been coming more and more plainly into view the back- ground from which the Old Testament stands out in a definition of increasing sharpness, and yet with such gradations of light and shade, such lines running from the foreground back into the recesses of the picture, as to give unity to the ; whole, and convince us that foreground i and background, in a subtle way, belong together. We begin to perceive what the Shemitic race was, in its power and its weakness, its early vigor and its en- during tenacity, its versatility and its depth, its religious fervor and its prac- tical coolness and shrewdness, its capacity IN OLD TESTAMENT. STUDY. 43 for poetic emotion and its literarj^ skill, its creative attempts at realistic and sym- bolic art, and its daring plans for archi- tectural triumphs; on the other hand, its cruel and selfish warrings, its pitiless op- pressions, its internecine strifes, its arbi- trary despotisms, its extravagance and vanity, and its foul idolatries; vre find the germs of impulses and movements that worked ruin to the Hebrevs^s, at the last, through the hand of their own kin- dred peoples, and we find new cause to wonder at the divine power which could yet make of Israel a chosen nation. This in general, and many details beside. The very Genesis tablets, which raise such hard questions, by their form and by their subject-matter testify of a close and vital union, in some tap-root, of the civiliza- j tion of the Jordan with that of the Eu- 1 phrates; the hundred mutual explanations ' of annals and chronicles, from the banks 44 ASSYRIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE of the Tigris and from the hill that over- looks the valley of Kedron knit the Hebrew history into the world's history, and convince us that in our Old Testa- ments we have to do with men, with human passions and schemes and hopes and struggles, inward and outward. This is not a matter of slight conse- quence — a mere dilettante interest. It may serve not only to increase our own care for the Old Testament, by making it vivid, not only to diminish to some degree that unhappy racial prejudice, which in late years has been reviving in different parts of the world — not unprovoked in particular cases, but utterly unworthy of those who, by God's grace, through faith have become children of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise — but also to bridge over that chasm, which some- times seems hopelessly widening, between all that relates to Bible trxith and the im- IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 45 mense energies put forth by men of taste and of scientific habit, in the pursuit of those branches of human knowledge to which their inclinations lead them. It is a vast gain when a great system of facts that belongs inseparably to our religion, so thrusts itself in the path of explorers who do not care for our religion, that they cannot ignore them or sport with them, but are forced to regard them as one of the serious elements in the history and life of men. (2.) Another way in which Assyriology is of use to the Old-Testament student is this ; it brings into clear light the essential difference between the Hebrews and other ancient peoples. To lay more stress on formal agreement than on essential difEer- ence might have been named among the abuses of Assyriology ; but Assyriology itself, to the clear-eyed Christian schol- ar, works directly against this abuse. 46 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE Whether there are agreements or dis- agreements in form between old Hebrew and old Babylonian documents, and what these agreements or disagreements signify, is a deeply interesting inquiry. But it is, after all, of secondary consequence. It is a great mistake to stop with these exter- nal relationships. The thing which every earnest Bible scholar is most concerned for is that root-element which distinguishes the Hebrew people from all other ancient peoples, and the Hebrew writings from all other ancient literatures. The one great distinctive feature of the literary monu- ments of the Hebrews is that they were informed by a spirit to which the inscrip- tions of Nineveh and Babylon are utter ± strangers. There is a truth of spiritual conception, a loftiness of spiritual tone, a conviction of unseen realities, a confident ,i reliance upon an invisible but all-control- ling power, a humble worship in the pres- IN OLD TESTAMENT STTIDT. 47 ence of the supreme majesty, a peace in union and communion with the one and only God, and the vigorous germs of an ethics reflecting his will, which make an infinite gap between the Hebrew and his brother Shemite " beyond the river," that all likeness of literary form does not begin to span. I do not mean to contradict what I have already implied, and deny that there was genuine religious feeling in the valleys of the great Asiatic rivers. In Bab- ylonia, at least, we know that there were unquenched desires of the spirit, bitter consciousness of sin, and longing for its for- giveness, humble prostration before the un- seen Deity, vague conceptions of his right- eous demands, and longings for alliance with him, on the part of those who pain- fully exercised their souls — "if haply they might feel after him and find him." Nor do I doubt that those desires and vague gropings of the mind were truly heaven- 48 ASSTKIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE sent. But they were exceptional, and they were sadly inefEective. Go back once more to the poems of creation, as the cuneiform tablet and the jSrst chapter of Genesis present them ; thei'e are formal re- semblances, but these cannot offset, for a moment, the fundamental difference. Compare the polytheism of the Babylo- nian myth, its inarticulate pantheism, its confounding of the gods with the world, its emanation — all things, gods included, born from the womb of Chaos — with the distinct, unhesitating, unobscured mon- otheism of Genesis, struck out sharply and unmistakably in the first majestic line, " In the beginning of God's creating the heavens and the earth." Men say, Oh, of course, the Hebrews had a purer concep- tion of God. But the point is that this is the essential matter; this is what we care about. No doubt it has been recognized and emphasized before, but we have never IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 49 before had the opportunity of seeing so plainly what it would be to have this commanding and determining element left out — from even one page — of the Old Tes- tament. The formal, external resemblance — even the correspondence in subject-matter — make this vital distinction so obvious as to insist on recognition. And I am per- suaded that, at least as far as the early narratives of Genesis are concerned, Chris- tian scholars will come more and more to the position that it is not the features of likeness to the Genesis tablets of Baby- lonia that support the unique character of the Bible so much as the absolute and ap- palling MTzlikeness in the spiritual concep- tions and temper by which they are in- fused. (3.) But, in thinking of the uses of As- syriology in Old Testament study, our minds turn most readily, no doubt, to the 50 ASSTEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE positive historical confirmations and ex- planations wMcli have been awakened by the blow of the excavator's pick, and risen up before us out of the ground. And in this aspect of it Assyriology is a mine of wealth. It proves, speaking broadly, and leaving out of account for the time the occasional difficulties which it presents, that among the nations of antiquity, whose literary remains have come down to us, the Hebrews were the only out- siders who really knew much about the great Asiatic empires. The stamp of hon- esty and competency is thus put upon their historical documents, if they needed it. The Egyptians were too far away, and came too seldom into any relations with Babylon and Mneveh, to be of first- rate value as witnesses to their deeds. The Greeks told fairy-tales that enter- tained their readers, but were largely un- true. The Hebrews, with their nearer IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 51 position, and more frequent and memo- rable contact, liad also a conscientious- ness and skill in annalistic writing which, make their evidence in regard to the his- tory of their neighbors important and trustworthy, though, of course, discon- nected. The inscriptions which show us this, give us thereby a new ground of con- fidence in Hebrew history as a whole. It is here impossible to give even the barest enumeration of the Biblical in- cidents and events to which Assyriology bears its testimony. They begin very early in the sacred volume. Passing out of the realm of the legendary " Genesis tablets," we know — or think we know ; it is in the highest degree probable, if not yet demonstrated — where Abraham's Ur Kasdim stood, and dig up bricks there that must have been inscribed before ever Terah had a son. It was the fashion among a certain school of critics, not very 52 ASSYRIOLOGY : ITS USB AND ABUSE many years ago, to prove, and prove ao-ain, the unhistorical character of Gen. xiv. — the Elamite campaign into Canaan.^ Wise exegetes are not doing this now. There is too much light out of the East. The sun has risen too higli. Ahab and Jehu, and the league of Syrian kino's against Shalmaneser II., Tiglath- pileser and Ahaz against Pekah and Eezin, these combinations are familiar now to Bible-readers. The Sargon whose name was preserved to us only in a single verse of Isaiah (xx. 1) has grown into a figure that almost fills the stage of West- ern Asia for sixteen eventful years ; Sen- nacherib and Esarhaddon, Nebuchadnezzar and Evil Merodach, Cyrus and the great Darius Hystaspis, and many kings be- side — the wedge-shaped characters tell us of them all. A selection from the great ' E.g., Noldeke : Untersuohungen zur Kritik des Al- ien Testaments, 1869. IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 53 mass of materials at hand may serve to recall to your minds some characteristics of this new testimony which make it in- dispensable to the student of Biblical his- tory. It will be more profitable to con- fine ourselves to those cuneiform records which give explanations of obscure points in the Old-Testament narratives, rather than to devote any part of our limited time to the more simple and obvious con- firmations. Look, then, for the first illustration, at the period when Ahab was involved in hostilities with Benhadad II. of Damas- cus (1 Kings XX., xxii.). This Benhadad was son (xx. 34) of a monarch of the same name who, at the call of Asa of Judah, had wantonly broken the peace existing between Baasha of Israel and himself, seized upon cities of the northern kingdom, and held them by no other title than that of might (ch. XV.). The son, not contented with the 54 ASSYKIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE possession of that wliicli his father had secured, marched against Samaria with a large force, and made the most insulting and humiliating demands. In the battle that ensued he was defeated, but himself escaped. The following year he returned, was again defeated, and this time came into the power of Ahab. The latter, how- ever, instead of visiting upon the head of the captive the injuries and insults Israel had received from him and his house, welcomed him as a brother, and dismissed him on the easy terms of a restoration of the cities taken by his father, and the freedom of the city of Damascus for himself (ch. XX.). We can understand perfectly well how the prophet, for whom Benhadad was an enemy of Grod as well as of Israel, should have been indignant at this motiveless clemency (vv. 35 sq.). But the difficult thing is to understand how Ahab could have been willing to exercise it, and how it IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 55 came about that he was able to secure an acquiescence of his army in it. The ex- planations which used to be attempted ignored the latter point, and • met the former lamely enough. To attribute this neglect of a capital opportunity for re- venge, and for a vast extension of his own power to Ahab's good nature, and to his " joy at knowing that a crowned head, of equal rank with himself, is still living," ^ assumes in Ahab such idealistic views of life that it might have been difficult for Elijah and Naboth and Mesha, King of Moab, to appreciate this theory. If any one should cite v. 31 ("we have heard that the kings of Israel are merciful kings ") in confirmation of this view, he would need to be reminded that these words are put into the mouth of the ser- vants of Benhadad at a critical emergency, 'Tlienius: Die Buclier der Konige, 2d ed., p. 243. Leipzig, 1873. 56 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE when everything depended on saving their master from despair, and not truth, but immediate and decisive effect would be their chief aim ; and besides this, that if the words really correspond to the facts, then they must apply not only to Ahab, but also to Omri and Zimri and Elah and Baasha and the rest, Avhich makes rather a severe strain upon our credulity. The explanation of Ewald ^ is little better, viz , that Ahab was flattered by the humble entreaty of his vanquished rival. Such a view would lead us to ask whether it would be likely that a ruler who could so easily be carried away by vanity as utterly to disregard his own interests, forget old scores, and cast away prudent forethought — even if he might be conceived as re- straining his desire of conquest — whether it would be likely that such a ruler would ' History of Israel, Eng. Trans., vol. iv., p. 73. Lon- don, 1871. IX OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 57 maintain himself on the throne, amid all the turbulence and the scheming of the time, for twenty-two years, as Ahab did. This suggests again the difficulty of making the army calmly acquiesce in such leniency. The army would be full of irritation and of eagerness, to reap the fruits of victory. The government was a militaiy despotism, in which the soldier might raise his hand against the despot. It was because the army sup- ported him that Omri had gained the throne (ch. xvi. 16 sq). It was the army that afterward enabled Jehu to carry out his usurpation (2 Kings ix. 13 sq.), just as it was doubtless the army of the southern kingdom that brought about the death of Amaziah of Judah, and the establishment of Azariah in his stead (2 Kings xvi. 19 sq.). The army was a factor that must be reck- oned with, and Ahab's army was not 58 ASSYRIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE likely to be gentle because Ahab was flattered or was amiably disposed. Further, to crown the whole, we find, some three years later, that Benhadad had not given up the important city of Ramoth Gilead, and that Ahab expressly, and of his own motion, invited Jehoshaphat of Judah to make with him the campaign against Aram that cost the Israelitish king his life, and all to secure what the most crude diplo- macy might have gained three years before. The inscriptions of Shalmaneser II. of Assyria give us a key to the riddle. This king reigned b.c. 860-825, and came more than once into contact with the peoples west of the Euphrates. " In the eponymate of Dayan Asshur," he tells us, he crossed the Euphrates and attacked and conquered, at Karkar, an army under Benhadad and his allies ; among the latter was " Ahab of Israel." ^ Now Dayan Asshur was epo- ' See Eecords of the Past, vol. iii., pp. 98, 99. IK OLB TESTAMENT STUDT. 59 nym, b.c. 854. In that year, then, Ahab was in league with Benhadad. But we naay infer from another inscription of Shal- maneser II., that Ahab met his death not later than b.c. 853. For he was succeeded by his son Ahaziah, who reigned two years (xxii. 51), and he, by his brother Jehoram, who reigned twelve years (3 Ki. iii. 1), after which he was murdered by Jehu (2 Ki. ix. 24). Now Shalmaneser reports that he received tribute from Jehu, b.c. 842. Jehoram must therefore have been dead in 842, and what Avith his twelve years, and Ahaziah's two, even allowing for partial years reckoned as whole ones (cf. 1 Ki. XX. 51, with 2 Ki. iii. 1), Ahaziah cannot have come to the throne later than b.c. 853. Taking this for the year of Ahab's death, the peace with Benhadad, which was three years earlier, of course preceded the victory of Shal- maneser at Karkar in 854. Thus we 60 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE have the following simple historical com- bination : the peoples of Aram and of Irsael had not merely themselves to think of ; they were not left to settle their affairs alone. The power of Assyria had become an important element in their cal- culations. It must evidently have been threatening the West as early as 855 or 856. But Benhadad's territory lay nearer to Assyria than Ahab's did. Therefore two things followed : First, that however completely Ahab might have subdued Benhadad, the latter's dominion was not at the time a desirable piece of property ; it was quite too much exposed. Secondly, that it was clearly for Ahab's interest to refrain from crippling Benhadad so thoroughly that he could not make a vigorous resistance to Shalmaneser. It seemed far better for Israel that the fisrht- ing with Assyria, if there was to be any, should be on Aramaean (Syrian) ground. IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 61 Therefore Ahab let Benhadad off on easy- terms. The motive was one which would satisfy — not God's prophet, indeed, but — himself, and his soldiers, who knew the strength of Assyria, and would have no fancy for an Assyrian force in their land. When, after a year, oi- more, Shal- maneser actually came across the Euphra- tes, and Benhadad was forced to bear the brunt of the fight with him, Ahab of course could not refuse to send a con- tingent of men to his assistance. Other princes did the same. The battle at Karkar was lost, and the league natu- rally fell apart. The next year, Ahab, with no friendly feelings toward Ben- hadad, who, in addition to previous insults and injuries, had led the allied forces to defeat, took advantage of a respite from Assyrian menaces, and of the probability that the unfortunate campaign of 854 would have weakened Benhadad and lost 62 ASsrEioLOGT : its use and abuse him other allies, and joined with the King of Judah to make his fatal expedi- tion against Ramoth-gilead. This is a rational, and probable, reconstruction of the story of those years, in the light of cuneifoi'm decipherment. It does not appear that the author of the Books of Kings took account of all this ; perhaps JC I he did not kno w it all . It is, of course, not our object to prove the omniscience of a writer, but only to show what an explanation of obscui-e points in his writ- ing is afforded by the records of Assyria. As a case of a different sort, let us look at the argument, already referred to,^ for the identity of " Pul, the King of Assyria" with Tiglath Pileser II. (2 Kings XV. 19, 29; 1 Chron. v. 26). In the passages here referred to no intimation is given that the two names belong to one and the same person. Yet the proof . I' ' See above, p. 27. , f , IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 63 to this efEect is conclusive. And here, again, I must ask pardon if I give too mucli of dry detail. The topic is very important, not only for the understand- ing of these brief notices, but for the whole subject of Old Testament chronol- ogy. The true state of the case appears, negatively, from the absence, in the un- broken line of Assyrian rulers, of the name Pul, as either predecessor, co-regent, or successor of Tiglath Pileser, or as an ally, a rival, or a tributary prince. It has been argued, positively, from the following considerations : (a.) Menahem, King of Israel, is named by Tiglath Pileser II. in an inscription, as tributary to himself. Now we learn from 2 Kings XV. 19, that Menahem bought the favor of Pul by the gift of a thousand talents of silvei", which, of course, was nothing more nor less than a tribute. The silence of Assyrian inscriptions of 64 ASSYEIOLOGT : ITS USE AND ABUSE this period about any Pul, gives the oppor- tunity for supposing, with no great vio- lence, that the King to vphom the Bible declares Menahem to have been tributary was the same with the King whom the inscriptions name in a like connection. Those who invent a break in the Eponym Canon ^ put the Menahem of the Bible earlier than Tiglath Pileser II., in order to keep him contemporary with Pul ; then they go further and invent another Mena- hem, unknown to the Bible, to pay tribute to Tiglath Pileser and thus satisfy the in- scriptions. The weight of these two un- supported hypotheses is increased when we remember that it is the Biblical Mena- hem who is contemporary with Azariah, King of Judah, and that this Azariah, also, is mentioned in the inscriptions of Tiglath Pileser II. (b.) But the decisive evidence comes ' See above, p. 26. IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 65 from another quarter. Eusebius ^ preserves some fragments of an historical work by one Alexander Polyhistor, in the course of which it is reported, on the authority of Berossus, a Babylonian priest of about the third century e.g., that a " King of the Chaldseans," reigning before Senna- cherib, bore the name Phulus. " He," Eusebius adds, " is said to have invaded Judaea." Now, even if this were all, when we find Ptolemy, the astronomer and ge- ographer, who lived in the second century A.D., giving, in his list of Babylonian kings, based upon ancient records, the names of Ohinziros and P6ro% as kings of Babylon in the year B.C. 731, and remember how easily r and I interchange in the passage of words from language to language, we should not be disinclined to connect this Poros with the Phulus mentioned in Euse- bius. ■ Cliron., I. 4. 66 ASSYRIOLOGY : ITS USB AND ABUSE But this is in Babylonia, not Assyria, you will say. True, and yet it happens that from the Assyrian inscriptions we know a good deal of what was going on in Babylonia at just this time. Tiglath Pileser II. was King of Assyria B.C. 745- 727, but he takes pains to inform us that he extended his power over Babylonia as well; he marched thither more than once, and describes these campaigns at length ; they were so successful that he even calls himself " King of Shumir and Akkad," i.e., Southern and ISTorthern Babylonia; more than this, he records that there submitted to him, in this very year 731, a king of Babylonia, by the name of Vhinzir, — the name that precedes Poros in Ptolemy's list. To complete the argument it must be added that Tiglath Pileser died in B.C. 727, and that the first year of JPoroti' successor in Babylon is given in Ptolemy's list as 726. It was, therefore, a reasonable inference IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 67 whicli Professor Schrader ^ and others drew — that Pbron {=PTiulus=-JPuT) is simply another name for Tiglath Pileser II. And if this was his name in Babylon, no scholar would doubt that it might be his name in Israel as well. Such was the argument up to 1884, and I have taken pains to give it at some length, to show how it has anticipated the most recent decipherments,^ which furnish a brill- iant confirmation of it, and settle the whole question. Not only has a cuneiform list of Babylonian kings been discovered, running parallel in part with the list of Ptolemy, showing its accuracy, and, in particular, exhibiting the names of TJhinzir and Pulu as successive Babylonian kings, during the ' Keilinschriften la. d. Alte Testament, 2d ed., Giessen, 1883, pp. 224-227 sq. The argument is given more fully by the same author : Keilinschriften u. Geschichtsfor- schung, Giessen, 1878, pp. 422 sq. ^ Theoph. G. Pinches, in Proceedings of Soc. of BibL Archaeol., May, 1884. 68 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE years B.C. 732-727; but a Babylonian cliron- icle, dealing with this period, is found to substitute Tiglath Pileser for Pulu. Prob- ably no one will again venture to say that they are not one and the same. It is prob- able that Put was his private, Tiglath Pilesor his royal name (he seems not to have been of royal birth) ; but however that may prove, the history of the dis- cussion shows us once more the value of historic insight, and the danger of allowing over-anxiety for the truth to force its de- fenders into a position from which advan- cing knowledge may drive them any day. For our intelligent reading of 2 Kings XV., this identification is a distinct gain. It does also involve, it is true, a modifica- tion of the received dates of the Books of Kings, according to which both Menahem and Azariah were dead before Tiglath Pi- leser came to the throne, in b.c. 745. But this, too, is a great gain. It helps us to IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. see that the dates are corrupt, and gives us certain fixed points which will aid in re- storing them to something like accuracy. I do not intend, however, to burden you with more figures, and beg you now to pass on to our final group of illustrations. We noticed, a little while ago,^ that the new Cyrus inscriptions offer a troublesome problem to the defender of the historical accuracy of the book of Daniel, by ignoring "Darius the Median." But they give us, on the other hand, invaluable guidance in the interpretation of some other parts of the- Old Testament. I refer now, in particular, to the edicts of Cyrus found in the Book of Ezra, and the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, which have to do with the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, from their exile in Babylon. It should be said, at once, that the two inscriptions with which we are here concerned, do not allude to the ' See above, p. 37. 70 ASSYKIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE Jews and their restoration. But the fact of the restoration no one can question. The inquiry would be as to the motive of Cyrus and the manner of his personal agency in bringing it about. It used to be thought — and this was very natural — that Cyrus, a Persian, with the monotheism of Zarathustra in his heart, was showing especial favor to the monothe- istic religion of the Jews. The proclama- tions recorded in Ezra i. 2-4 and vi. 3-5, were supposed to have marks of particular and lavish generosity on the part of a wor- shipper of the one Ahuramazda, toward the worshippers of the one Jehovah, whom he might easily regard as Ahuramazda under another name.^ That the people were summoned to make contributions for the rebuilding of the temple (i. 4) was no more surprising than that the king's own 'See, e.g., Stanley, Hist, of Jewish Ohurcli, vol. iii., p. 75, new ed.. New York, 1884. IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 71 treasury sliould be drawn ujDon for the same purpose (vi. 4). It has even been held that the Hebrew monotheism itself' received a powerful impulse from contact with that which, under Cyrus, pervaded the empire.^ Such theories, however attractive, are not borne out by the new discoveries. For these bring us face to face with the fact that idolatrous worships were treated by Cyrus with like consideration. Not only do the inscriptions tell us that he re- paired the shrine of Merodach, which Nabonidus, the deposed Babylonian king, had neglected, and that he restored to their places the " gods of Shumir and Akkad," i.e., favored the local idolatries of the various parts of Babylonia ; but we learn from them that, on receiving the tribute of all the conquered territories which had learned to recognize the su- 'Id. lb., p. 162 sq. 72 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE premacy of Babylon, he reinstated the gods of these several lands, and assigned to them " enduring seats." We see, there- fore, that the graciousness toward the re- ligion of a conquered people, and the lib- eral expenditure in its behalf illustrated in his treatment of the Jews, was not pecul- iar, but was part of a settled habit, ac- cording to which he treated the deities of subject peoples with respect, and even with honor. We reach a similar result when we con- sider, in the light of recent decipherments, the remarkable expressions with regard to Jehovah which the sacred historian puts into Cyrus' mouth : " Jehovah, Grod of heaven, hath given me all the king- doms of the earth ; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem" (Ezra i. 2). As already hinted, a prevail- ing opinion has been, not that Cyrus gave up his own religion, but that he found IX OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 73 such an agreement between the Hebrew religion and his own, that the God of the Hebrews seemed to him in substance iden- tical with his god. It has, then, been quite commonly held that the name " Jehovah " was not used by him in the original proclamation, of which Ezra i. 2-4 is a rescript, but that the sentiment to- ward Jehovah there expressed was his own genuine feeling toward Ahuramazda, whom he recognized under the Hebrew name.^ We now have ground for exactly reversing this. It is quite likely that he used the name "Jehovah," but appears certain that what he said of Jehovah had much less spiritual significance than has been supposed. One of the Cyrus inscrip- tions (the cylinder) contains similar ex- pressions in regard to Merodach, the tute- lary god of Babylon. Cyrus calls Mero- dach " the great lord," and " my lord." 'Stanley, loc. cit., pp. 74, 75. 74 assyriology: its use and abuse It was " by the command of Merodacli, the great lord," he tells us, that he reinstated the gods of Shumir and Akkad. It was Merodach that " chose a king to conduct, after his own heart, what he committed to his hand — Cyrus, King of Ansan." It was " Merodach, the great lord," who di- rected Cyrus' march ; " to his city of Bab- ylon his course he summoned, and caused him to take the road to Tintir (Babylon)." It will not be claimed that this attitude toward Merodach excludes the possibility of a similar attitude toward Jehovah. On the contrary, if he thus speaks of the tutelary god of the conquered Babylon, it is all the more likely that he should, when concerned with another subject-na- tion, speak of their Jehovah in the same terms. But there would be as little of exclusive recognition and worship in the one case as in the other. With this in mind we may glance at the IJf OLD TESTAMEJSTT STUDY. 75 prophecies which foretold the agency of Cyrus in overthrowing Babylonian tyr- anny, and restoring the Hebrews. It is not at all surprising that, when they looked into the future, and discerned the work of Cyrus, the prophets should have regarded him as an agent of God, even as one especially chosen and anointed (-M, xlv. 1). The priests of Merodach looked toward Cyrus as a deliverer ; much more naturally would the Hebrews be inclined to welcome him, and to see the hand of their God in his victory, since the conquest which involved a foreign dominion for the Babylonians, meant freedom for them. The Old-Testament predictions which sim- ply announce his coming to deliver the Hebrews, and punish their enemies, even those which especially declare that God had raised him up, do not, therefore, re- quire particular comment. These predic- tions were fulfilled. 76 ASSYRIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE But it is manifest that the significance of a prediction like that of Isaiah xlv. 1-5 must appear in a new light. That part of this prediction which represents Cyrus as ignorant that Jehovah was using him for his own purposes does not now need expla- nation. But when we come upon this ex- pression : " that thou mayst know that I am Jehovah, which call thee by thy name, the God of Israel" (verse 3), or this other, in some respects more noteworthy still (xli. 25) : " from the rising of the sun shall he call upon {or proclaim) my name," the case is altered. Even the most recent commentator ^ does not hesitate to under- stand this as referring to a subjective change in Cyrus. " It is evidently," he says, " a prediction of a spiritual change to be wrought in Cyrus in consequence of his wonderful career." But is it admissible, ' T. K. Oheyne : Comm. on Isaiali, 3d. ed., London, 1884. IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 77 in view of what we have already seen, to hold that the predictions were fulfilled in this sense ? At all events, not so as to un- derstand what we should mean by a " con- version " to Jehovah. We must consider the possibilities with some care. If we could be sure that Cyrus was at heart a follower of Zarathustra, we might indeed believe that some monotheistic zeal, con- trolled as to outward expression by the supposed needs of statesmanship, entered into his feeling toward Jehovah. But no inscription of his, yet found, breathes monotheism. Darius Hystaspis appears to us in his cuneiform monuments as a zeal- ous worshipper of Ahuramazda, but not so Cyrus. We must, therefore, for the present, reason from the postulate that Cyrus was not a Zarathustrian at all. Such impartiality of respect to different deities as we observe in him might then be due to one of two causes. It might be 78 ASSYEIOLOGT : ITS USE AND ABUSE that he shared the belief of his time with regard to the local power of various divinities. He might really suppose that, since Merodach was god of Babylon, his firm possession of Babylon depended upon Merodach' s favor, and that since Jehovah was god of the land of Israel, he must pay due respect to him in order to retain Israel under his control. In that case a real recognition of Jehovah, and a real proclamation of him as a deity would be involved, and we should have a distinct, though it might seem a meagre, fulfilment of the prediction. On the other hand, it might be that the religious professions of Cyrus were wholly at the service of his imperial policy. He might desire to secure the favor of the priests and people of Babylon by honoring their deity — ■ avoiding the mistake of Nabonidus the vanquished king, who seems to have neg- lected that deity. In like manner, he IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 79 might aim, by active interest for Jehovah's name and temple, simply to secure the favor of another people and another priesthood, whom his policy led him to restore to their home on an important frontier of his em- pire. His religiousness would then be assumed, and the whole design of it would be to secure a more prompt recognition of his own sovereignty, and a more en- tire submission to his political measures. On this view, the prophecies would take on a difEerent meanino'. We could under- stand the one as carried out in the fact that Cyrus' deeds resulted, without his distinct purpose, in " proclaiming " the name of Jehovah, because Jehovah's people was set free and his worship re-established. We could understand the " that thou mayst know" of Is. xlv. 3, as indicating the gra- cious design of God, which might have been accomplished if Cyrus had given in his allesriance. Which of these lines of in- f 80 ASSTRIOLOGT : ITS USE AND ABUSE terpretation is to be preferred, or whether there is some other still, need not here be determined. Enough has been said to show that the inscriptions give us a set of well- attested facts, which have their part to play, and must unquestionably assist in bringing about a future and better under- standing of the scope of prophetic words. I am quite aware that many persons would not regard it an advantage to iind the fulfilment of these prophecies in a much less significant experience on the part of Cyrus than they had been accustomed to picture to themselves. But we inu stneyer fo rget that to hav e our particularj nterpre- tat ions confirmed i s not the object f or which w e are to study the Bible. It is to get at the truth that is in the Bible. If our interpretation has been in any respect wrong, then it is a great advantage to have the means put into our hand of bringing it nearer the truth. Neither Assyriology nor IS" OLD TESTAMENT STUDT. 81 any other science may be forced into the service of prejudice. In this connection we may inquire also how far the fate of Babylon and of its dei- ties corresponds with the predictions con- cerning these. The seer declares that " Babylon is fallen, is fallen ; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken ui^to the ground " (Is. xxi. 9) ; " Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth; their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle " (xlvi. 1) ; " Babylon is taken, Bel is con- founded, Merodach is broken in pieces ; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces" (Jer. 1. 2). The de- struction of Babylon is to be utter : " Baby- lon shall become heaps, a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment and a hiss- ing without an inhabitant " (li. 37). That these and like declarations became facts in the course of the centuries we have not needed cuneiform inscriptions to tell us. 6 82 ASSYRIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE But it is worth noticing that in that aspect of the case with which the prophets would be most immediately concerned, their pre- dictions were fulfilled under Cyrus, al- though — as, indeed, we knew before — he did not destroy Babylon and although he did not abolish idolatry. For not only was his conquest a real humiliation of the Babylonian people, but also — and this would be of prime interest to the prophets — -it put a stop to the deportation policy of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors,- and secured a kind of national life — modest and dependent, it is true— to the exiled He- brews. The Babylonian oppression and captivity came to an end with Cyrus. In the case of the idols, the matter is perhaps even more obvious. We should hardly, I think, satisfy ourselves with the sugges- tions ^ which have been made, to the effect ' Of. Canon George Kawlinson, Contemp. Beview, Jan., 1880, pp. 96 sq. IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 83 that, during the capture of the city of Babylon, actual breakages of idols might naturally occur, and that, further, the con- quest of Cyrus brought about a change in the relative position of religions, Baby- lonian and other Shemitic idolatry going down, and Zarathustrianism coming up. For Cyrus' army entered Babylon without resistance, and even if the last stronghold had to be subdued by force, such a break- ing of images as might have taken place would be a meagre fulfilment of the prophecy. Its most literal meaning can hardly have been met by the casual shat- tering of a few idols, to be followed by an honorable re-establishment and worship, such as Cyrus brought about for the Baby- lonian gods. And it was not a mere vic- torious monotheism that the prophets saw in Cyrus' conquest. It was deliverance for God's people, and a step onward toward the triumph of God's kingdom, which they 84 ASSYBIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE welcomed in it. The conflict, as they viewed it, was between religions, no doubt, but this in no abstract way. Its result should be to punish the oppressors of Jehovah's worshippers. The gods of Babylon should be shown up in their utter powerlessness to protect those oppressors. That in this essential meaning of the predictions their fulfilment came with Cyrus' victory is plain enough ; the royal line which had wrought such harm to the Hebrew people, and so defied their Almighty God and King, was overthrown. Their idols did not save them. It is then as a real and specific accomplishment of what Jehovah's pro- phets had announced that we may read the words of Cyrus himself : " The an- cient, royal family, of which Bel and Nebo had sustained the rule, .... faded away when I entered victoriously into Tintir." IlSr OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 85 No one can be more fully aware than I am myself how inadequate a notion siich a brief review, witb illustrations selected almost at random, must give of tlie worth of Assyriology to the student of the Old Testament. If the attempt lias been made to define somewhat strictly the limits of its availability, it has been equally the pur- pose to do such hurried justice as the time allowed to its value within those limits. The cuneiform inscriptions do not explain all the things that need explanation, from Genesis to Malachi, and they introduce grave problems of their own. But it is, for all that, largely by their aid, supple- mented by modern discoveries in other archaeological fields, that the inquiries about ancient peoples, which the eager mind of our day is putting so restlessly, can receive answers that begin to satisfy. We are coming, by degrees, to a time when we may construct a full and accurate his- 83 ASSTEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE tory of those lands and those centuries which saw the growth, the development, the proud culmination, the ruin, and the par- tial recovery of the Hebrew national life. Our interest in that life is unique. It was the life which preserved to the world the knowledge of the Lord of lords ; the life of the people to whom the law was given, and the promises' were entrusted, and the proph- ets spoke, and the special deliverances of God were vouchsafed, that from their midst might spring the Deliverer of all men. Therefore it is for us to welcome the light and knowledge that God has bestowed upon us; to rejoice in them with perfect confidence that they are for good and not for evil ; to learn to use them honorably, and wisely, as it is fitting for Christian exegetes and critics to use them — and to be still on the alert, watching and listening for fuller wisdom, if the divine Providence shall send it to us. IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 87 Assyria has not spoken her last word to men, and probably will not in our day; Egypt is full of voices, only half inter- preted; the Hittites, who once defied As- syria, and marched out to fight Egypt with undaunted front, have hardly yet begun to speak again, after a long stillness. Other words beside, uttered ages ago, but not yet audible to modern ears, may be on their way to us, out of the remote distance of the centuries. It is for us to catch these messages and understand them, that we may fit them into the great fabric of ap- prehended and acknowledged truth, to the enrichment of ourselves, and those who shall be reached by our ministry, and to the glory of our common Lord. 88 assykiologt: its use and abuse LITERATURE. The books here named, for the most part easily accessible, treat exclusively or in part of the relations between Assyriology and the Old Testament : Ebbshakd Soheadeb (Prof, at Berlin) : Die Keilin- sohriften und das Alte Testament, Giessen, 1872 ; 2d ed., greatly enlarged, Giessen, 1883, pp. yiii, 618. The author is one of the leaders among Assyriologists. His book contains inscriptions in transliteration, transla- tions into German, abundant notes, discussions, and glossaries. It has also a valuable chronological ex- cursus. The section on the Babylonian Deluge-tab- lets is contributed by Pauii Haupt (Prof, at Gottin- gen and Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore). Cunningham Geikib (London) : Hours with the Bible ; or, The Scriptures in the Light of Modern Discovery and Knowledge, 6 vols., London, 1880-84 ; New York, 1881- 84, pp. xiv, 512 ; 520 ; xxi, 493 ; xvi, 492 ; 496 ; vi, 544 (Am. Ed.). A good compilation. The best book in English covering the whole ground. Illustrated. E. ViGODBODX (Priest of St. Sulpioe, Paris) : La Bible et les Decouvertes Modernes, 2 vols., Paris, 1877; 3d Ed., 4 vols., Paris, 1881 (my copy has 1882 on outside), pp. X, 459 ; 552 ; 559 ; 572. An excellent compilation, IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 89 dealing with discoveries in Palestine and Egypt, as ■well as Assyria ; profusely illustrated, and brought well up to the date of issue. WiLiiiAM Habbis EdiiB (Oroydon, Eng.) and J. Ooebet Andbeson : Biblical Monuments. Oroydon, 1871-73, pp. xvi, 263. Valuable chiefly for plates. Very fine heliotype reproductions of sculptures, cuneiform in- scriptions, and MSS. in various languages. The following are either brief or limited to particular topics : Geobge Smith (British Museum ; d. 1876) : The Chaldean Account of Genesis. London and New York, 1876. Ee- \ vised ed., by A. H. Sayob, London and New York, \ 1880, pp. xxiv, 337. The first connected account of • the " Genesis-tablets." Illustrated. A German trans- i lation, George Smith's Ghaldiiische Genesis, Leipzig, j 1876, pp. liv, 321, contains a preface and valuable notes by Feiedeich DBiiiizsCH. : Assyrian Discoveries. London and New York, 1875, pp. xvi, 461. Illustrated. Fbanqois Lenobmant (Prof, at National Library, Paris ; d. 1883) : Les Origines de VHistoire, d'apres la Bible et les Traditions des Peuples Orientaux. Vol. I., Paris, 1880, pp. xxii, 630 ; vol. II., 1, Paris, 1882, pp. 561 ; vol. II., 2 (posthumous), Paris, 1884. A work of great learning and brilliant execution. : The Beginnings of History, according to the Bible and the Traditions of Oriental Peoples. From 90 ASSTEIOLOGY : ITS USE AISTD ABUSE the Creation of Man to the Deluge. (Trans, of vol. I., above.) New York, 1882, pp. isx, 588. E. ScHBADEB (Berlin) : Bie Keilinsehriflen und die Ge- schichisforschung. Giessen, 1878, pp. viii, 556. Excel- lent discussions of particular historical questions ; e.g., Ahab, the Eponym Canon, Tiglath Pileser, etc. Fbiedbioh Delitzsch (Prof, at Leipzig) : Wo Lag Das Paradies ? Fine Biblisch-Assyriologische Studie. Leip- zig, 1881, pp. viii, 346. The author is in the first rank of Assyriologists. He endeavors to locate the garden of Eden in Babylonia. PAun Haitpt (Prof, at Gottingen and Baltimore) : Der Keilinschriftliche Sintfluthbericht. Leipzig, 1881, pp. viii, 30. — The Guneiform Account of the Deluge (trans. of above, slightly abridged, and without the notes, by S. Bdbnham), Old Testament Student, Nov., 1883. Heney G. Tomkins : Studies in the Times of Abraham, I. London, 1879, pp. xviii, 228. Fine plates. Geobge Evans (Hibbert Fellow) : An Essay on Assyri- ology. London, 1883, pp. 75 (a cuneiform text ap- pended). A. H. Savoe (Prof, at Oxford) : Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments (By-paths of Bible Knowledge, III.). London, Keligious Tract Society, n. d. [1883], pp. 199. Illustrated. ^ : 77ie Ancient Empires of the East. London and New York, 1884, pp. xxiv, 301 (Am. Ed.). Geobge Bawmnson (Oanon and Prof, at Oxford) : His- torical Illustrations of the Old Testament. London, So- ciety for Prom. Christian Knowledge, n. d. American IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 91 editions with different imprints. My edition was copyrighted 1873, and bears date on title-page, Chi- cago, 1880, pp. X, 237. Now somewhat antiquated. : The Origin of Nations. London, Eelig. Tract Soc. [1877] ; New York, 1881, pp. xiv, 283 (Am. Ed.). : The Religions of the Ancient World. Lon- don, Eel. Tract Soc. [1883] ; New York, 1883, pp. xiv, 249 (Am. Ed.). : Egypt and Babylon, from Sacred and Pro- fane Sources. New York and London, 1885, pp. 329 (Am. Ed.). W. H. EuLB : Oriental Records, I., Monumental, II., His- torical. London, 1877, pp. iv, 247 ; ii, 242. Translations (frequently imperfect) of Assyrian and Babylonian documents may be found in : Records of the Past, vols. I.-XII. London, n. d. [1873- 81]. Only the orfc? vols, contain Assyrian and Baby- Ionian documents, the even vols., Egyptian. The vols, are small and designed for popular use. Useful references (incidental) are found in: W. EoBEBTSON Smith (Cambridge, Eng.) : The Prophets OF IsBAEL. Edinburgh and New York, 1882, pp. xvi, 444. 92 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE Ohaeles Beuston (Montauban) : Histoire Critique de la lAtterature Prophetique des Hebreux. Paris, 1881, pp. viii, 272. Small, popular histories are : M. E. Habknbss : Assyrian Life and History. London, 1883. (By-Paths of Bible Knowledge, H.) lUus- trated. Ebnbst a. W. Budge (British Museum) : Babylonian Life and History. London, 1884 (By-paths of Bible Knowl- edge, v.), pp. 168. Illustrated. F. MiJBDTER (Stuttgart) : Kurzgefasste Geschichte Bahy- Icmiens und Assyriens. Stuttgart, 1882, pp. viii, 279. Illustrated. Preface and Appendix by Pbiedrich Delitzsoh. For reference are also to be recom- mended : Max Dunckeb : Geschichte des Alterthums, 5 vols., 5th ed. Leipzig, 1878-81. - : History of Antiquity (Eng. trans, of above, by Evelyn Abbott, Fellow and Tutor, Balliol Coll., Oxford), 6 vols. 1877-82. GBOBas Rawmnson : The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, 3 [4] vols. London, 1862-67 : 4th ed., London, 1879. New York, 1880. IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY. 93 All recent critical Commentaries on the historical and prophetical books of the Old Testament recognize the results of cunei- form decipherment. Many valuable ar- ticles on the subject will also be found scattered through various periodicals, and in the Transactions of learned Societies. Much important information will be found in recent Encyclopaedias. See, in particular, articles on Assyriological topics in the following : Real-Encyclopadie fur protestantisohe Theologie und Kir- che, ed. by Hebzog, Pmtt, and Hauck. Leipzig, voh. I.-XV., 1877-85. (Assyriol. articles largely by Fbiedb. DELrrzscH.) A Religions Encydopcedia ; or, Dictionary of Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal and Practical Theology. Based on the Real-Encychpadie of Herzog, Plitt, and Hauck, ed. by Philip Schaff. 3 vols. New York, 1882-84. Calwer Bibellexicon. Biblisclies Handuiorterbuch, illust- riert. 1 vol. in 8 parts, ed. by P. Zellbb. Oalw and Stuttgart, 1884. (Assyriol. arts, by Friedr. Delitzsch.) EncyclopcEdia Britannica, 9tli ed., London and New York, vols. I.-XVin., 1878-85. (Assyriological arts, by Sir Hbnby Eawlinson, a. H. Sayob, W. R. Smith, etc.) 94 ASSYEIOLOGY : ITS USE AND ABUSE EnayclopcBdia Americana (American Supplement to above) ; New York, Philadelphia, and London, vols. I., II., 1883-84. Mncydopedie des Sciences Beligieuses, ed. by F. Lichisbn- BBBGEB. 13 vols. Paris, 1877-82. (Assyriological arts, by JrnES Oppbet, Phiuppb Bbbgeb, etc.) With, special reference to Chronology may be named : Geokgb Smith : 77ie Assyrian Eponym Canon. London, n. d. [1875], pp. viii, 206. To be used with some cau- tion. Fbetz Hommel (Munich) : Abriss der Babylonisch-Assyr- ischen und Israelitischen Qeschichte ... in Ta- bellenform. Leipzig, 1880, pp. 20. Gives on the whole the best survey, and is very convenient. Some details need modification. AdoiiPH KAMPHAtrsEN (Bouu) : Bie Ghronohgie der He- br&ischen Konige. Bonn, 1883, pp. 104. ViCTOB FiiOlGii (Graz) : Bie Ghronohgie der Bibel, des Manetho und Beros. Leipzig, 1880, pp. x, 287. : Cyrus und Herodot nacTi den neugefundenen Keilinschri/ten. Leipzig, 1881, pp. 198. : Qeschichte des Semitischen Alterthums, in Tabellen. Leipzig, 1882, pp. 97, with 5 large folding- tables. — The last three books are full of ingenuity, but also of wild speculation. IN" OLD TESTAMEKT STUDY. 95 • Following is a selected list, arranged al- phabetically by authors, of brief treatises and addresses bearing on our subject, and published since 1878 on the continent of Europe : EiiiE Bonnet (Clairac, France) : Les Becouvertes Assyri- ennes et le Livre de la Genise. Montauban, 1884, pp. 119. EnDOLF Btiddbnsibg (Dresden) : Die Assyrischen Aus- graiungen und das Alte Testament. Heilbronn, 1880 (Zeitfragen das christliohen Volkslebens, No. 27), pp. 76. Max BttoiNGBB (Vienna) : Die neuentdecTcten Inschriften uber Gyrits. Vienna, 1881 (SitzungsberiohtederpMl.- hist. Olasse der kaiserl. Akad. d. Wissenschaften, 1880), pp. 17. A. Dblattre (S. J.) : Les Inscriptions Historiques de Ninive et de Babykme. Paris, 1879, pp. 90. August Dzllmann (Berlin) : Ueber die Herhunft der ur- geschwhtlichen Sagen der Hebrder. Berlin, 1882 (Sitz- ungsberiohte der konigl. preuss. Akad. d. Wiss.), pp. 14. — On the Origin of the Primitive Historical Traditions of the Hebrews (trans, of above, by G. H. Whittemoeb), Bibliotheca Sacra, Jvlj, 1883. PhttiTpp Kbipeb (Zweibriicken) : Die neuentdecTcten In- schriften Uber Cyrus. Zweibrucken, 1882 (Programm), pp. 37. 96 ASSYEIOLOGT : ITS TTSE AKD ABUSE. W. LoTz (Erlangen): QucEstionum de Historia Sabbati Libri Duo. Leipzig, 1883 (Habilitationsrede), pp. 109. Also under title Qucestiones de Historia Sabbati. Leip- zig, 1883, pp. 112 (some notes added). W. NowACK (Strassburg) : Bie assyrisch-babylonisdhen Keil-Inschriften und das Alie Testament. Berlin, 1878, pp. 28. Anton Schoiz (Wurzburg) : Bie KeilschriflurJcunden und die Genesis. Wiirzburg and Vienna, 1877, pp. 91. Eduabd Sdbss (Vienna) : Bie Sintfluth, Eine geologische Siudie. Prag and Leipzig, 1883 (from "DasAntlitz der Erde "), pp. 74. C. P. TiBKE (Leiden) : Be vrucht der Assyriologie voor de vergelijkende geschiedenis der godsdiensten. Amster- dam, 1877. German Trans, by K. FRiEDEEaoi : Bie Assyriologie und Ihre Ergebnisse fur die Vergleichende Beligionsgeschichte. Leipzig, n. d. [1878], pp. 24. Geobg Fkibdrich Unger (Wurzburg) : Kyaxares und : Astyages. Municb, 1882 (from Abhandlungen der konigl. bayer. Akad. d. Wissensch.), pp. 85. Biblical Study: ITS PRINCIPLES, METHODS, AND A HISTORY OF ITS BRANCHES; TOGETHER WITH A CATALOGUE OF A REFERENCE LIBRARY FOR BIBLICAL STUDY. By CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D., PROFESSOR OF HEBREW AND COGNATE LANGUAGES !N UNION THEOI-OGICAL SR^^NARY. One vol., crown octavo, cloth, $2.50. Professor Briggs's book is admirably adapted for the use of the great number of readers and Bible students who desire to know the results of the most recent investigation and the best modern scholarship in the field of biblical study. Without such a guide it is impossible to comprehend the discussions which now agitate the religious world as to the canon, the languages, the style, the text, the interpretation, and the criti- cism of Scripture. Each of these departments, with other kindred topics, is treated in a brief but thorough and compre- hensive manner, and their history and literature are presented together with their present aspect. 'V* For sale by all booksellers, or sent by :nail, post-f^aid, on receipt cf ike price, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 743 AND 745 Broadv.'av, New York. OUTLINES OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF among the Indo-European Eaces, By CHARLES FRANCIS KEARY, M.A., of the British Museufn. One vol. crown Svo., - - _ - $2»50o Mr. Keary's Book is not simply a Erc-ies of essays in comparative myth- ology, it is a history of the legendary beliefs of the Indo-European races drawn from their language and literature. Mr. Keary has no pet theory to establish; he proceeds in the spirit of the inquirer after truth simply, and his book is a rare example of patient research and unbiased opinion in a mo&t fascinating fie*d of exploration. " We have an important and singularly interesting contribution to our knowledge of pre-historic creeds in the Outlines 0/ ^re-historic Belief among the I ndo-Europemi Jfacfs, by Mr. C. F. Keary, of the British Museum. No contemporary essayist in the iield of comparative mythology — and we do not except Max Muller — has known how to embellish and illumine a work of scientific aims and solid worth with so much imaginative power and literary charm. There are chapters in this volume that are as persuasive as a paper of Matthew Arnold's, as delightful as a poem. The author is not only a trained inquirer but he presents the fruits of his research with the skill and felicity of an artist." — Neiu York ^un. "Mr._ Keary, having unusual advantages in the British Museum for studying comparative philology, has gone through all the authorities concerning Hindoo, Greek, early Norse, modern European, and other forms of faith in their early stages, and there has never before been so thorough and so captivating an exposition of them as that given in this book." — Philadelphia Bulletin. THE DAWN OF HISTORY. AN IXTRODUCTION TO PRE-HISTORIC STUDY. Edited by C. F. KEARY, M.A., OF THE BK1T15H MUSEUM. One Volume, 12mo., - _ _ $1.25. This work treats successively of the earliest traces of man in the re- mains discovered in caves or elsewhere in different pans of Europe : of language, its growth, and the story it tells of the pre histonc users of it ; of the faces of mankind, early social life, the religions, mythologies, and folk- tales of mankind, and of the history of writ.ng. A list of authorities is appended, and an index has been prepared specially for this edition. "The book may be heartily recommended as probably the most satisfactory summary of the subject that there is." — Nation, , " A fascinating manual, without a vestige of the dullness usually charged against scientific works. ... In its way, the work is a model of what a popular scientific "ork should be ; it is readable, it is easily understood, and its style is simple, yet dig- nified, avoiding equally the affection of the nursery and of the laboratory." — Boston Sat. Eve. Gnzetie. *.}t* For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid^ upon receipt oj price, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 743 AND 745 Broadway, New Vork, THE BEGINNINGS OFHISTORY According to the Bible and the Traditions of the Oriental Peoples. From the Creation of Man to the Deluge By Francois Lenormantj Professor of Archoeology at the National Library of France, etc. (Translated from the Second French Edition). With an introductioE: by Francis Brown, Associate Professor in Biblical Philology, Union Theological Seminary, I Vol., 12mo 600 pages, - - « $2,50, " What should we see in the first chapters of Genesis ? " writes M. Lenor- mant in his preface— "A revealed narrative, or a human tradition, gathered up for preservation by inspired writers as the oldest memory of their race ? This is the problem which I have been led to examine by comparing the nar- rative of the Bible with those which were current among the civilized peo- ples of most ancient origin by which Israel was surrounded, and from the midst of which it came." The bouk is not more erudite than it is absorbing in its interest. It has had an immense influence upon contemporary thought ; and has approached its task with aa unusual mingling of the reverent and the scientific spirit. " That the ' Oriental Peoples ' had legends on the Creation, the Fall of Man, the Deluge, and other primitive events, there is no denying. Nor is there any need oi denying it, as this admirable volume shows. Mr. Lenormant is not only a believer ji revelation, but a devout confessor of what came by Moses ; as well as of what came by Christ. In this explanation of Chaldean, Babylonian, Assyrian and Phenician tradition, he discloses a prodigality of thought and skill allied to great variety of pur- suit, and diligent manipulation of what he has secured. He ' spoils the Egyptians ' by boldly using for Christian purposes materials, which, if left unused, might be turned against the credibility of the Mosaic records. " From the mass of tradition here examined it would seem that if these ancient legends have a common basis of truth, the first part of Genesis stands more generally related to the religious history of mankind, than if it is taken primarily as one account, by one man, to one people. . . . While not claiming for the .'luthor the setting forth of the absolute truth, nor the drawing from what he has set forth the soundest conclusions, we can assure our readers of a diminishing fear of learned un- belief after the perusal of this work." — The New Englander, " With reference to the book as a whole it may be said : (i). That nowhere else can one obtain the mass of information upon this subject in so convenient a form; (2^. That the investigation is conducted in a truly scientific manner, and with an emmently Christian spirit ; (3). That the results, though very different from those in common acceptance, contain much that is interesting and to say the least, plausible ; (4). That the author while he seems in a number of cases to be injudicious in his state- ments and conclusions, has done work in investigation and in working out details that will be of service to all, whether general readers or specialists. — The Hebreia Student. - The work is one that deserves to be studied by all students of ancient history, and m particular by ministers of the Gospel, whose office requires them to interpret thi Scriptures, and who ought not to be ignorant of the latest and most interesting con- tribution of science to the elucidation to the sacred volume." — Neio York Tribune, *#* For Sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt ofprtce, CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York Final Causes. MEMBER. OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY. Translated from the Second French Kdition. With a Preface bj Robert Flint, D.D., LL.D, One Vol. 8vo,, - - - Price, $2.50 " Here is a book to which we give the heartiest welcome and the study of which — not reading merely — we commend to all who are seeking to solve the question whether the universe is the product of mind or of chance. . . . Perhaps no living author has been more thoroughly trained by previous studies for the work done here than Mr. Janet ; and no one is better fitted for it by original gifts." — Universalisi Quarterly, "I regard 'Janet's Final Causes' as incomparably the best thing in litera- ture on the subject of which it treats, and that it ought to be in the hands of every man who has any interest in the present phases of the theistic problem. I am very glad that you have brought out an edition for the American public and at a price that makes the work acceptable to ministers and students. I have commended it to my classes in the seminary, and make constant use of it in my instructions.*' — From a letter of Professor Francis L,. Patton^ D. D. " I am delighted that you have published the translation of Janet's ' Final Causes ' in an improved form and at a price which brings it within the reach of many who desire to possess it. It is'in my opinion the most suggestive treatise on this im- portant topic which is accessible in our language, and is admirably fitted to meet many of the misleading and superficial tendencies of the philosophy of a popular but superficial school." — Extract from a letter of Noah Porter^ D.D., LL.D.^ President of Vale College. " The most powerful argument that has yet appeared against the unwar- ranted conclusions which Haeckel and others would draw from the Darwinian [ Theory. That teleology and evolution are not mutually exclusive theories, M. Janet has demonstrated with a vigor and keenness that admit of no reply." — The JExaminer. *■' No book of greater importance in the realm of theological philosophy has appeared during the past twenty years than Paul Janet's ' Final Causes.' The central idea of the work is one which the whole course of scientific discussion has made the burning question of^the day, viz : That final causes are not inconsistent with physical causation." — l7ide^endeni. *#* ^°^ ^^^^ ^y ^11 hooksellersy or sent^ post-paid^ -upon receipt of price ^ by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 743 AND 745 Broadway, New Vork. The Theory of Preaching, OR LECTURES ON HOMILETICS. By Professor AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D. On& volume, Svo, ^ - _ - - $2.50 This work, now offered to the i^uHic, is the growth of more than thirty years' practical experience in teaching. While primarily designed for professional readers, it will be found to contain much that will be of interest to thoughtful laymen. The writings of a master of style of broad and catholic mind are always fascinating; in the present case the wealth of appropriate and pointed illustration renders this doubly the case. CRITICAL NOTICES. "In the range of Protestant homiletical literature, we venture to afGrm that its equal cannot be found for a conscientious, scholarly, and exhaustive treatment of the theory and practice of preaching. * * * To the treatment of his subject Dr. Phelps brings Bujh qualifications as very few men now living possess. His is one of those delicate and sensitive natures which are instinctively critical, and yet full of what Matthew Arnold happily calls sweet reasonableness. * * * To this characteristic graciousness of nature Dr. Phelps adds a style which is preeminently adapted to bis special work. It is nervous, epigrammatic, and racy," — The Examiner and Chrojiicle. " It is a wise, spirited, practical and devout treatise upon a topic of the utmost con- sequence to pastors and people alike, and to the salvation of mankind. It is elaborate but not redundant, rich in the fruits of experience, yet thoroughly timely and current, and it easily takes the very first rank among volumes of its class. — The Congrega- Honalist. "The layman will find it delightful reading, and ministers of all denominations and of all degrees of experience will rejoice in it as a veritable mine of wisdom." — Neiv York Christian Advocate. "The volume is to be commended to young men as a superb example of the art in which it aims to instruct them." — The Jndepeiident. "The reading of it is a mental tonic. The preacher cannot but feel often his heart burning withm him under its influence. We could wiah it might be in the hands of every theological student and of every pastor." — The Watckmati. "Thirty-one years of experience as a professor of homiletics in a leading American Theological Seminary by a man of genius, learning and power, are condensed into this valuable volume."— Christian hiielligencer. "Our professional readers will make a great mistake if they suppose this volume is simply a heavy, monotonous discussion, chiefly adapted to the class-room. It is a delightful volume for general reading.'' — Boston ZiotCs Herald. *#* For sale by all booksellers^ or sent^ post-paid^ upon receipt oj price^ by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. Religion and Chemistry. By Prof. JOSIAH P, COOKE, OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. A Nevv Edition, with Additions. One Voliune^ 12mo, ..... $1.50, The facts of astronomy, as they have been revealed by a lunij line of splendid discoveries, have already been applied many times to the argu- ment of design in nature ; Professor Cooke here applies to it the hardly less wonderful facts of chemistrv. "The work has stood the test of time, and is now regarded by the best thinkers as a positive contribution to the literature of scientific religious thought." — Boston Traveller. "In these days of scientific scepticism a book upon a department of science, which is not only theistic but positively Christian, is a real luxury." — New York Ckristian In- telligeiicer. "The discussions are in popular rather than in technical language, and they are rich in scientific information ; the arguments are forcible, and the wholework one that may be read with deep interest." — Neiv Englaitder. " His styleis a model of clearness and directness, and, at the same time, has a certain warmth and beauty, which occasionally rises into eloquence ; and there are passages in the volume which are more truly poetical than the majority of poems." — Portland Press. "His book is eminently fair and candid, a fine example of the ' sweet reasonable- ness' so much commended nowadays, and is well fitted alike to nourish the faith of abe- liev'ir and to give an unbeliever reason to consider and change his views." — Neiv York. Observer. **Prof. Cooke's style is easy and popular, as well as clear and accurate. He tloes not presuppose a thorough knowledge of chemistry in the reader, but has adapted his book for general reading. A copy ought to be put in the hands of every young man of ttie country.'' — Richmond Religious Herald. " ' Religion and Chemistry' presents the happiest combination of religion, philosophy, and natural science in a harmonious trinity that we have seen. No thmking being can read it without deriving from it inti^llectual improvement, moral comfort, and the pleasure that is always afforded fom a good literary production." — Philadelphia Bulletin. "Viewed as a scientific book alone, on its special subject, we know of none that can come in competition with ' Religion and Chemistry,' while the polished and elegant style of the author, and his earnest conviction, everywhere apparent, that the truths he expla ns owe their chief value to the glimpses they afford us of the Divine economy of creation, im- part to it a peculiar and signal value." — Neiv York Times. *^* For sale by all booksellers.^ or sent, post-paid^ upon receipt of frice^ by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. The Religions of the Ancient World Including Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia, Persia, India, Phoenicia, Etruria, Greece, Rome. By GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A. Owe Volume, 12mo, _ _ _ _ $1.00. Uniform with " The Origin of Nations." Canon Rawlinson's great learning and his frequent contribu- tions to the history of ancient nations qualify him to treat the subject of this volume with a breadth of view and accuracy of knowledge that few other writers can lay claim to. The treatise is not intended to give an exhaustive review of ancient religions, but to enable the students of history to form a more accurate apprehension of the inner life of the ancient world. " The historical studies which have elevated this author's works to the highest position have made him familiar with those beliefs which once di- rected the world's thought ; and he has done literature no better service than in this little volume. . . . The book is, then, to be accepted as a sketch, and'as the most trustworthy sketch in our language, of the re- ligions discussed." — jV. Y. Christian Advocate. THE ORIGIN OF NATIONS By Professor GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A. One Volume, 12mo. With tnaps, - - $1.00. The first part of this book. Early Civilizations, discusses the antiquity of civilization in Egypt and the other early nations of the East. The second part. Ethnic Affinities in the Ancient World, is an examination of the ethnology of Genesis, showing its accordance vvith the latest results of modern ethnographical science. " An attractive volume, which is well worthy of the careful consideration of every reader." — Oiservcr. ''A work of genuine scbolnrly excellence and a useful offset to a great deal of the superficial current literature on such subjects." — Congregat'ionalht. *' Dr. Rawlmson brings to this discussion long and patient r*^search, a vast knowledge and intim.ite acquaintance with wnat has been written on both sides of the question." — Brooklyn Union-Argus. *** For Sale hy all booksellers^ or sent. post-Jiaid., u^on receipt of price^ ty CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 743 AND 745 Bro.'^dway, New Yoek, A NEW EDITION NOW READY OF ^sxgpifln BisrobppiFS. An Account of Esplorations and Discoveries on the Site of Nineveh during 1873 and 1874. By GEORGE SMITH, Late of the Department of Oriental Antiquities^ British. Museum. Urith Maps, Wood-Cuts, and Photographs. One Vol. 8va Cloth, $4.00. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. From the N. K Daily Tribune. "Mr. Smith appears to have engaged in his work with equal ardor, perseverance^ Mid good judgment. His habits as a scholar have not impaired his efficiency as a practical man. 'J'he recital of his experience is marked by frankness, modesty, and great intelligence." From the St. Louis Democrat, *' The book reveals much of the hitherto hidden history of the Assyrian empire, and shows that its people were wise in many things. The maxims translated from the records, and the curious devices and pictures brought to the earth's surface, give us a clearer knowledge of the character of the people that inhabited that nation than we have gained from any other source. * * * It is a work of great importance, and will be welcomed by all scholars and antiquaries." From ike N. Y. Evetting Post. '* Mr. Smith's book is, in clearness and accuracy, all that could be wished ; himself a great authority on Assyrian antiquities, he has prepared a work which no person who has studied, or mtends to study, this fascinatmg subject should fail to read." From the Cincinnati Commercial, '* Tt is in the hope that these rich, first fruits of investigation will stimulate inquiry, and induce the British Government to take hold of the matter, and bring its influence to bear in such a manner upon the (Ottoman Government as to secure its co-operation in prosecuting a thorough system oi mvestigation, that we close Mr. Smith's absorbingly interesting book." From the Watchman and Reflector. "His book is a simple, straightforward record of what he accomplished, written nol to catch the applause of the ignorant, but to inform the wise and the thoughtful. The narrative of personal experience is interesting, without trace of straining for sensational effect IJut uie chief value of the work is for its account of things accomplished." •#* For sale by all booksellers^ or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of fric*!, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 743 AND 745 Broadway, New^York. ■9: