IAN AND BABYLONIAN LIBRARIES; EGYPT, LITER ATURE OF; TEL AMARNA, TABLETS OF.) (6) Belonging to Mosaic Age. Archaeological evidences are accumulating to the effect that por tions of the Pentateuch must belong to the age of Moses. For instance : The tenth chapter of Gene sis is a great geographical chart in which we find a record of the nations of the known world, and it is here stated that Canaan was the brother of Mizraim or Egypt. But this could be true only while Canaan was a province of Egypt, as it was during the 18th and 19th Dynasties. After the fall of the 19th Dynasty Canaan was separated from Egypt.
Henceforth Canaan belonged to the geographical zone of Shem. Be it remembered that the 19th Dynasty was the time of the exodus of Israel from Egypt ; therefore the historical statements of Genesis are being confirmed by the monuments.
The account of campaign of Chedorlaomer has aiso been fully vindicated. (See ARIOCH; CHEDORLAOMER.) It is now plain that the 14th chapter of Genesis, instead of being the late produc tion which some of the critics claimed, must go back to the period when the history of Babylonian supremacy in Palestine was still known. Ar chmology has verified the names of "Amraphel, king of Shinar," of "Arioch, king of Ellasar," and even "Td'al, king of nations," and also the Unman Manda or "nations" of Kurdistan whom Kudur-Laghamar (Chedorlaomer) arrayed under his banner. Numerous contracts have also been found which are dated in the reigns of Arioch and Amraphel. (See AMRAPHEL.) (7) Demonstrations. Some literary critics having decided that the account in the 14th chap ter of Genesis was unhistorical and that the names of the Canaanitish kings were etymological fic tions, it was necessary for them to deny the archae ological facts which had been produced. Conse quently Mr. Pinches, of the British Museum, and other competent Assyriologists were plainly told that they were mistaken in the reading of these names, and that too by men who could not read a word, or decipher a letter of the Assyrian. It
was triumphantly stated and repeated anonymous ly, in various journals, that the name of Kuder Laghamar especially had a wholly different pro nunciation ; but unfortunately for their theory their "demonstration" was hardly in print before Dr. Scheil found tablets in the Museum of Con stantinople which when deciphered proved to be the letters of "Amraphel, king of Shinar," and had been written after he had thrown off the Elamite yoke. He referred to the Elamite premacy in Chaldea, and in one of them spoke of the presents which he was sending to a vassal Babylonian prince as a reward for his valor "on the day of Kuder-Laghamar's defeat." This valuable discovery was made in the summer of 1897, and it set at rest any doubts which might have obtained on that subject.
But literary criticism is not inclined to yield without a struggle, and while it now admits the reading of the names, it is urged that the cunei form documents contain no account of Abraham, and that a fragment of Babylonian history must therefore have been introduced into a mass of fic tion. It is forgotten that this "fragment" itself was recently pronounced fiction.
The literary or "higher critic" had also declared that the mention of Salem in the same chapter was an anachronism, but we have learned from the Tel-Amarna tablets that the city of Salem was already important when they were written. (See TEL-AMARNA TABLETS). (ABRAHAM, page Even the names of Jacob and Joseph have been found by Prof. Pinches in a Babylonian contract tablet belonging to the period of Chedorlaomer, and the name of Abram (Abu-ramu) is in an other contract tablet of the same date.
(8) Other Testimony. Similar testimony has been found in a papyrus belonging to the 18th Dynasty. Not only is the political situation the same as that pictured in Exodus, but the geogra phy is the same.
The Babylonian account of the deluge presup poses the Biblical account in its integrity. (See