724 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



main framework of the early biblical chronology ; they have 

 shown the suggestive correspondence between the ten antedilu- 

 vian patriarchs in Genesis and the ten early dynasties of the 

 Egyptian gods, and have placed by the side of these the ten ante- 

 diluvian kings of Chaldsean tradition, the ten heroes of Armenia, 

 the ten primeval kings of Persian sacred tradition, the ten 

 " fathers " of Hindu sacred tradition, and multitudes of other 

 tens, throwing much light on the manner in which the sacred 

 chronicles of ancient nations were generally developed. 



These scholars have also found that the legends of the plagues 

 of Egypt are in the main but natural exaggerations of what 

 occurs every year ; as, for example, the changing of the water of 

 the Nile into blood evidently suggested by the phenomena ex- 

 hibited every summer, when, as various eminent scholars, and, 

 most recent of all, Maspero and Sayce, tell us, " about the middle 

 of July, in eight or ten days the river turns from grayish blue 

 to dark red, occasionally of so intense a color as to look like 

 newly shed blood." These modern researches have also shown 

 that some of the most important features in the legends can not 

 possibly be reconciled with the records of the monuments ; for 

 example, that the Pharaoh of the Exodus was certainly not over- 

 whelmed in the Red Sea. As to the supernatural features of the 

 Hebrew relations with Egypt, even the most devoted apologists 

 have become discreetly silent. 



Egyptologists have also translated for us the old Nile story 

 of The Two Brothers, and have shown, as we have already seen, 

 that one of the most striking parts of our sacred Joseph legend 

 was drawn from it; they have been obliged to admit that the 

 story of the exposure of Moses in the basket of rushes, his rescue, 

 and subsequent greatness, is a story told not only of King Sargon, 

 but of various other great personages of the ancient world ; they 

 have published plans of Egyptian temples and copies of the sculp- 

 tures upon their walls, revealing the earlier origin of some of the 

 most striking features of the worship and ceremonial claimed to 

 have been revealed especially to the Hebrews ; they have given to 

 the world copies of the Egyptian texts showing that the theology 

 of the Nile was one of various fruitful sources of later ideas, 

 statements, and practices regarding the brazen serpent, the golden 

 calf, trinities, miraculous conceptions, incarnations, resurrections, 

 ascensions, and the like, and that Egyptian sacro-scientific ideas 

 contributed to early Jewish and Christian sacred literature state- 

 ments, beliefs, and even phrases regarding the Creation, astrono- 

 m Y> geography, magic, medicine, diabolical influences, with a 

 multitude of other ideas, which we also find coming into early 

 Judaism in greater or less degree from Chaldsean and Persian 

 sources. 



