408 Mr. Beke 07i the Advance of the Land in the Persian Gulf. 



until the alluvial country upon which its ruins now stand had 

 been formed and had become fit for habitation*. The history 

 of Babylon, therefore, cannot possibly have any connexion 

 with that of Nimrod and his immediate successors. 



Whilst upon this subject I gladly avail myself of the op- 

 portunity afforded me of correcting an error in my Origines 

 Bibliccs (p. 89). I have there said that " the proper grammati- 

 cal construction of the words of the textf ^W^? ^*^l yatza 

 Asshur) is ' went forth Asshur*, the word Asshur hemg the no- 

 minative or subject of the verb." In this conclusion I adopted 

 the version of the Septuagint, Josephus, the Vulgate, and the 

 text of our received English translation, as also the opinion of 

 by far the greater number of scholars who have investigated the 

 subject X ; but, after deliberate consideration, I have no hesita- 

 tion in stating, (notwithstanding this great weight of authority,) 

 that I now entirely agree with those scholars who consider 

 that the marginal reading of our authorized version, " he [2. e, 

 Nimrod,] went out into Assyria," is to be preferred. Mr. 

 Carter adopts this latter reading ; and a writer in the first 

 number of Cochrane's Foreign Quarterly Review (p. 82), 

 inculpates me for advocating the opinion which I here relin- 

 quish. In consequence of this correction there is no neces- 

 sity for imagining (as, under the influence of the same error, 

 I have done, in Orig, Bibl., pp. 24 — 26,) that after the Di- 

 spersion from Babel, Nimrod founded in the land of Shinar 

 a second city, of the same name : on the contrary, the Scrip- 

 tural narrative, according to the interpretation which I now 

 consider to be the correct one, expressly tells us that he went 

 out of that land into Assyria, where he founded Nineveh and 

 the other cities which are named in the text. 

 I am, Gentlemen, 



Your obedient servant, 



London, April 30, 1835. Charles T. Beke. 



* In my Ongines Biblicee (p. 66), I have given my reasons for placing 

 the site of the tower of Babel in the north-western portion of Mesopo- 

 tamia. Tn the same work (p. 259, note,) I have hinted at the possibility of 

 the ruins at Hillah not being even those of Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon ; 

 and 1 have since suggested to Col. Chesney that the actual site of that 

 city may be some thirty or forty miles to the north-westward of Hillah ; 

 in fact, not upon the present course of the Euphrates, but upon what is 

 represented in the maps as having been an ancient branch of that river. 



f Gen. X. 11. 



t See upon this point Dr. Russell's Connection of Sacred and Profane 

 History, vol. ii. pp. 2 and 43. 



