DISCOVERIES IN MESOPOTAMIA. 547 



western Asia, so distant in time and space, and restored it to ancient 

 history. The nebulous forms of Ninus, Semiramis, and the effeminate 

 Sai-danapahis have been replaced by clear-cut individualities. The old 

 great culture States— the old Babylonian. Assyrian, and Chaldean 

 empires, their external political history and internal development in 

 commerce and industry, law and religion, manners and customs—enter 

 into our horizon with steadily increasing- completeness and vividness. 

 At the same time they furnish us the most valuable information on the 

 history of the neighboring kingdoms, from Elam to Canaan, on the 

 ethnic movements which during four millenniums took place in the 

 large quadrangle of lands between the Black and Caspian seas and the 

 borders of P^gypt-Arabia. And how many chronological and geo- 

 graphical riddles have not been solved or at least brought nearer to 

 solution! 



Assyriological research which sprung from the ruins of Ba])ylon 

 and Nineveh has above all shown itself fruitful for the science of the 

 Old Testament, and for it promises to ])ear still more fruit. For not 

 only is thc^ Assyrian language most akin to Hebrew^ affording new 

 information on questions of grammar, lexicography, and phraseology, 

 but there is scarcely a book of the Old Testament the interpretation of 

 whose su])ject-matter has not been aided to some extent by the cunei- 

 form monuments. The narratives and conceptions of the Book of 

 Genesis of the creation of the world — the serpent as the arch enenw of 

 the Deity and embodiment of all sin and malice, the ten patriarchs, and 

 the catastrophe of the Deluge which destroyed primitive humanity, so 

 well known and familiar to us from childhood — appear in a new light 

 through the surprising parallels which the Babylonian-Assyrian clay 

 books furnish. The Old Testament history, especially that of Israel 

 from Chedorlaomer to Belshazzar and the Achaemenian kings, inter- 

 linked with the history of Babel and Asshur. continually receives new 

 light from the latter. The chronology of the kings of Judah and 

 Israel is, through the chronology of the Assyrian empire, placed on a 

 more secure basis than was possible before; and since in the annals of 

 the Assyrian kings mention is made of the kings Ahab and Jehu, Pekah 

 and Hosea, Ahaz and Hezekiah, the possibility is afforded of comparing 

 more than one narrative of the historical and prophetical books, as. 

 for instance, that of Sennacherib's campaign against Jerusalem, with 

 the records of the opposing side. Hebrew antiquity is connected by 

 hundreds of threads with that of Avestern Asia, particularly of Baby- 

 lonia and Assyria. The deeper insight which we now h&ve into the 

 belief and cult of the gods, especially into the nature of the sacrifices 

 of the Babylonians, their conception of the winged angelic beings after 

 the manner of the cherubim and seraphim, their views of life after 

 death, their bestowing of names, the peculiarities of their psalm poetry 



