is/;] OLD TESTAMENT STUDY IN 1876 387 



ments with Genesis in detail and expression, as well as in 

 such broader features as were already known to us from 

 Berossus. It is impossible, when one looks into the 

 matter, to avoid the conviction that some of these co 

 incidences would not have appeared if the cuneiform texts 

 had been translated by a person who had never seen the 

 Bible ; and as it is just these points which are most 

 important for a really critical examination of the subject, 

 one cannot but wish that Assyriologists would try to free 

 their minds more than they have hitherto done from the 

 desire to hunt out, above all things, parallels with the 

 Bible. And when we have got a trustworthy reading 

 of the texts, it will next be necessary to inquire much 

 more critically than has been done by Smith into the age 

 of these legends. The texts come from the library of 

 Assurbanipal (seventh century B.C.), but are copied from 

 originals to which Smith ascribes an enormous age, on 

 grounds which are anything but convincing. We have no 

 real certainty that the legends as we possess them are 

 much older than the time of Assurbanipal ; and v. Gut- 

 schmid has pointed out, in the series of legends which 

 contain the Babylonian story of the flood, an apparently 

 clear trace of Egyptian influence which cannot well be 

 very ancient. Thus, if further research confirms the 

 singular coincidences in expression between Genesis and 

 the inscriptions, some of which, if Smith s versions are 

 right, can only be due to direct imitation by the writers 

 of one or the other nation, it will still be a question 

 on which side the priority lies ; and in discussing this 

 question it will be necessary to remember that in literary 

 culture and power, as well as in their religion, the Israelites 

 were immeasurably in advance of Assyria. 



When we pass to the other part of the biblical records, 

 which are illustrated by the inscriptions, viz. the history 

 of the kings of Israel and Judah, we find that the past 

 year has been one of fierce and tangled controversy. The 

 old quaestio vexata of the chronology of the kings, for which 



