i8 7 7] OLD TESTAMENT STUDY IN 1876 389 



and v. Gutschmid on the other. The point here is a 

 supposed mention of King Azariah of Judah, for which 

 Schrader has completely lost his temper (Jahrbb. fiir prot. 

 TheoL, 1876, II.). Amidst all this it is not strange that 

 the Jena historian, A. v. Gutschmid, has raised a strong 

 protest against the premature introduction of Assyrio- 

 logical discoveries into the history of the ancient East. 

 His book, Neue Beitrage zur Geschichte des alien Orients 

 (Leipzig : Triibner, 1876), is essentially polemical, and 

 has probably overstated the case in attacking Schrader, 

 who is the author s main foe. Gutschmid makes no 

 attempt to deny to Assyriology the character of a real 

 science ; but he places in a strong light the faults which 

 have been committed through haste to get from the new 

 science results immediately applicable to the Bible and 

 other history. Both on this account, and from numerous 

 incidental contributions to questions of Bible history, 

 the book is of real value. I select for notice only two 

 points, the remarks at p. 18 on the early currency of 

 Aramaic in Mesopotamia, and the interesting excursus 

 on the existence of the kingdom of Samaria after the fall 

 of Hoshea, which is one of the indisputable results of 

 Assyriologists, and serves to explain Isa. vii. 8, where the 

 sixty-five years just carry us down to Assurbanipal, who 

 is presumably the Osnapper of Ezra vi. 10. 



Under the head of translations of historical works falls 

 to be noticed the English version of Ewald s valuable 

 Antiquities of Israel (London : Longmans). The study 

 of biblical geography continues to make progress, especi 

 ally through the researches of the &quot; Palestine Exploration 

 Fund/ The Quarterly Statements for 1876 are mainly 

 composed of papers by Lieutenant Conder, embracing a 

 series of proposed identifications of Biblical and Tal- 

 mudical sites, together with comparisons of the survey 

 work with ancient Egyptian records bearing on Palestine, 

 and with the topography of Samaritan literature. There 

 are also valuable notes on the climate and natural history 



