THE CONTROVERSIALIST I93 



tact of the Jews with Babylonian ideas during the 

 Exile. But this did not account for the very great 

 modifications which the legends had undergone before 

 their adoption into the final redaction of the 

 Pentateuch ; modifications involving long processes 

 of elimination of polytheistic elements. Happily, 

 the discovery of a number of cuneiform tablets at 

 Tel-el-Amarna in Egypt in 1887 throws light upon 

 the difficulty. They show that, at about 1400 B.C., 



Palestine and the neighbouring countries formed an 

 Egyptian province under the rule of Egyptian 

 governors, stationed in the principal towns, and 

 (what is more remarkable) communicating with their 

 superiors in the Babylonian language, thus affording 

 conclusive evidence that for long previously Canaan 

 had been under Babylonian influence. l 



It is therefore in the highest degree probable that 

 the Babylonian legends had been imported into 

 Canaan before the fifteenth century B.C., and that on 

 the settlement of the Israelites in that country, they 

 incorporated these legends into their stock of tradi- 

 tions. Down to the eighth century B.C., the materials 

 of Israelitic history existed only in fragmentary and 

 unsettled form, made up of songs celebrating the 

 deeds and prowess of heroes ; of scraps of law ; and 

 of legendary and actual history gathered from different 

 sources and spread over many centuries. To these 

 1 Authority and AtcJkeo logy, p. 72. 



