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been two readings of the name. You will now be anxious to hear what further 

 you may get out of Mr. Budge on some of the points that have been raised. 

 With apologies for not having been able to gather up the various points of 

 the discussion better than I have done, I now call on him to reply. 



Mr. Budge. — With regard to what has been said as to Bible names, 

 every one who reads the Jewish names in the Talmud, or even in the com- 

 mentaries thereon, will at once see how they have been corrupted, so that 

 even the most familiar words have been made into rubbish. Tn the case of 

 the name Nebuchadnezzar it is spelt out fully in the inscription, and there 

 is no doubt about its meaning. I need hardly mention that the form 

 Nebuchndrezzar is the more correct. Nebuchadnezzar was a noble enemy, 

 and, although the Jews treated him in a most shameful way, he gave 

 Jeremiah his freedom and sent him out of the way of harm. It must not 

 be forgotten that Abraham came from Ur, and when the subject of mono- 

 theism is alluded to we should remember that God said to him, " I will be 

 your God and give you the land." Moreover, God said to him, "I was 

 known to your fathers under the name of El Shaddai, but you did not know Mo 

 by the name of Adoni." So that El Shaddai was one of the names of Abra- 

 ham's great God. Another form is Ea. The Babylonians had not only a 

 form for God in the shape of matter, but they personified Him as the sea 

 and in other ways. The followers of Ea were evidently monotheists, and 

 there can Ijc no doubt but that the great Greek, Plato, came near the true light, 

 while those who followed Ea were, after all, not very fiir out. The Jews, 

 when they were brought to Assyria, would there have recognised the kindred 

 form of their own worship. The Babylonians started by worshipping every- 

 thing in nature which could be deemed worthy of worship ; but by-and-by camo 

 the conclusion that some of their gods were not so worthy of worship as the 

 others. Hence they came to have chief gods, until at length the monO' 

 theists carried their ideas so much further that they probably got a very 

 near approach to the Jewish idea of God. I have always held that in the 

 Syriac and Chaldee there remains a great deal of the actual speech of the 

 population of Babylon. Mr. Boscawen has mentioned the literal character 

 of the translation given of the inscription at the end of the paper. 

 It is a rugged translation, no doubt. The first thing in the case of 

 all these inscriptions is to say what the words mean. When you havo 

 got the true meaning of a word it is easy to dress it up into polished 

 ■English. Assyrian has not yet been brought to such perfection that a 

 man like the late Lord Derby can sit down and write a translation of it 

 as he did in the case of Homer, expressing in elegant phraseology the 

 meaning of the author; in that case -ho would be sharply criticised, for 

 Assyriologists do not always speak in the kindest way of each other. A 

 difference of expression in the case of the Assyrian would frequently alter 

 the whole meaning. As to what Mr. Rassam has said, I feel that on one 

 point he has raised what is somewhat of a personal character. I read a tablet, 

 five or six inches long and three or so broad, which recorded the fight between 



