134 PROP. HULL, LL.D., V.li.S., ON HOLY SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATED AND 



identifying the mounds as covering the site of the ancient 

 Amorite city.* 'i'he Tel-el-Amarna tablets have been trans- 

 lated by Colonel Conder, R.E. The letters, numbering one 

 hundred and seventy-six, are from Palestine and Syria, were 

 written about 1480 B.C. by Amorites, Phoenicians, Philistines, 

 and others to the King of Egypt, to generals and officials ; 

 and contain the names of contemporaries of Joshua men- 

 tioned in the Bible; the translation is published by the 

 Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1893.t 



The discovery of this correspondence enables us to infer 

 iliat at and before the period referred to (between 1500 and 

 1700 B.C.) there existed schools in which the Babylonian 

 literature Avas taught, and that documents were preserved in 

 tablets in the cuneiform character, a great improvement for 

 all literary purposes on the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. 

 This style of character was probably introduced into Egypt 

 by the Hyksos conquerors about 2200 B.C., and it is of the 

 greatest importance for us to know that it was employed in 

 Egypt and the adjoining countries, because we can now 

 explain wliat has been denied by some of the critics : — hoAv 

 the early books of the Bible were written at the period to 

 Avhich they refer, and are not, as has been contended, com- 

 pilations of later date. In the words of Professor Sayce, 

 " The Tel-el-Amarna tablets have overthrown the primary 

 foundation on which much of the criticism of writers like 

 Stade was built."J 



3. The MoaUte Stone. While Egypt and Southern Pales- 

 tine have, as shown in the preceding cases, yielded monuments 

 illustrative of the veracity of the Scriptural narrative, another, 

 in some respects more remarkable than either of the preceding 

 cases, has within the last few years been recovered from 



* "Many of the letters written in Babylonian from Syria contain 

 words and grammatical forms closely related, in some important details, 

 to the Hebrew of the Old Testament." — Quarterly Review, April, 1893, 

 p. 348. 



t Colonel C. E. Conder, The TellAmania Tablets, published by the P.E.F. 

 (1893). 



X Accounts, with plans and drawings, of the excavations at Tel-el- 

 Hesi will be found in the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Explor- 

 ation Fund, 1892-93 ; also Professor Sayce, Records of the Fast, new 

 series, Vols, ii, iii, iv, and v ; Ludwig Abel, Der Tkontafelfimd von el 

 Amarna, Berlin, 1889-90. Some of the Amarna tablets are in the 

 Berlin Museum, some in the British Museum, and some in Paris. Those 

 in the British Museum have been deciphered by Dr. Budge and Dr. 

 Bezold. 



