34 MAJOR C, R. CONDER, D.C.L., R.E., © 
who has read even a little of modern critical literature, with a 
knowledge of Oriental life and language, obtained by living 
for a time in the Hast, can fail to observe that this is an error 
into which men of great learning continually fall. The most 
minute research must fail to find the truth when the data 
relied upon are incorrect, and at the present time what is 
wanted in Biblical study is not new theory, but new and 
properly understood fact. 
The basis of the comparative method was laid by the great 
discoveries of Layard at Nineveh, and by the decipherment of 
the inscriptions of Egypt and of Western Asia ; yet the results, 
especially those of cuneiform research as carefully discussed 
by Schrader, only serve to carry back our independent 
knowledge of Hebrew history to the times of the Hebrew 
monarchy. ‘This, of course, we should expect, because from 
the Bible itself we learn that not till long after the. death of 
Solomon did the power of Assyria begin to extend westwards, 
through Phoenicia and down into Palestine. 
The Egyptian records of relations with Syria trace back 
much earlier,—to 1600 B.C.,—but they are not in the form of 
annals, and the information has to be very carefully sifted out, 
as was first done by Chabas and Mariette, who have been 
followed by many other scholars. 
In addition to these, the new Tel el-Amarna tablets 
appear to be about to give us very important new facts as 
to the western spread of Babylonian power in the sixteenth 
century B.C. 
There remains a third department of research, namely, that 
into the monuments of Syria and Palestine, including Hebrew 
and Phcenician texts, and the hieroglyphics found in northern 
Syria and Asia Minor, to which the present paper is chiefly 
devoted. 
As regards the Hebrew and Pheenician inscriptions, it may 
be noted in passing that, few as they are, their evidence is of 
the highest importance. From the Phcenician texts we obtain 
ideas as to history and mythology fully in accord with the Old 
Testament accounts. We get the name of Hiram, the names 
of some of the Canaanite gods mentioned in the Bible, and the 
names of months identical with those used by the Hebrews 
before the Captivity. This last is specially important. _The 
old Hebrew month names (at least in some cases) were not the 
same used after the Captivity. The former names were appa- 
rently the same used by the Phcenicians, the latter names 
those used by the Assyrians. Thus when we find the old 
names used, we have a fair argument that the Hebrew writer 
