THE WITNESS OF ARCHiECLOGY TO THE BIBLE. 207 



fore, exist with the Babylonians and Assyrians, out gave place 

 to a clever and attractive cosmoiogical theory. . . . Notwith- 

 standing all that Freethinkers and others may say, it was not the 

 source of the Creation story in Genesis, which remains on a 

 pinnacle all its own."** 



In a discussion in the Victoria Institute in 1912, Mrs. 

 Maunder, who is an authority on Babylonia, made the follow- 

 ing statement: — " To speak of these writings as being influenced 

 by Babylonian conceptions, when there is no trace of Babylonian 

 sorcery in them, is to speak in ignorance of what Babylonian 

 conceptions really were. The whole Bible is clean as driven 

 snow from the Babylonian imprint." 



The account of the Deluge in the book of Genesis is cited by 

 the critics as being perhaps the strongest instance of a com- 

 posite narrative, m which the stories of the two hypothetical 

 writers, the " Jehovist," and the " Elohist," who wrote, ac- 

 cording to Dr. Driver, in the " early centuries of the mon- 

 archy," are combined together. Here the Babylonian Story of 

 the Flood steps in as a witness. It goes back in its present 

 form to the age of iVbraham, and when we compare it with the 

 ncrount in Genesis we find that it agrees with both the so-called 

 Jehovistic and Elohistic writers. As therefore the Babylonian 

 account of the Deluge agrees with the Biblical version as a 

 whole, and as it goes back to an age long anterior to Moses, it 

 proves that even the narrative in which the marks of composite 

 authorship are supposed to be clearest is not really composite. 

 " In the ' critical ' theory of the origin of the Bibhcal narrative 

 of the great catastrophe, archaeology thus compels us to see 

 only a philological mirage."* 



The history of the campaign of Chedor-laomer against Sodom, 

 in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, has been questioned as 

 historically impossible. But the very names of the kings men- 

 tioned in that chapter have been identified, the Amraphel of 

 Genesis proving to be the Hammurabi who was reigning in 

 Babylon at the time. Prof. Sayce says "It is one more illus- 

 tration of the fact that * critical ' difficulties and objections 

 commonly turn out to be the result of the imperfection of our 

 own knowledge. Archaeological research is constantly demon- 

 strating how dangerous it is to question or deny the veracity of 

 tradition or of an ancient record until we know all the facts." 



There is only one admissible test of the authenticity and 

 trustworthiness of an ancient record, and that is an archseologi- 



** Prof . Pinches, 'The Babvlonian Creation Stories" in "Friends' 

 Witness." Vol. II., p. 5. 



' "Archaeological Facts," Prof. Sayce. pp. 20, 49, 53. 



