V.

SIDELIGHTS FROM OUTSIDE.

THE religion of the Bible, unlike other religions, rests upon facts, which it declares to have taken place. In other words it is an historic religion. It claims to be a reasonable belief, yet it does not base itself simply upon reason, but lays its foundation on the rock of fact, saying that certain things have actually taken place, and because of this, certain other things are true. This appeals to our confidence. Men who feel the gravity of life, and who try to steer their own affairs by the dictates of common sense, desire to have some solid ground to go upon; they do not like to leave the fixed and stable land to float off upon an interminable ocean of shifting and changing fancies. Such solid ground of fact the Bible professes to give. In the New Testament it affirms that Jesus Christ was born under Herod the Great at Bethlehem, that he came forward as a teacher of religion, that he performed many mighty works through two or three years in Galilee and Judea, that He was crucified by Pontius Pilate, that He died and was buried, that He rose again from the dead, and before the eyes of His disciples ascended into heaven. This is the central teaching of the New Testament, and all these things are or are not simple matters of fact. So again in the case of the Old Testament. The creation of the world, the unfallen state of Paradise, the fall into sorrowful conditions, the flood, the dispersion of nations, the call of Abraham, the deliverance out of Egypt, the giving of

the Law on Sinai, the conquest of Palestine, the establishment of David's kingdom, the dispersion of Israel, the captivity in Babylon, and the return of the Jews to their own land under Ezra and Nehemiah-all these are or are not matters of fact, actual events occurring at definite times and in definite places, and capable of receiving disproof or confirmation from independent testimony. And this independent testimony to general truthfulness is just what I mean by sidelights from outside.

and very

various.

These sidelights are very many The study of the language, literature, and history of ancient Eastern nations has made great strides within the last fifty years. Once we knew nothing about them but what we learnt from the Bible or from early Greek writers who just touched upon them in connection with their own history. But now the case is greatly changed; researches and excavations have brought to light a buried world; we can go back to remotest times and examine the very monuments made in the days of ancient kings. First of all the key was found to the mysterious language of the hieroglyphics of Egypt, and at once many things of deepest interest came to light which confirmed the Bible story. It was found, for example, that the conquest of the Jews by Shishak had been recorded in the temple of Thebes, and that the names of the towns he had taken were inscribed on the walls of the great temple of Ammon. An Egyptian scholar discovered also, in the hieratic papyri of the Museum of Leyden, the existence of the Hebrews in Egypt in the days of Rameses II., and a subsequent notice of them under a later monarch of the same line of Ramessids, on the rocks of El Hamamat.

But discoveries even more numerous and significant have been made concerning Babylonia and Assyria. Babylonia was highly civilised and densely populated when Egypt was still in its early youth, and from its records important illustrations of Old Testament history have been drawn.

Modern scholars have discovered the names of many ancient kings-amongst others the Chedorlaomer, or his successor of the days of Abraham—and have identified many of the sites of ancient cities of Babylonia, the names of which are very familiar, such as Ur of the Chaldees, the birthplace of Abraham, and Erech founded by Nimrod. Babel has of course been discovered, Borsippa, Nineveh, Calah, and other sites identified. Coming down the stream of time to the oldest Assyrian historical monument, we have a terra-cotta cylinder of Tiglath-Pileser, B.C. 1120. Later still in the annals of the reign of Shalmaneser, about B.C. 850, the Jewish kings Omri, Ahab, Jehu, and the Syrian Kings Benhadad and Hazael, are mentioned as conquered or tributary to the empire of Assyria. Under subsequent kings illustrations of Old Testament history continue to increase, and mention is found in the inscriptions of Azariah, Menahem, Pekah, Hoshea, and Rezin king of Damascus, with whom Tiglath-Pileser II. carried on war about B.C. 750. The annals of Sargon, thirty years later, record the conquest of Samaria and the capture of the city of Ashdod, mentioned by the Prophet Isaiah. Some remarkable historical cylinders brought to this country from Assyria and now in the British Museum, contain the annals of Sennacherib, his expedition against Jerusalem, and the events of the reign of Hezekiah, the tribute exacted by the conqueror from the king of Israel, with all the details of the troops employed for the invasion of Palestine. The very clay which sealed the treaty between the kings of Judah and Assyria, with the impresses of their joint seals, is preserved in the Nineveh Gallery. Still further in the reign of his successor Esarhaddon, about B.C. 680, the Assyrian inscriptions contain an important notice of Manasseh, king of Judah.

These incidental confirmations of the historic facts of the Old Testament are continually occurring. In the third chapter of the Second book of Kings we have an account of

the revolt of Mesha, king of Moab, against the King of Israel, to whom he had hitherto paid tribute. This was all that was known of this circumstance till about twelve years ago there was unearthed at Dibân, in the country of Moab, what is now known as the Moabite stone. This stone bore an inscription commemorating the reign of a certain Mesha, king of Moab. The inscription began by setting forth the names and titles of Mesha, briefly recounting his successful effort to throw off the yoke of the king of Israel, and returning solemn thanks to Chemosh his god, for the towns taken and the spoil and captives that fell into his hands. It concludes by setting forth the names of the towns rebuilt or fortified by Mesha, and the various works accomplished by him. This part of it turns out to be a valuable addition to our knowledge of sacred geography; for the names as given on the Moabite stone, engraved by one who knew them in his daily life, are in nearly every case identical with those found in the Bible itself. Thus the fact of the revolt of Mesha and the general trustworthiness of the Bible narrative are supported by a witness which can hardly be charged with collusion.

Some of the illustrations brought to light are perhaps not less conclusive, but more because they relate to small points. For example, in the book of Genesis, the king of Egypt is the Pharaoh, for none other bore that title, but in the book of Kings (2 Kings vii. 6) the expression occurs "the kings of the Egyptians," implying, of course, more than one. Now it turns out that at that later time there had been a foreign invasion, and the empire of Egypt had been divided into several petty kingdoms. At no other time would it have been correct to speak of "the kings of the Egyptians," but at that time it was correct. Similarly in the case of Assyria. The writer of the second book of Kings (xxviii. 16) says-" At that time did king Ahaz send unto the kings of Assyria to help him." It turns out in this case as in the last that an expression which would have been

incorrect a few years earlier or a few years later was correct then, for after the fall of Carchemish, in B.C. 717, the aged king Tiglath-Pileser, and his young and inexperienced son Shalmaneser had been obliged to give some sort of kingly power to the vigorous warrior Sargon, who fixed his palace at Khorsabad at the north of Nineveh. So that there were practically three kings at this time, though but for a short period. Besides these historical instances there have also been small confirmations of manners and customs in cases where our western notions have been somewhat staggered. For example, the book of Daniel tells us that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego were cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace, and that Daniel himself was cast into the den of lions. Now curiously enough the annals of Assurbanipal, King of Assyria, furnish us with similar instances. Saul-mugina, the King's brother, had been by him loaded with favours and made King of Babylonia. It appears, however, that he revolted against his brother, but after a severe contest was defeated and taken prisoner, and in a spirit of revenge was cast by that brother's command into a burning fiery furnace. The exact words of the annals (lines 107-109) are these "Saul-mugina my brother rebellious who made war with me into a furnace fiery burning they threw him and destroyed his life." So again a few pages farther on the fate of some of his companions in revolt is described thus:-"The rest of the people, alive among the bulls and lions (as Sennacherib my grandfather used to throw men among them), so I again following in his footsteps, threw those men into the midst of them."

These illustrations I have thus given are sidelights thrown, as I have said, in quite recent years, but there are others from entirely independent sources which have been known for centuries. For example, the Acts of the Apostles tells us of the spread of the Gospel in Asia Minor, and we take down the volume of Pliny's Letters to Trajan and find it really was there as the New Testament declares.