The admitted elasticity or difference in Bible chronology, should make us willing to grant a liberal margin. What specially concerns us is the harmony of histories. While exact dates are in their own place most valuable, they are not to supersede the cumulative evidence which the recognised harmony of profane with sacred history is bringing to the side of the Christian apologist. No one can recall the perpetually recurring depreciation of the Bible through the greater part of the last half century, on the plea that its historical statements were either mythical, or, when valid, had been written after other histories had been published, without thankfulness for the striking vindication of all its statements which contemporary histories have of late been giving.

To the positive evidence for the truth of Scripture, which has been unexpectedly adduced through historical and philological investigations, we shall next direct attention as fully as is consistent with our present aim.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Bible a Light among Ancient Records-Egyptian, Chaldean, and Assyrian Testimonies to the Truth of the Scriptures.

"The oldest and most authentic record of the primeval state of the world is unquestionably the Scripture history; and though the origin of its early inhabitants is only traced in a general and comprehensive manner, we have sufficient data for conjecture on some interesting points." -Sir J. G. Wilkinson.

THE

HE Bible unfolds the oldest history in the world. No other comes within sight of its earliest records. The Pentateuch was written by Moses a thousand years before Herodotus recited his history at the public games of Greece and the boy Thucydides wept lest he might fail in future rivalry; and, more than twelve hundred years before, the two Egyptian writers, Manetho and Eratosthenes, endeavoured to explain the revolutions of their country. Ctesias and

Berosus, the one thirty and the other a hundred and fifty years later than Herodotus, followed him with their somewhat conflicting accounts of Chaldæan and Assyrian struggles and triumphs. The earliest Greek historian was thus the contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah; and, long before Manetho had arranged the details of Egyptian dynasties, the prophet Malachi had closed the Old Testament record. The great historical distance between Moses and the earliest profane writers is so great as to be distinctly visible, and therefore indisputable.

The references in the Bible to Egypt and other ancient monarchies, although often merely incidental, are yet so

minute, and at times so comprehensive, that, if erroneous, nothing should be easier than to expose their inaccuracy; and there can be, perhaps, on the other hand, no more convincing argument for the historical reliableness of the Bible than that which is dependent on the ascertained correctness of its allusions to those other nations with which the Israelites were, in the earliest ages, more or less closely associated.

The ancient testimonies which monuments and written documents have most opportunely supplied within the present century, indeed, in a large measure, within the present generation, have not only demolished all the old reasoning against the Bible, but have so vindicated its historical trustworthiness, that "Moses and the Prophets" are now left in undisputed possession of the watchtowers from which, many centuries ago, they spoke to the Israelites, and through them to the whole world. The very first historical sections of the Bible, so long held in contempt, have of late not only attracted the attention of the greatest scholars, but have won their homage. No one now will dare to scoff at the tenth chapter of Genesis, and pronounce it meaningless.

Although Max Müller has claimed for the Vedas of India a like antiquity with the writings of Moses, he admits that they are not history;1 and neither he, with all his enthusiasm on their behalf, nor any one else, will now assign to them an ethnological value at all comparable with that of the Pentateuch. In the oldest histories there is nothing that approaches in universality and explicitness the tenth and eleventh chapters of Genesis. To the tenth chapter, as an ethnological table, scholars of opposite religious tendencies have united in paying homage. "It is as essential to an understanding of the Bible," says Professor T. Lewis, "and

1 66 'Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i., p. 5.

of history in general, as is Homer's Catalogue in the Second Book of the 'Iliad' to a true knowledge of the Homeric poems and the Homeric times." The light which it sheds on the origin and subsequent relations of tribes and nations has not only continued undimmed by distance, but is becoming brighter as accurate investigation is gradually removing the haze of prejudice or apathy by which it has been long encircled.

In the genealogy which it outlines there is nothing mythical, nor is there anything which is specially flattering to the Israelites. There is no national vanity displayed, nor is there the least indication of what might have been in part expected, a decided preference for the Shemitic race. No special pre-eminence is assigned them in a history which is remarkable for its mingling of minute references with comprehensive outlines. In closely examining the tenth chapter, we find such diversity of history as precludes exact classification, but its general statements are beginning to admit of comparatively easy historical exposition. While, for example, in some of the lists of the descendants of Noah, the record ends with the second generation, in others it extends to the third or fourth generation; and while in some instances the founder only without the tribe is named, in others the tribe without the founder is given, and in others it is difficult to say whether the founder or the tribe is meant; but through all that is yet inexplicable, there are minute historical references of so much importance as to command the attention of ethnologists. In the study of the earliest monarchies,— the Egyptian, the Chaldæan, and the Assyrian,--historians thankfully turn to the Book which was long scoffed at by those who plumed themselves on their great scholarship. It

sheds so much light on the first movements of different peoples, and on the foundation of empires, that it cannot be repudiated without injury to historical science.

In immediate connexion with the origin of nations, the sacred historian has placed the confusion of tongues at the building of the Tower of Babel; and in thus accounting for the diversity of Languages, the Bible deals at the very outset with a remarkable subject which does not seem, for many ages, to have, in Greece or elsewhere, awakened the least interest or attention. In the simplicity of the Bible narrative is its strength. There is no date for the building of the Tower. Generally viewed, it stands as the boundary between the unity of the primitive world and the conflicting movements of diverse tribes in subsequent ages. It explains what otherwise would have remained inexplicable,-a manifold diversity of language, with a singular unity of apparently original structure. The moral cause of the dispersion has been thus stated," the unity which had hitherto bound together the human family was the community of one God, and of one divine worship. This unity did not satisfy them; inwardly they had already lost it; and therefore it was that they strove for another. There is therefore an ungodly unity which they sought to reach through such self-invented, sensual, outward means; whilst the very thing they feared, they predicted as their punishment." Their purpose was defeated by the confusion of their tongues, or rather by the sudden use of three languages instead of one. The introduction of three tongues or languages, would cause such confusion as would put an end to the undertaking. It would have been inconsistent with the method of the Divine government, so far as we can judge, to introduce a multitude of

1 "Delitzsch," p. 310. "Lange's Commentary,” p. 353.