Monuments to the Truth of the Scriptures. 25 Hammurabi is now known to have had his capital at Baby lon at the time of Abraham. Until recently this chronolgy was disputed, so that the editors and contributors of the New Schaff-Herzog Cyclopedia dogmatically asserted that as Abra ham lived nearly 300 years later than Hammurabi, the bib lical story must be unhistorical. Hardly had these statements been printed, however, when Dr. King of the British Museum discovered indisputable evidence that two of the dynasties which formerly had been reckoned as consecutive were, in fact, contemporaneous, thus making it easy to bring Hammu rabi’s time down exactly to that of Abraham. Chedorlaomer is pretty certainly identified as Kudur-Laga- mar (servant of Lagamar, one of the principal Elamite gods). Kudür-Lagamar was king of Elam, and was either the father or the brother of Kudur-Mabug, whose son, Eri-Aku (Ari- och), reigned over Larsa and Ur, and other cities of southern Babylonia. He speaks of Kudur-Mabug “as the father of the land of the Amorites,” i. e., of Palestine and Syria. Tidal, “king of nations,” was supposed by Dr. Pinches to be referred to on a late tablet in connection with Chedor laomer and Arioch under the name Tudghula, who are said, together, to have “attacked and spoiled Babylon.” However much doubt there may be about the identifica tion of some of these names, the main points are established, revealing a condition of things just such as is implied by the biblical narrative. Arioch styles himself king of Shumer and Accad, which embraced Babylon, where Amraphel (Ham murabi) was in his early years subject to him. This furnishes a reason for the association of Chedorlaomer and Amraphel in a campaign against the rebellious subjects in Palestine. Again, Kudur-Mabug, the father of Arioch,. styles himself “Prince of the land of Amurru,” i. e., of Palestine and Syria. Moreover, for a long period before, kings from Babylonia had claimed possession of the whole eastern shore of the Mediterranean, including the Sinaitic Peninsula.
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