Recent Testimony of Archaeology to the Scriptures. 37 that vile culture, but rather of a purer religion coming down and overwhelming it. 2. Another and still more important question concerning Palestine civilization is, What was the source and course of the dominant civilization and especially the religious culture re flected in the Bible account of the millennium preceding and the millennium succeeding the birth of Abraham? Was it from without toward Canaan or from Canaan outward? Did Pal estine in her civilization and culture of those days, in much or in all, but reflect Babylonia, or was she a luminary ? PALESTINE AND BABYLONIA. The revision of views concerning Palestinian civilization forced by recent excavations at once puts a bold interrogation point to the opinion long accepted by many of the source and course of religious influence during this formative period of patriarchal history, and the time of the working out of the principles of Israel’s religion into the practices of Israel’s life. If the Palestinian civilization during this period was equal to that of Egypt, and sp certainly not inferior to that of Baby lonia, then the opinion that the flow of religious influence was then from Babylonia to Palestine must stand for its defense. Here arises the newest problem of biblical archaeology. And one of the most expert cuneiform scholars of the day, Albert T. Clay<50), has essayed this problem and announces a revolutionary solution of it by a new interpretation of well- known material as well as the interpretation of newly acquired material. The solution is nothing less; indeed, than that in stead of the source of religious influence being Babylonia, and its early course from Babylonia into Palestine, exactly the reverse is true. “That the Semitic Babylonian religion is an importation from Syria and Palestine (Amurru), that the crea tion, deluge, Ante-diluvian patriarchs, etc., of the Babylonian came from Amurru, instead of the Hebraic stories having come from Babylonia., as held by nearly all Semitic scholars.”
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