eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, when the Pharaoh had become a convert to an Asiatic form of faith, the highest offices of state were absorbed by foreigners, most of whom were Canaanites. In the national reaction which followed, the foreigners were expelled, exterminated, or reduced to serfdom; while a new dynasty, the nineteenth, was founded by Rameses I. He, therefore, must be the new king, the builder of Pa-Tum or Pithom (now Tel el-Maskhuteh, near Ismailia), as has been proved by Dr. Naville's researches, and consequently, as Egyptian students had long maintained he must have been the Pharaoh of the oppression."

The occupancy of the land of Goshen by the Israelites who, it will be remembered, were shepherds, is supposed to receive confirmation in the following:

Further excavations of Dr. Neville have shown that Goshen, the Egyptian Goshen (now Saft el-Henneh), is the modern Wadi Tumilat, between Zagazig and Ismailia. A dispatch dated in the eighth year of the reign of Meneptah, the son and successor of Rameses II, state that Bedouin from Edom has been allowed to pass the Khetam or "fortress" in the district of Succoth (Thukot), in order to feed themselves and their herds on the possessions of Pharaoh. Khetam is the Etham of Exodus 13:20. The geography of the Exodus agrees remarkably with that of the Egyptian papyri of the time of Rameses II and his son.^[14]

The search for evidence of the truth of the Bible has not been confined to Egypt. Equal interest has been awakened in those ancient empires that occupied the valley of the Euphrates; in Palestine, and the Sinaitic Peninsula. European scholars with keen interest followed the study of the cuneiform characters found on Babylonian tablets and monuments. Progress made in deciphering this ancient method of writing led M. Botta, in 1842, to begin excavations upon the ancient site of Nineveh, but he met with little success. Later, however,—1845—Mr. Henry Layard (subsequently Sir Henry Layard) undertook excavations at the same place for the Trustees of the British Museum, and succeeded in uncovering the palaces of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Assur-banipal, and in bringing to light the terra cotta tablets which formed the great library founded by these kings at Nineveh, and of which some twenty-two thousand are now preserved in the British Museum. An examination of these tablets soon showed that they consisted of historical inscriptions, astronomical reports and calculations, grammatical lists, etc., and scholars began to apply Sir Henry Rawlinson's system of decipherment of the Babylonian version of the Behistun inscription to the texts inscribed upon these tablets. A large portion of the history of Babylonia and Assyria through the translation of these tablets is now revealed to us, and the knowledge of the language of these countries has thrown much light upon the language, literature, history, and learning of the Jews. The excavations which have been carried on in Mesopotamia for the last fifty years have yielded the most valuable results; and the inscribed slabs, monolithic stelae, boundary stones, gate-sockets, bricks, seal-cylinders and tablets, now preserved in the British Museum, afford an abundant supply of material from which Bible customs and language may be freely explained and illustrated. The cuneiform writing is, at least, as old as B. C. 3,800, and there is evidence to show that it was in use as late as B. C. 80.^[15]

In 1865 the Palestine Exploration fund was opened, and excavations were begun in Jerusalem, and have continued, with some interruptions, until now. Since then researches have followed in the south, east and north of Palestine. Geological investigations have been made, natural history collections have been formed, enquiries into nationalities and customs carried on, towns, villages, hills, valleys, water courses, wells, cisterns, notable trees and other land marks have been located. In 1868 a party of engineering experts left England to make a scientific survey of the Sinaitic Peninsula. This they effected, making plans and models, taking three thousand copies of inscriptions with collections of specimens bearing on the zoology, botany and geology of the country.^[16]

The results of these explorations and discoveries, in the valley of the Euphrates, in Palestine and the Sinaitic Peninsula, have been even more fruitful, in the production of materials which tend to confirm the truth of the Bible narrative and general credibility, than the discoveries so far made in Egypt. The confirmation of the Bible narrative of ancient events is remarkable. So, too, the confirmation of its location of cities, mountains, rivers, plains and, indeed, the whole geography of the scriptures. The confirmation given of the Bible's incidental allusions to the manners and customs of neighboring and contemporary nations is no less remarkable; together with what is said of reigning kings and dynasties, and the incidental allusions that the Bible makes to their invasions of each other's territories, their alliances, their victories, and their defeats. The following are a few of the special Bible incidents which receive confirmation from the results of these researches condensed from the article of Professor Sayce:

CREATION: One of the accounts of creation in cuneiform characters found on the tablets very nearly resembles the first chapter of Genesis. It commences with the statement that "in the beginning" all was a chaos of waters, called the deep (Tiamat, the Hebrew tehom). Then the Upper and Lower Firmaments were created, and the Gods came into existence. After that comes a long account of the struggle between Bel-Merodach and the "Dragon" of chaos, "Timaat," "the serpent of evil," with her allies, the forces of anarchy and darkness. It ended in the victory of the god of light, who thereupon created the present world by the power of his "word." The fifth tablet or book of the poem describes the appointment of the heavenly bodies for signs and seasons, and the sixth (or perhaps the seventh) the creation of animals and reptiles. The latter part of the poem, in which the creation of man was doubtless described, has not yet been recovered. But we learn from other texts that man was regarded as having been formed out of the "dust" of the ground.

THE SABBATH: From the tablets it is also learned that the Babylonians observed a day of rest, which is called Sabbattu and described as "a day of rest for the heart." On it, it was forbidden to eat cooked meat, to put on fresh clothes, to offer sacrifices, to ride in a chariot, etc. The Sabbattu fell on the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and 28th days of the month.

THE GARDEN OF EDEN: The "plain" of Babylonia was called Edin in the ancient Sumerian language of the country, and the word was adopted by the Semitic Babylonians, in the form of Edinu. Eridu, the early seaport of Babylonia, was the chief center of primitive Babylonian religion and culture, and in its neighborhood was a garden, wherein, "in a holy place," according to an ancient poem, was a mysterious tree whose roots were planted in the "deep," while its branches reached to heaven. The tree of life is often represented in Assyria sculptures between two winged cherubim who have sometimes the heads of eagles, sometimes of men, and sometimes stand, sometimes kneel. Eri-Aku or Arioch (Gen. 14:1) calls himself "the executor of the oracle of the holy tree of Eridu." In Sumerian, wine was called ges-din, "the draught