Chapter II
, § 5, but in the writer’s view this treatment was necessary and appropriate for several reasons: (1) The data on which these chronologies are built up are for the most part the fruits of archæological research. (2) They are our only means of measuring the antiquity of civilization, since the Bible itself affords no continuous system of chronology.[2] If the student of the Bible is to have any intelligent idea of what “the fulness of time” (Gal. 4:4) means, he should know what the sources of our chronology are and how they are rightly used. (3) Such a presentation seemed all the more necessary because in many books, especially those of some English Egyptologists, the materials are employed uncritically, and civilization is made to appear much older than it really is.
To accomplish all these aims the writer has adopted the following plan: In three chapters the archæology, history, and civilization of Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria, and the Hittites are briefly treated, together with the discoveries which especially interest the Biblical student. These are the three great civilizations which preceded the Israelitish. A much more detailed treatment is given to Palestine, to which Chapters IV-XIV of Part I are devoted. In the last chapter of Part I an attempt has been made to present the discoveries in Greece and Asia Minor which throw light on the New Testament. In Part II the texts, Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Moabitish, Phœnician, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin, which bear on the Bible, are translated. They are arranged in the order of the Biblical books which they illuminate. Each translation is accompanied by a brief discussion in which its chief bearing on the Bible is pointed out.
In conclusion it may not be out of place to offer a word of guidance to two or three classes of readers. Those who are not interested in the history of Babylonia and Egypt, but wish simply to know what has been discovered in those countries which throws light on the Scriptures, should turn at once to Part I, Chapter I , § 7, and