Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations. By the Rev. A.
H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford. (Service and Paton. 6s.)—Much as we appreciate Professor Sayce's popularisation of early Oriental history, we wish he would treat his subject in a systematic, scientific manner, so that the country of Dr. Young, Layard, and Rawlinson may at last be able to point to its Maspero, Tiele, or Justi. The party of the "Monuments" allows mere imaginary value to the complex Biblical edifice con- structed by the "higher criticism" from the slips into which its devotees have torn the Hexateuch. But the Professor .him- self often wanders from the scientific plane, as, e.g., when he calls our knowledge of early Oriental history "fully equal to that which we have of Greece or Rome," and says that the age of Abraham's contemporary, Amraphel, has "become as well known to us as the Athens of Pericles" He is too ready to treat pro- visional conjectures as established results. He says that the Monuments ruler, Khammurabi of Babylon, is the Biblical Amraphel, King of Shiner, that one Eri-aku of Larsa is Arioch of Ellasar, that Tudkhnla is Tidal King of nations, and that Chedor- laomer is the much manipulated Kudur-Laghghamar. After each of these categorical indicatives an emphatic " perhaps" is required. Professor Sayce asserts that a tablet from Tel-Sifr, the ancient Larsa, alludes to the behaviour of the local dynast " on the day of the defeat of Budur-Laghghamar (Chedorlaomer)" (see p. 213, and full text of inscription, p. 312). This is not a verified reading. According to competent experts, amongst them Mr. King, the in- scription quoted refers, not to Chedorlaomer, but to the proceedings of a Babylonian General named Inukh Samar.
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