shur; Arphaxad;
Aram; Lud; Nimrod.--The site of Ur.--Approximate date of the rescue
of Lot by Abraham.--Egypt in the time of Abraham.--Records of
famines.--The date of Joseph's appointment as second ruler in
Egypt.--The Tale of the Two Brothers.--Goshen.

There is no book in the world about which more has been written than the
Bible, and perhaps there is no portion of the Bible which has given rise
to a larger literature than the Book of Genesis. Every word in it has been
carefully scrutinised, now by scholars who sought to discover its deepest
meaning or to defend it against the attacks of adversaries, now again by
hostile critics anxious to expose every supposed flaw, and to convict it
of error and inconsistency. Assailants and defenders had long to content
themselves with such evidence as could be derived from a study of the book
itself, or from the doubtful traditions of ancient nations, as reported by
the writers of Greece and Rome. Such reports were alike imperfect and
untrustworthy; historical criticism was still in its infancy in the age of
the classical authors, and they cared but little to describe accurately
the traditions of races whom they despised. It was even a question whether
any credit could be given to the fragments of Egyptian, Babylonian, and
Phoenician mythology or history extracted by Christian apologists from the
lost works of native authors who wrote in Greek. The Egyptian dynasties of
Manetho, the Babylonian stories of the Creation and Flood narrated by
Berossus, the self-contradicting Phoenician legends collected by Philo
Byblius, were all more or less suspected of being an invention of a later
age. The earlier chapters of Genesis stood almost alone; friends and foes
alike felt the danger of resting any argument on the apparent similarity
of the accounts recorded in them to the myths and legends contained in the
fragments of Manetho, of Berossus, and of Philo Byblius.

All is changed now. The marvellous discoveries of the last half-century
have thrown a flood of light on the ancient oriental world, and some of
this light has necessarily been reflected on the Book of Genesis. The
monuments of Egypt, of Babylonia, and of Assyria have been rescued from
their hiding-places, and the writing upon them has been made to speak once
more in living words. A dead world has been called again to life by the
spade of the excavator and the patient labour of the decipherer. We find
ourselves,