he lifetime of
Abraham. But this is not all. As I pointed out five years ago, the name
of Khammurabi himself, like those of the rest of the dynasty of which he
was a member, are not Babylonian but South Arabian. The words with which
they are compounded, and the divine names which they contain, do not
belong to the Assyrian and Babylonian language, and there is a cuneiform
tablet in which they are given with their Assyrian translations. The
dynasty must have had close relations with South Arabia. This, however,
is not the most interesting part of the matter. The names are not South
Arabian only, they are Hebrew as well. That of Khammu-rabi, for
instance, is compounded with the name of the god 'Am, which is written
'Ammi in the name of his descendant Ammi-zaduqa, and 'Am or 'Ammi
characterizes not only South Arabia, but the Hebrew-speaking lands as
well. We need only mention names like Ammi-nadab or Ben-Ammi in
illustration of the fact. Equally Hebrew and South Arabian is _zaduqa_
or _zadoq_; but it was a word unknown to the Assyrian language of
Babylonia.

When Abraham therefore was born in Ur of the Chaldees, a dynasty was
ruling there which was not of Babylonian origin, but belonged to a race
which was at once Hebrew and South Arabian. The contract tablets prove
that a population with similar characteristics was living under them in
the country. Could there be a more remarkable confirmation of the
statements which we find in the tenth chapter of Genesis? There we read
that "unto Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg," the
ancestor of the Hebrews, while the name of the other was Joktan, the
ancestor of the tribes of South Arabia. The parallelism between the
Biblical account and the latest discovery of archaeological science is
thus complete, and makes it impossible to believe that the Biblical
narrative would have been compiled in Palestine at the late date to
which our modern "critics" would assign it. All recollection of the
facts embodied in it would then have long passed away.

Even while I write Prof. Hommel is announcing fresh discoveries which
bear on the early history of the Book of Genesis. Cuneiform tablets have
turned up from which we gather that centuries before the age of Abraham,
a king of Ur, Ine-Sin by name, had not only overrun Elam, but had also
conquered Simurru, the Zemar of Gen. x. 18, in the land of Phoenicia. A
daughter of the same king or of one of his immediate successors, was