of writers hold that it was after their arrival in
Palestine that the Hebrew patriarchs came into contact with Babylonian
culture. It is true that from an early period Syria was the scene of
Babylonian invasions, and in the first lecture we noted some newly
recovered evidence upon this point. Moreover, the dynasty to which
Hammurabi belonged came originally from the north-eastern border of
Canaan and Hammurabi himself exercised authority in the west. Thus a
plausible case could be made out by exponents of this theory, especially
as many parallels were noted between the Mosaic legislation and that
contained in Hammurabi's Code. But it is now generally recognized that
the features common to both the Hebrew and the Babylonian legal systems
may be paralleled to-day in the Semitic East and elsewhere,(1) and
cannot therefore be cited as evidence of cultural contact. Thus the
hypothesis that the Hebrew patriarchs were subjects of Babylon in
Palestine is not required as an explanation of the facts; and our first
period still stands or falls by the question of the Mosaic authorship of
the Pentateuch, which must be decided on quite other grounds. Those who
do not accept the traditional view will probably be content to rule this
first period out.

(1) See Cook, _The Laws of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi_,
p. 281 f.; Driver, _Genesis_, p. xxxvi f.; and cf. Johns,
_The Laws of Babylonia and the Laws of the Hebrew Peoples_
(Schweich Lectures, 1912), pp. 50 ff.

During the second period, that of the settlement in Canaan, the Hebrews
came into contact with a people who had used the Babylonian language as
the common medium of communication throughout the Near East. It is an
interesting fact that among the numerous letters found at Tell el-Amarna
were two texts of quite a different character. These were legends, both
in the form of school exercises, which had been written out for practice
in the Babylonian tongue. One of them was the legend of Adapa, in which
we noted just now a distant resemblance to the Hebrew story of Paradise.
It seems to me we are here standing on rather firmer ground; and
provisionally we might place the beginning of our process after the time
of Hebrew contact with the Canaanites.

Under the earlier Hebrew monarchy there was no fresh influx of
Babylonian culture into Palestine. That does not occur till our last
main period, the later Judaean monarchy, when, in consequence of the
westward a