Shinar." According to this passage the early Chaldaeans should be
Hamites, not Semites--Ethiopians, not Aramaans; they should present
analogies and points of connection with the inhabitants of Egypt and
Abyssinia, of Southern Arabia and Mekran, not with those of Upper
Mesopotamia, Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine. It will be one of the
objects of this chapter to show that the Mosaical narrative conveys the
exact truth--a truth alike in accordance with the earliest classical
traditions, and with the latest results of modern comparative philology.

It will be desirable, however, before proceeding to establish the
correctness of these assertions, to examine the grounds on which the
opposite belief has been held so long and so confidently. Heeren draws
his chief argument from the supposed character of the language. Assuming
the form of speech called Chaldee to be the original tongue of the
people, he remarks that it is "an Aramaean dialect, differing but
slightly from the proper Syriac." Chaldee is known partly from the
Jewish Scriptures, in which it is used occasionally, partly from the
Targums (or Chaldaean paraphrases of different portions of the Sacred
Volume), some of which belong to about the time of the Apostles. and
partly from the two Talmuds, or collections of Jewish traditions, made in
the third and fifth centuries of our era. It has been commonly regarded
as the language of Babylon at the time of the Captivity, which the Jews,
as captives, were forced to learn, and which thenceforth took the place
of their own tongue. But it is extremely doubtful whether this is a true
account of the matter. The Babylonian language of the age of
Nebuchadnezzar is found to be far nearer to Hebrew than to Chaldee, which
appears therefore to be misnamed, and to represent the western rather
than the eastern Aramaic. The Chaldee argument thus falls to the ground:
but in refuting it an admission has been made which may be thought to
furnish fully as good proof of early Babylonian Semitism as the rejected
theory.

It has been said that the Babylonian language in the time of
Nebuchadnezzar is found to be far nearer to Hebrew than to Chaldee. It
is, in fact, very close indeed to the Hebrew. The Babylonians of that
period, although they did not speak the tongue known to modern linguists
as Chaldee, did certainly employ a Semitic or Aramaean dialect, and so
far may be set down as Semites. And this is the ground upon which such