nor." When George the
Synkellos notes that the Chaldaeans made war against the Phoenicians in
B.C. 1556, he is doubtless quoting from some old and trustworthy source.

We must not imagine, however, that there was any permanent occupation of
Canaan on the part of the Babylonians at this period of its history. It
would seem rather that Babylonian authority was directly exercised only
from time to time, and had to be enforced by repeated invasions and
campaigns. It was the influence of Babylonian civilization and culture
that was permanent, not the Babylonian government itself. Sometimes,
indeed, Canaan became a Babylonian province, at other times there were
only certain portions of the country which submitted to the foreign
control, while again at other times the Babylonian rule was merely
nominal. But it is clear that it was not until Canaan had been
thoroughly reduced by Egyptian arms that the old claim of Babylonia to
be its mistress was finally renounced, and even then we see that
intrigues were carried on with the Babylonians against the Egyptian
authority.

It was during this period of Babylonian influence and tutelage that the
traditions and myths of Chaldaea became known to the people of Canaan. It
is again the tablets of Tel el-Amarna which have shown us how this came
to pass. Among them are fragments of Babylonian legends, one of which
endeavoured to account for the creation of man and the introduction of
sin into the world, and these legends were used as exercise-books in the
foreign language by the scribes of Canaan and Egypt who were learning
the Babylonian language and script. If ever we discover the library of
Kirjath-sepher we shall doubtless find among its clay records similar
examples of Chaldaean literature. The resemblances between the
cosmogonies of Phoenicia and Babylonia have often been pointed out, and
since the discovery of the Chaldaean account of the Deluge by George
Smith we have learned that between that account and the one which is
preserved in Genesis there is the closest possible likeness, extending
even to words and phrases. The long-continued literary influence of
Babylonia in Palestine in the Patriarchal Age explains all this, and
shows us how the traditions of Chaldaea made their way to the West. When
Abraham entered Canaan, he entered a country whose educated inhabitants
were already familiar with the books, the history, and the traditions of
that in which he had been born. There were