th of the Issus,
about forty miles inland. The old citadel was uncovered, and various
sculptures, showing Hittite influence, a magnificent statue of
Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, a huge statue of the god Hadad, and
several Aramaic inscriptions of great value, as illustrating early
Syrian civilization, were found. More recently, in 1906 and 1907,
Professor Winckler visited Boghaz-koei, in Asia Minor, a center of
{122} early Hittite civilization, where he uncovered thousands of
tablets which throw new light upon the history of western Asia in
ancient times. Thus, generation after generation, amid dangers and
hardships, a body of enthusiastic, self-sacrificing men have toiled
almost day and night in order to restore to life a civilization buried
for many centuries beneath the sands of the desert and the ruins of
ancient cities, and we are only at the beginning. What revelations the
next fifty years may have in store!

The results of these expeditions have been enthusiastically welcomed by
all who are interested in antiquity: the students of history, art,
science, anthropology, early civilization, and many others. They are,
however, of special interest to the Bible student; and it is well to
remember that, whatever additional motives may be responsible for
excavations at the present time, from the beginning until now the
desire to find illustrations, or confirmations of scriptural
statements, has played a prominent part. "To what end," says Professor
Delitzsch,[5] "this toil and trouble in distant, inhospitable and
danger-ridden lands? Why all this expense in ransacking to their
utmost depths the rubbish heaps of forgotten centuries, where we know
neither treasures of gold nor of silver exist? Why this zealous
emulation on the part of the nations to secure the greatest possible
{123} number of mounds for excavation? And whence, too, that
constantly increasing interest, that burning enthusiasm, born of
generous sacrifice, now being bestowed on both sides of the Atlantic
upon the excavations in Babylonia and Assyria? One answer echoes to
all these questions, one answer which, if not absolutely adequate, is
yet largely the reason and consummation of it all--the _Bible_."

Our purpose is to discuss the bearing of recent researches in Bible
lands upon the Christian view of the Old Testament, that is, the view
which looks upon the Old Testament as containing records of divine
revelations granted in divers portions and