in giving you my own
reading of the evidence; but at the same time it will be possible to
indicate solutions which will probably appeal to those who view the
subject from more conservative standpoints. That side of the discussion
may well be postponed until after the examination of the new evidence in
detail. And first of all it will be advisable to clear up some general
aspects of the problem, and to define the limits within which our
criticism may be applied.

It must be admitted that both Egypt and Babylon bear a bad name in
Hebrew tradition. Both are synonymous with captivity, the symbols of
suffering endured at the beginning and at the close of the national
life. And during the struggle against Assyrian aggression, the
disappointment at the failure of expected help is reflected in
prophecies of the period. These great crises in Hebrew history have
tended to obscure in the national memory the part which both Babylon
and Egypt may have played in moulding the civilization of the smaller
nations with whom they came in contact. To such influence the races of
Syria were, by geographical position, peculiarly subject. The country
has often been compared to a bridge between the two great continents of
Asia and Africa, flanked by the sea on one side and the desert on the
other, a narrow causeway of highland and coastal plain connecting the
valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates.(1) For, except on the frontier of
Egypt, desert and sea do not meet. Farther north the Arabian plateau is
separated from the Mediterranean by a double mountain chain, which runs
south from the Taurus at varying elevations, and encloses in its lower
course the remarkable depression of the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea, and
the 'Arabah. The Judaean hills and the mountains of Moab are merely
the southward prolongation of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and their
neighbourhood to the sea endows this narrow tract of habitable country
with its moisture and fertility. It thus formed the natural channel of
intercourse between the two earliest centres of civilization, and was
later the battle-ground of their opposing empires.

(1) See G. A. Smith, _Historical Geography of the Holy
Land_, pp. 5 ff., 45 ff., and Myres, _Dawn of History_, pp.
137 ff.; and cf. Hogarth, _The Nearer East_, pp. 65 ff., and
Reclus, _Nouvelle Geographie universelle_, t. IX, pp. 685 ff.

The great trunk-roads of through communication run north and south,
across the e