dvance of Assyria, the civilization of Babylon was once more
carried among the petty Syrian states. Israel was first drawn into the
circle of Assyrian influence, when Arab fought as the ally of Benhadad
of Damascus at the battle of Karkar in 854 B.C.; and from that date
onward the nation was menaced by the invading power. In 734 B.C., at the
invitation of Ahaz of Judah, Tiglath-Pileser IV definitely intervened
in the affairs of Israel. For Ahaz purchased his help against the allied
armies of Israel and Syria in the Syro-Ephraimitish war. Tiglath-pileser
threw his forces against Damascus and Israel, and Ahaz became his
vassal.(1) To this period, when Ahaz, like Panammu II, "ran at the
wheel of his lord, the king of Assyria", we may ascribe the first marked
invasion of Assyrian influence over Judah. Traces of it may be seen in
the altar which Ahaz caused to be erected in Jerusalem after the pattern
of the Assyrian altar at Damascus.(2) We saw in the first lecture, in
the monuments we have recovered of Panammu I and of Bar-rekub, how the
life of another small Syrian state was inevitably changed and thrown
into new channels by the presence of Tiglath-pileser and his armies in
the West.

(1) 2 Kings xvi. 7 ff.

(2) 2 Kings xvi. 10 ff.

Hezekiah's resistance checked the action of Assyrian influence on Judah
for a time. But it was intensified under his son Manasseh, when Judah
again became tributary to Assyria, and in the house of the Lord altars
were built to all the host of heaven.(1) Towards the close of his long
reign Manasseh himself was summoned by Ashur-bani-pal to Babylon.(2) So
when in the year 586 B.C. the Jewish exiles came to Babylon they could
not have found in its mythology an entirely new and unfamiliar subject.
They must have recognized several of its stories as akin to those they
had assimilated and now regarded as their own. And this would naturally
have inclined them to further study and comparison.

(1) 2 Kings xxi. 5.

(2) Cf. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 ff.

The answer I have outlined to this problem is the one that appears to
me most probable, but I do not suggest that it is the only possible
one that can be given. What I do suggest is that the Hebrews must have
gained some acquaintance with the legends of Babylon in pre-exilic
times. And it depends on our reading of the evidence into which of the
three main periods the beginning of the process may be traced.

So much, then, for the i