Legends of Babylon and Egypt in relation to Hebrew tradition | Page 4

also the
fact that, whatever views we may hold, it will be necessary for us to
assimilate it to them. I shall have no hesitation 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 Géographie universelle, t.
IX, pp. 685 ff.
The great trunk-roads of through communication run north and south,
across the eastern plateaus of the Haurân and Moab, and along the
coastal plains. The old highway from Egypt, which left the Delta at
Pelusium, at first follows the coast, then trends eastward across the
plain of Esdraelon, which breaks the coastal range, and passing under
Hermon runs northward through Damascus and reaches the Euphrates
at its most westerly point. Other through tracks in Palestine ran then as
they do to-day, by Beesheba and Hebron, or along the 'Arabah and west
of the Dead Sea, or through Edom and east of Jordan by the present
Hajj route to Damascus. But the great highway from Egypt, the most
westerly of the trunk-roads through Palestine, was that mainly followed,
with some variant sections, by both caravans and armies, and was
known by the Hebrews in its southern course as the "Way of the
Philistines" and farther north as the "Way of the East".
The plain of Esraelon, where the road first trends eastward, has been

the battle-ground for most invaders of Palestine from the north, and
though Egyptian armies often fought in the southern coastal plain, they
too have battled there when they held the southern country. Megiddo,
which commands the main pass into the plain through the low
Samaritan hills to the southeast of Carmel, was the site of Thothmes
III's famous battle against a Syrian confederation, and it inspired the
writer of the Apocalypse with his vision of an Armageddon of the
future. But invading armies always followed the beaten track of
caravans, and movements represented by the great campaigns were
reflected in the daily passage of international commerce.
With so much through traffic continually passing within her borders, it
may be matter for surprise that far more striking evidence of its cultural
effect should not have been revealed by archaeological research in
Palestine. Here again the explanation is mainly of a geographical
character. For though the plains and plateaus could be crossed by the
trunk-roads, the rest of the country is so broken up by mountain and
valley that it presented few facilities either to foreign penetration or to
external control. The physical barriers to local intercourse, reinforced
by striking differences in soil, altitude, and climate,