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SOLOMON'S TEMPLE DESTROYED

II Kings 25:8, 9-And in the fifth month, . . . which is the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem: And he burnt the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man's house burnt he with fire.

SECULAR EVIDENCE.

I had the privilege a few years ago, of going down a hundred feet under the walls of Jerusalem and seeing there the massive foundations of Solomon's temple covered over by the debris of many centuriesvast stones fifty feet long and eight or ten feet square, which engineers told me no machinery on earth could lift today. There they remain the colossal memorials of the genius that erected that magnificent temple. REV. A. B. SIMPSON, D.D., Missionary Alliance at Big Tabernacle, Dec. 13, 1917.

POWERFUL HITTITES

CHAPTER V.

THE HITTITES-EDOM-MOAB-JERICHO.

21. Were the Hittites a myth?

BIBLE EVIDENCE.

Judges 3:5-And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites,....

SECULAR EVIDENCE.

The Hittites are often mentioned in the Old Testament. Otherwise they were a forgotten people until the second half of the nineteenth century. The lack of extra-biblical testimony to their existence led some scholars about a half-century ago to deny their historicity. They scoffed at the idea of Israel allying herself with such an unhistorical people as the Hittites, as narrated in 2 Kings VII. 6. But those utterances have vanished into thin air. The Hittites were as real a people and power as any that reigned in Asia.... They continued as a powerful factor in the affairs of Asia Minor until the downfall of their capital, Carchemish, before the arms of Sargon II, in 717 B. C.

IRA M. PRICE, Ph.D., The Monuments and the Old Testament, pp. 75, 76.

A prominent English biblical critic declared not many years ago that an alliance between Egypt and the Hittites was as improbable as would be one at the present time between England and the Choctaws. But, alas for the over-confident critic, recent investigations have shown, not only that such an alliance was natural, but that it actually occurred. . . .

Hittite sculptures and inscriptions are now traced in abundance from Kadesh, in Coele Syria, westward to Lydia, in Asia Minor, and northward to the Black Sea beyond Marsovan..... But enough is known to show that the Hittites exerted considerable influence upon the later civilization which sprung up in Greece and on the western coasts of Asia Minor. It was through them that the emblem of the winged horse made its way into Europe. The mural crown carved upon the head of some of the goddesses at Boghaz-Keui also passed into Grecian sculpture; while the remarkable lions sculptured over the gate at Mycenae are thought to represent Hittite, rather than Babylonian art.

It is impossible to overestimate the value of this testimony in confirmation of the correctness of biblical history. It shows conclusively that the silence of profane historians regarding facts stated by the

36

EDOM, MOAB, MESHA

biblical writers is of small account, in face of direct statements made by the biblical historians.

PROF. GEORGE FREDERICK WRIGHT, D.D., LL.D., The Fundamentals, Vol. I, pp. 301, 302, 303.

Some years ago the so-called "higher critics" of the day used to refer to the Bible mentions of this people as one of the evidences of the imagined inaccuracies of the Bible. They themselves knew nothing about the Hittites, therefore the Hittites could not have existed! They have had to give up this point of attack. The Bible has been proved absolutely correct on this subject as on others. The Hittite remains, with the quaint picture writing, "unknown hieroglyphics" as the description upon the monuments calls them, prove the existence of a great nation or group of nations. Other discoveries corroborate the Bible accounts, and show that the Hittites were a powerful people.

ADA R. HABERSHON, The Bible and the British Museum, pp. 16, 17.

In 1904 one of the foremost archaelogists of Europe said to me: "I do not believe there ever were such people as the Hittites, and I do not believe 'Kheta' in the Egyptian inscriptions was meant for the Hittites." We will allow that archaeologist to be nameless now.

REV. M. G. KYLE, D.D., LL.D., Egyptologist, Professor of Biblical Archaeology, Xenia Theological Seminary (United Presbyterian), Consulting Editor of the Records of the Past, Washington, D. C., The Fundamentals, Vol. I, p. 317.

22. Were the Edomites a myth?

BIBLE EVIDENCE.

Ezekiel 25:14 And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel:....

SECULAR EVIDENCE.

the Edomites, long denied existence in patriarchal times, have been given historical place in the time of Meremptah by the papyrus Anastasia;

REV. M. G. KYLE, D.D., LL.D., Egyptologist, The Fundamentals, Vol. I, pp. 327, 328.

23. Was there such a country as Moab?

BIBLE EVIDENCE.

Isaiah 16:6-We have heard of the pride of Moab;....

SECULAR EVIDENCE.

Moab, for some time past in dispute, I identified beyond further controversy at Luxor in 1908, in an inscription of Rameses II., before the time of the Exodus;

REV. M. G. KYLE, D.D., LL.D., Egyptologist, The Fundamentals, Vol. I, p. 328.

24. Was there such a person as Mesha, King of Moab?

BIBLE EVIDENCE.

2 Kings 3:4-And Mesha king of Moab was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the king of Israel an hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams, with the wool.