Contemporary Literature [pp. 362-378]

366 CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE. [Aprif
lation seems to be carefully executed. We hope the enterprise of the Messrs.
Clark will he cordially encouraged in this country. Scribner,`velford &
Armstrong import a spcial edition for America, at the low price of three dollars a vdume.
The American Tract Society, New York, has issued a new and revised edition of Blendin~ Li~htr, by the REV. WM. FRASER, D. D. It is on the Relations of Natural Science, Archaeology, and History, to the Bible. We have
already cordially recommended this work. The present edition was revised
by the author for this Society, and is published by special arrangement with
it. We bespeak for it a wide circulation, particularly among our young
men, to whose use it is specially adapted.
BIBLICAL LITERATURE.
The Chaldean Acco'~nt of C~'n~is, Containing~ the Descr,~tThn of the
C,~eation, il'e Fall of Man, the Del'r~e, the Tower of Babel, the Times of
the Patriarchs andNimrod, Babylonian Fables and Legendr of the Gods,
from the Cunezjorm hiscrz~tions. By GEORGE SMITH, of the Department
of Oriental Antiquities, British Museum. With illustrations. New York:
Scribuer, Armstrong & Co., 1876. This superb volume, as to the style in
which it is issued; is a fit vehicle for its contents, which consist of Mr. Smith's
account of the results of two visits made by him to the seats of the cuneiform
inscriptions, brought to the attention of Oriental and Biblical scholars, yea~s
ago, by Layard and others. They show that the great events of creation and
history recorded in Genesis had become recognized in confused and erroneous forms in the traditions of surrounding idolatrous rations. The engraving~ as well as U~e text of the volume, are of high value. Mr. Smith does
not yet feel prepared to unfold the bearings of these discoveries on the Genesis of Scripture. The nature of the traditions may be seen from an example presented in the following account of the tower of Babel:
"On the Tower of Babel-( p. 48). They say that the first iM~abitants
of the earth, glorying in their own strength and size, and despising the gods,
undertook to raise a tower whose top should reach the sky, in the place in
which Babylon now stands; but when it approached the heavens the winds
assisted the gods, and overthrew the work upon its contrivers, and its ruins
are said to be still at Babylon; and the gods introduced a diversity of
tongues among men, who, till that time, had all spoken the same language
and a war arose between Cronos and Titan. The place in which they built
the tower is now called Babylon, on account of the confusion of tongues, for
confusion is by the Hebrews called Babel."
The Clarks of Edinburgh, and Scribner, Wdford & Armstrong of New
York, have brought out, at the price of ~2.00, an edition, for American use, of
the frincz~les of New Testament ~uotation, Established and A~~lied to
Biblical Science, by the Rev. JAMES SCOTT, M.A., B. D., which 15 an important contribution to the subject with which it deals. Few students of the
Bible will undervalue the importance of adequate helps to the right understanding and just estimate of the quotations made by our Lord and the in