p. 24 | Archaeology Confirms Genesis Kings

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 9, 1914

Archaeology Confirms Genesis Kings

“CONFIRMATION of one of the most warmly controverted passages in Genesis has been discovered by archeologists, who have deciphered a Babylonian votive offering now in the possession of Yale University. It has been asserted for years by certain critics that the names of the four kings mentioned in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis as having invaded Palestine in the days of Abraham were ‘etymological inventions of imaginary characters,’ and it was held that the entire historical background for the patriarchal stories was different from that given in Genesis. Now the pick and the shovel of the archeologists come to the support of the Biblical record. The Yale tablet is in the form of a conical brick, dedicated to the goddess Inima, or Ishtar. It is written in Sumerian, the non-Semitic language of the early period. The last two kings of Larsa were, according to the Yale tablet, Eri-Aku (Arioch) and Rim-Sin (Rim-Aku), sons of Kudur-Mabug, the Elamite, who was also suzerain of Palestine and Syria. Chedorlaomer, mentioned in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, was probably another son, in the opinion of the Yale authorities. These Yale archeologists point out that the knowledge that Arioch was the son of an Elamite king, who claimed to be the suzerain of Palestine and Syria, is a remarkable confirmation of a detail in this Old Testament narrative, in that it furnishes a reason why Arioch, of Ellasar (Larsa), who was a son of an Elamite king, was allied with Elam. Moreover, it is known that Amraphel, of Shinar, was subservient to Elam until he overthrew its power in his thirty-first year.”