The Bible and the Hittite Nation
PROFESSOR SAYCE, of Queen's College, Oxford, England, announces that he is in process of deciphering the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the monuments of Asia Minor. It has been suspected for some time that these were the work of the Hittites, and Professor Sayce states that this is true. It is now known positively through the recent work of a number of archeologists that the Hittite nation at one time rivaled that of Babylon and of Egypt. Going back only a few years, we find historians disputing the existence of any such nation. The Bible made mention of them in a number of places, but so much the worse for the Bible, for when historians are ignorant of a thing, skeptics are certain to point to the inaccuracy of the Bible for stating something beyond the knowledge of the world's wise men. Thus in Genesis 23 we read that there were Hittites at Hebron; Ezekiel includes the Hittites among the founders of Jerusalem (Eze. 16:3); Solomon imported horses from the Hittites. But now historians tell us that this is probably all correct. Professor Sayce says: “The discovery of this empire, all memory of which had so long been lost, was for the history of the ancient East what the discovery of the planet Neptune was for astronomy—it explained facts which otherwise did not admit of solution and supplied as it were the missing link in the historical chain.” Daniel was told by the angel that he should stand in his lot in the latter days, doubtless referring to the fact that the prophecies of Daniel, having preeminently to do with the last days, would be understood at the time when they were specially applicable. And so, too, God has by His providence a great host of evidence in the form of monuments and tablets stored away from ancient times and these are now being brought forth to give their evidence to the truth of that word which can not fail and to help convince man of the surety of God's predictions. No less than two libraries of clay books have been recently unearthed at Boghaz Keui, north of the Halys. Altho not many of these tablets have as yet been read, the revelations already made are wide-reaching in the extreme. A new chapter has been opened in the history of Oriental civilization, and the important part played in it by the Hittite people has been made plain.