Moses and the other writers of the book of Genesis were educated among the highly learned and scientific Egyptians; and in Palestine they came in contact with a highly advanced civilization among the Canaanites or Phoenicians, Arabians, and Nabatheans, who were then in the full tide of life and action. From these kindred Shemitic peoples the Hebrews learned the use of written characters; and many of the scientific discoveries of these epochs are dimly preserved in the Mosaic record, as also the general outlines of the ethnic knowledge of the age. Moses and the other writers did but record the various geographic and ethnic names which came to their ears, and for this no inspiration was necessary. Modern scientific criticism, guided by the inductions of reason--that grandest product of the hand of God--now infuses living spirit into what was for ages a dead and incomprehensible letter. This can be easily elucidated by a few examples. The word Ham, or _Erez-Cham_, has no root or meaning in Hebrew or any other Shemitic dialect; it was doubtless borrowed from the Egyptians, and to Egypt must we go for the solution of its signification. Other Biblical names, as, for example, _Eber_, _Pheleg_ or _Peleg_, _Reu_ or _Rehu_, _Serug_ and _Nahor_, represent distinct Shemitic tribes, or, as the record tropically styles them, kingdoms and states, of Mesopotamia (Naharaina). _Eber_, or more properly, _Heber_ (whence our "Hebrews"), signifies "the stranger" or "a person from the other side," that is, one who came from a foreign region. _Aram_ also implies an immigrant from the other side of the Euphrates. So, likewise _Misraim_ (the _Misr_ or M-R of the Egyptians), _Cush_, _Phut_ and _Lud_, constituted distinct tribes and nations in widely distant regions, and perhaps even belonged to different races, according to accepted schemes of ethnology. _Lud_ answers to the Libyan _Lewatah_, the _Leguatan_ of the Byzantine writers, and the classical _Garaman_. _Phut_ and _Lud_ belong to Africa; they are brothers of Mizraim, or its nearest ethnic relations in the remotest antiquity, or perhaps closely allied but independent tribes--as the Scriptures generally record tribes and states politically and geographically independent. _Phut_ and _Lud_ are also mentioned as the allied troops of the Egyptians, or of the Syrians. Finally _Lud_ (_Ludim_) descends from Mizraim; so it may be that they were a branch of the Egyptian stem, just as the Irish are an offshoot of the Gallo-Celtic stock, or the Anglo-Saxons of the Teutonic trunk.