"And the children of Israel fled before Judah: and God delivered them into their hand. And Abijah and his people slew them with great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men" (2 Chron. xiii, 16, 17). Five hundred thousand slain in one battle! At the battle of Gettysburg, one of the greatest battles of modern times, for three long days, two mighty armies of America engaged in deadly conflict, and when it was ended, the defeated army had less than five thousand killed. And yet we are asked to believe that this puny race of Hebrews, too insignificant to attract the notice of ancient historians, marshaled in battle two contending armies, the carnage of which equaled that of a hundred Gettysburgs. Talk about oriental exaggeration! If you wish to find its choicest specimens, search not the pages of Persian and Arabian romance, but read a chapter of sacred history. 7. "And Pul the king of Assyria came against the land; and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand" (2 Kings xv, 19). The king who reigned in Assyria at this time was Iva-lush. Assyria never had a king named Pul. 8. "Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein" (Dan. v, 1, 2). "In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace" (5). "And this is the writing that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN" (25). "In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans [Babylon] slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom" (30, 31). As a dramatic piece of fiction Belshazzar's Feast is good; as a chapter of ancient history it is bad. Belshazzar was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar; neither was he king of Babylon. Darius the Mede did not take the kingdom. 9. "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)... And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David), to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child" (Luke ii, 1-5). This cannot be accepted as historical for the following reasons: 1. Cæsar Augustus never issued a decree that all the world should be taxed, nor even one that all the Roman world should be taxed. 2. If he had issued such a decree Joseph and Mary would not have been subject to taxation, because they lived in Galilee, an independent province.