Another important point, to which attention has already been called, is the marked difference which obtains between the literature of the Old Testament and that uncovered by archæology. True, there are points of contact; indeed, strange it would be if there were none; for, like the Babylonians, the Hebrews were Semites. Surely, it is not strange that nations of the same race, originally in the same home, should possess similar traditions, customs, beliefs, and practices. When they left their common home they carried with them their common traditions, customs, and beliefs; in their new homes they developed them and impressed upon them their own individualities. We are nowhere informed in the Old Testament, and it would seem contrary to reason to suppose, that at the time of Abraham, Moses, or at any other period, God emptied the Hebrew mind and {221} consciousness of all the things which had been the possession of the Semitic race from the beginning. Is it not more likely that the inspired teachers and writers employed for their loftier purposes the ancient traditions and beliefs familiar to their contemporaries? In doing so they took that which was, in some cases, common and unclean, and, purifying it under the guidance of the Divine Spirit, made it the medium by which to impart the sublimest truths ever presented to man. Obviously, the special religious value of the Old Testament literature does not lie in what is common to it and Babylon, but in the elements in which they differ. The points of contact must not blind the eye to the points of contrast. These points of contrast are in the spirit and atmosphere pervading the Hebrew Scriptures, which are quite distinct, not simply from Babylonian, but from all other literatures. These essential differences occur, as we have seen, throughout the entire religious and ethical literature. In many cases is agreement in form, but how far superior the spirit and substance of the Hebrew! Think of the different conceptions of the nature and character of God, of God's relation to man, of the divine government of the world, and many other truths precious to Christians in all ages. There is, indeed, in the Hebrew record "an intensity of spiritual {222} conception, a sublimity of spiritual tone, an insight into the unseen, a reliance upon an invisible yet all-controlling Power, that create the gap between the Hebrew and his brother Semite beyond the River."