Here, therefore, the limit of age prescribed by archæology forbids us to pass beyond the Mosaic epoch. Moses, in short, is the compiler to whom the archæological evidence indicates that the tenth chapter of Genesis goes back in its original shape. But by the side of this evidence there is other evidence also which tells a different tale. Gomer, or the Kimmerians, as well as Madai, are named among the sons of Japhet, and the Assyrian monuments assure us that neither the one nor the other came within the geographical horizon of Western Asia before the ninth century B.C. It was in the ninth century B.C. that the Assyrian kings first became acquainted with the Medes, while the Gimirrâ or Kimmerians did not descend upon Asia from their seats on the Sea of Azof until about B.C. 680. The same reasoning which gives us the Mosaic age as that of the geographical chart of Genesis in its primitive shape gives us the seventh century B.C. or later for the date of another portion of the same chapter. The list of the kings of Edom, again, is introduced by the remark that ‘these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.’ It was not inserted in the book of Genesis, therefore, until after the age of Saul, a conclusion which is supported by the fact that the first king named seems to be Balaam, the son of Beor, who was a contemporary of Moses. If, accordingly, the Pentateuch was originally compiled in the Mosaic age, it must have undergone the fate of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and been enlarged by subsequent additions. Insertions and interpolations must have found their way into it as new editions of it were made. That such was the case there is indirect testimony. On the one hand the text of the prophetical books was treated in a similar manner, additions and modifications being made in it from time to time by the prophet or his successors in order to adapt it to new political or religious circumstances. Isaiah, for instance, has copied a prophecy directed by one of his predecessors against Moab; and after breaking it off in the middle of a sentence, has adapted it to the needs and circumstances of his own time. On the other hand, a long-established Jewish tradition, which has found its way into the Second Book of Esdras (xiv. 21-26), makes Ezra rewrite or edit the books of Moses. There is no reason to question the substantial truth of the tradition; Ezra was the restorer of the old paths, and the Pentateuch may well have taken its present shape from him. If so, we need not be surprised if we find here and there in it echoes of the Babylonish captivity.