When the instances _mainly_ relied upon prove to be so evidentially valueless, it would be waste of time to follow Professor Fuller through the less important and more imaginary proofs of accuracy which his industry has amassed. Meanwhile the feeblest reasoner will see that while a writer may easily be accurate in general facts, and even in details, respecting an age long previous to that in which he wrote, the existence of violent errors as to matters with which a contemporary must have been familiar at once refutes all pretence of historic authenticity in a book professing to have been written by an author in the days and country which he describes. Now such mistakes there seem to be, and not a few of them, in the pages of the Book of Daniel. One or two of them can perhaps be explained away by processes which would amply suffice to show that "yes" means "no," or that "black" is a description of "white"; but each repetition of such processes leaves us more and more incredulous. If errors be treated as corruptions of the text, or as later interpolations, such arbitrary methods of treating the Book are practically an admission that, as it stands, it cannot be regarded as historical. I. We are, for instance, met by what seems to be a remarkable error in the very first verse of the Book, which tells us that "_In the third year of Jehoiakim, King of Judah_, came Nebuchad_n_ezzar"--as in later days he was incorrectly called--"King of Babylon, unto Jerusalem, and besieged it." It is easy to trace whence the error sprang. Its source lies in a book which is the latest in the whole Canon, and in many details difficult to reconcile with the Book of Kings--a book of which the Hebrew resembles that of Daniel--the Book of Chronicles. In 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6 we are told that Nebuchad_n_ezzar came up against Jehoiakim, and "bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon"; and also--to which the author of Daniel directly refers--that he carried off some of the vessels of the House of God, to put them in the treasure-house of his god. In this passage it is _not_ said that this occurred "_in the third year_ of Jehoiakim," who reigned eleven years; but in 2 Kings xxiv. 1 we are told that "in his days Nebuchad_n_ezzar came up, and Jehoiakim _became his servant three years_." The passage in Daniel looks like a confused reminiscence of the "three years" with "the third year of Jehoiakim." The elder and better authority (the Book of Kings) is silent about any deportation having taken place in the reign of Jehoiakim, and so is the contemporary Prophet Jeremiah. But in any case it seems impossible that it should have taken place so early as the _third year_ of Jehoiakim, for at that time he was a simple vassal of the King of Egypt. If this deportation took place in the reign of Jehoiakim, it would certainly be singular that Jeremiah, in enumerating three others, in the seventh, eighteenth, and twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar,[95] should make no allusion to it.