In whatever part of Babylonia, however, the patriarch may have sojourned, of one thing there is no doubt, and that is, that if he dwelt there, the life which he saw around him, and in which he must have taken part, was that depicted by the tablets translated in the foregoing chapter. He saw the idolatry of the people, and the ceremonies and infamies which accompanied it; he saw the Babylonians as they were in his day, with all their faults, and all their virtues—their industry, their love of trade, their readiness to engage in litigation, and all the other interesting characteristics which distinguished them. He must have been acquainted with their legends of the Creation, the Flood, and all their gods and heroes, and the poetry for which the Hebrew race has always been renowned must have had its origin in the land of Nimrod, whence Abraham of old went forth free, and his descendants, a millennium and a half later, returned as captives. How it came about (if it be really true) that Terah was an idolater, whilst his son Abram was a monotheist, will probably never be known. It is only reasonable to suppose, however, that among a people so intelligent as the Babylonians, there were at least some who, thinking over the nature of the world in which they lived and the destiny of mankind, saw that the different gods whom the people worshipped could not all be governors of the universe, but, if they existed at all, must be only manifestations of the Deity who held the supreme power. Indeed, it was, to all appearance, this doctrine which really prevailed, as is shown by the text translated on p. 58. Whether taught generally to the learned class (the scribes) or not, is not known, but it must have been very commonly known to those who could read, otherwise it is hardly likely that such a tablet would have been drawn up and written out again at a later date (the text we possess being but a copy of a lost original). As the divinity with whom the others are identified is Merodach, it is most likely that this special doctrine of the unity of the Deity became general some time after the commencement of the Dynasty of Babylon (that to which Ḫammurabi or Amraphel belonged), when the city of Babylon became the capital of the country. Abram’s monotheism would, therefore, naturally fit in with the new doctrine which apparently became the general belief of the learned class at this time.(36)