Much has been written concerning this interesting chapter of the Bible. The earlier critics were of opinion that it was impossible that the power of the Elamites should have extended so far at such an early epoch. Later on, when it was shown that the Elamites really had power—and that even earlier than the time of Abraham—the objection of the critics was, that none of the names mentioned in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis really existed in the inscriptions. The history of Abraham was a romance, and the names of the Eastern kings with whom he came into contact equally so. It was true that there were Elamite names commencing with the element Kudur, the Chedor of the sacred text, but Chedorlaomer did not occur, Amraphel and Tidal were equally wanting, and that Arioch was the same as Eri-Aku or Rim-Aku could not be proved. The first step in solving the riddle was that made by Prof. Eberhard Schrader, who suggested that Amraphel was none other than the well-known Babylonian king Ḫammurabi. This, naturally, was a theory which did not soon find acceptance—at least by all the Assyriologists. There were, however, two things in its favour—this king ruled sufficiently near to the time of Abraham, and he overcame a ruler named Rim-Sin or Rim-Aku, identified by the late George Smith with the Arioch of the chapter we are now considering. Concerning the latter ruler, Rim-Aku, there is still some doubt, but the difficulties which attended the identification of Ḫammurabi with Amraphel have now practically disappeared. The first step was the discovery of the form Ammurabi in one of the numerous contracts drawn up during his reign at Sippara, the city of the Sun-god. This form shows that the guttural was not the hard guttural _kh_, but the softer _h_. Yet another step nearer the Biblical form is that given by Ašaridu, who, in a letter to “the great and noble Asnapper,” writes as follows—