Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/72

56 Canaanite king Salbámá. Then, too, he is brought into connection with Númrúda, and represented as an emigrant from the land of Canaan. Generally speaking, the stories founded on his life correspond perfectly with his legend, as received among the Jews a little before our era. Josephus of old, somewhat in an arbitrary manner, identifies Abraham with an ancient Babylonian sage mentioned by Berosus; the reputation of Abraham as a Chaldæan sage was established  at that period no less than in that of Philo.

As to the part which Númrúda plays in “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture,” as a Canaanite priest, and as founder of the Canaanite dynasty at Babylon, it would be presumptuous to say that this idea only has its origin in a plagiarism from the Bible. It is very possible that there might be some