The cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament - The Search For ...

54 THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS AND THE T.
ment which had no place in the Books of Kings, and it
was thought that the passage should be severed from the
narrative, as being altogether unhistorical. It was argued
in the first place, that we have no other mention in the
historical books of a supremacy wielded by the Assyrians
at that time (700—650) in Western Asia, such as this
account presupposes; and in the second place, that we
here read that Manasseh was transported to Babel, and
not to Niniveh, as we should have expected if the king
who carried him away into captivity was an Assyrian.
Both objections lose their force in the presence of the in-
scriptions. As to the first, we know that even Asai'haddon,
towards the end of his reign, had reduced to subjection the
whole of Syria and Aegypt. In both the lists of the
twenty-two tributary kings of the Chatti-country (i. e., in
the present case, Phoenicia, Philistia and the (Cyprian)
island-states), which have been handed down to us by Asar-
haddon and (as a parallel list) by Asurbanipal , we find
no less a personage mentioned than this Manasseh himself
Mlnasi (Minsi) §ar mat (Ir) Jaudi; see note on
2 Kings XXI. 1. Now it is not probable that the event
we are considering happened as early as in the reign of
Asarhaddon. Not a word is said by Asarhaddon, in the
inscription containing the above list, about any insurrection
of the Palestinian states (it was the Phoenician Sidon that
had to be forcibly reduced to obedience). And we have
certainly not the slightest hint of Manasseh's opposition
to Asarhaddon, when the latter conducted his great con-
quering expedition against Aegypt towards the close of
his reign. On the other hand we know from Asurbanipal,
368 his successor, that mUt MARTU (= mat Aharri) "the
Western country", meaning Phoenicia and Palestine, was
: