Excerpt from The Tell Amarna Tablets In dealing with inscriptions the interpretation of which is acknowledged by scholars to present many difficulties, I do not presume to suppose that my translations are beyond criticism, or always final; but I believe that such criticism, which will no doubt lead to improvements, must be confined to details, and will not affect the general result, or the historical value of these most important texts. I may at least claim that the language in which they are written is the mother-tongue of that Syrian dialect which became known to me by speaking it daily for seven years. In dialectic pronunciation, in idiom, and in the peculiar meaning of many expressions the common speech of the Palestine peasantry is perhaps one of the best possible guides to an understanding of the writings of their Canaanite ancestors. The study of monumental inscriptions is often called a by-path of Biblical knowledge. But in an age of destructive criticism it seems to me to present the most important weapon that can be placed in the hands of those who desire, without seeking to support any particular theory, to arrive at truth concerning the ancient history of Palestine and of the Hebrew people. In the present case we have become possessed of a mass of political correspond ence dating about the time when, according to the Bible, the Hebrew invasion under joshua took place. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.