Some of the greatest difficulties which beset the western mind in attempting to study the Bible are due to the fact that it is an eastern book. The b… - Claude Hermann Walter Johns

At Susa, the ancient , named 'Shushan the Palace' in the Book of Daniel, situated in Persia, once the ancient capital of Elam, the excavators, working under the direction of for the , found three large pieces of black , which when fitted together formed a monolith , about 2.25 metres high, tapering upwards from 1.9 to 1.65 metres. The stone itself is in the in Paris, but a beautiful reproduction of it stands in the Babylonian Room of the .
At the top of the stela is engraved in low bas-relief a representation of Hammurabi himself receiving his laws from a seated god, usually taken to be the sun-god , who was regarded in Babylonia as the supreme judge of gods and men, whose children or attendants were and or Rectitude and Right.

The ancient authors, who founded the Science of History, whose names remain household words amongst us still, such as Herodotus or Xenophon, have transmitted to modern times some far-off echoes of the fame of . Many scattered references in classical writers serve to show the impression that its wealth and power had made on the Greek imagination. Aeschylus and Aristophanes, Aristotle and others, will be recalled. After Alexander the Great had included it in his conquests, a closer acquaintance with its still marvellous remains and magnificent traditions enhanced its interest for many writers less generally known: Arrian, , Pausanias may be named.

In Herodotus (I. 7) , the mythical founder of , appears as the son of , the mythical founder of Babylon. It is an interesting but not very profitable occupation to seek to interpret the statements of the Greek writers by comparison with the facts that may have suggested their stories. Their chief value is the eloquent testimony they bear to the lasting impression of greatness which left upon the imagination of the peoples of , from whom the Greeks drew their information.
It is somewhat different with the statements of , who, though he wrote in Greek, was himself a Babylonian priest, and had access to ancient and authentic sources of history. Wherever his statements admit of verification they have been found to be reliable, subject to such modifications as are usually necessary in dealing with ancient historians. Unfortunately his writings are only known to us from the extracts which Eusebius and later writers made from more ancient authorities who had quoted from him.