Popular works, in the shape of Cyclopaedias and short general histories, diffuse the impression.

Hence a difficulty is felt with regard to the Scriptural statement concerning the first kingdom in these parts, which is expressly said to have been Cushite or Ethiopian.
"And _Cush begat Nimrod:_ (he began to be a mighty one in the earth; he was a mighty hunter before the Lord; wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord;) and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar." According to this passage the early Chaldaeans should be Hamites, not Semites--Ethiopians, not Aramaans; they should present analogies and points of connection with the inhabitants of Egypt and Abyssinia, of Southern Arabia and Mekran, not with those of Upper Mesopotamia, Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine.

It will be one of the objects of this chapter to show that the Mosaical narrative conveys the exact truth--a truth alike in accordance with the earliest classical traditions, and with the latest results of modern comparative philology.
It will be desirable, however, before proceeding to establish the correctness of these assertions, to examine the grounds on which the opposite belief has been held so long and so confidently.

Heeren draws his chief argument from the supposed character of the language.

Assuming the form of speech called Chaldee to be the original tongue of the people, he remarks that it is "an Aramaean dialect, differing but slightly from the proper Syriac." Chaldee is known partly from the Jewish Scriptures, in which it is used occasionally, partly from the Targums (or Chaldaean paraphrases of different portions of the Sacred Volume), some of which belong to about the time of the Apostles.