George Rawlinson

George Rawlinson was a nineteenth-century historian and Anglican clergyman who held Oxford’s Camden Professorship of Ancient History. Charles Scribner’s Sons issued Egypt and Babylon from Sacred and Profane Sources in 1885. It compares references in the Old Testament with evidence then available from ancient texts and monuments. The book treats Egypt and Babylon separately before considering how historical and archaeological material might illuminate biblical places, rulers, and customs. Rawlinson belonged to a scholarly family: his brother Henry Creswicke Rawlinson played a major role in the study of cuneiform, and George edited and translated historical works as well as writing broad surveys of ancient civilizations. His method reflects the assumptions and limits of Victorian historical scholarship, so later discoveries have revised many conclusions. Even so, the volume documents an important stage in the effort to place Near Eastern history beside textual study. It is best read as intellectual history as well as an account of the evidence known to its author.