OF

BIBLICAL ANTIQUITIES;

COMPILED FOR

THE USE OF SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHERS,

AND FOR

THE BENEFIT OF FAMILIES.

BY JOHN W, NEVIN,

Late Assistant Teacher in the Theological Seminary of Princeton.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

EMBRACING NOTICES OF NATURAL HISTORY, WITH DOMESTIC
AND POLITICAL ANTIQUITIES.

Revised and Corrected by the Author for the American S. S. Union.

ཧུ་་་-

AMERICAN SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION.

PHILADELPHIA:

NO. 146 CHESNUT STREET.

1829.

Eastern District of Pennsylvania, to wit:

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the seventh day of August, in the fifty-fourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, A. D. 1829, PAUL BECK, Jr. Treasurer in Trust for the American Sunday School Union, of the said District, has deposited in this office the title of a book the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit:

"A Summary of Biblical Antiquities; compiled for the use of Sundayschool Teachers, and for the benefit of Families. By John W. Nevin, late Assistant Teacher in the Theological Seminary of Princeton. In two Volumes. Vol. I. Embracing Notices of Natural History, with Domestic and Political Antiquities. Revised and Corrected by the Author for the American S. S. Union."

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled "An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned;" and also to an Act, entitled, "An Act Supplementary to an Act, entitled,' An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints."

D. CALDWELL,

Clerk of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

PREFACE.

THE following little work was undertaken chiefly with a view of contributing some help to the great cause of Sunday School education. That something of the kind is much wanted, for the use of common instructors, in the work of such education, cannot be doubted. The books in which such information as it is intended to contain is to be found, are not within the reach of most of those who are called to take upon them this character; and if they were, they are not adapted to answer effectually the want that is felt in the present case. Most of them have been written for the use of such as have far more than common advantages of education and learning, whose business leads them to much reading, and whose minds are trained to diligence and patience in the pursuit of knowledge. Even the few which have been designed for more popular and common use, are such that their advantages can never extend to the great majority of those who read the Bible: they are too large, and, of course, too expensive, to be generally procured; they are too diffuse, and too much elevated in style or darkened with learning, to be generally read or understood. Since the establishment of Sunday Schools, various short sketches of information on some particular points of Jewish Antiquities, have been supplied in different publications intended for their use, which have, no doubt, answered a valuable purpose, as far as they extended; but all the advantage which such scattered fragments can secure, must manifestly be very limited and imperfect, in comparison with what might be, and ought to be, derived from this quarter of scripture illustration. Evidently, a short, simple, systematic compilation,