Sayce and P. Jensen alone have enlisted any large body of adherents; and the former, who has worked upon his system for thirty years and published in the Proceedings of the Society for Biblical Archaeology for 1907 a summary of his method and results, has proceeded on the more scientific plan.
This etymological connexion, suggested by Jensen (Kosmologie, 84), brings the festival of Purim into close relation with the Babylonian New Year festival known as Zagmuku, in which one of the most prominent ceremonials was the celebration of the assembly of the gods under the presidency of Marduk (Merodach) for the purpose of determining the fates of the New Year.
Professors Peter Jensen and Zimmern have also done excellent work in the same field and, together with Haupt, have established the correct method of investigating the Sumerian vocables, which should be studied only in relation to the Sumerian literature.
Peter Jensen has conjectured with slight probability that the Chaldaeans were Semitized Sumerians, i.e.
Jensen, now followed by Zimmern, is equal to the occasion.